Chapter Two
“Shall we toast my freedom from the lying bitch?” I ask.
“Toast your separation?” Bernard asks back.
“No, my divorce,” I correct him quickly.
“Divorce Anna if you will, Heinrich. But I’d advise against it.”
“Why? She’s a slut.”
“And are you not the same? You screw other women.”
“Yes, but not so she doesn’t know. I don’t do it on the sly. I don’t hide my passions, and I’ve never wanted something from a submissive that I couldn’t get as easily from Anna. Besides, she loves this man.”
“Maybe she loves him, Heinrich, because you’re unlovable.”
“I haven’t changed a wit in four years of marriage.”
“And you should have,” he declares. “You should have developed something deeper than just your S&M.”
“It’s all we had.”
He stares at me with his big black eyes like he’s going to win me over to his cloying point of view. Bernard is a handsome black man with a heart like a lamb. Eyes that make women melt, and he’s usually sincere about it.
“Are you sure that’s all you had? Or were you both too lazy to see if there was anything else to make of your relationship?” he asks.
“She lied, Bernard. Snuck around like a little cheat. She played the game all wrong.”
“Marriage is more than a game.”
“Not for us.”
He sighs, hating me. Ah, my efficient attorney is far too romantic for me.
“She humiliated you,” he just keeps going. (Suppose that’s what makes a good litigater, he doesn’t stop.)
“I’m won’t be humiliated, not by any woman, least of all Anna. Yes, I suppose I’m partly to blame. Maybe I didn’t screw her ass enough. I’ll acknowledge that. But I won’t have her in my life any longer. Draw up the papers.”
“Could be a cry for help, you know.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist.”
“She doesn’t need a psychiatrist, but a husband.”
“Frankly, I think that’s a perfectly good solution. If she wants to bare her soul, let her talk to a counselor, or better yet, a priest—they don’t charge.”
“You are a cold bastard.”
“Like I said, I haven’t changed a wit, and I don’t plan on changing now.”
He looks at me as though I’m crazy. Perhaps I a
