Page 86 of Games We Play
“Uh huh.” Maxine narrowed her eyes. “There’s something you’re not sharing, though. Like… did you happen to ever tell Leah that you’re married?”
“Oh, shut up. What the fuck do you know?”
“I know that you’re the type of woman to keep her marriage so deep in the gutter that the only people who know about it are you and him. Hell, the only reasonIknow you’re married is because I’ve known you for years.” Maxine leaned forward. “I remember when you were quite open with your marriage.”
“The fuck do you know about that? You were what, a fetus when that happened?”
“I was an adult. A young adult, but still an adult. You don’t rememberinviting me to your wedding?”
“You didn’t come.”
“Because I’m not a big fan of lesbian-finding-her-one-exception-whiplash.” Maxine shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, my own wife did that to me a few years later. Maybe it was karma for not attending your kinky, heteronormative wedding.”
Sloan glared at Erica. “What’s your excuse for not going?”
“Oh, I went to your wedding. You don’t remember because I was dressed like a man.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Both women glanced at one another. “Only that you were still gay as hell even when you were marrying some man.”
“He wasn’tsome man,okay?” Sloan was desperate enough for something to drink that she stole Erica’s untouched glass.Yuck. Bourbon.Whatever got the job done, she supposed. “He got into my head! He made me feel like the world made sense! I… I loved him?”
Maxine held her palm out to Erica. With a mighty sigh, the richest woman in the room pulled out her wallet and slapped three hundred dollars into Maxine’s hand.
“What’s that for?”
“I bet her that you would admit to loving Aaron Giles sometime today,” Maxine said.
“You’re both disgusting.”
“Not as disgusting as you probably feel right now.” Maxine crossed both arms on the table, her elbows digging deep enough into the wood to make every proper lady in the room cringe. To think, she was the only one there to grow up filthy rich enough for finishing school,andwas socialized as a lady! “Spill. Tell us everything that’s been going on with you.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you need to get it off your chest,” Erica interjected, “and we want it off your chest before we talk serious business later.”
“This is some girl-talk bash, huh?”
“I know you’re not used to it, dear,” Maxine said, hand on Sloan’s, “but neither is she. It’ll be good practice for you both.”
“Fuck off, Woodward.”
“You first, Sloan.”
They had a minor stare down before Sloan gave up with a sigh. Slowly, as if it took the power of both of these women to spin it out of her, she told the emotional tale that she shared with Leah two days before. Only now she wasn’t allowed to smoke her way through it.
Somehow, it wasn’t any easier. Just because she knew what words to say, and because she had rehearsed it to the point she almost convinced herself everything made sense, didn’t mean the likes of Maxine and Erica would respond the waynormalpeople did. One of them knew how to live a double life, and the other knew way too much about toxic, abusive marriages, but together? Neither Maxine nor Erica knew what it was like to suffer with both.
Nor could they understand the shame she now felt, thanks to being a lesbian married to a man. No wonder Leah wanted out.I wouldn’t want to be mixed up in this, either.
“Damn,” Maxine said after Sloan finished muttering her spiel, “Damn.That is not an envious position to be in.”
“No shit.” Sloan hadn’t realized until that moment that half the peanuts were gone. Did she really eat them all? She didn’t remember the others having their share… “I have no idea what to do. Divorcing him is going to be hard enough, thanks to the business I’m probably going to destroy in the process. Now I’ve got a girlfriend who I guess isn’t my girlfriend anymore. She made it pretty clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me. She said I…” No, the others paidwaytoo much attention for Sloan’s liking. They were actually listening. She didn’t need them to listen! “She said I used her. You know what? She’s right. I did use her.”
She expected the other women to chastise her.“How could you do something like that? Don’t you know how that would feel the other way around? Women get enough shit from men – we don’t need it from women, too!”Instead, she met two pairs of sympathetic eyes.
“You’re right,” Maxine said. “You were using her. We’ve all been there. I’m probably the guiltiest of all.”
