Chapter 4
Deanna: Rodney and Lewis left me with Ted when they were through fucking me. They said a man should be with his wife at least one night a week and Sunday night was that night. I thought it was cruel to Ted since he was caged again, and it was especially cruel to me because I really didn't want to be alone with him. I had lost all respect for him as a husband and even as a man for what he let Lewis and now Rodney do to him and I told him so.
"I just didn't want to lose you," he said practically whimpering.
"Well, I think it's pretty obvious that you have lost me, except for one night a week and how long do you think that will last?"
"I guess I'll take what I can get."
"With that thing on your dick? Is that how you want to live?"
Ted looked down and I could see he was fighting off tears again. "What do you want me to say? I didn't ask for this, you did. If it were up to me we'd still be living the way we were a month ago and Lewis would be nothing but an employee to you."
I wanted to hit him, but I knew that would be too much, even for Ted. He just sat there staring at me, as if I had an answer to his problem. I didn't even have an answer to the first question that Rodney had asked me when we first met -- do you love your husband? I was pretty sure I did when he asked me, but with everything that had gone on the past month, I was now sure that I didn't. It took me all of a month to realize that of all the demands Lewis and Rodney were making of me, the one that was the least burdensome of all was that I never again allow Ted to fuck me.
"Why do you think they left you here?" Ted asked, almost reading my mind.
"I think for a couple of reasons," I said. "They want to remind me of the life I had in contrast to my life now. They want to force me to choose to go back every week, which only strengthens their hold on me."
"And they want to rub my nose in it, don't they?"
"I'm sure they do."
"They want me to ask you every week to stop seeing them and their clients."
"I'm sure they do."
"And they want you to say no to me, every week, right?"
"That's right," I said.
"And you will always say no to me, every week."
I didn't respond. I looked at him hard and long, searching for the man I'd fallen in love with, for the man who I'd married. I wondered if he was there, if he was ever there, or if I'd changed. I really didn't have a clue.
"Just say it," Ted said. "Will you stop fucking their clients?"
"No."
Lewis: I wasn't sure what was in store for me when I picked Deanna up for work the next day. I told her that I wanted to move things along with her new career at the end of the month, but we had a few things to do before we left the wonderful world of call-center customer service. She seemed much more open to the idea of a permanent change from one service industry to another than the first time I brought it up, but we'd left her in pretty rough shape after a tough weekend. Rodney said she was ours, no doubt in his mind, but I wasn't so sure. It had only been a month.