In your fantasy, is romance the primary function of the relationship or even a consideration at all?

In your fantasy, is romance the primary function of the relationship or even a consideration at all?

***

“So…” I popped my lips, sitting across from an ashamed looking Charlie. I hadn’t seen Charlie without a beard in a long time and it was quite weird for me. His jaw was very pointed, which the beard helped soften, and his lack of practice with the razor was evident by the red spots around his face and body, along with the bumps. I’d gotten a chance to see it all this morning when I awoke still laying on top of a sleeping Charlie. “Is this a uh… kink? Or something you’re trying to explore?”

Charlie bit his lower lip and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was silence for a while. I didn’t want to push him, but I did really want to tell him how good the sex was. “Uh… both?” He answered, uncertain. “Last night, Gina said that thing about me waiting tables at her restaurant and I kinda got lost in a daydream.”

I bit my lip, pushing aside my desire to drag him to the couch and recreate last night. “I thought about how confident and sexy those waitresses are and how much I’d like to be confident and sexy… and I can’t lie and say I got over a lot of the texts of you and Mary making fun of my body.”

“I see…” In retrospect, Mary’s obsession with Charlie being some gross troll should have been a huge turn off for me. And at first it was. But slowly it became part of the fun, and a lot of the texts and comments were not easy to read and repeat in counseling.

“You were my hero.” He teared up, stabbing my heart as he choked up. “And in a lot of ways you still are. But I idolized you and figured that if you were going to someone else, it was my fault. I tried everything in my power to get your attention, but I couldn’t blame you or hold you accountable, so I internalized a belief that you just simply weren’t attracted to men. And that if I could just fix that part about me, we’d be happy again.”

I shook my head, a tear riding my face. “No.” Was all I could manage. Mary had a lesbian conversion kink which was very present in our texts. They had been extremely difficult to really explain away. Impossible, apparently.

“I tried addressing it in therapy, but uh… yeah, that need to feel attractive is here to stay. And I can’t undo the damage.” He busied himself by opening his pill bottle, digging out two pills and examining them. “I really want to be a…” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I want to be your girl.” He shrugged, throwing the pills into his mouth and swallowing.

“Ok…” I nodded, trying to process it all. But before I could, Charlie put his hand over mine.

“I do not look good like this.” He said seriously. I was not going to ever speak poorly of his body again, but he did not scream femininity. And the hair had always helped obscure some of his face’s and body’s inherent awkwardness. A shave did not make him look like a girl and it didn’t do any favors for his natural shapes, either.

“Well…”

“I don’t. But last night was the best sex we’ve ever had. You squirted during round two.”

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Then you peed yourself! Either way, you wanted what we had last night. You called yourself Mommy.”

“I still can’t believe I did that.”

“But don’t you wanna do it again? Go someplace dark and soft and cuddle with your babygirl again?”

He was right. I did have a really good time last night. And I did want another night like it. Or maybe even another right now like it… but there were bigger considerations. Was it just bedroom stuff? Did he want to transition? Would there be hormones? Surgery… would he let me customize my little fetish doll?

“You’re fantasizing right now, aren’t you?” He grinned a wicked smile, scooting his chair out and sliding down it. “You’re wondering what I’d let you change…” He fell to his knees, crawling under the table. “Would I let you bolt some big fake tits to my chest?” He kissed my knee, which I was too weak at to push him away. “Of course, what kind of husband would I be if I didn’t give you some arm candy to show off at company events?”

He crawled a little forward, resting his head in my lap. “Would I let you choose my diet? Naturally. Mommy needs her little girl to be nice and skinny. Maybe I’d draw the line at facial feminization? But I know you want those cute, innocent little doe eyes looking up from between your legs…”

My hips twitched. Fuck, I could see it. Looking down, I didn’t really see Charlie. I saw unmet potential. Those damn pills made it so hard not to be horny. I couldn’t think straight about the long term. What he was describing, I wanted now.

He reached up and gently unbuttoned my slacks, tugging at the waistband. I lifted my butt off the chair so that he could yank my pants and panties to my ankles. I parted my legs. My breath hitched as his tongue flicked forward, gently circling my clit. My head rolled back in enjoyment. All the tension in my body seemed to begin getting sucked out of my clit.

Bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz

I instinctively reached my hand to my phone, initially mistaking it for my vibrator because of the noises. I flashed my eyes at the screen intending to reject the call. But then I saw who it was.

“Shit. It’s Dane.” I grumbled. I couldn’t reject a call from my CEO. Charlie started pulling away, but my hand found his scalp and pulled him back into his place. He did not try to pull away again as I answered the call. “Dane, it’s Saturday, is everything alright?” I asked, working hard to not sound like a woman actively being eaten out.

“I need a favor from my best advertiser.”

“Uh-oh, flattery means ****.”

“I need you in the office this week.”

“Fuck!” I yelped as Charlie gave a quick nibble to my clit. “Sorry, I just, uh, tripped over something.”

“I can fly you out on the company jet, you can stay at my place or even put a hotel on the company card. But this Salùt launch needs to go well and we need your voice in the room, not filing reports of suggestions. I’ve been trying to be accommodating of your situation, but this is too big.”

Charlie leaned back on his haunches, pulling away from my crotch. He kept his eyes cast to the floor. He didn’t want to interfere with my career, but I also knew he did not want me to go. Work trips were a big trigger. I really wanted to go outside for the call, try to level with Dane in a way I just couldn’t in Charlie’s presence. But I decided to stay.

“I need to discuss this with my husband.”

“Bring him. Put you two up in a honeymoon suite at the best hotel. I’ll send daily rose deliveries to the hotel while you’re at work. That’s what I did when Georgia found out about mine. Worked like a charm.”

“I’m sure it didn’t.” Georgia, his wife, was a sweet girl. A great hostess. But she was usually on xanax and eyed every woman who came around Dane with thinly veiled disgust.

“Well one of us doesn’t live a three hour drive from work.”

“You’re losing my good will.”

“Company jet Sunday afternoon. Be in the office on Monday.”

The phone clicked. Dane was a complicated friend to have. As a boss he was responsible for dragging me up the corporate ladder against the will of a good old boys club of directors. He had always been extremely fair and generous to me—no boss in the world would ever tolerate this sort of arrangement with one of their executives. And his kindness never came with creepy strings attached. He was an excellent CEO with a mind for business and an eye for people.

He was also an adulterer who helped and even encouraged my affair with a fellow employee. Dane took care of his friends and even gave some really tough love when they made bad decisions. But if they were making the same bad decisions as him, then he was more than willing to help. And he knew how to throw one hell of a party.

“So…” I blew air into my cheeks, looking down at Charlie. He was trying to hide his suspicion and anger. He nodded, doing box breathing to remain calm. I really didn’t want this to be a fight. I understood his worries and lack of trust, but I paid the bills. He blew all his savings on the house and I was our only income. I’d avoided travelling for a year-and-a-half. It cost me a lot of opportunities and traction not just in my company, but in the field as a whole. I could not keep my job this way much longer.

I felt a flash of anger in the silence. Did he still not trust me after everything? We’d been doing so good. I couldn’t put my life on hold forever. But of course he didn’t trust me. I cheated on him for most of our marriage and did some pretty dastardly things to do it.

“I had hoped we’d have had more time.” Charlie said, placing his head in my lap. I reached down and started playing with his hair. “Is she going to be there?”

I sucked in air through my teeth. Mary was an extremely good advertiser. It was why I first picked her as my assistant. After my affair came out, HR wanted to fire me and her. But Dane, having played a big part, just put Mary in charge of one of the Advertising teams and approved my time off and move.

I’d been approving and critiquing submissions for campaigns for this new Salùt line for two weeks now. Based on the proposals I’d reviewed, there was almost no question that we would be going with Mary’s campaign. It was too good and she always had an eye for making premium seem luxury.

“Yes. And she’ll likely be the project lead.” I felt a tear touch my thigh.

“I’m not…” He choked. “I wanted more time.”

What followed was a very hard conversation setting up boundaries. I agreed to keep my location on and to tell him if I went anywhere other than the hotel room or office. Outside of work hours he could FaceTime and I would always answer with my camera on. He was very clearly ashamed. I had to suppress my annoyance. Charlie had never been a very paranoid person and it unsettled me to see him that way. He always assumed the best of people. It hurt knowing it was my fault he couldn’t be that way with me.

But the conversation was a lot less difficult than I had thought. It wasn’t a fight. He even insisted that he stay home to help get over his anxiety so I could travel more in the future. He never told me not to go, he never gave me an ultimatum. He just asked for some assurances that seemed mostly reasonable after negotiating.

Charlie insisted I get some less sexy corporate clothes, which I felt was appropriate, if for no other reason than to get some bras that fit. Were those really pill side effects? My boobs didn’t seem any bigger until I tried to contain them. It felt more likely that my bras shrank in the wash and Charlie was just mindfucking me for his ****.

It was a powerful suggestion, the pills.

“Sweetie, are you sure these are nines?” I popped my foot out of the pair of black heels, checking the box and reading the label. The box said nine… I looked at the inside, finding the number nine printed on the sole. “I hate women’s shoes. It’s like every brand has a different idea of what sizes are.” I groaned.

Charlie nodded, quickly returning the shoes to the shelf and grabbing nine-and-a-halves. As he set them down, I saw his phone buzz, a notification of a text from Gina popped up. I did not see very much, before he tilted his phone away from me, but I definitely saw the word slut.

I didn’t even know that he and Gina had been talking. And there was absolutely NO reason I could think of why a girl we’d just met should be texting my husband that word. My mind was a whirlwind of subconscious thoughts, but my conscious mind had only one. “Can I see your phone?”

Charlie had invoked our open-phone policy a lot in the early days. Practically every text I sent had been reviewed as I was sending it. He gave up on it entirely when he tried to access my company phone, which was off limits, figuring it was useless if he couldn’t check both.

His face filled with disappointment as he quickly handed me his phone without tapping anything, allowing me to enter the password. “I’m sorry.” He said.

Gina: Everyone thinks I’m a slut for working here, but I just love the art of burlesque, and they agreed to let me teach a class. I want to open my own studio, but for now I can’t even get one lousy student to sign up for my workshop. Three months and not even Danielle will sign up.

I scrolled through their messages—there weren’t many—and was relieved at how underwhelming it all was. They just confirmed numbers and Charlie asked about her work. Quickly checking, I saw he had similar texts with Frankie, Kai, and Jane.

His other messages previews, with more familiar friends back in Portland, all displayed variations of a message he sent telling them to drop the trash talk and support him or he’d cut them off. It seemed there was a big, probably organized, push of his friends to text him as an intervention. To tell him to leave me and that he could do better. Some of them even had friends, cousins, and even a sister they were sending him pictures of, offering to set him up.

The wind left my lungs very suddenly and I felt panicky. “I—I’m sorry.” I said, handing him his phone while avoiding eye contact. “I saw the word ‘slut’.” Tears filled my eyes and I whimpered. Really? In a fucking shoe store?

He put his hand on my shoulder and knelt down to embrace me in a gentle hug. Always gentle. For whatever reason, sex in public didn’t feel half as uncomfortable as crying in public. How could I of all people expect him to cheat? Who was I to get suspicious or jealous, even if he did? Checking his phone?

“It’s ok. Really. I’d have reacted the same.”

“Yeah, but we’re not the fucking same.” I choked out as he rubbed my shoulder. My throat burned and I had to **** gasps to get air into me.

“Don’t feel ashamed.” He said, cooing with a paternal authority. “We’re in a rough place. It’s natural to have those feelings and you used a boundary we agreed on. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Gentle, always fucking gentle.

“Can you please just fucking yell at me?” I pounded my fist into my thigh. Speaking was so hard. “Just once? Why do you always have to be such a goddamn angel? Don’t you ever have a selfish thought? I don’t feel any better when you just comfort me. It’s like you don’t even respect yourself and I feel insane being angry at you for being too kind. Too understanding. Don’t you even care?”

He nodded, continuing to rub my shoulder. His eyes didn’t even harden. “I don’t get catharsis out of that, Tor… whenever I yell or do something violent, I always feel worse.” He scooted me over on the tiny bench so he could sit next to me, twiddling his hands in front of him. “You always said I was a research guy. I don’t think my raw unfiltered negative emotions are more honest. There’s no sincerity or self-respect in screaming at you for something I understand and empathize with. I didn’t feel annoyed or amused at your suspicion, I felt the same hurt I used to feel when I heard your work phone buzz.”

He must’ve felt like this a hell of a lot, then. The thought angered me more, knowing how calm and patient he was the whole time while feeling that dread that now had me in tears. I felt like he set such an insane standard.

“So sure, I have selfish thoughts, violent impulses, and a lot of simmering anger. But every time I’ve acted on them, the world got a lot worse for me. I’d rather do something for people than to them.”

“You promised retribution. Something to dirty both our hands.”

“Oh and I am deeply ashamed of what’s coming.” He smiled. “You’ll hate me. You’re gonna love it.” He managed to get a slight chuckle out of me as I wiped my eyes. “Just promise to keep taking those pills.” He squeezed my thigh as I calmed down externally, waving off the store employee not so subtly trying to see if I needed to be separated from Charlie.

The pills were also annoying. Sweat, swollen boobs, arousal. Big fucking whoop. What kind of **** fantasy was that? The bottle was just about a third gone. Two more months, max. I was expecting, and maybe even hoping for something **** and possibly permanent. Tats, a **** affair, piercings, my resignation—but these pills had failed to live up to my standards. If I were in his shoes, I’d want to ruin my life. Leave a scar.

All my past partners that I’d cheated on at least had the decency to scream at me and leave me. Give me a good wake up call. But none of that ever stopped you from doing it again.

I came to the revelation as I slid a pair of slacks over my hips in the dressing room. I always felt bad when I cheated after I got caught. I’d have a crisis, swear to be better, then do it all again in my next relationship. But now even the idea of cheating filled me with an intense and **** disgust. I felt physically ill thinking of my last affair. As usual, Charlie’s way was neither flashy nor exciting, but it was effective.

“I think they’re cute. They make you look taller.” Charlie said as I stepped out of the dressing room in a pair of pinstripe slacks.

“I think the label’s wrong, though.” I frowned, examining how good my butt looked in the mirror. “When I sit down they basically become capris.” I squatted down to demonstrate, the bottom of the legs riding up about an inch higher than they should have.

“I’ll try to find some a size bigger, vertically.” Charlie turned around and left the dressing area.

“Bizarre.” I sighed. Two different sizing issues today. He was right, though, the stripes did make me look taller. And even though they felt tighter than they should in the thigh, they really showed off my gym body.