“Oh,” I said, trying to laugh off the slightly uncomfortable dimension of the question. “It’s great—the house they’re putting us up in is… well, it’s nicer than any place I’ve ever lived, anyway. Mandy loves it. I think we’re pretty much sold on the benefits of Rocky Falls—just need to see if—”
“Rick,” Scott interrupted, bringing the cart to a stop next to the sand trap where his own ball had ended up, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’m afraid I pretty much have to.”
He paused, looking over at me. I frowned back, suddenly very uncertain as to whether Scott had, as I had supposed, not actually meant to ask about the more intimate part of Mandy and my first night in Rocky Falls. For a second, also I assumed his last words must have to do with the initial question—how last night had gone. I thought that after the strangely penetrating look he had fixed on me, he would turn and get out of the cart to take his shot, so I broke the eye contact and I started to get out myself.
Scott stopped me with a golf-gloved hand on my forearm. I turned to him, my frown returning and growing deeper.
“I’m your sponsor here, Rick,” he said. “At least until you decide you want to choose another sponsor.”
I shook my head slightly as I looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant to communicate.
“Why would I choose somebody else?” I asked, suddenly wondering if there was more to sponsorship than I had supposed. I thought about what I had read on the Rocky Falls website, and I recalled something about my sponsor offering advice on how to navigate the occasional challenges of an age-gap marriage. I hadn’t thought much about it beyond finding it reassuring to know I could ask Scott for the benefit of his experience from time to time.
“As your sponsor I—or any other guy you might choose—have the responsibility to make sure that things are going well in areas of your marital life that most men consider private. That’s the uncomfortable part—and the part that might make you decide another guy would be a better fit for you.”
I felt the crease between my eyebrows get a little more emphatic. I shook my head again, maintaining the fiction that I didn’t get it, though with my experience of the New Modesty so far I had a pretty good idea now what Scott meant.
He nodded, a wry little smile turning up the corner of his mouth.
“Just to be clear,” he said, “I won’t be offended at all if you decide that the random guy you met on your honeymoon—maybe even more important, the one who saw your wife fleeing your hotel room after what seemed very likely to have been a failed attempt to fuck her the way she needs it…”
I stopped shaking my head. I drew in a sharp breath. ready to object. Scott lifted his hand from my arm and held it up in ahold ongesture.
“This is the way we talk here in Rocky Falls,” he said, “we husbands, anyway, among ourselves. It’s part of my responsibility to get you used to it. So before I go further, I just want to be sure you understand that it doesn’t have to be me asking these questions—but that part of living here is talking to another guy about how to handle your wife. Make sense? A little sense, anyway?”
I nodded slowly as I took a deep, calming breath through my nose, letting the protective alpha urges subside in my chest.
“Alright,” Scott said. “I’ll give you a couple holes to think about that before I come back with more embarrassing questions.”
He got out of the cart. He two-putted for a bogey, and I got my birdie. I didn’t know if it represented a good omen, but I decided to take it as one. We played the second hole mostly in silence except for the standard chat about clubs and lies. We both made par.
We had a few minutes to wait to drive off the third tee; a golfer ahead of us had lost a ball in the rough near the middle of the fairway.
“Scott,” I said suddenly, “I think I’m fine with you as my sponsor. Go ahead and ask.”
It had come out abruptly, but I had indeed been thinking as we played the second hole. My initial reaction had been indignant to the idea of Scott or anyone else prying into the intimate reaches of my bedroom. As I considered, though, I liked the idea of having that kind of sponsor more and more. Scott had already helped me so much. simply by telling me about Rocky Falls. I felt very good about where last night had gotten me and Mandy, but I knew I’d be foolish not to anticipate trouble ahead.
“Alright,” the older man said, looking levelly at me. “Did you discipline your bratty wife last night?”
* * *
Mandy
I had thought I didn’t really like April. My memory of meeting her and Scott on our honeymoon rankled, and I had supposed until the moment before I got into April’s car that she had definitely had a great deal to do with the painful parts of that experience. Hadn’t she been the one to say Rick and I would make agood fitfor Rocky Falls? Hadn’t she then said we had been all over each other, and made me feel the distance between what I had allowed Rick and what he was entitled to as my husband?
But as soon as I got into the car I realized that my memory had created a completely false version of the woman. The expression on April’s face, her kind smile, didn’t put me at ease—because how could I possibly feel at ease knowing where that smile must come from? I saw in an instant, before she turned her attention to signaling and pulling away from the curb, the understanding in her eyes.
I thanked God that with her eyes on the road she might not notice my blush. April couldn’t be older than twenty-four, I realized, and yet her face had somehow told me that the four years or so separating us meant a great deal in Rocky Falls. Also, she knew I was struggling to deal with an inner conflict she had herself gone through.
Also, she probably had a very strong and accurate suspicion as to what had happened behind the closed doors of the beautiful house loaned to Rick and me.
“So hi,” I said, wanting to cut through the momentary silence and get the small talk started. “It’s nice to see you!”
On one level, I had spoken the truth, because I did feel, quite unexpectedly, that I liked April—that if we did move to Rocky Falls she and I could get close, have girls’ nights, that kind of thing. At the same time, I knew I had just lied, that it was definitelynotnice to see April. Riding in her car, driving toward what looked like the other side of town, where the day spa must be located, heightened the conflict inside me a little bit more with every revolution of the Mercedes’ wheels.
The very fact that April drove a Mercedes seemed to deepen my inner struggle. How could I not want a nice car like this one? Of course I couldn’t keep myself from envying April, the sensible part of me said. And if April drove a Mercedes, Scott must drive something nice, too—and Rick deserved a nice car, even more than I did. He would see, as I had, that we could have everything we wanted, but without any of the craziness.
The craziness.I shifted on the leather seat, which felt soft enough that I only winced a little at the reminder of that craziness: of my husband’s thick jeans belt whipping my bare bottom over and over.