A Graduation Gift

The man's voice was laced with amusement. Maybe, it was the amusement at Cassandra's startled reaction. When she heard something and raised her head, a sex tape was playing on the big screen in the room. A man and a woman were passionately making love. The man was thrusting himself hard, making the woman moan loudly, filling the room with sounds of love making.

Still sitting on the bed, Cassandra was too shocked to say a word.

Even more insulting was that Rufus played the clip at full volume, assaulting her ears with the irksome noise. 'What the hell is he up to, by showing me the video?' she wondered. But then, suddenly, the angle of the camera changed, clearly showing the face of the man in the video. It was a familiar face to Cassandra.

Holy crap! The man on the screen was none other than her husband, Lionel.

"What's your reason for showing me this?" she asked now feeling both insulted and confused.

Though there was no love in Cassandra and Lionel's marriage at all, it was still not a pleasant feeling seeing her husband cheat on her. It was a humiliating slap in face to watch the two on the screen making love. She was aware of Lionel's hatred towards her and has suspected his philandering. Lionel wasn't a faithful man by any standards, and to be honest, she didn't give a damn. He could do whatever he wanted to do as long as he left her alone. But seeing the evidence of her husband cheating was another thing. And the whole ordeal felt much worse being shown to her by Rufus -- a third party.

In an instant, Cassandra's pretty little face became pale, her lips trembled. She couldn't stand watching the video for another second. She turned her head to glare at Rufus, who was sitting aside watching her with a smirk.

"I was very confused at first. Why were you a lonely woman, when it's barely four years of your marriage to him? But now I finally realize just how unfaithful Lionel has been to you,"

In a casual, carefree tone, Rufus spoke as if he didn't know how hurtful his words were. But as much as Cassandra was angry and humiliated by his words, he was only being honest. What he said was true. The only problem was his gleeful manner of going about it.

"What joy could you derive from gloating over my heartache and pain? Are you so twisted as to celebrate the falling apart of your own brother's marriage?"

into a grim line. Seething with anger now, she raised

weird and unpredictable games you're up to, I'm not interested," she blurted out honestly. "It's been barely two days of your return to this city, and here you're, kicking up a storm. Do you think I'll be naive to trust you any more?" But looking at his face, smug like he didn't give a damn about anything, Cassandra suspected Rufus was hiding something. Usually, this kind of attitude would throw Cassandra off, but she chose to play along just in

there must be a reason

Rufus replied, "Well, you know, I am

prey, his fixed, stony gaze gave Cassandra the creeps. It dawned on her, he was not kidding. At that very moment, he read her incredulous look for a signal to his sinister motives, he moved closer to Cassandra. Then

Like a fierce beast, he seemed to give the subtle message that he was in control and he'd get whatever he wanted, even if it meant doing so was against Cassandra's will. The coldness in his gaze made her

a devil in disguise and not as simple as she had assumed.

Cassandra began. "If I don't get back home on time, they will get concerned, and I don't want anyone to start worrying about me. Am I free to leave?" Cassandra added, trying to

stay here trying to guess what was on

need to kick yourself for what you have done. What I've just shown you is only but one example of

she agreed with him. For the pain of putting up with an unfaithful husband, she even felt vindicated in her tryst. When she first slept with Rufus, she had felt so guilty that she wanted to crawl

was that she couldn't tell what Rufus was up to. She wished for superpowers to see through this man in front of her, read his motives and understand a whole bunch of stuff about him. Wasn't Rufus only trying to take advantage of her failing marriage? Did he have any sincere

afraid of being found out, especially when she knew that Rufus was her brother-in-law. But why did Rufus comfort her in a quite unusual way? Cassandra didn't want to spend more time dwelling on

your concern. Can I go back

Cassandra's head was in a mess. But she still pretended to be calm and collected in front of Rufus, trying to hide her

you can. Let me drive you back,"

tried to put on a charming smile, but Cassandra just

get out of here as quickly as possible. Hearing Rufus'