Darling Discovered

by Mrs. Darling

  No answer from him other than how he makes every business deal in his life. Across the sand his right arm stretches and we shake on it.

  It’s a deal.

  Only time will tell if this is a successful proposition or not.

  We call to check on Emily and watch the sky turn indigo and the stars pop out, competing with the beauty of the ocean. The six pack is finished in peaceful silence. At some point I get up and instead of continuing to sit next to Leo, I go in front of him and scoot back into his seated embrace. He holds me, wrapping me tight, his goatee scratching the top of my head, and we sit that way as long as we can stand it.

  Together, we rise and hold hands, brushing off and walking first to the recycle bin to dump the cans and then to the car, to the beginning of our new lives. Our new marriage. Temporary though it may be.

  I often wonder what drove me to giving my new and broken marriage another shot. I see myself there on the beach, a woman who was deeply scarred, betrayed by the person that I trusted in the most, and reflect on why I didn’t throw it all away.

  I think every person going into a serious relationship has said at one point or another that “cheating is a deal breaker.” I have never heard somebody say, “Cheating is ok once or twice, but that third time, no way, nuh-uh.”

  It never happens that way. It is an ending to the relationship in theory; a hard limit. It turns out, though, that when actually faced with infidelity, things aren’t always so black and white. You can’t just pick up and walk out of a relationship that easy.

  That person has become ingrained in you in ways that you don’t even recognize. If I had packed up our child and walked out, yes, I would have changed our relationship status. But I would still continue to rock out to old school rap and picture Leo next to me singing along, the ghost of him still present. I would still cook things with too much cheese and fold my socks the way he taught me he liked best. I would watch the same television shows but would never forget lying in bed and my husband stealing my ice cream from a bowl perched on my pregnant belly while we watched that show together.

  Over the years, Leo and I had combined laundry, borrowed toothbrushes, exchanged social security numbers, traded childhood memories in the dark of the night, and miracle of all miracles, created an entire human being.

  To extract him from my life feels like using a dull butter knife to extract my appendix: painful and raw and horrifically unnecessary.

  I want to say that I realized my emotions were too unprocessed to make a rational decision. That I was able to think and say, “Ok, Chloe, right now you are upset, and hormonal, but in six months how will you feel if you throw the whole relationship away?”

  That I realized Leo could pay me any lip service in the heat of his indiscretion being discovered, promising me the moon and stars that don’t belong to him to give away, and only time would tell if he could redeem himself.

  I was firmly perched on a balancing scale between not forgiving right away and not committing to stay right away. I didn’t dare hope he could make me feel like I could move past this, and I didn’t dare throw away all of his positive light that made me fall in love with him in the first place.

  Sometimes I feel like I was being a martyr for my daughter, like I wanted to give her a fighting chance at growing up in a two parent home. I had committed to become Mrs. Leo Donnovan for all of my days and I meant it. I didn’t want to make Emily the reason for staying and I never want her to learn of this, but I certainly didn’t want to throw away the chances of seeing her grow up with her father in the home. Or the chance of having natural siblings. To end our marriage was to end her family structure the way I had always hoped for and that seemed selfish and rash. The thought of making Leo a weekend dad and starting the hunt to find a new partner made me ill.

  I’ve thought the main reason for my temporarily staying married was love.

  Love. Sigh. How schoolgirl foolish does that sound? But by God. I love Leo Donnovan through it all. From the moment he first kissed me with those wide and naturally pink lips, when I first felt his facial hair scratch my smooth chin, feeling the warmth building inside of me, the very want of Leo Donnovan.

  Ah, the lust. I fell in lust as hard as I fell in love. When we first met, Leo intimidated me with his eyes that read through my facade, his certain demeanor, his confidence in life. Leo was a man so sure of himself so young. His certainty of self followed him in the bedroom.

  I felt a passion with him that seemed as natural as breathing. My body yielded under his every touch. I often felt under a spell. Even at first. It increased in intensity with every passing day.

  I guess the reason I decide to give Leo a year to make things right is quite simple to explain: some relationships are worth fighting to save.

  Chapter Three: Moving On

  The job offer from Florida comes in the day after our conversation on the beach and the wheels are put in motion.

  Despite my meager hope that my marriage can be salvaged I spend much of my time angry as a viper, embarrassed that I wasn’t enough for him, and feeling betrayed. Oh so betrayed. I just move through the motions each day and am glad each evening that Leo is doing as he promised.

  It takes only two weeks and we are loading up a U-Haul, packing up the crib we had so recently put together, sweating in the sun that was promising summer, stopping only to fax employment agreements and eat take out.

  We use the internet to rent a home on the beach for the next year until I decide our fate. I could possibly be leaving my husband by the time that lease is up. One year it is. Signed and sealed.

  Leo drives the moving van south, erasing the bad memories with each mile, and I feel the sun enveloping my spirit. I’d be lying to myself if I denied that I am actually optimistic. This feels right.

  I never envisioned our family on the beach. He, the desert child, raised amongst red rock and Indian reservations; me who left the Gulf as soon as I could for college in the dry, hot air of Phoenix.

  The more I thought of us making a home on the beach, the more it seemed suited for us. I daydream down the I-75, picturing Leo with a smidgen of tan on his typically pale skin, playing with Emily on the beach building castles. I dream of the sun and the sand and the salt creating new, happy memories.

  We arrive in the smallish moving van (as promised, we sold much of our old home and rented a house with furniture included, sans crib) in front of our new little rental home that is in standard Key West style: bright to the point of obscene, colorful in a way that tempts any frown to undo itself, small, so much smaller than what we were used to but smack dab on the Gulf of Mexico.

  The beach house is perched upon beams, protecting it from potential flooding and hurricanes and allowing for parking below. It is peculiar and nothing like I have ever lived in and somehow exactly what I need.

  That first night in Florida I set out to the beach once Emily falls asleep laying curled next to Leo in the tiny master bedroom. They are both exhausted from the travel but I am wide awake, practically jittering with extra energy.

  I exit out the creaky back kitchen door and carefully make my way down the rickety staircase that leads to the sand. It feels warm still and I walk out to put my feet in the water. I feel like I often did as a child growing up here. Alone in the world, tiny in the presence of the great sea. Lost but somehow also watched over.

  I know in my gut that I am missing something in my life. Something I have vowed to keep secret forever. Something I could never share with my husband. The fear of discovery makes me tremble.

  Maybe that is the truest reason for offering Leo a second chance. He had a secret and I have a secret too. It is just that mine has yet to be discovered.

  I step back from the water that is flowing slowly and consistently, reflecting the moon on the tip of each tiny wave.

  Halfway back to the completely unfamiliar home I stop. I lose my strength. Dropping to my knees in the sand I allow myself to fall into the earth.

  I lay there, exha
usted now not from a travel day but from the weight of my hidden desires and close my eyes to the world.

  I see the me of a decade ago: a senior that tastes the freedom college will bring strutting through the halls of high school both hoping to be noticeable and praying to be invisible.

  Chloe Larchmont, hippest of the geeks. Never involved in sports, never led any committee, never having seen the Friday night lights. What I did enjoy on my daily walk through the misery of secondary education were the boys.

  It didn’t matter if I am watching them cut streams through the water during swim practice, or in study hall nose deep in a textbook, or ditching lunch to meet me out behind the cafeteria for a smoke and a pseudo-deep philosophical discussion. I watch them and I want them.

  The jocks with bulging muscles, the college bound gents who would taste of coffee, even the grungy boys who played video games instead of devoting time to anything remotely important all had begun to play a role in my sexual experience.

  I am still a virgin at 18 but have been honing my skills of pleasuring my own body for some time. There is something so wrong about touching my nakedness while laying in my childhood bed, getting off while the stuffed animals of years past look at me from the corner across the room.

  It feels wrong and I like that it does. I incorporate thoughts of the young men of my days into my nightly grope sessions.

  I create fantasies in my head, mostly involving pretty minor league stuff: kissing, touching above clothes, hands going down pants. It increases the excitement of the mundane life that is high school. I picture the fantasy the following day again, turning fifth period English into a daydream about how Mike’s (or Josh’s or Kyle’s) thumb would feel sliding over my nipple guarded by my sturdy white cotton bra, picturing in detail how the mounds would harden to peaks slowly, steadily, and I could visualize down to the light goose bumps that would arrive with the touch.

  I’d shiver myself back to reality and look forward that evening when I could touch myself again and pretend it was him. Any him.

  A particularly ordinary midweek day eventually courses my entire sexuality like a light breeze drifts the unassuming tide. Walking through the hallway between classes a folded sheet of paper slides onto my books.

  I look up and see nobody in front of me directly, just streams of passerby teens. I spin around and see Zach, a friend of mine, glancing back towards me as he continues in the opposite direction. The smirk on his face and his long hair gives him a rebel charm that is quite attractive. He gives a brief nod in the direction of my books and heads towards his next class. I step to the side of the hall so I don’t cause a traffic jam and open the letter.

  I see a story. The title reads The Sex Slave.

  So I can guess it’s about sex but I have no idea what a “slave” would have to do with it. We watched Roots in history class last year but what in God’s name could that possibly have to do with a sexy writing?

  I feel a curious tingle in between my legs and seeing as how I am standing in an almost empty hallway at school I know I must:

  1. Put the story away as fast as possible and get to class.

  2. Get home after school and read this. Urgently.

  Equally nervous to either leave it in my locker or tote it with me everywhere, I choose to keep it close. I make it through the day that moves at a snail’s pace, the story that will surely be this evening’s entertainment burning a hole in my folder.

  My brain keeps flitting to the title. I say it in my head, repeating it over and over. Once, in the bathroom, I even say it aloud just under my breath. The Sex Slave. It heats me up all over yet I have no idea why.

  Sprinting to my car to avoid well-meaning chatter about graduation and gossip I rush home, bring my backpack into the sugar sweet bedroom of childhood, and dig out The Sex Slave. I kick off my loafers and pull off my uncomfortably starched school shirt and fall backwards onto the coverlet. Finally I can satisfy my curiosity.

  The Sex Slave

  A woman woke up in a groggy, drugged state. She ached all over, body sore and head throbbing. Opening her eyes for the first time, she startled at the unfamiliar stone ceiling above her. Becoming increasingly scared, the woman went to sit up and *clang* chains heavy around her arms and legs tied her to the cold hard concrete she was stretched out upon, naked. Wild eyed, she screamed.

  “Help! Please!” she begged. Looking around while thrashing, she realized with dread that she was even further prisoner. Not only was she strapped nude to a strange floor and spread open wide, she was in a jail cell.

  Three solid walls and a set of padlocked steel bars was the only thing that she saw. Screaming for help, she finally stilled at the sound of heavy footsteps coming in her direction. Fear mixed with relief and she began to cry. Looking up at the sound of keys, she saw a sight on the other side of the bars that confused her as much as every other moment since awaking. There was a gargantuan bald man that she didn’t recognize, muscles bulging, standing at practically seven feet tall, staring at her with the keys in one hand and a rope in another. He was clad in only leather pants.

  “Who are you? Where am I? Let me go!” she shouted to the stranger and he stood silently staring.

  This worked the woman up even more and her throat became hoarse from the crying and yelling and fear. At long last he moved slowly towards the lock and entered the cell. Instead of releasing the woman, he stood directly over her and said in a deep voice, “Whore, you are in no position to make demands. Last night you signed yourself over to become an owned sex slave. You will be trained as a sex slave and in time you will feel grateful for what I am about to do to you. Call me only Master. Or else.”

  Reaching down, without any further discussion or explanation, he plunged three fingers into her pussy. Shoving them incessantly in and out of her, the woman’s screams and cries could be heard echoing against the bare cinderblock walls. As her brain feverishly reached out to the black spot that was the previous day of her life, her body betrayed her by accepting all that this strange goliath, this Master, was giving. Cum ran out of her in puddles, and he put his other hand down to her throat and pushed hard, blocking her air intake. Somehow this made her cum even more…

  Oh. Holy. Shit. My mind is reeling with questions and nobody to answer them. Is there really some prison where ordinary women are brought to act as a “sex slave?” No way, this is made up. Did Zach read this? Of course Zach read this. Did Zach want me to read this? Of course Zach wanted me to read this. But as my friend crosses my mind, I find I can’t lend him more than a passing thought. I still see the jail cell and a giant Master with three fingers inside of a woman.

  Three fingers. I can’t even imagine what three fingers would feel like; is that even possible? I reach down and remove my shorts. I brush my hand across the cotton panties that are the only undergarments deemed acceptable by my Mom and I’m shocked to find the crotch of my underwear damp.

  I am completely turned on. It must be the strangeness of the story. But my God that woman was being raped. Wasn’t she?

  I continue reading about the sex slave, about how she had voluntarily offered herself up to being taken and trained to service men and women sexually. I picture her journey, reading about being shackled, kneeling on cold stone in front of people who regarded her as only a series of holes to be used, being shaved in entirety, being stretched open and explored for their fun, the Masters and Mistresses fun. I am more turned on than I have ever been.

  It is something in the slave’s bareness, both in body and purpose. This woman, nary even a woman anymore, just a sexual object, didn’t worry about a job or taxes or the news or the date on a calendar. She is rebuilt to provide sexual pleasure. I push my underwear to the side and lay a finger on my clit. I am shocked at the slick wetness that is there.

  My whole mound swells with excitement and I move my pelvis up to reach that fingertip. Left hand clutches the story and my right hand moves through the folds of a body that seems perched between a teen’s an
d a grown woman’s.

  I keep coming back to the beginning of the sex slave’s path in my mind’s eye. Three fingers. I set the pages to the side and use my now free hand to hold open my underwear, giving freer access to my entire womanhood.

  I close my eyes, breath speeding, shutting out the Molly Muffin stuffed doll that has been my only bed mate. I become that sex slave, feeling the damp concrete underneath my bound, nude body. Nipples clench up under my bra (a bra that’s still really one sad step from a training bra) into tight nubs. It’s painful in the intensity. I conjure the slave’s fear and confusion rippling through my body and rub my crotch with my whole hand, still not able to get enough fullness.

  Chest heaving and ohmyGodamImoaningoutloud I envision what I have been waiting for since first reading it: a Master staring over me, wanting to take me whether I agree or not, preparing to invade me.

  I lose the fear I have been holding onto and for the first time ever I clumsily shove a finger deep inside my hole. I cry out, in pleasure and pain and surprise and embarrassment and I begin to move it in and out, my middle finger touching the inside of my body that is somehow soft and rough at the same time, the heel of my palm landing soundly on my clitoris each time I move, picturing him, the Master, finger fucking me.

  I can’t help myself and add another finger. Feeling myself stretching, tearing, accepting what I have never accepted. The hint of pain sends me over the edge and I orgasm in a way I never knew possible. My whole body convulses to the point that my teeth are chattering, my two fingers still plunging but now filling with hot wetness like somebody dumped a fresh cup of warm tea in my palm (oh God did I pee?) and the muscles surrounding those two fingers are clenching and releasing repeatedly.

  An unfamiliar moan deep and rich leaves my throat and continues to fill the empty room.