The sex was better than the lies were bad [adult]
The sex was better than the lies were bad. I mean really, who wants to take a bus after a night shift at a hospital…during a pandemic? But still, they stayed together. She had ridiculous stories. She was cagey. He knew there were other men. But instead of turning him off, it stirred up a feeling he had forgotten.
He had to be good, useful, productive. He had to prove his worth. He wasn’t going to just get anything.
Being innocent was boring. Being innocent meant you couldn’t do anything. His ex-wife was innocent. She didn’t want to post anything that might offend anyone. She wanted everyone to get along. She worried about what she wore in front of his family. She was so nice that it was terrible. He couldn’t say he didn’t like a particular meal, a particular outfit. He couldn’t be honest. Honesty was mean.
And he had felt like an object. She wanted kids and a husband, and he was just a means to an end. But he couldn’t complain about feeling like a tool. They all looked at him like a bad guy. He had wasted years of her life. Now she had to find someone else to have kids with. How could he do that?
He couldn’t stand all that. Once again, he had to swallow what was honest so he didn’t seem mean. And he knew what his siblings and his friends were saying. He had given up a good girl. Yeah yeah yeah. But there had to be more to life.
She hadn’t loved him, anyway. She loved the idea of a family. She would take care of anyone, do anything for anyone as long as they had a stable job and the baby gravy. She would learn, adapt, change her personality.
That’s what was different about his new girlfriend. If he wasn’t useful to her, she would discard him. If she wanted another kid, he had no idea. He knew she had one, and he was starting to suspect that she had an adult daughter she said was her sistern.
He started to think about having kids with her so maybe she would calm down and want to be with him. Maybe then, he could win.
He had this need to compete. To chase and be chased. He wanted to be jealous. Jealousy…was fun.
He showed up at the hospital to pick her up. She looked concerned and angry.
“Why are you at my job?” she looked around.
“Just wanted to do something nice so you wouldn’t have to take the bus.”
She hopped in quickly.
“Thank you. Just don’t do it again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m asking you not to. You don’t need any other reason.”
He was immediately turned on. Maybe they could fuck in the car, and whoever she worked with would see it, and know they were together, and back off. Or watch, maybe. That might be better.
Maybe they could get into a fight.
Maybe they could all fuck each other.
The people who told him he should get back with his ex were miserable pricks with vanilla relationships. They barely had a pulse. They had high blood pressure. They were losing all their senses, probably because they weren’t using them.
He was alive.
He didn’t know there were so many other ways to live. He had assumed so many things. Then he met this sassy ass nurse. This nurse who treated people for Covid then went on an app to fuck randos. This nurse who didn’t seem to have a nurturing bone in her body. Who went to the beach to surf, who hid cash in her mattress because she didn’t believe in banks, who owned Bitcoins she couldn’t access because she didn’t know how apps worked. She barely used social media and she never watched the news. She didn’t take any shit. She already had a kid, and who knew where the father was. She was a hustler. She was tough. He knew she would throw him out like a used tissue.
And. He. Liked. That.
He liked that.
She had three dudes fighting over who would buy her kid’s school uniform, her kid’s braces, her lingerie and her lip fillers. She went to the men who she thought would do a better job with varying tasks. Hell, she had a sort of harem.
And it was…pretty amazing. There was a little bit of fear around her, every time. Good fear. Fear like a roller coaster, fear like a balance beam.
His mother told him that he was having a mid-life crisis, and he couldn’t let it throw him off-track. That it was normal, but it was time. That his ex wife would take him back, if he apologized.
“Yeah. I’m sure she would,” he growled.
“What’s wrong with you? She’s a good woman. She’s educated. She’s pretty. Your kids would…”
He didn’t hear the rest. She went on and on. A wall was up. This was what he wanted. He didn’t feel right when things were too easy.
“She’s going to find someone else if you don’t watch out.”
“I hope she does,” he said. “I really hope she does.”
She did, of course. He felt relief on their wedding day. He was afraid she would contact him and try to get him to call off their wedding. But his heart became unburdened as he tapped through the photos. She would be fine. He didn’t have to be the bad guy anymore.
“Get off your phone,” his new wife said. They had eloped, in secret, and hadn’t told anyone yet. No posts, no photo shoots.
He had thought that she would act different after they got married. She had not, and he was relieved. She still was sketchy. She still probably had other boyfriends…or men in the wings, circling, waiting for him to fuck up. “Eat your dinner. You know the rules. No phones at dinner.”
He put the phone down and flipped it over. She didn’t care about his ex. She didn’t care how she looked, or that they had a more expensive wedding. She didn’t care. He loved it.
He didn’t know why he let her boss him around. He didn’t know why he couldn’t be the type of man everyone wanted him to be. He didn’t know why he enjoyed a relationship other people would call toxic and dysfunctional.
But he was happy.