The Black Room: The Deleted Door Read online

  When I’ve recovered, he steps back from me. Peels his tank top off, baring his torso. He’s hard and lean. Whipcord, razor blade.

  He unbuttons his slacks, letting them fall. He shoves down his briefs and stands naked in front of me.

  It’s not his dick that caused me to stray; he’s plenty hung. He’s nearly as long as that of the man with whom I’m cheating, and probably thicker. Straight, where the other is curved ever so slightly.

  He sidles up to me, pressing his body against mine, sandwiching his cock between us. Wraps his arms around me, hands clawing down my spine to grip my ass. Then he bends at the knees, and lifts me.

  I can’t breathe, cannot see anything but him and his eyes, blue as the sky at noon, hot with desire. Need. Passion. Not love, but…something deep and dark and secret I don’t know the word for.

  His grip on my ass pulls me apart for him, and my legs wrap around him instinctively, and somehow he finds me without guidance, his cock driving up into my cunt as if it belongs there. He hisses as he fills me, and I can’t even do that for the wild wicked burn of his cock stretching me apart. He’s holding my weight easily, flexing his hips to fill me, and once he’s inside me, he lets me fall to bury himself balls-deep, and we both cry out.

  “I know you, babe.” He adjusts his grip on me and lifts me, sliding his shaft out, and then he drops me again, and I cry out, loud, a shuddering sound. “I know how you like it.”

  He fucks once more, driving his hips up, lifting up on his toes, and my cry is strangled, cut off as he drives into me, the force of his thrust and the splitting size of his cock blasting all thoughts out of me, stealing my breath.

  And then he puts me down and pulls out. I stagger.

  “Bend over the table,” he commands.

  I don’t comply immediately, so he grabs me by the arms and pivots me. He snags a fistful of hair and shoves me forward, bending me over the table. The surface is cool and smooth under my body, hard against my face.

  His touch, when it comes, is surprisingly gentle. Skating up my spine. Brushing my hair aside.

  Sliding around my hip, between my thighs, fingering my pussy, he fits his cock to my slit. Nudging in. Slowly. Filling me inch by inch, until his hips are flush to my ass.

  He withdraws equally slowly, holds himself still with just the tip of his cock inside me. Slides. Moves slowly and gently…almost sweetly, almost tenderly, almost lovingly.

  And then pauses, buried deep.

  “I know how you like it,” he says. “Not like this, though. Give it to you gentle and sweet, and you don’t get off.”

  He drives with his hips, fucks into me hard, our bodies meeting with a loud slap, and I can’t help but scream, because he’s right, he’s fucking right, goddamn him.

  “That’s how you like it. You like it rough. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t like it when I fuck you so hard you can’t walk the next morning.”

  I can’t tell him that.

  Deep down, I know it’s true.

  Because when he loved me slow, I was silent.

  When he fucks me hard, I scream.

  I could feel the strength to tell him to stop gathering when he moved slow and sweet; now that he’s fucking me hard, I have no words. It’s too good. He knows me. Knows just how I like. Knows the angle, fuck, that angle right there, that makes his cock strike inside me so perfectly that I can’t help but cry out, can’t help but scrabble at the table and grind back into him.

  Can’t help but come, just from the way he fucks me.

  He feels it when I come. Knows it.

  Thrusts the way I need it all the way through the wrenching ripping spasms of my orgasm and through the aftershocks, until I’m struggling to keep my feet.

  And then pulls out.

  And my knees give out. He lets me fall, and my kneecaps slam onto the tile, painfully. I rest my forehead against the edge of the table, gasping, sweating, panting, gripping the table for dear life. Feel him tug at my shoulder, and I move to rise to my feet.

  “No, stay down.” His voice is rough and low. Raspy, gravelly, as if damaged by smoke or too much shouting.

  He tugs me around and I, shaky and weak from my orgasm, comply. I stay on my knees, facing him. Stare up at him. Watch as he slides his fist around his cock, squeezing hard, the thick head sprouting up around his fist, long inches bared. I expect him to thrust into my mouth, expect him to grab my hair. But he doesn’t, he just stands over me, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, chest heaving as he jerks himself harder and faster and more roughly.

  I can’t move. Why can’t I move? Why can’t I tell him to stop?

  He comes hard, with a grunt. Fist slamming harshly down from tip to root, gripping there at the base, pointing at me. At my face. I feel it, hot wet stickiness splatting onto my face, onto my forehead and into my hair and across my nose. Again he comes, this time in my eyes, stinging, and again, on my lips, on my chin. Coating my face with spurt after spurt of cum.

  Something sharp slices through me, through my chest, through my heart. Stabs into my gut. Humiliation. Disgust. Embarrassment. Anger.

  I blink, but the cum is sticky, viscous, blinding me. I wipe at it, but only manage to smear it worse. It’s in my nose. In my mouth. I open the one eye that isn’t cum-blinded, and stare up at him.

  “You fucking bastard.” My voice is the thin sharp hiss of a blade sliding out of a sheath.

  “You’re the whore. You oughta be used to it.” He bends, lifts my dress off the kitchen floor, wipes his dick clean with it, and then tosses it at me. It lands on my head, draping over my face. Sticks to the cum. “Get out.”

  “And go where?” I say, removing the dress from my face. The fabric sticks to itself, now.

  “Fuck if I care. Maybe if you suck a couple dicks, you can afford a motel.”

  “Maybe this treatment is why I cheated on you. You’re an asshole.” I stand up, put on the dress, not bothering to hide the wince of disgust as the cum-wet fabric sticks to me. I move to the sink, wet the hand towel and wash my face.

  This gets me a bark of laughter. “Nah. If I’m an asshole, it’s ‘cause you made me this way.” I turn to face him, and damn me, but his expression looks almost pained, as if he’s hurting and hiding it beneath the mask of anger and hardness. “I use’ta love you.”

  “If you loved me, you wouldn’t kick me out like this.”

  He merely takes a few slow breaths, his mask hardening, then he turns away, strides out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He returns with a small battered leather suitcase. “Then I guess I was wrong, huh?” Sets the suitcase on the floor in front of me. “Out. Now.”

  I lift the suitcase, but don’t move. He snarls in exasperation. Bodily, he forces me to pivot in a circle and into a walk. Out of the kitchen, out the front door, onto the stoop. He pauses to tug off his gold wedding band and tosses it into the street. I hear it tinkle across the ground.

  “Don’t come back.”

  The door shuts behind me, the knob hitting me in the back. I hear the deadbolt thud home, a chain rattle and slide in place.

  Locked out.

  It’s the middle of the night.

  I take a shaky step down, two, three, four. Onto the sidewalk. I’m moving, but I don’t know where I’m going. My purse, somehow, is hanging from my shoulder. I open it; inside is a compact, two tubes of lipstick, a handful of ticket stubs, a pencil and a fountain pen, an address book, a change purse, a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches, and—hidden carefully under layers of the other items, a small, tightly rolled tube of cash.

  My emotions are locked out, shut down. I tighten my back, swallow the lump in my throat and force my feet to move.

  I’m walking aimlessly.

  Except…I’m not. My feet carry me back the way I came, somehow, to the alley. I look through the window in the door and see that the fire is doused, the room is empty, and the only light the dim orange glow of the coals.

  I hear something, above me. I look up: a window is
open, one floor up. What I heard was a squeak-- bed springs. The knock of a headboard against a wall. I will my feet to carry me somewhere else, but they don’t move.

  “Oh…oh—god. Yes! Yes!” A woman’s voice, breathy, every other syllable strained, accompanying the sound of slapping flesh.

  “Is that good?” Him.

  “It’s perfect, love. Harder!” Her.

  Slap-slap-SLAP-SLAP

  “Like that?” Him.

  “Just like that…don’t stop—don’t stop…never stop!” Her.

  “Oh…fuck. I’m coming, babe, I’m gonna come.” Him.

  “Let me feel it—ohhhh—y-yeah, yes, oh god, I feel you coming,” she whimpers. “God, I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I’m nauseous.

  They stop talking, then, but I hear it all. Him grunting. Her moaning breathily, the squeak and slam, his long, drawn out groan of orgasm. Her gasping sob of climax. The slowing of the squeaking springs, and the silencing of the slamming headboard.

  I can’t move away.

  What kind of woman am I? I let him, a married man, fuck my throat. Let him eat my pussy. Then I went home and let my husband make me come and let him fuck me, and let him come on my face. And then he kicked me out, and my first thought it to go back to the man I’m cheating with? And then, I overhear him making love to his wife.

  Not fucking her throat.

  Not coming on her tits, or her face. Making love to her. Calling her babe.

  Shame guts through me. Self-hatred. Disgust. Humiliation.

  My eyes look upward, and there he is. Hanging out the window, shirtless. Fitting a cigarette to his lips. Striking a match. The small circle glows brightly orange, illuminating his face. He stares down at me.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says, not looking away from me.

  “Where are you going?” Her voice says, more distant.

  “There’s…a stray cat out in the alley. Gonna shoo it away.”

  “Well, come back fast. I’m gonna want it again before we sleep.”

  “Oh, you’ll get it again. Don’t you worry about that.”

  He retreats from the window. Several seconds pass, and he emerges from the door through which he ejected me, not long before. Clad in a thin silk dressing gown, tied loosely at his waist, revealing his muscular chest. He grabs me by the bicep, squeezing too hard, and propels me out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. He glances around to make sure we’re alone.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” He hisses.

  I lift the suitcase in answer. “He found out. Kicked me out of my own home.”

  He passes a hand through his loose, wild black hair. “Dammit. I knew this would happen.”

  “Does she know?” I can’t help asking.

  He gestures at the alley. “Did it sound like she knows?”

  I wait. Hoping for some word from him. Something. Anything.

  He only stares at me.

  Finally, after a long silence, his inscrutable brown gaze hard on mine, he rolls his eyes in frustration. “Fuck. Just wait here.”

  He vanishes into the alley, into his home, and reappears a few seconds later, trailing cigarette smoke like a gray thread. He hands me a small brass key. “Here. Go to the Grey Manor Inn. You know the one, a few blocks north of here—” he points with his cigarette, indicating the direction. “This key is for room nineteen, second floor. Go straight there. Stay there for tonight. In fact, just stay there until I can come to you.”

  “When will that be?” I hate the tremulous note in my voice.

  “Tomorrow, sometime.” A shrug. “When I can. After breakfast, perhaps. She usually goes to one of her clubs around nine.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nods. Then scrutinizes me, takes a last drag of his cigarette before tossing it away. “I’m not leaving her, I hope you understand that.”

  My heart pangs again, my gut sinks and falls away. I manage a nod. “Yes. I understand.”

  Another long moment of silence, and then, just as I turn away, he speaks once more. “He didn’t hurt you, did he? He seems like a rough sort.”

  I blink away a tear, turning swiftly away from him. “No. He didn’t hurt me.”

  “So he just threw you out, just like that?”

  I shrug. “Does it matter what he did? It’s not like you care.”

  I hear a hiss of anger. “It’s not like that. It’s never been like that. I thought you understood.”

  “I understand perfectly,” I say, wanting to throw the key back in his face.

  But I don’t, because I need somewhere to sleep. At least for tonight.

  A few blocks north turns out to be half a mile, and by the time I find the Grey Manor Inn, my feet throb and I’m barely fighting a breakdown. It’s a three-story building, aptly named. It is constructed of grey stone blocks, leaded and arched windows, a steeply pitched roof, a black awning over the sidewalk.

  The lobby is empty except for an elderly man behind the check-in desk. “May I help you, ma’am?”

  I hold up the key, not daring to speak for fear of the sobs I’m barely holding back.

  The man nods. “Very well, then, ma’am. Welcome back.”

  I continue to hold it together as I board the elevator, ride it up to the second floor, and find room nineteen. It’s dark. Silent. Smells faintly of cigarettes. It’s small, just a bed with a nightstand, a desk, a bureau, and a bathroom. I lock the door behind me, staggering for the bed, sobs beginning to wrack me.

  How did I get to this place?

  I’m not that woman.

  I’m not the other woman. I’m not. I can’t be.

  I fall onto the bed, let my shoes fall off my feet. I don’t bother removing my dress, even though there’s patch of my husband’s cum stiffening the fabric near my left hip.

  Choking sobs boil through me, out of me, weakening me until I know nothing more.

  …

  I wake in the same position as I fell asleep in: prone across the bed, head pillowed on my arms, feet hanging off the bed.

  Sunlight streams in a narrow beam from a crack in the heavy drapes, telling me it’s daytime. Which hour, I don’t know; there’s a small alarm clock on the nightstand, reading 8:48.

  I peel off the dress and take a shower, scrubbing my skin hard. Too hard, perhaps.

  My husband didn’t bother with niceties when he packed this suitcase. Nothing is folded, everything is just shoved in willy-nilly. I find a dress, a bra, a pair of stockings.

  There’s a complimentary comb in the bathroom, but no brush, so it must do.

  My stomach growls noisily.

  I will not remain here as if imprisoned, waiting for an arrival which may or may not come for hours, if ever. I close the suitcase, leave the room, stuffing the key into my purse. I walk out of the inn and find myself fortunate that there’s a diner across the street, with a view of the entrance to the inn.

  I ask for a table near the window, and position myself where I can keep watch on the inn. I count the money in the roll: $235. Not a fortune, but enough, I hope.

  For what, I don’t know.

  I order food, coffee, and sit. Watching. Waiting.

  I enjoy the food and drink several cups of excellent coffee.

  Then I wait some more.

  A clock on the wall provides the time, the minute hand creeping around to the half hour, and then to the hour. 10:15; 10:30.

  My heart catches in my throat.

  I see not him, but her.

  She’s with a man. Not him, but someone else. Medium height at best, stocky, slicked back black hair, a tailored suit, oxford wingtips, an overcoat over his arm. The fingertips of his hand rest on her waist, near her ass. They enter the Grey Manor Inn. I throw money on the table and scurry across the street.

  I don’t know why, or what I hope to accomplish.

  I find them in the lobby, him checking in, her waiting near the elevators. I busy myself pretending to search in my purse, and then they’re on
the elevator and I, heart pounding, follow them. I shrink into the corner, away from them. I needn’t have bothered with subterfuge; they each have eyes only for each other. His hands paw at her ass, hers at his shoulders, their lips locked.

  The elevator stops on the third floor. They lurch off, kissing, stumbling, him walking backward. I let the elevator almost close, and then get off after them. I follow behind them and catch sight of them just as they vanish into a room, closing the door behind them. They can be heard from several feet away. Him grunting. Her moaning. Right up against the door.

  It’s all I need to hear. More than I need, if anything.

  I go back down to the second floor, just in time to see the door to room nineteen close behind a tall, broad body. I approach the door and fit the key in the lock.

  He’s angry. He’s wearing a three-piece suit. Brown, with a pale blue tie. Polished shoes. A pocket watch curves across his chest. His damp hair is combed back neatly. His beard has been trimmed and brushed. He wears a spotless, crisp white shirt, cuffs done with silver cufflinks stamped with a crest.

  “I told you to stay.” His voice hums with anger.

  “I’m not a damned dog, or a servant at your disposal.”

  “You could have been seen.”

  “By whom?”

  He merely stares me down. “Key.”

  I dig it out of my purse and hand it to him. I wait until he’s tucked it into a pocket before I deliver my news. “I did see someone.”

  He tenses. “Who?”

  “Your wife.”

  His tension bleeds out immediately. “Oh. She meets friends near here. Bridge club, or something.”

  “You think so?” I wish I could sound more cutting, but I can only manage a sharp sarcasm. “Only if her bridge club meets in this hotel, on the third floor, and if her friend is another man.”

  “I didn’t take you for the scheming sort.”

  I gesture at the elevator. “This way. I’ll prove it to you.”

  He follows me onto the elevator, and the tension has returned, showing in the set of his shoulders, the clench and release of his jaw.

  “What did he look like?” His voice is quiet, barely above a murmur.