A little flash story.
* * * * * * * * * *
I sat there astonished, as my wife repeated herself.
"Yes, John, that's what I said. I want to try BBC."
My wife Louise had been my friend and soulmate since we were teens. We shared everything which each other - our dreams and goals, our political opinions, sporting events and the opera. I thought we were bound together in an understanding of our complementarity, that we had settled on the way we were going to be in the world, together. And now this.
"But why, Louise? I thought we were OK, and we had decided how we were going to live our lives and conduct ourselves as a couple. Why are you doing this"
"Oh John, I love you, but sometimes you seem so... narrow. There is a whole world out there to explore, but you want to continue the same way as ever, no experimentation, no real chance for growth. This will strengthen us as a couple."
I stared at my wife as if she were a stranger. When did these thoughts start? How had we drifted so far apart?
"It is something I have been thinking about for a while now, John. It is just a need of mine - you can leave the house, or lock yourself in your workshop, or even join me, if you want."
"Are you crazy? I would never join you."
"I didn't think so, I just wanted to give you the option."
"Whatever brought this on?"
"Well, I was online, scrolling through some sites, and I saw a discussion by some of my women friends saying BBC was the best. That once you tried it, you would never be satisfied with the same old same-old. So I thought I'd try it."
"And you don't care what it does to me, our marriage?"
"Oh, John, don't be so melodramatic. You are big enough to allow me this one indulgence. If I don't like, I will stop and never bring it up again."
"But what if you love it?"
"Well, then I will make sure you are never around, I won't bring it up when we talk, and I won't tell any of my friends. It will just be my little private pleasure."
"But what if it changes you? What if you love it, and I begin to feel I no longer know my own wife?"
"John, I am an independent person, an independent thinker. If it changes me, then I believe it will change me into a better person, someone you will be happier being married to. We all need to grow, John, and this is how I need to grow right now."
Needless to say, I was hurt and angry. After all we had built, all we had planned together. This was a kind of betrayal.
"I plan to try it the first time tonight. Seven o'clock. You might want to leave so you don't hear anything."
"Don't even think of using the bedroom."
"Fine, John, I'll use my sewing room. The couch there is very comfortable. You will see, it won't change anything. I'll still be the same loving wife you always had."
