Page 47 of Smut Lovers

Chapter One

Beau

M y heart is racing anxiously. I look at the other passengers also heading to Peru of all places. And not the capital. I’m going to an area where no one will know who I am or what I’m doing there.

I’m going to fuck Robert.

I’m going to get my revenge.

I lift up my wrist to look at my Samsung watch.

8:10 a.m. Greg would be awake by then, realizing I’m not there.

But he doesn’t call out for me. He would assume I’m downstairs.

Greg will wake Vickie first, our six-year-old, and get her up and moving.

They had Be Kind Day that Friday. I hope Greg remembers to give her the Be Kind shirt. I’m sure Vickie will remind him.

Four-year-old Madison will be next. But Maddie usually wakes up when Vickie does, once she begins to hear stirring in the room.

By the time either Greg or I look over to wake Maddie up, she is sitting on her bed cross-legged, waiting for one of us to pick her up and take her to the bathroom.

And we oblige, and carry her to the bathroom, putting her down in front of the sink.

Sure, she can walk. But she’s our last baby.

Vickie was a snowflake baby. Greg and I worked like crazy those first two years of our marriage just so we could afford to do surrogacy.

But when we found this way of having a baby, an adoption embryo, we quickly jumped at the chance.

She looks nothing like either of us, none of my Italian roots or Greg’s Haitian one.

She is Mexican with bright brown eyes, golden skin, and curly, chestnut colored hair.

We loved her from the moment we laid eyes on her.

Maybe from the moment we knew she was going to be our embryo.

Maddie was our miracle baby. A regular adoption.

The same adoption attorney we used for Vickie contacted us just two years later to tell us of a woman out of Texas who had just given birth and was currently in jail awaiting deportation, and making an adoption plan.

She was a drug mule, a cocaine addict, and wanted the child to be as far away from the border as possible.

The attorney still had our family book and wanted to know if we wanted to be considered. We both said yes, right away, as our two-year-old sat between us. She asked us to update it with our current family dynamics, just a one page and a few pictures.

We got a call two days later. The woman chose us because we were the furthest away and we already had a Mexican daughter.

She didn’t care that we were gay. She wanted her daughter to have a good life with a sister who shared her heritage that we would uphold.

We readily accepted. The baby girl was born five weeks early, and was in the NICU, going through cocaine withdrawal with an underdeveloped lung.

We dropped Vickie off with my foster mother and got on a plane.

That first day we touched her little fingers through the incubator and told her that she was going to be okay, that we loved her, and were going to take care of her, as tears fell down both of our faces.

It was one of the greatest moments of our lives.

We’re an interracial, conspicuous family in a major city with good jobs and great kids. Everything about our lives is perfect.

Was perfect. Until Greg decided to fuck Jesse.

Hurt. Pain. Anger. Betrayal. Those four feelings flash through my body again. The same feelings I’ve had for the last twenty-two months. It reminds me of why I’m on a red-eye flight.

By then Greg would have realized that he has not seen me. He would run downstairs to see if I’m in the kitchen, my favorite place, making breakfast for my family.

Newsflash: I’m not.

Greg walks back upstairs. Slowly this time. He would know by now that something is wrong.

A part of me hates to do that to him. Greg has so many mental health issues.

Bipolar depression. Anxiety. He could spiral so easily.

And I’m usually the one who keeps him together.

I know a mini panic attack formed as he went back into the bedroom.

He’ll check the bathroom first, keeping an ear out for our girls getting ready.

Finally he will turn around and walk over to my side of the bed.

And he will see the letter.

I left it folded neatly, the flap open toward him, so he would know exactly what it was.

That’s going to throw him for a loop. I don’t write letters. He does. And if I were to write anything down, it would be a cute, encouraging Post-it note, to remind him to take his medication. That he was great at what he does. That he was a wonderful person. That he should believe in himself.

That’s what I do for him.

Greg, in turn, would write me letters. Long letters of how he was feeling.

Long emails if paper and pen wasn’t nearby.

He would bring up the past, how we met in college, and how easily he fell in love with me.

He would write erotic poetry to me, describing our love-making scenes so vividly.

He would talk about our marriage, our girls, how everything in his life has fallen into place, the comfort, safety, stability I give him, and how grateful he is to me for loving him the way I do.

Greg writes letters. I don’t. A letter from me is going to give him the shock I wanted.

He won’t read it right away. I know him. He’ll wait. Greg is going to take deep breaths, then turn around, and tend to the girls.

He’s so great with them. He prioritizes them above all else. Because of the way his parents were with him, a bipolar, borderline mother and an abusive father, he pours everything into them. One of the many things I love about him.

So he’ll focus on the girls, getting them ready for school. He’ll make biscuits, their favorite, to distract them. At some point they’ll realize I’m not there and ask, “Daddy, where’s Dad?”

Greg will make something up. “He left for work early” or “he’s at the store” or “don’t worry, you’ll see him later.” All the things he knows is not true. But he’s good at distracting them, putting on a mask, smiling and reassuring them that everything is alright. Greg has a really good mask.

It’s so quiet on the plane. The last time I was on a flight this long was our trip to Italy, before the kids were born.

I’m Sicilian, but I grew up in foster care so I never knew my family.

I learned Italian in college and speak it fluently.

Greg encouraged me to go to Sicily and see if I feel connected to my roots.

He is so thoughtful and adventurous. It’s one of the many things I love about him.

Even still, after he betrayed me, broke our covenant, broke our agreement not to sleep with men.

Even after he slept with the one person on earth I had hoped he would never go to.

Even after twenty-two months of lying next to him, pretending like I didn’t know, or didn’t want to know.

Even now, as I’m on my way to fuck the husband of the man who my husband fucked…

I still love him.

One week ago:

I stared at him. His golden brown skin, his neat locks, his goat-tee.

His blue sweats outfit with the fuzzy slipper socks to match.

He was sitting on the couch with Maddie, who was sick again.

Maddie had respiratory issues, and got sick often.

She clung to him, her Daddy, and I could hear her wheezing from across the room even with her ventilator on her face.

He rubbed her back in comfort as they watched Disney Junior.

I stared at him and thought to myself that I have such a great husband and partner.

That thought literally made me sick.

The bile rose quickly in my throat and I couldn’t stop it. I ran to the kitchen and threw up in the sink.

I heard him gently sit Maddie up, then hurry to the kitchen. “Beau,” he said with concern all in his voice. He came closer to rub my back. “You o—”

“Don’t touch me!” I found myself screaming at him. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Greg lowered his hand. “Okay,” he said.

I threw up again as tears fell from my eyes. Then I was sobbing. It wasn’t the first time. Over the last twenty-two months it came in waves. Hurt. Pain. Rage. Betrayal.

“Beau?” he said again, softly.

Vickie came into the kitchen. “Daddy, is Dad okay?” she asked sincerely.

“Oh yeah, baby girl,” Greg said as he turned around.

I glared at him as he picked her up to take her out of the kitchen. I am not okay!

“Do me a favor and sit with Maddie for a little bit?” I heard him say in the living room.

I listened to his feet come back over to me. But he stayed about a foot away. My sobbing had turned to sniffles by then. I rinsed my mouth, cleaned the sink, and washed my face. He didn’t say anything the whole time.

When I finally stood up, we stared at each other.

“I think it’s time we go to marriage counseling,” he said quietly. “So we can finally talk about it.”

“So you can absolve yourself of guilt?” I sneered at him.

His eyes welled up in tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry I did this to us, Bonito. We were so happy and… I’m so sorry.”

He was sorry. I knew he was sorry. I also knew he didn’t regret it.

A thought floated through my head. I wonder if Jesse regretted it.

Jesse, who was a brother to me. Who I let into my life when we were teens, and then my home when we were in college together. Who was one of the best people I’ve ever known until we fought over the one thing we both wanted: Greg.

Jesse, who tried to ruin my life before, back in college, confusing Greg, trying to take him away from me. It didn’t work back then, but he succeeded in ruining my life now, sixteen years later.

I closed my eyes and saw the two of them together, even though I had never actually seen them together. It didn’t matter. The images in my head were enough.

“I don’t want to know,” I gritted through my teeth. I walked past him and left him in the kitchen.

I grabbed my phone, kissed both girls on the top of their heads, and went for a drive.