Page 5 of A Win-Win Situation
"John, I'm home!" I call out while setting the box with all my desk belongings on the floor and taking off my heels. The relief is instant, and I release a long, audible sigh.
Mental note, stop being scared of the elevator, or start carrying a pair of sneakers.
No one answers. Weird. John is usually home by now.
"John, are you home?" I call out again.
As I head to the kitchen, searching for the note he always leaves when he goes out, my brows furrow in confusion. There's nothing on the fridge or the kitchen island.
That's strange.
"Oh my god!" a husky female voice screams out, startling me.
Was that . . . ?Is our neighbor getting laid in the middle of the day? She’s like sixty years old. I mean, good for her, butI did not sign up for this.
I dash to the failure-box I brought from work to grab my earbuds, but the moaning continues, "Yes. Yes. Yes, right there. Don’t stop. DON’T STOP!" The voice grows louder and somehow, it sounds closer.
With a sinking feeling of dread, I question if it's coming from inside the apartment.
Loud groans accompany the moans resonating on the walls—sounding way too clear to be coming from outside the apartment.
There’s another moan, this one louder, and it seems to come from my own bedroom.
Did someone break in to get laid? I know we have a great mattress, but robbers wouldn’t know about that.
I clutch my phone in my hand, ready to call the police as I walk towards my room.
When I reach the door, I open it slowly.
It isn’t the neighbor.
It isn’t a burglar.
It’s John.
"Oh fuck, baby." His voice is muffled, but not because he’s trying to keep himself quiet. No, it’s muffled because his head is tucked between a redhead’s legs and his dick seems to be lodged in her throat.
I stand there frozen, watching the betrayal unfold in front of me.
It seems I’m not good enough for anything, or anyone, after all.
THREE
LEORA
"That disgusting,charmoutof a man!" Adeline screams, her Lebanese heritage coming out in the form of Arabic curse words. Most of the time I’m confused, but "charmout" is one word I do know.
Manwhore.
She huffs as she plants herself next to me on the couch. "Haywan!"
Animal.
After I caught him in bed with that woman, I turned around and stormed out of the room without speaking a word to him or the redhead. I always assumed I would be more of a loud and upset girlfriend, seeing as I tend to have a short fuse in certain situations, but in this instance, the only thing I felt as I looked at him, sixty-nineing that redhead, was betrayal. I should be livid for what he did—I have every reason to be angry with him, but I'm not feeling it. Maybe the anger hasn’t caught up to me yet.
Not just for cheating.
I’m mad about the cheating, but I’m also absolutely floored that I caught him in bed doing something other than laying on top of—or behind—someone. He never took action with me, andmaybe I didn’t suggest for us to be more creative, but I wanted it and I wanted him to want it.To want me.
