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We meet in the dining room that evening to share a meal and casual conversation. Afterward, I shag my wife in her bedroom and walk out the door, kissing her goodbye on the way out.
Though she tries to hide it, I sense the sadness in her wan smile.
And I get that pain in my chest again.
The next morning, my wife bursts into my office and slams the door shut.
I flinch, my head jerking up. "Emery?"
Shadows darken the skin under her eyes, and I imagine I have a similar look. Emery sprawls in the chair across the desk from me with one leg draped over the arm and her foot swinging. "We need to talk about the separate-bedrooms thing."
I drop my pen, sitting back in my chair. "We've already discussed it."
"No, you issued your decree, and I went along with it." She sets a hand on the knee of her dangling leg. "Separate bedrooms isn't in the contract. Did you make your ex-wives sleep alone?"
I compress my lips into a sharp line.
"Well?" she demands. "Did you?"
"No."
"Mm-hm." She raps her knuckles on her knee. "Did you order them not to say your name during sex?"
I finger the top button of my shirt, though I have no idea why.
"I'll take that as a no," she says. "What about your one-night stands? Did you tell them not to speak your name or close their eyes?"
Tugging at my collar, I scratch my throat. Are insects nesting in my clothes?
"Another no," my wife declares. She scrapes her nails on her jeans, almost as if she's sharpening them. "Why do you invent rules for living with me? I'm trying to understand this, Rory, but you've got to help me out. Why am I the special one who gets banished to the other end of a very long hallway?"
I absently rearrange the papers on my desk. "You're not banished."
"Sure as hell feels like it. Either I'm your wife or I'm your mistress. Make up your mind."
Though I jolt forward, I keep my head down and pretend I need to stack the papers on my desk, then I insert them into a file folder where they don't belong. "This is our arrangement. You agreed to it."
"I never agreed to these cockamamie rules. I know you have issues with trusting women, but I'd like to know what I've done to give you the impression you can't trust me. I've been supportive and understanding, right? Haven't I accommodated all your hang-ups?"
"You've done all of that," I admit, though I can't look at her.
"Do you trust me?"
I snatch up my pen, hovering it over a page that has…some sort of words on it. Since I can't decipher them, I set my pen down again. "I can't sleep with you. It's that simple."
"No, it's this simple." She shoves out of the chair. "Sometimes I'm not sure if you like me, or if you tolerate me because you require the use of my body at least twice a week."
The acid in her tone spurs me to meet her gaze. "I have never said I require the use of your body."
"It's in the contract." She slaps her palms down on the desktop, the sound reverberating through the room. "You require sexual congress at least twice a week. Since you can't bring yourself to spend the night with me, that means you need my body and nothing else."
"Emery."
"Shut up and listen, Rory." She spears me with a razor-sharp glare like nothing I've ever seen from her. "I tried to be cool with you screwing me and running off to your room, to hide behind a locked door. I tried to be patient and not question your hang-ups, to wait until you were ready to talk. And you have, a few times, and I appreciate that."
My eyes widen, though only a fraction.
"But it's not enough," she says. "You're making me feel like your in-house whore."
