Devil You Know

TIPPING POINT

JANE

ROCCO WHIMPERS, and promptly flees from the bed. The red LED on the alarm clock shows it's a little after two in the morning. Right on schedule. If nothing else, at least Dylan is predictable.

Lights run in a mocking Mexican wave across the bedroom walls as his engine nears, then dies. You know that Pearl Jam song, "Better Man"? Yeah, well at times like this I swear the damn thing was written for me. I'm the girl who pretends she's asleep. I'm the girl who stays for fear of nothing better.

The door slams into the entrance wall, and two thuds indicate his boots are now strewn somewhere in the general vicinity of our entranceway. A slam shakes the walls, and he bursts into a fit of giggles. "Can't wake Sh-leeping Beauty," he slurs, and bounces his way through to the bedroom.

Bounces, I say, because his shoulders damn near ricochet off every vertical surface in the house.

My stomach clenches, and a fine sheen of sweat breaks out behind my knees. Awake, asleep—it wouldn't matter. He'll do whatever he's in the mood for either way. Some nights he comes home for round two, apparently unsatisfied with the amount Deandra could dish out. Other nights he berates me until I feel ready to vomit I'm suppressing my tears so hard. Tonight is the same as any other from my side; I'm simply hoping he'll leave me the hell alone.

But that's a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of event.

And given how black the bedroom is, the moon's not out tonight.

He mutters under his breath as the click of the belt buckle, and the scrape of denim on skin leaves me set to hurl. My heart pounds in my ears, and for the briefest moment I panic that he may be able to hear it too. The anticipation of the act never eases over time. If anything, it increases. You'd think after all these years I'd be numb, accustomed to his habits. Well, what can I say—I'm still human.

Fear still finds me.

The bed dips under his weight, and the wave that rolls under me indicates he's having trouble lying down without falling over in a drunken stupor. Awesome. I can't hold back the violent shudder that rips through me as his cold hands connect with my shoulder—hands which I use to long for, be comforted by. So long ago . . . He chuckles to himself, and I still under his touch.

Seems Deandra wasn't in top form tonight.

Dylan runs his ragged fingers over my flesh, eliciting goose bumps where his touch trails. Every stroke writes another reminder of where those hands were not so long ago, who he touched tonight besides me, his wife, the woman he's supposed to love and cherish. My chest constricts with the pain that still burns deep at the betrayal of knowing I'm not enough, that he has to look elsewhere for what makes him happy. There's no denying I'm awake now with the way I jolt and shy under his hands. Still, I do my best not to pull away. I'm past the point of being able to fake any interest in his venomous touch, and letting him 'caress' me in a such a way is its own kind of torture.

Strong fingers clamp over my side like a vice, and he wrenches me toward him so I'm lying on my back. The pungent aroma of bourbon stings my nostrils, and I push down a gag. That would only incite him to stick something else down my throat. I haven't done that willingly for years. Oral was a treat, something I did to show the man I married how much I loved him, how much I wanted to please him. This guy? He isn't the man I married, and he doesn't deserve to have anything of what I gave the Dylan I loved.

He barely deserves me.

Dylan's lazy braille over my body continues, and I lie as still as I can. Heaven help he might mistake a flinch for interest. Sometimes I wonder if this kind of relationship is the exact thing that inspired someone to write 'The Perfect Housewife Guide Book" in the fifties. The wife is dutiful. The wife does what pleases her husband. The wife never complains.