Page 62 of Shame

I shake my head. “No. Not since that night.”

“And this is real? You and me?”

“Always. Forever. And it’ll take time for you to believe that on enough levels that the pain I’ve caused is balanced out.” I look at her, my sexy goddess, and need to know something. “Can I ask you, why did you decide to give me another chance?”

“Maybe for the same reason,” she murmurs, her gaze searching my face. “For that young man I fell in love with in college. For the scared little boy he carried inside, for the way he protected his brother.”

Sam. I need to do something about the damage to that relationship too, she’s saying. And she’s right. “I’ll talk to him soon.”

“Good.” She leans in and kisses me softly. “But really, I’m here right now because of everyone I’ve ever met, you are the one person I can never stop thinking about. And it’s starting to feel like maybe I’m that person for you.”

“You are. And you were, before. Once upon a time. I promise you that I loved you then, so much. I’ve never stopped loving you. But then thinking about you got hard. I started to feel small and stupid. And I hid. I’ll never hide again.”

“Speaking of hiding…” She climbs off my lap and holds out her hand. “I want to show you something.”

She leads me into her closet and pulls down one of the two vintage suitcases from her top shelf.

“Photos?”

She gives me an amused look. “Is that what you think is in here?”

I frown. “Isn’t it?” I could have sworn she’d shown me some family pictures at some point. I hadn’t paid enough attention, because I was a jackass.

Now I want to look at each one carefully. Inspect it for all the tiny clues I can gleam about who Grace is, where she came from. Every bit of her is exciting and fascinating, including the ancient history of baby photos.

She takes a deep breath. “No, these aren’t photos. They’re…” She turns pink. “Books. A collection, so to speak.”

Cave of Sin

For Lust’s Sake

The Sexiest Student

Spanking the Sitter

Their Secret, Younger Lover

The Wayward Daughter

I pick up the last one, and Grace turns red. “Some are more… No, actually, they’re all pretty intense.”

It doesn’t take me long to figure out what she means. The words on the page are crude, violent, and obscenely out of date.

My wife collects misogynistic porn.

I don’t really know what to make of that. I look up at her and smile, because this changes nothing. Everything about her complicated, clever mind is amazing to me. Even something like this that I’d never have expected and don’t really understand. “Huh,” I finally say.

She laughs.

“How long have you been collecting these?”

“Forever. I found my first one in college.”

I think about all the times we’ve crawled through used bookstores on our travels. “Have you ever bought one in front of me?”

She nods, her lips pressed together and her eyes bright.

“Which ones?”

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