“My family wants privacy, too.”
“Who are your family?” she screamed. “They’re like mythic. I’ve never met them. For all I know they were at that party, but you didn’t take me around the room. You didn’t even formally introduce me to Jordan. I only know him through social media. Why am I not good enough to meet him?” Erika broke for a breath. She’d really gotten upset in no time. “What if we were to make it to marriage? How would I have connected with him?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what this has been about. I told you the day I formally agreed to this that it wouldn’t lead to anything serious. I don’t need a step mother for my son. This was only supposed to be about us having fun, getting to know each other.”
“Yeah, only you never did the second part.” She stomped off the patio, leaving me alone.
I turned back to the open air, resting my hands on the railing of the veranda. “I guess I didn’t,” I uttered into the open air.
That fact didn’t feel as good as the relief from our stressful affair.
~~~~~~~~~~
June 2010
~Stenton~
Because of my demanding schedule, it was hard for me to see Ezra regularly until the season broke. Deferring the sessions was probably the reason it took so long for me to break from my depression. Yup! StentRo was seeing a goddamn shrink.
Ezra was about my age, give a year or two. He was a well-traveled and educated man, having studied at Oxford. After getting to know him, I quickly understood why Sarah thought he’d be a good match for me. Although he was the son of a pastor with a mega organization, Ezra was charting his own path, working as an engineer while counseling part time. It was a mismatch, but that was him; a misfit. And when I learned he was a member of the BDSM community—a little known fact that my beloved Sarah had no clue of—my trust for him had increased tenfold. But this was not an overnight process.
That season didn’t end well. I’d isolated myself from my teammates and coaches. The only thing that kept me at bay with the bosses of the league was my documented therapy enrollment. I didn’t vacation that year at all. Didn’t see the need of it since not having Zoey to send away zapped the thrill of traveling. I wouldn’t have been able to “pop up” on her under the guise of seeing Jordan. What a joke that had been each year. Sometimes I’d wondered if she really believed me. Even that was difficult because I hadn’t been able to touch her because I’d been sleeping with Erika and would never disrespect Zoey in that manner.
So, instead of charting the globe that summer, I stayed in the tri-state area, spilling my guts, at a progressive rate, to my therapist. I was able to pseudo confess to him that I’d purposely impregnated Zoey. He saw right through me, professionally, and asked for full disclosure. I’d never been the type of man to *foot around topics, but on the other hand, it was a bit difficult for me to reveal my shit. However, Ezra’s approach was so seamless, my confessions poured…well, as much as I could stomach. He and I talked a lot about self-identity, something that intrigued a man of my lifestyle. Conversely, his teachings went deeper, requiring me to isolate my existence from all other people in my life. Things began to click in a particular session.
“Stenton, we must define who we are without the factor of how others view us.”
“Come again…?”