I took a long sip of my dirty martini and leaned into the bar, staring resentfully down towards the end of it. My boyfriend of three years, Ryan, was still engaged in conversation, feeding his ego with clever banter. I noticed the familiar animated expressions, grand gestures, and overly enthused laughter that captivated the small crowd of people he was talking to. I sighed heavily, and settled back onto my bar stool and played with the spear of olives in my drink. It was New Year's Eve, but all it really amounted to was just another night of pretending I was happy. It was something that I had become good at, thanks to several years of practice at trying to be his girlfriend.
Ryan and I had started out, as every other couple seemed to. There had been that magnetic attraction that night at the club when we had first met. It had been another New Years Eve, three years prior. I had been trying to get a drink, along with the surging crowd that had been pushing towards the bar, trying to get any bartender's attention. Being a rather small and diminutive blonde in a sea of tall men, he must have seen my struggle, and moved in to easily impress me with the way he commanded attention. When he handed me a glass of champagne in time for the clock to strike midnight, I couldn't help but be intrigued.
Over the years I had blossomed under the flattery of what it meant to be Ryan's girlfriend. He seemed to know everyone in the city, and everyone wanted him at their parties. He was charming, and entertaining and those bright blue eyes made you feel like you were the only woman in the room. Even though behind the clever front, he was the kind of guy who was constantly aware of every flirty, smiling, long-legged piece of ass that was in his immediate vicinity. He'd make you laugh hard enough to not notice the way he'd steal a quick glance over your shoulder. Sometimes, he would blatantly and openly flirt with another girl while you were standing right there, being distracted by a conversation with one of his friends.
I had wanted to be the "cool girl" back then. I didn't want to seem clingy or insecure, or at least I didn't want it to be obvious. Inside, I was constantly questioning what his motives were or how committed he really was, even after we'd moved in together. I was, as some of his more sarcastic friends would say, the perfect foil. My refusal to appear like the typical jealous girl gave him ample opportunity to come home at 4am, go on guy's trips to Vegas, and spend time sending text messages late at night without me ever having the nerve to confront him. Maybe I didn't want to know the truth. Maybe I knew it and had already accepted it. After all, we were a fun couple; we had a beautiful crowd of exciting and successful friends to party and vacation with. We lived in a trendy condo in the heart of the city, right by the lake, and on the outside we were the couple everyone wanted to be.
Was he cheating? It had been grating on me more and more over the past year. I didn't want to be suspicious or demand answers, but 'work' seemed to be one of his favourite excuses as to why he'd always come home late. It was also the reason he used when he had to run out again just after I'd cooked dinner. He was always 'entertaining clients,' even though I had yet to see his business improve because of it.
"You just need to spice things up again, Erica!" my friend Jennifer had told me once. "Ryan is just another typical 'peter pan boy'. He's never going to grow up. And playing the good girl isn't going to keep him interested forever."
I had tried not to feel offended by her words of advice. It's not that I was a conservative girl, but Ryan and I had never really had a raunchy kind of sex life. Quite honestly, I just didn't think he was that kind of guy. We had always had satisfying sex, and the porn videos he favoured always seemed to be very standard fare with a lot of straight sex and threesomes. He had subscriptions to a few men's magazines, but there never seemed to be anything very perverse about his desires. He loved beautiful, sexy women. That seemed to be the only pre-requisite. And I had always been very careful to ensure I lived up to that image. My hair was blonde and glossy, my body was tight and toned and my smile was always eager. Fine, perhaps I wasn't as openly slutty as those porn star models were. I didn't flaunt what I had, but Ryan had told me he preferred it that way. After all, he said he would never marry one of them. He wanted a girl of quality. At least that's what he had always claimed.
That's why I ended up drinking almost an entire bottle of vodka on the night I found the photos on his computer. Ryan had said he was going to the gym and then out for drinks with the guys. My computer had crashed earlier that day, right in the middle of some online Christmas shopping, so I decided to use his. I had never gone onto his computer before. My friends used to laugh at me, amazed that I could resist snooping on him that way, but I wanted to trust him. And besides, if I found something upsetting or incriminating, how could I confront him? Tell him that I'd gone looking through his computer history files? No, if I was going to find out something, I was going to find out when I was meant to. Besides, who cared if he looked at dirty porn online, right? We didn't need to know absolutely everything about each other.
I clicked his laptop open and was surprised when his email account popped up. He hadn't logged out. I drew in my breath, trying to convince myself to close the screen. But something drew my eyes to the subject line near the top of the page. "Something to add to our dirty little sex album." It was from a name I recognized, as it was an acquaintance of ours from our shared social scene. Ryan had always told me he thought that Kelly Harrison was a slut. He used to make fun of the outfits she'd wear, that were always overtly designed to get attention. They were mostly tiny short skirts and low cut tops that spilled heavy cleavage that didn't belong on that otherwise slim brunette frame.
"She's trash," he'd whisper conspiratorially in my ear. "And unbelievably dumb and neurotic. That's why she's always single. No guy's going to put up that."
My heart started to thud and my mouth went a little dry. Part of me knew what I would find before I ever opened that email, but I felt compelled to anyway. Out spilled an endless assortment of jpegs. Many of them were dark and a little blurry but it was more than enough to cause my jaw to drop and my stomach to turn. There she was, naked and voluptuous on her knees, and spreading her ample cheeks apart to ease the entry of my boyfriend's dick into her ass. Her face was turned to the side, moaning, already slick with cum, making me realize that there had been a few rounds of sex that night. Picture after picture downloaded of Ryan fucking her in every which way he could, gleefully documenting the whole thing with the camera. There was her cum-covered face smiling up for the camera, spreading her pussy lips and grinning at the lens teasingly. And then more with her sucking his cock and balls, and then with her face buried in his ass. I could see the glimpse of pink tongue as it snaked inside him. Her eyes were open, loving the attention, enjoying being a slut for him and for the camera. At first I just sat there stunned. I didn't want to believe what I was seeing.
Their sex looked depraved and raw. Both of their bodies glistened with sweat. Her long dark hair was messy and wild, giving her that freshly fucked look that made the photos seem even dirtier. His hands were gripping her, almost clawing at her hips. I could see the red imprints of the sharp slaps he'd delivered to her ass while he had fucked her. I felt numb. This was everything that our lovemaking was not. He had always been gentle and respectful with me. When I had told him I was too anxious to try anal sex, he had been patient and understanding. Sure, we had enjoyed some very passionate nights, and I had always enjoyed things a little rough, but he had never gone anywhere near the extent that I was seeing in these photos. This girl was his fuck slut. His face was smeared with satisfaction. Clearly he had enjoyed every debased and dirty moment.
I spent the night in shock, crying and drinking vodka until I passed out in bed. I didn't even hear him come home that night, nor did I really meet his eyes or talk to him for that entire week. I made an effort to stagger my schedule so that we were apart most of the time. And when we were together at home, I would watch him out of the corner of my eyes as I pretended to be focused on the television, while he worked on his computer. In my mind, from that moment on, he was always doing something deceptive. Every second he was on the computer, or the phone, and every time he reached for his Blackberry was just another piece of unseen evidence to convince me that he was up to no good. And my anger and resentment grew, slowly and steadily with every day that passed.
I thought about my next move for a few weeks. I didn't want to make any hasty decisions too quickly. I considered whether I wanted to throw away three years together over some dirty cheating with a whore like Kelly Harrison. The decision was weighing on my mind on that cold New Years night, of our third year together. I had dressed sexier than usual, in a little silver mini dress I'd bought the week before, and I'd left my long blonde hair loose and wavy over my shoulders. I would have felt vindicated by my sex appeal from the admiring glances I'd been getting all night, but I was undeniably still distracted by the uncertainty of my relationship. Ryan was clearly having a great time, I realized bitterly. So why wasn't I?
"Can I get you another martini?" The bartender asked me leaning in over the bar. He smiled, almost sympathetically. "You look like you could use it."
I sighed. "Yes. Please...."
"Do you want it dirty?"
His words seemed rather appropriate for the moment I was caught up in.
"Actually... make it filthy."
He grinned at me and winked, and I smiled back, trying to distract myself from the strains of the night. He was the kind of guy that you couldn't help but want to flirt back with. His green eyes were lively and they hinted at a sharp wit and mischievous nature. He had dark hair, and an easy smile and his body was athletic and toned. I watched him as he mixed my drink, and we exchanged a few unspoken smiles.
"I'm Chase by the way," he said as he set the martini down on a napkin in front of me.
"I'm Erica."
"So, Erica... it looks like you look like you have a lot on your mind," he said finally.
