Take My Breath Away

"I agree to your first two conditions. As for the third, keep it to yourself. Now it's my turn. This is my first condition," said Carlos as he kicked open the door of the lounge, entered the room with Debbie in his arms and locked the door behind them. He passed all the other furniture in the room adroitly. They zipped past tables, chairs, and a standing liquor cabinet before Carlos stopped at the bed. The richly-appointed bed was inspired by eighteenth-century designs, and featured round ball top bed posts. It was colored a beautiful black walnut, and ornate duvets covered the sheets.

"What condition is that?" Debbie asked. Looking at the king-sized bed adorned with grey sheets, Debbie had a bad feeling all of a sudden. She was not sure what was going on, but the bed put an image in her head, and she was going to try and forestall that as long as she could.

"I'll have to show you for how many minutes you should forbid me from being alone with Megan."

As he said this, he threw Debbie onto the bed.

In an instant, he was on top of her. Her heart rate skyrocketed. Before she could respond, the man moved her arms up, and held her hands above her head with his own hand.

She struggled, but was unable to move. "Wait, wait! I'm trying to discuss something with you. I'm not here for this!" she yelled, panicked.

"We can discuss it while we do this." He pulled the zipper of her jacket down, peeled it off and threw it onto the floor. It lay there, silent witness to the actions Carlos was taking.

'What's going on?' she mused, growing more panicky. And that was the thing. She was hoping he'd say something to ease her anxiety. Instead, his actions just scared her even more.

Suddenly, he stopped, leaned forward and looked into her eyes. He said in a serious voice, "Deb, I've already given you plenty of time. We've been married for three years, and I never laid a finger on you. I don't care about the past, but from now on, I want you to be my woman, physically and mentally. Understand?"

She didn't think Carlos had it in him. He never so many words at a time. This was the most he'd said to her in awhile. Debbie, however, was focused on the sentence—"I want you to be my woman, physically and mentally."

'He's going to have sex with me?! What should I do? Should I turn him down?'

With a red face, she stammered, "I-I understand."

To be honest, she had already mentally prepared for this when they were in J City. After all, Carlos was her husband, and it was normal for couples to have sex. They would have done it there if it weren't for their argument—they couldn't agree on what position to use. But now, she wasn't so sure. She wanted to talk to him, not do the horizontal mambo.

And so far, Carlos had been nice to her. The only thing he did that really ticked her off was maintain a relationship with Megan. And even that could be forgiven, as long as none of them crossed the line. Problem was, she wasn't sure that they hadn't crossed that fabled line. He'd generally treated her well—he made sure she was well-taken care of financially, and sent Phillip and Julie to ens

ented, "What do you want?"

Initially, Debbie didn't plan to reply, for she didn't know who this person was. But she was really frustrated right now and wanted to vent her anger. So she replied, "I want Carlos Huo to step barefoot on a porcupine."

She didn't think it was a big deal to mention Carlos Huo in Moments. Only her close friends knew she was married to him. As for the rest of her WeChat friends, they all thought that she was cracking a joke.

C replied, "What did he do to you?"

Debbie paused. She wasn't stupid enough to tell a stranger the whole story between her and Carlos. She just said, "He didn't do anything to me. He thought his girlfriend had slept with her ex. I just can't believe he said that."

Debbie updated her Moments a couple of times, but C stopped posting.

'Maybe he's busy right now, ' she thought. She really wanted to find out who this person with no profile photo was. Having no profile pic was rare, but not impossible. All he needed to do was upload a blank PNG file and it wouldn't show up on WeChat.

She clicked his dialog box and sent a message, "May I ask who you are?"

C replied very quickly, "You don't need to know who I am."

The reply rendered Debbie speechless.

Shaking it off, she decided to ignore him. 'Probably just some rando on the Internet, ' she thought. However, within two minutes, C changed the profile photo.

The new one seemed somewhat familiar, but it was a bit small to see on the phone. Debbie tapped on it to see in full-screen mode. That person used her photo as the profile pic!

She and Kasie had vacationed in Paris together and Kasie took a picture of her standing beneath the Eiffel Tower. She posted that picture in Moments.

Debbie tapped the photo to make it normal-sized again, and sent a message to C. "Why did you use my pic as your profile photo? Who the heck are you? You know me?"

C's response floored her. "You know how people put beautiful singers and actresses in their profile pics? You look hot in that pic, so I used it. I like you, and I'm going to make you mine."