In lucid moments, she told herself that this was what prostitutes did, and she was no better than they were. The rest of the time, she didn’t think about it. She just did it, and let him do whatever he wanted to her, just to keep her job and security for her kids. For the past five years, he had taken Viagra when he met her, which made it easier to satisfy him. It really was a wonder drug.
He liked coming inside her once she had aroused him, and sometimes he came all over her, depending on the mood he was in. Degrading her was part of how he controlled her, until she felt like nothing. She was a hollow shell by then. He never bothered to talk to her, and she wondered why he didn’t hire a hooker instead. It might have been more fun for him. He told her once, on a rare occasion when he talked to her afterwards, that he and his wife hadn’t had sex in twenty years. He said she was a frigid bitch, and he would have divorced her, but she would have taken all his money. So he had sex with Francine twice a week instead. It seemed to be enough for him, although he was known to be a lech in the office and grabbed a random feel of the female employees whenever he could get away with it. He felt he had a right to. No one was going to challenge the boss and risk their job. They just avoided him as best they could. But Francine couldn’t, she had too much at stake. Because of her job, she and her children could live in an apartment in a decent neighborhood in Queens. They went to good schools, and she tried to put money aside for their education, and college one day, so she could stop meeting him. But that time never came. If he destroyed her professional reputation, where would she go and what would she do? It was easier to just keep having sex with him, no matter what it did to her.
Ten years earlier, he had made her stay longer, have sex with him a second time, or give him a blow job before she left. Now he was satisfied with once. He was too drunk to have sex again after that. There was no conversation, nothing personal when they met. It was strictly physical for him, and mechanical for her. She couldn’t imagine why he did it. It meant nothing to him either. It was just physical release. He didn’t need to make any effort with her, she was a sure thing. She needed the job as head of the department and the money she made. He gave her a “bonus” in cash on Christmas, which paid for the extras her kids needed, things that came up more and more often as they got older. Lessons, tutoring, trips, vacations. She tried to save as much as she could. School tuitions were high and even more than the money, she needed to protect her reputation so she could get another job one day. She doubted he would ever let her leave him without destroying her. She believed his threats.
For years she had been ashamed of what she had let him blackmail her into, but now she no longer cared. It was a disembodied act she performed twice a week with a man she loathed. If he had died, she wouldn’t care. And if she lost her job and reputation, she would have been short of money for Thalia and Tommy, particularly with high school and college looming. She had told herself in the beginning that if she met a man she cared about, she would stop seeing him, try to find a way out somehow, and look for a new job, even in another field, but she hadn’t met anyone, and no longer wanted to. Her emotional life was over. She had no emotions left. She was empty. He had destroyed her by humiliating her and with his threats to destroy her. She wasn’t a woman to him, she was a thing, an object he used for his convenience, like a prostitute he picked up on the street but didn’t have to pay. She was free, she was clean, he knew she’d show up every time. She was too afraid not to. She even went when she was sick so he didn’t get angry. He had an ugly temper. She had been a decent woman with a heart and soul until she met him. Her husband had crushed her when he left her for a twenty-three-year-old nanny, and Dan Fletcher had finished her off. She did what he wanted willingly to keep her job and reputation. She thought of giving it up when Tommy finished college, but that was still eight years away.
Afterwards, she went to the bathroom and cleaned herself up. She didn’t want to stay long enough to shower there, and she had to get home to her kids. She stayed less than an hour now. By the time she dressed, he was snoring loudly, lying flat on his back, in the same position he’d fallen into when he rolled off her. He was rough and crude, but she was used to that now. She couldn’t imagine making love with a man again. The thought of it disgusted her, almost as much as he did. But this wasn’t love, it was just sex.
She let herself out of the apartment and walked to the subway nearby. The doorman tipped his hat as she left. He was used to seeing her, and could guess why she showed up twice a week. He no longer bothered to announce her when she arrived. He knew her.
She changed trains and got home at eight-thirty as she always did. Thalia was out with friends. It was senior year for her, and hard to keep her home now during the week. She had already flown the coop in her own mind. Freedom was just around the corner.
Tommy was sitting glued to the TV, eating a frozen pizza he had heated up himself. He didn’t look up when his mother came in. She sat down on the couch next to him for a minute, feeling filthy as she always did after her meetings with Dan.
“How was school today?” she asked him, and he shrugged.
“It sucked, like it always does. I hate my teachers. We had basketball practice today. The coach kept me on the bench for the whole game.”
“Why?” she asked gently. He was an unhappy child and had been for years. He had minor reading issues and had had remedial classes for that.
“The coach hates me,” he said in a flat voice. It made her realize that he mirrored a lot of her own emotions. So Dan had broken him as well, without ever meeting him. And Thalia couldn’t wait to leave. Francine had never succeeded in making their plain, poorly furnished apartment a happy home for them. There was no joy in it, just as there was none in Francine. The apartment reflected how dead she felt. She spent all her energy at work, determined to do a good job, and was too tired and drained to do anything that required emotional input from her when she got home from work. And twice a week, she returned broken again. Dan broke her over and over and over again, with his threats and degrading comments, until she couldn’t heal the broken parts anymore, and didn’t try.
She went to take a bath then, and came back in a pink terrycloth bathrobe to tell Tommy to go to bed. He lumbered off to his room without hugging her. He had decided he was too old for that a year ago, when he turned twelve. She was going to her own room when Thalia walked in. She was wearing a pink hoodie and jeans and a pair of pink running shoes that Francine had given her. She spent what she made on her children, and rarely bought anything for herself. And she saved the rest for their college fund and better days.
“Hi, where were you?” Francine asked, as she always did.
“Out. With friends,” Thalia said in a surly tone.
“What friends?”
“What difference does it make? You don’t know them. You’re never here.”
“I’m always here,” Francine corrected her. “I’m here every night.”
“Yeah, after dinner, so you don’t have to cook for us.”
“I get here as soon as I can. You’re old enough now. You could wait.”
“For what? I can put my own frozen pizza in the oven. So can Tommy. We don’t need you for that.”
“I know that. We should make an effort to eat together,” she said, as though it was a novel idea. She wanted to give them a normal, happy life, which no longer seemed possible. Francine had been dead inside for too long.