Memories - The Break Part 1

 

After dating for about two years, Emily and I had a "break" for a couple of months. I don't remember if I blogged about it or ever wrote about it. I might tell more, but I woke up this morning with one particular memory I wanted to write about.

The fluorescent lights of the office always seem to hum a little louder after 5:00 PM, a low-frequency buzz that vibrates in the back of my skull, marking the transition from the professional grind to the hollow ache of the evening. It had been forty-six days since Emily broke my heart, or rather, since she handed it back to me like a piece of mail delivered to the wrong address, and yet, my internal compass still points due North toward her desk.

I've spent the last six weeks perfecting the art of being "the boy who's still there." I bring her a coffee every morning and deliver it with a smile that I hope looks "supportive friend," but probably looks more like "hostage victim." I know the rules. She doesn't want to be with me. She's been clear. But the gravity she exerts is too strong for my weak orbit to break.

It's painfully obvious to me, to her, to everyone who knows us. I should break away but I can't. Even with all my tears, all my crying, as painful as it is to be around her, I can't.

At 4:45 PM, I found myself leaning against her doorframe. She was buried in a spreadsheet, her brow furrowed in that specific way that makes me want to smooth the lines with my thumb. She was wearing a "power suit", a navy blue skirt suit, crisp and professional, paired with nude nylons that caught the overhead light and heels that made her look strong and feminine at the same time.

"Still at it?" I asked, my voice sounding steadier than I felt.

She looked up, startled, then softened. "Hey, I didn't see you there."

"I was just heading out. Thought I'd check if you needed anything."

She leaned back, stretching her arms over her head, a movement that made the fabric of her blouse pull tight across her chest. My heart did a clumsy somersault. "Actually," she said, glancing at the darkening window, "I have to stay until at least 6:30 to finish this proposal. It's going to be pitch black by then. Would you… would you mind staying and walking me to my car?"

"Of course," I said, the response immediate, reflexive. I'd stay until midnight if she asked. I'd stay until the sun burned out. "Why the late nights all of a sudden? Is that project that bad?"

"It's not just the project," she said, avoiding my eyes. "I…I'm meeting someone for dinner right after this and…you know…"

The air in the room suddenly felt very thin. "A date?" I asked. I tried to sound casual, like I was asking about the weather, but the word felt like a stone in my mouth.

"It's just dinner," she replied, her tone shifting to that careful, neutral register she used when she was trying not to hurt my feelings.

"Right. Just dinner."

I retreated to my office for the next hour and a half, but I didn't do any work. I sat in the dark, staring at my screensaver, feeling the familiar, toxic cocktail of jealousy and something else, something darker and more complicated, swirl in my gut.

Emily was going to have dinner with a man.

Most men would be furious. Most men would walk out, tell her to find her own way to the car if she was so eager to go meet another man. But I'm not most men. I realized a long time ago, during my first marriage, that there's a part of me that feeds on this. My first wife cheated on me, and when I found out, I said nothing because, as painful as it was, it excited me.

When I realized it, when I learned 'girls night out' was really 'date night,' I felt a sickening, electric jolt of arousal. I liked the idea of her being desired by someone more 'manly' than me. I liked the feeling of being the one who waited at home, the one who took care of her while she gave herself to someone else. It made me feel small, and in that smallness, I found a strange kind of eroticism.

With Emily, it had been different, healthier, I thought, but she had tapped into that side of me, too. She liked me "soft." She liked the way I deferred to her. She was the one who, finding out I had a feminine side, encouraged me to wear lingerie, to be feminine, the one who told me I looked better in lace than in boxers. She called it "embracing my feminine side," but we both knew it was about power. And I loved giving it to her.

At 6:25 PM, I walked back down to her office. The hallway was silent, the cleaning crews' vacuums humming in the distance.

I knocked softly. "Emily? It's 6:30."

"One second!" she called out. Her voice sounded muffled. "Wait in the hall, Mark. I'm changing."

I leaned against the cool drywall outside her door. She's changing. The image of the navy suit hitting the floor, the nude hose being peeled away, the sound of a zipper… it was torture. But it was the kind of torture I craved. I stood there, adjusted my tie, and felt the familiar, restrictive hug of the garment I was wearing under my slacks.

A few minutes later, the door clicked open.

I turned, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.

Emily wasn't wearing the suit anymore. She was wearing a little brown dress, brown satin that shimmered like oil on water. It had a cowl neck that draped low, held up by impossibly thin spaghetti straps that looked like they might snap if I breathed on them too hard. The skirt had a crossover detail that showed off a scandalous amount of leg, encased now in sheer chocolate nylons that made her skin look like smoked glass. She looked predatory. She looked magnificent.

"Wow," I managed to choke out. My eyes were roaming over her, unable to stop. "You look…"

"Too much?" she asked, smoothing the satin over her hips, struck a pose.

"For…for dinner?" I asked, my voice cracking.

"No," she said, stepping closer, her perfume, something spicy and expensive, filling my head. "For you, sweetie."

I couldn't answer. I just stared. The jealousy was there, sharp as a razor, imagining some guy, some 'regular' guy in a button-down shirt,, getting to see her in this dress across a candlelit table. But right alongside it was that old, familiar thrill. The thrill of being the one who got to see the "before." The one who got to walk her to the man who would try to take her from me.

"You look beautiful, Emily," I said quietly.

She watched me, a weird, knowing smile playing on her lips. She reached out and straightened my collar, her fingers lingering near my throat. "Are you still wearing them?"

I felt my face heat up. I didn't have to ask what she meant but pretended I didn't know. "Wearing them?"

"The 'stay soft and tucked' set," she whispered, her eyes dancing. "One of the pretty ones we picked out together."

I swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Why?" she asked, her hand dropping to my chest, feeling the line of the bra beneath my shirt. "We aren't together anymore. You don't have to do that for me."

"I…I know," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. I looked down at her, feeling utterly defeated and utterly hers. "But I like it. And anyway…I'm never going to be the kind of man who wears the pants in a relationship, Emily. I think I've finally just accepted that. I like being what you made me."

She sighed, a soft sound that could have been pity or affection. "I might have made a mistake, showing you this dress," she said, gesturing to herself. "I know it's hard for you. I do still care about you, you know."

"It's okay," I said, and I meant it. "I just want you to be happy. Even if I'm jealous. Even if it kills me."

"You're such a martyr, sweetie," she teased, though her eyes were soft. She grabbed her clutch from her desk and turned off the office light. The room plunged into shadows, save for the glow from the hallway. "I should let you go. I should let you find some nice girl who wants a traditional boyfriend."

"We both know that's not what I want," I said as we began walking toward the elevators. The click of her heels on the linoleum sounded like a countdown.

As we stepped into the elevator, the mirrored walls reflected us: her, a dark goddess in satin and silk; me, the plain, devoted servant in a gray suit, hiding a secret world of lace beneath the surface.

"It excites you, doesn't it?" she asked suddenly, looking at my reflection. "Knowing where I'm going? Knowing what he's going to be thinking when he sees me in this?"

I leaned my head back against the elevator wall and closed my eyes. "Yes," I whispered. "It makes me want to throw up, and it's the most exciting thing in the world."

She reached over and squeezed my hand, not the squeeze of a lover, but the squeeze of a master rewarding a well-behaved pet, the squeeze of a best friend. "You're so good in your own way."

We reached her car in the dark, cold parking garage. My chest tightened. This was the moment I should turn around. This was the moment I should walk away and reclaim my dignity.

Instead, I opened her car door for her. I watched her slide in, the brown satin hiking up her thigh, the sheer nylons shimmering in the overhead light.

"Have…have a good time," I said, leaning down. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'll bring the coffee."

She looked up at me, framed by the luxury of her car and the promise of another man's company. "You really can't let go, can you?"

"I don't want to, Emily," I said. "I'd rather…I'd rather be in your life than not in your life. I'd rather just be there for you."

"I don't deserve you," she said, smiling at me.

I stood there in the cold, watching her taillights disappear as she drove off. I was alone, shivering slightly, feeling the pinch of my underwear and the heavy weight of my devotion. I was miserable. I was heartbroken. And as I walked back to my own car, I realized I had never felt more alive.

The drive home was a blur of streetlights and self-reflection. I kept thinking about the look in her eyes when she asked if I was still wearing the bra and panty set. It wasn't just a question; it was a check-in on her property. Even though she'd "freed" me, she knew exactly where the leash was tied.

When I got into my apartment, the silence was deafening. I went straight to the bedroom and caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror. I stripped off my suit jacket and unbuttoned my shirt, revealing the delicate, pink bra Emily had picked out for me. It was absurd. I was in my late 30s, a professional, and I was standing in my bedroom dressed in a bra and panty set. Dressed that way because it looked good, felt good.

I should have taken it off. I should have put on some old boxers and a t-shirt and reclaimed some semblance of traditional masculinity. But instead, I sat on the edge of the bed and checked my phone.

No texts. Of course not. She was at dinner. With a man.

I imagined the scene. The muffled clinking of silverware. The way the candlelight would catch the crossover drape of her dress. I imagined the man across from her, someone bold, someone who didn't bring her coffee and wait in the hallway. Someone who would look at her and see a woman to be conquered, not a goddess to be served.

The jealousy flared up, hot and stinging, but it was quickly dampened by the familiar wave of submission. My first wife used to tell me I was "too easy." She said it like a complaint, but she used it like a tool. When I found out about her cheating on me, when she knew I knew, I remember the way she looked at me when I didn't yell. She looked at me with a mix of disgust and realization. She realized she could do anything, and I would still be there, holding the door open.

Emily hadn't been disgusted. She'd been intrigued. She'd taken that spark of submissiveness and nurtured it, turned it into something aesthetic, something shared. She had turned my weakness into our playground. And even now, with the playground closed, I was still sitting on the swings, waiting for her to come back and give me a push.

I pulled my phone out and sent a single text, "I hope the dinner is going well. You looked incredible."

I didn't expect a reply. I didn't deserve one.

I lay back on the bed, the lace scratching slightly against my skin, and stared at the ceiling. I knew what tomorrow would bring. I would wake up early. I would put on a 'stay soft and small' bra and panty set, maybe black stockings. I'd carefully make coffee, pour it into the thermos she bought for me. I would walk into the office, see her sitting there, perhaps looking a little tired, perhaps with a secret smile on her face from the night before, and I would set the thermos on her desk and pour two cups.

She would say thank you. She would tell me about the dinner in vague, tantalizing details. She would remind me that we're just friends. And I would stay. Because for a boy like me, being the shadow in her life was better than being the sun in anyone else's.

I closed my eyes and let the darkness of the room settle over me, content in my smallness, waiting for the morning when I could be her "good boy" all over again.