To All the Wives I've Wronged Before

Image by PhotosCopyright from Pixabay 

A post by Giselle Renarde

I sometimes wonder when my misdeeds will catch up with me.

You know how I love all these true ghost story shows on TV? (Sure you do.) Well, sometimes you'll come across an episode involving demonic infestation. You don't just have a ghost in your house. You've got a full-on demon. It's a dangerous situation.

Sometimes the paranormal investigators will be able to pinpoint the moment the homeowner might have opened the door to this demon, and often that event occurred YEARS prior. The homeowner will be baffled by this. How come so many years--decades, even--went by before this demon ever showed its face?

The paranormal experts usually say that a demon will lie in wait until you're happy. Married to the perfect person? Great job? Cute kids and/or pets climbing all over you? That's the time a demon will choose to attack. Because they seek to destroy happiness.

If you know that I like ghost shows, you also know that I've been involved in my share of adulterous relationships. Seeing that life is irony, it wouldn't at all surprise me if someone's wife came at me after all this time.

A few years ago, an ex told me he was pretty sure his wife had stumbled upon the emails we'd sent each other when we were involved in an adulterous relationship. He said, "If I know her, she didn't just read one--she read them all." But these people do not talk to each other, so if she did read that series of emails (a string that started twenty years ago and ended almost a decade later), she never confronted her husband about it.

And she never confronted me.

So it's possible there's a wife out there who knows every nitty gritty detail of my affair with her husband (at least, all the details captured by email) and she's just sitting on that information. What would need to happen--in her life or in mine--for her to come after me? Would she lash out? How?

The wives of the married people I've slept with have always been kind, good-natured individuals. I can't imagine any of them coming at me with a rifle--except that I can imagine that scenario, and I've imagined it many times--but you never know what might happen. The fantasy, and one I've written about more than once, is that she comes at me and I'm like, "Well, I can sleep with you, too. It's only fair!" and great sex ensues.

It's possible that only happens in erotica. But it's a preferable fantasy to being slaughtered by wives.

I should probably be afraid of wives, but...

by Giselle Renarde

I don't have any phobias. I only know one person who does (as far as I'm aware) and she's the wife of a man with whom I had a 10-year affair. Snakes. She's got a phobia of snakes. I always found that incredibly... telling...

Over the years, I've developed quite a fascination with this woman.  Even when I was 19 years old, I made up little stories about her in my head. Not uncharitable stories. As a horny barely-legal teen, I just found it perplexing that a woman could go YEARS (decades?) without having sex with her husband. Baffling.

In 2010, I started a much bigger little story about this woman. This time, I did it on paper.  Okay, on the computer. That's where the magic happens.

In my imagination (and my novel The Other Side of Ruth), she turns into a lesbian who only comes to terms with her sexual identity later in life, when her queer neighbour Agnes sees what she's been hiding all these years... even from herself.

Here's a (very much unedited) excerpt from The Other Side of Ruth, which is in the earliest possible stages of production. I'm not sure I can even call it "Coming Soon" yet, because it could be a while.  Although thank goodness I've finally finished the first draft.

Only took me four years...

Agnes swept across the hardwood in stocking feet. Her socks were black with little white ghosts. “You still live with that bald guy?”

“Lawrence? Yes.” Ruth watched Agnes slip into the front room. She ached to follow, but couldn’t bring herself to move. “That bald guy is my husband.”

A sour sensation gripped Ruth’s stomach.

He’s my husband.

She took a sip of her peppermint hot chocolate, and that helped.

“I always thought you were too good for that dude.” Agnes tilted her head to read the titles on the built-in bookshelves.

Ruth watched her through the stair railings, not knowing quite how to respond. Was that a compliment?

“You always looked so young and beautiful, out there working in your garden. And he looked old. Way too old for you.”

Ruth laughed without meaning to. “Lawrence looks younger today than he did ten years ago. That’s how it is, for men. They’re the lucky ones.”

“Bet you could still get lucky.” Agnes looked Ruth straight in the eye. “If you really wanted to.”

Was that…a come-on? Ruth felt the heat in her gaze despite the distance between them. Rumour had it Agnes was a girl who liked girls, even in high school. But why on earth would a beautiful, buxom young woman like Agnes be interested in Ruth? She wouldn’t. What a silly thought.

“Well?” Agnes hadn’t moved, and yet Ruth felt the girl’s hot breath all over her skin, making her prickle inside and out.

Ruth choked on her tongue. It felt too thick for her mouth. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Agnes approached slowly, her hips waving side to side. She had on a black belt, though her tight grey jeans would surely have stayed up on their own. The buckle read ‘Pet My’ set against the retro image of a snarling Halloween cat. Another Agnes original, no doubt.

What must her father think of her “art”?

“I mean…” Agnes stood at the base of the stairs, then fell to her knees, straddling Ruth’s feet. She leaned slightly forward, and then further forward. If she’d worn a low-cut top, it would have been hanging open—and Ruth would have looked. “If you ever wanted to… I mean, do you want to?”

Agnes leaned in, leaned close, and that’s when Ruth realized she was about to get kissed. She focused on Agnes’s pink lips because, goodness, they were so full and beautiful even without cosmetic enhancement. She found herself drawn to that mouth, moth to flame.

Ruth’s chocolate-mint breath bounced from Agnes’s lips back to hers when she said, “I want to.”

When Agnes’s hands landed at Ruth’s sides, her attraction transformed to fear and she was tried to escape. But Agnes insisted. The back of Ruth’s head met a stair.

Nowhere to hide. Their breasts met with every breath, and Ruth found herself hoping the girl would press those gorgeous spheres fully against her chest. She could feel that sensation on the horizon, like a blast of hot anticipation. Yes, she wanted it.

Agnes kissed her, softly, on the lips, and Ruth’s whole body turned to liquid. She would have dripped down the stairs if Agnes hadn’t been there to hold her in place. When that new tongue infiltrated her mouth, she moaned. The heat was unbearable. She felt itchy on the inside, where nothing but a kiss could scratch—a cause and cure wrapped into one.

How long had it been since she’d been kissed this way? Since she’d kissed her husband, even? No, Ruth had never kissed Lawrence like this. Not in all the years they’d known each other. Theirs was a marriage of minds. He’d appealed to her intellect, not her body. Not her mouth. Not even her heart, perhaps.

She kissed the girl lying on top of her. This was the pressure she’d hoped for, the beautiful bliss of breasts on breasts. She wanted to touch them, but she didn’t. She resisted because, of course, it wouldn’t be proper. It wouldn’t be at all proper to reach up and grasp those gorgeous tits, to squeeze them like ripe melons, feel them yield to her palms. It wouldn’t be right to strip Agnes bare and suck her nipples, or to reach down to those fiery depths and ram her fingers inside the girl’s wetness.

Oh, yes!

What Ruth wouldn’t give to plant her face between Agnes’ thighs right now. Lick that girl fast as anything, take those lovely lips, that engorged clit, take it all in her mouth and suck until Agnes exploded. Ruth would have her screaming to the rafters, crying out for more and then begging for mercy.

Agnes eased away from Ruth. Her lips glowed bright red and glistened with wetness. Ruth’s heart pounded in her ears, but astonishment kept her from moving or speaking. In any case, what would she say? Thank you?

Agnes backed away, smiling, staring. This was like a dream, like the ones she used to have back when she remembered her dreams. The good dreams. The fantasy dreams. Ruth throbbed between the legs when the girl tossed her hoodie over her arm and picked up her shoes.

“You know where I live,” Agnes whispered, her voice gritty.

She slipped out of the house in stocking feet. Ruth watched through the window as she stepped down the garden path. Her firm breasts bounced when she turned onto the sidewalk.

Ruth sat on the stairs, sipping her cold hot chocolate until the sun cast orange streaks across the far wall. She ought to start dinner, but she wasn’t hungry. And she’d long ago given up playing the good wife, cooking for her husband. They lived as roommates. Housemates. She’d come to that realization long ago, and it seemed preferable to any alternative she could think of.

But a new alternative presented itself. A strange alternative, a curvaceous alternative, a kissable alternative. And Ruth was undeniably attracted.

What, Me Guilty?

by Giselle Renarde

This week, an excerpt from my pretty much completely autobiographical book, Audrey and Lawrence:

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence said, so heartfelt it made me want to scream.

“Don’t,” I stopped him.  “Because the second you say you’re sorry, I’m supposed to say it’s okay.  It’s not okay.”

“I know…”     

“You had all this time to tell me!”

            “Oh,” he replied.  “Well, I knew not to tell you by e-mail.”

            “Right.” I percolated, calm before the storm.  “Because if you’d written an e-mail I would have told you to go fuck yourself.  When you give me bad news in person, my love and my hatred get conflated and that fusion turns into sex.  At least you get what came for.”

“I came to see you,” he argued. “This is more than just sex, to me.”

The worst part of was that I believed him.  But I shook my head and muttered, “Whatever,” so not to lose face.  The last thing I wanted in an argument was to seem uncertain.  “Some day you'll break your legs or get pneumonia or something horrible will happen to you and I will laugh my ass off because you deserve it.  And in case you think it's taking me too long to get over all your compounded lies and deceptions, let me tell you: I will never get over them.  And here I have to carry this burden of being the only person in the world who knows what a fucking liar you are.” 

He rolled his eyes.  “I’m not sure how this is a lie, but I’m certain you’ll let me know.”

“You are a liar is a general statement,” I enunciated, incensed by his reaction.  In my state of intense upset I was losing grasp of my English.  My words were drowning in my accent, to the point where I wasn’t sure if Lawrence could even understand me anymore.  “You tell lies.  That’s something I know about you that nobody else knows.  Not even you know it, because you delude yourself into believing lies of omission are not really lies when they truly, truly are.  So here I hold this knowledge about your nature and constantly I have to make the decision, do I keep this secret?  Do I tell?  And every day I make the same choice:  I detain this knowledge.  I imprison it, though it’s a burden to me, though it’s the wrong thing to do.”

“It isn’t wrong if it’s for the right...”

“It is wrong!” I cried.  “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. You taught me that!  And here your evil triumphs because I sit idly by.  Just keep breaking those promises, Lawrence.  Keep lying.  See where it gets you.”

His whole body straightened, stiffened.  “Is that a threat?” he asked, raising an eyebrow like he was the innocent.  “You’re going to tell Ruth?"

“I shouldn’t have to,” I said. “You’re the husband, and you did wrong.  It’s your job to set it right.  But of course you’ll never come clean.”

“That’s right.  I won’t.  And you want to know why?”

I couldn’t remember ever feeling such hatred for the man I’d wanted so badly.  “Because you’re a fucking coward is why!  You can’t face the consequences of your actions.  You’re just a little boy who wants everything for himself, but doesn’t want to pay the price.”

He didn’t move from the bed.  He rested with such languor I wanted to punch him in his stupid mouth.  It was like he didn’t give a fuck about what I was saying.   

“My only lies are omissions,” he said self-righteously.  “And those are to spare Ruth a pain she does not need to feel.”

“Who are you to decide what she needs to feel?” I cried.  That was such a patriarchal attitude.  “Just tell the truth for once.”

“Oh, I see.  So, you want me to hurt my family.”  He offered a simple shrug, like it was just that easy.

“I want them to know the truth, Lawrence.  When you respect a person, you tell her the truth.  Do you have so little respect for your own wife?” 

I could tell I’d struck a nerve, but only because he flinched.  His words still flowed out calm, cool, collected.  “Respect doesn’t enter into this conversation.  You know why I won’t tell her?  Because she has enough pain already.  I don’t want to cause her any more.”

“Bull-fucking-shit!” I spat.  I wouldn’t buy that excuse for a nickel.

“And because I love her.”  His expression was the dictionary definition of smug. 

            My throat was already so constricted that my gasp sounded like something struggling to stay alive.  I saw my brain in pixels, vibrating in a frenzy of particle motion until the energy of my whole body started to spin out of control.  A tornado whirled around my head, escaping with my words.  “No you don’t!  You love me!” The tears came pouring out, falling hot on the hands wringing in my lap.  My chest heaved.  “You love me!”  I cried. “You love me!”

Sobs like mocking laughter escaped my lips as they opened wide and contorted, the mask of tragedy.  

With my head hanging low, I bawled. “Why do you hurt me like this?” 

Wrapping distraught arms around my waist, I made a desperate attempt to comfort myself. I must have been mad, taking his shit year in, year out.  Who else would have?  

“Would she have stayed with you if she knew what a horrible, horrible man you are?  Calisse de crisse, I hate you so much!  I hate what you’ve turned me into: this maudit whining little child.  I hate who I am with you.” 

Lawrence knew better than to comfort me.  I would only have lashed out at him.  He got up from the bed and pulled his jeans up.  “I think I should leave now.”

“No! Lawrence, I love you,” I cried, confounded by my quick change in temperament.  

 I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you. 

“Don’t go yet.”   

Stay and share in my misery.  Stay and watch me cry.  Just stay.   

What was wrong with me?  Why did I abuse him and then panic when he chose to leave?

“Why would I stay?” he asked, retrieving his T-shirt from the floor.  “So you can hurl more insults my way? More threats maybe?”  

He was already at the front door when I wrapped my arms around him, like those children who hurl their entire bodies at their parents’ legs when they try to walk into the next room.   

Burying my face in his chest, I whimpered, “You don’t really love her.  You love me.” 

I grasped his core, trying to squeeze a response from him.  He held me, but said nothing, and for a long moment that was enough.  I started wondering why the hell he was with me at all when my behaviour was so wretchedly unpredictable.  Was it my fault, all this arguing?  Or was it his?  My energy was so zapped from the fight I couldn’t recall what it had been about.

“You love me more…?” I begged.  My hopes were high.   

When he didn’t say anything, the upset flooded my veins once again. 

“Fine!” I replied, sullen as a teenager.  Pushing him away, I cried, “Leave!  Go!  What do I care?”   

But I must have cared to some extent, because I picked up a thigh-high boot and hurled it at his head.  The heel made contact with his skull, issuing a knocking noise, and the boot fell back down to the floor.

“Audrey!” Lawrence cried, his jaw hanging open as he reached up to touch the gash across his bald head. 

“What are you going to tell her now?  My mistress threw a boot at my head?  Try to explain that with one of your lies of omission...”

I'm Not Audrey Anymore

by Giselle Renarde

Dear Lawrence,

I've wanted to write this letter for ages.  I'll tell you why I haven't: because every time I've said even the slightest word to you since we broke up, all you've heard was, "I want to get back together."

Dude.

I don't want to get back together.  I don't want to go out for coffee.  I don't want dinner.  I don't want to fuck you.  It's over.  Really.  It is.

You know I have a girlfriend now.  Sweet and I have been together more than five years.  I'm happy with her.  Remember all the times I told you I was queer and you were all like, "No way.  If you were a lesbian, you wouldn't be so good in bed."  That's only one of your dickishly entitled remarks that stands out in my mind.  Oh, and when you criticized your sister's foster-daughter for calling her "Mom" because they weren't biologically related?  You could be such a fuckwad sometimes.

Seriously.

But I loved you.  Stupid, because you were married the entire ten years of our relationship.  Not that you pulled the wool over my eyes.  I knew you were married from the moment we met.  The difference was that you were fifty years old.  I was... what, eighteen?  Nineteen?  Not a kid, no, but still a young woman looking for a father figure.

I won't say you took advantage of me.  It was far more complicated than that.  You said no for two years before ever saying yes, but I wanted you.  I was relentless.  When I was young, I fancied myself something of a femme fatale.  You know that.  You read Audrey and Lawrence, the complete collection of stories about our affair.

What hasn't hit home with you is that the book's called "The Complete Collection" for a reason: our relationship is over.  Done.  The fact that you still weasel your way into my building to leave Christmas and birthday gifts outside my door is, frankly, a little creepy.

One year, I sent you a thank you email.  Just to be civil.  Just to show you I was still human.  Except, instead of hearing "thank you," you heard, "I want you."  That's why I don't acknowledge your gifts anymore.  I'd prefer if you focused your love and attention on some other girl--maybe your wife?

Ahh, your wife... I think about her a lot.  Dreamed the other week that I was trying to get her into bed, but you kept cockblocking me.  Bastard.  She was a pretty pixie, from what I recall--younger than you, older than me.  But she didn't want you, did she?  Not for sex.  Nope.

I always wondered about her, you know.  Still do.  I have this lingering fantasy that she's a closet lesbian, and I could give her what she's been looking for her entire life.  No, you can't watch.  Actually, your wife inspired a character in my first book: Imelda the bisexual art patron who takes up with the young ballerina, Ondine.  I'm endlessly fascinated by this woman, your wife.  Maybe you should try to be more fascinated by her.  You are married to the woman, after all.

Ultimately, I want you to be happy.  With someone else.  Not with me.  I feel a special compassion for you because I spent ten years of my life wanting you when I could never fully have you.  Now the tables have turned.  You want me.  I've moved on.

Funny, that.

Giselle

http://audreyandlawrence.jigsy.com