DITW 11-13: Steam

Though Hyun had giggled, she now turned up her nose in the pose of childish disgust, and Kimmy laughed and asked her why. Hyun squeezed her nose for a second, let it go, wiggled it, then whispered, “Men’s stuff is weird.”

Hyun must have meant the reference to the size of Devlin’s penis. Kimmy summarized it better: “Men, in general, are weird.”

“Yeah,” Hyun said in quiet agreement. “So you think because it was big, or long, I guess, that...”

“I’m being stupid, right? I mean, there’s so slim a chance that...”

“I wouldn’t worry, Kimmy,” Hyun said, soft but with concern, putting an arm on the back of the couch and touching Kimmy’s neck. It felt good, and at the same time, invasive enough it lifted her skin in goosebumps. She leaned into Hyun’s touch. Hyun said, “How can you and Josh have a relationship like that?”

“Where something like that can happen? I don’t know. It’s all very new. I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t even like Devlin.”

“You don’t? You’re doing it for Josh?”

“No, it’s not like that.” She thought about it a moment while Hyun rubbed the back of her neck. “Devlin’s . . . he’s an asshole. But he can be funny, and he’s really masculine. He’s tall and strong. And he knows what he’s doing.” She chanced a look to Hyun. “Do you know what I mean?”

Hyun’s brow furrowed with query. “Like, in bed?”

Kimmy nodded. “And his body is...” She felt stupid saying it out loud, juvenile and dumb. But she said it anyway. “His body is unbelievable.”

“I can’t believe you’d ever do this.”

She chewed her lower lip, then regarded Hyun again. “So am I bad? Is this immoral? I mean, I want to explore, and if Josh . . . I love Josh more than anything. I really do.”

Hyun’s rubbing fingers ceased and she returned her hand to her lap with the other one. “I don’t think it’s bad or that you’re bad. I don’t know if it’s immoral or not, but—”

“I wouldn’t ever do this if we had children.” She put her hand over her stomach, lips pursing, regret and shame heating up her collar.

Hyun smiled and made a small, amused sound in her throat. She regarded Kimmy with compassion. “It’s okay, Kimmy. It is. If you didn’t concern yourself with all the ramifications, then, yeah, maybe that would be immoral. You’re not cheating on Josh, right?”

Kimmy’s mouth opened, then closed. She said nothing more. Hyun asked her if she wanted another drink and she said she would like one. Hyun went to the kitchen and returned with another sparkling water and a refill of her own wine glass.

Kimmy said, “Josh is my man. He’s the reason I want to do anything. I really love him. He’s a man in all the best ways. He really is. And this guy Devlin, he only thinks he is. He’s like, got the body, the height, the deep voice and everything, this huge penis, you know, but there’s not much else there.”

“Does that matter if he has any of those things?”

Kimmy shook her head. “It’s not like I’m trying to choose between two men. What I mean the most is Devlin doesn’t think much of Josh.”

“What?”

Kimmy nodded, not looking at Hyun, looking at the bubbles fizzing in her glass. “I don’t like that.”

“Do you tell him to stop?”

“Yeah. He doesn’t though. See, I look at Devlin, and he’s a guy who only looks like a man. He tries to espouse all these new age manosphere philosophies, and he reads the books he thinks he’s supposed to read, or at least he says he reads them, and he swings this big tool around”—she wagged a loose fist at her crotch like she was a man holding an enormous penis—“and he makes fun of Josh’s penis, you know, compared to his, and like...”

“He makes fun of Josh like that?”

This was going further than she’d intended, like the soft hand on her neck and the supportive feminine posture and listening ears had paved a smooth path for her, and once she started rolling on it, it felt so good she didn’t want to stop. Hyun sat open and caring, knees drawn up on the couch seat, sitting on her feet. Intent and curious. And supportive. Kimmy regarded her without saying anything, just enjoying a really good feeling from her. They both smiled. “He does. He makes fun of Josh. I defend him.” And then in case Hyun thought otherwise: “Josh doesn’t have a small penis. . . . Sometimes I think he likes it when Devlin makes fun of him.”

“He does?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think that, I know that. Josh doesn’t reject it when Devlin does that. He just . . . onboards it.”

Hyun said, “So this was more than one time with him? With Devlin?”

This was where it was too far. She didn’t want to admit to more than what she’d already divulged. She rubbed her forehead, leaning forward. “I wish I could have a drink right now.”

Hyun rubbed circles on the center of Kimmy’s back, right between her shoulder blades. She sat and let her former sister-slash-cousin-in-law do it. It felt so good. Totally different than what she was used to. She chuckled and said, “I’m caught between them. One man who loves me and who I love in return, and another one who I share some intimacy with purely on a physical level. But they’re both a drain. They’re both all about themselves. Josh is...”

“Selfish?”

“No. It feels unfair to say that. He’s so kind and he loves me. But, shoot, you’re not wrong. It’s got to the point now whenever I see either of them I’m wondering what they want from me next.”

Hyun still rubbed her back, sitting quiet for a moment before saying under her breath, “I still can’t believe this.”

“We’re not like this, Hyun. I don’t know how this came to be.”

“That’s why I can’t believe it. And you go to work every day and see this guy? And Josh doesn’t stop you?”

“No, he just wants to know everything that happened.”

“And does stuff happen?”

Kimmy sighed, then groaned, sat upright, leaned her back on the couch, the crown of her head falling into the cushion. She rolled her face towards Hyun and showed her the expression of a woman at her wit’s end. “Sometimes.”

Hyun looked down at the space between them, working her fingers together, contemplating this unexpected and shocking revelation. Her brow furrowed and her mouth switched to one side. “How come you didn’t use a condom?”

“We did.”

“So then why are you worried? I don’t get it. Could it have torn?”

“No. It didn’t tear.” Nope, all of Devlin’s sperm was collected in the end of the condom after she’d jerked him off with two hands in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes. Then the removed condom fell before she could tie it closed and it fell upside down on her leg and leaked down her ankle and into her sneaker. All of Devlin’s come was safely collected by the condom and none of it was inside her body. But she’d rubbed his unprotected cock on her. She’d even teased his naked cock head inside her opening. The chance that Devlin was her baby’s father was less than one percent. But she still couldn’t get it out of her mind. And in her newfound dark and complicated complexion she couldn’t halt the runaway erotic thrill of bearing the offspring of a man she hated. Even thinking of it now, of having Devlin’s little boy in her belly, made her thighs flex. It would be the ultimate punishment for the ultimate sin. A lifetime burden forced onto her, one she would bear for the rest of her life, one that would remind her every day how bad she was.

Hyun was troubled, not understanding this at all. “Kimmy, don’t you think you’re worrying about nothing?”

She faced Hyun. “What would you think of me if Josh wasn’t my baby’s father?”

Hyun’s eyes stayed soft and compassionate, stroking Kimmy’s forehead, playing with her hair, her mouth working around. “I would love you and I would love the baby. You would love the baby, too.”

She nodded. She would love the baby. “I would. I would love the baby even if it wasn’t Josh’s.”

Hyun smiled and whispered, “Kimmy, it’s Josh’s baby.”

A sickly swirl rolled around her tummy and seized her low, tightening her core, her inner thighs. “Oh my God, Hyun, if it isn’t Josh’s...”

Hyun laughed louder and fell forward, burying her face in Kimmy’s collar, the wetness of her breath heating Kimmy’s skin. She sat up again, smiling wide. “You’re playing with me. You’re doing it to yourself. Worrying for nothing.”

“I know I am,” she said and laughed too, then wiped her cheeks. “I’m just a ball of anxiety right now.”

Hyun seemed satisfied now that her friend’s apprehension was unnecessary, her mind at ease and like she wanted to imbue Kimmy with the same positive spirit. “I’m going to make you some tea, okay? And then you can tell me more, if you want. But I don’t want to entertain your worry over something so infinitesimally small.”

“I can’t help it. I worry about Josh. I worry what he would do.”

Now Hyun looked glum again, slouching a little. “What do you think he would do?”

“He would hurt. That would hurt him.”

“It would. Of course it would. But . . . didn’t Josh know the risk?”

“I guess.”

“He wouldn’t be mad at you, would he?”

She had to think about it, think about the right way to answer, but something just appeared on her horizon like a glowing sunrise, the dawning of the most incredible idea. She covered her face with both hands, and breathed into them, feeling for fingers tingle. “You’re right, Hyun. No, you’re right. I’m being crazy. I have to be pragmatic here. I’m pregnant. Josh is the father. I have to leave alone the idea he’s not the father. The odds it’s not his are astronomical. Once I start to think about it, I spiral. And it’s just not possible. Right?”

Hyun spoke no answer, only smiled and showed a proud look, like she’d gotten through to her and made a difference. “I’m going to boil some water. Do you want anything else?”

Kimmy showed Hyun an embarrassed expression. “Do you have any cookies?”

#

We’re in trouble.

That’s what she’d told him lying in bed with him after he’d found her coming home wearing clothes another man bought her. They were in trouble. So much trouble. Ever since the night he’d drank too much at that stupid party after the high school reunion, his entire sturdy fortress he’d constructed around his psyche had been taken down brick by brick. There were two demons working against him, disassembling his will and his resolve. One who loved him and one who hated him. Hated him for no reason. And the one who loved him?—he gave her everything he could to earn that love.

The satin feel of her panties—the pair Devlin removed from Kimmy then concealed where he knew Josh would find them—slipped up and down his erection. He pulsed persistent streams of pre-come into the fabric, watching the window where his wife held erotic rendezvous behind his back in his cousin’s ex-wife’s apartment.

His hot breath fogged the side windows.

They were in so much trouble.