It was okay. Things were “okay,” it seemed to him. They were getting along, and Charlie and Ben seemed totally unaware of any problems. That at least was a good thing.
Emily was attentive, devoted, loving. They had a ton of sex, at least as much as Nick could have wanted, and she was almost desperately eager to please him. She offered new positions, surprised him in the shower, bought some wonderfully trashy lingerie. She may even have gone online to read about fellatio techniques, because her blowjobs were deeper and more pleasurable than ever.
And it wasn’t just the sex. There were backrubs, there were special desserts, there was the weekend away she planned for them at a really nice Bed & Breakfast on a lake while her parents took the boys. Emily watched him constantly and catered to him; she tried to please him as though she were a king’s concubine and one false move could lead to her exile, if not her execution.
So why wasn’t he happier?
Nick reflected on this. He was in the middle of a fairly frantic afternoon at work, but he couldn’t concentrate. He shoved his paperwork aside, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk, giving himself 15 minutes to think.
One thing was obvious: he still didn’t trust her. The betrayal with Pritzker, even though it hadn’t gone all the way, still left him feeling bitter every time he thought about it. His rational brain said that Emily would never, EVER try something like this again—but the fact that she’d done it once was a brutal kick in the ribs. His raging anger at her was never all that far from the surface, though it had calmed down a lot.
But he realized that there was another issue: he almost didn’t have a wife anymore—he had a servant. Emily was nervous, always walking on eggshells, constantly checking his face for any sign of disapproval or anger. Her mantra seemed to be, “Please Nick.” Or maybe even, “Don’t Piss Off Nick.” Or “Give Nick Absolutely Everything He Wants, Even Before He Knows He Wants It.”
Back in the happier days of their marriage, Emily had been a delightful partner. She was energetic and funny and feisty—no pushover. She stood up for herself, she disagreed with Nick when she thought he was wrong, she mocked him at times. They had been equals, loving partners unafraid to take each other down a peg. Now that was all gone.
Nick was sure that he had changed too. He was harder, more closed. He didn’t come home every day and tell Emily all about work, or engage her in conversation about their relationship. He watched her coolly and let her serve him—whether it was a nice dinner, or a nice fuck from behind with her bent over the living room couch. It was one of his favorite ways to do it, actually, but she’d never liked it all that much; it felt humiliating to her. Now she’d let him do it five nights a week if he wanted.
He realized that he didn’t want a submissive concubine—he wanted his old wife back. But he was self-aware enough to see that it wasn’t just her behavior but his own that had changed; and he was clear-sighted enough to realize that he didn’t have any idea how to get back to what they’d once had.