Welcome To Hell, Dear Wife-Chapter 25: Bathrooms without Doors

Chapter 25: Bathrooms without Doors
Mira stared at him like he had grown two horns on both sides of his head. The words didn’t even make sense to her at first.
Take your clothes off?
It wasn’t even a request but a stupid command that was delivered as if he were telling her about some weather forecast.
But soon enough, her mind seemed to make understanding of the words that had come out of his mouth and she was immediately flooded with anger and disbelief.
"Excuse me?" She yelled as her voice came out shaky. "What the hell did you just say to me?"
He didn’t move. Instead, he even dared to repeat it in a deliberate slow manner like he was talking to a stupid child. "I said take off your clothes."
The very calm attitude he exhibited while saying it broke something in her. "Have you lost your damn mind? You don’t get to talk to me like that! You don’t get to order me to strip like I’m... I’m some kind of..."
"Like my wife?" he interrupted as he raised a mocking eyebrow. "Because that’s exactly what you are."
The audacity and arrogance from him was just too much for Mira to bear.
Who raised this bastard?
"You dragged me to your circus of a party even though you left me alone for hours only to come back to claim me in front of everyone like I was some piece of furniture that you just bought! And now you think you have the right to tell me this?" She gestured wildly with her hands.
"That wasn’t a claim, Lorena. It had to happen," he corrected in a bored tone as if she were some annoying child. "And yes, I have the right to ask for this. Now stop arguing and take the clothes off."
The way he kept circling back to repeat it was something that Mira was finding unbelievable. The lack of any emotion made her skin crawl even. She had to take a step back as if needing space from his perverted and oppressive presence.
"So you think I’m some sort of prostitute that you can just order around? Is this how you treat people like property and expect them to be loyal to you? They’ll only be afraid of you!"
He took a step forward as if trying to close the exact distance she had created. "I don’t need loyalty. I need obedience. There’s a difference."
"Then get a damn dog!" She spat out, even more pissed.
Lucas chuckled like all of these were a joke. "I have one and she is standing right in front of me right now."
The insult was too much, so dehumanizing that it left her speechless for a moment but she finally found her voice. "I am not your pet and I will not be ordered around. Who the hell do you think you are thinking I’d simply strip just because you said so? Are you some kind of dictator?"
He shrugged, still looking bored. "Dictator, husband? All the same thing to me."
Mira found her eyes darting away from him and onto the bathroom entrance as she finally remembered how she had been shocked to not see the bathroom have a door when she had arrived earlier.
"Then maybe your stupid dictatorship should at least come with bathroom doors!" she yelled as she gestured towards the open entrance of the bathroom. "I mean what kind of psychopath doesn’t put doors on a bathroom?"
Lucas didn’t even blink at the question. He even walked towards it completely unbothered. "The kind who owns the house. And why on earth are we even talking about bathroom doors right now? If I don’t want doors then there won’t be doors."
"And what about people’s privacy, it’s basic decency," she argued.
"Privacy is not something that would ever be between you and I anymore, Lorena," he stated as his voice dropped into a softer tone. "You’re now my problem. What privacy would you need?"
Mira could not believe her ears. "You’re disgusting."
"Yet you’re starting to enjoy the clout that comes with disgusting me, aren’t you? Now are you going to obey already or do we have to do this the hard way?"
"Do what? What way? What the hell is even happening right now? Is this some sort of joke?" she cried out.
"Why would it be a joke? You just have to give me what I want. Why is that so hard?"
"Absolutely not! I do not know how many people you’ve tried this trick on but it would never work on me. You make me live in a house without bathroom doors, fine. But don’t you dare push your luck thinking I’ll obey your sick little orders."
"A wife’s body is her husband’s to see," he starts like he was reading it from some sort of rule book. "Privacy is irrelevant. Why are you acting like some virgin?"
"Irrelevant? Do you even hear yourself?"
"I hear myself perfectly," he said as his gaze dropped to her dress shin. "What I wonder is why you’re still dressed."
Without waiting for her to argue again, he turned his back to her as his fingers went straight to the buttons of his suit jacket. He shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor, and then his hand went to his shirt and started undoing the buttons one by one in a very slow and deliberate motion.
It was as if he was demonstrating to Mira that this was how it was done.
Mira turned away as her face burned. She was even more furious at herself for noticing the hard lines of his back or the way his muscles moved under his skin.
He stepped into the bathroom and a second later, she heard the hiss of the shower turning on as steam began to roll out and fill the room with a damp warm fog.
She was dumbfounded.
He’s
insane. Absolutely insane! Who tells someone to strip? Who even does any of this? Who thinks like this?
The water ran for a long time in a taunting way before it finally shut off.
He came out of the bathroom with a towel hanging low on his hips and his hair wet while water droplets traced down a path on his chest and stomach.
Mira hated the way her throat seemed to immediately go dry.
And Lucas of course noticed her looking, as a smirk donned his lips even though he didn’t say anything about it.
"Put some damn clothes on!" She blurted out as she looked away.
"No," he said in his usual calm voice. "You should take yours off."
"You’re disgusting."
"That’s not news anymore at this point." He took a step closer and then another.
Then he gestured lazily at the steamy bathroom. "It’s your turn."
Mira folded her arms. "I’ll shower when I damn well please. And what the hell are you even doing in my room?"
He kept walking towards her in a slow and steady manner that she had to start backing away. "It’s my room too. And you’ll shower now."
"I said no." She repeated, even though her voice came out weaker than she wanted.
He continued taking more steps until she was backed up on the cold wall and there was nowhere to go.
"You don’t get to say no, not to me."
"You can order me until you’re blue in the face," she snapped, "but that doesn’t mean I’ll heed to it. I would never strip for you."
"Never?" He murmured. "You overestimate yourself. I’ll make you beg to take them off."
"Keep dreaming, monster."
His eyes went dark at that word and he leaned in. "Monster? Then you should already know that monsters don’t need permission."
Mira was panicking now. "S... stop it, Lucas. This wasn’t the deal. This marriage is nothing more than an arrangement. A damn paper!"
He laughed, a sound that came out chilling. "Arrangement? So you think I’ll chain myself to you, parade you in front of the world against my own reputation, shield you from your own stupidity... and not touch you? What do you think I am, Lorena? Santa?"
He moved fast as his hand grabbed her wrist and pinned it against the wall behind her head.
His body was now so close that Mira could feel the heat coming off him and even smell the clean scent of his shower.
It suffocated her.
"Let go of me," she demanded in a trembling voice. "Or I swear, I’ll scream."
He leaned down and scoffed. "Oh scream. I’d love to hear it."
He then looked her straight in the eye. "And I don’t get why you’re so stiff with me right now? Didn’t you say we have done this before when we were younger?"
He looked from her eyes to her lips and back to her eyes as if enjoying the confusion and horror that they now held.
"After all," he continued, "you accused me of raping you."