by Mrs. Darling
Once my hips bucking and breath heaving begin to subside I open my eyes. Everything looks the same but somehow duller. Younger. I let go of my stretched and soaked panties and remove my two fingers. There they are, pruned from the wetness like they used to be after a long bubble bath dedicated to playing mermaids at sea but this time covered with my adulthood and blood. The end of my innocence. There is no turning back thanks to The Sex Slave and I feel both grief and freedom.
Moving slowly I go to the adjacent bathroom I look at my young self in the mirror, stomach lightly cramping, insides still twitching. Will people look at me and know?
I certainly will, looking older now, seeing my adult self. I clean the mess: washing my hands and rinsing the underwear, running them under icy water until I am convinced the blood can never be removed. I toss them in the trash along with the possibility that life will ever be the same.
I run the bath and undo any evidence of my afternoon extracurricular. My blanket and clothes go into the wash and I stash the story between the pages of my chemistry book that also holds homework I won’t be able to focus on later.
I finally sink into the hot tub, scalding my skin that seems somehow too tight now, turning my breasts to a deep pink. I close my eyes and relax my new body into the soft scent of the bubbles.
Behind the lids of my eyes floats in a face. The face of the Master.
I open my eyes to the moonlit beach on my first night back in Florida, located only ten miles from my childhood home but seeming like a lifetime away.
This haunts me. The desire to be owned by another person; to feel what life would be like under another person’s control.
I have spent so much effort becoming something else, anything else. In college and working I'd been a ruthless, powerful, assertive woman.
But when Leo and I were dating I would secretly be thrilled at the chance to pleasure him in every possible way, including serving his dinner first, tending to the household tasks even though we both worked all day, and doting on him. I loved taking care of him. But when others were around, I became hardened and demand what I called “equality.” Because no smart, independent woman could ever be in service to a man, right?
I felt torn in two, dividing myself between who I thought I should be and who I really wanted to be. Societal pressure lays heavy on me, raised to think that no good could ever come from submitting to my partner. But under the gaze of stars, still yearning and firmly in my thirties, I am sick of it. Tired of living a life I don’t want, of denying my true persona. Trying to be the “strong” woman that society dictates I should be; hiding that I want to give up control.
If I really want that, and a man wants to give it to me, then so what? Who else has to live my life? Why do I have to justify my actions to anybody but myself and Mr. Leo Donnovan? Why can’t I be considered equally strong in having enough conviction to be me? Wholly, truthfully, entirely, imperfectly me?
I want to scream out my frustration but instead stay silent, paralyzed from the constant worry of confiding this in somebody again. My breath catches in sadness at the thought of Patrick Johnson, the handsome Catholic boy who I dated throughout college. I tried so hard to ignore my desires and fit in. I really did. But once I bravely told Pat about The Sex Slave.
We were sitting in his dorm room, college sophomores at ASU, sharing a hijacked bottle of Boone’s Farm that made Pat nervous. He was convinced that his RA would somehow know and kick down the door with campus police, arresting us for underage drinking and ruin his chance at become the CPA that he always dreamt of becoming. After finishing the bottle and tiring of listening to him talk about accounting, I blurt out my secret.
Eyes narrowing behind his glasses that used to make him seem so intellectual, he verbally ridiculed me. Asked how I dare talk of such “whorish ideas” and demanded to know if I had ever been sexually assaulted. When I insisted that no, I hadn’t, that I had a wonderful upbringing, I was called a liar. Pat told me that if I wanted to become some kind of “slut,” enjoying porn and talking of things “like that,” I should leave and never contact him again.
Ashamed and humiliated, I stuttered out an apology and never brought it up again. Not to Pat. Not to anybody. I tried my best to convince myself that I didn’t care about some silly erotic story I read years prior. But I could never shake the feeling that I needed more out of my sexual future; something different.
I became an expert at secretly masturbating while lying in bed once Pat was asleep. Rubbing my clit so lightly and delicately, circling, regulating my breathing to resemble sleep cycles, getting off to vision of the Master ordering me to do his bidding.
I broke up with Pat Johnson two years later when I knew he was going to propose. We were readying to graduate and both of our families expected marriage to be the next step. I saw the ring hidden in his apartment closet while putting away laundry and after putting the ring back I sought out Pat and ended things. He was shocked and I felt like a terrible person but I had wasted years with a man I had no chemistry with and I refused to live like that forever. Maybe it took all that time to get the guts to be OK with being alone. Maybe I never got the word “slut” in Patrick’s voice out of my head.
I threw myself into my career. Paying back student loans by working in the first decent paying job I could nab I put my nose to the grindstone and worked. Saved. Waited. I dated frequently and casually, keeping my secret desires locked away.
Until the day I was sitting at the front desk of a medical office and the door blew open, bringing Leo Donnovan into my vision. Life would never be the same. Leo was the first man to ever make me forget. The sexual trysts were so intoxicating I didn’t need more. Just him.
The fantasy never left though. It only became a sleeping dragon waiting to be awoken.
I lift myself out of the sand. I drag myself up the stairs towards my family. I convince myself to bury it all.
Life goes on.
Chapter Four: Salt Water Heals
I sit in the nondescript waiting room feeling equally nondescript. I look around the marriage counselor’s office and create stories about the other couples waiting: who cheated on who, who spent the family savings at the local casino, which is unhappy with their in-laws.
I move my eyes around until I find myself staring at my husband looking deceivingly relaxed in his casual attire. “Deceivingly” because none of us are relaxed. It is the day of our first counseling appointment and I’d rather be anywhere else in the world right now.
My mister is holding Emily in his flexed arms and I blame the warmth in my chest on postpartum hormones. His hazel eyes are seeking mine out, trying to get any connection. He is doing everything right. I just need to work through this pain.
Our names get called by a woman who just entered the waiting room and I head towards the first shot at fixing my broken marriage. Leo, Emily, and I move together into the neatly decorated office of our new marriage counselor, Ruth DeLuca. My eyes sting with salty tears before she can even introduce herself.
Thirty minutes in and I am hysterical. I knew therapy would be hard but not like this. The only sound in the room is my hiccupping out my sadness and the building getting pounded with an afternoon downpour. In Florida it rains daily in the late spring and summer. In a few hours it will be as humid as a steam room and all around hot, miserable weather. I wish for that moment in three hours. It means I won’t be here.
Emily sleeps oblivious in her infant car seat thankfully, so I am under the careful consideration of Ms. DeLuca, licensed mental health counselor, and my husband who looks devastated, turned white and unblinking, knee bouncing in an anxious way I have never seen before.
Leo has come clean. We haven’t truly discussed the affair before coming into this appointment. It seems impossible but the days turned into weeks and despite my anger and sense of despair, I was almost more afraid of hearing the truth. Not knowing what happened was hard. Knowing is agony.
The other woman was a coworker of his; I insta
ntly recognize her name. I know this woman, have met her, even dined with her at an impromptu lunch break when I surprised Leo at work. The woman knew he was married. Knew he had a child on the way. Knew and didn’t care. They had a four month long emotional affair.
I wonder if I would have preferred a sexual indiscretion; a one night stand. Somehow knowing that he was talking to her about us, sharing intimate details of each other’s lives, seems worse. Like promised, I’ve checked his accounts, and like promised Leo never contacted her again. It is truly over.
“Why? What did I not do for you? I gave you everything. Just… why?” My tears hit my lips, tasting like the salt air on the Gulf where I walked Emily yesterday.
Knee still bouncing, my miserable husband stares at the floor and I hear him say, “Nothing,” quietly.
“What?” I demand, voice rising to a higher level, moving from mournful to irate.
He looks up at me and I see I am not the only one in the room with tears; it shocks me to see Leo this way.
“Nothing Chloe. There was nothing you didn’t give me. Nothing you didn’t provide for me. Don’t ever for a second think you play some blame in this. You are incredible.” Leo’s voice simultaneously speeds up and chokes up.
“You gave me exactly what I wanted in life and I fucked it up. I should have talked to you instead, shared my concerns with you. I was scared and didn’t want to scare you while pregnant. But that’s no excuse. I should have trusted your strength. I fucked up. I fucked up so insanely I don’t even know how to begin to apologize. If it takes until my last breath I will spend every moment gaining your trust back. I can’t lose you. I can’t. It took me so long to find you.”
Time stretches out. I’m tired. Tired of crying. Tired of depression. Tired of a broken heart. Tired of anger and confusion and sadness.
I gulp down whatever is left of my pride and feeling like a complete let-down to womankind, I become the calm in the midst of his storm.
“OK mister. OK. I do wanna work towards forgiveness. I want to trust again. It ain’t gonna be easy and it ain’t gonna be fast. But let’s do this.”
He looks at me, hazel eyes the dullest hue of raw cement, and we embrace under Ruth DeLuca’s watchful gaze. It feels good. It feels like a start.
Leo Donnovan screwed up. It’s now up to both of us to repair the relationship. Ruth advises us, “Build a new foundation together. This is a fresh start for you both. It’s time to start trusting again. To start proving that you are worthy of trust again. Ask each other, ‘What did I do to push you away?’ and ‘How can we be more connected in the future?’ Find a new hobby, an interest to pursue together, something as fresh as this new time in your relationship. Bond. Consider being intimate.”
I stare at the woman through puffy eyes and actually see her for the first time. Ruth DeLuca is an olive skinned Italian woman with tinges of grey at the temple. With a slender build and masculine jaw line that contradicts her feminine aura, she sits with her knees tucked under her in a leather armchair that seems to swallow her whole. I realize that I like her.
After a silent drive home I need to be alone. I ask Leo upon arriving at the beach house, “Can you give Emily her bottle? I was hoping to go for a run.”
I feel a spark as he brushes up against me, gently taking the baby from my arms. His touch feels realer somehow than before the appointment. Trust rebuilding? A hobby? My mind is churning and I need to escape, to run away from my thoughts like I have been doing for years.
Leo responds, “Sure.”
As I turn to leave he grabs my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. I face him and for the first time since “the mistake,” he kisses me firmly on my lips.
After an instant of cringe I force myself to kiss him back. It’s a good kiss. Maybe even a great kiss. One that’s full of hope and I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel a twinge of sexual excitement for the first time since that awful day in Atlanta.
Hating to pull away but needing to gather myself I break away and go to the tiny master bedroom. I pull out my non-maternity running shorts for the first time, looking rumpled and old, and am surprised when they fit.
I go to the bathroom and pause in the mirror. “Mom” ponytail and swollen eyes. Rounder than I used to be before pregnancy; softer somehow. I undress and eyeball the stretch marks that no amount of oil prevented despite serious effort. Settling for thinking I look better than feared, I make a mental note to shave my legs later. Maybe tonight will be the night that I touch legs with my husband under the covers. A small gesture but surely a welcome one by us both.
I miss our intimacy. As I lace my old running shoes I realize how desperately horny I am. How long has it been? Four, five months?
I sneak out the front door and hit the pavement still drying from the rain. I find my body pushing hard to reach a jogging pace close to what I used to be able to keep up with and I eventually fall somewhere near acceptable.
I run, feeling the steamy salt air in my nostrils, hitting my runner’s groove. Thinking still about my absence of sexuality, I feel desire spread through my body, creating a heaviness in my loins that only plunging a finger (or Leo’s sizable cock) into my hole can solve.
Leo. I fell so passionately in lust with him I convinced myself I could live a life without divulging The Sex Slave fantasy. Wild sex and old fear kept the desire for “more” at bay. But as of today we are supposed to have no secrets. Neither of us.
I am terrified to expose this to him. What if he judges me? What if he thinks less of me? Worst of all, what if I really am just a slut?
Ice chills my spine and I slow my pace that had turned into sprinting. I make a split second decision. If Leo wants me to live with his secret, he’s going to at least hear me out. If he shuns me? Well then... fuck him. It’s time to renew our relationship. We need a fresh start and full disclosure.
I turn around and slowly walk back towards our new home. The whole way there my brain turns over every possible outcome, queries every response that could come out of his mouth, and I prepare for admonishing.
Heading up the front stairs to the beach shack, I walk in and find Leo at the computer desk tucked into the living room shuffling through some bills and tossing junk mail into a recycling pile.
“Where’s Emily?” I ask, almost visibly shaking with nerves by this point.
Turning towards me, “Napping. You ok?”
I don’t dare hesitate and it comes out of my mouth in a blur: “What do you know about BDSM?”
The instant the words fall on his ears and he can process what his darling wife has just spoken aloud, he grins. A wide, genuine smile that lights up the entire room. I exhale deeply and suddenly become enthusiastic as hell about a fresh start with Mr. Donnovan.
Chapter Five: Firsts and Gifts
Time really does work to heal old wounds.
When something harrowing happens, that first day you feel sliced apart and the devastating pain is all you can notice. The heartache is all that fills your soul. The next day, still, constant hurt.
Sure enough though a month later you can go several hours without being reminded of the root of the damage. When that realization hits you, you wonder, Well, when did this get a little easier? as if the healing salve of time soothed you when you slept in the night. You may never forget but you create a new normal, one that allows you to still function and at some point, function happily.
I sway my hips in the compact beach house kitchen a week after sharing my darkest secret, quietly humming an old reggae tune. Working in a joyful mood that matches the sunny paint that peels from the extreme humidity I wash my pots and pans from dinner the night before, a seafood dish that was mouthwatering. That’s one nod for beach living; my cooking has never been better. I think back ruefully at the thrown together meals at the end of a long workday. I forgot how much I love cooking and baking and being in the kitchen.
The thought of being a dutiful, old-fashioned homemaker brings a peacefulness inside that is quite unexpected.
There is something comforting in being this woman, in relishing a slower pace, in being available to tend to our home and raise our daughter. I feel calm in my heart only disturbed by the fear that it will one day disappear.
I can still feel the lingering of Leo’s deep kiss as he left for work and I look forward to his return at the end of the day for the first time in as long as I can remember. Scrub, dry, quietly put the dish away. Scrub, dry, quietly put the dish away. Thank goodness for dear Emily napping easier. A visit to the pediatrician helped us get her colic under control and thanks to the static hum of a white noise machine she is one happy and well rested little baby now. I continue the housework in silence as I tidy the home being filled up with honest communication.
The mister is thriving at his new job: he is attentive and dedicated, a fast learner who redefines what it is to listen to a client. His transition to a career selling real estate suits him. He prefers working with more down to earth people and it doesn’t get more relaxed than selling new houses in paradise to new retirees.
Leo has been in professional sales since turning eighteen and graduating high school, snubbing a nose at student loans and instead going to work to make a success of himself without debt. This switch to real estate sales is like releasing a fish grown too big for the channel into the ocean. There have been eyebrows raised at his selling houses in a supposed “recession market,” but true to form he has been successful from day one.
I get a text in the pocket of my kitchen apron and attempt to dry my hands on the damp kitchen rag before turning the vibrating gadget off. Pulling it out, I read the message from Leo:
How is the information I requested coming? I want to talk soon. Tonight?
A smile turns up the corner of my lips and I blush. A grown woman, a mother for goodness sake, blushing in a beach-worn kitchen shanty over a text from my husband.
