Face-Slapping12 min read
He Came Back Different
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I woke at one in a.m. to the weight of someone over me and the small sparks of touch that made my skin prickle. For a moment I thought I was still dreaming, until his mouth covered mine and I couldn't breathe.
"Jude—" I managed, my hand pressing on his chest, fumbling for the lamp. I snapped it on with a loud click.
"Please," I said, voice small and pleading. "I—my period's coming. I'm tired. Can we... not tonight?"
He was bathed in the lamp's warm glow. The lines of his face were sharper than they used to be. I loved him still, I told myself. I had told him, years ago, the medical tests said he couldn't. I had said it didn't matter. He had laughed and kissed me and promised me a life that didn't depend on his body.
"Then I'll be gentle," Jude said.
He didn't stop. He never did when he wanted something. This time the touch was different—harder, more full of hunger. When it was over I sat on the bed with my knees folded under me, dizzy and sore.
"What were you thinking?" I murmured.
Jude slid behind me, arms wrapping around my waist. "Nothing," he said. Then he breathed, his hair cool on my neck. "You're beautiful."
I kissed him back because this was what we always did after. But the man who had been in my life a year ago—the soft-spoken scientist I married—wasn't entirely the same. He had gone away for half a year and come back like someone else. He had come back cured, people said, and hungry for everything he had been told he could not have.
That evening at the family dinner, the house buzzed with small, careful talk. My mother-in-law smiled. "Two years married," she said. "About time you gave us grandchildren."
"Don't rush them," Jude murmured into my ear, and I felt like a child hiding in warmth.
"Two years and still no child," his sister Bella said loudly, and I felt my face burn. "Maybe she's saving them for a party."
I clutched my chopsticks so hard my knuckles ached.
Later that night I fell asleep exhausted. I woke late the next day to find an empty bed and a message from Jude: "Get up and come down. Tonight is the family dinner." It was six p.m. already.
At the table, everyone talked business, and the talk turned to the company—Blaine wanted his son to take on more work. "You should help Douglas run Haner Group," my father-in-law said.
Douglas Gardner, Jude's older brother, looked over at me. His eyes slid from my face to my waist, like a hand on a map. He had always been polite in front of people. Alone, he had a way of looking at women that made me uneasy. But I kept my mouth shut and ate.
After the meal the elders spoke about handing the company to Jude. For everyone it was a surprise. "You will be an executive," Blaine told him. "We need your mind."
"I'll do my best," Jude said. He reached for my hand and squeezed it under the table.
That night Jude told me, simple and low, that he had arranged investments and deals from the country he had traveled to. He had met people. He had a plan.
"I'll be busy," he said. "But I want us to have a child. I want you to stop using... everything."
He smiled like the old Jude as he said it. Later that night he sat me down and handed me a paper bag.
"Open it," he said.
I found the bag full of condoms. I laughed in disbelief and pushed them into the trash like a symbol someone threw away for me. "Is that your proof of faith?" I teased.
"Throw them out," he said. "I want a baby."
He meant it. The warmth of him sitting close when he promised settled something soft inside me. But there was an edge now—an impatience when things didn't go his way.
At work, the hospital smelled like disinfectant and lives. I was tired from three surgeries, an anxious kind of clean tired. A young patient arrived with severe inflammation and a weak heart. Jude came by the emergency because one of his students had fallen ill. The student, Beatriz Bradshaw, looked like she could snap like a twig. I worked for half an hour and brought her back to stable condition.
When I came out the office door Jude was there. He took me into his arms and breathed in the scent of the day. "You did well," he said.
I wanted to savor the small praise, but something in his eyes had hard edges. He kissed my mouth and I felt everything—then we were interrupted by the sound of the office door. Douglas stood there with a look I had seen before.
"Get out," Jude said, sharpness cutting the room.
Douglas walked away, but the tone changed the moment it happened. The two brothers did not like each other. The elder always had, in my mind, a claim on everything—work, position, power. After that I felt a prickle at the base of my neck.
"How is it at the company?" I asked Jude later.
He shrugged, feigned casual, but some other person spoke when he said, "It is mine to learn."
At home, the small, warm things still happened. We ate his favorite takeout. He joked about the pink hotel room I'd arranged. He still knew how to be gentle. But at the edge of those moments there was a dark current he never used to have. He started meetings with an easy charm that hid something else. He took coffee with a man named Aquiles Ford—formerly someone I thought he disliked. Aquiles left the cafe with a sly smile and a business card that smelled faintly of risk.
"How long have you known him?" I asked quietly.
"Long enough," Jude said with a thin smile. "He's useful."
I rolled my eyes playfully, and he kissed me, like a man confirming his territory.
At a small college reunion arranged by my old teacher Stan Ross, I walked into a room full of faces that had known me since before I became someone's wife. Someone mentioned Hendrix Bryant—the name made my heart skip; he had been the other boy from college who looked like Jude and made trouble in my head. People joked about him, said he was gone. I went to the bathroom and Douglas followed me.
He stepped too close. "You always look best in his arms," he whispered.
"Don't," I said. I stepped away.
"You're mine too," Douglas said, and his hand went to my hip.
"No," I snapped, louder than I meant.
He tried to force a kiss. My heart pounded, and I bit his hand so hard he laughed then, angry and stunned. "How dare you?" he spat, pulling back.
Before things escalated, someone had noticed—a friend named Finlay Adams came in and pulled Douglas off. Jude, who had been outside, stormed in like a man ready to hurt someone. He shoved Douglas away with one clean movement. My knees wobbled like a child saved from a fall.
"Do you ever forget who you are?" I said later to Douglas across the table at family dinner.
He grinned like a cat. "Your husband doesn't mind," he said.
That night I couldn't sleep. I felt watched. I felt the past brushing against the present—Hendrix's smile, Douglas's hands. I told myself it was jealousy, and my own heart's strange betrayals. Jude was mine, and I loved him. But I couldn't shake the sense that everything around him moved with a different gravity now.
Then my mother fell sick.
"Mom," I said, rushing to the hospital with Jude. Her face looked drawn; the tests told us what no one wanted to say. "Uterine cancer," the doctor Stan Ross said softly. "It's serious. We need surgery."
We decided to operate. The night before the surgery my mother, who had always worn stubbornness like a coat, climbed the hospital rooftop and stood dangerously close to the edge. She said it didn't matter; she was tired of the battle.
"Get back," I said, voice shaking.
"I don't want to be a burden," she whispered.
My legs moved on their own. Jude lunged forward and caught my mother before she stepped off. His hands were blood-warm, his voice steady as a rope.
"She's coming down," he said to me. "I'm not letting her go."
He had saved her. The nurses crowded around us with awe, whispering how fast he had reacted. When my mother later agreed to the surgery, there was relief so heavy in my chest that I could hardly breathe.
But hospital life turned rough. A patient died after surgery and the bereaved family caused a scene at my office, shouting and pointing like we had stitched death into our hands. The hospital's director called a meeting. He showed the recorded footage of the operation; we watched every motion, every step. The footage showed my hands doing what they should. Still, the director said they would suspend me temporarily while they investigated.
"You can stay," Jude said, when I came out, but the offer was thin. "I will fix this."
"Please," I said. "Don't make me the center."
He squeezed my fingers. "I won't let them bury you."
He argued for me in front of the board, quiet and furious. He spoke about age-related risks, the chance of complications, the signed consent forms. He turned the conversation away from me and placed it on the hospital's shoulders. Yet the board felt pressure. We lost the case in public. I was suspended for a time. I was supposed to rest.
Douglas watched it all with a wolf's grin. He had his own plans. His eyes traveled over me like a map. I wanted to tell Jude not to trust him.
"Thank you for standing up," I told Jude that night before he left for a board meeting.
"You don't owe me anything," he said. Then he kissed me the way a man claims a shoreline. "You're my wife."
Days after my suspension, I was on the hospital rooftop again to clear my head. A stranger spoke my name.
"Miss Louise?" He wore a foreign accent and looked lost. He asked directions, and I helped. He pretended to be clumsy and left, then sent Jude a photograph of me from behind. It was a weak attempt at blackmail from a man named Johan Luo—someone linked to the people Jude had met abroad. Johan thought he could buy safety with information. He couldn't.
Jude found Johan quickly. He spoke to him in a language that cut like steel. Johan stuttered and offered up his threats. "Tell me who you are," Jude demanded. The man flinched.
"You think you can threaten me?" Jude said. "If you go near my wife again, you'll regret it."
Johan retreated. I felt ridiculously safe and ridiculous at the same time.
But nothing had prepared me for what happened after the family dinner where Douglas had tried once more. He followed me to a quiet corridor.
"How about you come with me?" he said, all charm.
"No," I said.
He lunged. He tried to kiss me. I fought back and shouted. People came to the corridor. Jude arrived like a blade through smoke. He struck Douglas with a force that made him stagger back. The corridor seemed to hold its breath.
"What did you think you were doing?" Jude asked.
Douglas sneered and, to my horror, he grabbed for me. Jude punched him cleanly in the face in front of everyone. The room turned from murmur to silence to a roar. Douglas backpedaled, trembling with rage, then pain. His face changed from smug to shocked.
"You're going to pay for this," Douglas said in a low voice. "You think you can take everything from me?"
Jude smiled then, and it was too close to a grin. "Watch me," he said.
They let it go for that night. But I knew this would not be the last time Douglas tried to take what he felt entitled to.
Weeks later, the company hosted a charity banquet in the downtown hall. The whole family, board members, and many of the city's important people were there. The lights were bright. I wore a dress Jude liked. We sat near the center table. Douglas arrived late, smirking like always.
"Louise," he called over the clink of glasses. "Come say hello."
I stayed seated, because I was tired of being shuttled like an object to be displayed and admired. Douglas got louder, his voice carrying across the room. He hummed something untoward about "whose hands are on what" and made a gesture. Laughter bubbled from a few sickening corners.
Then the lights dimmed for a presentation. The big screen flickered and a video started to stream. At first it showed nothing but black. Then a message: "Some people collect favors. Some people collect lies."
Douglas's smile faltered.
"Turn it off," he hissed.
The screen kept rolling. It showed messages, photographs—messages between Douglas and a woman who was not his wife. It showed the times he had met with suspicious partners. Most damning were leaked recordings of his phone where he bragged about using a brother's name to take a project, where he discussed how to pressure a woman into submission, and—worst of all—audio of his hands on me in that corridor, the taunts he had whispered.
My mouth went dry.
"Is that—" someone breathed.
Douglas's face went from cocky to pale. He tried to reach for the control board but someone blocked him. He scanned the crowd, and their faces were turned away, many with phones out, many already recording.
"I didn't—" he said, but the recording kept playing. "Turn that off!"
"Who sent this?" my father-in-law demanded. The tone in his voice surprised me; he sounded more like the leader of a pack than the harmless man at dinners.
People murmured. Someone shouted, "Shame!"
"Shame!" echoed through the hall like a chorus. People lifted their phones higher. The clip of Douglas's touch on me in the corridor ran again, slowed. I could see his face, slick and entitled. The room watched his smugness become horror.
Douglas's posture slackened. He realized now that he was no longer in control. His every defense crumbled into fragments.
"You are lying," he stammered. "That's not me. It's doctored. I didn't—"
"You're denying it?" a woman called. "You have recordings. You touched her. You're a liar and a cheat."
He started to pace like an animal trapped. "They are doctored," he repeated, louder. "They're all lies."
"Look at him," someone whispered behind me. "He thought he could buy everything."
DJ cameras rotated. The room turned into a theatre of exposure. A standing man—Stan Ross—approached the microphone.
"Douglas Gardner," he said, voice steady. "We will call this to a vote before the board tomorrow. But right now, I want no business with a man who thinks he can take what is not his."
Douglas's face contorted. He scanned for allies. Some of them had lowered faces; others pretended not to know him. His mouth opened and closed. The earlier arrogance evaporated into panic.
"Please," he said, words thin and pleading. "This is—this is—" He tried to find any face that would take him in. None would.
An older woman rose—Minerva Schultz—and spoke with the cold calm of a queen. "We are in public," she said. "You brought shame to this family. You brought shame to this company."
A murmur built into a chant: "Shame! Shame!"
Someone in the back started clapping, half sarcastic, half real. A spectator held up a live stream and broadcast the scene to a thousand small glowing screens outside. The balcony filled with faces recording. Phones flashed like the reflection of a thousand tiny mirrors.
Douglas's denial shifted to frantic pleading. He stepped toward me with wild eyes. "Louise," he said, voice cracking. "You have to tell them it's not true. I didn't—"
"Get away from her," Jude said in a voice that stopped the air. He was quiet but there was an absolute law in it.
Douglas's face crumpled. For a moment he tried the old tactic—pride, manipulation. It unraveled. His knees went soft. He sank down on one knee on the polished floor, his suit wrinkling, his face wet with humiliation. "Please," he begged, voice small and breaking, "please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean—please, forgive me, I—"
Around us people recorded. A chorus of whispers swelled to an ugly roar as his hands shook and he looked to every direction for mercy. Cameras clicked. Someone in the back laughed softly and then the laughter spread, like a contagion of scorn.
"You got what you wanted," a woman said, not unkind. "Now own it."
Douglas pressed his hands to his face and sobbed. The crowd's reaction—half triumph, half disgust—closed in. People who had once smiled at him now looked away. The mayor's secretary, who'd always been polite to him at galas, stood and left. A voice shouted, "Out! Out!"
Someone found a security guard, who walked over and placed a neutral hand on Douglas's shoulder. "Sir, you need to leave," he said. It wasn't a plea. It was an order.
Douglas bent forward in a final pathetic attempt. "Please! Please! I can explain, I can pay, I'll—" He reached for my hand like a drowning man reaching for a rope and then let it fall. The crowd shifted with discomfort.
An old acquaintance took a step forward and snapped a photo, then posted it to a thousand watchers. Phones vibrated in pockets. The video went viral by the time the dessert arrived.
He tried to blame others and tried to explain that it had been harmless banter. The footage did what nothing else would: it showed intent, it showed his pattern, it showed the man I had felt in corridors and dinners. He lost color. He lost the right to speak without being heard as the subject of judgement.
"We will have an internal investigation," Blaine said later, voice flat. "But the board has made an immediate decision." He looked at Douglas with eyes that were not kind. "You are removed from your duties. You will be under legal review. You are not to come within this company's offices. You are not to contact Louise Farmer."
Douglas fell silent then. He had no footing. He had gone from predator to penitent in front of everyone. The room watched the transformation with a kind of savage satisfaction.
After the banquet, footage of his kneeling went up online. People commented. Some cheered. Some posted the clip with outraged captions. Others sent private messages to me—some blunt, some ugly. The city's gossip turned on him like a hive.
At home that night I sat on the edge of the bed while Jude moved quietly, folding his shirt. He had been both the hand that saved my mother and the fist that saved my dignity. He sat beside me and took my hand without speaking for a long time.
"You did good," I said.
"We did good," he answered.
He kissed the back of my hand like it was an oath. Outside our window the city hummed. The person who had tried to push himself into my life now faced the sound of his own undoing. I felt a small, cold peace settle in my chest. The punishment had been public, unavoidable, and complete. He had gone from entitled to exposed, from smug to broken. People who had once courted him stepped back. People who had ignored me rallied. The world tilted to a new balance.
But nothing about the night erased everything that had happened. There were wounds that words couldn't close. The media would not let him sink quietly. There would be hearings and lawyers and long days for all of us. For now, though, I breathed. For now the crowd's approval tasted like a small, necessary justice.
Jude curled his hand around mine and whispered, "Sleep."
I let myself sleep, and in the dark I dreamed of a garden—quiet, safe, and utterly mine.
The End
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