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as I’d known him, our sex life had always been fairly conventional. “I can tell you liked our little game,” he said, kissing my cheek, and I realized denial wasn’t going to be an option.
“Actually—I didn’t like it.”
He searched my face. “Ah,” he laughed. “See, now I don’t know whether or not I can believe you.”
“You hurt me.” I showed him the bruises. “It’s not really my thing.”
“Huh…” he murmured, scratching his chin. “Because you seemed really into it.”
I pushed the tray away. “I wasn’t.”
He slid it back in my direction. “Relax. Geez…I was just trying to spice things up a little.”
“Like I said, it’s not me.”
“Exactly. And that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes,” he smiled. “When two people, are married, when you’ve been together as long as we have—well, sometimes you want something different.”
“I don’t think the something you want,” I said, “is me.”
He shook his head and stood abruptly, causing the tray to tip. “I think,” he replied. “I think in time you’ll find that it is.”
I cleaned up the mess, and I said nothing. I suppose I should have seen it coming. But I didn’t. I really didn’t.
THE GAME that didn’t feel like a game at all continued. Ethan assured me rape fantasies were normal. He said he’d spoken with a therapist, and that these fantasies helped to get out his aggression. He said that she explained that desire and love are not mutually exclusive, and that sometimes what turns you on intimately is very different than what you actually want or do in real life. He explained that fantasy was just that. He said acting them out would help our marriage. He hadn’t meant to hurt me. He was just excited, and he took it too far. He promised to be more careful in the future. He said marriage was accepting all of a person, not just the parts you liked.
But mostly, he didn’t talk about it. He just found new and unusual ways to surprise me. Our game, as he liked to call it, often started with any perceived infraction. Like a charge on the credit card he hadn’t approved of. Or a towel being folded improperly. Or my growing refusal to want to leave the house.
The final straw was the night he bailed me out of jail for the DUI. I knew what was coming. I knew he wanted to play his game, and that’s why I left. Perhaps subconsciously, I was looking for a reason not to go back. Maybe jail seemed like as good an alternative as any.
After we got home, he tried his usual tactics. He accused me of upping the ante. First, there was the cornering. Next, came the hand covering my mouth. Then, his belt wrapped around my throat. He liked to pull tight as he forced himself into me.
“I’m your husband,” he said when I pulled the knife on him.
“And if you ever touch me again,” I told him earnestly, “You’ll be my dead husband.”
Even still, he thought it was a part of the game. And maybe it was.
I stabbed him in the thigh anyway.
“You’re going to regret this,” he assured me as he packed his bags, his wound leaving a trail of blood along our creamy white carpet. I didn’t. I only regretted the choice in color. “You’re going to come to realize I am the only person who has ever really loved you.”
The unfortunate thing about that is he was right —my husband did love me. He does love me.
And I love him.
He has his flaws. A big one, to be sure. But time has a way of clouding even the worst of things. And, well, desperation has a way of seeking its own level, the same as water.
If only love had an on and off switch. It doesn’t, and it’s possible to love a person, even if they do terrible things to you.
Obviously, for my husband’s fantasy to work, I had to play the part. I couldn’t let him think I enjoyed what he was doing to me. An actor is never to let the mask slip, so long as the audience is watching. That’s a sure way to paper cut their attention. Real life and magic cannot coexist. At some point, we all have to make a choice.
I don’t know what he expected me to do with the knife that night. I only knew that the stakes had to go higher and higher, otherwise the fantasy could not continue. Like a fire without air, it would be extinguished.
I hadn’t thought that forcing him from our home would cause him to lose interest. I hadn’t yet realized that our marriage was like a scab he couldn’t help but pick. He’d already made up his mind about wanting out, and maybe he saw an opportunity, an easy out, and he took it. He didn’t stop there. Not my husband. Nope. He picked and he picked and he picked.
I only intended to up the ante. Make the game more exciting. For a little while, it almost did. Until it didn’t.
I hadn’t foreseen that he would seek easier prey, a.k.a. the neighbor girl. The neighbor girl.
