My Husband's Girlfriend by Cydney Rax

Author:Cydney Rax
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307351517
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2006-08-15T22:00:00+00:00

It’s midweek. Reesy is in the den looking at a rented video that’s due in two days. I tiptoe to the library. Open and shut the door. I look around at dozens of books shelved on oak bookcases. There’s a wooden coatrack and a wooden trunk. Neil even has a wooden newspaper rack. I see a USA Today spread out on the floor next to the sofa. It has a crease in it and is turned to the crossword puzzle. I slump on the couch and let my hand droop over the sofa, tracing the newspaper with my fingers. There’s a slight bulge underneath the paper. I pick up the crossword section and stare.

There’s a glossy, smelly mag. Maybe he’s not exactly trying to hide it. The magazine is turned to the centerfold. Let’s see here. She’s Asian. Oh, great! Looks like Kimora Simmons, the wife of Russell Simmons. This centerfold is sitting naked on a horse, out in a grassy field somewhere. How brave she must be to smile for the camera and rub herself against a horse. She’s gripping her jumbo breasts. And I thought mine were a mouthful.

I continue turning the pages. All the girls possess the kind of beauty that makes other women feel ugly, invisible, unwanted. But these beautiful women look innocent for some reason, like they’re happy about what they’re doing and proud of themselves. I think of the irony of how even though I do not agree with them publicly displaying their bodies, they themselves seem satisfied with who and what they are. And if that’s the case, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

I place the magazine back where it was. Why confront Neil? I’ve known about his habits for a while. I’ve seen the Girls Gone Wild videotapes that show up in our house. It’s not like he has hundreds of these tapes that he can’t stop watching. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is I have failed to keep my hubby aroused. I’ve been looking for him to do his part, but maybe he’s waiting on me.

Deep inside I know he’s been waiting for years, since long before we even agreed to a marital arrangement. But the two miscarriages made me view myself differently. Neil specifically wanted a Neil Jr. I wanted to give him a son, but when my body couldn’t sustain the two pregnancies, I felt empty. I shut down. And if I went to the grocery store and saw mothers with infants, I started weeping uncontrollably. After a while I didn’t want to go outside anymore. So I stayed in the house—in fact, quite near the refrigerator. The more I ate extra helpings of food, the less I cared about intimacy, especially after Neil shut down, too, for a while.

But all that was so long ago. Nothing can change the past, but I have the power to affect the future. So maybe it’s time to switch gears. If a woman feels threatened, fear can force her to do something different.

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