Rick sat hunched on the edge of the couch, staring at the stack of unopened bills on the table. The weight of failure pressed down on him. Angela watched him from the doorway, her arms crossed tightly.
“We’re drowning, Rick. You need to fix this.”
Her voice carried anger, but beneath it was fear. Fear of losing their home. Fear of what their lives had become.
“I’ll handle it, Angie,” he mumbled, but even he didn’t believe the words.
When the creditors started calling nonstop, Rick did the unthinkable. He walked into the smoky, dimly lit office of John “The Shark” Daniels, a man whose name alone sent shivers through the neighborhood.
John listened with a smirk as Rick poured out his predicament. When the request for $10,000 finally came, John leaned back in his chair, puffing on a cigar.
“You need ten grand, Rick. That’s a big ask. What’ve you got to offer me?”
“Nothing,” Rick admitted, his voice cracking.
John tilted his head, feigning pity. “You’ve got something. Everybody does. You’ve got Angela, don’t you?”
Rick’s stomach twisted. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Relax,” John said, holding up a hand. “Just collateral. A weekend. If you don’t pay me back, she spends some time with me. No harm done.”
Rick’s protests faltered as John’s smirk hardened into something more menacing. “Think it over. But my deals don’t get sweeter with time.”
When Rick told Angela about the offer that night, she was horrified. But after hours of arguing, she finally said, “If it’s the only way to save us, I’ll do it.”
Months passed, and Rick tried everything to repay the loan, but the deadline came and went. The knock on the door Friday afternoon was inevitable.
Angela opened the door to find John standing there, looking every bit the predator. She gave Rick one last look before picking up her bag.
“I’ll go,” she said, her voice steely.
Rick watched as John led her to the car, the taillights disappearing down the street.
Rick sat by the window, staring at his phone. It buzzed within an hour.
“Dinner. She’s lovely company.”
Attached was a photo of Angela at an upscale restaurant. Her hair was styled, her makeup immaculate. But her eyes betrayed her discomfort. Rick’s fingers trembled as he stared at the screen. He wanted to call her, to tell her to come home, but he couldn’t.
The next text came two hours later.
“She’s starting to loosen up. A glass of wine helps.”
This time, Angela’s face was flushed. She held a glass of red wine, her lips curved in what almost looked like a genuine smile. Rick scrolled back and forth between the photos, his chest tightening.
Later that evening, the last text came. It was not accompanied by a photograph, but simply said, “Time for bed. Not sure we’re going to get much sleep.”
The next text came late Saturday morning.
“You don’t know what you’ve got, Rick.”
The photo showed Angela wearing nothing but a pair of black panties, standing at a balcony with her back to the camera.
Rick clenched his jaw, his grip on the phone tightening.
An hour later:
“Breakfast in bed. She liked it.”
Angela was sitting cross-legged on a hotel bed, still only wearing panties, a tray of pastries and fruit in front of her. She wasn’t looking at the camera, but her expression was softer, almost serene.
By the afternoon, John’s messages grew more taunting.
“You really let this one slip through your fingers.”
Angela was sitting beside John in a sleek convertible, her hair blowing in the wind. She wasn’t smiling, but there was a strange calmness in her eyes.
Saturday night brought the most damning message yet.
“Goodnight, Rick. She’s unforgettable. A really animal in the sack.”
The attached photo showed Angela lying on a hotel bed, naked.
Rick threw his phone across the room, his heart pounding with rage and helplessness.
There were no messages on Sunday. Angela returned late Sunday night. She walked through the door, setting her bag down without a word.
Rick stood up, his face pale. “Angie, I—”
She raised a hand, silencing him. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
Her voice was calm, but there was a coldness in her tone that Rick had never heard before. She went straight to the bedroom and shut the door behind her. When Rick tried to join her, he found the bedroom door locked. I almost knocked, then thought better of it and went to the living room to sleep on the couch.
Two days later, a small package arrived, wrapped innocuously in brown paper. Rick’s name was scrawled across the top. He tore it open, his stomach twisting when a plain DVD case tumbled out. No note. No explanation.
With trembling hands, he loaded the disc into the player. The screen flickered to life, and Rick’s breath caught in his throat. The video was intimate, raw, and unmistakable. Angela and John. His wife’s face—in the throes of orgasmic sex—filled the final frames of the film.
Those final frames played over and over in Rick’s mind long after he’d ejected the disc.
In the days that followed, Angela’s behavior shifted. She was distant, spending less time at home. Rick noticed the late nights, the new wardrobe, and the confidence she seemed to carry now.
Finally, Rick confronted her. “What’s going on, Angela? You’ve been different since… since that weekend.”
Angela’s lips curled into a faint, bitter smile. “You gave me away, Rick. I learned a lot from John about power—and about myself.”
Rick stared at her, his chest tightening. “What does that mean?”
“I mean I’m done being your collateral. I’ll decide myself who I sleep with from now on.”
The next day, another package arrived in the mail for Rick. Inside was another DVD. This one featured Angela and a stranger, another man in another setting. Over the following months, more DVDs arrived—each one starring Angela and a different man, each one more PornHubish than the last.
Angela’s intent was clear: these were not acts of desperation. These were acts of revenge.
Rick watched helplessly as his wife reclaimed herself—piece by piece, fuck by fuck. For Angela, the tapes were a declaration of independence. For Rick, they were a sentence, replaying his greatest mistake in endless, unrelenting detail.