I wake in the morning beyond disoriented. My mouth is dry, and my lips tingle. I must have fallen asleep with my jaw hanging open, except that doesn’t explain my filthy dreams or why my panties are so wet and shoved between my labia as if my hands wandered in my sleep. Oh, Jesus.
Tim’s pillow remains untouched, the blanket on his side still tucked beneath the mattress, and I decide not to care about that. My attempt to confront him last night was met with a door slammed in my face, so that didn’t end up in a productive conversation. It’s probably for the best, as I was so guilt-ridden I would have just sobbed and confessed everything. That would have been a terrible idea, especially because I didn’t really do anything other than let Shane hold me. I’m not wrong for walking in on a private moment—rude, yes, but not wrong.
For once, God or the universe seem to be on my side; Tim never came to bed. I need space from him and all the ways I’ll never be enough. Plus, the couch in the den is old, shitty, and about a foot too short for him. An uncomfortable night of sleep serves him right for leaving me to walk home. I don’t even bother feeling ashamed about my petulant thoughts. I’ve always tried to be the bigger person, but he’s making me petty.
I walk through the house, hearing that he’s already getting ready for work, which is another good thing. His temper tends to come out during his morning routine—aimed at me, of course—and I don’t think I can take it right now.
I pause outside the hall bath where he is showering and toy with the idea of saying good morning. If things were the way they should be between us, I could climb in and help him get dirty and then clean. That’s the spontaneous kind of thing husbands and wives do, isn’t it? I’m not even sure, and that’s a stab to the gut. Deciding against saying good morning, I head to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.
The coffee Tim prefers sits on the top shelf, and I stretch to get it, knocking a dish over. It clatters to the floor, and I pick it up, glad I switched to composite materials that don’t break. My father beating me over breaking plates stuck with me, and a full-blown panic attack is the last thing I need any time I drop something.
Next, I scramble his eggs the way he likes them, even though he’s a jerk and made me walk home last night. Given the state of my marriage, I shouldn’t feel so guilty about letting another man hold me, at least not so much that I’m kissing up to Tim. What I saw in that office wasn’t my fault, but I can’t get the images out of my head, and I can’t stop how my muscles clench in hollow agony each time they do.
That terrible guilt twists my gut even harder as heat pools in my lower belly. The image of Shane biting his lip and coming while he said my name has my insides trembling and twitching, clenching at the desperate hope to magically find him inside me. He won’t, and he can never be. The remorse makes me hotter, and I’m so alarmed my hands tremble in sync with my insides.
I’m still unsure if Shane was coming to the thought of me or if it was simply too late to stop himself and he said my name in surprise. The timing was unbelievably close, but what do I know? Maybe that’s what he does on Tuesdays at two. Even if it’s only an illusion, feeling wanted is intoxicating.
It had to be a coincidence because I don’t want to stop seeing him as a doctor.
Shane seems to understand my predicament, and I like how easy and open he is about these sensitive issues that make me squirm. I need that to get through this. Tim and I need help, and I cannot stand having to explain to another doctor what’s going on between us or risk them not understanding. Tim already hates me. There’s no way he’ll accept doing this again. Aside from that, there’s no way I can explain why we would need to.
No, I’ll forget what I saw and stop getting wet whenever I think of it.
Tim walks into the kitchen, the stern look on his face softening when he sees the care I put into breakfast. It’s still not warm, just less hostile. He thinks I’m trying to apologize for yesterday. That only makes me feel worse because I’m not sorry about anything that happened before he left—or after, for that matter.
I’m sorry for wanting another man more than I’ve ever wanted you.
But instead of lightening my burdened conscience, I smile and eat in silence.
“Good eggs, Sera,” he murmurs as he scrapes the last bite into his mouth. He doesn’t put his plate in the sink before leaving the kitchen, and while I knew he wouldn’t, it stings that he doesn’t even try. I get on with washing the dishes as he finishes getting ready.
Tim heads to work shortly after that, and I’m thankful for his absence the rest of the day and late into the night.
Usually, when he calls to say he’ll be home late, he upsets me. Now, having more space from him is a blessing. I used to worry about what he was doing with jealous, paranoid thoughts. But now, I couldn’t care less. On the other hand, that’s not how I feel about Shane. I twist the simple wedding band on my finger as I repeat my newest findings to myself.
I don’t care what my husband is doing right now.
As I lie alone at night, I consider touching myself to Shane. I’m getting desperate. The hot and needy feeling between my legs has no chance of fading when the animalistic part of me demands I seek some release. Sadly, she’s not strong enough to overrule the nervous majority, resulting in me lacking the confidence to take care of myself.
It doesn’t matter how many articles I read or instructional videos I watch, reaching down there and bringing myself to orgasm still seems innately wrong and sinful. Every time I touch my wet, sensitive flesh, I shrivel, and so does that heat. It doesn’t help that I’m as bad as a cliché teenage boy poking around for the first time because I don’t think I’ve ever found my clit. My few female friendships have been surface-level, even in college, I never felt close enough to someone to ask for advice.
Tim comes home and gets into bed beside me sometime during the night, and I stiffen from head to toe. His proximity disturbs me to the point of nausea. I’m surprised to find no longing or desperation to touch him, only affliction and the hope that he’ll give up and leave. After an hour, give or take, I convince myself he’s going to chicken out, and that’s enough to get me to pass out.
I succeed in gaining a few tense hours of sleep. My body must know Tim’s beside me since I hardly move an inch, but I’m still surprised to see him when I open my eyes in the morning. Sky-blue eyes watch me, and I’m both unnerved and flattered by his attention.
“Morning, beautiful,” Tim’s voice is smooth and sweet, not as deep as Shane’s but pleasant and familiar.
At his compliment, warm tingles dance between my thighs, and I fluster at my body’s response. I didn’t realize I still wanted that from him, considering he’s left my heart in shreds and I can’t stop thinking about Shane.
Approval. The rational part of my brain whispers, and it’s right. That’s what I’m responding to.
“Morning, Tim. Did you stay out all night?” For once in my life, I mean the venom in my tone. Who does he think he is to roll into bed with me at any odd hour?
He shakes his head, and there’s a sad expression on his face. “No, I slept in the den again until about three.”
“Why?” I don’t want any of this. I want sex. I want a marriage. Why does it seem so impossible to have that with my own husband? I’m so sick of him treating me like an annoying sibling rather than a partner.
“I’m not sure how to be around you.” The open sincerity he regards me with equates to a sharp knife to my already bleeding heart.
“All of this because I want to have sex with you.” The heat from his fleeting compliment still burns beneath my flesh, revealing the degradation of this moment.
He pauses. His brow furrows, and he lets out a whooshing breath like I’ve hit him in the stomach. “It’s not that.” His bottom lip trembles like a small boy’s. I can see the little boy he once was inside the man, and I’m not sure how I can feel all the things I do for him.
“Then what is it?” I snap, tears streaming down my cheeks. I don’t want to hear what he has to say, I can’t take it, but we can’t live in denial forever.
“I want to have sex with you too, Sera. I swear to God, I do, but every time I get too close, I think about my legs breaking under a fucking baseball bat, and I can’t do it.”
He sobs, actually sobs. I have never seen Tim cry from anything other than a beating.
I suck in a sharp breath while the world, my world, is falling around me. Is Tim leaving me?
“Is that it then? You let me love you all these years, and now you tell me you’re done with me!?”
He scoffs. His hands scrub his tears away but more fall. “No, Sera! That’s not it, but we need to work through this together. Not with that creepy fucking shrink.”
“He’s not creepy,” I shout back as I leave the bed and stalk toward the closet, shaking my head. I need to get dressed, start my day, and find any excuse to get away from Tim. I think he knows we cannot work this out together and is terrified of what Shane might uncover, as well as how drastically our lives might need to change.
“Don’t shake your head! I told you the truth, okay? I admitted what my damn issue is, and if you think you’re going to get more out of me through that guy, you don’t know me at all, Sera!”
He’s following behind me, dragging the duvet onto the floor without giving a shit. I feel his shouting in my bones, and now I’m crying. I want to crumble at his feet and let my submission beg for forgiveness on my behalf, but I’m done being his doormat. This discontent has been a slow-growing thing, but I’ve had enough of being treated like half a person.
“What is your problem?” I square my shoulders and face him. “Do you think we can deal with this together? You can’t even bare to touch me, and I’m agonized by loving you!”
Not waiting for a response, I turn my back to him and dig through my dresser for a box of tissues. Even though Tim already knows I’m crying, I don’t want him to see my tears. For some reason, I feel possessive of them, like they don’t belong to him.
“Oh, come on!”
He slams the closet door shut behind me, trapping me inside. The closet is technically a walk-in, but I’m claustrophobic, and it isn’t spacious with the two of us in here. Tim knows how afraid of tight spaces I am, and he smirks at me like he knows what he’s done.
“What was that guy even talking about? Cognac Disconnect? He’s probably drinking that shit before his sessions for all the brilliant garbage he came out with! And the way he was looking at you…”
Powerless to breathe due to his puffed-up chest pressing against me, I’m overwhelmed by his display of jealousy. But what does he have to be jealous of? He doesn’t even want me.
“Cognitive dissonance, Tim,” I spit back, letting the budding anxiety from being trapped color my voice with rage. “If you had paid any attention in school, you might have heard the term before.”
Anger flickers over his features. “I know the term, Sera. I’m just not an intellectual snob who thinks I’m better than everyone. I never thought you could be impressed by someone like that.”
His words smack me. I never wanted to go to college at all, let alone again, and he’s throwing that in my face.
“No, that’s not why you think you’re better than everyone, is it?”
“That’s a load of shit!” he shouts, stepping forward and pressing me into the built-in drawers.
I’m about thirty seconds from having a panic attack, so rather than respond to his accusation, I ask him what I truly want to know.
“How exactly was he looking at me that you’re this mad?” I sound angry and accusatory, but I’m thrilled Shane’s attention was noticeable.
“Like he wanted to be the one to fuck you!”
His square jaw clenches at the same time the veins pop along his neck.
“And that upsets you?” I laugh in disbelief.
“Don’t be stupid, Sera! Of course it upsets me.”
Tim’s as red as he was that day I caught him in the bathroom, and I swear he’s telling the truth. That only makes this hurt worse.
“So you left me alone with him without a ride home when you thought he was trying to fuck me? You’re disgusting, Tim, and if you don’t want to, someone else will!”
I push past him with all my might. At first, he stands in my way, looking down at me with a superior expression. The walls are collapsing in on me and panic flares in my eyes. His malicious face drops, and he lets me go, surprised by his own rage and desire to hurt me as if those intentions belong to a separate entity. I’m running from that as much as I’m running from him.
I’ve never said the word fuck aloud in that context. I’ve said it several times to prove a point as an expletive but never a verb. The look of rage and disgust on his face is plastered inside my mind as I run through the house toward the guest bedroom, where I can get dressed in the hopefully-matching clothes I grabbed. I regret my words, but there’s no taking them back now, and I can’t pretend I didn’t mean them.
I hear Tim a few minutes later, his angry steps and the banging door resounding as he goes. His tires scream, announcing his departure.
