Reward for Eric
Eric sat at their small kitchen table unfocused and bleary eyed, lost in his own meandering thoughts and the predicament Julia had put him in, still struggling with the fact that she could cut him off financially, that he was completely dependent on her for money and everything that came with it.
He stared at the empty sink with a sense of shame and humiliation. It had never occurred to him, in all the months that he'd been unemployed, that she'd be capable of using finances like a weapon, that she'd be capable of blackmailing him into doing things she wanted like forcing him to do the dishes. It made him feel like he was some type of indentured servant. It gave new form to the expression 'the power of the purse'. It was a woman's purse, Julia's purse. What type of man was he to become dependent on the purse his wife carried around in her pretty little hands and brightly polished nails?
Eric cradled his chin in his palms, elbows on the small dinette, hunching over the table like some morose, lost soul. It was all very sobering, even frightening. With her newly discovered power over him, what might she do next? How vulnerable was he? What were her limits? Where would she take this?
He berated himself for being so stupid to have let it happen, to have put himself in the position he was in. Maybe he had spent too much time gaming, letting the world pass him by while he spent all his time in electronic illusions and fantasies. The gaming had consumed too much of his time, had become another form of drug that competed with too many things in real life. He should have been aggressively looking for another job, looking for anything to provide an income into their home.
Eric's expression changed to a weary scowl as self-contempt began to sink in ever deeper. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was being punished for not being a good provider. Maybe this was deeper than Julia being unkind and demanding. Maybe the dynamic was more visceral, something at the core of being a human animal, a part of the natural order of things that transcended culture and society. Maybe a strong female simply resented being attached to a weak male that wasn't providing for her. Maybe her animosity was a natural, even appropriate response to a male that was failing her. Was that it?! If that was true, maybe, in a small way, he deserved what was happening to him.
Eric sat up and rubbed his face with his hands, trying to relieve some of the weariness and tension. He had to find a job, it was that simple, or at the very least, find something worthwhile to do that Julia could accept as valuable. Even if the economy was difficult, even if women did seem to be getting preferential treatment these days, regardless the obstacles, he had to find accomplishments outside of playing games on his computer. He cradled his chin again, hoping inspiration would find him, hoping a solution would readily present itself. It didn't.
In the short term, maybe it made sense not to fight her so much. Swallow his pride. Help by keeping the apartment clean like she wanted. It was something she was asking for, demanding really he reminded himself, and it was, at least, something useful. Besides, he had agreed to three months of doing all the household cleaning, a punishment for playing games during the day.
"Punishment." Eric spat the word out with distaste. His cheeks inflamed with embarrassment recalling the forceful and commanding way Julia had forced him to accept it. Worse, adding considerably to his confusion and frustration, a part of him was actually excited at how she had behaved! It made his stomach churn at the thought of it but there was something exciting about a strong, demanding, beautiful woman that he couldn't quite shake. He felt a brief twitch in his pants as he recalled his hot, sexy wife yelling at him and smiling as he knuckled under to her threats. It was mortifying. He shook his head trying to forget it and gave a hard, angry press to his penis with a clenched fist trying to subdue it.
Eric pushed away from the table hoping to escape his thoughts. He took a few steps across the kitchen and retrieved a dust cloth from a cabinet. He then walked into the living room, and began dusting, trying to set his mind to the task. He wanted to finish before Julia got home. The idea of her standing over his shoulder as he cleaned the apartment was unsettling. It was better to do it while she was out. He kept himself moving, trying his best to do a good job. He didn't want to give Julia an opportunity to complain about the quality of his work.
It took some time to properly dust the living room and dinning room. He'd left their sculpture for last since it seemed to be a magnet for dust. By the time he was almost finished with it he heard a chirp from his phone. It was another text message, like others that hour, begging him to get on the game and play. They'd all been from people in his guild, in the game. He'd been ignoring them. This last one was from his friend Lucas.
"Eric we really need you in-game... raid night tonight... where ya been all day?" Lucas had sent.
Eric stared at his phone and his heart dropped. What was he going to tell Lucas? They'd made a pact a long time ago to not ignore each other's text messages. It was a respect thing. He couldn't just ignore Lucas. But how could he tell his best friend, the guy he had been playing computer games with since college, the guy that had been his best man, that he was suddenly afraid of his wife and what she might do to him if she found him playing the game when she got home?
A second message from Lucas quickly followed, "What do you want me to tell the guild buddy?"
Eric thought for a bit, his phone in one hand, a dust cloth in the other. The last thing he wanted was for Lucas to know the truth about what Julia was doing to him. He didn't want to lie to his best friend either.
"Tell them I'm having problems with my computer," Eric finally messaged back, then he added an emoji of a crying face and sent that too.
It was a half-truth at best but not entirely a lie. He was having more of a possible, future, problem with his computer. It was twisted logic but if Julia did resort to taking the power cord, as threatened, the machine would be unusable until she decided to give it back. Even though the machine was fine at the moment, it felt risky to play since she hadn't told him it was okay to play that night. After the big fight, it was better to be safe than sorry. So, he reasoned, it was fair to claim he was having 'problems' with his computer.
Lucas replied, "Sorry to hear... hope you get it fixed soon... the guild will be disappointed."
Eric put down his phone and stared at the text. He felt suddenly... lost. Uneasy. Lucas and the guild were just on the other side of his computer screen. It was like a magic window to a better place. He was someone important there, a 'big man'. The guild needed him for raiding, questing, adventuring. He wanted the action of the game, needed the action of the game. Maybe he could just...
No. There was just no telling what Julia might do. Take the power cord? Cancel his subscription to the game altogether? Explaining something like that to Lucas would be humiliating beyond belief, "sorry, my wife has me by the financial balls and decided to cut them off."
No. That would be unbearable. Lucas would never understand something like that, he was a fairly traditional guy.
Eric returned to his cleaning, the yearning to jump into the game growing while the disorienting feelings of being lost and alone continued to tug on his mind like a heavy weight threatening to drown him. In real life, he didn't feel important at all. He wasn't a 'big man'. He didn't feel like he was much of anything really. Dust cloth in hand, he began to wonder if he was experiencing some of the same emotions a housewife from the 1950s or 1960s had struggled with.
After he finished all the dusting, he sat down in front of his computer and simply regarded it, almost with a sense of reverence. He ran his fingers lightly across the top of the keyboard. What incredible machines computers were. He wanted so badly to turn it on and jump into the game. Instead, he sat there struggling with feelings of abandonment and sadness, lost in an ocean of self-pity, as the game called to him like a drug called to its user, beckoning his indulgence. Fear over what Julia might do was the only thing keeping him from playing.
Eric grabbed his battered game guide and leafed through it, taking care to not further damage the cover that Julia and torn off earlier. A faint smile crossed his lips recalling all the hours he spent combing through it's secrets and the fun that had come from it.
