Chapter 18 – Juliette
EIGHTEEN
JULIETTE
In the end, what truly sucked, was that it was all my fault.
After my birthday dinner, I’d made some life altering decisions. The most important being, that I was going to have sex with Creed. I was physically ready. I was emotionally ready.
And I’d had a stern enough conversation with myself that sex with him didn’t have to change my ultimate goal, which was freedom.
I was twenty-one. I had my entire life ahead of me. This marriage that I was trapped in was temporary. Convincing Creed to let me go in an equitable manner, had nothing to do with basic human attraction.
I liked his stupid, ugly face. Didn’t mean I wanted to be married to him for the rest of my life. His body was inarguably hot. That didn’t have to spell out a lifetime commitment.
Sex didn’t have to mean forever. Like ninety-nine percent of the population knew that. So why couldn’t I have that with him for now, and then when the time was right, move on to the next phase of my life?
All I wanted, at this point, was my fair share.
When I started thinking long term, I thought about bringing in the crop.
Waiting until Creed could reap the reward of all of his efforts, and then sitting him down and having a thoughtful conversation with him about my future.
Maybe we could split the profits evenly, minus his investment, of course, and I could set up my own bank account.
Then after maybe one or two more harvests, I would have enough to move on with my life.
There was no point in appealing to his good angel, about divorcing me now. For one, I wasn’t sure how much better those angels were than his demons. For another, it felt like spilt milk, or water under the bridge, or whatever. It was done.
And he hadn’t been wrong when he said he hadn’t been the worst of my options.
So all those things had coalesced in my brain to paint this simple, elegant picture.
There was only one catch.
How did I know that I wanted to have sex specifically with Creed?
Like what if some hormonal switch had just tripped inside me, and I was ready to have sex with anyone?
Sexually, Creed was the only man I’d ever known. Aside from a single coffee with Kevin.
It felt…limiting.
Did I like hanging out in his lap while we made out? Yes. Did I fucking love rubbing my ass against his dick to get him intentionally worked up? Totally. Had kissing him become this sort of delicious dessert that felt like a hidden secret? Yup.
But what if that happened with every guy I was into? What if it wasn’t magic or chemistry or any kind of connection? What if it was just straight up estrogen meeting testosterone?
I owed it to myself to find out. Didn’t I?
I was standing in aisle six of the hardware store, my head filled with these thoughts.
Creed was back at the farm re-enforcing the chicken coop and making sure the rooster had his own space, because the ladies were just not having him.
I hadn’t told him yet, because it felt like he was invested in brokering peace, but if the ladies didn’t eventually except the rooster, we were going to have to eat him.
Literally.
Kevin was lingering at the end of my aisle, pretending to re-arrange the same pliers on display for the past ten minutes, all while shooting me surreptitious glances. I knew that because I was shooting him surreptitious glances back.
Finally, our eyes met and something just popped out of me.
“Hey, Kevin. What’s going on?” I slowly made my way toward him and tried to ignore the smattering of pimples on his chin.
“Nothing. You?”
“Same old. Watching the crop like hawks.”
“So, married life,” he said, like he was announcing something that was trending.
“Yeah, it’s not all that sometimes,” I said, but I hated that it felt like a lie.
“Sure, sure,” he encouraged me. “You guys like barely knew each other. So you’re probably finding out all kinds of shit about each other now.”
I nodded.
“Heard you and April broke up,” I said.
He shrugged and leaned forward, reaching his hand toward the shelf above my head. Glancing around, we both confirmed there was no one else in the aisle. Heck, by the sound of it, I didn’t think there was anyone else in the store.
My heart started beating in my chest.
“She just wasn’t you, Juliette,” he said, quietly.
Which was a complete load of horseshit.
April was three times nicer, three times hotter, came from the coolest family in the county, and wasn’t letting herself get pushed up against a row of shelves with chicken coop wiring at my back.
This was wrong. My body felt that, but my brain told me to block it out. This was just an experiment. This was science. There was no room for guilt here.
Kevin was giving me these sad eyes and leaning his head down. I wanted to see what kissing someone else felt like.
But when his lips touched mine, I jolted at his touch.
I forced myself to stay still, though. Forced myself to take it in.
There was no tingle in my lower belly. My heart was still thudding against my chest, but not in a good way. Not in the fun way. His lips were too thin, his breath smelled like gum.
None of this felt like it felt with Creed.
“Son, you’re going to back away real slow from my wife.”
The words penetrated my brain before their meaning registered. It was like I understood the vibrations of them first. Just like when Creed had been having that nightmare months ago.
They come for what’s mine and I’ll kill all of them.
Kevin immediately stumbled backwards, his hands held high like he was being arrested.
“She came on to me,” Kevin blurted out, his eyes getting wide.
I looked back at Creed. And this man wasn’t someone I’d met before. Of all the facets of him that I knew, this Creed was different.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Ran out of chicken coop wire,” he said, bloodlessly. “What are you doing here?”
I shook my head tightly. “Don’t hurt him. It’s my fault.”
“See?!” Kevin cried.
I shot Kevin daggers with my eyes. “Shut the fuck up before he…”
He couldn’t hurt Kevin. It hadn’t been his fault. It wasn’t exactly true that I came on to him, that seemed like a reach, but I hadn’t stopped him and that’s what Creed was asking me. Whether I’d been taken advantage of. Pressured in any way.
My body shaking, I turned around and grabbed three rolls of wire and walked it over to Creed.
“I’ll pay,” I said, my breath hollowed out. “You go.”
He took the wire from my hands and I thought, I have no idea what comes next. The way he looked at me, like I’d betrayed him, was gutting. He turned his head away from me, that muscle in his jaw ticking overtime.
“I thought…yeah,” he said. “I thought wrong.”
He left the store and my first instinct was to run after him. To explain what I was doing. Why I was doing it. There was no emotion in any of this. I hadn’t betrayed him. I’d just wanted to see how kissing was different.
I was twenty-one and I’d only kissed one guy!
Two guys. Now you’ve kissed two guys.
I thought I was going to be sick on the floor of aisle six.
I sped walked up to the cash register. Kevin, to his credit, said nothing. Just rang me up for the chicken coop wire and took my debit card.
For a half a second I thought it might be declined. As if Creed could have gotten to the bank that fast to lock me out. Either it hadn’t occurred to him, or it hadn’t been enough time.
Once the card pad beeped approved, I bolted out of the store and made my way to my truck. I hopped in like I was being chased. And in some ways, it felt like I was.
Like time was racing against me.
He was going to have all this time to think, without even hearing my explanation.
“It was a stupid thing,” I said, practicing my apology. “It didn’t mean anything, I just wanted to see…”
Ugh. It sounded lame, even to my own ears.
I pulled the truck up next to his and ran inside the house.
“Creed! Creed!”
Either he wasn’t talking to me or he wasn’t inside. Having perfected the silent treatment with him months ago, I knew that it worked better when he could see me. Then I remembered what he said about running out of wire for the coop. He’d want to finish that job.
Bolting out back, I headed toward the structure appended to the barn. He was there with a pair of pliers in one hand, bending the wire into shape to form a separate cage for the rooster.
“It didn’t mean anything,” I said, out of breath. “It was just a stupid experiment.”
He said nothing.
“You were my only kiss and I wanted to find out if-”
He stopped me with one look. He wasn’t pissed. He wasn’t ready to kill. He was just…over it.
“You said I’m free to fuck whoever I want, right?”
“I…don’t…”
“After we got married. You said you didn’t care if I got some action on the side. You’ve been cock teasing me for weeks, and now I know this shit ain’t happening here, so I’m getting some ass elsewhere. So you need to be cool with that.”
I blinked. “No, you’re not listening. What happened with Kevin…”
“Fucking Pimplefuckingface,” he laughed. Only it didn’t sound funny. “You don’t have to worry about it. Message received, loud and clear. I just hope you’ll respect my privacy. I’m not going to some no-tell motel to spare your feelings. You hear me bring someone home, stay up in your fucking room.”
“Creed,” I barked. “No. That’s not what that was. I wasn’t…cheating on you! Or some shit like that. It was just…”
“An experiment,” he repeated.
“Yes!” He finally understood.
“Didn’t know you were a fucking scientist.”
“You need to listen to me,” I said, and grabbed him around his bicep.
He stared down at where my hand touched his skin, just under his t-shirt. He turned his shark eyes in my direction and I dropped my hand like I’d been burned.
“You don’t fucking touch me,” he said, his tone flat. “Now, get out of my face. I don’t want to know you exist until I have to.”
He turned his back on me and I knew there was no point in saying anything else.
He was mad. Maybe he had a right to be. He’d been really, really nice to me lately and I…threw it back in his face.
I get how it looked like that, but it wasn’t that!
I wanted to have sex with him, for fuck’s sake! I’d already said yes, in my head!
No, I could fix this. I could make it right. Turning, I marched back toward the house. I would make him his favorite food, his favorite cookies. I would give him time to cool down and then make him listen.
Maybe explain some feminist concepts to him like agency and self-determination.
It would be fine. He was mad, but I would make him understand everything from my point of view.
Only dinner time came and went. Instead of following his normal routine after he came in from the barn, he went to his room instead.
Stubborn, I still kept the pasta salad and roasted chicken in the middle of the kitchen table waiting for him. Like once he inspected what I’d done, he’d see how sorry I was and sit down and eat.
Instead, I heard his shower running. Doors opening and closing. Then he left the house without so much as a glance toward the kitchen. I heard his truck start and I knew what it meant.
Creed wasn’t a man who made threats. Creed just said it like it was.
He was going out tonight to get some ass.
When the sobs came from my chest, I couldn’t stop them.