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His eyes were narrowed and his cheeks flushed. I felt all his anger when he turned his eyes to me.
"When were you going to tell me?" he asked, a deadly calm in his voice that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
His speech was far too clear for the amount of alcohol he had in his system.
Puzzled, I shook my head. "Tell you? Tell you what?"
Don't start a fight now, I told myself. Soon we'd be standing at the altar. And if he didn't stand up straight and looked like he was in the right mind...
"That you can pay to see my fiancee naked on the Internet," he groaned. Anger flared in his eyes. "Isn't the money I bring home enough for you? Or are you trying to make me look ridiculous? Please tell me that I didn't really see my future wife behaving like a whore online," he said.
Every word felt like a knife in my gut. For years, I had guarded my secret like it was the most precious thing in the world. And now here he was, standing in front of me, ready to confront me with it?
Slowly I opened my mouth. Heat rose in my cheeks, while my fingers grew colder by the second. "I can explain," I finally said, barely able to keep my voice under control.
My eyes stung and I felt tears welling up inside me. Not because I was afraid for the wedding, but because it hurt that he knew about this part of me without me choosing to reveal it. He knew, and that made me vulnerable. Weak.
"I'm really curious to hear you explain this," he hissed.
That alone was enough to send me into a stutter. Finally, in order to somehow keep control of my body, I clenched my hands into fists and let myself sink to the ground. Even though that had become impossible, as the incessant shaking proved that I could no longer control anything.
A lump formed in my throat, constricting my throat and depriving me of the opportunity to answer him immediately. What was I supposed to say? Ignoring that I was destroying my makeup, I slowly ran my hand over my face.
"I didn't cheat on you, if that's what you're trying to get at," I finally said, my tone cracking.
Alexander snorted. "As if I care if you fuck other men. People can look at your naked body on the net if they pay for it. People can watch you shove some plastic toy into your holes and how you get horny from it. When in reality, it's just kinky."
"Kinky," I repeated, knitting my eyebrows together. I blinked.
"Exactly. Kinky. Sick. Not normal. Disgusting. And that childish mask. Once people know you're behind it, it's hard to miss. You're lucky I don't have any plans of telling anyone."
I suddenly tasted blood in my mouth. "How did you figure this out?"
When I asked this, I didn't have to focus on the fact that he called what had been fulfilling me and keeping me alive for the past few years abnormal. That he called it sick and disgusting, aberrant. He didn't just say it– I could see it in his eyes, which clearly said that he wouldn't even touch me with a pair of gripping pliers anymore, and that it cost him too much to be in the same room with me.
"You forgot to take the camera down. That struck me as odd. So I checked your laptop and found all these... things." Things. As if he were talking about foul-smelling contents of a garbage can.
Reflexively, I gritted my teeth before standing up. "I'm sorry my sexual preferences offend you. I knew it wasn't for you. That's why I didn't want to bother you with it."
"But you choose to present yourself naked to the entire world."
"The website is not public. Only to paying customers."
He raised his hands warningly. "I don't want to know about this. I don't know what it is you see in it. I'm fed up."
As if to emphasize the point, he pushed up and for a moment I feared he was going to throw up on my dress.
"I can explain to you." If we could just get this out of the way...
"But I don't want to know, Audrey. I don't want to hear about it. And I especially don't want to imagine it every time I look at you." He seemed to have sobered up in the last few minutes.
I felt as if I had been popping pills in the meantime. Not that this had ever been the case.
"Why don't you answer one question, Audrey?"
Instinctively, I squared my shoulders and waited to see what he would throw at me.
"Could you live without it? Would you take the site down and never even think about putting yourself on the Internet again?" he asked. His piercing look told me I had to weigh my answer very carefully. Everything depended on it.
