From Wife To Mistress

POV Angie

The bedroom glowed amber, shadows stretching across cream walls. It was the end of a long and hard week of writing, reading, and checking contracts, managing tens of people, and dealing with all manner of manipulative, secretive, and vindictive bastards during negotiations.

I sat at the edge of our bed, fingers working the clasp of my earring stuck in waves of my brown hair, while Andrew shifted behind me, the mattress sighing under his weight.

"Come here," he murmured, hand sliding across my shoulder blade. That same lazy touch he'd perfected years ago—the artist's caress that once made me shiver. Now it felt like being pawed by a sleepy cat. "You've been working all day. Let me help you relax."

"Andrew—"

"Shh." His lips found my neck, pressing the same spot he always chose, right below my ear. His breath came hot and rehearsed. "We haven't made love in weeks, Angie. Don't you miss it? Miss us?"

I do, but not the half-hearted version present now.

His hands traveled down my arms, following the script he'd written for himself—the sensitive artist-husband, so attentive, so passionate. The routine had worked once. Back when his carelessness felt like freedom, his magnetism like gravity I wanted to fall into.

But now he failed to arouse anything in me except boredom and irritation with his rehearsed dispassionate attempts.

"I'm tired," and I was — to explain exactly how blind to me and my needs he actually was. I stood to place the earrings in their box.

"You're always tired." The whine crept into his voice, that particular pitch of wounded masculinity. "Every night it's something. Too tired, too stressed, too busy. What about me, Angie? What about what I need?"

"What you need," I repeated, watching him in the mirror. Even pouting, he was handsome—dark curly hair falling artfully across his forehead, those painter's hands that had once mapped my body like a canvas. "Tell me, Andrew. What exactly do you need?"

"My wife. I need my wife to want me again." He flopped back against the pillows, a performance of dejection. "Is that so terrible? Wanting to feel desired by the woman I married?"

"No," I said, walking to the bathroom. "It's not terrible. It's just not happening tonight."

"Unbelievable." His voice followed me through the closing door. "Absolutely unbelievable."

I shut the bathroom door behind me, leaning against it. The coolness of the wood seeped through my shirt, a stark contrast to the heated tension in the bedroom. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, the echo of his words still ringing in my ears.

Morning came wrapped in Andrew's signature silence. He moved through the kitchen like a man made of glass, brittle and transparent. Coffee poured—none offered to me. Toast buttered with violent precision. Every gesture screamed his displeasure without him having to say a word.

"Going out," he announced finally, already reaching for his jacket.

"Where?"

"Need to... the city, you know. Walk around. Find..." He waved his hand vaguely, as if plucking words from air. "Inspiration. New perspectives. The usual wandering."

The words barely held together, consonants bumping into vowels like strangers on a crowded street. But I didn't care enough to press.

"Fine."

"Don't wait up." He paused at the door, perhaps expecting me to protest, to play my role in our worn-out drama. When I stayed silent, he left, the door clicking shut with finality.

The apartment expanded in his absence, breathing easier. I moved through my day untethered—coffee that went cold, a book abandoned after three pages, lunch forgotten on the counter. By evening, the walls pressed close again, and restlessness crawled under my skin.

I dressed without thinking—jeans, a silk blouse, the leather jacket Andrew bought me three birthdays ago. The city called, not my usual routes but forgotten corners, streets I'd passed but never walked. The dying sun painted everything gold and shadow as I wandered deeper into neighborhoods where boutiques sprouted between bodegas, where gentrification hadn't quite won its war.

Shopwindows blazed with promises: "Transform Your Life!" "Find Your Bliss!" "Happiness Guaranteed!" Each advertisement more desperate than the last, selling joy like it came in bottles.

The crowd thinned as I turned onto a quieter street. That's when I heard it—that laugh. Hannah's laugh, bright as breaking glass, unmistakable even after three years of silence between us.

She stood outside a French café, transformed. Gone was Hannah who'd worn oversized sweaters and complained about her thighs. This Hannah gleamed—red lipstick like fresh blood, a dress that worshipped her curves, hair styled in waves that caught the streetlight like copper wire.

And beside her, leaning close with that particular tilt of his head I knew so well, stood my husband.

Andrew was speakingly fast and passionately about something, when suddenly he stopped, as if dumbstruck or struck by lightning.

"I’ve been feeling my artistic best, you know.” His face cracked with a smile, his voice cracked with tenderness. “Thanks to you. You did this." His hand rose to touch her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone. "You're my new muse."

Hannah's smile sharpened, predatory. "Your muse? How very artistic of you."

"I should repay you." His voice dropped lower, intimate, the tone he'd once reserved for me. "If you know what I mean."

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean." Her hand slid up his chest, fingers curling into his shirt. "The question is whether you can deliver on all these promises."

"Let me show you."

The kiss that followed was nothing like the dutiful pecks he'd given me lately. This was hunger, desperation, his hands tangling in her hair while she pressed against him like she wanted to crawl inside his skin. His mouth moved to her throat; she gasped. Right there on the street, under the neon glow of boutique signs, my husband devoured my former friend with the passion he claimed I'd killed.

The pain hit first—a knife between ribs, sharp and precise. Betrayal. Humiliation. The pathetic comedy of it all.

But then, underneath, something else erupted.

Rage.

Pure, clean rage that burned through the numbness like acid through cloth. My hands clenched into fists, nails cutting half-moons into my palms. Blood roared in my ears. Every nerve ending sparked alive, electric with fury.