Diary of a bad housewife

Diary of a bad housewife chapter 16

Chapter 16

Colin remained in shock, augmented, I suppose, after learning my complicity- and duplicity.

Although his firm seized his credit card, I retained the information in my purse. I swallowed my shame and offered my notes to him so he could call American Express.

Customer service, judging from the timestamp of the charge, confirmed Colin was in the air when the transaction occurred. Within ten minutes, they removed the charge from his company's account. AmEx said notifying the police was premature and probably ineffectual since the criminals were foreign and scammers were rarely brought to trial in Nigeria. They would, however, get back to Colin if necessary.

Colin couldn't eat supper and I didn't blame him. Oblivious to me and everything else, he stumbled onto the back patio and slumped, staring into the darkness. Although he appeared to sit erect, he mentally curled into a fetal position with the hurt, the credit card debt, my betrayal, and the prospect of unemployment at the same moment our accounts collapsed. He needed to be held and comforted, but who could console him- his betrayer? I wanted solaced myself, but after burning bridges with him, I couldn't risk rebuff.

The children acted confused, picking at their dinner. Bart shuffled back and forth between us, unable to play video games or watch television. Jennifer followed Colin to the back porch and curled up in his lap. After a while, I noticed her daddy's arm fold around her. I envied my daughter.

Isolated and devastated, I prepared a punishingly hot bath to soak, perchance to wash away my sins. Normally, I read while soaking, but nothing felt normal now. Ripped bodices and ravishment meant nothing to me tonight. Maybe I could submerge my guilt if I figured out how I got it so wrong.

Strangely, I still felt the pull of the scenario Harry painted to draw me in. So seductive was their ploy, I half expected Harry to eMail me, saying it was all a mistake and he dispatched a courier with millions of dollars. A little part of my brain still wanted to insist it was real and only a step or two remained.

But reality closed in, pushing back the fantasy and my ... avarice? my arrogance? Why hadn't I consulted Sadie earlier? Because I wanted to do it on my own or, a voice said, perhaps I knew she'd tell me I was a fool. I wanted to show everybody they were wrong about me.

Why hadn't I told Colin? Because I wanted to demonstrate to him how clever I was. I wanted to prove I was as smart as he was, maybe better. I wanted to show him, and my parents, and everyone in the community that Julia was a force to be reckoned with. Instead, I proved the opposite.

My stomach soured. I shivered with shame. With my toes, I trickled in additional hot water.

The novels I used to while away the hours mixed with the cesspool of my guilt. I wished Colin would castigate me. I wished he would bind me as pirates lashed the insolent wenches they captured, force me to my knees as warriors did to their captives. I wished he would flog me to drive out my demons and assuage my guilt, but no, Colin was too kind, too good a man to see what his unworthy slut required.

Years ago, the film Belle de Jour captivated me. Over and again, I watched as Séverine Serizy fantasized standing nude as her husband heaped barnyard mud and shit upon her. After a dozen viewings, I was so taken with the film, I read the English translation, but instead of satiating my obsession with the story, I wanted more. When Daddy passed through Paris, I begged him to pick up a copy of Joseph Kessel's novel. Reading the original en français strained my finishing school French, but I managed to absorb the book in ten days.

I thought I wanted to be Catherine Deneuve because she was beautiful, but now I wondered if I anticipated Séverine, a whore wallowing in the muck of my own making, wanting Colin, mon Pierre, to see me for what I was and hurl filth at me. I wanted him to scourge me of my betrayal and cleanse me of my sins. I wished for him to seize me and fuck me in any way that pleased him, possess me, correct me, and make me his forevermore.

Genuine Côté Lavande filled my nostrils, the scent of lavender as steam clouded the bathroom, not the stench of Séverine's barnyard odors. Exactly when I picked up the bath's hand sprayer, I wasn't certain, but I held it under water and let it flow against my labia. Adjusting the head to a solid stream, I felt it part my lips and wash there, easing my pain, relaxing my fear and self-anger. While nothing else about me felt right, the surge cleaned me, easing my mind.

A movie played against the inside of my eyelids, Colin ordering me seized, Colin directing my thrashing, Colin watching me thrown face down in the mud until I groveled and begged for his beneficent forgiveness. I needed him to understand and I needed him to punish my wrongs, scourge and forgive all my sins, all the way back to my horrid, horrid school years. I had become my own Mrs. Haversham, punishing others for not punishing me.

Inserting the handle of a brush inside me, I used its curve to massage my G-spot. Imagining it was Colin, I stroked softly, letting the underwater rushing sooth and stimulate. My nipples ached to be plucked and pinched, hardening where they rose in the cool air above their blanket of foam.

What I really desired was my husband. In my mental movie, I wanted Colin to stop my betrayal. Only after Belle's Pierre was blinded, did his eyes open to his wife's terrible infidelity. Like Colin now- No longer was my husband blind to the depths of my perfidy and faithlessness.

Don't let me get away with this, I prayed silently. Force me to prove myself. Torture me, teach me, tame me. Make me work to be yours. Forge me in the kiln of thy white heat.

My orgasm wasn't pleasure, it was penance, pressure release, a valve to my psyche, else I feared I go mad. Clutched in my cavity, I released the brush. Parting my labia, I directed the water towards my rectum and upwards against my clit, soothing me, swabbing me. My body orgasmically contorted, writhing and bucking, but true relief proved elusive, in the mind, a radiance from realizing I could still feel when I deserved to feel nothing at all.

Then and there, I wanted to make a vow, but I saw no clear path to salvation. How could I make promises to myself when any scenario offered doom and damnation? Without hope, I prayed Colin found an answer, but if so, I couldn't imagine what it could be. Yet, here I crouched, doubting him again, proving my lack of faith.

I wept.