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Cameron came home late again. He said he had some papers he needed to grade for his summer school class and it would be easier to get his work done at the office. His story made me think of that home wrecking whore he was surely having an affair with. My original plan to lay low and keep my cool was about to blow up in my face. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
He found me in bed rereading the opening scene from The Lover by Marguerite Duras. It was a devastating and brutal story of a wealthy man seducing a much younger woman who goes out of her way to capture his attention.
“Hey Sam, what are you doing awake?” Cameron asked, setting down his briefcase near our bedside table.
I watched him shove his hands into the pockets of his designer black denim jeans. “You look guilty.” I laid down my novel face up so he could see the cover.
“Excuse me?” His mouth gaped open while his brown eyes widened.
I smirked. Cameron was a terrible liar. The last time he went on a shopping spree for new clothes, he tried to hide the bags in the back of our closet. For the entire week, he looked as nervous as a straight-A-school-girl ditching fifth period algebra for the first time.
He headed toward our master bathroom, talking to me as he tramped away. “Okay Sam. Have it your way. I plead the fifth. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Taking a shower? Washing her scent off before you come to bed with your wife, the mother of your three children? That’s kind of you Cameron.” I kept my voice even, desperate for him to prove me wrong.
“I’m taking a shower to wash off the day.” He turned on the water and unbuttoned his pants. “Jesus, Samantha, what’s gotten into you? Spending too much free time with the gossips of Kingston Court? They putting scandalous ideas in your head?”
“Not exactly, Cameron. You’ve been coming home late most nights for a month now. You’ve been more careful about what you wear to class. You’re distracted.” I watched his reflection in the mirror, waiting for his rebuttal.
Cameron opened the glass shower door and stepped inside. Water shifted its course, pelting his body rather than the mosaic-tiled floor. He was hiding from me, washing away the evidence. My stomach turned and I felt like throwing up.
He wasn’t home on time to tuck our six-year-old son into bed. Our teenage daughters Sophia and Savanna had questions on their homework that went unanswered.
Rage swept through my body. Instantly, I was ten years old again, coming home from school with a note for the father-daughter dance, tearing it in thirds and dumping it in the trash. I didn’t have a dad. He had left my mother and me without even bothering to hug us goodbye.
I grew up in a small, conservative town where little girls without daddies were not-so-secretly pitied and looked down upon with suspicion. Suzy homemakers thought my mother was on the hunt to steal their lousy husbands. I was a dirty girl, treated like a bad influence on the kids from good families. My father did that to us.
This man was not getting off the hook so easily. I stomped out of bed and stormed into the steaming bathroom, the mirror covered in a thick fog. “You son of a bitch! You fucking little coward whore! How could you do this to us?” I smacked the shower door. “And for what? For some young piece of ass you’ll forget about in a month’s time, maybe less.”
He scrubbed shampoo into his hair. Peppermint and sage mist filled the air. “Calm down, Samantha. Nothing happened. There’s no girl.” He closed his eyes and leaned the back of his head under the spray.
I punched the glass door again, this time with the side of my fist, making it shake.
“Good lord. You’re going to break the damn thing.”
“Screw the door. You could at least be honest. Own up to it like a man.”
Cameron lifted his sculpted arm, his back to the nozzle, and rinsed his thick brown mane. Aside from a couple of deep frown lines between his brows, he looked better than the day I married him. The bastard was aging in reverse.
I ran a hand over my own hipbones, touching the C-section scars marked across my pubic region. Stretch marks tracked along my once irresistible breasts and tiny pockets of back fat clung behind my hips, refusing to dissolve no matter how hard I worked out. Three pregnancies had diminished my figure. At forty-one, I could never compete with a twenty-year-old. No amount of plastic surgery or strenuous exercise would enable me to keep up with the fresh meat that packed his classroom every new semester. I went back to bed and fumed.
Cameron joined me when he was ready. The heat of his naked body warmed my backside. “Sam,” he whispered, kissing my shoulder. “I love you. There’s no other woman besides you. I swear to God.” He ran his long elegant fingers through my hair. My body responded, wanting him, needing him. He was mine. She had only borrowed a small piece of him.
I rolled toward him and stroked the contours of his chest. “Make love to me then.”
His body stiffened. “It’s late. This is ridiculous.”
“If I’m being ridiculous then show me you love me. Prove it.” I put my hand on his arm and grabbed him toward me, feeling a fresh wave of anger tighten my chest.
“I’m tired. Can we talk about this tomorrow? I love you. Okay? You’re the only woman I love.”
Crushed, I turned over and let the angry tears slide down my face.