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Why was everyone concerned about my sales? I hadn't put hand to clay in almost two weeks and I was married to one of the richest men in the world. I didn't need to agonize over my art any longer. And I didn't have any ideas anyway. Anton had anesthetized the turmoil inside me. There was nothing for me to say at the moment.
I nodded and gave him a smile. "All right," I said. "I'll do my best."
He showed me to the door, gave me another kiss, and I left. I held my head high the whole way home.
*
Anton wasn't home yet when my mother came barging into the second floor reading room where I was camping out with a fire, a blanket I'd liberated from my still-packed things, and a mug of Irish coffee while I scrolled through my emails and texts from all my friends. Contrary to my fears, very few people I knew seemed to have lowered their opinions of me. Most of my art friends expressed envy at the publicity, and my former coworkers at the bar were mostly surprised that I was so kinky. I didn't bother to correct them, because as far as I knew I had always been kinky, I just hadn't known it.
I looked up when my mother entered the room, her feet meeting the floorboards as though she held a personal grudge against trees. "Felicia!" she exclaimed when she saw me curled up in an armchair. "Felicia, what are you thinking?"
The whiskey in my coffee was making me feel quite good, so I smiled at her instead of shying away. "I'm thinking I should get another cup of coffee," I said.
She stared at me, dismayed. "Felicia," she said again, "you are on display all over the internet and on the newsstands. Everyone is peering into your most intimate moments with your husband. Your husband is treating you without respect. Did you know he was into this sort of... perverted sex play before you married him?"
Well, I had signed a prenup that had explicitly detailed all of Anton's favorite kinks, so technically I suppose I had known. "Yes," I told her.
She threw her hands in the air and collapsed in the armchair across from me. "Really?" she said.
I nodded.
She put a hand to her eyes and shook her head. "I can't believe this is happening."
Annoyance ran through me. "Why?" I said. "Because it makes you look bad to all your country club friends?"
She glared at me. "You know that is not true, Felicia. You know I have only wanted you to be happy. I have only ever wanted you to find love with a good man."
I sighed. For all her faults, I knew this was true. She really did want me to be happy. She just... didn't realize that people could be happy in different ways. Was I happy now? I didn't know, exactly. I was, at the very least, content to see where this hedonistic relationship could go. And if I wanted to end it in the future, I could. But I could lean on Anton. I could depend on him. And, weird as it sounded, I trusted him. I'd trusted him since I'd first read through his contract. A man so open and forthright with what he wanted and what he wished to do to me... it was refreshing. No surprises with Anton.
Well, none except the small vulnerabilities he let me see, sometimes inadvertently. All things considered, arranged marriages could go a lot worse. A lot worse.
"I don't know, Mom," I said. "I enjoy Anton's company. He's... he's not a bad husband."
A pained look passed across her face. "That's what you have to say about him? He's not a bad husband?"
I was aware of how it sounded, but I didn't want to commit to more than I knew I was able. My growing affection for Anton was well-guarded. I took it out at night when he slept beside me and turned it over in my mind, letting myself explore its edges and contours before putting it away again. It was small now, but with care it could be something very real.
"Yes," I said. "That's what I have to tell you. He is not a bad husband. I know you wante me to be happy with the man I marry, and right now I'm feeling okay with the way things are going."
My mother sat back, somewhat mollified, but clearly unwilling to let this go. "I don't know," she said. "I don't like the changes I see in you."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
Waving a hand she attempted to encompass all of me. "Your clothes. Your attitude. I haven't seen you do your art the whole time I've been here."
I shifted, uncomfortable. I knew what she was saying, because I had the same feelings. Misgivings, really. But I tamped them down. I depended on Anton to keep her alive. I leaned on him when I felt weak. Which was more and more often.
I stared at the fire. Before I knew Anton, I'd lived alone. I'd worked hard. I'd been my own person. A messy, unkempt person that my mother always lamented of ever learning glamorous personal grooming, but my own person all the same. Now I was falling into Anton, fading into the force of his personality, of his dominance. It sheltered me. But shelter can be an awfully small space.
I couldn't let my mother worry about me, though. "I'm fine," I said. "I'm just stressed out. When this whole wedding thing is over, I'll go back to working on my art and stuff."
With a sigh, my mother deflated. "Felicia," she said again, "please, take this seriously, and answer me honestly: why did you marry this man?"
I couldn't tell her it was for the money, and I certainly couldn't tell her it was for love. What could I say to the woman who gave me life, and now feared I was throwing that life away?
I gave her a wan smile. "For the right reasons," I said. "Trust me."
She held my eyes for a long time in the dancing light of the fire. "I will trust you," she said. "And I hope you are right."
