Page 7 of Hotwife
“Bye Cedric,” I replied, though he was already out the door.
And the grandfather clock tapped its foot in impatience again.
* * *
Growing up as a pastor’s kid, I was accustomed to sporting multiple identities. There was church Dorthea clutching a hymn book and definitely not falling asleep during Dad’s sermons. There was rebel Dolly who made out with boys in storage closets when we were supposed to be praying.
Likewise, as an adult, I wore several hats.
Wife. Hotwife. And… unsupervised teenager.
As soon as Cedric left for his overnight shift, I tossed the salmon I’d barely touched and popped a bag of cheddar cheese popcorn into the microwave. Grabbing my steaming bag and a bottle of rosé out of the fridge, I slumped into my dent in the sofa and watched a reality show about bored housewives.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
My phone buzzed with a calendar reminder. I didn’t need a reminder, but I put it on my lonesome schedule nonetheless. Volunteer shifts at the aquarium were the highlight of my week and I was eager to see the new sharks we’d gotten in over the weekend. My phone felt heavy in my palm as my mind wandered back to the rather aggressive work-out man from earlier. Dorthea who swims with sharks but doesn’t get bitten. Sharks. He couldn’t know about the aquarium, right?
My curiosity piqued, and I abandoned the women on the screen fighting about which luxury villa they’d each stay in on their million dollar vacation. Really, who would give a shit?
Slipping into my room, I pulled my burner phone from my closet and sat cross-legged on my massive king-sized bed. Yeah, you caught me saying my bed… Cedric and I slept in separate rooms. He insisted it was to not disturb me when he got home at odd hours. And I bought that excuse for a little while- until now. Until the distance between us had a foot on my throat. My phone lit to life and I waited for the buzzing of multiple messages from men to filter in. But I wasn’t interested in checking them right now. Right now was for stalking my mystery biter.
My chest tightened, and I glanced towards the door. Why was I feeling paranoid? I wasn’t doing anything wrong. It’s not like I was making out with the dude. I was just… researching him. Putting his name, Desmond Gregory, into Google, only pulled up some weird, obscure photos. Art, maybe? It was hard to tell. Abandoning search engines, I went to Eva’s social media page. Snorting before taking a sip of my wine straight from the bottle, I rolled my eyes at her filter-heavy curated image. Her profile photo was a shot of her and her wrinkled husband smiling on a beach. The whites of their eyes the brightest thing in the photo. “Nice photoshop job, Eva,” I muttered to myself.
Clicking on her friends list, I searched for any Desmond, again, and nothing. Jesus, no man had ever been this difficult for me to get dirt on. Then again, Eva seemed to hate him, so maybe they weren’t internet-friends. Or real friends, by her theatrical display of chagrin earlier.
A huff of breath shot from my throat, and I popped my laptop shut. Rolling over, I scrolled through the unread messages on Ruby’s phone. There were a few indolent “hey’s” and “what’s up’s” from names like “Josh with the Scooter” and “Scott Bearded Guy”. Yeah, no, too lazy for me.
Kenneth had sent three messages checking in like we were way closer than people who just sort-of hooked up once. A photo of the cockpit of an airplane saying, “Taking off, hope to see you again soon!” and then another good morning text the following day. As if that weren’t cringe-worthy enough, an hour ago he sent, “Thinking of you.” I groaned and tossed my phone. That may be one I need to cut loose. He seemed too needy.
That was the problem. Guys were either slack-ass and low effort with random “hi” texts- or they were trying to wife you up after one roll in bed. There was no in-between, no variety. It was getting redundant. Hotwifing was supposed to add spice to my life. And now? That spice was dulling in a shoebox in my closet with text messages I didn’t even want to open. It might as well have been a spam folder that could make calls.
I picked up my actual phone and considered dialing my sister but abandoned that idea in favor of curling up in my duvet.
His dark stare smoked behind my eyelids. Maybe I’d imagined the entire thing. On paper, I had a free and sexy situation. Yet in my time dating other men while being married, no man had sent my heart into a frenzy like that muscled “oaf” as Eva called him. Which was crazy, and desperate, and sent a wave of confusion through me for some indiscernible reason.
Sleep found me between the plush mattress, my tangled thoughts and tingling neck.
four
Orca whales travel in pods. They have an entire family and group structure that varies between pods. Much like humans, some are friendly, playful, and even kind. Then some groups are more violent, territorial, and vicious.
Orcas stolen from the ocean and forced to live in captivity have shown signs of depression. They’re eerily similar to humans in many ways. When they’re separated from their pod, they’ve even been known to cry and display grief.
That’s not exactly information you find on a plaque in front of a tank. Most people don’t want to know things like that. People want neat compartments and whale plushies to give their children. They don’t want to hear the haunting sound of a mother screeching for her stolen calf.
These are the things I think about as I sit cross-legged on the carpet. The smell of chlorine and salty butter popcorn faint and blued by the dancing rippled lines. It was a slow Thursday morning in September. Kids were at school, and aside from the occasional passerby or employee, the aquarium sat vacant. Well, vacant of humans. Hundreds of silvery and orange fish fluttered by. Pino, the twelve-foot manta ray, flapped his wings and glided past my vision.
I completed my work early. Being a volunteer didn’t even qualify me to feed a goldfish. Instead, my duties began with emptying trash cans and sweeping up crushed tortilla chips and ended with the glamorous task of putting together fish-gut buckets for the professionals to feed the carnivores.
Today, though, was exciting. Three hammerheads and one sand shark were acclimating in a tank before being released into the larger aquarium. We had a few reef sharks and a nurse shark or two, but the prospect of seeing a mighty hammerhead up close had my adrenaline pumping. The veterinary staff and trainers would take a lunch break soon. In the meantime, I sat parked in front of the manta rays, adjacent to the employees’ only entrance. My volunteer keycard wouldn’t allow me access, but if I caught the door on their way out…
Pino wafted to the sandy bottom of the aquarium and rippled his fins right in front of me. I swear he shot me a look of reprimand and I squinted my eyes. “Don’t look at me like that or I’m not putting extra zooplankton in your food bucket like I usually do.”
With a flutter of fins, kicking up a cloud of sand, he levitated through the water, zooming away. Manta Rays were nicknamed “The Devil Fish,” and I’d grown fond of my little devil. However perceptive he may be. Or rather, how crazy I may be to be forming attachments to a fish. Laughter and a creak of metal pulled my attention back to my mission. Two staff exited, sipping from soda cans and wholly distracted. Perfect.
Scooting over at lightning speed, I caught the slow-closing, heavy metal door before it clicked shut.
Once inside, I followed a narrow staircase up to a fluorescent-bright room. Humid, salty air invaded my senses. My heart leapt when I spotted the hundred-foot tank. Unfortunately for me, the tank wasn’t made of glass, but a thick, white, plastic material. I couldn’t see anything from ground level. Brushing past a yellow triangle sign, I climbed up the ladder to the platform. Circling the tank was a narrow walkway, but my interest zeroed in on the terrace that jutted out into the middle of the tank. It sat a mere twelve inches above the sloshing water. Dotted with holes, water splashed up at irregular intervals.