19. Mabel

Mabel

I t had been a long time since I’d had so much sex that I woke up sore the next morning. If ever. But when the first rays of the sun started peeking through the window, I couldn’t help but smile. I felt deliciously sore and well loved. It was a heady feeling.

I turned my head to find Joshua snoring softly next to me, his face softened in sleep. My eyes traced the planes of his bare chest, and I felt the stirring of desire in my belly. He might be fifty, but he was in perfect shape. Much better shape than I was in, for sure. And fitter than my ex, even though Stephen was ten years younger than him.

I waited to freak out about what happened, but I couldn’t find it in me. I knew I should be freaked out, at least a little. I mean, I’d broken my divorce cherry and had more consecutive orgasms in one night than I’d had in my life. Then there was the pesky little problem of realizing that I was having feelings for Joshua.

Feelings were dangerous. Besides, I’d told him I didn’t want anything serious. I couldn’t turn around and tell him the next day that he’d fucked the doubts out of my brain, he’d think I was a nut.

“You’re thinking awfully hard over there,” Joshua mumbled. “How about you hop on and ride me until your brain goes to mush?”

I looked down and was not surprised to see that he was already sporting some impressive morning wood. I reached for a condom.

“You got it.”

After we’d finished our morning interlude we took turns in the shower and then headed over to the Little Red Hen for breakfast. The breakfast-only restaurant was known for fresh eggs and dairy products from a local dairy farm. As usual there was a pretty good sized crowd, but a booth was opening up just as we came in.

A server hustled over with coffee.

“Is that a dog?” she asked, nodding at Esmerelda who was curled in a ball on the bench next to me.

“She’s a service dog,” I said, wishing I’d picked up one of those yellow vests for her.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Just keep her quiet and don’t let my boss see her or he’ll kick you out.”

Joshua and I ordered breakfast, chatting idly while we waited for our food. I was aware of several people eyeing us curiously.

“Apparently it’s the talk of the town that I’m staying with you,” I told him.

Joshua winced. “Oh yeah, I should have warned you about that. If you didn’t realize it yet, this town loves its gossip.”

“Especially about the town’s silver fox bachelor vet?” I asked.

“What?”

I laughed at the look of distaste on his face.

“I’m just reporting what I heard.”

Breakfast came quickly, chicken and waffles for me and an egg white omelet for Joshua. I’d taken about two bites of my breakfast when my dining companion asked, “Tell me about your divorce.”

I looked up in surprise. “What?”

“I’m curious about you and your ex,” he said. “I mean, if you feel comfortable talking about it. If not, don’t worry.”

I considered his words. “I’m okay to share it’s just…”

“What?”

“I’m going to sound like an idiot,” I said softly, “for putting up with his behavior.”

Joshua shrugged. “Every one of us can look back and past relationships and see things we should have known sooner or done differently, or red flags we didn’t recognize until it was too late.”

His pragmatic words made me feel a bit better.

“I met Stephen when I was twenty-eight,” I said. “My mother actually engineered an ‘accidental’ meeting.” I used air quotes. “She invited me to lunch one day and he showed up, and my mother made a big deal of acting surprised and inviting him to join us. By the time lunch was over, I’d agreed to go on a date with him. My mother was over the moon.”

“Did you like him?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I didn’t have as good of self-esteem as I do now. I liked him okay I guess. He was good looking and charming. But honestly, looking back now I think I was more swayed by the fact that there was someone who liked me. I know I’ve never been the thinnest or the prettiest --.”

“You look fine just the way you are,” he interrupted.

I nodded in acknowledgement and deep in my chest, my heart swelled with happiness.

“But I didn’t believe that back then. So suddenly there’s this handsome lawyer sweeping me off my feet and even though I knew I didn’t really love him, and I never believed he loved me, I thought we were a good match and that seemed good enough.”

“Were you really a good match? Back then I mean?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, not really. I think he liked the idea of me, you know? And maybe that was true for me too. I wanted to be married. I knew that my years were dwindling if I wanted to have a child and while I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a mom, I didn’t want to wake up someday and realize that I’d missed the opportunity. So when he asked me to marry him, I figured Stephen was the best I could get. And he had this attitude like someone like me should be grateful that someone like him wanted to marry me.”

I winced, knowing how pathetic that sounded.

“Once we were married he started buying me clothes, appointments with stylists and manicurists, that kind of thing. At first I thought it was because he thought that’s what I wanted, but eventually I realized that it was really about the fact that he didn’t like the way I looked. He wanted me to dress differently, talk differently, wear make-up, have fancy hair… he basically wanted to mold me into his perfect idealized woman, a little Stepford wife.”

I paused to chew a bite of waffle. It was drenched in syrup, just the way I liked it. I noticed that Joshua didn’t make any comments about my syrup usage.

“Anyway, Stephen insisted that I give up my writing clients and forget about being a fantasy author. ‘You need to get your head out of the clouds and have a real job’, he told me, so I gave all that up and started working for him and his father at their law firm even though I really had no interest in being an office manager.”

“That sucks,” he said.

“Yeah, and then like almost every woman over thirty I gained some weight. Not a lot, but enough that Stephen noticed. That’s when the policing of my food started. He hired a personal chef to prepare lower calorie meals and then he insisted that I work with a personal trainer that he personally selected. He made it sound like he was worried about my health, but eventually I realized that it was really about him controlling me.”

“That’s when you decided to divorce him?” he asked.

“No, I’m sorry to say that came later. One day I was out for a run – which I really hated, but my trainer insisted on me doing as cardio -- and I passed the humane society shelter. I don’t know why, but I was compelled to go inside to look at the dogs, and there she was. Esmerelda.”

I sighed as I remembered the first time she’d looked up at me with her eyes pleading for me to help.

“The minute I saw her I fell in love with her. She was so tiny and well, as you know, she looks a bit unique so a lot of people don’t appreciate her. She was so scared to be in the shelter, huddling in the corner and shaking. I couldn’t leave her there, so I adopted her on the spot. Stephen was livid when he found out what I’d done.”

I blinked back tears, taking a sip of coffee to clear my throat. Esmerelda nudged my thigh to let me know she was there, and I reached down to scratch between her ears.

“He said such hateful things about her and honestly, Esmerelda didn’t like him either. She was always growling at him. You know she’s very protective of me and I’m pretty sure he was mean to her when I wasn’t around, although I could never prove it. Then one day I came home from working out with my stupid trainer and she was gone.”

Joshua frowned. “Gone where?”

“I didn’t know at first. I was looking all over for her, thinking she somehow went out a window or something, and then Stephen comes home with a freaking labradoodle puppy, totally calm. He tells me if I’m going to have a dog it should be a purebred, not some ugly mutant mutt.”

“He stole your dog?” Joshua asked in shock.

I was shaking with anger just remembering what happened. Esmerelda nudged me again, always in tune with my emotions.

“He thought I could just trade this snooty designer dog for my sweet baby. I freaking lost it. I demanded to know where he’d taken Esmerelda and finally he admitted that he’d dropped her at county animal control and told them he’d found her walking the streets as a stray,” I explained. “I packed a bag and went right to the shelter to get her back. The poor thing was so upset she followed me around for weeks, even when I went to the bathroom. We moved into the spare bedroom at my friend Renee’s house that night and I got a good lawyer and filed for divorce.”

“Good for you,” Joshua said.

“Stephen was shocked that I filed for divorce. He kept thinking I would, as he said, come to my senses and realize he was right about Esmerelda. Messing with me was one thing, but messing with Esmerelda was something else.” I patted my dog’s head. “When I adopted her I promised to protect her, and I meant it.

“He shouldn’t have messed with either of you,” Joshua said firmly. “He sounds like a dick.”

I nodded. “I went to therapy after I left him, and I’ve learned my value since then. I won’t let a man control me – or hurt me or my dog – ever again.”