Page 61 of Shame

She shakes her head. “I like it.”

Good.

A plan is coming together, and after dinner, when she excuses herself to use the washroom, I have time to really sit in this space that she made for us and think about what my next step is.

If we're going to do this, it has to be completely new. It has to start in a completely different way.

I have to be a new and different man. For too long, I bought into the lie that you can’t change a person. I just accepted that I was turning into my father as I got older. But the truth is,thatwas changing a person. I went from being a young man who was worthy of Grace to a middle-aged asshole she rightfully kicked to the curb.

I want to be the guy she fell in love with again. Without the baggage he was silently carrying. I want to be who she wanted to grow old with once upon a time. I want to be what she thought I could be. And to do that, I'm going to have to go back, strip myself of everything that I have learned over the last ten years, and undo all of the mistakes that I have made.

The poor choices I have made.

I need to get myself back to that pivotal moment when I stopped listening to my wife and I need to start listening, again.

I need to show her that I will do it as fast as I can. But also, because I'm serious about it, because I want this to be real and lasting and forever, that it won’t happen overnight.

And I can show her that incremental work. I can be honest about my progress.

What about setbacks?My first reaction is denial. There won’t be any setbacks, my grandiosity wants to claim, but that’s not true.

And then there’s the kink stuff, which fucking hell is so hot, but intense. She wants some sort of daddy figure, strong, and unwavering. How does that go hand in hand with a humble man who admits that he's failed miserably at keeping her safe?

The acid churn is back. And I don't like it. But what I like even less is that echo, that visceral body memory of how I ran from the challenge in the past.

I can't run from it now, I have to sit here and feel disgusted with myself and look at that shame and think,you're not going to get the better of me today. I'm going to stare at you, until you get smaller and turns into nothing.

“What are you thinking about?” She slides onto the couch beside me and curls up in the circle of my arms.

“You. And me. Mostly me, and how I want to be this perfect man.”

“That’s how you were raised.”

“Pretty sure my nannies…” I trail off, not meaning to argue. “Right. The Preston way.”

“It’s not real, but that’s part of the brainwashing, right? You were taught to always live a lie.”

“I sure managed to excel at that.” I roll my shoulders.

“Are you tense?” She climbs into my lap, an unconventional way to give a neck rub, but I’m not complaining. I spread my thighs wide to balance us and she strokes her hands up and down the side of my neck. “Tell me more.”

“I want to be a better man for you. Unravel myself to the point where I went wrong, and fix it from there. Be the guy you wanted to grow old with. Remake myself in the original vision, but with less baggage. That’s it in a nutshell, basically.”

“That’s all good stuff.” She gives me a level look. “Can I ask about the affair? No shouting, no getting mad. I just… wanna know some things.”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Before we are intimate again,” she laughs lightly. “That’s so serious. Before we get carried away like we did last time, I really would like to negotiate some of the kinky elements specifically. I have a pretty complicated list of limits around the Little stuff, and some of them are common things in porn, so…”

The WASP in me is dying. The earnest husband, though, is all on board. “Okay. Yeah. I’m game for that.”

“Did you do any of that limit negotiation with…her?”

I shake my head. “I’m going to keep telling you this. It wasn’t like that. I was playing at something, and I didn’t even understand the game. Now that I understand it, I’m glad that I’ve only really played the game for real with you. And it’s not a game, I know that, it’s who you really are, and I think that’s beautiful.”

She smiles, looking pleased, and I’m glad I got at least one answer right. I reach for something I talked about with my therapist. “That was nothing. Less than nothing. That was desperation. Cocaine off the back of a dirty toilet. A death spiral. It was grandiosity. Self-destruction. A form of addiction, probably. It could have been gambling or drugs. I took what was offered as a way to numb the pain of what I had done to myself. It was never real.”

“Have you been in contact with her again?”

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