Affairytale : A Memoir

by C. J. English

  “No. Don’t touch me,” I stepped back, beginning to boil.

  “Oh God not this again,” he threw his hands up, annoyed at my continued unhappiness. Then dropped his arms letting them slap against his body. He turned to walk away.

  “See! This is why we don’t get along. You don’t listen to me, you don’t hear me, we don’t communicate, at all!” I needed him to hear me this time. “I. Can’t. Do this anymore!”

  “Do what?” He scoffed.

  “Do what?” I said calmly, but his insolence enraged me and I bellowed it a second time so loud I startled myself. “Do what? I fucking hate you. That’s what. I don’t want anything to do with you. I hate living with you. I hate sleeping with you. I hate you. I’m done I’m done I’m so fucking done with you.” My body shook from rage. “Why would you want me anyway? Why would you want a wife who treats you like this?” I slid down the dishwasher and thunked to the floor. “I can’t change how I feel. I’ve tried. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t. It’s killing me.”

  I had no tears now, no feeling…I was numb and unresponsive.

  There was a long silence between us. I examined the vinyl floor, he examined me, leering at me, disgusted by me.

  “Well,” he said, “what do you want to do then?” He assumed I had a plan, like I had every time before. Something to help our marriage get better when things got lousy. A romantic trip, a night at a fancy hotel, or a massage in the bedroom. My plan did include all of those things, just not with him.

  “I don’t want to be with you anymore. I can’t live like this, and I won’t let Dani live like this.” I stood up, wiggled off my wedding ring and set it on the island. The tinging sound it made when it hit the black granite echoed in the silence.

  “So what are you saying? You want a divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. No way. We’re in this together, remember? We’re not giving up, I’m not leaving.”

  “In what together?” My voice strained, “we don’t even have a marriage, we don’t even like each other, there’s nothing to give up. It’s already gone.”

  “Dani!” He roared. “We are not going to do this to Dani.”

  “You think us staying together is good for her? Are you blind? Look at us! I don’t want to show her that this is what marriage is. ”

  “I’m not leaving,” he said, his demeanor smug, hiding the hurt. “You can leave.” He threw up his hands at me, “You go. Get the fuck out of here if that’s what you want.”

  His face was that of a husband scorned, twisted and wrought with anger and pain. I brought out the worst in him, and he brought out the worst in me. I hated who I’d become with Levi and I hated who he became with me.

  “Don’t even think about taking Dani or Bodi, they belong here, with me,” he yelled. “If you want out, then you leave. In fact, why don’t you leave right now, I really don’t want you here anyway. This is my house!” His angry eyes scoured my soul.

  “This is her home and Bodi belongs here too. I’ll take care of the house, all the bills, I don’t want anything from you. They belong here, and I belong with them. Please…” I begged, “Let me keep them in the house, please. You can take whatever you want, just leave.”

  He leered at me with vicious eyes, “I will never. Ever. Give you this fucking house. Bodi is mine. Dani is staying with me. You want out, then you leave.”

  I slept on the floor in Dani’s room that night and listened to what sounded like a hurricane picking up speed and blasting its fury through our house. He slammed doors, threw books, and yowled one word profanities.

  Bodi’s coarse fur was my only comfort that night as I lay on the scratchy carpet next to Dani’s bed. Then even he trotted away, annoyed with my neediness. It was well after midnight when I sent Grant a text. The blurry white letters were a strain for my exhausted eyes.

  Sorry so late. Rough

  night. I’m okay for now.

  I’ll call u in the morning

  as soon as I can. Goodnite.

  :) Don’t txt back.

  ***

  I anticipated Levi wanting to reconcile, but I didn’t expect the depth of commitment he offered. He confided in his mom, telling her everything he knew, asking for help. I ignored her call. He consulted his friends, my friends, called Dylan to see what it would take to change my mind. I ignored their calls. He genuinely wanted to make us work. It was an effort deserving of respect—noble, but years too late.

  ***

  Dani and I would be the first tenants in a new apartment complex a few blocks away from Levi’s house. It was modern, with white trim, sprawling oak floors and a large white fireplace. It was within walking distance to Dani’s school and available in two weeks.

  Without divulging my plan to anyone, I lined everything up. Movers to help with the furniture and my piano, advance payment of my rent and a deposit, forwarding address, I paid off Quickie, then had exactly eight hundred dollars cushion in my checking account. Most of which I’d gotten a month prior by confiscating our joint tax refund before he knew it had even come in because as I expected he would, he withdrew every last cent from our joint accounts. The only money I had left was tied up in my personal retirement accounts which thankfully he had no access to.

  Divorce mistake number one: I asked for a divorce before I moved out.

  Week one slogged along painstakingly slow. I created an invisible, yet highly detectable, stay-the-fuck-away-from-me shield. But even my transparent and seldom presence was enough to churn up a vile anger between us. Living in that house, with Levi, became like riding a roller coaster through the bowels of marriage hell. Up, down, over and around the same moot points.

  Grant and I agreed to lay low until I moved out. If Levi suspected something, now would be the time he’d follow me or have me followed. By Thursday of that first week, we were unable to swear off each other.

  Thursday

  He knew I was coming over, right? It was Thursday. We planned for Thursday.

  Grant wasn’t answering his phone. After work I decided to go to his place anyway. I let myself in like he said I could, but he was gone. I expected to find him hiding, filming me in some elaborate prank like he had so many times before. I expected the doorknobs to be greased with KY, trip wire to be strung low on the wall in the hallway and a condom wrapped around the shower head. But instead there was nothing, only silence.

  I walked into his bedroom.

  That’s when I saw it.

  I clutched my chest, holding in my heart, preparing for the worst.

  I knew it, I knew it was too good to be true, I knew it!

  Chapter 29

  “HE’S MORE MYSELF THAN I AM.

  WHATEVER OUR SOULS ARE MADE OF,

  HIS AND MINE ARE THE SAME.”

  —EMILY BRONTË, WUTHERING HEIGHTS

  A long white rectangular envelope was propped against the pillows on his bed. On the front he’d written my name—Charmaine, with a wavy underline.

  He never calls me Charmaine, I’m “baby”, or “honey”, or “sweetheart”. I’m “C.J.”

  That my actual name was written or spoken meant that whatever this was, it was serious. I clonked down on the edge of the bed with the envelope in my hand. The evening light shone through the window and made a long gray shadow of my silhouette on the floor; a fitting self-portrait, an accurate portrayal of the gloom that had just crept over me.

  I never really expected him to stay with me anyway.

  Inside the envelope was a card with wispy hues of lavender, and a single white whimsical feather floating down. A long Hallmark sentiment was written in gentle cursive across the front. And before I even read it, I postulated what it said, he was about to let me down easy. It would say something like, even though you’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, I think we’d be better off as friends. Gutted by fear, I slumped over the envelope horrified that I was about to lose the greatest love of my life.

  To my awe and amazement, what I
got instead, was nothing short of a glorious beginning to the rest of my life. The love poem on the front was filed with promises of forever, true love and meant-to-be’s sentiments. The inside was covered with two wondrous pages of Grant’s unique handwriting.

  Baby,

  This card was the most perfect card I could find. You are the greatest thing that has happened in my life, ever. You really have proved to me that people can truly be happy. When I’m around you, I feel so wanted, so liked, so adored, you are like nothing I have Ever! Experienced, and it honestly feels so great that I can hardly contain myself!

  What we have is so special, you know it too. I have fallen so hard for you C.J.…When we’re together, each time brings me closer to you, and is even more amazing than the last. You’re not only the last person I want to be with; I swear you are the last person I’ll ever be with. The thought of anyone else is not even there. And if anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.

  I know things have happened fast, but I’ve always tried to convince myself that when you find the right person, you know right away. Things have happened at the perfect pace for us, so I will never care what anyone thinks. I know your heart was out of your marriage a long time ago, and it’s just been hanging there, in the balance, waiting for the right person and the right time, and my goal is to spend every day convincing you that giving it to me, was the right thing to do…

  Love, Grant

  I sat at the edge of the bed—read it twice, slower the second time to make sure I’d read it correctly. My eyesight was blurry from a deluge of tears, I could barely see the words, I could barely breathe.

  When the door opened I sprung to my feet, ran to him and wrapped myself around him. With the card still in my hand I said, “You are the most wonderful man in the entire world!” I clung to him as he walked with me back into his bedroom.

  “Honey,” he said, emotion seeping from his eyes, “I’m so crazy about you—I love you.”

  “Baby, I would die without you. I love you.” He laid me down, underneath him. “I wish we could have been together sooner. I want ten-thousand more days with you.”

  He looked at me and we smiled, yearning for one another in a way only we could ever understand.

  “I could only hope to have ten-thousand days with you. Baby, let’s make the most of every day, I mean it. Let’s never take each other for granted, let’s travel around the world, let’s have babies.” He embraced me tenderly into his firm body, “I love you so much. Now I know why Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch.”

  We laughed with a wild abandon, we understood reckless love-sick behavior.

  I believe we were given a gift—an otherworldly love, a rare love. A love that stretches beyond humankind into the ether where it endures, a love where no amount of time, or space, or circumstance can stop it from fulfilling its destiny.

  The dictionary defines “paragon” as “a person viewed as a model of excellence.”

  If anyone could be that, it was him, and he was mine. My paragon.

  Grant lingered over me, staring at me, as if it was the first time, or the last, “I’m finally getting what I’ve always wanted,” he said. “I guess dreams really do come true.”

  “I guess they do.”

  He caressed my lips with his thumb then kissed me softly, touched me with his capable hands across my ribs and down my sensitive sides. He explored the contours and grooves of my body then gripped the top of my yoga pants, waiting for permission. I could feel his primal desire to have all of me.

  Without warning he stepped out of his jeans and slipped off his shirt. His flawless skin hugged taught against his supple musculature as he stood magnificent before me. Seducing me with his translucent eyes and predatory grin, he watched as my unspoken desire for him grew. He slipped his fingers underneath the elastic of my yoga pants, then tugged them down slowly from side to side, then off.

  My not-so-beige, barley-there lingerie received approval with a chorus of seductive hums. He paid full attention to my every twinge, every hitch in my breath, taking notes, examining my subtle reactions to his touch.

  I ached for him to lose control, to shatter his disciplined demeanor and unleash an untamed man. He was a beast, wild and hungry, but he was also a beast-master; calculated and patient, able to withhold his desire, to forego primal pleasure for something more connected and deep.

  Curiously, as his restraint lessened—mine got stronger, but our pact to wait until Fiji was still no more fool-proof than a teenage boy intending to use a condom. My torso curled and breath whooshed from my body when he forced my panties to one side, exposing me. He didn’t touch me. He left me nude and defenseless, begging for him not to stop.

  I tugged on the elastic of his boxers and whispered, “Take them off.”

  He moaned in agony, ready to accept defeat then he pressed his lips to my ear, “You naughty, naughty girl, I know what you’re doing.”

  “Take them off.” I complained then forced my way on top. My hips were surrounded under the wide sprawl of his hands, and he moved me into place. “Maybe we should just…put it in? I mean, just one time, you know, to see if it fits?”

  I spoke casually as if unaffected my own preposterous suggestion, but my heart beat wild in my chest at the thought. A devious laugh of pleasure and torment echoed through the room as absorbed what I was saying.

  “What a great idea,” he said, “Yes, let’s just see if it fits.”

  Slowly, I lowered myself down an inch at a time. Squeezing and wriggling side to side almost imperceptibly. “What if I just sat down, and didn’t move. Just once, like this. That wouldn’t count…right?”

  I bit my lip, refusing to break character, thrilled to be punishing him with such a brilliant enticing offer. I rocked my hips almost undetectably on top of his lap.

  “No…of course this doesn’t count,” he said, his voice thick with testosterone as he lay still, immersed in sensation. A moan of pleasure slipped through his euphoric grin. I stopped.

  “Now, you’re sure this doesn’t count…right?” He grabbed me hard, frustrated but refrained from moving—he loved the tease, the test of his will.

  “You’re killing me.” He yelped, shaking my hips under his hulk tight grip. “You naughty girl, I love it. I love you.”

  We played our naughty little game of pleasure and agony. Shamelessly exploring each other in a way that may, or may not have violated our pact.

  I sat still because a movement would make it count. “Don’t move,” I said, panting with desire. He turned his head, stuffed it into the pillow and released a disgruntled groan.

  “Shh…” I teased on his lips before I finally broke. “I changed my mind,” I said, “I have to move…”

  We interlaced our fingers and he dug his elbows into the bed to hold up my weight. I’d waited a lifetime for him, and I couldn’t wait any longer to have all of him. After a few delves, I stopped.

  “Oops—my bad, did that count?” I said with my fingers lightly touching my lips.

  “I think maybe that did count.” He nodded, “I guess we can keep going then?”

  “Um…I guess we can.”

  He threw me onto my back like I weighed only a few pounds, readjusted my wedged panties pushing them farther away from the center, then hovered his long thick torso over me securing my hands above my head. He was intimidating, yet I’d never in my life felt so taken care of, so safe.

  Careful not to crush me under his weight, he made love to me.

  He stopped for no apparent reason, collected me in his arms then pulled me onto his lap as he knelt on the bed. He stared past my eyes into somewhere deeper. “I know I’ve said it before but I can’t believe it’s you,” he said. “You were the only thing missing from my life, it feels so great now that you are here. Everything has changed, nothing else matters.” He tucked my hair behind one ear and gazed at me adoringly.

  I stretched my arms out over his shoulders, “I feel the same way, baby. But before t
his goes any farther I have to tell you something. Grant, I’m not on the pill.”

  “Shit. I was just thinking about that. Do you have any condoms?”

  “Do I have any condoms? No. Do you have any condoms?”

  I secretly hoped he would say no. Because saying yes would mean he’d slept with someone fairly recently, most likely in that bed, or that he had condoms just in case something came up. The thought of him wanting someone else, sleeping with someone else, touching someone else the way he touches me, caused a painful ache in my chest.

  “I don’t have any,” he said.

  Yes! Thank God.

  Then my phone rang.

  “I have to check it,” I said as I cringed, not wanting to leave his lap. “In case it’s Dani…I’m sorry.” I slid off of him and jogged to my cell phone with both hands covering my butt.

  “That was Dani, she was crying, she’s at a friend’s house and needs to be picked up. Grant, I have to go. Like now…” I added, then crinkled my face not knowing what else to say other than, “Do you want to finish quick?”

  He slumped his head and we shared a chuckle at our not-so-desirable circumstances. “Of course not baby. We don’t have condoms anyway so maybe this is a good thing.”

  “Honey, I’m so sorry. I will make it up to you,” I scrambled around the room gathering my things, not forgetting to take my card so I could read it again sixteen more times that night.

  “Don’t be sorry, and you don’t have to make anything up to me if you don’t want to,” he added with an adorable smile.

  I pulled on my clothes and fixed my bed head. “So I guess this really doesn’t count?”

  He pulled up his jeans and tucked his unsatisfied parts into the now crowded space.

  “I guess not, which means…we just get to do it again. But next time, we’ll be prepared.”

  ***

  Don’t ever let anything

  happen 2 u! Wear ur seat

  belt, stay healthy, minimize

  all risks! :)I know u do those things.