ktmorrison
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DITW 14-25: Odyssey 20
🕑 Added 2024-07-10 16:59:44 +0000 UTCThe world around her seemed nothing like the world she’d escaped. Out here in the daylight, the general population walked and talked and laughed, up and down the sidewalks, in and out of shops, across walkways; cars on a million errands, trucks delivering, and school out at three-thirty, kids up and down, young ones, older ones up to petty no-good. The school bus stopped in front of her again, red stop sign flapping out, lights flashing. Then a gaggle of little people in coats disembarked, laden with books and bags and school projects, rushing to their waiting guardians, ready to be shuttled to warm homes.
It was all behind her now. The bridge burned. She’d thought she could eke out more time, play along until she was better situated. But no more. Not when she saw herself reflected in the amoral theater playing out in Devlin’s apartment this afternoon. Any play actor with a soul should be ashamed to take a bow. No accolades were warranted, only chagrin. The time for stratagems and expedients evaporated. But to call what she’d done a moral turn would be laughable.
And yet . . . Maybe it was. Or at least a turning point. She could play it as moral.
As the bus’s stop sign flapped closed and the lights shut off, the bus burping out a plume of black smoke and lurching up to speed once again, Kimmy swiped through the contacts in her phone, found the number for Aaron Berg, Esquire.
*
The day had shown him unexpected kindness. He’d thought he’d face scorn or avoidance at work today; that he would see a lot of people at Swanson avert their eyes when they saw him coming, pretend they didn’t even see him. Then they’d whisper behind his back after he’d passed. But that wasn’t what happened. Gabrielle and Samara and Steve were the only sources of the weekend’s event which his workplace would get access to. And it would seem like his three friends—intentionally or naturally—had a much better perspective on the weekend than he did. No one knew the blackness growing in his chest; no one knew the extreme and bottomless evil of his wife’s infernal torments. No one knew he’d watched his high school bully fuck her. No one knew his wife had held up her boss’s massive dick against his mere mortal dick. And that his wife got off on it. What people had heard through the grace of Steve and Samara and Gabrielle: Josh got wasted and fell off the dock. They’d had to call an ambulance, and he’d even had to fly by helicopter to Peterborough. Hypothermia. It had been bad. And yet, Josh came to work on Monday like nothing happened. Some at work, he considered, might even think Josh Waters was kind of a crazy badass.
But now here he was back at home, alone in the apartment, the surprise and relief of the day’s good treatment already beginning to fade. Kimmy should be home, but she wasn’t. That could mean Kimmy was held up at work, or it could mean she had her legs in the air and Devlin fucked her deep with that massive dick Kimmy loved. Kimmy didn’t hang with the mortals anymore. Mere mortals didn’t do it for her.
Yet the power Kimmy had over him had eased its grip somehow. He’d heaped so much value on their relationship that the idea of loss or failure would always break his heart and fill him with dread, furrow his brow. In the weekend’s aftermath, numbness occluded all those sharp feelings of loss. And yet, here he was, in his apartment, the home he shared with his wife, and the simple observation she wasn’t home came to him with an immovable payload. The depth of her betrayal no longer hurt, but it still burdened him.
Tonight, they would talk. Talk for real.
Kimmy wasn’t getting away with her crimes anymore. There were no equivocations or excuses he would consider. Their relationship would rattle back onto their shaky track. If it didn’t, he had the newfound fortitude to leave for good. What she’d done for herself—and told him she did for him—held no value in their relationship. No promises of a house were worth what she’d done. And filling that house with babies he could doubt were his own? Untenable. How could he have ever permitted this slide into madness?
He slipped his tie out of his collar and walked to the family room, turned on the TV, and then went to the window. His heart sank, and the dread flashed on his dashboard like sudden engine trouble. His stomach ached and his balls ached. Kimmy was home, long leg stretching out of her open car door, setting a heel down on the asphalt.
“Come on, Josh,” he said to himself. “You have to do this.”
*
She found Josh waiting for her in their kitchen. Just home, obviously, wearing a suit, tie off, collar open, shoes still on. They didn’t speak while she slipped off her shoes in the foyer, then stepped into the kitchen. They were face to face, neither of them smiling. A tension enriched the air between them; a heavy, unbroken silence waiting for the crack of a gunshot that would make them both jump.
She said, “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good.”
“How was work?”
“Better than I expected.”
She nodded. She asked him about Gabrielle and Samara and Steve and what they said and Josh told her they were all laughing about it, like what had happened on the weekend to him was no big deal. The relief Josh found in their laughter hurt her heart. He’d almost died, and the bright side was no one knew the depths of his despair. Maybe not even Josh himself. Josh’s bright side was that his wife’s torture and betrayal went still undiscovered. Josh held shame’s mighty weight on his shoulders like an impossible burden. She was the one who shamed him.
*
Kimmy looked as beautiful as ever. But tired. Worn out. Her eyes were heavy and shone only dully; her shoulders drooped. He felt no sympathy. Actually, maybe even enjoyed a certain victory. Hoping it was all the bad she’d done coming home to accumulate in her psyche. This beautiful woman’s husband had almost died on the weekend and it was all her fault. Wasn’t it? Maybe Kimmy deserved the weight of that blame, even if the facts weren’t supportive. He asked her how her day at work was, the question heavy with the summer’s torture and his wife’s refusal to quit the job that put her side by side with Devlin Stone.
“Not good,” she said with a strange uplifting tone.
All he could do was nod. He didn’t even care how her day went. Good, bad—neither mattered. All that mattered was she went to work when she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t stop her Devlin addiction and if her husband’s ordeal with death’s whisper this weekend couldn’t stop her, then nothing would. “That’s a shame,” he said, silently cursing his own petty, juvenile response. There were more masculine responses, but they escaped him at the moment. The urge to lash out was strong.
Kimmy had no retort, no snide comeback. She just turned aside and put her hands on the counter, hanging her head. “Can I make us some dinner?”
“That always makes things better, doesn’t it?”
Kimmy knew what he meant. If she had no snide comebacks, she shouldn’t worry. He had dozens.
“I’m not trying to buy your affection, Josh. I just think we need to sit down and talk.”
A cold dread formed on the heels of her statement. It had the chill of finality. But it was he who’d been pushed to the brink, not her. “Now you want to talk? All summer that’s what I wanted, but everything you said was just an excuse you could use to put me in a holding pattern. Make me sit on my hands and take it. Take all the shit you heaped on my lap and told me I liked. And now you want to talk?”
Kimmy shook her head. Not with anger, but with some sad resignation. “We talked, Josh. We talked. You can’t say we didn’t.”
“I heard you talk. You never heard me talk.”
“I listened to every word you said.”
“And then disregarded them.”
Kimmy faced him. The same height, eye to eye. No eyes down on him like when she wore heels. Her eyes were lifeless. “If you want to unload on me finally, if you’re ready to get your satisfaction, today is your lucky day. I’m your punching bag, Josh.” She opened her arms to the side, showing him she was defenseless. “Beat the shit out of me. Tell me every thing I did wrong. Blame me. Curse me. Call me all the names you’ve bitten your tongue on.”
Anger sizzled in his ears. His wife was an oiled viper. She never gave him a foothold, never left an opening for him to catch her. Just when he was sane enough to settle the score, she yanked the plug and now his tub was draining. “How do you do it? How do you pull the rug out from under me every single time?”
“Go ahead, Josh. I’m telling you, today is the day.”
“I’m not doing that. I’m not going to give you what you want.”
“You know I deserve it.”
“Yeah, you do,” he said, hands stilling at his sides. For a moment, he’d thought he would get to enjoy an angry explosion.
They stared at each other, not saying anything. He’d never felt more separate from her in his life. He felt closer to her when they were on their first date. There was a chasm between them, deep as her sins.
Kimmy said, “Can I touch you?”
He said, “Why?”
“Because I want to.”
He squinted and frowned, trying to decipher her plan. “Yeah. Fine. You can touch me.”
Kimmy’s cheeks dimpled and her eyes grew troubled. She paused, then lifted her hands to his face, cupping his jawline, thumbing the corners of his mouth. It felt awkward, but he let her, and after a while, he warmed to her touch.
She said, “Did you go in the water on purpose?”
He brushed her hands away, grunting and pulling back. “No, I didn’t.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“You want to know the truth? You want to hear it? I woke up in the bunkie and I thought I’d told them the truth. Told all the people at the party what you did. What you made me do.” His jaw clenched hard, his brow lowering, feeling the red heat of emotion coursing through his veins. When he spoke, he jabbed his chin toward her, saying, “I told you this, Kimmy. I thought I got so drunk I told them the real truth. The real reason they had to throw me a party. That’s why, Kimmy. I thought I told them the truth. And the truth is so bad I wanted to run away.”
Kimmy’s eyes welled with tears and the sight of genuine emotion from her surprised him. Her chin dimpled and her lips wriggled. And she didn’t look away. Forced herself to keep her eyes on his. A sudden softness formed around his heart. Like he’d gotten through to her. Like she’d joined a cult and abandoned her family, but this was the first sign the deprogramming could work. Like the woman he loved was still in there somewhere.
“I didn’t go in the water on purpose,” he said. “It would be great if you believed that I did. That would make things so much easier for me. Because you don’t seem to realize your actions have consequences. But they do, Kimmy. I didn’t go in the water on purpose, but I ran from your lies. I ran from your crimes. I ran because the shame I would feel if my friends knew?—now that would kill me. That would really kill me.”
Kimmy looked down, sighing, shaking her head. She looked up again, up past him, somewhere near the ceiling. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could do anything. But I can’t. I’m not that person.”
“Do what?”
“Win. Win everything. Clear the table and bring us victory.”
“Us?” Yeah, right.
“I was tired, Josh. Tired of the struggle. Tired facing the time it would take us to achieve our dreams. I wanted a shortcut. I wanted everything now. And it was there. Right there in front of me.”
“That’s such bullshit. You wanted Devlin.”
Kimmy stepped back, lips pursed, eyes wounded. “That’s not true.”
“You know it is, Kimmy. You went after Devlin at Tiffany’s and you know it. You fought with him because it turned you on. He turned you on. He’s everything I’m not, and I’m not enough for you.”
“You want that to be true.”
“What?” He laughed at how ridiculous her statement was. “Who would want that to be true?”
“You do. You want to think it because it turned you on.”
“Don’t,” he warned her. “Don’t do that.”
She realized the seriousness of his expression and looked away.
He said, “Tell me one reason I shouldn’t leave again.”
Kimmy looked up, eyes wet. “Because I’m the one who’s leaving.”
Comments
Bill F Protagoras
Honi soit qui mal y pense!
Bill F Protagoras
'I'm the one who's going away' seems a pretty obvious euphemism to me... accompanied by tears, not crocodile in nature. It's not a stretch to ask for how long, or necessary to speculate Kimmy's departure may not be voluntary, or a petty ploy in a mind game. When it's her turn to play the tiny bird, ruddy breasted from the brutal mauling hands of authorities' abusive retribution. All in a rage. State or moneyed squirearchy! Time to pay the paternal pipelayer... But no, lets go for the easy mark... a woman about to be taken in adultery again... hoist by her own petard... getting what she deserves... I think not! I'd much rather she were a hammer than a nail!
Bill F Protagoras
By the by, KT, amusing that A.Berg should be counsel to Stones. Topography turned upside down. A distinction making a difference.
Bill F Protagoras
I am sad... to see my anti-heroine so cowed and abated... and her breaking heart unenthusiastically unreciprocated... the poker face chiefly serves to buttress constructions of defeat or victory... we must grope around in the tenuous light of dusk when called upon to surrender... to be allowed our indignity... in defeat...
Bill F Protagoras
"Nice, nice! Very nice!" The Books of Bokonon. "So many different people In the same device!"
Bill F Protagoras
Maybe... or maybe litotes used as a beggarly device for reassurance... or, of course, there's always the economy size both. I'm possibly just being perverse, but I find this side of Josh a bit distasteful and evasive... 'His' decision, not 'her' offense. Snubbing her when he surely senses blood in the water.
Bill F Protagoras
Some very good points, JL. I like how the rhythm of Kimmy's 'ifs' underlines the 'contingent' nature of her strength and competence in your opening remarks.
JL23
Despite being chastened and embarrassed by her actions, there is a still a part of Kimmy that is infected with the “ifs.” If only she had more time, if only she could have convinced Josh to accept being a cuckold on her terms, if only Devlin hadn’t meddled with her manipulation of Josh. If, if, if. Even though she says she regrets her actions, there is still a part of her that believes her plan would have worked if she had been left to enact it. The one thing I still don’t understand is how she ever thought she could get away with stealing the money. Sometimes she admits she kind of knew she’d get caught, but I really think deep down she thought she’d get away with it, cause Devlin wasn’t paying attention. If the goal was ultimately not about the sex and power she felt being with Devlin, but about setting her and Josh up financially, there were better ways to do that. So while she’s not completely wrong that Josh gets turned on by her being with a “better” man, he’s also not wrong that Kimmy wasn’t involved with Devlin for Josh, or for setting them up financially. She was involved with him cause of lust and the rush of power she felt.
Bill F Protagoras
Sorry to be a spoil sport, KT!
Bill F Protagoras
Reading should never be an act of aggression!
Bill F Protagoras
“Because I’m the one who’s leaving.” Are readers the only animals that repeatedly stumble over the same stone? I despair! Where the fuck's that river I used to drown my sorrows in?
Bill F Protagoras
Not too keen on decisive, intolerant, judgemental Josh. The trappings of respect we show others are not weakness... rather the kind of strength which Kimmy's own flaws rendered her blind to.
Bill F Protagoras
"They’d had to call an ambulance, and he’d even had to fly by helicopter to Peterborough." Not a mistake but a humble suggestion that "and he’d even had 'to be flown' by helicopter to Peterborough" would further emphasize Josh's lack of agency...
Bill F Protagoras
"by saying basically you can’t leave me because I’m leaving you." I may be wrong, Tracey, but KT does love to bait a hook!
Bill F Protagoras
Have I ever mentioned what a fucking consummate essential ARTisan, you are? A cornucopia of literary delights... and I ain't kidding! "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." You drive me to hyperbole!
Bill F Protagoras
An expertly framing opening paragraph, the substance and efficacy of which only serves to increase and sustain all that follows its unpretentious grace...
Bill F Protagoras
" up to petty no-good." Is some form of theft perhaps nudging Kimmy in the ribs? All your work is distinguished by your diabolic details, KT!
Bill F Protagoras
"Go tell the Spartans, you who read: We took their orders, and here lie dead." Reticence is a dying art.
Bill F Protagoras
If you love someone set them free rings out with all the muffled dishonesty of sentimental persiflage to me... 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.' Great writer though Dickens is his frequently Victorian sugar coated shallowness lacks the mettle or irony necessary, and the unavoidable unostentatious resignation that self sacrifice deserves. If anything should be matter of fact and honoured by silence it is sacrifice... I think Kimmy, good or bad, is not one for the empty gesture... she works within constraints. Gutta cavat lapidem! Illegitimi non carborundum!
Bill F Protagoras
Any month is a cruel month to begin a pilgrimage...
Bill F Protagoras
As Steve Mc suggests pragmatism seems de rigeur.
Bill F Protagoras
Although Excited might not be my mot juste, Kat!
Bill F Protagoras
I am glad as ever to be your punch bag, KT, even when you dish out your hardest blows with all the grace that you command.
Bill F Protagoras
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Bill F Protagoras
Personally, after what may have been Kimmy's pyrrhic victory in the liars' den the piteous pitiless odour of melancholy haunts my absent mind... Didn't Save, Kat!
Bill F Protagoras
The Waters are each wrestling with their own angel of angst at the foot of a Jacobean ladder out of a steep sided pit... learning the slippery nature of truth and expression... the inflationary nature of the currency of secrets guarded too long in the vault of selfdom... "Beware the dog that's friend to man for with his nail's he'll dig you up again!"
Pete
"He turned you on. He’s everything I’m not, and I’m not enough for you.” “You want that to be true.” “What?” He laughed at how ridiculous her statement was. “Who would want that to be true?” “You do. You want to think it because it turned you on.” Interesting exchange this chapter closes on. I don't think Kimmy's wrong: Josh fetishizing inferiority? It fits.
Pete
Agreed. Kimmy may not feel worthy of him anymore. She may also feel like he no longer loves her, and the best thing she can do is make it easy for him to let her go, and protect him.
Kat
It does ALWAYS end in a place where I’m dying for more. I’m looking forward to reading this volume of the book in full when it’s completed.
Andrew Mellein
Yes. What you both said. She doesn't want to hurt Josh anymore and she realizes what she did to him. She is essentially setting him free.
Tracey52
Despite all this, I still feel Kimmy was trying to manipulate Josh by the way she was still casting blame on him and one upped him by saying basically you can’t leave me because I’m leaving you. Great chapter but disappointed we didn’t get the whole conversation.
JL23
I do think part of her leaving is because she's still convinced Josh jumped in the water, and that she needs to get away from him for his own mental well being. Her conversation with Berg seems to have left her with the distinct belief that Josh would be better off without her. At least that's my read on it.
JL23
I think it comes with reading things chapter to chapter. It always ends in a place where you need to know more. Then, when you get the next chapter, you're excited to start...then it ends in a place where you need to know more.
Kat
Yep, I can see that, too. I also don’t see that relationship lasting too long either. Hyun won’t be open, and Kimmy won’t be able to sleep on her couch forever. Sophie will see something and blow it all up.
Kat
Andrew, I feel the exact same way. I read every chapter so slowly, and am sad when it’s done. Lol Only KT can write this well.
Kat
KT, this was an amazing chapter. It is like Kimmy had joined a cult, and is now deprogrammed. You showed her true feelings in the last few chapters, She’s been coming out of a fog from the summer. She lived her wildest life, fulfilled fantasies she never knew that she had. She went from a deep depression over losing their baby, to becoming a person solely devoted to her own pleasure no matter who it hurt or incited. She fucked Devlin, tormented Josh, used Hyun and stole so much money from Stone. She now finds herself pregnant, still not truly knowing who the father is, and with the real possibility of disbarment and jail. I wonder why she’s leaving and where she’s going? Is she leaving for jail because she confessed all her financial crimes to Aaron Berg and Stone Sr.? Is she leaving for Hyun, because she can’t subject Josh to anything more and needs someone to pity and baby her? Is her love for Josh really that great that she’s afraid if Josh knows everything he’ll try and kill himself again? I’m leaning on the third option. I’ve seen a different Kimmy in these last few chapters. Josh’s near death experience woke her up, and truly affected her. She’s come out of her fog of lust and greed and realized she really has nothing to call her own but Josh. But, she’s pushed Josh so far, hurt him so badly, gaslit him so much that he nearly died. Kimmy really does have a conscious, and her conscious is telling her to go, and leave Josh so he can start again and be happy. Kimmy knows her future does not hold much happiness, so she’s getting out while she can, the only way she knows how. I don’t know, I’m probably wrong, but I really see Kimmy showing some goodness inside, FINALLY. KT, I loved this chapter. I’m going to be so sad when this book is over.
Andrew Mellein
Every chapter that KT writes I savor like fine wine. That when I am done I get bummed that it's over (LOL!) She is the best in the business.
Andrew Mellein
Yes I think he's the lawyer. I almost got him confused with Devlin's friend.
Andrew Mellein
I think this chapter highlights that there is a real bridge between Kimmy and Josh that I think isn't easily put together. While I think Kimmy stealing that money is a motivational force with her deciding to bail. I think Josh has no love for Kimmy at the moment especially when he is the center of attention with all his co-workers and Kimmy sees that. I actually think a long separation might heal their wounds and maybe if they want to try again they should. I want a HEA with Kimmy and Josh especially after everything that has happened. Also Kimmy has to remember that she has a baby on the way! And I don't know if a long separation is feasible especially if Josh is the father.
JL23
Went back and looked. He is the father's lawyer. So, interesting that her call was to him, and seems like whatever she was told in that conversation led her to what she does at the end of the chapter, at least that's my read on what she means by leaving.
Andrew Mellein
I think they are divorcing and Kimmy's going to make house at Hyun's. But I don't see that relationship lasting.
Chris K
I still hope Josh finds out about Hyun. I think he has a right to know.
JL23
I forget, was Aaron Burg the father's lawyer, or the lawyer she was going to call to represent her against any charges? I think her "leaving" Josh is likely related to whatever she thinks (or now knows) is going to happen to her regarding stealing the money. But whether she tells Josh that, I'm not sure. Clearly, she's not leaving him to go be with Devlin, but without a real explanation that's probably what he'll think. I think it's also related to the idea of "freeing" Josh from her, for a multitude of reasons. But his reaction and her explanation will tell us a lot.
Chris K
Great to see them finally have this conversation! Jail or bail? Where's Kimmy going?...
Steve McCarty
Is Kimmy divorcing Josh to protect his assets? Thanks for the curveball.
Kat
Thank you, KT! So excited to read this.
