“Adair told me something tonight,” Lorenzo said as they were getting undressed in their massive his and her walk-in closets.
Panic began to rise in Kate.
“She insinuated that you and Jack are fucking,” he said as he walked up behind her, towering over her. She continued to remove the sari’s layers in a calm fashion before turning to face him.
“Adair was very drunk tonight,” she said, “and she has a thing for Jack. She is very possessive over him. I’m not sleeping with him. I’m not sleeping with anyone but you.”
“That’s good. Because if I ever find out that you are sleeping with someone other than me, I’ll kill both of you,” Lorenzo said with a straight face.
“I don’t doubt it, Lorenzo,” Kate responded, hoping this would be the end of it. After parties, he was typically too tired to have sex.
“I’d rather our kids grow up with no mother than one that can’t be faithful to her husband,” Lorenzo said before grabbing her by the neck and pushing her against the wall.
“Please, not tonight,” Kate said as he tightened his grip on her. “We had a nice time at the party. Please don’t ruin the night for me.” His grip became so tight that she couldn’t speak. Lorenzo had learned how to cut off her oxygen without leaving a mark, and the pressure made Kate’s bandaged wrist throb. He held her there for a few moments until she started to gasp, then let go of her neck, but he didn’t let go of her.
Instead, he picked her up and carried her to stand in front of the large full-length mirror. She knew what would happen next. She knew how much he enjoyed watching himself during sex. He would bend her over and, as he violently pounded into her, note his physique in the mirror.
He loved that his stomach was still a washboard at age fifty-three. He loved the hard-earned and impressive bulges in his biceps, his triceps, his deltoids, and his quadriceps. He turned sideways and noted his perfect profile, his tight gluteus maximus muscles.
He climaxed with a series of grunts, a sound that both revolted and relieved Kate, for it signaled that he was finally done. The climax was sharply followed by his releasing her, which, after the force of his thrusts, generally forced Kate to collapse. She had grown so accustomed to this routine that she knew when to put her hands out in front of her to buffer her fall.
When they were in bed later, Kate would turn away from him to face the wall, and Lorenzo would recount the parts of his body that he thought needed more work at the gym. How he thought he was getting a bit flabby here or there. Tonight his narcissistic babbles were about his deltoids followed by a discussion of all the men at the party who he thought had more money and were more accomplished than he–those who, in his estimation, had it better than he did.
As Kate tried to go to sleep, she worried about Adair. She decided the best way to control her was through Jack. Kate planned to call him as soon as Lorenzo left the house in the morning. She also decided she couldn’t be married to Lorenzo anymore.
I just have to figure out a way to expose what he does to me, she thought. No matter how unfit a parent Lorenzo tries to present me as in court, and I know he has a running list—my reliance on anti-depression and anxiety medicine, my lack of extended family members to help me in single motherhood—there is no judge who is going to award full guardianship to a man who regularly rapes his wife. Especially given that we have two daughters. If nothing else, Kate’s relationship with Jack had given her the confidence to rid herself of Lorenzo.
* * *
The next morning, once Lorenzo left at seven o’clock to go to the gym for his Sunday morning workout, she called Jack.
“I’m sorry to bother you so early after the benefit,” she said. “But I have to talk with you about Adair. She was at Le Beau Château the day you and I had sex. She saw us together. She saw Carly and I together. Last night before she threw a mirror at me, she threatened to tell Lorenzo everything. She said you canceled on her, so she went to the estate to find you.”
“I think she may have already told Lorenzo about us,” Jack said. “You heard him threatening me.”
“If she had done more than insinuate, I would be dead,” Kate said, and she explained what Lorenzo did to her when they got home from the party. She told Jack that she was leaving Lorenzo.
“Have you considered videotaping one of Lorenzo’s sexual assaults?” Jack asked Kate. “The company Georgette Ark used to install the surveillance system at Le Beau Château, Secure, offers a discreet service that would record him in the act. If you hired the company, you would be assigned a security consultant, and a series of cameras would be installed when Lorenzo is out of the house. Once the cameras are in place, Secure offers a number of services, including monitoring your surveillance twenty-four hours a day. If they witness something on your recordings that they believe puts you in grave danger, they can anonymously call the police. Georgette doesn’t have that service at the estate since she is there so infrequently and I check in on the home on a daily basis. The service she has just provides monitoring of the estate from the security room and the ability to record and have it uploaded to Secure’s servers. The recordings taken in your home could be sent from their central office directly to your attorney’s office.”
“But how would I pay for it?” Kate asked. “Lorenzo watches our finances like a hawk, even the money I bring in from my catering. It’s part of his total control over me.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Jack said, “happily.”
“Really?” Kate responded surprised. She wasn’t used to men doing nice things for her.
“Absolutely,” he said. “And the company’s employees have to sign a confidentiality agreement, so your personal information would remain private until it’s necessary for the divorce proceedings. You can also request that females monitor your home’s surveillance.”
“You think it’s that easy?” Kate asked.
“Yes, I do,” Jack responded. “I’ll set it up.”
* * *
One week later, after being assigned a security consultant and having the cameras installed, Kate prepared for a girls’ night out.
“Lorenzo, I have plans tonight,” Kate said as she looked in her closet for shoes.
“You do?” he responded. “So my mom is coming over?”
“I didn’t ask her to,” Kate said. “I figured you could handle the kids for one night on your own. I made dinner. It’s in the oven. The kids are bathed, fed, and ready for bed.”
“Kate, I had a long day,” Lorenzo said. “I don’t want you to go out. I need time to myself.”
“I can’t change my plans tonight, Lorenzo. I need time to myself, too. It’s been weeks since I’ve had a night out with my girlfriends. I’ll be home tomorrow night and you can do what you want.”
“I can’t deal with three kids right now,” Lorenzo said. “Cancel your plans.”
“No,” Kate said.
Lorenzo moved toward her, and Kate turned around to face him. He grabbed her wrists.
“You are my wife,” said Lorenzo. “When I say you can’t go out, you can’t.”
“If you had your way, I would never go out,” said Kate.
Lorenzo dropped her wrists, grabbed the collar of her blousy silk shirt, and pulled straight down, ripping it.
“Now do you want to go?” said Lorenzo with a smirk. “Look. Your best shirt is ripped.”
“What is wrong with you?” Kate said, emboldened, knowing everything was being recorded. “You’re acting like an animal!”
Lorenzo reached over and tore the entire shirt from her. She covered her chest and turned away from him. He pulled on her bra and it sprung open.
“Now you really can’t go out, can you?” Lorenzo asked mockingly.
Kate said nothing more, not wanting to appear on tape as encouraging his bad behavior. She kept her back to him. He grabbed her and forced her into the bathroom. There he pushed her torso over the sink and lifted her skirt. Kate protested. She squirmed and kicked backward. He laughed and held firm.
“You can never get away from me,” he boasted. “You try every time, but I’m stronger. I’ll always be stronger than you, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you’re going out, I’m going to give you a parting gift. Who are you to so blatantly disobey me? I’m your husband.”
Given Lorenzo’s proclivity for watching himself during sex, she had cameras installed in the bathroom. Lorenzo insisted that the room be filled with mirrors.
After Lorenzo was done, and as the cameras were still running, Kate asked, “Why do you repeatedly hurt me this way? Forcing me to have sex with you? Being so rough with me?”
“I don’t hurt you,” said Lorenzo. “You’re my wife. It’s what wives have to do in marriages.”
“Is that how you want your mom treated?” Kate asked. “What about your daughters? Are you going to want Sarah and Maddy’s husbands to force them to have sex? To fuck them against their will? Will that be Sarah and Maddy’s wifely duties?”
“Shut up,” Lorenzo said.
“Hit a nerve, didn’t I, Lorenzo?” muttered Kate.
“Shut that big mouth of yours,” threatened Lorenzo, “or I will find something else for it to do.”
“When did you get so crude?” asked Kate. “You didn’t treat me this way when we were dating.”
“You were fun when we were dating,” said Lorenzo. “Just go. I don’t want to see you anymore. Get out of my house.”
But it was Lorenzo who left the room first, taking his iPhone from the dresser and calling his mother. As Kate heard him asking her to come over and watch the kids, she locked the bedroom door. Kate looked toward the cameras. If all went as planned, a woman named Freda Lombardi was watching the interaction from Secure’s central office. She was instructed to call the police if Lorenzo appeared excessively violent. Kate had also turned on the sound recording mechanism on her iPhone. She emailed the audio recording to her lawyer with promises of the tapes to follow.
“Got him,” Kate said to herself as tears ran down her cheeks.