Just a short story about a woman raised in privilege who doesn't appreciate the value of a hard working husband. Not a real erotic story, but there is a downfall for those that like that kind of stuff. It's told from the woman's point of view, sort of 'the bitch burns herself' story. The story title doesn't really reveal much.
It's Saturday and I'm sitting in the little 1,000 square foot ranch we rent, just spinning through my iPhone. I hear my husband calling me from the bedroom after he just showered after mowing the lawn. I roll my eyes, it seems like I've been doing that a lot to whatever he happens to say.
He's laying on the bed and pats the spot next to him. I sigh and lay down on my side, so he turns on his side and spoons me as I face away from him. He isn't saying anything, and I'm not either. I feel a light caress on my arm and leg, then he says to me in a soothing voice, "Tell me what's on your mind, babe."
I flinch, uncomfortable at the question. I'm walking on eggshells, wanting him to know what's on my mind, but also not wanting him to know. So I don't answer.
Colton has always been a firm decision maker, even back in college. He always seemed to have it together and everyone admired him through undergrad business school all the way through his MBA program where he came up with his ridiculous business plan he started up just before he graduated.
He had the respect from professors and administration for how well-prepared he was, his excellent presentations and received nice acknowledgement from well-known business people.
I liked him. He was a nice guy, got along with everyone, listened to me and gave me his attention, so I married him just out of college though at the time he supported himself as a laborer. We were living in a small efficiency apartment off campus, and now live in a rented home not much larger than our college efficiency..
While we've been married almost four years, my parents were furious at our marriage. I embarrassed them. We were a rich family, so I sullied my parent's reputation at the country club, at least that's what they accused me of. Daddy thought I married beneath me.
After all, Colton came from a single-mother home, in an "urban" environment, and worked his way through school, though he did get several scholarships and grants because his Mom died of cancer just when he started college.
How is our sex life? Well I guess I can say that it has been great during college and our first year or so. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not really happy with my life at the moment.
It's humiliating when people ask me what my husband does for a living. See, with this business he bootstrapped out of college in an old run-down part of downtown, he found this old musty building with cheap rent for offices and somehow persuaded a small 6 person staff to work long hours with him.
Then he bought these old tanker desks and chairs from military surplus. I hate those old tanker desks! They're ugly, dented, so embarrassing!
Now don't get me wrong, even with the hours he worked he always seems to be attentive to me - that is, when I was home and not at Daddy's Club. You don't know how embarrassing it is to always get my food and drinks on Daddy's account. My friends would snicker at each other when I'd tell the waiter to put it on Daddy's tab.
The one friend at the Club I enjoy hanging with is Joey.. Yeah, he is a ladies man, always with a gorgeous smile and jokes, he makes everyone laugh. He also went to an Ivy League school, is handsome, and basically has the freedom to do whatever he wants since he is a trust fund child.
Do you know how nice it would be to have my husband bring me a drink at the country Club, sit with me, play cards with us? No, it doesn't happen. So Joey is the next best thing. Every day he is there. In the swimming pool, as a tennis partner, as someone to talk with, he listens to me, and he always dresses appropriately for the Club and his social status..
But compare Joey to whenever my parents invite me and Colton to dinner at the Club. I'm embarrassed by the plain way Colton dresses, which only makes my Daddy sneer at my husband. It's even difficult to introduce him to my friends. Yeah my friends were polite to Colton but I know they'll talk about him, and probably me, behind our backs.
Now Joey? Joey is nice. Joey will shake Colton's hand and slap his back, but I don't think Colton likes that much.
There are other times Daddy will disparage my husband in front of other wealthy members for how he dresses, where we live, and how he doesn't take care of his daughter as my Daddy had. I think Daddy has to say those things so the other Club members won't look down on him.
Colton will stand there and take the insults, then Colton smiles and states "we're young and building for our future. Admittedly it's tight when bootstrapping a company, but we have good goals and prospects and are willing to put in the hard work."
I know Colton thinks that's a good answer, but it only serves to make everyone look down on him further, and probably me too. It's so humiliating when he says "hard work."
Daddy and the others chuckle disparagingly about "bootstrapping", saying it must not be a good plan if he can't obtain capital. Later Colton will tell me how hypocritical that is given how so many of them inherited what they have, not really earned it. That bothers me, maybe he's right but he is insulting my friends.
He continues to stroke my side. "C'mon babe. I know things have been on your mind. We're not as close as before. Tell me what's bothering you. How can I help? What can I do?"
Yeah, I probably should tell him my frustrations with my life, how I seem to have settled for him.
So I will. I said "I settled for you and don't like the life I have with you." There, I said it. After all, it's what my parents have been emphasizing for the length of our brief marriage. And to confirm they're right, it's also what that gorgeous Joey keeps telling me from behind when I'm on my hands and knees.
I felt Colton's body tense at that statement. I know I shouldn't have said it, I should have just kept it in. Do I love Colton? I guess, I really don't want to hurt him. But it seems every day I'm at the Club that I'm getting hurt when everyone looks at me for my lower level lifestyle.
"You know how hard I've been working at building the company. But I'm always home for you, but you seem to be drawing away from me whenever you can. Or babe, am I just imagining this?"
He's right again, I'm the one that's been drawing away. I hardly do anything around the home, not that I have to. He's so organized and clean and puts his clothes away and keeps the kitchen clean. He's pretty self-sufficient compared to the complaints of my girlfriends at the Club who don't yet have a housecleaner or servant. Some of their men are slobs, as if their Mommies didn't teach them any good habits.
"You're imagining this Colton." Yeah, I had to put it back on him. I couldn't be honest with my husband, the one I made a vow to, the one who I had such respect for his accomplishments in college.
Why am I so impatient? Why was all this ok in college but not now? Was it only a few years ago when he asked me to help in the office when cash flow was so tight in his start-up?
"How can you ask me to work here in this dump?" I sneered when visiting that old office. "And I suppose I won't even get paid? How am I expected to explain this to my family and friends at the Club?"
That was the last time I was at the office. He just sent me home and went back to his desk and picked up the phone to make more prospecting calls for business. I stood there and looked across the room at the old vintage industrial style tanker desks, sturdy and indestructible and completely unattractive, especially when contrasted with the high-tech monitors that sat on each desk along with the expensive phone system and headsets where the staff intensely worked.
I hate those tanker desks.
I remember my disgust when he found these offices and showed me the used desks he found in the old furniture warehouses really cheap. They're probably vintage! Why couldn't he have purchased some nice Hermal Miller furniture in a new suburban office building where I could be proud to show it off to my friends?
Instead I decided to hang out at the Club every day, have lunch on my Daddy's account, get a good tan, exercise in the gym, play tennis, and maybe get home to make dinner a few days every week.
Laying there in bed with my husband that Saturday afternoon, I just wanted to get up and leave. Truthfully? I felt guilty laying there with my husband trying to be nice to me, trying to fix what was wrong, to improve our relationship when it was me that was the problem.
Yeah, I was fucking Joey at the Club, at his home, and other places. He made me feel wanted, made me feel like I deserved a life of luxury, to be treated with an elite, glamorous life of comfort.
He even said if I left Colton he would give me all that I deserved in life. Was I considering it? Yep, I was.
After all, if I divorced I wouldn't be any further behind financially. My Daddy had Colton sign a prenup before we married because Daddy was so skeptical of Colton having come from nothing. We'd both keep whatever we had before marriage, and just divide whatever we accumulated within the marriage. Basically, nothing.
Colton sat up in bed and turned to me. "Melanie, do you love me?"
Whoa. I better say 'yes' but I wonder if I do love him? I love how he makes love to me, no real complaints there. And whenever I need to talk he's more than willing to listen to me. And when we do go out to the Club he's a fantastic dancer, and other than those who my Daddy has poisoned against Colton, most people like him. He's pretty friendly.
"Yes, Colt, of course I do."
"Do you feel we're as close to each other as we used to be?"
Goodness, this is uncomfortable. Should I just come clean? No, not yet.
"Yes. What's your problem Colton? Why all these questions?" I had to turn this back on him to get the spotlight off of me.
Colton just looked at me. No words, just looking at me. Into my eyes. I tried to hold his gaze without betraying my feelings. Was I successful? I don't know. Maybe he saw something in my eyes, I'm not sure. But he got up and dressed and said he was going into the office.
I decided to go to the Club and hang out. Mommy and Daddy were there, so we did the air-kisses and said all the usual out-of-touch things that wealthy people say to each other.
Out-of-touch things? I never thought of it this way given how I was raised, but now that I'm living at the other end of the economic ladder I kind of get why some of the Club conversations are out-of-touch.
You'll hear some rich person say "Oh too bad about your car being broken. Just go buy a new one." For a lot of people that's just not possible. I knew Colton would never be able to do that, so at times words like that sort of sting me. I wish we were wealthy so I'd fit in like I did when I lived with my Mommy and Daddy.
I remember once when Colton and I had been at the Club, how he remarked that so much of the conversation was denigrating other people. That offended me and I tried to argue the point, but now I think I'm more aware of the kind of people I grew up with and have been hanging out with.
So much of the conversation is meaningless, unimportant. Some of it is opinions on how other people look, disputes over which band has better music, statements of fact about some issue I don't think they really know much about.
