by Rye Hart
The man was never around. He preferred the company of his coworkers at the bar to that of his wife and his son. No one batted an eye at it either. This was normal. There were few women in this small town who were in happy marriages. Everyone said they were happy but Marie knew it was a lie. She saw the same sad look in every woman’s eye that she had in her own. No one was happy, but you couldn’t admit it.
Divorce rates would have been through the roof if divorce had been acceptable. There were no legalities that kept women from divorcing their husbands, but sometimes social pressure held more power than law.
Like every other woman in town, Marie played with roll of the happy wife. She smiled at the other women in the grocery store and made small talk with them. She laughed at bad jokes and cleaned up after her drunken husband stumbled in from a long night at the bar.
Drinking wasn’t an uncommon hobby in these parts but Robert’s drinking habits got out of control, even by the lax standards of this small Tennessee town. He was soon known as the town drunk and their family was cast out from the social circles.
Richard went through high school without any friends, and the few women that Marie enjoyed talking to abandoned her. She was more alone than ever and so was her husband. Robert hadn’t ever been held accountable for his actions, so when he lost his job, his friends and the respect of everyone in the town, he took his anger out on his wife.
Robert would come home from his minimum wage job, raging and drunk from spending too much time at the bar again. Marie sent Richard to his room so that he wouldn’t bear the brunt of his father’s abuses. She was happy to take it for the both of them.
For a long time, it was just verbal. He’d scream at Marie while she cooked and even threw something occasionally, though it was never at her. He would break plates but he didn’t hit her for a long time, and the first slap was the last.
He came home in a particularly foul mood one day and started screaming at his now eighteen-year-old son. Richard had just graduated and was trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life. Robert had him cornered and was screaming at him about how he was wasting his life and Marie wasn’t about to let it continue.
She stepped in between them and before she could get a word out, she was slapped across the face. Her head snapped to the side and she could taste blood in her mouth. After a moment she wiped her lips and spit the blood onto the floor, rage boiling inside her.
Marie would never forget that feeling as long as she lived. It was soul crushing sadness mixed with an anger that made her want to wring his fat neck. The taste of blood made her all the angrier. Her breath was coming at a quickened pace and when she turned her head, he was already apologizing, eyes wide.
Apologies weren’t enough.
Richard had already run up the stairs and Marie told her husband that if he touched her again she would break his arms. Those were the last words she said to her husband that weren’t said through a lawyer or in a courtroom. She’d filed for divorce the very next day.
Chapter Three
While she was waiting for the divorce to go through, Marie had kicked her husband out of the house, forcing him to stay with his parents. He complied, hoping that this was a storm that would pass. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
As soon as the divorce was final, she packed up her things in a U-Haul and moved about four hours west to Nashville. She and Richard found a cozy little house in the suburbs that was being rented out and began their new life.
That had been two years ago.
Marie thought that leaving her drunken husband behind and getting out of that oppressive little town would solve all of her problems. She’d been severely mistaken. Moving to Nashville had been an easy choice but the life she was making there was far from perfect.
It was a struggle to keep her head above water and Richard didn’t make it any easier. Without any type of education beyond her high school diploma, it had been hard to find a decent job. She’d eventually started working at a local animal boarding facility. It was a large place with huge fields and a caring staff. She loved working there but wished it had paid a little more.
She’d started out as a handler but now worked as a manager over animal care. Her knowledge of how to train animals and her success rate made her an ideal employee. Marie liked her job at The Pet Palace but she wanted more.
Marie had begun taking classes at night in order to earn her Associate's Degree but it was slow moving and at thirty-nine, she thought being a vet might be too lofty a goal. She couldn’t give up without at least trying, though.
Richard wasn’t any help at all, either. He had inherited his father’s addictive personality but had chosen a much more damaging addiction. She never thought her bouncing baby boy would turn to drugs, but what parent did?
Heroine was Richard’s poison and when she found out, she’d kicked him out of the house until he got clean. He’d agreed to go to rehab and she’d helped fund the endeavor. His first stay lasted a whole forty-eight hours, and the last two times he’d managed to stay a collective month. Not near long enough to kick the habit.
With the threat of being homeless looming over his head, he’d returned to his mother and begged for her to let him back in. She was hesitant but couldn’t stand to see her son out in the cold. Now he was a bum living in her basement. He came out to get food and ask for money but that was all she saw of him. He spent most of his time in his room with one of his many girlfriends.
Her son's active sex life didn’t escape her notice. The thought of the type of girls he brought home disgusted her, but she’d given up on fighting him about it. He was going to do whatever he wanted and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
That wasn’t the only intimate matter that had gained her attention. She was getting older and her body was getting more demanding. She was surprised that her intimate desires only increased the closer she got to forty.
Marie’s life was busy enough with work, school, and caring for her addict son. She didn’t have time to date and she wasn’t really even interested in trying to find a new man. Her marriage had been so sour that the last thing she wanted was another one. Hell, she didn’t even want a boyfriend.
Now, casual sex sounded nice but she didn’t even know how to go about finding a ‘hook up’. She wasn’t a young girl who could just roam around bars and find men to take home. She had tried the internet dating thing and was put off with the type of men she found there.
She was still a beautiful woman, even if she was in her late thirties. Her full hair was still thick and lustrous and her eyes were starting to show her age but the only lines were smile lines. Her eyes were clear and big, and her lips still full without the aid of collagen or fillers. She’d protected her skin from sun damage and thanks to her adamant application of sunscreen, she had almost no wrinkles.
Because of her inherent beauty, plenty of men flocked to her profiles but what she found once she started talking to them was that they were all younger men, looking for something that they called a ‘cougar’ or a ‘MILF’. She did a quick Google search of the terms and was shocked at their meanings. She deleted all of her profiles immediately. She wasn’t interested in being someone’s fetish.
Her intimacy prospects were slim. Marie’s only options seemed to be men half her age that saw her as some weird sexual object or the man she worked with. She felt like she had settled for her husband and she wasn’t willing to do that again.
Marie sighed as she set her bags down inside the door and looked down at her phone as it buzzed. It was Rachel, one of her best friends. She’d met the woman through work. She was a teacher of human sexuality at one of the colleges in the area and sent her dog to the doggie daycare Marie’s work offered.
She was an amazing woman and Marie loved her dearly. She sat on the couch and opened the phone to read the text message Rachel had left for her.
‘You and me. Lunch tomorrow at the new soup and salad place downtown?’
Marie
couldn’t refuse her friend and smiled, sending a quick reply.
‘Sounds like heaven. See you at noon.’
Chapter Four
She never had to ask what time she was supposed to be meeting her friend. Even though Rachel was a bit of a wild card, she had lunch at the same time every day. Marie may have been the reason for that.
They were best friends but they were complete opposites. Rachel thrived in what she called 'creative chaos' and Marie needed order. It had come from years of not having control over her own life. Now that she was a free woman she liked to be in charge of as much as possible.
There was one other constant with Rachel. She was chronically late. She was never later than five or ten minutes but Marie could always expect her friend to run over to her, panting and apologizing for her tardiness. Most of the time it had to do with the school.
Rachel worked in the psychology department of a prestigious school in the area. She wore big round glasses that magnified her pretty green eyes and had short red hair with short fringe bangs. She showed her age more than Marie due to her high stress job, but she was still a beautiful woman.
She was petite and barely reached five feet. She always complained about how she was going to shrink in her old age and Marie always laughed. The thought of Rachel getting any shorter was pretty laughable.
Like any other day, Rachel was late arriving to lunch. She sighed and flopped into the metal chair, looking at her friend and grinning. She didn't always tell Marie why she was late, knowing that the woman understood.
She ordered an Arnold Palmer and finally turned to Marie, grinning brightly.
"Aren't you as stunning as ever!" she hummed, flipping her menu open.
Marie rolled her eyes, "You don't have to flatter me. You aren't trying to woo me," she pointed out, closing her menu.
She liked consistency as much as she liked routine and so she ordered the same thing everywhere she went. A Cobb salad with ranch and extra avocado. Rachel cocked a brow when she ordered, "Aren't you ever going to try something different?"
"Why would I? I know I like this," she pointed out.
Rachel sighed and shook her head, changing the subject to something that was far more interesting to her.
"How is you man hunt going?" She meant her literal hunt for a man to sleep with.
"Terrible. I thought I found one prospect but he had pretty bad mommy issues."
"They all do."
"This one wanted to know if I was lactating," Marie said, crinkling her nose.
"Oh dear," Rachel said, blinking a little.
Marie nodded and sighed, handing her menu over to the waiter and glancing at her friend. "I don't think it's a lot to ask for a normal guy who wants to have normal sex."
"You'd be surprised how lofty a desire that is these days," Rachel countered.
Marie nodded, tapping her fork on her glass as her mind spun. Rachel looked on, her lips pressed together. She finally sighed and started digging around in her purse.
"Listen. I've been holding off on this until I thought you were in dire need but I think that time is now," she said, pulling out a black business card.
Marie watched her friend closely, surprised when she pulled out the card and slid it across the table face down. Her brows furrowed and she picked it up and flipped it over. She was surprised to find that it was made of a thin metal that was flat black. There was no shine, gloss or color to the card, only raised letters that read ‘Mystique’ with an address beneath that but no phone number.
It seemed a little strange to Marie and perhaps a little sketchy. She pressed her lips together and looked the card over for a moment, “What is this, Rachel?”
“It’s a club that I’ve been going to for some time now.”
“Club? Aren’t we a little old to be going to clubs?”
“It’s a special kind of club that offers escort services,” Rachel said with a conspiratorial smile.
Marie set the card down and looked at her friend as if she were insane. “You’re trying to send me to a brothel?” she hissed.
Rachel rolled her eyes, “It’s a good place, okay? I’m not saying go in head first, I’m just saying you should check it out,” she said, picking the card up again and thrusting it toward Marie.
While she acted totally appalled, the idea wasn’t the worst one that had ever been presented to her. She looked took the card and tucked it away in her purse, not wanting to argue with her friend anymore.
She couldn’t help glancing at her purse, and more specifically, the pocket that held the strange business card. It seemed weird that there was no phone number. A brothel seemed like a place you would need to make appointments.
Her curiosity about the place played through her head the entire time they ate lunch. She was having a hard time focusing on her friend and Rachel seemed to notice. She also understood why Marie was having such a hard time. For a lot of people, the idea of paying for sex was taboo and Marie hadn’t really had a progressive childhood.
After a long silence, Rachel reached across the table and put her hand on Marie’s wrist, smiling. “Just go visit and see what it’s about. You’ll get a little eye candy out of the deal,” she said with a wink.
Marie rolled her eyes but smiled and nodded, “Alright, I’ll go see what it’s all about.”
Chapter Five
Marie didn’t know if she was actually going to go to the club. It seemed a little strange to her and when she went home to do some research, she wasn’t surprised to find out that they didn’t have a website. It would have been a poor decision for them, she supposed. If you owned a brothel, you probably didn’t want to advertise it.
Rachel had said she’d been going there for years and Marie couldn’t help but wonder how it had stayed under the radar for so long. Nashville was a big city, of course, but it was still in the Bible belt and people around here took sex and things of that nature almost as seriously as her small town had.
She had tossed her purse on the counter and it fell over, the contents spilling out. Marie hardly noticed. Her mind was running wild with the idea of visiting a brothel. It seemed so risqué and maybe even a little exciting. She wouldn’t have ever admitted that to anyone but she knew that she was excited by the prospect of visiting a place where she could pay for anonymous sex with attractive men.
It seemed like a better deal than paying for all these dating sites when all she really wanted was a hookup. Mystique seemed like her best option. At least if she went to this ‘club’ she’d actually get results for the money she was spending.
She sighed and put her hand to her temple, rubbing slow circles as she settled on her couch. Marie was a very high stress person and she knew that most of that was due to all of her responsibility and a lack of an outlet. She had no way to relieve the stress that had been building up in her system.
Marie sighed and pushed herself off the couch and did a quick sweep of the house to make sure she was alone. She didn’t know where Richard was but he wasn’t here. She never knew where he was anymore.
When she was sure she was alone she wandered into her bedroom and locked the door, just to be safe. Marie kneeled beside her bed and slowly pulled out a small box. She took the lid off and pulled out the only good sexual partner she’d ever had. A slim purple vibrator. The first one she’d received had died years ago and she’d had to replace them every so often.
This one was by far her favorite because she could take it into the bath. She wandered into her favorite room of the house and flipped on the lights. She ran a hot bath and went through the room, lighting the candles that she kept strewn about. This was her sanctuary. She waited until the tub was full, put on some calming music and settled in the water.
She leaned her head against the tile wall and closed her eyes, relaxing as the warm water loosened all the knots in her body. She sighed and turned her head to the side, a blush coming over her cheeks as she let her mind wander. What did her perfect man look like? He was definitely tal
l. Tall men had always been her thing. He’d be muscular, but not so much so that he looked like a meat head. She preferred men with a runner’s body. Slim and firm with toned legs.
Marie shivered at the mental image she was creating and bit her lip as her hand ran over her breasts. She let out a soft moan when her finger found the nub of her nipple. She whimpered and pinched it just a little, her mouth falling open as she gasped.
His hair would be long and dark, pulled back into a ponytail. He would have young, bright eyes and a charming smile that spoke to his good nature. He would be strong and firm with her, but never hurt her. Maybe he’d pull her hair a little.
She gasped and arched her back as her hand wandered further south. She gripped her vibrator in one hand, chewing on her lip as she dropped it between her legs and turned it on, resting it against her most intimate areas.
A familiar fire began to burn inside of her as she rocked her hips. She loved this feeling and Marie knew she’d love it even more if a man was providing the pleasure. She spread her legs wider for her imagined lover, her free hand still resting on her ample breasts.
She was so close to the edge of orgasm when she heard a moan that wasn’t her own. Her head snapped up and she turned to look at the bathroom door. There was someone else here. She frowned and stood up, drying off before slipping a robe over her shoulders. After she tucked her little friend away she wandered out to the living room and gasped.
Richard and one of his girlfriends were on the couch in varied stages of undress. They were giggling at nothing and reaching blindly for each other and were clearly out of their minds. She should have been used to seeing her son high but it never got any easier.
“RICHARD!”
He looked up at her blinking as if to clear his vision. “Hey, ma!” he called, waving as his girlfriend started to get dressed.
