“Do I want to know what other random items live in that?” he asked, jerking his chin to my slightly oversized bag. But it was okay. They were still in vogue. I had no idea what I would do if those mini wallet purse things became the thing again.
“Let’s just say, if the world ended tomorrow, I could live out of it for a solid ten months. Give or take.”
“I believe it,” Kai said as I moved into the bathroom, taking a deep breath, reminding myself I needed to keep taking them as I scrubbed the deep soaking tub, as I stopped the drain, filled it with steaming water, dropped salts and bombs in, as I slowly stripped out of my clothes, feeling oddly dirty despite the fact that I had bathed twice already that day.
I wasn’t sure I would ever stop feeling like there was a film covering my skin, put there by hands that didn’t love me like I thought they did.
I sank down in the water, feeling it lap up to my chin, a shiver moving through me despite the overly hot water because a new, startling thought broke through the fog of my brain.
Gary had this thing. This preference. This fetish, in a way.
He only liked to have sex from behind.
He only ever wanted to screw me when he couldn’t see my face.
Christ.
How the hell could I have just looked over that for so long? Accepted that even though it wasn’t something I liked, it stole the intimacy I so badly craved?
Why had I made so many excuses for him over the course of our relationship?
When had I become so accommodating, so willing to settle for things I most certainly did not want? Or even like remotely?
He fucked me from behind because he didn’t want to see the face of his mark while he used her in the most despicable way possible.
Used.
That was absolutely what I felt.
Maybe I had felt that way each time he touched me.
Maybe that explained why I hadn’t known the sensation of an orgasm in so long I was pretty sure I forgot what one felt like.
Maybe it wasn’t stress, exhaustion, a position I hated. Maybe it wasn’t those things. Maybe it was because a part of me knew something was off, but the other part of me had been working so hard to suppress that knowledge. Maybe in suppressing that, I’d suppressed my own pleasure as well.
My head slammed back against the porcelain hard enough to rattle my teeth.
I was supposed to be angry with him.
That should have been my dominant thought.
But all that could penetrate was about me.
Anger at myself.
For missing the signs.
For becoming someone in that relationship that I didn’t even recognize.
Someone weak, compliant, someone willing to give so much of herself that she lost pieces – hell, chunks – along the way.
What the hell would I fill those spaces with?
Self-loathing?
Were those going to be the new pieces of me?
It would be so easy for that to happen.
Effortless, really.
So many women had it happen, without realizing, without even truly being a part of the process.
I’d seen so many women – friends, family members, clients at work – who became shadows of their former selves after something happened to them, something they took no part of, but shouldered the blame and guilt and shame of it all regardless.
They didn’t see it happening.
But I could.
I could see it, feel it, and I owed it to myself to stop it, to fill those spaces with something else, something that would improve my life, not destroy it.
What I could fill myself up with, that was still up in the air.
More work, most likely.
Some books about the tricks of conmen, probably.
Some relentless hours at the gym trying to purge these feelings inside that were demanding to come out in the most offensive way I could think of.
Tears.
The ones I blinked back relentlessly, pinning my eyes closed, pressing my palms to the lids, refusing to let any more of them fall.
Better to let them out in sweat.
Salt water was salt water.
I was convinced they were interchangeable.
Or at least I would make them so.
Because I damn sure wasn’t going to cry about it.
About him.
I didn’t use this phrase often but it seemed appropriate.
Fuck him.
Fuck him seven ways to Sunday.
He had gotten my body, my time, my hopes, my plans, my money.
He wasn’t getting anything else from me.
The water turned cold before I finally climbed out, wrapping myself in a fluffy white towel that was long enough to almost skim my knees as I stood in front of the mirror, washing my face, brushing my teeth, going through the motions.
When life is falling apart, angel, take care of the things you can, my grandmother used to tell me when some minor – or major – crisis would rock our family, leaving most of us feeling powerless. Wash your face, sweep your floors, make your bed even if all you are going to do is crawl right back into it in an hour. Create order in the chaos.