I love crime documentaries, there’s so many things in them that I love but what the people’s feelings and their realities are deep and somehow, sometimes they ground you, I love to draw the people in them, make real quick caricatures, they come easier when you can see and feel what they are feeling, the caricatures are funny and I feel a little bad of the outcome in my canva, I made these from the moment when they are the most vulnerable and pure.
Happy New Year, Nicole. Now that the uproar of the holiday season is thankfully behind us, I would like to reiterate how keen I am for us to get together to have a cordial discussion about Henry. It seems that we got off on the wrong foot last time, and I would like to apologize for my part in that. I am not in any way looking to disrupt his routine, or step on your toes. I simply wish for us to come to an amicable arrangement so that I can spend time with my son on a more regular basis.
Cordial? That’s rich coming from you ...
We have an amicable arrangement, Charlie. It’s called a custody agreement, and this attempt of yours at unofficially renegotiating it will disrupt his routine. Perhaps you should have thought of this before ... say a year ago?
[text message] Hello detective, my apologies for responding so late. I quite inadvertently deleted your number during my recent comprehensive purge of contacts, and didn't realize it was you. What can I do for you?
[text message] That’s alright Charlie thanks for gettin’ back to me. Well, I’ve been havin’ some trouble lately. Lots of work at the station of course, but also no one seems to be comin’ around anymore. The ones that do barely have anythin’ to say, only want certain things, ya get me?
Afternoon sunlight filters into my office window, barely peeking over the New York City skyline as the sun dips lower by the minute. It catches my eye, causing me to cast something between a squint and a glare at the offending beam.
I sit silently in my wingback chair, legs crossed, notepad resting on my lap, listening to the interminable dross of marital problems on which my clients seek my counsel.
He doesn’t listen. She’s too needy. He doesn’t appreciate her. She doesn’t put out enough. On and on and on. So many of the same trivial issues verbalized from different trivial people that they often blur together in my mind. Couples merge to become a singular mass of whining, churning misery.
Job security, I tell myself. I’ve given up finding fulfillment in work, even in relationships. It’s all become so dissatisfying. I once thought that earning a doctorate in clinical psychology would ensure that I was engulfed in interesting cases, in stimulating exploration of fractured psyches. Unfortunately, there were too few of those gems to pay the bills. So, here I sit, marriage counselor extraordinaire, letting this verbal sewage flow into my ears from an endless stream of bickering spouses.
Today is no different. Another couple with a burgeoning divorce trying to cling together because of their son. An admirable goal. Doomed to failure.
This is their first session. An emergency, I was told. Not that there is really such a thing in this line of work. An ‘emergency’ usually consists of a fight they can no longer avoid or a discussion they are too meek to have without a referee. I’ve always found it amusing that what they never seem to realize is that by the time a couple is looking for someone like me to unite with them against their spouse, that they have both already lost.
It is of some consolation to me that this couple is mildly more interesting that most. A successful actress and director. Their problems, however, could not be more mundane.
After introductions are made, pleasantries exchanged, we sit. Husband and wife on opposite ends of my large sofa, myself in my chair, and I wait as the silence they find uncomfortable and I find relaxing fills the room.
Nicole begins. A tearful tirade of how she’s lost herself in her marriage, how she’s taken for granted and how her dreams have fallen victim to her husband’s selfish whims. I wait, hoping to hear something unique, to no avail.
I offer my best professional condolences and plastic assurances that, “I’m here to help.”
Once Nicole has finished and is sniveling quietly into a tissue, I turn to her husband, Charlie.
Charlie sits relaxed on the couch, one long leg crossed over the other, too indifferent to his crying wife. He runs a large hand through his hair as he smiles at me. A flagrantly curated gesture meant to endear me to him. I give him the false smile that I put on every day along with my jacket before leaving my home.
He first makes it a point to politely but firmly address and counter all of his wife’s complaints. A decent tactic for a debate, less so for ensuring marital bliss.
What a sanctimonious ass.
Following this is his florid reasoning as to why he is the superior partner in the marriage, and also, a thinly veiled ploy to garner my sympathy. I listen with interest. Not to his ‘problems,’ which are absurdly negligible, but to his investment in gaining my commiseration.
Odd that such a confident man would have any concern for gaining the approval of a stranger. It quickly becomes obvious that his poignant desire for endorsement extends beyond today’s counseling session. So, the big shot director craves validation from women. A useful kernel of information.
Finally, the emergent strife between this couple is revealed to me when Charlie discloses an affair.
Even this, however, is a feeble attempt to garner sympathy, whether from me or his wife, I cannot be sure. It is noteworthy to me that he craves validation for even this unsavory conduct. Of course, he was pushed into it. The poor poor man had no recourse from his terrible marriage with his beautiful starlet wife other than to run headlong into the orifices of another woman.
I hope my features remain neutral, not belying my cynical amusement.
I wonder how many other women there were. How many others there are. I am certain his mousy stage manager is only a minnow in his sea of consorts.
Turning my attention briefly to Nicole, I can see she is affected by Charlie’s disclosure. I see sadness, remorse, even pity reflected in her empathetic eyes. Pathetic. She did not strike me as being overly burdened with intelligence, an assessment that is now reinforced. It is little wonder that Charlie has so easily kept his assignations from her scrutiny.
When Charlie says how lonely and joyless his marriage was, I nod in a guise of sympathy that I do not feel so as to conform to the rules of polite society.
Truth be told, I feel very little anymore. As Charlie meanders through the tiresome details of his affair, my mind drifts. I think back to the last time I’ve truly felt something. Anything. Charlie thinks that when I raise my eyebrows in a show of mild consideration that it is from his words and not from my own epiphany that it has been years since I myself have felt anything resembling joy. The emotional highs I seek are always closer to excitement and satisfaction.
A picture of Mr. Barber has begun to form in my mind. His confident air and easy smile are all a mask. A face he puts on every day the way I put on mascara and lipstick to make himself presentable to the rest of the world. But, what is he hiding beneath the mask?
Even his confidence, it seems, is built upon a fragile foundation of affirmation, stolen from the lips of young naive women. No doubt too many for even Charlie himself to remember the figure.
He has used countless women to climb out of his own well of insecurity. Each body a lifeline to be desperately grasped and used, in an attempt to elevate his own self-worth.
Yet, it’s never enough for a man like him. Perpetually chasing a high that lingers just out of reach, and settling instead for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy amid his grimy carnality.
Yes, I’m getting a clear picture of Charlie, indeed. Despite what his handsome smile and steady amber eyes belie.
When Charlie is finished, Nicole is in tears, doing her best to use an entire box of tissues, while he looks at me. His gaze is confident, almost expectant.
He thinks I’m sympathetic to him. That he’s won me over. Poor Charlie. The thought of removing the smug grin from his lips makes my own turn upwards slightly. Even if for nothing other than to show him that I do not fall victim to such transparent manipulation.
“Charlie,” I say sweetly, luring him into a trap of my own. “I see a small problem with your perceived ‘difficulties’ in your marriage. What of these issues with Nicole were not facets of her character from the outset? I’m sure a man as perceptive as yourself became aware of them quickly”
Charlie’s mouth sets as I speak, his disdain seeping through the cracks of his marble features.
“Much as I’m sure she should have been aware of your hubris rather early,” My eyes hold his intently. “I would pose it to you that your predilection for women outside of your marriage is not as simple as a misstep or a quirk to overcome.”
Charlie was glaring at me now. Even though his face remained even, his eyes burned lividly as they held mine. Good.
Nicole, knowing Charlie must be upset by my words, rushed to his defense even now. “Maybe Charlie just felt that I-“
“No, Nicole.” I cut her off immediately, my tone sharp. “You hold no accountability for this.”
Charlie’s jaw clenches fiercely as I continue.
“Is that how a man acts who wants to save his marriage?” I lean forward slightly, allowing just a hint of venom to tinge my next words. “Is that how a man who cares about his son behaves?”
Charlie’s eyes darken markedly with an emotion I can’t quite place. Although, for the first time today, hell, the first time in weeks, I feel a surge of excitement flood through me.
“To say differently would mean you’re lying yet again to your wife.” I smile wickedly. “That you’re lying to me.”
Nicole looks at me with red, thankful eyes. In them I also see a glimmer of hope. I’ll never understand women like her. Weak, cloying women, desperate to retain a man who has wronged them. But, it’s written on her face as plainly as Charlie’s malice radiates towards me. He could fix things with Nicole if he wanted. She even believes that he’ll try.
I know, as I look into Charlie’s eyes that now gleam with a simmering enmity, that he will put no effort into fixing his marriage. No, he is as intent on destroying this as he has everything else in his life. I wonder if he’s aware of that pattern himself, I muse.
As much as @iamakiller is mean to me (not complaining because I like the impossible chase lol) I have to thank him for inspiring me to write a new one-shot that should be finished as soon as I’m done with my long-fic chapter.
It’s going to be a dark, twisted and horny mess lol
Oh, I'll fuck you, Kitten. So deep and so hard that your mind will go blank. You'll forget all feelings of guilt, or shame. All you'll know is me. When you cum, it'll be my name on your lips. My hands on your throat. My cock spilling hot, thick ropes of cum inside you. Then I'll put a pillow under your hips. Plug my fingers inside you so you don't waste a drop. Tease your overstimulated senses until you're about to snap. And then I'll fuck you again. And again. And again. Until we're sure.
👁👄👁 y e s p l e a s e
I know it’s gonna work, Charlie. There’s too strong a bond between us for it not to take.
I need to feel it, feel you, inside me. Please give me your baby, Charlie. I’ll never, ever tell. I promise.
Fucking fill me up till I’m overflowing. I’ll keep it so safe, so deep. Our little secret.
No one will know a thing. Especially not Pat, when I see him again tonight, and he asks me how my day was. I won’t tell him it was life changing, that I’ll never be the same, that I spent it underneath you getting fucked and bred and filled to the brim with another man’s child.