Inner Secrets Read online

  The sad truth I discovered: In this lifetime, with Ryan, I would never breeze through a moment like this so uninhibited, so fluid, so nurtured. The good news is I’ve stopped thinking about Lucy now. Of course, now I can’t stop thinking about this adorable girl with dreads named Nadeen.

  June 18

  Dear Journal, I’ve made a gigantic mistake with Nadeen.

  She finally lured me in, danced the tango with my curious soul. I couldn’t resist her. I had to indulge in those golden shoulders, those feline eyes, those perky breasts, those wild calls from deep inside, as if possessed. How could I resist such temptation?

  I could’ve easily gone from Ryan to her in a blink if she hadn’t pulled out a small buffet of drugs right after we ended our romp in the cotton sheets of a bed that I had no right to share.

  I’m a cheater.

  A fucking cheater.

  ~

  When I arrived home later that night, I tossed beside Ryan in bed, watching him breathe in and out, relaxed and oblivious. The longer I stayed with him, the more I was giving up a part of myself.

  I opened Pandora’s Box. How would I ever close it? I wanted more. I needed more. Nothing else would satiate this burning desire to saddle my legs around curvy hips and explore the beautiful gift of a female.

  Could I live this dual life?

  I needed to explore this more.

  So, the very next night, I lied to Ryan for his own good, telling him I needed to meet a deadline at work. Then I ventured back to Club X alone. I scanned the room for Nadeen and saw no sign of her. I ordered a bottle of Corona and sipped it at the bar as I wandered my gaze from one girl to the next waiting for some magical zap to send me reeling.

  My eyes landed on a tall, curvy girl with long, dark hair landing in a pile of soft curls half way down her demure back. She sipped a red drink from a skinny straw and met my gaze. She smiled, arched her back slightly and waved me over to her. I obeyed, trancelike. Her name was Isabella.

  For hours, we danced under the sizzle of the steamy night and then we ended up at her place tangled up in pleasure; a pleasure I couldn’t deny myself any more than a druggie could deny a line of cocaine.

  I was hooked on these raw, animalistic urges to mount her and climb to the Everest of ecstasy.

  Two nights later, desperate to continue my discovery, I landed in elation again, back in Isabella’s arms, surrounded by her lovely, round, firm breasts. That very night, just as we both laid on our backs breathless and satisfied, a man opened her bedroom door. I catapulted off her bed, propelled by a supercharged fright.

  My heart bucked. I stood before a handsome man with dark, cropped hair, deep-set eyes, and a Calvin Klein model body.

  I scurried around the floor gathering up my undies, my bra, my pants, anything to cling to but the sex filled air I’d just left in my wake.

  They both laughed.

  “Take it easy,” Isabella said. “He’s okay with this.”

  “You girls pick up where you left off,” he said. “Don’t mind me. I’ve just got to grab a set of notes from my dresser.”

  My hands gripped my pants still, and I stood hunched in a protective stance ready to defend.

  “Relax,” Isabella said again, curling up out of bed. “We’ve got an open marriage.”

  He kissed her and patted her naked ass. “Have fun with your new friend. I’ll be seeing Jack tonight, so don’t wait up for me.”

  She nuzzled his neck. “Think of me?”

  “Always,” he said and rushed out the door.

  ~

  At this point, I could’ve stopped cheating, fessed up to Ryan, and set him free. But I was too much of a chicken shit to do any such thing. I was a euphoria addict, after all.

  I was addicted to sex with her. We had started to see each other several times a week at this point; always at lunch, so as not to raise red flags for me in my marriage.

  As luck would have it, Ryan and I grew closer now that Isabella fed my hunger. He and I ate dinner together more often and even went on dates together a few nights a week, usually following one of my afternoon dates with Isabella. The guilt washed away as easy as if coaxed by a mid-afternoon rain shower.

  I toyed with fate, but like a druggie, needed my fix. Isabella loved raising the danger stakes, dragging me into bathrooms, into storage rooms, once even into a dressing room at Kohl’s department store.

  One afternoon, she arrived at my work, pulled me into a corner and whispered that she wanted me, but her husband was already using their bedroom. Not wanting to get caught at work, I offered my bedroom.

  As time passed on and I grew more brazen and daring, and addicted to Isabella’s touch, I agreed to countless romps in my bed.

  Sex with her was the perfect way for me to be true to who I really was without breaking Ryan’s heart and unbalancing the otherwise perfect life we shared. Isabella would never ask me to leave Ryan. She also enjoyed our arrangement. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect way to enjoy life.

  About two months into our affair, I was straddling her on my bed, kissing her long milky neck and getting high off her earthy smell. I indulged and lost track of all time and place, enjoying her soft murmurs and her gentle sway below me.

  Then, she cried out for me to stop. I ignored her plea and continued to explore her. She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me out of her way. She rolled out of my bed not taking her eyes off the room behind me. I turned and standing behind me was my husband.

  Shock stretched across his face as Isabella scattered out of the room like a cockroach in new light.

  “I wasn’t feeling good, so I came home,” he said, his voice tainted with outrage and gruff as though he’d spent the last several hours getting drunk at a smoky bar.

  My heart clenched. I couldn’t swallow, much less speak. I groveled in a direct meager flight response to the lack of air and tight grip on the delicate balance between winning and losing this battle of disbelief that I fully deserved. Silence littered itself around us. The smell of sex burned my nostrils, robbed me of a dignity I didn’t deserve. “Ryan—”

  “—No, you don’t get to explain.” Tears spilled down his ravaged face. “Just clear your shit out of my condo.”

  With a slap, he marched out of the room.

  I froze stuck on his emphasis of “my” condo, the same condo he invited me to move into six months before we wed, and the same condo he referred to as “our” condo for the years that followed.

  I balled up in my bed, void of dignity, and cried for hours.

  I had lost his respect, forever.

  ~

  A few hours later, he called.

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, digging for my voice from under the rubble of what I thought was a formidable, unsinkable masterpiece.

  “A month? Two? Three years? Give me some indication, please.”

  “Two,” I said.

  He sighed. “Two years?”

  “Months. Two months.”

  “So you’re gay now?”

  “I’ve always been,” I said, wavering on a beam of humility.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  He scoffed. “So, you protected me by fucking some whore behind my back?”

  “Ryan…”

  “I wasted three years with you.”

  “Wasted?” This word ravaged through my core like sewer water littered with dead rats, battered recycles, dirty disease.

  “Why two months? Why our bedroom?”

  My eyes slammed shut, burdened by the weighty space bearing down on me. “I was just trying to figure out who I was.”

  “Man or woman, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t give you the right to screw with my life like that. You still cheated.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve always been selfish. But this just tops it. It’s unforgivable.” He groaned. “You’ve got three days to get y
our stuff moved out,” he said, then hung up.

  He loathed me, despised me, and hated me.

  ~

  August 2

  Dear Journal,

  He thinks I’m selfish.

  This is not the person I want to be; a cheat, a liar, a thief of time, selfish. I want to be someone others can respect and trust; someone more like the man I just destroyed.

  ~

  I called PJ. She coaxed me up the slippery walls of my gloomy well of hysteria with her sisterly instinct. I confessed everything to her, and she reassured me that she still loved me and still believed I was a good person who was just confused.

  I didn’t buy it.

  “What are you going to do about this chick, Isabella?”

  “It’s over. I can’t relive that horrible scene.”

  “So now what?” she asked.

  “Now, I’ve got to figure out where the hell I’m going to live.”

  “Where is he right now?”

  “I don’t know. He told me I have three days.” I was hoping she’d offer me her extra room.

  “I can help you tomorrow. I’ll check with Rachel’s real estate friend, Tara, to see if she knows of any place for rent.”

  I could see myself now, crammed into a studio apartment in a dark basement with a bed serving as a table and couch. That would be too nice for me; I deserved a prison cell. “Sure, that’d be great.”

  “Okay, hon. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know what I find out.”

  I mumbled a goodbye, and then stuffed a pillow over my face hoping it would block the crushing sadness for all I just lost; my dignity, my respect, my integrity, and my peaceful freedom.

  ~

  At work the next day, I tried to bury Ryan’s hateful reaction in a pile of productive calls and research. I plowed through a ton of gleaming apartment ads on Craigslist. Many promised safety, convenience, beauty, and fun-filled sunny afternoons spent poolside with friendly neighbors. Of course, those were for fortunate people who could afford luxuries like organic fruit and vegetables and soft Egyptian cotton sheets. Where I could afford to live, I’d be lucky to dash from my car to the front door without getting shot in the head.

  Location was only one of the problems waving its smartass finger at my fading hope. I also ran across the issue of security deposits that totaled more than I earned in two months at the accounting firm.

  To think that only a few weeks ago, Ryan and I were planning a four-week trip to Europe. I’d dreamed about this type of trip ever since first meeting a couple at a bed and breakfast in Vermont who had done the same thing. Their stories entertained me and stoked a fire within that I didn’t even realize was smoldering. Ryan and I had folded the corners of page after page in the traveler’s catalog dreaming up whimsical days trekking through Paris with backpacks and electric nights partying on the Riviera. Now, I worried where I’d salvage the means for basic shelter, preferably free of cockroaches, drugs, and gun-wielding boys sporting pants with waistbands down to their knees.

  I cried most of the morning. Yes, I succumbed to self-pity, the woe-is-me type of indulgence. I hiked to that dark cave in my mind, reserved for down-in-the-dirt moments like this and slid into a mental fetal position. If I weren’t surrounded by a bunch of nosy, happy people, I’d stomp my feet, enraged with petulance, and stammer that I was only human, and human beings made mistakes.

  I sulked into my folded hands, leaning hard into them as if punishing some part of myself would ease the pent-up guilt. Coworkers brushed by concerned about marketing reports as my life bowed in the balance of survival.

  I had fucked up my life.

  I kicked my wastebasket. An apple core, a yogurt container, and a few orphaned reports scrambled out to freedom. Everything angered me now—the flashing message signal on my phone, the flickering fluorescent bulb above my head, and the useless chatter of the latest television sagas being discussed.

  I sunk deeper into my chair to avoid all form of contact. My mascara must’ve bled down to my cheeks in all this chaos.

  At one point, Sally from the mailroom walked by and asked me if everything was okay. She smelled like sour cantaloupe, pungent, nauseating. I brushed off her worry with a flip of my hand and a reassuring smile.

  Then, Ed from sales barged into my rage fest with a nervous shrug and a stack of reports he needed me to file. Colleague after colleague strolled by after that just to get a good look at me wallowing in a sea of self-induced suffering.

  For the better part of the rest of the morning, I managed to side-step pensive stares and reassuring nods with a simple tilt of my head. Then Lucy arrived.

  Calm, reassuring Lucy with her rosy cheeks and cinnamon eyes sat on the corner of my desk and placed her delicate hand on my back. “You want to go for a walk?”

  To my horror, I bawled at this sincere gesture. I bucked up and down like a freaking bronco. The harder I tried to stop the tirade of tears, the more they pressed, leaking down like rainwater from a clogged gutter.

  She circled her hand round and round across my back, nurturing me back to sanity one comforting swirl at a time.

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeated at least a half dozen times. “I shouldn’t have come to work today. I just thought if I came, I’d focus on something other than what’s going on in my life right now.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice rolled out of her like spun cotton.

  I wrestled with how much to say. Everyone would eventually know I left Ryan. They didn’t have to know how. So, I blurted out amongst a hiccupped sob, “Ryan and I are separating.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She continued to rub my back still.

  My breathing relaxed. “I’m just overwhelmed, that’s all.” I straightened up and her hand fell past her trim waist.

  She handed me a tissue. I dotted it under my eyes.

  “Here,” she said grabbing another one. “Let me help you before you smear black all over your face.”

  I settled in as she wiped my skin, inhaling her minty fresh breath. “He asked me to move out so I’m trying to figure out all my options.”

  She stopped wiping. Her eyes sparkled. “So, you’re looking for a place to live?”

  “Yes. There’s a lot to sort through out there.”

  She paused, nodded, and then said, “I might know of an extra room you can rent in the house I live in, as long as you don’t mind living with four other people?”

  For the first time that day, my breath released all the way from my diaphragm, traveled up my windpipe and out my mouth in one satiny, smooth motion. My tears stopped, levied by her smooth dewy skin and her gentle eyes, and by the promise of a silver lining to what I could only call the worst day in my life. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, there’s plenty of room. It’s a big estate house.”

  My hope rose. “That sounds so nice.”

  She flipped her hair over her shoulder and continued, “It’s a beautiful home owned by one of the roommates. He was married, got divorced when he found out his wife cheated on him with his cousin, of all people, and he kicked her out leaving him with a mortgage too large to cover on his personal trainer’s salary. Though, he did get the sweet end of the deal. She left everything behind, beautiful furniture, elaborate fixings, a house full of technology and the latest gadgets. Supposedly his cousin is a millionaire who invests in mobile home parks, so she didn’t need any of it. But, he is still stuck with that hefty mortgage payment. So, he took on some roommates. We’re a colorful blend, that’s for sure.”

  “Nice.”

  She grazed on my flowering smile. “You can come check it out, see if it’s something you’d be interested in, and if the roommates agree, you could move in right away. But, there’s just one thing. You’d have to share a bathroom.” She wrinkled her nose as if she just told me I’d have to pee in an outhouse. “My boyfriend and I rent the only room with a master bathroom.”

  I blinked, wilted by the reference to her boyfriend, as if I deserved a beau
tiful girl to come waltzing so easily into my life the day after I crushed my marriage.

  “Don’t worry. You’d be sharing it with the cleanest girl of all. You’ll never have to lift a toilet brush.” Her lips spread into a beautiful smile.

  Over the last six months, and over a dozen or so coffee breaks, how had she never once mentioned a boyfriend?

  “You have a boyfriend?”

  She cocked her head, a playful smile rested on her lips. “I never mentioned him to you?”

  “I would’ve remembered that detail.”

  Her smile inflated.

  That smile. She could short-circuit the entire network of computers with it.

  “We’ve been together for a few years now. He’s a writer.”

  I rolled my number two pencil with my index finger, suddenly feeling inadequate with my assistant marketing role. “Is he published?”

  “No. Not yet. But he’s trying.”

  I felt happy about this tiny ray of imperfection. “Must be hard for him to focus when living with so many people?”

  “That’s why we took the big room. It’s like a hotel suite. We even have a Jacuzzi tub.” Her cheeks shimmered. One fleck lit up its adjacent partner and soon her whole face beamed. “Everyone’s pretty cool. We all keep to ourselves for the most part and keep the invisible lines protected. That’s why it’s been such a struggle to find the right balance in another roommate.”

  “Why even bother then, if it’s working out?” I asked.

  “Ralph needs the money because he needs to replace the roof.”

  “Ralph? I take it he’s the divorced guy?”