I want to be used. Used solely for my body and what it can do. I want our relationship to be casual, our sex feral and meaningless.
I want to be used so that I can use him.
If I have any chance of luring Hollis away from his wife, I need some goddamn practice. It’s been almost sixteen years since I’ve had anything other than the standard, run-of-the-mill missionary fuck.
Hollis was pure passion, wild and hungry, and he brought those traits to the bedroom, rocking our sex life, rocking me, and I haven’t experienced anything like it since. To be fair, in the early years of our marriage and before he took over the firm from his father, Nicholas was a little more adventurous, his attention more attainable. Sex wasn’t so bad then. I mean, it was hardly like it was with Hollis, but at least he stroked what needed to be stroked, made sure I was (somewhat) satisfied. But still, even with that lukewarm beginning, the most exotic place we’ve ever had sex has been in the hot tub on our lanai during our Hawaiian honeymoon.
If I’m going to win Hollis back—and I am—then I have no choice but to be prepared…in every possible way. I need to picture the best-case scenario and plan for the worst. So while my sex life has gotten more and more dull in the intervening years, I have to assume that his has only gotten hotter. That his wife is a sex-crazed nympho with the uninhibited nature of an exhibitionist and the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast high on energy drinks.
The most risqué thing I’ve done lately is masturbate in front of our neighbor while sucking on a bottle of gin.
At least it’s a start.
• • •
I don’t go back to the café. Now that I look more like the old me, I can’t exactly take the same risks, watch him as closely as I did before. Back when I thought I’d be satisfied merely looking and not touching. I mean, I could go so far as wearing a wig, maybe sport a boxy baseball hat and oversized sunglasses like they do in the movies. But that would just be, you know, psycho.
Of course, not seeing him every day is hard. Just being near him this past week has been such a comfort. I’ve spent the last decade and a half wrapped in the cool confines of numbness, locked inside a tomb of my own creation. But now, after reading Hollis’s book and seeing him in person, I’ve changed, realized that simply existing isn’t the same thing as living, as loving. So I’m thrusting back the lid of my self-imposed prison, bursting from the depths like a caged bird who’s had the key to her freedom all along.
And it’s so fucking liberating! I’m a whole new person, one who doesn’t mind when the alarm goes off in the morning and the sun parts the horizon. My spirit is overflowing, bursting right out of my skin and filling up the whole damn universe.
Thankfully, there’s plenty to do in the meantime, and the sudden purpose surrounding my mission eases the sting of not seeing Hollis every day. I haven’t had to work for anything in a long time, haven’t even desired anything enough to work for it, and I have to admit, I’m enjoying the heady bliss of motivation, the urge to rise each day when for years it didn’t matter if I pulled myself out of bed or not. Now I’m busy as a bee, trying to get everything in order, mapping my moves and intentions down to a T. In order to fully infiltrate Hollis’s world and break it apart enough so that he can put it back together with me, I need to learn everything I can about his life as it is now. I need to find the flaws, the cracks, and start peeling them apart, bit by bit.
This may all sound entirely cold-blooded, and I get it, I get it. But if there are cracks – and come on, of course there are – then they’re only going to get bigger as time goes on. These jagged edges will rip apart eventually; I’m just hastening the process. So really, this is all very positive. In fact, I’m doing them a favor. Because what’s worse than settling for someone? Having someone settle for you. Am I right or am I right? Hollis’s wife may not come right out and thank me, but deep down, she’ll know this is for the best. After all, I’ll be saving her a lifetime of playing second fiddle to my memory.
And no woman wants that.
Because Hollis wants to be with me, has always wanted to be with me, and she’s just some chick he settled for after I left.
Well, now I’m back.
And I think it’s time we all got on with our lives.
I keep forgetting about the kid.
A small snag in my plan.
But I can deal with a kid. I don’t have to like the baggage that comes with step-parenting another’s woman’s child, but I can live with it. Of course I can live with it.
As long as Hollis is by my side, I can live through anything.
And I’ll be a damn good mother. Maybe I’ll even be better than her own mother. The little rug rat will adore me, worship me, because I’ll be the fun one, the one who is full of good times and fresh air and candy and freedom. I’ll treat her like an adult, not a child, and allow her the independence she craves so that she can become whatever she wants to become without restraints.
God! Hollis is going to be so grateful when he sees how much his daughter loves me. We’ll fight for custody and win, because judges always prefer to put kids in a home with two parents instead of one. Not to mention, his wife (soon to be ex) will be a wreck after the divorce, because she’ll still be living the lie, believing that their love was real (barf) and that Hollis is the only one for her (he’s not). She’ll be so far down in a pit of despair that I doubt she’ll be able to care for herself, much less anyone else.
But she’ll be fine. Eventually. It’ll only be her ego that’s bruised, not her heart. And egos eventually recover.
As for the kid, she’s so young that the divorce won’t affect her. Children at that age are resilient, able to jump from one tragic moment to another with the bright-eyed optimism of a Disney princess who trills about and frolics barefoot with anthropomorphic woodland creatures. I mean, my dad walked out on us when I was six, and I turned out fine-just-fine.
Of course, if the kid turns out to be a complete brat, then we can always send her to a boarding school.
I jot down the idea in the notebook I’ve taken to carrying, a reminder to check out some appropriate out-of-state establishments just in case. There are so many moving parts to this plan, so many ideas that keep popping up in my mind, flitting through my brain, that I find if I don’t write them down immediately, I risk losing them entirely. Some are ridiculous, sure. Like number twelve: Befriend Hollis’s wife, lure her out to the middle of Lake Superior, and drown her. Even I know that smacks of crazy.
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
As much as I wouldn’t mind seeing her gone (in whatever way, shape, or form that may take), I’m obviously not going to kill her. Of course, if a drunk driver happened to knock her off Highway 61 and straight into the trunk of a tree, I’d be totally fine with that. I mean, Jesus, that’d be absolutely fucking perfect.
I send a little prayer to God and a few other deities, just in case they’re listening, and click my pen. Pressing it to paper, I smile, deciding to also employ the Law of Attraction for good measure: Visualize Hollis’s wife crashing into a tree at seventy miles per hour every night before bed for five minutes.
I close my notebook and lean back on the bench, tilt my face to the sky. I’ve been allowing the sun on my skin more and more lately, and slowly but surely am acquiring that bronze glow I had when I was with Hollis. I look sun-kissed and summer-fresh, can actually feel the warm flush as it spreads across my skin. Long lost freckles have resurfaced, sprinkling my nose and dusting my cheeks. Last night, I even snagged a pair of scissors and cut blunt bangs, a thick fringe that hangs heavy over my forehead and just skims my eyebrows.