Chapter 1: The Discovery
Like most women who know about their husbands' catfight fetish, I discovered Eric's interest by stumbling onto his cache of videos and dvds. He was out-of-town on business, and I was determined to investigate the contents of a locked cabinet, which he claimed held only business papers.
When I'd finally worked the lock open, I was surprised. I was expecting love letters from former girlfriends or maybe even a current mistress, not a media extravaganza. As I popped the first disc into the dvd player, I couldn't imagine why he was hiding movies from me. After all, I'd even shown some enthusiasm for his "manly" action films and think Jean Claude is a hotty!
When the first scene materialized before me—two women, rolling around on a living room rug, pulling hair and ripping each other's clothes to shreds—I was flabbergasted. What did this mean? Was Eric having an affair with one of these women? Were they fighting over him?
Spellbound, I previewed disc after disc and videotape after videotape, and it became clear that even my husband's sexual stamina couldn't sustain him through all these women. Besides, some were clearly not his type, and some, to be honest, looked frankly as if they had quite a few miles on them.
A few of the movies seemed to reflect some thought in the development of plot or scenario, with the women discussing their differences before throwing down. Some were obviously straightforward wrestling matches or boxing matches, a few with referees; while still others depicted two women entering a room and immediately beginning to tear and claw at each other with no prompting at all.
In the best of them, the acting was convincing; but, in the worst, the two women just seemed to roll around and barely suppress their laughter. In several, I was convinced that there was no acting at all; and this genre often led to bloody noses and split lips.
I'm not a naïve woman. After an hour or so of watching—barely making a dent in Eric's collection—I felt I'd put together the most likely hypothesis: my husband had a catfight fetish! Of course, I knew that most men enjoyed the idea of this sort of thing. How else would one account for all the titillating commercials, whenever a catfight was written into the script of a movie or TV show?
But Eric's interest was definitely on a different plane—unless all men had locked cabinets holding several thousand dollars worth of catfighting movies. My mind reeled with doubts and questions. Why keep it from me? Was he ashamed? And how could I have been so unperceptive, during the five years of our marriage?
As I scoured my memory for clues, I recalled an incident, during our engagement, when Eric had taken me to a charity event with dinner and dancing. As we fed each other hors d'oeuvres and played footsie beneath the tablecloth, we suddenly heard a crash, as a chair tipped over at a nearby table. Two women had stood up and were pointing and screaming at each other in their fashionable evening dresses. One of them said, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you tell lies, Amanda!" I was sure they were on the verge of leaping across the table at each other, when their friends rose to separate and soothe them.
I looked at Eric and realized his pupils were dilated and his breathing, quite ragged. "Oh, darling, that's so sweet," I said. "You're upset because you thought they were going to fight." In retrospect, I chuckled to myself, "He was upset, all right, but with the two women's meddling friends." I also clearly recalled that our sex, that night, had been remarkable, even for two people who were usually passionate for one another. Hmmmph! I thought it had been my beautiful dress and lingerie, especially chosen for the evening.
Eric and I had always enjoyed a romantic and highly-charged sexual relationship, but, now that I thought about it, the most memorable evening we'd had, recently, was several months ago—after we'd attended a garden party at which two attractive, middle-aged women had gotten into a row of some sort and were rolling about on the grass, their skirts hiked up and their hair, wildly askew. Once again, a group of well-meaning but spoilsport friends had managed to pull them apart but not before one had ripped open the other's blouse, revealing a lacy brassiere. The two women were screaming and begging to be let loose to settle their differences, but their friends prevailed.
