There’s no pulling my eyes away from the tool he used to give another woman pleasure. He stuck it in another woman’s body today. His mouth has been kissing her lips and whispering sweet lies into her ear. His hands trailing across her skin, probably giving her goosebumps as he pumps into her. He probably looked her right in her eyes and made her believe he actually fucking wants her.
In reality, all he really wants is me. And he hates that. He hates to want me so much. He hates to be so addicted to me that he feels the need to mold me into a tiny ball in his hands like putty. He squeezes too hard, and just like putty, I creep through the cracks of his fingers, slowly separating until I’m oozing onto the floor.
He can’t contain me. And the harder he tries, the more he fails.
My eyes lift the sam
e time his head comes down, those dull, ugly blue eyes meet mine. My world is finally shifting the way it needs to be. I don’t know why it took him cheating to wake me up. I don’t know why the physical abuse and rape wasn’t the catalyst. Maybe because I thought the pain is surface level. I can heal. But cheating is deep. It’s a pain that imprints like wolves mating and will last forever. Knowing that I wasn’t good enough to keep him wanting only me. Knowing that every time he leaves my bed, he’s walking into another woman’s legs.
And that just won’t fucking do.
“You did. But I forgive you,” he says simply, before turning away to grab the loofah.
I never asked for forgiveness.
I take it from him, squirt some of this body wash onto it, and begin to rub him down. I dote on him, just like he wanted. I crouch down and soap down his legs as the water sprays directly into my face. I keep my head down and eyes closed as I worship him at his feet.
A hand wraps around my arm and lifts me up.
Shower sex in the movies is fake. The water doesn’t just roll off the body and magically avoid your eyes. No, it goes right for the fucking eyes actually. I rub at them like a little kid and look up at him, my pupils now bloodshot and dry.
He smiles down at me, like I’m a cute little child that thinks they’re actually going to grow up to be an astronaut.
“You know I love you, right?” he asks. His face has melted into soft lines and sweet nothings.
“I do,” I say. I really, really do.
And I can’t wait to show you exactly what your love has turned me into.
RYAN TOOK ME TO a classy restaurant called Deep Blue. It’s not as upscale as the last restaurant, but the bill is easily going to be over a hundred dollars between the two of us. I made sure to choose the most expensive meal on the menu. I’m just finishing up my food and enjoying my third glass of wine when his voice cuts through my buzz.
“You graduate next May, right?” he asks, staring at me over the rim of his own wine.
“Yes,” I answer, setting my glass down. The wine beckons me to pick it back up and finish it off. Alas, appearances, appearances. Can’t embarrass my successful boyfriend now, otherwise his reputation would be ruined over a glass of wine.
“What are your plans after college?”
My hand drifts over to the stem of the glass, spinning the dainty glass between my red painted fingernails. Does his secretary have red fingernails? I bet she does. Does Ryan look down at her hands and pretend they’re mine? Or does he close his eyes and pretend he’s fucking her when he’s balls deep inside of me because he can’t stand to look in the eyes of the woman he’s lying to. Then, he’d have to face the fact that he’s the one in the wrong.
“I’ll start working on getting my PhD,” I answer. Or maybe I’ll run off to a farm and tame wild horses and fuck a real cowboy in the stalls. Who knows?
“I’d rather you stay at home.”
Just barely do I suppress the sigh building in the back of my throat.
“And do what?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Raise our kids, obviously,” he answers slowly, speaking to me as if I suffer from the same condition as his tone.
Nice to know abusive assholes and misogyny go hand-in-hand. Ryan and I have discussed kids before. I want them eventually but I’m not in a hurry; Ryan is adamant I have them anyways. He has a traditional outlook on life where the wife stays home and raises his little prodigies that will one day take over the law firm, while he goes off and works and fucks whoever he wants apparently.
We’d be the perfect cliché. Raising little spoiled assholes that he only acknowledges when he’s teaching life lessons and molding them into mini Ryan’s, while I get drunk and high to deal with the pain of an abusive husband and settling for a miserable life. And the more I remember that I could’ve had a good life if I’d only left—with someone like Mako maybe—the more intoxicated I’d get until I can’t even remember my own name. Until I no longer remember his name.
I don’t know where his outlook came from. Julie is an interior designer and highly successful at that. Ryan always use to say that his mother only stayed home with him for the standard maternity leave timeframe and then was back to work, leaving Ryan with an older nanny that he hated.
Maybe he’s always resented Julie for leaving him with the nanny.
As if reading my mind, he continues, “We’re never hiring a nanny for our kids. It’s no else’s job to raise them but yours.”