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.

Too Close for Comfort #TrueStory #Adultery #Erotica

 

A post by Giselle Renarde.

Lately, I've been devoting a lot of my time to creating audio versions of my books.

Until this fall, when I bought myself a tablet (which I refer to as my "tip calculator" because I have no idea how to use it), I would record audio by reading from hard copies of my works.

But there's one book, in particular, that kept getting pushed aside.

I'd pick it up. I'd look at the table of contents. I'd flip to a story of particular interest and I'd read a paragraph or two. My words--words I wrote more than a decade ago--hit me in the heart. Like a punch.

They're too real. They're too true. I can't say these words out loud.

The book I'm talking about is Audrey and Lawrence, my collection of short stories inspired by the relationship I had with a married man. The stories aren't true--not strictly speaking. Well, some come pretty close, but most are completely made up.

The emotions expressed in those stories? The emotions are true. They're probably truer than anything else I've written. That book is my heart on the page. I can't get away from that. How can I tell those stories out loud? How can I say the words all these years later?

Audrey is not the most flattering depiction of me, but it is an honest portrayal. I hope I'm not so much like her now. I hope I'm a little less needy and a lot less jealous. I'd like to think that's the case. But reading those stories reminds me of my faults--of my character flaws and my missteps.

A lot of people from the romance world hate me because I write about adultery. And not just readers--authors too! I understand that they're not fond of cheating, but I'm not a romantic. Nothing I write is really romance. You aren't safe with my work. It's not safe. I'm not safe.

My reputation precedes me, and not just online. One time I was hired for a job only to discover that my boss went to school with my ex. I guess he did a little digging, asked around a bit, and discovered my true colours. After that, he started warning all the married men in his employ to steer clear of me.

I was a bad girl. I couldn't be trusted.

It was really such a shame, you know. I loved that job.

Anyway, here I am, many years later, wondering if this post is starting to sound like a cautionary tale. It's not. At least, it wasn't intended that way.

I just started re-reading Tristan Taormino's Opening Up and, as much as I now strive to live my life with honesty and integrity, I understand why people lie. I understand why people cheat. I've lived that life. Honesty is easier and even less hurtful, in the long run, but we cheat out of fear. Fear of loss. Fear of hurting those we love. Fear of admitting what it means when we love more than one person. Fear of opening up.

What fear is holding me back? Why can't I bring myself to create the audio version of Audrey and Lawrence? After all this time, why can't I say the words out loud?

Am I too scared to tap in to my inner Audrey? Am I too scared that she's still me?

Evidence #FlashFiction

By Annabeth Leong

They were definitely not her panties. Sarah stood beside the bed dumbly, dangling them off her pinkie finger, staring as if she might remember when she bought them if she just thought hard enough.

But they weren’t hers, and she knew it. Sarah owned practical panties, the kind that wicked moisture away from her crotch efficiently when she worked out. These were lacy, embellished things, sexy specifically because of their impracticality. The pale blue scrap of material was little more than a ribbon, really, but it summoned images of hips and inner thighs. Not Sarah’s hard, muscled body. The panties conjured a softer woman, one who smelled floral, not sweaty.

Christ knew, she hadn’t been with a woman in forever, which meant Todd must have.

Sarah waited, but no anger came. After a moment, she realized she was rubbing the panties between her thumb and first finger. They felt nice. She wondered how they smelled.

She felt like a perv lifting them to her face, but she did it anyway. She took a deep breath, remembering college, her roommate, the things they did but never talked about. Metaphors of salt and ocean had never made sense to her. Woman smelled like woman. No other scent came close.

The panties had at some point been very wet. Sarah wondered what Todd would tell her if she asked him about them.

She knew she wouldn’t. It was time for her own secrets, and she wouldn’t be so careless as to leave olfactory evidence. Her body thrilled with anticipation, not only at the thought of the place between a woman’s thighs, but also at the idea of the careful application of lotions to cover incriminating scents. She tucked the panties back where she had found them, and smiled to herself when she imagined how Todd would jump when he saw what they could reveal, and how he would feel safe, and how he would be wrong.

When the nipple makes its first appearance...

by Giselle Renarde

That's me in the corner...
That's me in the spot...light...
Losing my virginity...

There wasn't any music playing the first time I had sex. I kind of wish there had been. I kind of wish it was Losing My Religion.

I was a pretty old virgin too, by today's standards. I was 21 the first time I had sex. It happened at a Crowne Plaza that doesn't exist anymore, in a hotel room I don't really remember because it was like any other nondescript hotel room you can think of. I booked it. He couldn't. His wife paid the bills. She would definitely notice if a hotel charge popped up on their credit card statement.

The whole time I kept thinking: God, I hope I never have to do this again.

It felt so weird, so gross, having this old man on top of. I kept thinking how much I'd begged for it. This is what I've been dying for? This is what I wanted?

I hated it. The whole time I just wanted it to end.

But we're talking P-in-V, here. What about everything else? Whether or not you think of yourself as a virgin depends on whether or not you feel you've had sex.

So what is sex?

As a queer person, I obviously don't think penis-in-vagina intercourse is the be-all and end-all. You can have plenty of sex and never do the P-in-V thing in your life.

Remember on Seinfeld when Elaine asks: “Hey Jerry, when do you consider sex has taken place?” His answer is pretty damn inclusive: “I'd say when the nipple makes its first appearance.”

So why did I still think of myself as a virgin even after I'd sucked a cock or touched a boob? Because I truly believed I was missing out on something important. I thought the moment I got a cock inside me the skies would open up and I'd become aware of all these cosmic truths.

That... really didn't happen.

But penetrative sex did get better over time. Started to feel less icky.

Every so often I like to write about the uncomfortableness of first-time sex. Maybe it's not weird for everyone. I don't know. I'm not an expert. For an erotica writer, I have to confess I'm not a voyeur of other people's sexual experiences. Actually, I'm the total opposite. I don't want to hear about it.

But I make an exception for those squicky awkward first times. There's something so gritty and real about them.

Maybe I just like to watch you squirm.

I Cut My Teeth on Adultery (Erotica)

by Giselle Renarde

When I started writing erotica almost 10 years ago, I was in an adulterous relationship. You know this. I wrote about it two weeks ago. That's probably why so much of my early work focused on the emotions (and actions) around infidelity.

I wonder how many erotica writers are readers who went pro? I can think of at least two other erotica authors who, like me, started their careers on a dare. I didn't read erotica (much less romance), so I never knew what was expected of me. I wrote my experience and I wrote what appealed to me. A lot of that fiction involved cheating.

Didn't take long to realize I wasn't producing the kind of work publishers wanted. I submitted my early books all around town. I got rejected. Not surprising, considering I have no fucking CLUE what I was doing.

But I always read publishers' guidelines with an eagle eye, and I started realizing I COULDN'T submit my books to a number of imprints. "All the usual no-nos" seemed to include not only incest, underage sex and bestiality, but INFIDELITY too.

Good thing Selena Kitt created eXcessica fairly early in my career. Selena gave eager consideration to the kinds of manuscripts that were often rejected by other houses, not on the basis of quality or style, but content. I'm so glad I came across eXcessica's call for submissions in 2008. It's one of the only publishers I still work with after all this time (and, trust me, I have worked with A LOT of houses).

I don't know who else would have published my Audrey and Lawrence collection, for instance, which is ALL ADULTERY ALL THE TIME.

Well, that's a bit of a lie, because many of my short stories involving adultery WERE published... but not by erotic romance imprints. They were published in anthologies of literary erotica. They were published on websites like Oysters and Chocolate, Ruthie's Club, and others whose names I've forgotten because they fell out of existence long ago.

Readers enjoyed my adultery. Comment sections teemed with accolades. I don't say that to brag. Trust me: glowing reviews are not the norm, in my writing life. But maybe that's why I found it so perplexing that all these indie erotica publishers that were popping up in the days before self-publishing was the respectable profession it is today (?) wouldn't look at manuscripts involving infidelity.

I guess they knew what they were doing.

Except for all the ones that crashed and burned...

Anyway, as I mentioned two weeks ago, my newest novel is also about an extramarital affair. I just can't get enough adultery, I guess. Those illicit affair feelings still fascinate me, and I'm sure they always will, since I was involved with a married man during my formative years.

Nowadays, I appreciate adultery more through the lens of fiction. In real life, my story sounds a bit like Lisabet's: Sweet and I are technically in an open relationship, but we've been together more than 7 years and I haven't wanted anyone else. Neither as she, as far as I'm aware. Even when we talk about other people we might be attracted to, it all feels very pie-in-the-sky.

The other day, I came across my short story Secret Mercy. It's about a young woman hooking up with a married ex:

At nineteen, Mercedes thought she was the only woman of her kind, unparalleled in the civilized world, leading a life of opulent vulgarity. By twenty-three, she’d realized she wasn’t the only woman in the world to sleep with a married man.

For Mercedes, hooking up with her ex is out of the question (at first) not because he's still married, but because now she's engaged to another guy. What makes Simon exciting? Why does she decide to go for it?

Because he offers cash. That's new.

Secret Mercy begins:

It happens when we fear there’s nothing special about us: we allow our secrets to make us special. With our secrets, we set ourselves apart from the crowd. And when the secrets we’re hiding are known by all, or when we realize our misdeeds are so commonplace our secrets aren’t even all that remarkable, we set out to make new secrets. They make us feel important, unique. And the more insidious our secrets, the more distinctive we feel.

You can read this story in my free ebook 6 Erotic Shorts, if you haven't already.

Questions of Ultimate Concern

by Giselle Renarde

I wonder if I've shared this excerpt before.  I know I've posted portions of Audrey and Lawrence stories in the past, but there are 12 in total.  They're based on the 10 years of my life I spent as mistress to a married man. And, because adultery is so off-putting to so many readers, nobody buys the individual ebooks or the complete collection... so, hell, I might as well share them here.

The series has been on my mind lately because I just finished writing its companion piece, The Other Side of Ruth, four years after I started it.  It's the story of Lawrence's wife (that's the w-word Audrey can't bring herself to say) and her lesbian affair with a younger woman.

Anyway, back to Audrey and Lawrence.  This excerpt is from a story called Questions of Ultimate Concern:

“I thought you were an atheist.”

“Why did you think that?” he asked.

“Because I remember you telling me you believe that when we die, that’s the end of the line. There’s nothing more. There’s nothing out there.” When he didn’t reply, I went on, “That’s what you said.”

“That’s what I believe,” he agreed, which only piled more questions onto my heap of scepticism.

“So, you don’t believe in God?” I asked.

“No,” Lawrence squeaked, like that was such an easy question to answer he didn’t have to contemplate it for even a moment.

“But if you don’t believe in God, why does your w…” Again, the unspeakable w-word tripped me up. “…Why does she think you’re at church?”

Lawrence surprised me by pulling the covers open. I was sure he was enraged. I was sure he’d get up to leave.

But he didn’t. He opened the covers and pulled my chilly body in next to him, wrapping me in his warm arms. That sense of a man’s big body pressing against mine for the first time made me feel wonderfully virginity. My mound tingled as its hair brushed the flesh of his slight paunch. I nestled my head in the crook of his shoulder, relieved he wasn’t running away from me.

“Because I used to go to church,” Lawrence finally responded from somewhere above me. I could feel his chin moving against my head as he spoke.

“Did you stop because of me?” I asked, looking up so quickly I smacked his chin with the top of my head. “Aïe!” I cried, while Lawrence sucked in air, making a hhhssshhh sound.

“Sorry,” he offered, though it wasn’t his fault. “No, it was just before I met you that I stopped going. I used to drive all the way out to my parents’ church every Sunday morning, attend service with them, have a bit of lunch, and then drive back home. It wasn’t about religion, it’s just what I did.”

“Tradition,” I suggested.

“Yeah, it was a tradition. I didn’t think about why I was doing it, or how I might do it differently, or if I really felt inclined to do it at all. Every Sunday morning, like clockwork, I got up and went.”

“You went alone? What about…?” I hoped Lawrence would catch my drift because I didn’t want to use the w-word again.

“What about the person with whom I share a marriage certificate?” he laughed. Yes, that was one way of putting it. “She always preferred to sleep in on Sundays.”

“So, when did you lose your faith?” I asked, kissing the soft skin along his collarbone.

“When did I have any faith to lose?” he chuckled wryly. “I wasn’t raised to have faith in God, just to fear his wrath. For years, that kept me on the straight and narrow. Mind you, was it God I was afraid to upset, or was it my parents? Was it God the Father, or Father the God? And I suppose that whatever it was, it worked for a time. I was a good child, and then a good teenager, and then a good man…”

“And then you met me.” I giggled like a wicked fairy from the comptes de fées. I wrapped serpentine legs around his waist, and a forgotten sensation like burning ice coursed through my veins. I remembered how good it felt to be bad. “When I met you, petit, you were the image of a choirboy. You were such an innocent I had to corrupt you. And you said, no, no, no! You wanted to be the perfect husband, but would Audrey take no for an answer?”

Lawrence grabbed me round the waist, growling a little as he spoke. “When have I ever said no to you?”

Rolling him onto his back, I countered, “In the beginning, you said no, no, no to everything.” I punctuated each “no” with a sharp kiss to his neck.

“Not me!” he chuckled, smiling slyly as I hovered above him, my hair falling into his face.

“Yes you, monsieur le loup!” I replied like a little flirt.

His eyes sparkled as he awaited my descent, and I pulled my hair into a rope to get a better look at him. How could a bald man seem so childlike? What was he, nearly fifty? Older than that, perhaps? He could almost have been a baby.

Grabbing my ass, Lawrence pulled me close against him. Somehow, I didn’t expect his cock to be quite so hard. Tabernak, it was like a steel rod against my juicy mound as he slid me up and down by the hips. My desire to kiss him overpowered my resolve to tease him and, sinking my nails into his shoulders, I gave in to his warm mouth. His impatient tongue just about killed me as I rubbed my clit down his rigid shaft. Every time my pussy lips met his balls, my mouth fell away from his. He had to pull me all the way up again just to kiss me again.

Lawrence pulled away from my mouth just long enough to speak into my ear. “I wanted you to corrupt me.”

Like a jungle cat, my heart raged in my chest and my throat released a growling noise. I grabbed hold of his cock, wet with the juice of my craving cunt, and stroked it with an expert hand. Lawrence fell into a trance, gazing down at the fingers firmly enveloping him. My thumb smoothed a pearl of precum around his pinky-purple head as he looked on. His cock was mine, all mine.

“Do you want me to corrupt you now?” I asked, as if he had a say in the matter.

With a snorted kind of laughter, he cried, “God, yes!”

So, holding his shaft firmly by its base, I eased myself down onto it until his beautiful cock disappeared inside my body. Saint Ciboire, he felt huge inside the engorged walls of my cunt. Pressing my tits against his broad chest, I wrapped my arms around him. I wrangled his hot snake of a tongue in my mouth. He pressed on my hips. His hands helped my frenzied motion as I rubbed my clit against the fur of his pelvis. Tangled in his limbs, I couldn’t contain my expressions of joy when my core began skipping like a pebble across a pond.

“Tabernak, Lawrence!” I cried, throwing my body against his. His cock was so wet from my pussy juices that it slid effortlessly in and out of me. Pounding my mound against his pelvis, I couldn’t even let up when we were both tender and bruised. I knew I should stop, but I didn’t. The fullness feeling in my pussy threatened to explode my mind if I kept on grinding. Of course, I did. I couldn’t stop.

As I teetered on the brink orgasmic insanity, my thighs threatened to give out. Lawrence kept right on pushing and pulling me like a rag doll. Every muscle in my body, starting with my friction-warmed pussy, went into ecstatic spasm. As my eyelids scrunched closed of their own volition, I couldn’t help but cry out, “Ostie de calisse de crisse de saint ciboire de tabernak!” Then I fell like a twitching puddle against Lawrence’s smooth chest. When I was on top, I always came first. It was almost symbolic, I thought, like my pleasure came before his.

Bearing with me while I was temporarily lost in space, Lawrence issued the occasional thrust in my direction. I had little sense of time, but at some point he said, “What did all that mean? I’ve always meant to ask.”

“Ah, well, I swear a lot when I get very excited,” I laughed.

“In French?”

“In Québécoise, yes.”

“Well, what did you say?” he prodded, slipping out from under me until my stomach met the mattress. Kissing my hair, my neck, my shoulder, he eased his eager cock inside me. His chest warmed my back. Tabernak, his cock felt even bigger in that rear-entry position.

“I never really thought about it, but all our curse words come straight from Catholic liturgy: chalice and holy host and tabernacle… In Québec, the sacred is profane. It’s bizarre.”

“Yeah,” Lawrence reflected, moving in slow, deliberate circles inside me, stirring my deepest regions. “I think it’s because sacred words carry such weight for the followers of any religion. When you abuse them, it’s an offence. My mother would never have stood for us taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Oh, God!” I moaned, mostly to tease him, but also because what he was doing in that moment felt incredible.

I could hear Lawrence smelling my hair, his face planted in the crook of my neck. He made no response to my tease, except to slide his hand beneath my body and press his fingers against my clit. Lawrence was all over me, on my back and caressing my front, shoving his generous cock halfway through my core. Through the veil of my hair, I was mesmerized by the sight of his hips pressing against my ass, my supple flesh giving way to his. It was like watching somebody else, like watching other people’s bodies. They looked too good, too golden, to be ours.

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