The mansion was dead quiet at eleven p.m. The kind of heavy, suffocating quiet where every creak in the floorboards sounds like someone calling you out.
I was sitting on the edge of our California King bed, his bed, if I'm being honest. I stopped thinking of anything here as mine a long time ago, just staring at my phone.
The screen glowed in the dark. Mateo's contact photo stared back at me. He was smiling in it, from our wedding day three years ago. Back when I still thought maybe he'd care. Back when I still believed an arranged marriage could somehow turn into something real.
I should've known better.
My foster parents had set it all up. Clara and Robert Chen. They'd taken me in as a baby and then spent twenty-three years reminding me I should be grateful. I don't even know if they got paid for the marriage, though the timing of their sudden "retirement fund" right after the wedding… yeah, that was suspicious as hell. But it doesn't even matter anymore.
What matters is I'm twenty-five, stuck in a loveless marriage, and so lonely I can barely breathe.
I looked down at myself. Black lace lingerie I'd bought last week from some overpriced boutique downtown. Tags were still on until tonight. Cutting them off felt like signing my own humiliation notice. The bra pushing my breasts up, the panties riding high on my hips, showing every curve.
I know I'm beautiful. Always have, even when Clara would tell me I was "pretty enough" in that backhanded tone. Long brown hair down to the middle of my back. Skin that still glows without makeup. A body that turns heads. Curves in the right places. A thick ass that fills out jeans just right. Green eyes men always said they could get lost in.
So why the hell doesn't my own husband want me?
We'd had sex exactly once. Our wedding night. Awkward, quick, mechanical. I told myself it would get better. That we'd grow into each other.
Then I got pregnant.
For two months, I thought maybe the baby would change things. Maybe Mateo would soften. Maybe he'd look at me with something other than indifference.
Then I lost her.
Stillborn at seven months. A little girl we never even got to name.
And everything went to hell after that.
Mateo stopped touching me completely. Stopped looking at me. Started calling me "fat pig" because my body didn't snap back right after losing a baby. The way his voice sounded when he said it, like I disgusted him, like my grief was just a nuisance, carved a hole in me.
I watched my stomach flatten over the next year, the baby weight falling off, but he didn't notice. Or he didn't care.
Instead, I watched him screw other women.
The secretaries at his company. The personal trainer who came to the house three times a week. The maids, God, especially the maids. One morning I woke up to moaning, reached across the bed to find it empty, followed the sounds all the way to the staff quarters. The audacity of it. He hadn't even tried to hide it.
And I said nothing. Did nothing. Just went back to our bedroom and pretended I hadn't heard.
Because what could I do? Leave? Go where? I had nothing. No money of my own, no job, no family who actually cared.
So I stayed. And I withered.
But tonight… tonight something inside me snapped.
I was so goddamn horny I could barely think. Three years since anyone touched me like they wanted me. Three years of watching him give everyone else what he wouldn't give me. Three years of my body screaming for attention, for touch, for anything.
I hated myself for it. But I couldn't stop the need.
My hand shook as I hovered over the call button. This was pathetic. Desperate. Exactly the kind of thing he'd laugh at.
But I pressed it anyway.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
Maybe he wouldn't answer. Maybe that would be better. I could tell myself I tried and then,
"What?"
His voice. Breathless. Sharp. Annoyed.
My mouth opened but nothing came out.
Then I heard her.
"Oh god, Mateo, yes!"
A woman's voice. High-pitched. Breathy. Like she was performing.
My heart stopped.
"Yeah, take it," Mateo grunted. "Fuck."
The headboard banged against the wall. Rhythmic. Hard. Skin slapping skin.
He knew. He had to know I was listening. My name on his screen when he picked up.
And he didn't care.
The moans got louder, more fake-sounding. "You're so much bigger than, oh god, don't stop!"
Bigger than. Bigger than who? Her ex? Someone else? Or me? Was she talking about me?
"You like that?" Mateo's voice was rough, almost unrecognizable. I'd never heard him sound like that. Not with me.
"Yes! God, yes!"
I should've hung up. Should've thrown the phone across the room.
Instead, I sat there. Frozen. Listening.
The sounds went on. His grunts. Her screams. Wet, obscene slaps. Every noise a knife twisting in my chest.
And the worst part?
The absolute worst fucking part?
I was getting wet.
My body betraying me, responding to the sounds even as my mind screamed at me to stop, to hang up, to do anything but sit there and listen to my husband screw someone else.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only listen while he gave her everything he'd refused to give me.
A full minute passed. Maybe more. Time felt warped. Endless.
Then I heard him laugh. Low and cruel.
"That's right," he said, and I knew, knew, he was talking to me now, even though he hadn't said my name. "You hear that?"
The phone went dead.
I stared at the screen, my reflection ghostly in the black glass. My hand shook so badly I almost dropped it.
Then the tears came.
I collapsed onto the bed, sobbing into the silk pillowcase that smelled like his cologne and her perfume and my own pathetic desperation. My chest heaved. My throat burned.
And my body still throbbed with need.
God, I hated myself.
Hated that I'd called. Hated that I'd listened. Hated that even now, even after all that, I was so starved for touch my hand was sliding down my stomach, under the waistband of the expensive lingerie no one would ever see.
I touched myself while I cried. Hated every second of it. Hated how good it felt, how badly I needed the release, how empty it felt even as the pleasure built.
When I came, it was silent. Just a shudder and a gasp and then nothing.
No satisfaction. No relief. Just shame.
I lay there a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling the tears dry on my cheeks.
Eventually, I got up. My legs weak, unsteady. I walked to the en-suite bathroom and flipped on the light.
The mirror was brutal.
Smudged mascara. Red-rimmed eyes. Lingerie that suddenly looked cheap and desperate. My hair tangled. My lips chapped from biting them to keep quiet.
I looked exactly like what I was.
Broken. Unwanted. Pathetic.
I pressed my palms against the marble countertop and leaned in close, studying the woman in the mirror like she was a stranger.
Who are you? I wanted to ask. What happened to you?
But I knew.
I'd disappeared. Slowly, over three years, I'd let myself be erased. Let Clara and Robert convince me I was lucky to have Mateo. Let Mateo convince me I was worthless. Let my own fear and loneliness trap me in this beautiful, cold prison.
And for what?
For this?
I laughed, but it came out a sob.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I'd figure out what to do. How to leave. Where to go.
But tonight, all I could do was stare at my broken reflection and wonder how I'd fallen so far.
The mansion settled around me, silent and indifferent.
Just like him.
Just like everyone.
I was twenty-five years old, and my life was already over.