Page 31 of Opening It Up
“So is she?” Dr. Ramirez repeated, and I realized I’d been daydreaming about how to convince my wife to agree that the open marriage was not working and go back to the way things used to be.
“Is she what?”
“Bi. Is she bisexual?”
“Why do you want to know?” I asked, baffled.
She threw her hands up in exasperation.
“Idiot! I want to know if she’d go out with me, of course. Can you give her my number?”
“You wantLily-Mae’snumber?”
“Of course,” Dr. Ramirez said, making a wrap-it-up gesture at me.
“She’s straight.”
“Well, fuck.” She rummaged around in her purse and scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “Give her this anyway. In case she changes her mind.”
When I still stared in confusion, Eliana’s jaw dropped.
“Wait, you thought I meantyou?” She let out a burst of tinkly laughter, even throwing her head back with glee.
“Well, yes,” I said irritably. “I know word has gotten around we are in an open marriage.”
The doctor laughed even harder, clutching her sides and wiping the tears that streamed down her face.
“Honey, nobody wantsyou. Everyone in the entire office building has had a hard-on for Lily-Mae ever since she started teaching that sexy as fuck yoga class next to the café. No one’s thinking aboutyouat all. Except maybe how dumb you were to open up your marriage.”
She walked away, laughing heartily.
Shame and fury blazed through me.
How the fuck had this all gone to shit?
To distract myself, I got out my microphone and attached it to my collar. At least I could get some good content out of this.
Surely things were going to turn around for me soon.
I put on my best podcaster voice and hitrecord.
“Open marriage chronicles, week 1. Here I am, out at a mixer, and the night is fresh and young. Trying to decide who to connect with is such a wonderful problem to have.”
I turned around to decide which ghoul I could pretend to have an interest in when I choked on my next words.
Because there was my wife, right across the street at a concert in some dive bar.
And not justatthe concert. But up on stage singing along, with that big blonde guy Brayden behind her, grinding up against her ass and kissing her.
Suddenly I forgot everything except going over and putting a stop to it somehow.
I had to put a stop to this open marriage right now.
With a clatter, I forgot everything else and bolted from the room, pelting down the noisy stairs and then running across the street, dodging the streetcars and taxicabs that blared their horns angrily at me.
“Lily-Mae,” I called out, even though she couldn’t hear me, and my voice was so fucking weak and whiny but I couldn’t help it.
“Lily-Mae!” I hollered as I reached the door of the bar, my voice cracking as I called out again.
