I’d thought a lot about Neil’s suggestion that I write about life as the partner of a person with cancer. Though he had seemed okay with the idea, I wasn’t sure he was thinking it through. I couldn’t write about my experience without acknowledging the fact that we lived a very privileged life. And once I started being open about those types of things, it would inevitably become clear exactly who the cancer patient in question was. Neil had already declined offers for interviews and paid exclusives to talk about his condition. If he wanted his privacy, I didn’t want to sacrifice it.
But it would have been disingenuous of me to present myself as a normal middle or working class woman. I’d grown pretty far from my Midwestern roots even before I’d come to London with Neil. How could I ask a woman in rural Nebraska driving fifty miles one way to visit her husband in the hospital twice a week to identify with my pain?
I just couldn’t do it.
I pulled up the internet browser and slipped on my headphones. I went to YouTube and searched make-up tutorials, in the hopes that I’d find something that would spark my interest in writing. As I looked over the sheer volume of tutorials for eye looks and foundation and nails, it hit me.
I was cute. I was good at make-up. I used to be an assistant beauty editor at the biggest fashion magazine in the world, for Christ’s sake.
I could totally start my own YouTube channel.
Was that a job?
Does it matter? It wasn’t like I was doing anything else with my time. And it might actually be fun.
I sprinted upstairs, feeling slightly bad about waking Neil. I leaned over his side of the bed and shook him awake. “Baby, wake up a second.”
“No.”
“You can go right back to sleep, I promise. I just need to know if you have a video camera.”
“In the closet, in the toy cupboard.” He motioned toward the nightstand. “You need the key.”
“Thanks. You’re a peach.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
While Neil wasn’t weird about some things being in the open— he had no problem keeping condoms and lube and his vibrator in the unsecured nightstand— he kept the bulk of his “toys” under lock and key. It had been necessary, he’d explained, when Emma had lived at home full-time and would go snooping around his things. “There are just some parts of my life I’m not comfortable sharing with my daughter,” he’d told me with a laugh. His ex-wife hadn’t been too into that stuff, either, so she had appreciated not having to explain the presence of the items in question to the maids.
I’d seen the inside of the cabinet once, when we’d returned from Paris and Neil had put stuff away. While I knew I had an open invite to use anything inside, I hadn’t thoroughly perused the inventory yet; sex had been the last thing on my mind for the past two months.
I slipped the key into the lock and opened the doors. There was the paddle I loved so much, two floggers— one rubber, one leather—, dildos and plugs in glass and silicone, the vibrating wand, various restraints and clamps and... ah, there was the camera, a little black Flip HD. I plucked it from its shelf and turned it over in my hands. I’d expected something a little fancier.
Wait... why is this in here?
I almost dropped it.
Okay, so obviously you know what this particular camera is for. But anybody he’s filmed with it is in the past. There’s no reason to be irrationally jealous.
How did I feel about Neil possibly having video of past encounters with people who weren’t me? I didn’t have a problem with the fact that he had a sexual past— that would be pretty hypocritical coming from the queen of casual hook-ups— but somehow the idea of souvenirs didn’t sit right with me. I had no problem with his porn collection, because he didn’t know any of those people. But if he was getting off to videos of his encounters with women— and men— who weren’t me... that felt weirdly like cheating.
Then I remembered why I’d wanted the camera in the first place, and I decided I could worry about the other stuff later. I grabbed the small tabletop tripod that had been stored with it, left the key dangling in the lock, and grabbed my tote full of nail care stuff and thundered back down the stairs to the library.
That was where Neil found me three hours later, wired on coffee with a vertical French manicure design on my nails.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. He made it as far as the sofa and had to sit down, out of breath.