Page 38 of Bad Bishop

He was still riding the woman’s rectum when I nonchalantly tossed open the fridge, letting bright light flood directly into their faces. The woman cringed and squinted.

I extracted a carton of milk and gave it a sniff. Beneath my pajamas, my knees trembled, knocking into one another. But on the outside, I calmly set the milk carton on the counter, reached up on my toes, and opened the cabinet, extracting a clear glass.

I didn’t look at their faces. I wasn’t supposed to behave like anything was amiss. I poured myself some milk, scooped a spoonful of honey, and shoved it in the microwave for a minute. With my back to them, I watched the seconds slip on the microwave clock, then took my drink out.

I was maybe six feet away from my husband, who was currently screwing somebody else, and it was time to face him again.

I took a deep breath.

Spun around.

My eyes met Tiernan’s.

And I couldn’t help it.

My need to defy him overrode my self-preservation.

I gave him an airy smile, tipping my glass up slightly in a salute before taking a long sip. It was a small gesture. Barely detectable in the dark. Just to keep him guessing.

The taunt didn’t go unnoticed. My husband ripped himself out of his whore, grabbed her by the hair, and spun heraround, shoving her to her knees. She opened her mouth wide and flattened her tongue. He tore the condom off his penis and dumped it on the floor. My pulse roared between my ears. Confusion, mixed with morbid curiosity, churned inside me, and something weird happened to my body. I felt warm butter melting in the pit of my stomach. I set the glass down shakily on the counter. I didn’t want to drop it.

“Ain’t gonna suck itself, Becky.”

She hurriedly took his penis into her mouth. I stood there, dumbfounded.Madonna mia, these morons were trying every hole possible other than the one babies came out of. And his thing was just in her rectum. This couldn’t be sanitary.

One thing was for sure—sex was a form of punishment wives were expected to endure in order to bear children. No wonder Mama did her best to shield me from it.

I snatched my glass of milk and advanced toward the bedroom. I left the carton on the counter. He could put it back himself.

Casually, I kicked Becky’srealclothes on the floor—a cheap neon red minidress and fishnet stockings—under the TV credenza. Who knows? Maybe she’d have to go back home naked.

I locked my room behind me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TIERNAN

What thefuckwas her problem?

More importantly—what was mine?

I couldn’t finish. No matter how hard I tried. Every time I came close, a vision of my wife with her cerulean eyes and haughty, pert nose scrunching in distaste floated into my vision. She was strangely indomitable.

And Becky just kept fuckingexisting, the daft cow.

The nuisance moaned in her cigarette-soaked voice, which could not have been Lila’s. She didn’t smell anything like her, either. The amount of perfume she spritzed herself with could probably drown a rhino. The dress looked wrong on her, too. Lila’s waist was slenderer, her tits perkier and fuller. And their skin was different. In texture. In color. Beneath the tips of my fingers. Lila’s was slightly bronzed, sun-kissed from Italian vacations and smooth as velvet. Becky’s told the story of too many dicks, too little sun, and a rough life.

It was the equivalent of craving fine, aged whiskey and settling for stale piss. I had no one but myself to blame. Becky was nothing like my wife. The only thing they had in common was their hair color, and even that felt like a cheap knockoff. Becky’s came from a bottle. I threw her out so fast, she stumbled down the stairs with her knickers bunched around her knees.

Also—did my wife really want milk that bleeding bad?

Lila did not seem to care one iota about my cheating on her openly and provocatively. It shouldn’t bother me. Fuck knew nothing else ever did. Yet, somehow, I found myself…dissatisfied. Theaudacityof that woman.

On paper, she wasn’t supposed to understand what she just saw. In reality though, that woman drew a perfectly shallow, straight cut in my palm, bypassing every important organ.

Lila exhibited zero signs of developmental delays, and when my tech guy broke into her therapist’s files, her diagnosis was vague at best.

I paced the living room, raking my fingers through my hair.