Read Geekus Interruptus for Free Online

She was keenly aware her husband would, at any moment, lope into the
kitchen, smelling of oatmeal soap. With a towel around his waist and her
missing panties on his mind. But she couldn’t stop now. She absolutely had to
see whom his baby was and what they were going to do when they got naked
together.
    She traded out the SD card and
double-clicked on the icon. The file from the camera took a minute to download.
Marcy could hardly stand the wait. Had the gadget worked? She fast-forwarded
until the digital readout hit six p.m. Where was her husband every night from
six to eight? Working late like he claimed? Or in a love shack he’d secretly
rented in the city? Maybe in some luxury suite at the Marriott or the Ritz? Or
on his back in some young chick’s penthouse apartment, ganja-fueled dorm room,
or second-floor walkup?
    She could hear him padding around on the
oak flooring upstairs, still whistling some pointless tune. Her bones felt hollow,
light, as if she might fly off the chair and float away into the summer night.
    When she opened the file, the screen filled
with a hazy image. What a shitty camera, she could barely make out anything in
the picture! This pissed her off so much she wanted a refund. Then something
adjusted, either her eyes or the camera, and she could make out the lines of a
large desk. Jess’s desk. In the background were the diploma-filled walls of his
office in the city. The silver-edged back of a framed photo, probably the one
of the two of them in Rome on holiday two years earlier. Back when she loved him
and thought he loved her.
    Their trip to Italy had been so incredible.
They’d had such a wonderful time, wandering the narrow winding streets,
stopping at friendly little bistros for tiny cups of espresso and warm pastries,
crystal goblets of robust Barolo, an endless supply of house Chianti served in
funky juice glasses. Their lovemaking had been continuous, the windows open to
the busy markets below, the sky a buffed blue. She’d gotten pregnant on that
trip. They’d both been so excited about their future.
    None of it had worked out as she’d hoped.
    The video was black and white and about
fifty shades of gray. Marcy braced herself, expecting the worst. Porno starring
geek guy? And prom queen, sugar baby escort girl, Miss Denmark, a sassy coed
with a passion for other women’s husbands? Her stomach twisted itself into a
double knot.
    On the screen, the door opened and someone
fuzzy entered the office. Marcy’s heart raced, and her belly flipped. She would
have barfed right then, but her insides were so empty she felt like she’d been
vacuumed out. Evacuated of all substances other than pain.
    “What’re you watching?”
    Marcy jumped so high she tumbled out of the
chair. Recovering, she squared her shoulders, pressed the pause button, and
turned to face her husband.
    His lovely eyes were less green and more
gray, their natural color when lenses were not in place. Without contacts, she doubted
he could see enough on her computer screen to grasp what she’d been up to. So
she could have stood up right then, lifting her cheery yellow dress over her
head, welcoming her husband into her arms, enfolding him in her embrace. She
could have opened herself to him and taken him deep inside. She could have
rocked him until he came with a scream of marital, coital exuberance. She could
have made her husband happy. That would have been the best defensive strategy.
    But she didn’t make that move. Instead,
Marcy pressed the play button and said, “Explain this, motherfucker.”
    On the screen, the blurry visitor moved
toward the camera. The person was holding a canvas case, a bag the size and shape
of a valise for a musical instrument. A bag that might contain a clarinet or
saxophone, something windy, long, and thin. Since there was no sound to
accompany the video, the person wavered in an alternate universe like a silent film
star. Were there sex toys in there, a short leather whip, tickler