As the day turned into night, all of the women eventually left. They had small children, after all.
It made me miss Violet like a severed limb. Nostalgic for the time when she was small and chubby and would hold tightly onto my fingers.
It made me wish that I had the experience of a man carrying our sleeping baby while letting me drink mimosas, not at all bothered by any switch in gender stereotypes or concerned about image.
I was happy that these women had that. Even after only one afternoon with them, I knew that they deserved that.
But I was feeling weird. I was picturing Swiss with a baby strapped to his chest.
Our baby.
I was picturing our baby. After two days together.
While I was still technically married.
So yeah, I got drunk.
The night got decidedly blurrier and rowdier after the married couples left, and the single men remained. I understood that it was a completely different vibe… The scantily clad women from the party having returned. All of whom were perfectly nice to me. One even cried and told me how pretty I was while I was walking toward the bathroom.
I might’ve even cried too.
At some point during the night—after I had got up and danced with the woman from the bathroom line—Swiss dragged me off to the bedroom. Or maybe I dragged him off.
I distinctly remember backing him up against a wall in the hallway—a very public hallway—and making out with him. Maybe even dry humping him. My hand definitely went underneath his tee.
We made it to his room, and that was where things took a turn.
For the better.
The clearest memory I had from the night was the door closing and me looking Swiss straight in the eye and asking, “Do you like to be punished?”
Swiss’s eyes were an inferno. “Countess, you want to draw and quarter me, I’ll give you the fucking knife,” he’d bit out, voice coated in sex.
Then there were handcuffs. And they weren’t used on me.
It turned out tequila shots and Swiss brought out a whole other side to me. One I didn’t even know existed.
And I liked it.