by Jaime Thorne
The face in the mirror didn't look like me.
Ever since Emily and Jacob had their anniversary party I hadn't felt like myself but the time since Jacob left the firm had been especially draining. I'd been caught and pulled forward by the needs of my new fantasy and cravings while being held back by the necessity of my newly increased job, and the stress of both of it had resulted in a serious drain on my system.
I had been running myself ragged for the last while, and it really showed.
Deep bags under my eyes, deep lines in my face. More gray than I had before and more stress and strain in me than I'd ever seen.
I didn't look like myself, I looked like a man who was paper thin and barely able to keep things together.
Pulling the wrinkled suit off of me I let it fall to the floor, I didn't give a damn that it was the only piece of clothing I had because I didn't give a damn about anything as I stepped into the shower and let the water wash over me.
It was cleansing, but I knew it would never be enough to wash away the way that I felt about myself.
As I let the water wash the sweat off my body and the tears off my face I allowed myself to focus on the one truth that I hadn't been able to until just now. The one truth that was pushing at the corners of me as I was curled up on that floor, that was too much for me to deal with until I had the baffling peace and quiet of the pounding water.
The truth that I had walked in on, not them together but the way that I felt about it. The truth that led to me standing there and watching all that time. That led to me feeling the way I did.
Not in my heart but in my gut, in that primal part of myself that had been in control all of these past weeks. That had made me press for more from Bruce and from Avril. That had made me bear witness to them during a second encounter and that led me to think one inevitable truth today when I watched them together.
I want this.
I wanted that to happen, to have them so driven to be with each other that they would do it without consent or permission. I had wanted so badly for this all to be a part of their fantasy as much as it was mine because maybe, just maybe, that would justify it all for me. That maybe them wanting to be together of their own accord made it acceptable for me to want it to happen.
Maybe it normalized all of this.
And I hated myself for that. For knowing that my normalcy was abnormal to society and for wanting for the others around me to feel the way that I did in order to justify it at least in my own mind.
That hatred gave me something at least.
It was that hatred that I focused on. That self-loathing that let me click off the shower and step out. That let me dry and dress and leave my room to head down to the hotel bar to drink as much as I could as a punishment to myself.
I figured this bar was fitting. I figured that it made sense for me to check into this hotel.
It was after all the scene of the first encounter they ever had together.
And aside from being a bit of poetic justice, I figured that at the very least Bruce wouldn't be dumb enough to check into this hotel. At least staying here would mean avoiding him.
But walking into that bar hit me with a wave of conflicting nostalgia. Because I might be sitting up at the bar this time, but I was still well in sight of that booth where I had my first conversation with him.
And it was when I went to order my first drink from the bartender that I realized I might have made a worse mistake than I could have ever imagined.
Because he slid a glass of my usual across the bar to me without me having to say a word. And as I stared at it thoughts ran through my head.
That he knew who I was. That he knew why I was here. That I had been exposed and that I absolutely deserved it.
But all of that was, of course, complete and utter folly.
“The gentleman at that booth over there ordered this drink for you,” the bartender explained, gesturing across the bar to a table shrouded in darkness.
I turned to look, dreading the sight of Bruce but finding someone entirely else to my surprise. And I found that I took up that drink in my hand, slipped off the stool and made my way across the bar to that table to slide into it on the opposite side from him.
“Jacob,” I greeted him, “It's a real surprise to see you here.”
Not just to see him here but to see him looking so good at the same time. To see him clean-shaven and chipper, dressed in a neat suit and looking for all the world like the man that I'd known most of my life. Like my business partner. Like my professional confidant.
Looking just like his old self.
“I could say the same about you, Jeremy,” he said with a grin, “And I could say that you look like absolute shit to boot.”
What was I supposed to say to that? How was I supposed to explain to this man the massive mistake that I'd made?
If anyone could understand it would be Jacob. Jacob wouldn't have any difficulties understanding what it was that I had done or why I had done it.
But admitting it to him felt like admitting my own weakness and it meant someone else hating me just as much as I did. It felt like a confession that I still wasn't prepared to have.
“Long day,” I told him, “Long day at the office. Long week at the office.”
“Yeah,” he said a little sheepishly, “I suppose you blame me for that, and rightfully so. I appreciate what you've done for me, but I mean it is my fault that you're in the position that you're in.”
I leaned back and looked at him, and he was so sufficiently mollified that I felt a little bad about blaming him for what was truly my own problems.
“Not your fault,” I said, “Truly exceptional circumstances. No one could be blamed, well except for Emily.”
“Not just her,” he said, getting a little contemplative, “Not entirely her fault. My fault too. I shoulder at least a little of that burden.”
We fell silent for a moment, and both of us sipping our drinks to fill the void.
“But why are you here?” he asked, “Why aren't you at home?”
“Avril is out of time,” I stammered quickly, making up an excuse on the spot, “And I figured with the stress and all maybe spending a night in a hotel would make up for it. Maybe treat myself to a hotel bed and some drinks to keep me company while she's away.”
It was a bad excuse and one that I could only just hope that he would buy without thinking too much about it. Otherwise, it wouldn't make a damn bit of sense, wouldn't hold up to the least bit of scrutiny.
I needed to press for something else before he focused on my answer.
“But why are you here? Why aren't you at your house?”
“Not my house,” he said, “Not anymore at least.”
Jacob took a deep gulp of his drink, finishing it and ordering another round for us with a wave of his hand.
“What do you mean Jacob?” I asked, “What happened to your house?”
“Gave it away,” he said dismissively, “Gave it to her. Gave it to Emily.”
I was shocked, to say the least. A cold feeling of disbelief in me making me press for more information.
“That's your family home,” I told him, “Your ancestral home. You couldn't get your lawyers to work it out so that you get to keep it? You didn't have a prenup with a clause for that? What the hell happened Jacob?”
“I had all of that,” he said with a shrug, “I gave it to her, my choice. I wanted her to have it.”
“Why?” I asked, not understanding any of this.
“Because a house is just a thing,” he said, “It's just an object like everything else. It doesn't really mean anything. I mean it's a roof over your head and whatever that but you could accomplish that with any house. Something like that place, that place was a burden and a reminder that of uncomfortable truths.”
Our drinks arrived and Jacob smiled at the waitress and then continued with his new life's philosophy.
“I have lived a lie my whole life,” he said, “I've really come
to realize that with reflection over the last few weeks. I've lived the life that I was told to live, by my family and by my history and by what society told me I had to live.
“In secret, I've been the person I wanted to be. I've drank and had fun and had beautiful women and enjoyed things that were so far off the line of what society deems acceptable or normal and only when enjoying those things have I really felt like myself. Only then have I really felt fulfilled.
“So why give that up to cling to the notion of what society wants me to be? Why give up what I want to do for what I'm told to do? Why cling to outdated notions of what is necessary when the truth is so much simpler?”
“What truth?” I asked, raptly hooked on his every word.
“The only person you have to be is the person that makes you happy,” Jacob said with a twinkle in his eye as he inclined his drink to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AVRIL
I didn't sleep that night, not really at all. I stayed up until I was overtired and exhausted and I fretted and I worried and I played over everything in my mind until I had exhausted every single possibility.
And when all of that was done I started over from the beginning and went through it all again.
I was single-minded in my focus. I had a goal and I knew that I would do whatever it took to get to my destination.
Nothing is impossible. With work and focus and drive and attention you can accomplish anything, even the impossible.
Jeremy had taught me that. He had made it his life's focus to accomplish the impossible and through his efforts, he had done so much more than I could have ever imagined. He was an inspiration, an aspiration. He was also my goal.
I had never stopped loving Jeremy. Even through all of my nights and days with Bruce, Jeremy had always been there too. He had been with me in each one of those, as a gnawing bit of guilt and as an insistent reminder of what it was that I valued in life, what it was that I desired.
I wanted him, to make him happy again. To go back to what we had before.
How far back was still in question.
Jeremy and I had been very happy once, had been happy for years. Until the last little while things had been normal with us, and for us normal was always exceedingly happy.
Sure we had our bumps and starts, our little spats and little differences. But we were happiest when we were together and both of us knew that on some level.
That was clear to me now, and I stared at that truth with a level of startling clarity that could only come from seeing everything fall apart in front of me.
God, I was going to lose him.
I had considered this before, but never with the level of focus that I had right now. It took seeing that loss in his eyes and that shock and shame that was rebounded in me for me to really understand what it was that was happening here.
I was losing him.
Consent is essential. We were all adults here and when we were together it was about consent more than anything else. That was what made everything that we did together acceptable. That was what made it anything other than a betrayal.
It had been Jeremy who had pushed for his fantasy. It had been Jeremy who had found Bruce and though it was me who signed off on him formally it was Jeremy as much as me who had consented to him. Bruce had agreed as well. We had all agreed together.
But Jeremy had never agreed to this. He had never come out and said that Bruce and I could be together without him, and that consent equaled a betrayal.
My feelings were all torn up and ragged, confusion and uncertainty reigning supreme in my mind.
It had taken me a while to warm to the idea of being with another man. Before I'd even met Bruce and before I'd even told Jeremy that yes I could agree to his fantasy it had been hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that this was anything but cheating. That it was anything but wrong.
On some basic level, I had always set our relationship out in rather simple and approachable terms. Marriage meant loving one person, meant swearing yourself to them and giving yourself to only them. It meant that anything outside of the bounds of that was a complete betrayal, a straight and clear line with no grey area involved.
But then again I'd never considered the possibility that a request like this could be made of me, and when it was I had to face up to facts that maybe my rigid system of marriage wasn't the right way to look at the world.
Maybe I needed to be a little bit more flexible.
It had been out of love, that had been the reason that I had chosen to agree to this. It had been out of love for Jeremy that I had allowed for the possibility of Bruce.
That first night had been undeniable in my mind. It had been good. Good sex and good company that had driven me to seek out more of it, that much was clear to me now.
But more than it just being good it had also been wrong on a basic level that had always remained with me. That rigid structure of marital concerns hadn't gone away, would likely never go away. Somewhere deep inside of me I had always considered what I did to be cheating, even if it was what Jeremy wanted me to do.
And the shocking thing to me was that once I pushed through and did the unthinkable, that feeling of betrayal didn't feel so bad. It started to feel naughty instead, and there was an appeal in that.
All my life I'd been the good girl. I'd been the girl who had done what had been asked of her. I'd been polite and demure and proper because I knew that was what was expected.
But doing something wrong had an undeniable appeal. It spoke to something primal and needy and it made me crave more of it.
It expanded my gray line until it encompassed so much more. Until on an unconscious level I could justify breaking even more rules, pushing even further.
Betraying everything.
I'd been bad. I'd been wrong. I would do anything to make it up to Jeremy.
But I didn't know if that extended to stopping.
Even now sitting alone in my house I found myself distracted as I considered all of this. I had to focus on going through the paces, on putting one foot in front of the other. I had to remember to eat and to drink. I had to remember to shower and dress. I had to remember to do things other than lie in bed and focus on the fantasy.
I had to remember to stop remembering my time with Bruce.
Left alone and left to my own devices I betrayed Jeremy again and again. Left alone with my own thoughts I remembered what I had done with Bruce with the sort of heady heat that had clouded my judgment and made all of this happen.
I wanted to make it up to Jeremy. In my lucid times, I'd called him again and again begging for him to pick up his phone. I'd sent him so many text messages to ask him to come home to me and let me make it up to him.
I'd promised him anything he wanted. I'd told him that I'd loved him and that I would do whatever it took to keep him happy.
But I had never promised to stop because I didn't know if I had it in me to do that. Not even for him.
I loved Jeremy but this was a new truth about myself that I was facing. It was a new person that I'd seen in my life and I knew that I wanted to keep exploring who she was. I needed to know who she was, to understand her fully.
Jeremy never answered a single call. He never responded to a text. He never responded to me in any way and my prayers and begging went completely ignored.
For all I know he could be dead or halfway across the world by now. For all I knew he could be sitting in the office of his lawyer running through all of the details and setting out the terms of our divorce.
I wouldn't fight it. I wouldn't contend it. I wouldn't reach for a single scrap that wasn't offered to me from this life.
He could have it all if he wanted. I owed him that much.
My night had been full of thoughts while I lay in bed. The guest bed because our bed had too many memories of the betrayal that I'd committed with Bruce there.
I had tried to sleep in that bed but the sheets had felt dirty. Removing them and tossing them
in the garbage didn't help, whatever filth was contained in them had seeped into the mattress and into the very bones of the room. It was a part of the walls that loomed all around me silently judging me.
So I had left that room and while it had helped assuage the guilt it hadn't in the least made it easier to sleep.
And when I gave up on it to entirely I found that I wasn't tired. I had a sort of weary exhaustion to myself, but that exhaustion had little to nothing to do with my lack of sleep.
It didn't stop me from pacing either, from walking up and down the stairs and through the rooms in this house that was far too big for the two of us. That was an unnecessary status symbol that seemed ridiculous without him here.
The more time I spent wandering the worse I felt until the fret and fear caused me to call him over and over and over again in rapid succession, getting his voicemail instantly every single time.
I stopped leaving messages even. I would just listen to his voice as he spoke out the message, drinking up what little comfort I could from that to tide me over until the next time that I could see him and hear his voice in person.
When there was a knock at the door my reaction was instinctive.
Logic escaped me then, though it doesn't now. Now I wonder what it was that I was thinking but at the time I convinced myself that it was him down there and I rushed to the door and opened it breathlessly awaiting the sight of him.
He looked sheepish and uncertain on the other side of the door. Chastised and more than a little ashamed. He could barely make eye contact with me, and for a man like him that was significant.
“What do you want Bruce?” I said to him, my voice immediately cold and dripping with venom, “You shouldn't be here.”
I felt more than a little bad about that. Bruce had a part in all of this, but his guilt was certainly less than mine, at least in my mind.
“I know,” he said, “Believe me I know and I wish I could walk away from here but I felt that after what I'd done this was the least I could do.”
