I married the first time at twenty four, presumably to escape, only in the process, I discovered in my husband a younger version of my father. So fucked up! Panic-stricken by the prospect of forever time again, waking to the weakness he presented daily. Dreaming of escape, over and over - same purgatory, different protagonist. Maybe he loved me. Or perhaps he craved ownership of this capricious thing I presented. Crap.
He much too irresolute to stop my straying; only a few hostile moments registering, only rumbling but still, I grew to despise him also. For failing to be the man I craved, failing to pull me up, stop me from the accelerating spiral of deceit. Too submissive, the product a domineering mother, I thought back then.
I wondered too, those times when I took off for the night or for a week. Didn't he understand where I was going, who I'd be with and God, what I'd be doing? Didn't it bother him? Aware of me being with William yet taking me back each time, without reproach.
"Where are you going?"
"You know."
"How long this time?"
"I don't know."
Repetitive scenes. My contempt bubbling and spilling over within scripted arguments, screaming responses to petty accusations fired by him when the obvious one, the devastating one, hovered unspoken between us. Never once did he accuse me for the vile creature I was. His faithful acceptance making me even more barbaric in my daring... Parading my men, introducing them, for fuck's sake! Did he in turn marry a version of his mother? It boggles the mind, this screwed-up union.
In the end I left him. I compelled the Prince to take me away, rescue me from someone he thought was causing me pain. I hid in the apartment by day, emerging most nights on his arm as he sauntered into smoke filled rooms and waiters rushed to grant his curt demands.
I took it in, accepting the reflected power and influence as though a birth right. Thousand dollar dinners, Cristal flowing because it became my favourite drink, accepting wads of cash I spent on whims and trivialities, never thinking to keep some for a future day. Always more money thrust at me, the sun continuing to shine on my living.
Never mind I appeared on the arm of someone else's husband, or the fact I hadn't bothered to divorce my own yet. It was enough, my being observed in my recklessness, spoken about, gossiped about, my middle finger up, screwing their communal judgement. It sustained me, this closeness to another source of influence, yielding to the power I insisted he possessed. Never mind too my becoming a kept woman. The fairy-tale assumed both an escape and a refuge. That this too evolved in time to yet another prison? Yeah.
Writing about it, in-between reading books and spending his money: The epitome of the kept woman, the mistress. Bemoaning the restrictions and yet exulting in the label.
"See," I'd proclaim to anyone and everyone, "This is what he can offer me. All he can offer. Money and stolen time." Of course I bitched about wanting more, wanting stability, security, wanting all of him. Bullshit.
When I carried his child for a brief time, even then I had the chance to create permanence. I knew this yet I disposed of it and with it the possibility, fearing the very thing I claimed was lacking from our union.
Later I blamed my insecurity, my emotional immaturity. Later still, I admitted to using him. Yeah. Not my proudest moment.
My father initially condemning this union, calling it my most shameful period, refusing to visit; as though by entering the rented space he'd be consenting to the reality. Even when he finally relented? The underlying shame and his moroseness settled like a dark cloud over my bright and sun-drenched living room.
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非小说类This is my memoir. As such, I am letting you in on the most intimate parts of me. No glib opinion piece or a well-thought-out theory, this. It's me. I come with a warning. No child under eighteen should read any part of my story. It is raw. It is u...
