SEVEN MONTHS TO MAKE HIM BEG

Jayla looked at herself in the mirror for the tenth time and she just couldn’t recognize the woman staring back at her.

Maybe it was the new dress she had bought three days ago and hidden beneath a stack of clothes embarrassed by how much she wanted to wear it.

Or it’s the new shampoo she had added to her haircare collection just to make sure everything was perfect for this night.

Tonight was their anniversary and it’s been nine months since her husband touched her intimately.

Nine months since the wife tag had been feeling more like an obligation rather than a duty.

And she had stopped asking why because she knew it already. But tonight she had decided to try anyway. “It’s ovulation hormone, and I need him.” That’s what she told herself.

The time was 11:47pm.

She spritzed the sweet fragrance he once complemented, then sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

Her eyes moved to the clock and it was already 11:58pm, it would be midnight soon and the anniversary would be officially over.

Jayla’s smile faded.

Then she heard the front door turn. Her heart jumped.

She stood quickly adjusting the red transparent cotton robe as the footsteps approached.

The bedroom door swung open, and there was Alex, loosening his tie. He froze when he saw her.

His face didn’t show much. Jayla’s smile wavered. “Happy anniversary,” she said.

He glanced at the clock. “You’re still awake?”

“Yeah, I wanted to wait for you.”

He walked right past her. The scent of her perfume trailed behind him, but he frowned as he caught a whiff. “What is that?”

Jayla gripped the edge of her dress a little harder. “It’s your favorite.”

“I never said it was my favorite.”

“But you used to like it.” Her voice trembled.  

“That was a long time ago.” He snapped.

She swallowed hard. “I thought tonight might be different.”

Alex paused and slowly turned back to face her. “Jayla.” The way he said her name made her stomach knot.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t.”

She blinked. “Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re trying to do, don’t do it again.”

Her cheeks heated up. “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

He shot her a tired look. “You dressed up like that for me?”

She nodded, “just trying to make it a special night.”

Alex looked away, letting out a humorless laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Jayla felt her body tingling beneath the cotton fabric.

“You haven’t made advances to me for nine months now, as your wife.”

“And?”

She stared down, feeling cornered. “I thought…”

“You thought what?”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it but he took the word right out of her mouth.

“You thought I’d suddenly want you because it's our anniversary?”

Those words hit her like a ton of bricks and it hurt with the way she looked down feeling defeated.

“I just wanted us to feel like a married couple again.”

“We are married on paper,” he snapped. “Not here.” He gestured to the moment.

“Alex…

“It’s enough. You’ve been doing this all evening, waiting for me to come home and notice you, waiting for me to pretend that this was working?”

Jayla’s throat felt tight. “I don’t want you to pretend.”

He looked her in the eye. “Then stop expecting me to.”

Silence hung between them. Jayla forced herself to take a breath. “I thought we could find love here as a couple.”

His face turned cold. “I don’t think I can love you Jayla.”

The room tilted beneath Jayla, she slowly found the edge of the bed and sat down.

“We only married because of the agreement and I need to play my part for the merger to be signed.”

She stared at the marble floor, at her newly painted toenails and tears formed around her pupil. “Just business.”

“Yeah,” Alex took off his watch. “You knew what you were getting into so don’t think things might change.”

Jayla nodded, feeling the weight of it all. “Alright.”

He set his watch down on the nightstand and went into the bathroom.

The bathroom door closed and something inside her dropped as she sat alone quietly in the silence.

She looked at her image in the mirror and the woman staring back wasn’t the desirable woman earlier but now foolish.

She took off the dress and carefully arranged it back into the bag. By morning she would burn it.

She cursed herself inside her mind at how stupid she was to have thought the idea was good, how desperate she wanted to have him so bad that she thought she could actually make him love her, and how blinded she had chosen to ignore the truth that was clearly visible to her countless times.

She wiped the humiliation from her face, and quietly lay on her side of the bed.

It’s 3am.

Jayla didn’t know when she fell asleep. The only thing she noticed when she opened her eyes again was that the other side of the bed was empty.

She reached across the sheet and it was cold.

Her brows drew together.

Has he left the room for her? She thought to herself.

“Alex?”

She called but there was no response.

She sat up.

Then she heard it. A soft sound, barely audible coming from downstairs.

Jayla slipped out of bed, walked towards the door, careful not to make a sound.

Then another quiet moan drifted through the hallway. Her heart stumbled.

That was Alex’s voice moaning.

She moved down the stairs, the living room was dark except for the faint light from his laptop sitting on the mahogany desk.

Alex was sitting alone on the couch with his hand stroking up and down on his c*ck and a deep moan following the rhythm.

His phone was pressed against his ear and his head was tilted to the back.

Jayla’s fingers tightened around the railing.

He whispered something but Jayla couldn’t make out the words.

Then a woman’s voice came faintly through the phone.

Jayla froze.

She couldn’t hear what the woman was saying to her husband that was making him moan this way.

Her stomach twisted when Alex answered.

“Keep talking, I will soon finish.”

The woman’s voice murmured again and Alex's breathing changed.

Jayla pressed a hand over her mouth trying not to make a sound.

She took one slow step back, then another and like that till she was finally in the room.

She laid in that position all morning and somewhere beneath that shock, beneath the desperate need to believe there could be a way to make him want her, she clearly understood.

Alex wasn’t just punishing her, he simply wasn’t interested in her to begin with.