***Formerly "The Bondage of Marriage"***
"It's better than this place I guess," said Victoria. She was sitting on the couch - one of the few items left after sorting out their possessions in the hasty separation. Kenneth nodded. He had long ago given up on trying to find a way to make this ok. It was all his fault, he knew, and yet he told himself it was hers. She was the one who had stopped wanting him.
In his unwilling marital abstinence, he would grow more dour week after week until she would have sex with him. They had sex about once a month, and the whole time in between Kenneth had climbed the walls. He had resorted to bondage porn, which he wasn't particularly ashamed of. It was hot, but it was never as good as real sex. He resented having to resort to it, and he blamed her for this divorce.
She was moving to Bayview St. in East York. But right now she simply sat, staring at their apartment on Bloor, stripped of most of the furniture and cool artsy things they had bought at Homesense & Winners. She had come in to grab one of her purses, and an old-fashioned photo album her grandmother had compiled for her, two items Kenneth had extracted from the small messes that had made up his contribution to the decor. They were the last two things that belonged to Victoria. And now she was just sitting here. There wasn't anything else to say. And he was surprised by just how little had been said since he had broken the news to her a month and a half ago that he had been unfaithful.
He was ashamed of course. He did not understand why it had taken marriage's ultimate transgression to end things. On some level, he understood that he had played his own part in Victoria's disinterest, and so, too, in the denoument of this sorrowful sojourn of a relationship, but he didn't know how to face that.
"Well, you won't have to worry about Reginald," he said, trying to lighten the mood. Usually mention of the socially awkward upstairs neighbour was enough to bring at least a chuckle, but of course Victoria just smiled sardonically and let out a small gust through her nose instead of laughing.
"Who knows what I'll have to deal with..."
"Well you won't have to deal with me."
"Thank God," she said. Then, as if waking up from a daydream, without looking at Kenneth, she gathered her purse and her grandmother's photo album and made to leave. He took in her beautiful curls and her long-legged sexiness with one last pang of regretful longing and said "Vic, I'm sorry,"
"I don't care," came her reply, in monotone, as she crossed the threshold into the hallway and out of Kenneth's life.
- - -
Bloor St. was alive, as ever, with its morning frenzy. It was cold this morning, summer just turning to fall, but it was quickly warming. The air, though crisp, was stale with hydrocarbons and for once Kenneth could let himself feel grateful that the restaurant where he cooked only took him two city blocks away from the apartment. He downed a glass of water.
It had been a few weeks since Vic had left, and the weight of his marriage was beginning to lift. The guilt he had felt was now mostly gone, and it was giving way to a giddy freedom. He had about three months of runway to live in downtown Toronto.
The aroma of something baking, maybe croissants, struggled to assert itself into the harsh mixture of city smells. His mouth watered, and he left the balcony, quickly rolling a joint of Summer Simmer, (was he becoming addicted to the stuff?) and tucking it behind his ear as he made his way through the apartment gathering up necessaries.
He opened his door at the same time as Jennifer. "Good morning," he said, smiling at her.
"Morning," she said with a small smile. Warm, but only just. She had given him that look each time he had seen her since their one-night-stand, and he guessed she felt guilty, like he did. She looked incredible today, he found, and couldn't help glancing at her bottom, wrapped in a pair of blue jeans like a present---or like a vanilla cake in a denim fondant.
It lead his mind to the memory of their night together. He recalled in particular her knees pinned to her chest, her arms wrapping her legs, her wrists bound by his hands, and her body writhing at the whim of his lips and his tongue as she moaned in the most arousing alto. They had been more than intimate. She had wanted to be dominated in exactly the way he wanted to dominate. Thinking of it now excited him. What was more, he liked her a lot. He resolved that it would not be a one-night stand. If it was possible, he was going to find his way around this awkwardness and into Jennifer's bedroom. Of course it was possible.
