However today I found out that he had stopped all opportunities for me to regain my sight back. He did that just for him to have a more exciting affair. He even wanted me to stay blind forever. It was truly socruel.
After dinner, Austin took me back to my bedroom. Actually, it was a guest room. He had lied to me saying that it was our bedroom He even had rearranged the guest room to resemble our bedroom.
It seemed I had been living in this room for almost six years I had been blind. As for the true bedroom? It was very likely it had a beautiful woman waiting for him now.
After I got on the bed, as usual, Austin wrapped his hand around me and patted my back gently. His voice was low, warm and filled with affection as he murmured my name over and over.
I opened my eyes and stared at the soft glow of his phone screen. One dirty and lewd word after another on it had turned my perception of this man upside down. The sight was so disgusting and dirty that I had to push down the bile in my throat.
Refusing to look at it anymore, I just closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. After a few moments, he called my name twice. When I didn’t respond, he crept off the bed and left the room quietly.
Once the door clicked shut, I opened my eyes. I looked at the closed door and pondered for a while, then like a masochist, I silently followed him.
I saw Austin enter a bedroom and through the closed door, I could hear muffled voices.
"Mr. Sanders, you left your blind wife to come here again. Won’t she get mad if she finds out?" Ruby's sweet voice sounded.
“Slut! Didn’t you beg me, your husband, to come?” Austin’s voice was low and mocking.
Then came the rustling of clothes and heavy breathing from inside. Then I heard Ruby gasping and said, "Hubby, let go of the blind woman's room again, okay? I want to feel some trill tonight."
“Not tonight," answered Austin.
Ruby purred, “Why not? Don’t you like it? You get so worked up when you see her face while we’re doing it.”
“She just had a miscarriage,” Austin replied, his tone growing impatient. “I didn’t give her the sleeping pills tonight. She’ll hear us if we go in there.”
“Hmph. Then you owe me some extra tonight to make up for it .…”
The ambiguous sounds inside continued, but I was already frozen in place like a puppet that had lost its soul.
I remembered that Austin always coaxed me to drink the glass of milk that he brought every night. Though he told me it was for my health, in reality, it was for him to be able to make his affair more exciting.
I stumbled back to the guest room in a daze. The phone on the nightstand buzzed incessantly as messages kept pouring in.
The phone was set to blind mode so when I unlocked the screen, the blind-assistance mode read them aloud automatically.
It was a series of audio messages. In the first message was Ruby's high-pitched moaning in ecstasy and the man who had always been calm and introverted in front of me sounded like a wild beast that had gone mad. He spites out those harsh and hideous words that I had never heard before.
"Sally, did you hear that?" said Ruby. "Your husband is incredible. He’s driving me crazy!”
"Hubby, who do you love more? Do you love me more or her?"
Austin's voice was tinged with laughter as he answered, "Of course I love you more. Say … what's the point of always comparing yourself to a blind woman? She's like a dead fish in bed …."
Big drops of tears smashed on the screen, I fumbled furiously, trying to turn off the sound, but their voices became clearer and clearer in my head—every single one of them.
My stomach churned violently. Barefoot and shaking, I staggered to the bathroom, clutching my chest as I dry-heaved over the sink.
That night stretched on endlessly.
The murmur from the bedroom next door did not stop until dawn and I lay wide awake as I stared into the void. My tears kept flowing silently.
In the morning, Austin went to work with Ruby at his side.
