Jennifer Hillier: Creep

He was polishing the inside of a wineglass with a clean white cloth, his biceps flexing as he turned the glass back and forth in a rhythmic motion. He was close enough for her to smell his musky cologne, and she suddenly imagined what Luke’s lips would feel like on her nipples.

She mentally slapped herself. “You must see everything working here.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Nothing surprises me anymore. What about you?”

Luke laughed, and something about it sounded forced, reminding her of Ethan. Her thoughts sobered instantly. He tapped her glass. “Another?”

He fixed her drink, then left to tend to a couple at the end of the bar who’d just arrived but already looked bored with each other. Not even Frank Sinatra over the loudspeakers could seem to cheer them up, and Sheila wondered how long they’d been married. As she watched Luke work, her thoughts turned to Ethan once again.

Three good years in Sex Addicts Anonymous and she’d slipped. With one of her students, no less. Christ. And not only that, she’d let it continue for three months. Father’s death or no, she’d fucked up, plain and simple.

She would never have thought she could treat someone as badly as her first husband had treated her, but here she was, scrambling to cover up her infidelity so Morris would never find out. He deserved better. He was a kind and decent man-unlike Bill, who had been cruel and distant for most of their marriage. And it had taken her years to figure out why.

Bill Chancellor was a prominent heart surgeon, two decades her senior. The age difference had never bothered her, and she knew it had everything to do with her father.

They had met at a university benefit. Bill was handsome and charismatic, and it hadn’t taken long for Sheila to fall in love with him. He made it easy, courting her with a single-mindedness that swept her off her feet. After only a few months of dating, they were married. Shortly after the wedding, he was appointed chief of surgery at Seattle Pacific, one of the best teaching hospitals in the Northwest. The early months of their marriage were blissful, a happy whirlwind of late mornings in bed, fund-raising dinners, and weekends spent at Bill’s family’s lake house.

But after their first anniversary, things began to sour. Bill worked all the time and was spending less and less time at home. Early-morning rounds of golf replaced their lazy weekends, and poker nights with the guys kept him out late. When he was home, he was distant, impatient, and often distracted.

Much the way her strict Chinese father used to be. And just as with her father, Sheila had to work diligently to get Bill’s attention. She cooked romantic dinners, planned weekend getaways, couple’s nights out, day trips to quirky places she read about in travel magazines. Despite her best efforts, he continued to withdraw. And the less interest he showed in her, the harder she tried.

She knew the marriage was in trouble. She was working on her Ph.D. in social psychology by this time, and it wasn’t hard to identify the basic problems. Still, she didn’t have the courage to leave him. Not even when she began to suspect Bill was cheating on her.

Instead, she threw herself into her work. Made full professor. Her work gave her so much joy and fulfillment, she could almost convince herself it was enough.

Almost.

Her marriage came to an end one weekend in April, nearly a decade after her wedding day. She came home two days early from a psychology conference because her pesky cold had turned into bronchitis.

Bill’s Jaguar was in the driveway when she pulled up to the house in her taxi, exhausted and dizzy from the long flight and too much cold medication. At 3:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, this was unheard of. She’d never known him to blow off a weekday afternoon. Beside the Jag sat a cute little Toyota hybrid, a car she’d never seen before. It was then she knew.

She paid the driver and stood at her front door, light-headed and sweaty, wondering if she was ready for this. Leaving her suitcase on the front steps in case she had to spend the night at a hotel, she let herself into her house. She tiptoed up the staircase, taking care to avoid the steps she knew would creak.

The door to their bedroom was closed. She paused, ear cocked. Somewhere behind the door, Bill groaned in ecstasy. It was a sound she hadn’t personally heard in over four years, and it stabbed her.

Finally, she was going to come face-to-face with her husband and his mistress, a woman who’d been stealing his heart away, piece by piece, for God only knew how long.

She opened the door in a trance. If she thought she was prepared, she was wrong.

That Bill was doing it doggy-style with his favorite surgical scrub nurse was not surprising.

That the scrub nurse was a forty-two-year-old man named Norm floored her.

In all the years they’d been married-despite all of Sheila’s work in social behavior and perception-it had never once occurred to her that her domineering, bullying, brilliant heart-surgeon husband was gay.

A full minute passed before either man noticed she was there. Then all hell broke loose.

Yelping in surprise, the two men jumped off the bed, penises still hard but wilting fast. They knocked into each other in their search for pants, shirts, anything to throw over their naked bodies, cursing and red-faced, watching her with furtive eyes, wanting to slam the bedroom door in her face. Neither did.

She watched them for a few more seconds before she turned and walked slowly back down the stairs. She was seated on the sofa as Norm the surgical scrub nurse flew by, missing the last step and almost wiping out on the hardwood floors. He was out the front door and into his little car with scarcely a backward glance. Through the window she watched as he pulled away, flattening the recycling bin from next door, which their ornery old neighbor Mr. Zeminski never brought in on time.

Bill didn’t come downstairs for another ten minutes. When he did, shirt buttoned haphazardly, hair in messy tufts, he was shaking, his face a mask of shame and self-loathing. She had never seen him look anything but confident, and it was almost as unsettling to her as the gay sex act she’d just caught him in.

The silence between them was like dead space. She waited for him to speak, having no clue how to begin this conversation.

“Promise you won’t tell,” he finally said, his voice choked.

She watched as her man-of-steel husband burst into tears. He dropped onto their sofa, sobbing like a child in the pale afternoon light.

“Oh, Bill.” At that moment, her genuine pity for him outweighed his betrayal. It didn’t make up for the years of emotional neglect and abandonment she’d suffered for most of their marriage, but she couldn’t deny there was relief.

The story tumbled out. He had known since before they met. He’d had a long string of affairs before their marriage, most anonymous and taking place in the basements of gay clubs that Sheila had never heard of. When rumors began to swirl, he’d married Sheila quickly to secure his appointment as Seattle Pacific’s chief of surgery. The longer they stayed married, though, the more he’d come to resent her. She reminded him every day of the man he only pretended to be.

He was at the height of his career and didn’t want to be labeled a gay man. Sure, Seattle was a progressive city, but the hospital still ran on a good old boys’ network and nobody wanted a homosexual as their chief. He’d found love with Norm, and Norm wanted them to come out, but Bill would rather have died.

The divorce was quick. The settlement was exceptionally generous once Sheila agreed to sign the confidentiality agreement. She bought a brownstone townhouse in cash in the prestigious Harvard-Belmont area of Seattle. Shortly after, she was granted tenure at the university. It was time to make a fresh start, but surprisingly, there were no feelings of liberation. Just a broken heart. She had loved a man who had never truly loved her back.