Richard can't bear to look at the woman who used to kiss him and him only was now kissing another man. He felt like a poisoned dagger had just been plunged into his beating heart and was no longer pumping.
Wisdom was his heart, his life. But it seems, he never managed to think about that before he lunged into Francine's cave—the one between her legs.
And she is also engaged to the man, to Denver Mikhail Giordano—the richest man in city.
A tear fell from his face and into his arm as he was driving home now, to Francine's condominium unit to where he was staying.
Richard was currently living with Francine. Her luxury unit is enough to quench his desire for lavish and expensive things.
Yes, he wouldn't deny he loves fancy and costly things. That's why he left Wisdom for Francine in the first place. But what he couldn't endure is that the woman he once left is now the one living with the richest billionaire in this city. Karma had indeed been a bitch to him.
He was insulted; he felt as if he failed. He regretted leaving her. It feels like he jumped into the ocean in order to get out of the rain. He only left her because he thinks that their marriage is a 'failure'. Not knowing that his life with Francine is much more mundane and colorless and absolute failure.
“I shouldn't have left her.” There, he managed to say it to himself. He may be the only man in this car but Richard felt as if he voiced it into the air that can be heard by everyone on the planet.
“I should have stayed with Wisdom…” Richard finally cried.
They say that regret always lies at the end of the lane; Richard was a living witness to that. Because for now, he had regretted the decision he made out of lust and sexual need the day he left Wisdom.
“One should never decide when you are at the height of a strong emotion.”
Yet, Richard prevailed to burst into tears.
Coincidentally, it rained as well. As if Mother Nature had cried with him, pitied him. It was nature's way of saying to him that people indeed make mistakes.
And one must be ready to face the consequences of those mistakes.
***
Richard knew what those sounds were. He was also pretty much sure to whom those moans belong to.
With a heavy heart, he still swung the condominium door open, hoping that the sounds were only a product of his imagination.
But they were not.
And what's more painful is that Francine was doing it on the living room, on the very couch that bears the memory of the night he first fuck her wife's bestfriend a.k.a. Francine Cabello.
Francine was also doing it with two men—not one but to two, grown-up men. Both are handsome in their own ways and possess well-toned bodies.
“Francine,” Richard whispered his lover's name. Yet, it was so soft that she didn't fathom his call for the first time.
“Francine!” He now said it in a yell, an enraged yell.
He watched Francine's pleasured face shift back into her original bitchy mien. “Hello, honey!”
‘Don't call me, honey!’ He mused with a scowled face and clenched fists at both hands.
She immediately grabbed her bathrobe on the center table. So as the two young men who Richard thought were around 18-20 years old.
“Meet my dear friends, Richard. This is Anton and this is Erwin. They are twins,” Francine fixed herself as she stood and marched her way to him. Of course, he can obviously see that they are twins because they have pretty much identical faces.
The two men were still naked, standing still on either side of the couch as if they were some picturesque statues that had been purposely carved and put in there.
She tried to give him a hug but he backed away. "Dear friends? These two are your dear friends?!”
Francine nodded and gave him a sweet, annoying smile.
“Anton, Erwin. Would you mind putting your clothes on and get out on these four damned walls?!”
The twins obediently followed what he commanded. In a minute or two, Anton and Erwin were now outside the door.
Francine was glaring at him for the entire time. "What’s wrong with you? Those are my boys!”
“Your boys?" He sneered down at her. "Or your slaves?”
Francine's nose flared at his statement. “You're never been rude to me before, Richard. What's gotten into you?!”
“What's gotten into me is YOU! You dare bring another men in this room. I thought I was the only man you would hold and tend and caress?”
“You're sounding romantic again!" She blurted out.
Richard was just holding his fury. His fists are obviously ready to land on Francine's stomach and face.
“Yes. You are the only man in my life. But there are things that I must quench. Things like sex, Richard. I do not love the twins. I paid them to pleasure me. Having sex without attachment to others is just like a housekeeper giving you a bath. Nothing more, nothing less…”
Richard was holding himself to not slap the bitch in front of him. He brought his hands to his waist and purposely stepped away so that his hands won't find its way on Francine's neck and choke her to death.
“Just like giving a bath, huh?”
Without any doubt, he stormed out of the unit. He noticed that the twins, Anton and Erwin, are still outside the door. They probably heard everything. They just stood there, with arms crossed on their chest, as if Francine commanded them to stand there like they were some sort of paid, guard dogs.
Richard just gave them a tight nod and headed for the elevator. He pressed down and punched the elevator doors as soon as he was inside in order to release his rage and simmering anger.
And minutes after, he was now traversing to his favorite bar…all alone.
***
The bar had not much people.
"One bucket of ice-cold beers, please.”
He then relaxed himself on his seat. There were strippers performing on the little stage. What a nice and spicy view!
Richard looked out the window. The windows have droplets of water derived from the rain that just stopped ten minutes ago.
It’s cold inside. He doesn’t know why. Or perhaps it’s only because of what he’s feeling right now? That the coldness and sudden emptiness he felt also made his body feel the same?
He didn’t know. But one thing he knew is that this bar was the very place he first laid eyes on the woman whose lips already belong to the handsome billionaire by now: Wisdom Linnea Calvin Weisz.
The bucket of beers he ordered had arrived. Yet, when he looked at the female server, it was Wisdom.
Richard gasped and grabbed the beauty by her wrist. He blinked again—once, then twice.
"Sorry. I thought you were someone else…”
The girl, who was wearing a glittery crop-top and miniskirt, just gave him a nervous laugh then strolled away.
Richard shook his head. He was already seeing things the moment he was yet to be drunk, how much more when he is actually drunk?
‘Never mind! The drunkard Richard joins the group chat,’ he mused as he brought the first bottle of cold beer into his mouth.
The taste was just the same—of course, it is still a beer. But the memories he had with Wisdom on the very walls of this bar were still dangling on the last string of hope that hangs between his conscience and his lust.
A semi-naked stripper was dancing on a pole. His smile grew wider, imagining the pretty stripper as Wisdom.
And in a minute, his memory drifts back to the time he and Wisdom first met…
***
The First Time Wisdom and Richard Met...
_________
It was raining again. Going home to his apartment at this hour is a form of torment.
Roads are slippery tonight and he cannot bear to drive another hour in his condition.
Frustrated. Angry. Irritated. Insulted. Those were the things stirring inside him as of now. His newest rich girlfriend just broke up with him for another guy as she deemed Richard as a 'destitute rat living in the slums'.
Well, it's somewhat true otherwise. He is poor and is living in the cheapest apartment in town. And he's technically a rat as he was mostly the ones bullied by bigger, richer men at their university.
“What's your order, Mister?” The sweet voice of a youthful, beautiful woman beamed at him.
A name was etched on her nameplate: Linnea.
“Just a bucket of ice-cold beer and a plate of grilled meat.”
“Would that be all?”
He looked at the beauty in front of him. She has rosy cheeks and a slender body. The size of her breasts could fit exactly on his palms if he cupped those big, rounded tits.
“Yes,” he answered while brushing his lips with his thumb.
“It will take five to ten minutes then.”
Richard just gave her a tight nod and refrained from taking his gaze away from ‘Linnea' as she walked away.
Her rounded ass was pretty much his type. He imagined squeezing those and her on top of him—with her skin as the only apparel she would be wearing.
When that gorgeous Linnea reached his table again after a couple of minutes, he asked her candidly without a hint of shyness.
“Would you like to spend your night with me tonight? I will pay you three times your hourly rate.” He then plastered the sexiest, sweetest smile on his handsome face.
“But I am not a strip—”
“I know. But I wouldn't be renting you. You will just sit beside me, talking and staring, eating and drinking with me. And with me only.”
“But I—”
“Please, Linnea. Please…”
The moment the girl heard her name being muttered by this handsome and total stranger sent something down to her system.
She sat down beside him, with still her uniform and even the food tray.
And that night was the beginning of a supposedly sweet love story—if only Richard wasn't dumb enough to exchange the hardworking, beautiful Wisdom Linnea Weisz to the spoiled, rich brat who was baptized as Francine Cabello.