I shake my head because Faith doesn’t understand. “No, I am. I have MS.”
She shrugs. “Not broken. Just a different set of rules for you to play by. Your game, life, changed a bit. I don’t mean to sound insensitive. I know it’s probably come with some obstacles, some of them probably unpleasant, but you adapt. No one’s perfect. We all have obstacles. Remember that.” She shakes me by the shoulders and smiles. “You’re alive, Seamus. You’re alive!” she yells joyously.
I’m watching her, so happy and so convincing, standing before me, and it’s infectious. Alcohol and Faith are dulling bitterness. Chasing it away. I know it’s temporary, but I’ll take it. “You want to have a picnic? My lunch, your dinner, before you go to bed?” I haven’t been on a picnic since I was a little kid.
Her grin widens and it’s pride, like she’s in the middle of something she helped create. “That sounds lovely. You want to make sandwiches, and I’ll grab us some water and whatever else I can round up?”
“I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.”
We eat our food on a blanket under a tree next to our apartment building. I brought peanut butter sandwiches. Faith brought green olives and animal crackers. It begins a bit drunk and ends a bit sober.
And the miraculous thing is that when it’s done, and Faith goes to her apartment to go to bed, and I go to my apartment to wait out tomorrow, I feel a little less bitter.
And I feel like I have a friend.
A friend who’s a stripper.
A nice, wise stripper.
A nice, wise stripper who pointed out I’m still wearing my wedding ring.
So, I take it off.
Because it’s time.
Win. Motherfucking win.
past
Over time, I got used to Seamus’s love and attention being focused on the baby because I was winning at work. I’d battled my way into upper management before Kai’s first birthday. Everything was on track. Pay raises came with each promotion. I’d quadrupled my yearly income in twelve months. The corporate world was my bitch. I was driving a brand new, leased Mercedes. We’d moved into our first home, which was solely in my name. The home was massive, a real statement piece.
I was winning.
Until I wasn’t.
Another cunning fuck you handed down from the universe.
I don’t know what changed, but I grew antsy and agitated. Suddenly, things weren’t happening fast enough. I needed pace, I needed progression, and the world around me wasn’t keeping up.
That’s when I turned back to Seamus. I needed to conquer him again, physically and emotionally, and the easiest way to do that was sex. Sex fostered adoration in Seamus. He never disconnected during sex, it was always an act of love for him. And for the first time ever, I wanted it and the hole I hoped it would fill. I wanted him to rake my naked flesh with those dark, lust-filled eyes again. I wanted to feel the longing in his tight muscles and straining arousal. I wanted to feel his powerful body find the rhythm that brought me to a trembling, twenty-second high. I wanted to hear him moan out my name on a finish only I could grant him.
So, we fucked.
Often.
It backfired on me.
I liked it.
Loved it.
Craved it.
It was a sexual awakening for me.
That opened the door to digressions. There was only so much I could give and take from Seamus. I’d always been restrained with him, I liked the idea of my pleasure more than the idea of his, and achieving both came as a result of limited options on my end. But, now my mind was on overdrive, constantly aroused and weaving dark fantasies I wouldn’t dare ask Seamus to fulfill. So, I turned outside my marriage to supplement, a young man fresh to one of the departments I oversaw as director. Stunningly good looking, built, and equipped with overblown confidence in those areas that proved him easily lured. I pandered initially to his ego, and he unknowingly fell under the guise of my interest and victim to his own naivety. The result was primal, animalistic, experimental fucking, whenever and wherever I wanted it.
Infidelity became my drug.
And Seamus continued to worship me.
Win. Motherfucking win.
My sex life was perfect.
Until it ended in my second pregnancy.
I’d been careless taking my pills. Seamus never used a condom. Thank God the sex toy always did, or I’d be up shit creek without a paddle. I had the poor fool laid off immediately under a fabricated downsizing initiative. He’s of no use to me now.
Seamus was happy beyond belief when I told him I was pregnant. It was like watching Kai being born all over again. I deflated again. I’ve been replaced again. And I’m sure that when this little human is born there will be no room left in his heart for me.
The fa?ade I was trying to create, and could control like a puppeteer, feels more like a mirage every day. Sometimes it’s there. Sometimes it’s not. The days it’s not scare me.
The turncoat
past