Page 2 of On Dry Land

“I heard from my doctor today,” I say, cutting him off. He quirks an eyebrow, likely having forgotten that I even went for a visit a week ago. He forgets everything. Or, perhaps more likely, simply doesn’t care enough to listen and try to remember in the first place. “The lab results came back.”

“I didn’t realize you were feeling ill,” Dylan comments, confirming what I’d just been thinking.

“It was just a routine visit,” I tell him for the second time. “But, apparently, a good thing I went in. I have gonorrhea.”

In the time it takes for him to respond, my mind goes through all the possible ways he might. Denial tops the list, with anger a close second. Or maybe not anger, as such, but outrage. Outrage and self-defense and hurt that I could ever think he’d cheat on me. I also wonder if he’ll question whether I’m the one cheating. Perhaps pick something up and throw it, the way I’ve seen him do on a handful of occasions when he lost a temper most people don’t know exists. Instead, he does none of those things. He laughs.

“Oh, hell.” He chuckles again, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “That was probably me. I made some questionable choices at a BDSM club a while back, and I’ve been waiting for them to come back and haunt me. I better call my own doc, huh?”

I stare at him. He’s not laughing any longer, but I feel like I can still hear it, ringing in my ears and vibrating my chest. I can’t imagine what sort of person would laugh at the words I just spoke. It wasn’t meant to be funny.

“BDSM club?” I ask, my logical, engineer mind taking note of all the little facts he just presented me with. Slowly, like an egg cracked on top of my head and trickling down my neck, numbness bleeds through my body. I feel calm and in control. I have to be. Dylan never is.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not about to bring chains home. It wasn’t for me.” He rolls his eyes, shaking his head fondly like he thinks he’s being cute. “But I wanted to try, you know? Check a couple kinks off the list. I know you’re not really into that stuff.”

He chuckles again, bending to slip off his shoes. I stare at the back of his neck and wonder why I wasn’t invited to the conversation about what stuff I’m into. We’ve been together since we were seventeen—if there was a list of kinks to explore, we were meant to be exploring them together.

“Dylan,” I say calmly, refolding the papers and placing them on my desk. “Are you sleeping with other people? Cheating?”

He stands up, shoes dangling from the fingers of one hand, and widens his eyes at me. Surprise and a touch of confusion. I’ve never wondered about what sort of liar Dylan might be, because I’ve never been concerned that he was telling any. My husband, the actor. A hint of anger bleeds through my calm before I seal the crack once more.

“Well, not sure that’s what I’d call it,” he replies, brows furrowing slightly like I’m confusing him.

“It’s a yes-or-no question.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about the gonorrhea. But come on, you know how it is! We’re not all swapping lab results in the back room while we lube up. It’s not a big deal. You’ll just take some antibiotics and be fine.”

“So, yes, then.” I breathe the words out and shake my head. He’s not even hiding it. No chagrin or fear or anything. He doesn’t think it’s a big deal. “How long has this been going on?”

The smile that hasn’t quite left his face since he got home slips just a bit, and a tiny hint of doubt creeps into his eyes. For a second, he looks worried. Carefully, he asks, “What’s happening here?”

“You went to a BDSM club without my knowledge. You had unprotected sex and contracted a sexually transmitted infection. You passed that infection to me,” I rattle off, swallowing down the you’re breaking my heart that I wanted to add. Argue like a scientist, not a lawyer, my dad always told me. Leave emotion out of it. Logic and facts only.

“Woah, hold on.” Dylan raises his hands, backing up a step. “Without your knowledge? What the hell are you talking about? I tell you every single time. I’ve already said I’m sorry, what more do you want? I’ll pay for the antibiotics!”

He laughs again, a slightly more hysterical sound as though I’m the one being unreasonable. His face is slightly flushed, voice just a touch higher than it needs to be. He never could manage to leave emotion out of anything. My father would be shaking his head, disappointed by his lack of self-control.

He leaves the office, muttering about dramatics. My dramatics, I presume, as he’s always remained woefully unaware of his own. I tell you every single time, he’d said, and doubt blooms heavy in my gut before the numbness overtakes me once more. Does he? I think about all the times he’s called me from work, voice cheerful as he told me about his evening plans.

“Stephen and I are going to that new club across town—Zebra? Zébra? I don’t know how it’s pronounced. You can join if you want, but fair warning, there will be dancing.”

Or the notorious Damien, who featured in quite a few of Dylan’s more colorful stories and was his go-to partner in crime when he couldn’t find any other takers.

“Dames and I are grabbing a drink after work,” he’d say. “Don’t wait up. You know how we are.”

And I did know. Dylan loved to tell me, loved to tell anyone who’d listen, about the times he got up on the bar to dance or how Damien got sick off too many body shots. Worth it, though, Dylan assured me before describing the cut of the man’s abdominal muscles and how hard Damien had to work to chase down all the tequila.

Standing here, I catalogue each and every time he told me where he was going and who he was going with, trying to remember if he was ever explicit about what he was doing. I’d remember if Dylan was the one slurping alcohol off a stripper’s stomach. I’d remember if he mentioned going out with a friend and not coming home until late because he was fucking them. I assumed friendship instead of cheating, because he hadn’t given me a reason not to. My husband is allowed to be friends with other men, other queer men. I don’t tie a leash around his neck and gatekeep him. I don’t question him.

Looking down at the lab results sitting on my desk, I tilt my head from side to side, trying to ease some of the tension in my neck. Damien, Stephen, Kale, Aron, Kamal, Jordan. Countless more whose names I didn’t bother to remember, assuming they were just another in a long line of Dylan’s friends I’d never meet. A BDSM club. Pressing my fingertips to the desk, I close my eyes.

He did tell me. Layered under just enough subterfuge to make me wonder if he really thought I was okay with it—understood what he was doing—or if he was merely fooling himself. Another of Dylan’s tricks—the ability to lie to himself so convincingly, he himself would start to believe it.

There is a natural and predictable pattern to Dylan’s emotions. Happy until a minor inconvenience comes along, where sarcasm might be able to jump in and save the mood. If not, it’s self-pity and anger. Why me and it’s all your fault. After that, it’s sorrow. He has never been afraid of letting me see him cry, which I once found endearing. Now, it simply feels like another act in a show I wish I didn’t have a ticket for. I sit in silence, listening to the words that make it through the tears, and wonder if the second glass of wine I’m on will be enough to burn away the gonorrhea. Dylan isn’t the only one who can find humor in a fucked-up situation.

I drain the glass as he says I didn’t know for the seventh time. I could turn this into a drinking game, if I wanted to. I’ll call it: things he didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to do after making marriage vows. Dylan reaches for my hand—another part of the drinking game, as it’s the third time he’s tried it—and I slowly move mine away. I don’t like holding hands, and he knows that. Another couple of tears track down his cheeks, and those traitorous emotions try to claw their way out of the cage I put them in. I look away. It’s not easy, sitting and watching the person I love above anything else sob.

Performative, I remind myself. He’s always enjoyed playing the role of the victim.