Her fears part 3, a short story by gela. Date added: 2012-07-15. Times viewed: 491.
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- Intro: a woman's attempt to protect her marriage and maintain her sanity
Her fear part 1 & 2: thank you for the feedback, it influences the movement and flow of the story. I enjoy receiving and reading them.
Slowly thanks to my tears and confessions my best friend has evolved into a husband. A wonderful, kind and generous husband – but I miss my best friend.
My husband tries not to hurt so know he carefully avoids conversation about certain attractive people we know and see. He’s very careful when watching a movie, is politically correct when chatting in a group and says nothing during a raunchy video clip. His thoughts, his opinions, his openness seems to have disappeared.
I love him deeply and dearly and I try not to show him how I’m affected when my heart races. I bite my lip when I hear the unnatural pause of his conversation and the vagueness he uses to steer the topic in another direction.
I’ve listened to his deep beautiful voice for in excess of 20 years and I feel his hesitation and his reserve. How could I not?
Because I know that I’m completely and utterly to blame for this loss in my life. I am the cause of my husband’s caution, his role as my protector.
So now we play this game that I think, he’s completely unaware of.
We speak, we laugh, we love and we live. It’s a good life and I love it.
But it saddens me so much that he once said, “I have nothing to hide, nothing that can hurt you. But you and your thoughts are the only things that hurt you.”
He’s right. My brain hurts me. But my husband feels I’m better, I’m less sad. I’m less emotional. I’m better.
He doesn’t know, he can’t see the way I take deep breaths, the way I clasp my hands at odd time over my face, like a person hyperventilating and, struggling for air. And I dare not tell him, I dare not share with him my fears as I notice him glancing at an attractive scantily clad young woman, because the more I share, the more of him I lose. I feel so damn stupid! Big deal – he looks at a girl. Why does that have the power to stop me in my tracks, to upset me so much? And do I want to know if he’s just glancing at the girl or imagining himself fucking her! Do I really want that much honesty? Could I handle that much honesty??
What a strange predicament I find myself in! How I wish for my life 5-6 years ago and avoid circumstances that have led me to become this strange woman.
He’s told me, in a quiet, self-conscious voice, that some part of him, some selfish part of him, delights and is flattered by my jealously. How can he find this jealously delightful and flattering?
I am so sick of myself and sick of the thoughts that are in head. Sick of the fact, that although I find sex extremely pleasurable, I always offer him more. I suck, I nibble, I devour his body and yet ask nothing in return. I want to be his every fantasy, so I offer my body, he has full access to my body, any part he wants to fuck, and anyway he wants to fuck it. I always say YES! I offer my ass when I have my period, and although he initially declines, I make it so hard for him to resist because I want him to be completely satisfied. I want to do anything he wants.
I don’t want him to be horny when he’s away from me. If I satisfy him, maybe he won’t fuck other women in his mind. Does it work like that? Can that be enough? Why isn’t it enough?
But while he says that he quietly and secretly adores my jealously, I fear, it also drains him, as it drains me. He said something to me a few weeks ago, that stopped me in my tracks. Four words that made me realize that although he claims to find my behavior reassuringly sweet, he also finds it hard.
“I don’t need much, but I need to breathe.”
I need to breathe
I need to breathe
I need to breathe
I need to breathe
I was taking the air from him. I was stopping him from breathing freely. How had I become this woman that deprived the person more precious than life itself, of air? How? I couldn’t understand.
After that conversation, I drove and cried, and drove and cried.
I made a decision. Actually I had an epiphany. Great word to explain my light bulb moment! I saw things around me with such clarity, such crisp detail, that I actually gasped and had to park the car.
I was making myself ill, ill and sad. I was sucking the air from my husband, making it hard for him to breathe around me.
That day I decided he would never see my fears.
That decision has kept me tightly bound. It allows my husband the air he needs to breath; he appears more relaxed, more tender. He doesn’t watch me with an air of fear, as though a bout of tears threatens.
And although, I know it will take many years to get my best friend back, if he’s there at all, I continue to breathe deeply, keep my fears tightly under control, my mind firmly bound and myself busy.
I have to.
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