Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
I was not sure whether my mouth was just hanging open right now or not, but it sure did feel like it.
“Don’t worry, our story has a happy ending,” Caroline offered with a warm smile.
“Let’s not scare Kate off now,” Macy jumped in, patting Freya’s thigh. She focused her green eyes on me. “What’s she’s saying, honey, is that these men are… different. The life they’ve chosen to lead makes them more in tune with their emotions than your garden variety man.” She took a sip of her drink. “I’m not going to lie to you, this life can be dangerous.”
Her eyes went faraway for a second before she refocused on me. “So the way the men in the club live their lives is like they are going to die tomorrow,” she said. “And before they meet their woman, the way they do that is by screwing a lot of other women. They know immediately whether it’s just fucking or if it’s something more. And once they know, it’s done. They’re done. They don’t question it. They commit.”
My mimosa was gone by that point, and I didn’t even remember drinking it.
“Commit?” I repeated. “You mean Swiss is committing to me for…”
“Ever,” Freya finished for me happily.
All of the women were smiling at me. No, beaming at me. They were obviously happy for me. Happy for Swiss, as it was clear that they cared about him. Loved him.
And, if I was somehow a different person, without all of the baggage, without all of the lies, I’d be happy too. Ecstatic even.
But it was not that simple. It never was.
“Welcome to the family!” Macy cheered.
I smiled my best fake smile and gripped my wine glass, hoping it wouldn’t break. Hoping I wouldn’t break.
I didn’t decide to get drunk.
First, I was caught up in the festivities of the morning. And then there were the women who were constantly refilling my glass. At some point, there were tequila shots.
I had never done a tequila shot in my life.
Once Freya had found that out, she began feeding them to me until her, Hades and the baby left. She informed me that since I wasn’t breastfeeding that she had to live vicariously through me.
The other two women were not breastfeeding, and they had husbands who were staying sober. Husbands who, by the way, made it clear that they adored their women. They were always touching them, staring at them, kissing or yanking them away for a quickie down the hall somewhere.
That was Caroline and Jagger. She came back without her lipstick on, her hair mussed and eyes bright.
The entire situation was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It only amplified my feeling of unease, an imposter syndrome that I couldn’t shake.
Well, I learned that I could shake it.
With tequila.
As the day turned into night, all of the women eventually left. They had small children, after all.
It made me miss Violet like a severed limb. Nostalgic for the time when she was small and chubby and would hold tightly onto my fingers.
It made me wish that I had the experience of a man carrying our sleeping baby while letting me drink mimosas, not at all bothered by any switch in gender stereotypes or concerned about image.
I was happy that these women had that. Even after only one afternoon with them, I knew that they deserved that.
But I was feeling weird. I was picturing Swiss with a baby strapped to his chest.
Our baby.
I was picturing our baby. After two days together.
While I was still technically married.
So yeah, I got drunk.
The night got decidedly blurrier and rowdier after the married couples left, and the single men remained. I understood that it was a completely different vibe… The scantily clad women from the party having returned. All of whom were perfectly nice to me. One even cried and told me how pretty I was while I was walking toward the bathroom.
I might’ve even cried too.
At some point during the night—after I had got up and danced with the woman from the bathroom line—Swiss dragged me off to the bedroom. Or maybe I dragged him off.
I distinctly remember backing him up against a wall in the hallway—a very public hallway—and making out with him. Maybe even dry humping him. My hand definitely went underneath his tee.
We made it to his room, and that was where things took a turn.
For the better.
The clearest memory I had from the night was the door closing and me looking Swiss straight in the eye and asking, “Do you like to be punished?”
Swiss’s eyes were an inferno. “Countess, you want to draw and quarter me, I’ll give you the fucking knife,” he’d bit out, voice coated in sex.
Then there were handcuffs. And they weren’t used on me.
It turned out tequila shots and Swiss brought out a whole other side to me. One I didn’t even know existed.