3. Charlotte

3

CHARLOTTE

W ith every text that I read, I feel worse.

I press my back to the bathroom door, fighting a wave of nausea as I read them. I can’t excuse any of it. I can’t find a reason why these would be on Nate’s phone, except the most obvious one.

The one that I never thought I had to worry about.

Valerie: Are you going to call me tonight? I’m home all alone.

Valerie: Shit, I forgot you said you had a work thing. Maybe I’ll send you pictures instead.

Valerie: I got a new toy. A big, thick cock bigger than yours. You like that, don’t you? Seeing me take something so much bigger? Makes you feel like you gotta come over here and prove to me that you can still make me come with yours.

Valerie: I’ll show you everything I do with it so you can punish me when you come over Sunday. Tie me up and make me beg for yours. I’m being a bad girl, aren’t I? Begging for a bigger cock. You’re going to stuff my mouth with yours so I can’t beg anymore, aren’t you?

Valerie: Look at me taking it.

I clap a hand over my mouth as I reach the fifth message, the one that made me pick up the fucking phone in the first place. It’s a picture of this ‘Valerie’ on a bed with a floral pink bedspread, on her hands and knees. Her legs are spread wide, and she’s shoving an absolutely massive dildo between them, stretching her to the max.

It’s much, much bigger than Nate’s; I can say that for certain.

The fact that that’s my first thought makes me want to break into hysterical laughter. The only reason that I don’t is because I feel sure that if I do, I’ll also start crying. Or maybe screaming.

I can’t believe this is happening to me. I really, really can’t believe it.

It’s not even just the fact that he’s cheating on me. It’s the fact that it’s this . That he apparently wants things he’s never asked me for. That I would have been willing to try—hell, maybe wanted to try, if he’d ever given me a chance.

Instead, he just went straight for someone else.

I hear footsteps, and the sound of the bedroom door opening. Completely forgetting that I’m still naked, I yank the bathroom door open, pure, white-hot rage replacing every other emotion I might possibly have as I fling myself out of the bathroom and directly toward Nate.

He freezes, a look of utter shock on his face as he stares at me. I can’t even imagine what I look like—buck naked with my hair piled up on my head, probably white-faced and wide-eyed, but he looks honestly terrified of me at this moment.

All I can think is, good. I fucking hope he is.

I’ve never felt violent towards anyone, not even the prior owner of the condo above us, who liked to play piano from ten to midnight every night, but right now?

I honestly think I could commit murder.

“Char, what the hell—” His gaze flicks sideways, seeing the phone in my hand, and it’s his turn to pale. “I can explain?—”

“No.” I throw the phone at him, hard. It hits his chest, and he winces, staggering back a step as it drops to the floor. “I don’t think you fucking can.”

“Shit!” He presses a hand to his chest, looking down at the phone and back at me. “What the hell?” he repeats. “That hurt?—”

“You’re pathetic,” I spit out. “‘ That hurt ?’ That’s the first thing you’re going to say to me?”

“Charlotte, sit down. Better yet, put some clothes on, and we’ll talk. But we’re going to be late for?—”

“Oh, you want me to put clothes on?” I’m one second from clawing his eyes out. “Not Valerie , though. You like her better with her clothes off. Clothes off, and bent over, and shoving a monster cock up her pussy so you can punish her later for not wanting your pathetic one, apparently!”

Nate’s eyes are almost bugging out of his head. I don’t think I’ve ever said the words cock, or pussy before. Definitely not where he can hear me. Probably not even after one too many mimosas at brunch.

“Charlotte—”

“Don’t you dare say you can explain,” I warn. “I will rip your cock off myself if you do. There. I’ve said it twice now.” I glare at him. “And it is pathetic! You don’t even make me come, you piece of shit?—”

“You’ve never complained!” He snaps back defensively. “And I thought I did?—”

“You—” I press my fingers to my temples, feeling like I’m about to lose my mind. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now, Nate! We’re talking about the fact that you’re fucking cheating on me! With—with—” I look down at the dropped phone, the picture of Valerie on her hands and knees on the bed forever burned into my mind. “We have missionary sex.” I sink down onto the edge of our bed, feeling angry tears threatening at the corners of my eyes. “Sometimes I get on top. Those are usually the only times I actually do come, by the way.”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying not to cry. I do not want to cry in front of him. I want to be angry. Furious , even. I want to hate him. I want him to regret ruining this night forever.

But I don’t want him to see me cry.

“You’ve never asked me to do anything like that.” I point at the phone. “You’ve never asked me for anything at all in bed, actually. The few times I’ve brought up spicing things up, you’ve told me our sex life was perfect. Everything you want. That you’re just not that adventurous. Well, that was clearly a fucking lie.”

Nate runs a hand through his hair, looking at me warily. I can see his little lawyer brain going a hundred miles a minute, trying to work through how to get himself out of this. How to gaslight me into thinking I’m wrong about it somehow. That it’s all just a big misunderstanding.

That’s not going to fucking work. But before I throw him out, I want answers.

“I didn’t ask you for those things because I respect you, Charlotte.” He looks at me pleadingly, and I gape at him, unsure of what to even say to that at first.

So I guess he decided to go the route of excusing it, instead of trying to deny it . Those hot tears burn at the corners of my eyes again, and I have to fight them back. “You respect me?” I stare at him, the words sticking in my throat. “So cheating on me is somehow respecting me?”

“It means nothing! She means nothing, all of those things—they mean nothing.” Nate is using his lawyer voice now, explaining, reasoning. “She has nothing to do with you, Charlotte. I love you. I don’t feel anything for her?—”

“Except arousal, apparently,” I spit out. “She turns you on, clearly. She does all the filthy things you’re imagining for you.”

“It’s just like porn, but?—”

“But real?” I lurch up off the bed again, and Nate steps back. “I’m a person , Nate! Hell, she’s a person. And now you’re pissing me off even more, because you’re making me feel bad for the woman you’re cheating on me with, because you’re talking about her like she’s a fucking sex object?—”

“I don’t want to treat you like a sex object?—”

“And I don’t want to be fucking cheated on!” I’m shouting so loudly now that I’m pretty sure our neighbors can probably hear us, but I don’t care. “I don’t want to listen to my boyfriend explain to me how I should be grateful that he’s treating other women the way he doesn’t want to treat me. Which is just insult to injury, because I might like to be treated that way, Nate! Consensually, just in the bedroom! I might have fantasies of my own that don’t involve thirty seconds of oral and missionary sex twice a week!”

“You want that?” Nate points down at the phone, disgust in his voice, and it’s then that I understand.

He’s ashamed of himself. Not for cheating, but for what he wants. He’s disgusted by his own desires. He doesn’t want to marry a woman who wants those same things, because then he’d be disgusted with her, too.

And I have no patience for any of this.

I stalk—still naked, but I’m past caring—to the closet. I throw open the door, going up on my tiptoes to yank the ring box out of the back where I re-hid it, and I spin around, throwing it at Nate’s chest exactly like I threw the phone at him.

The box falls to the floor, next to the discarded phone.

“There,” I spit out. “I hope you got a receipt. I found it earlier. I thought you might propose tonight. Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to marry you,” I add, every word laced with venom. I want it to hurt. And from the wounded look on his face, it does.

Good .

“But I thought you were good enough,” I continue acidly. “I thought you were all the things I wanted. But I guess we were both wrong. Neither of us is really what the other one wants. And I guess the only thing we can be grateful for is that I figured it out before we made a big fucking mistake.”

“Charlotte—” Nate holds open his hands. “Come on. We can talk about this. We’ll go to therapy, if you want. Work through whatever is going on here?—”

“What’s going on here is that you’re a cheating piece of shit who’s too ashamed of himself to man up and ask for what he wants from the woman he wants to marry. Or maybe part of what gets you off is sneaking around. Either way, I don’t want any part of it.” I point at the door, doing my best to keep my finger from shaking. “Get out.”

“Char—”

“ Get out!” I scream it, so loudly that Nate flinches back, his eyes widening.

“Shit, fine.” He grabs his phone off the floor in a rush, leaving the ring box there. “I’ll call you, Charlotte, and once you’ve calmed down?—”

“Don’t,” I tell him flatly. “Just get the fuck out.”

“I’m going.” He strides to the door, his features tightening. He hasn’t won this argument, and I can tell it’s pissing him off.

But I don’t care. I stand there, ramrod straight, arms crossed over my chest, until he retreats from the bedroom, and I hear the slam of the front door closing.

Then, and only then, I sink to the floor and burst into tears.

—

Two hours later, I’ve calmed down enough to call Jaz. I could call any of our friends, honestly, and they’d be here as soon as they could. But I want Jaz. I know she won’t bullshit me, but she’ll also be nice about it. I don’t want soothing platitudes right now. I want someone to tell me if I’m overreacting.

I don’t think I am, but my mind has been going in circles, for as long as I’ve been sitting on the floor sobbing. Telling me that maybe this is just a bump in the road. That maybe Nate is right, and we could try therapy. That maybe we just need to work through our shit, and we could have a happy relationship. After all, love is about fighting for it, right? And maybe I’ve done something wrong, too, something to contribute to this?—

That thought is what finally gets me up off the floor. I go to the dresser, wiping away tears as I dig through my drawers for underwear, a pair of leggings, and my favorite oversized t-shirt. I look at it in my hands, and press my lips together.

Is it my fault? Should I have been wearing silk and lace around the house instead of well-worn leggings and a band t-shirt that’s three sizes too big? Would Nate have asked me to send him pictures of me fucking myself with a toy instead?

The minute I text Jaz, she answers within seconds.

Charlotte: Hey. Alinea is off. Some bad shit went down with me and Nate. Can you come over? I’m feeling pretty rough.

Jaz: Sure thing, babe. I’m out with Zoe, but I’ll grab an Uber. You have drinks?

Charlotte: Plenty.

Jaz: Perfect.

After that, there’s nothing to do but wait for her to get here. I drag myself into the living room, where I pour myself a full glass of pinot noir and grab the remote. I don’t even know what to watch, but I need something other than silence, so I put on Game of Thrones and let it play in the background while I stare blankly at the dragons flying across the screen.

The episode is half over when I hear the buzzer go off. I open the door, and Jaz takes one look at me as she walks in before shaking her head. She shrugs her leather jacket off and hangs it on the brass hook on the wall, taking my almost-empty wine glass out of my hand and going to refill it as she pours herself a glass, too.

“What the fuck did he do?” she asks bluntly as she hands me back my wine, sinking down next to me on the dove-grey couch in the living room.

Now that I think about it, a lot of the stuff in this condo is grey. I don’t even like grey that much. Or, at the very least, I’d add more accent colors.

Maybe I will, now that I’m never letting Nate back into this place again.

I take a sip of my wine, and another, and another as I fill Jaz in. By the time I finish, I’ve polished off the glass, and she has a murderous look on her face as she fills it up for me again.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she seethes. “I can’t believe it. Like he’s even hot enough to be?—”

“Is it my fault?” I ask in a tiny voice, finally vocalizing the thing that I’ve been afraid of since I started reading those text messages. “Did I do something wrong? Is there something I could have done differently—should I have dressed sexier, or tried harder to figure out what he might want?—”

“ Fuck , no,” Jaz spits out emphatically. “This is not on you, babe. In no way is this your fault. It’s his fault for being a slimy, cheating piece of shit?—”

I laugh, hiccupping a little, and press my hand over my mouth. “That’s what I called him, too,” I admit. “Well, not the slimy part, but?—”

Jaz shakes her head. “You can do so much better than him. You will do so much better. But you’re going to start by not blaming yourself for all of this.”

“I never knew he wanted anything like that.” I take another sip from the fresh glass of wine. I can feel the buzz starting to hit—I never drink very much, and rarely anything other than wine. Two big glasses of pinot noir is a lot for me. “I even asked a couple of times about his fantasies, and he never said?—”

“What do you want?” Jaz interrupts, looking at me. “That stuff you found on his phone, is that something you want to do?”

“I mean—” I hesitate, taking a big swallow of wine for courage. “Not that specifically, I don’t think. I don’t want a man who wants to be humiliated. That just made me feel sad, I guess. Not for Nate specifically, because he’s a piece of shit,” I clarify, and Jaz smirks. “But just the idea of that. But that part about begging for it—” I bite my lip. “I don’t know. There are definitely things I’ve thought about?—”

“Like what?” Jaz latches on instantly. “Tell me. I won’t judge you, I promise.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

“I won’t. Look—like I said in the car the other day. I’ve done some weird shit. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Really. Everyone has fantasies. I wouldn’t blame you if you had some crazy ones. Especially after being with Mr. Vanilla for so long.”

“I mean—” I swallow more of the wine, and I can feel that I’m definitely buzzed now. A little more than buzzed, even. Probably on my way to being drunk. I might actually be drunk, I realize, as I try to gather my thoughts and feel like they’re slipping and sliding all over the place. “A guy who focuses on me. I mean really focuses on just me and my pleasure. That’s one.”

Jaz snorts, and my eyes widen. “Hey! You said you wouldn’t judge.”

“I’m not judging, babe,” Jaz promises. “It’s just—that should be a basic requirement of every relationship. Sexual or otherwise. I don’t mean he has to make it all about you every time, but at least some of the time?—”

I frown. That definitely doesn’t describe my sex life with Nate. He liked to keep things perfunctory—a little foreplay to warm me up, and then straight to whatever position he wanted to fuck me in. Usually missionary, occasionally me on top, once in a great while from behind.

Thinking about that brings back the image of Valerie on her hands and knees on the bed, and I wince.

“I think—maybe a guy who talks dirty, too,” I admit, chewing on my lower lip. “Like one who would make me describe what I want. And ask for it.” Beg for it, even , I think, squeezing my thighs together, but I’m not ready to say that out loud yet.

Jaz chuckles. “Promise, no judgment. But again, that’s not anything crazy. You’re still in the minor leagues of sex fantasies here, Charlotte.”

I huff out a frustrated breath. “Okay, fine. What counts as a sexual fantasy to you , then?”

She laughs at that. “Lots of things. But what if I just showed you, instead?”

I frown. “I don’t know if?—”

“Not me personally.” Jaz lifts an eyebrow. “Although you are very hot, Charlotte. Hotter than you give yourself credit for.”

“So—what?” I finish my wine and set the glass down on the coffee table, a little unsteadily. The room is definitely starting to feel like it’s tilting a little bit, and all the horrible feelings from earlier feel blurred and softened. I should go to bed soon. I’m glad that this happened on a Friday night, at least—I won’t have to be hungover at work tomorrow or use a sick day to recover…both things that I’ve never had to deal with before. I don’t ever get this drunk.

Yet another thing I can blame on Nate.

“There’s a sex club downtown that I’ve gone to before,” Jaz says, as casually as if she were telling me about a new restaurant we could try, and I gape at her.

“You’ve been to a sex club? I thought those just existed in movies.”

She laughs. “No, babe, they’re definitely real. This one is unique, too.”

“How so?” I wrinkle my nose, flopping back on the couch as I try to see if I can get the room to stop tilting that way. I don’t think I actually like being drunk.

“Everyone wears masks.” Jaz grins. “It’s completely anonymous, so all kinds of people go there—people who normally wouldn’t want to be seen out at a place like that. Doctors, lawyers, you know. People who would have something to lose, but want to work their kinks out somewhere.”

“And it’s just a free-for-all?” My pulse kicks up a notch, and I feel uneasy at the thought—but also something else, too. A feeling of curious arousal. I’m—turned on by the idea. The thought of doing something with a complete, masked stranger sounds wild and impulsive, the kind of thing I’ve never done before. But I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing out on things by being so uptight. If I could have had all kinds of experiences over the last five years, that would have kept me from getting screwed over by someone like Nate.

“No, absolutely not,” Jaz says firmly. “There are rules. They ask every new person about their fantasies, their limits, and they give you a bracelet that will fit what you’re looking for. Everyone wears them and knows what they mean, so no one does anything or gets asked to do anything they’re not comfortable with. And everyone has to submit a recent battery of test results from a doctor. Anyone with a regular membership has to update it periodically. And condoms are required for sex. So it’s safe, too. They take it all very seriously.”

“I—wow.” I press a hand to my forehead, trying to think through the blur of the alcohol. “That’s a lot to process. It sounds like you’ve been there a lot.”

“A few times.” Jaz grins at me. “No judgment, remember?”

“No judgment,” I echo. “That’s just—I didn’t expect that.”

“Do you want to go?” That grin is still plastered across her face. “We could go next weekend. Friday and Saturday nights are great.”

I hesitate. I can’t believe I’m even considering this. But I think of what I saw on Nate’s phone, the picture of Valerie, all those dirty text messages. All of the things he asked her to do—and god knows how many other women—that he never even mentioned to me that he might want.

“Think of it as revenge,” Jaz says with a gleeful look on her face. “Nate spent all that time cheating on you, and giving you mediocre dick in return. Now, you can go explore your fantasies with someone else. And while he’s regretting losing you and the life you had together, you’ll be learning all kinds of new things about yourself.”

I do want revenge. Underneath the haze of the wine, I can still feel all the hurt and embarrassment and anger simmering. And even as outrageous as all of this sounds, I am curious.

“If I don’t like it, we can leave?” I ask hesitantly, and Jaz nods.

“Of course,” she assures me. “If you’re uncomfortable, we’ll go immediately. I won’t even do anything with anyone, if that will make you feel better. I’ll just stay by your side,” she promises. “And wait for you while you find some hot guy to start making all your wildest fantasies come true.”

“I doubt I’m going to do anything,” I warn her. “But yes. Let’s go. I want to see what this is like.”

Jaz’s squeal of excitement makes me smile for the first time since I saw those messages light up Nate’s phone.

If nothing else, this will be an adventure. And I trust Jaz to shepherd me through it. I don’t think I’m going to uncover anything new about myself, but…

There’s always a chance. And I’m ready to start a new chapter.