This is my submission for the April Fools 2023 competition. If you enjoy it, please give it a good rating!
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My ex-wife was a lying, cheating, gold digging slut.
Some might say that statement lacks nuance. That people are complex. They have desires, dreams, histories, motives, loves and hates. There are reasons that people do the things they do, and reducing them to a short phrase is, well, reductive. And that’s all true. Kim was a person as complex as you or I, with her own wants and needs, with a history that informed who she was and who she wanted to be.
It doesn’t change the fact that she was a lying, cheating, gold digging slut.
When we met in college, I didn’t have any real reason to suspect, other than that she belonged to a particular sorority; that sorority was well known as a popular option for the women, like Kim, who wanted to major in finding a rich husband with a minor in early childhood education. That wasn’t a dealbreaker for me; my mom had been a stay at home mom while my dad built a business, so I was perfectly content to have a spouse that wanted to do the same.
And, let’s be fair: I was in a fraternity. Admittedly, I was only in that frat because I was a legacy, and my membership in it was one of several preconditions my father had for paying for my college, but I still engaged in at least a limited form of the debauchery that one expects of being a member of a fraternity. I was far from a virgin when Kim and I started dating, and I wasn’t a hypocrite, so her having a past was not an issue for me, either.
I accepted, to an extent, that she wanted to marry me for the stability I could provide, even if I was majoring in computer science instead of business as my father and most of my frat brothers did. That didn’t make her a gold digger, in my eyes. And, yeah, she’d fucked other guys, but as long as she was faithful to me, so what? Even if she had been a slut at one point, she wasn’t once we were exclusive.
If you’ve noticed that I’m making a lot of excuses for why I married her, there’s a reason for that. They were the ones I made to myself as I talked myself into getting serious with Kim. Or, more accurately, as our friends and family tried to convince me we were great together, even as a little voice in my head was asking, “Really? Her? She’s nice and all, but…”
When I went home with her for Thanksgiving, after we’d been dating for a semester, I almost heeded that voice and got out. That’s when I met her sister, Cassandra. Kim was, in many ways, the Platonic ideal of “sorority girl:” blonde, big tits, perfect makeup, well-dressed, and undeniably sexy in a “girl next door” sort of way. Former cheerleader. Reasonably smart, but taking care to not make a guy feel threatened by it. And, even when she was being critical, it was always said in the most diplomatic way possible.
Her sister was wildly different, Wednesday Addams all grown up and twice as snarky. Bottle black hair, dressed to distress, piercings and tats, pointedly more intelligent than you. She showed nothing but disdain for me, but I didn’t take it personally; she showed nothing but disdain for everyone, including her mother and sister. Their dad had split a few years before, and Cass had gone with him; this was the last of the court-mandated holidays she had to spend with her mom.
After dinner, she was outside smoking a clove when I decided to get a breath of fresh air. She looked at me with all the interest one might show a mildly interesting bug. “Ken.”
“Uh, it’s Jason.”
She rolled her eyes. “My sister is Malibu Barbie, that makes you her latest Ken. Or maybe not. You seem maybe a little smarter and…” She blew smoke out and away from the porch. “…maybe nicer than the previous models.”
“Ah. Thanks?”
She shrugged. “Whatever. Look, you haven’t hit on me yet, which puts you out in front of the other plastic fucks she’s brought home, so I’m going to give you a bit of advice: she’s a slut. She’s cheated on every single fucking boyfriend she’s ever had. Fair warning.” Then, without another word, she flicked the cigarette into the yard and wandered back in.
Later, Kim and I talked, and she immediately and completely owned up to it. She had been a slut. She had cheated on her boyfriends, but Cassandra hadn’t been around much in a couple of years, and she was angry that Kim took her mom’s side in the divorce. She had changed, really changed, since then, and the breakup of her parents’ marriage and the loss of her sister had been a big catalyst for that. That’s what she told me, at least.
Yes, I ignored Cassandra’s warnings. Yes, my marriage was a disaster. Yes, I’m aware of the irony.
But the thing is, by the time we were married, even Cassandra believed Kim. Cass was two years younger than her sister, but, like I said, way smarter. AP courses in high school, testing out of prerequisites, and a course load that would crush a normal person meant that she graduated only a semester after we did. My frat connections had found me a decent dev gig at a security firm; Cassandra’s connection with me found her an accounting job there.
The three of us spent a decent amount of time together, and when the wedding rolled around, Cass was all smiles, just like I was. She and Kim had reconnected, Kim seemed every bit reformed and the loving, blushing bride I thought I wanted, and I had a new friend at work that I could be nerdy with at lunch.
Because of a trust my mom had set up for me before she passed away, I had a modest house to live in and a small stipend. These, along with my salary, allowed Kim to be a housewife even before we had kids, which meant I was greeted most nights by a clean home, a nice meal, and a sexy wife in barely-there lingerie. Life seemed great.
Then things got weird. Kim got weird.
Six months in, she suddenly really wanted to get started on kids. I wanted kids eventually, but we had both agreed to leave it for a few years, so that we could have the fun of being newlyweds for a while. Her fervor for starting immediately was bizarre, like she was afflicted by a sudden onset case of baby fever.
I held firm, and she relented, or so I thought. But then I found out that she hadn’t been getting her birth control pills refilled. We rowed about that, and I insisted on using condoms, which chilled our bedroom for a week or so. The condoms still pissed her off, but she eventually settled down.
Something just wasn’t right, though. Kim was acting completely out of character from how she had previously; she’d never, as far as I knew, lied to me about anything, and certainly not anything as big as birth control. The little voice started to quietly whisper again, and I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake marrying her.
She was partying more, too, a lot more, and going by herself if I couldn’t make it. This coincided with a stretch of crunch time at my work, so I didn’t initially worry too much. I didn’t want her to be bored and resentful, and I knew she had an active social life both before and after we got together. She was still affectionate with me, and she invited me along, so I wasn’t worried that there was something untoward going on.
But then I had lunch with Cassandra one day; she had been traveling, first for training and then for an on-site client audit, and we hadn’t gotten to hang out since Kim had gone off the rails. She could tell I was troubled. As I related the events of the previous few weeks, her expression grew grimmer and grimmer.
Finally, she sighed, “Ahhh, shit.”
“What?”
Cass pinched the bridge of her nose, briefly displacing her glasses. “My mother. She’s acting like my mother.” Seeing the confusion on my face, she continued. “Kim’s always wanted to be like Mom, for some fucking reason I could never comprehend. Mom basically had nothing to offer the world besides being pretty and a decent cook, and she was so worried that Dad would leave that she got pregnant ASAFP.
“Then, once he was stuck, she cheated on him; or maybe vice versa, maybe she cheated on dad and got pregnant, then convinced him Kim was his. I’ve wondered before if she was actually my sister, and I think Dad did, too, but he never really wanted to know, you know?”
I nodded unhappily. “So you think she’s, what, trying to get knocked up so I won’t leave?”
“Yeah. And maybe– fuck, I hate to say this, because I really thought she’d changed– maybe cheating on you since you’re not giving her what she wants. Then she’ll force an oops with the condom, or maybe sabotage one so it breaks, or whatever.”
My appetite gone, I shoved my food away. “Well, that’s fucking great. So you think she’s just following your mom’s playbook?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, maybe not; maybe she just wants to have a kid with you. She really does seem to love you; I’ve never seen her act like this with anyone else, the way she dotes on you. And maybe her going out to parties is just her blowing off steam. I hope that’s all it is. But… I dunno. Sabotaging her birth control? And going out to parties solo like she’s still some single college chick?”
“She invites me along, though.”
Cassandra’s expression was the definition of dubious. “Yeah, but she knows you have to work, too.”
My phone pinged. “Hang on. It’s her, and… yup, she’s going to a party tonight. Invited me along.”
Cass leaned forward to look. “Ask her where it’s going to be.”
We waited a moment, and Kim responded with an address. Then, You’re not going to be able to make it, right?
We both chewed on that for a moment before I spoke. “Does… does that sound like she’s hoping I can’t make it?”
My sister-in-law scratched the back of her neck, unintentionally dragging her collar open a little to show a hint of the tattoos under her shirt. “Maybe. I dunno, I’m not sure. This is why I hate texting.” I’m pretty sure Cass would have a rotary phone on a landline if she could justify it; she loved that kind of archaic stuff. “Can you swing missing work tonight? Back out of crunch?”
I thought for a moment. “Maybe. But going to the party with her won’t tell me anything.”
“Yeah, but going to the party when she thinks you aren’t going to be there might.”
And so I texted Kim that I was still working crunch; it was both the truth and a misdirection. I was still working crunch, but I was also going to sneak out of work a little early and make it up by coming in early the next day. That was the plan, anyways.
But then I went to the party. It was a raucous affair, and so was the thing that Kim was engaged in when I found her. She’d gone upstairs with a guy that could have been a carbon copy of me; I knew she had a type, and the dude pumping away into my cheating wife’s pussy fit it to a T. I got my phone out, took a few pictures and a short video, and then… nothing.
A part of me felt like I should try to beat the guy up, or shout at Kim, or even cry and throw up, but I felt almost nothing. It’s not like I was stunned or overwhelmed, either. I felt some irritation, a little disappointment, but none of the extreme reactions you hear about, no fury or depression or even nausea. Just a bit sad.
And that’s when it hit me: I don’t think I’d ever actually been in love with Kim. I cared for her, was deeply, deeply in lust with her, but love? No. I married her for a lot of reasons, but they were frankly really dumb ones, and I hadn’t fully realized it until then.
She was conventionally beautiful, seemed like she’d be a great wife, good in bed, and hung on my every word. She was exactly the type of wife a frat bro should go to college looking for, a beautiful, reasonably smart future mother could be replaced when she got a little too old. And she was exactly wrong for me.
My father had told me she was perfect. My brothers, both fraternal and biological, had told me she was perfect. Her sorority sisters and her mother said we were perfect together. And Kim did everything she could to convince me we were. But we weren’t, and I, for the first time, realized how much I’d intentionally muted the little voice in my head, the one that said, “this is neither the life nor the woman for you.”
I was a nerd; a fit, athletic one, but a nerd nonetheless. I always had been, and I was happy that way. I wanted to major in history, for God’s sake, and teach, but I took the easy path of not arguing with my dad so I could get my college paid for. Then I joined his frat, which I didn’t want to do; I’d never liked fraternities, either conceptually or their typical membership.
I took CS instead of business like Dad really wanted, but that was still another compromise that made me closer to who he wanted me to be, rather than who I was. And then I married someone that was like one of his trophy wives, someone he would have been happy with instead of me, because I had surrounded myself with people that thought like him instead of me.
I’d lost myself in college instead of finding myself.
I’m not trying to run my father down, but he’s not me, and I’m not him. I respect him, and I love him, but I don’t want to be him. I’m a lot more like my mom, but I’d always thought that maybe dad had regretted marrying her and decided to course correct later in life. I guess I’d become just like him after all.
I felt disgusted, but less about Kim’s cheating and more about my lack of a spine. What the fuck had I let myself get turned into? The fact that I was sadder and angrier about that than her infidelity told me everything I needed to know.
I didn’t raise a scene at the party. It just didn’t matter enough to bother. I texted her the pictures I’d taken, that we were getting a divorce, to not come home, and that I’d make arrangements so that she could pick up her stuff. Then I went home, moved her things into the guest bedroom– because I was almost certain she’d ignore the directive to not come home– and locked the door to my room before falling, fairly quickly, into a restful sleep. For the first time in a long time, I felt unequivocally like I was moving my life in the right direction.
That lasted a couple of hours before Kim was banging on the bedroom door, begging to be let in, crying, pleading to be given another chance. I just told her to go get some sleep and we’d talk in the morning; I’m pretty sure she laid down next to my bedroom door in the hallway and slept there.
The next morning, I sat her down at the kitchen table and we talked.
“We’re getting a divorce, Kim. That’s going to happen, no matter what.”
Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. “No! I’m sorry, Jason, I’m so sorry, but we can make it work! I’ll do anything to make it work!”
I shook my head. “It’s not… You cheating made me realize there was a problem, but the cheating isn’t the reason we’re getting a divorce. We never should have gotten married, Kim. I’m not in love with you.”
Kim looked at me with a sad, sympathetic expression. “Oh, Jase, I’m so sorry. I hurt you so badly, honey, but you don’t need to lie. I know you love me, and I love you. We’ll get through this, baby.”
“No, Kim. No. It’s… I’m being honest. It’s not about you cheating, it’s that I don’t want to be married to you. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
As if talking to a particularly petulant child, she said, “Baby, I know you’re hurt, but–”
“No, Kim! I’m not, and that’s part of the problem! I just want you gone!”
She crossed her arms, defiant. “Well, I’m not going. We can’t get through this if we’re not together. I’m your wife, and I’m going to stay. We’re going to make this marriage work, Jason.”
So. That’s why I got a restraining order against my wife. Or, at least, the trust got a restraining order against her, to keep her off the premises of my house. The trust’s house. Whatever. She cleared out her stuff a few days later, while I wasn’t there but a sheriff’s deputy was. I couldn’t get a restraining order against her myself, because she hadn’t actually threatened me and the judge didn’t believe she was a danger to me.
That was sort of accurate. Kim wasn’t a physical threat to me, but she just. Would. Not. Give. Up. It was like the Terminator as a chick flick. She was living with a sorority sister, and she had nothing but time on her hands. Within a few days, she was banned from my work, then the parking lot of my work. Then my favorite coffee shop. My gym. Local game store. I kept thinking of that line from Pulp Fiction, that if I went to Indochina, Kim would pop out of a bowl of rice to beg me to take her back.
The texts and calls were endless until I blocked her. None of them were angry, just pleading, even after the restraining order. When I tried to have her served at her friend’s house, she fled out the back. It took four attempts to finally get the papers into her hands.
Then the calls from other numbers started; I don’t know how she learned about IP and phone number spoofing, but it was a tossup whether a junk call would be a message about my car’s warranty expiring or my wife insisting we just needed to sit down and work things out.
She was relentless. I had lunch with Cass and asked her for suggestions, insight, advice, anything to get her sister to just accept the divorce and go away.
“I have no fucking clue. She’s never done this before.”
I laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, that’s just great.”
“Sorry, man. I have no idea–” Cass paused, then slowly said, “Welllll… wait, I have a couple of ideas, actually.”
“Do tell.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “The first is that she does love you, actually loves you, and she just won’t give up because of that. She’s not used to hearing ‘no’ from guys; I remember some of them trying to stay with her even after she cheated. I don’t think she’s ever really been on this end of things, where she’s not ready for the relationship to end.
“So, yeah, maybe she just can’t give you up. That’s possible; I mean, you are really–” She stopped and cleared her throat, then took another sip. “I’d believe it. She’s never had a relationship as long as this one, and maybe she either just can’t say ‘quit,’ or she’s head over heels about you.”
“Ooorrrr?”
Her tongue piercing clicked against her teeth as she thought. “Do you have a prenup with her?”
“Yeah. The details are a little complicated because of the trust, but as of right now, I think she’ll get a few thousand? A little spousal support? Less because she cheated, though.”
“Mmmm. Yeah, there could definitely be something there. I’d need to look at it to be sure, though. Do you have a copy of it?”
“Not with me, obviously. At the house, I think.”
Cass smiled. “Well, I guess you’re making me dinner, then.”
Cassandra showed up at six, still dressed in her corporate goth outfit: mostly black with a white shirt, but something subdued enough to pass for the office. Her makeup was similarly understated– for her, at least– and her long black hair was tied in a ponytail to keep it out of the way.
I made dinner only in the sense that I called the Chinese place and put the dishes out. She poured the wine, and we talked over the meal.
“I spoke with Kim today after lunch.” She swirled the wine in her glass. “I don’t think she’s going to give up. I asked why she cheated, and I think she’s kind of compartmentalized it. It was a ‘bad thing’ that she did, but she’s ‘very sorry,’ in her words, and she’s willing to do anything to get you back. She asked me to talk to you about it, of course. I told her we had been talking about the divorce, but I kind of skirted around the fact that I haven’t exactly been trying to get you two back together.”
I chuckled, but that raised a question in my mind. “Why? Why haven’t you been? She’s your sister.”
Cass took a big gulp of her wine. “Because you deserve better, Jason. Not just the cheating; I honestly don’t know what the hell you ever saw in her.”
“That’s fair, I suppose. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she…” I was about to say that she’d have made a good wife for someone, but she’d cheated on me. Then I almost said that she had good qualities, but other than being hot, socially adept, and fun in bed, I was having trouble listing them.
Cassandra laughed as my mouth opened and closed. “Yeah, my point.” She looked at her glass. “I don’t like saying that. There was a time… honestly, I loved her. I still do, sort of; she’s my sister, y’know? But when she went with Mom after the divorce. I lost a lot of respect for her when she did that, and then it plummeted as I saw that she treated guys like Mom did. Like she just wanted to be Mom’s little Mini-Me.
“And I look at what Mom did to Dad and what Kim tried to do to you, and I just get pissed off. You’re both good men, and neither of you deserved to be cheated on like that. I’m just glad you were able to get out before she really got her hooks into you.”
I gave her a warm smile. “Thanks, Cass. That means a lot. I feel like a real ass for letting it get so far, but… I dunno. She shouldn’t have cheated on me, but we shouldn’t have been together in the first place.”
Her voice was kind as she reassured me, “That’s just how she is. How Mom was too, according to Dad. She’s good at making a guy think they’re the center of her world.” She put her wine glass down and watched me closely. “Let’s see if this sounds familiar: you mentioned something that you liked when you were dating, and she didn’t seem to know much about it then, but she listened quietly as you talked. And then, within a couple of weeks, she could hold a reasonable but shallow conversation on it. And she did that over and over again, right?”
With a slow nod, I agreed, “Yeah. But, I mean, I do that, too. Try to learn about the things a girlfriend likes if I don’t already know something about them.”
“Yeah, but why do you do it? Because it’s something they care about, and you care about them right? You want to learn about a thing that they like because they like it, and you want to understand them better. And maybe you learn enough about it to find out that you like it, too.”
She shook her head. “When we were younger, Kim did it because she wanted to keep a guy’s attention. I’ve never once seen her actually give a shit about anything she’s learned longer than it was necessary to convince a guy that she was taking an interest in it. It’s never been genuine, as far as I can tell. I had hoped she’d changed, but I guess not.”
As we ate, I thought back through my relationship with Kim, and I definitely saw some things that, in retrospect, should have raised red flags. Would have, if I hadn’t been listening to the people around me. Of course, now I was listening to Cass, but she’d never presented herself as anything but what she was; at least I didn’t think she had.
I thought Cassandra might have a crush on me, and I kept that in mind as I looked back at how she and I had interacted, but it never seemed to be the primary reason for how she treated me or talked to me. She could be snarky or sweet, standoffish or friendly, but I never felt like she was steering me towards her own ends.
Even when things were at their best with Kim, I felt like she was hiding something; I didn’t think she was hiding anything big back then, but the sense was always there. A lot of the other girls in her sorority were like that, too, and the frat boys just kind of put up with it for various reasons, most of them involving naked sorority girls. I went along to get along. I wasn’t doing that anymore; I needed to trust my own judgment again, and that was going to start with Cass. I trusted her, too.
After dinner, we sat with the prenup and she made little “hmm” and “huh noises as she read. Finally, she made a little triumphant noise. “Child support!”
“You think she’s trying to get child support out of me?”
“Yeah. I mean, if she’s being conniving and not just trying to get back with you, that could be why the sudden drive for babies.” She pointed to a bunch of various clauses. “You’ve got stuff in here for spousal support, the items in the trust, infidelity clauses, a bunch of things. But there’s nothing in here about child support.
“I’m not a lawyer, but even with infidelity, I bet she could claim to be the primary caregiver and get you on the hook for a pretty hefty chunk. And that wouldn’t go away if she remarried.” She smiled at me. “And you’re a decent guy. I imagine, if you hadn’t caught her cheating, you would give the mother of your child a little more wiggle room if she decided she wanted a no-fault divorce later.”
I sighed. “I swear to God. I just want to be done with this bullshit.”
“Buck up, Jason. She can only drag her feet for so long.”
That was true, but “so long” turned out to be much longer than I’d anticipated. She would request meetings and fail to show up. She insisted on counseling, then dithered on the counselor; the judge we were assigned was big on reconciliation, so she gave Kim leniency there. I had no idea where she was getting the money to pay for the lawyer at first, but Cass suggested that maybe she was taking it out in trade.
Kim kept amping up the harassment, too. First, she got other people involved. Our friends texted me and dropped by. Her family did, too. Kim’s sorority sisters really got into it, with a fair number even suggesting that if I got back with her they would be happy to help me get even first, with Kim’s approval. And my frat brothers, some of them, came by unannounced; most were on her side, but a few let me know that she’d tried to seduce them so that they’d try to bring me back into the fold. I guess there was still some fraternal solidarity left out there.
I switched phone numbers and only gave the new number out to trusted folks, so that helped a little, but that still left in-person visits. I knew it was just a matter of biding my time, but I was so fucking sick of hearing her name that I wanted to scream.
Through it all, I had a few loyal companions: a handful of folks from high school and college, my brothers, my father, and Cass. It would have been easy for her to side with Kim, or even to just step aside, but instead our friendship grew over the months of my divorce. She understood my frustration; I think hers might have been even greater than mine in some ways, due to her disappointment in her sister.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start to have feelings for Cassandra. She was sarcastic as hell, and I was often on the receiving end of her wit, but it never felt mean spirited. I started to go over to her place to escape the Disciples of Kim that kept knocking on my door and asking if I’d heard the good word about reconciliation.
Cass was a study in contrasts. She was a true blue– or black, I suppose– goth, but she had some pretty old-fashioned notions on fidelity and propriety. During a long, drunken conversation on the subject, I learned that she was only interested in long term relationships. She’d had two boyfriends and a disastrous one night stand in between that convinced her that they weren’t for her. As she had put it right before passing out, “I’m kinky as fuck, but I’m not a slut. Nothing against sluts, though, ’cause some of my best friends are sluts.”
She dragged me out to go clubbing sometimes, trying to get me both out of the house and out of my head, and I’d seen her in everything from Victorian finery to skintight PVC. But she rarely bared actual skin; the most immodest thing I saw her wear was a one piece swimsuit when we went swimming at a nighttime pool party. She was heavily tattooed, all her own designs, with full sleeves and thigh pieces. They were beautiful, intricate works of art that I loved to look at.
Her torso was heavily inked as well, but I never got to see much of it. When I asked about those pieces, she got a little shy. “That’s… I don’t want to be a famous artist or anything. I just want to make my art and make a living as an accountant so that I don’t have to worry about starving. And some of my stuff, well, I don’t mind if people see it. That’s the stuff on my arms or legs or hanging on my walls.
“But the other…” She smiled bashfully. “I don’t want to share them with just anyone. They’re for the people that I want to really know me, all of me.” Then she laughed. “Well, that and my tattoo artist. Can’t avoid that, really.”
When I was with her, I enjoyed my life again, really enjoyed it in a way I hadn’t in a while. She had done in college what I should have, exploring who she was and who she wanted to be, trying different things on and letting them go when they didn’t work, until she got herself on steady footing. I was envious of that, even if it had left her with a pretty sizable amount of student loan debt.
We were sitting on her couch one night, watching a movie, when I realized that we weren’t just sitting together, or even sitting close to each other. We were cuddling. I don’t know how it happened, but she was leaned against me, her head resting on my chest and my arm around her, and I felt really, truly, completely content for the first time since this whole thing had begun.
I stiffened for a moment, worrying that I was making a mistake. I didn’t want to get into some kind of rebound thing with Cass; I really did like her. I might have even been falling in love with her. But I was still a little gunshy about who I really was and who I wanted to be, and I didn’t want to fuck anything up, including our friendship.
She squished up against me, hugged me tight, and patted my leg, as if she knew what I was thinking and was trying to reassure me. Telling me without speaking that it would be what it would be, and we’d be fine either way. I settled again, kissed the top of her head affectionately, and we ended up falling asleep there together. It was the best sleep I’d had in half a year, even if I did have a crick in my neck the next morning.
Things were a little lowkey between us over the next week; our lunches were still pleasant, and we were still friendly, but I think she was waiting for me to make a real move.
And then my divorce finally came through. All the stall tactics that Kim had tried couldn’t entirely slow the inexorable crushing advance of the court system. I had a paper in my hand that said I was free, and I wanted to celebrate.
An opportunity presented itself that weekend, an invitation by a friend from college to a party. I was concerned at first, but neither he nor his girlfriend had been part of the Campus Crusade for Kim, so I tentatively told him I was going to go and asked if I could bring a plus one.
“So… a date?” Cass’s mouth quirked up when I asked her.
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes. If you want. I don’t want to put any pressure on you or screw things up between us or mmmf!” Her arms went around my neck and her lips on mine in a sweet, long, closemouthed kiss.
“Pick me up at 8?”
Cassandra was ready on time, dressed in a blood red choker, black minidress, biker jacket, and a pair of heavy boots with enough buckles, studs, and zippers to make a Cenobite proud. Her jet black hair was hanging loose down her back, and red lipstick and cat eye mascara with an eye of Horus accent finished the look. She gave me a little peck on the cheek as she greeted me, and we were on our way.
The party was bigger than I had expected, as was the house. It took me a little time to find my friend, who laughed when I told him the divorce had gone through and shouted, “Welcome back to the land of the living!” I introduced him to Cassandra, leaving out how we had met, and she and I made our way through the party.
Cass was out of her element; dancing in a club where the regulars have become friends is one thing, but a party full of strangers is another, especially when you don’t really fit in with the aesthetic or personalities. I still fit in with the aesthetic, but I realized how little I had in common with most of these folks now, so I could sympathize.
We found a quiet corner and decided to head out early. She went to use the restroom while I made the rounds and said goodbye. And that’s when I ran into Kim.
The thing I had forgotten about the parties in college was that it didn’t matter who had been invited and who hadn’t, and my friend was still in that college mindset. He had invited me because he wanted to make sure I showed up, but I hadn’t realized the invite list wasn’t exclusive, but inclusive; anyone that heard about it could and did show up.
“Jason!” She hugged me before I could stop her. “I’m glad to see you’re doing well. I really am sorry about everything, even the way I acted after…” She bit her lip. “I know that wasn’t fair. I should have given you your space, but I just loved you and missed you so much. I should have been more mature and realized you needed your freedom.”
“Uh… thanks? I’m glad you’re doing well, too.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m not. Not really. But I know…” Kim sighed. “I know this is something we have to do. Please, go and find someone to get it out of your system. I’m going to stay faithful while we’re apart, and I’m going to go to therapy. Next time around, I’ll be exactly who you need me to be.”
“… What?”
Kim sniffled. “It’ll hurt, but I know we’ll be together again. I’ll check in on you every once in a while and see when you’re ready to get back together.” I dodged the kiss on the cheek, and she waved goodbye as she melted into the crowd.
What the actual fuck.
Cass found me standing in the same spot, shellshocked. She led me outside to a couple of lawnchairs, and I related the meeting with her sister, her eyes growing wider with each line of the exchange.
“What that actual fuck?!”
I nodded. “She’s going to keep coming back if I don’t put a stop to this right now. I need her the fuck out of my life once and for all, and apparently a divorce isn’t enough.”
She slowly nodded. “Okay. Okay.” A resolute look appeared on her face as she turned fully towards me. “I know what we have to do. Jason, do you trust me?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
Cass smiled and touched my cheek, then kissed me softly. “Is this… are we going to be a thing? Like a real, actually, trying-to-be-long-term thing? Do you want us to be?” I kissed her back in answer, and she giggled. “Okay, then, come on.”
She pulled me back into the house, up the stairs, and found an empty bedroom. “I’ll be right back.” I opened my mouth to ask a question, but she just kissed me again, then exited the room, that delightful little giggle the only sound she made.
I waited for about ten minutes before I was ready to go looking for her, but I told her I’d trust her. Five minutes after that, she came into the room, giddy and amped up. She shrugged her jacket off, revealing her inked, toned arms. “Okay, we’ve got about fifteen minutes. Get undressed.”
“Wait, what?”
Her hands were at the back of her choker, working at the fastener. “In a little bit, Kim’s going to come through that door. I told her that I came with you, and that you told me that you wanted to talk with her about the two of you. Resolve things with her. And that’s, ha, that’s true, but just not how she thinks.”
I stood as the choker came off, and she continued, “So I figure the best way to show her it’s over is to really, really show her you’ve moved on. When she opens that door, you’re going to be balls deep in your new girlfriend.” She reached for the hem of her minidress.
This was one of the best ideas I’d ever heard.
No. No. This was one of the worst ideas I’d ever heard.
“No.” My voice was clear and commanding. She paused. “No, we’re not doing that.” I crossed the few steps to her and took her hands.
“But I thought you wanted to–” She looked both hesitant and relieved.
“I do. God, I do. But not– not like this. Our first time together… it should be about us. You and me, not her. She doesn’t matter anymore to me, at all. Even as a nuisance. I’ll deal with that. But I’m not…” I kissed her, pulling her to me and holding her tight. “I’m not going to taint this. This is good, us being together is good, and I want it to stay that way.”
We sat on the bed together, cuddling and kissing for a little bit, before she broke away. “I just wanted to… I lo– care about you so much, and I just wanted her out of your– out of our lives.”
“I love you, too.” Her smile could have lit up the surface of the moon. “But I…” A devilish grin spread across my lips. “I want to see you, all of you, when it’s just us. I want to be the last person to see you naked.” I chuckled, “Well, other than your tattoo artist. Can’t avoid that, really.” Cassandra snorted. “It’s… that’s something special. Something you’ve held yourself to, kept as an intimate thing just for yourself and the people you love. And I want to… to honor that. To not dishonor it or you by asking you to–”
Her voice was insistent and a little angry. “You didn’t ask! I would have done it for you. For us!”
My hand brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “I know you would have, Cass. And I love that. But what I’m saying is that I don’t want you to.” Then, with a happy grin, she pulled me down onto the bed and we made out, taking brief breaks to discuss the new plan, until we heard a knock on the door.
Our hair was mussed. Cassandra’s lipstick was smeared, and I’m sure I had some of it on my face. That lovely, nearly translucent pale skin of hers was flushed, and I couldn’t wait to see how far the flush continued down her neck and beyond. But that would have to wait. We sat up, and I called out, “Come in!”
The door swung open, and Kim’s face went through about a dozen emotions in a moment, finally settling on a sort of angry confusion. “What is– Why are–”
I took Cass’s hand in mine. “I’m sorry, Kim, I wanted to tell you another way, but this is as good a time as any. Cassandra and I…” I brought it to my mouth and kissed it. “We’re in love. We hadn’t planned to move quite as quickly as this, but the truth is that we’re engaged. I haven’t had time to get her a ring yet, but I know you have good taste. Maybe you can help suggest something?”
“W- W- W- What?!”
Shaking my head, I said, “I’m sorry, I know that’s a lot to ask. But we need to get married pretty soon. You see, Cass is pregnant. You’re going to be an aunt!”
My ex-wife froze. Her face went blank, like she was having a total system reboot. Then she shrieked, “You. Fucking! BIIIIIITCH!” I swear to God, I thought her jaw was going to unhinge like a snake’s with that last word. She surged forward, clearly intent on doing physical harm to one or both of us.
I stood up between her and Cass, grabbing her arm as she tried to rake one of her claws across my face. “Get the fuck out of my life, Kim.”
Cass peeked out from behind me. “Yeah. Sorry, sis, but he’s my meal ticket now.”
Kim’s eyes went back and forth between us, and she yelled, “Four years! Four years I was with this fucking loser, you slut! He’s mine! I spent hours listening to him talk about those stupid movies! And do you know how much shit I had to read about the Hundred Years’ War? Who has a fucking war for a hundred years?!”
Cass smirked, “England and France. I was never a history buff, but my man really got me turned onto it. It’s interesting stuff! I can’t wait to watch him teach our kids about it.”
That was it. Finally, I saw it in the beast’s eyes. She was unmasked and defeated. I released her hand and she drew back and away from me. “Fucking assholes. You deserve each other.” Then she flounced her ass out of the bedroom, slamming it behind her. Cass and I erupted into laughter.
Later, back at my house, we sat and cuddled together on the couch, content with our final and total victory in the War on Kim. Cassandra chuckled, “So, how do you think she’s going to react when she realizes we’re neither engaged nor expecting a child?”
“Oh, poorly, I suspect. But I also don’t really give a damn. I’m more worried that…” I kissed the top of her head. “Everyone in her family, just about, seemed to be on her side. Most of my former friends, too, but I don’t really care about them. I don’t want to be the reason that–”
Cass quickly interrupted. “I don’t give a shit about the family that sided with Kim. My Dad didn’t, his family didn’t, a couple of my saner cousins didn’t. Anyone that did is either as bad as her or too stupid to want to deal with.”
“Still…”
“No, not ‘still.’ I love you, Jason. She didn’t, and I don’t think she ever did. She just turned out to be really good at faking it. And if my family or our friends have a problem with me loving you the way you deserve? Fuck them. We don’t need them in our lives. I’ve got what I need right here, and I don’t give a shit about them.” She stood and put her hand out to me. “Now come on.”
In the bedroom, she pushed me into a chair, a wild light dancing in her eyes as her slender body danced for me. It was teasing and seductive: a slow swaying of hips, a gentle touch of hands on her thighs as she toyed with the hem of her minidress. “I’ve wanted to do this for months.” Her jacket had been abandoned on the floor, and now the dress went over her head and joined it.
I gawped at the splendor before me. She hadn’t worn panties, so all that remained was her choker and glasses. Her slight frame was fully exposed to me: that beautifully pale skin; her tiny beesting tits and their hard pink nipples pierced by stainless steel rings; a completely hairless pussy, with the most delicate, tantalizing lips I could imagine; another glint of metal between her legs, the first hint of what I would soon learn was another ring piercing her clit hood.
These alone would have been enough for me to want to immediately push her onto the bed and ravish her for the rest of the night and well into the morning, knowing myself to be the luckiest man on Earth. But what made me pause, what most overwhelmed me, was the art that was most intimate to her, in both senses of the words, the hidden masterpiece that adorned her body.
I won’t describe it in its glory; it was hers, and private to her. I was honored to see it, and honored, as I had hoped, to be the last man to ever see it. But I will say that it was exquisite, a mix of art styles that could have easily clashed but instead came together into one single, perfect whole. She was like a medieval tapestry or an illuminated text, beautiful both at first glance and as one examined the detail. I could have looked at her for days.
There were a few bare spots in amongst the art, places that she had clearly left intentionally blank for reasons that were sometimes obvious and other times obscure; but what I realized quickly was that they were reserved for documenting her future.
Cassandra’s smirk slowly disappeared, her bravado replaced with an uncertainty that pained me. She opened her mouth to speak, but I stepped into the silence and said, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Cass.” I stood and kissed her, and her body molded itself to mine. It was not a gentle kiss; my tongue probed deeply into her mouth, and she devoured me in kind. My hands grabbed her ass and picked her up, carrying her to the bed before almost flinging her onto it.
She laughed as she bounced, but the laugh was cut short by a gasp as I knelt between her legs and began to suck and lick hungrily at that perfect bald pussy. My sexy little goth girl moaned at the way my tongue flicked both across her clit and her piercing, doubling the stimulation that she felt.
For a woman normally so talkative, her voice now only made sighs and whimpers. I pushed two fingers between her labia, inside of her tight, wet snatch, and she let out a low, needful groan. Then I found what I was looking for, the small raised bit of flesh inside, and hooked my fingers to press on it as my tongue lashed rapidly across her clit. Already close to orgasm, she howled with need as it took her, and then as she squirted into my mouth, crying and begging for more.
As Cassandra came down, panting, I raised my face from between her thighs and smiled. It was absolutely drenched in her juices, and she sounded slightly chagrined as she said, “I’m sorry, that’s– hnh– that’s never happened before.”
I just laughed and gave one last slow, deliberate lick to her slit. “Better get used to it.”
Her adorable giggle turned into a sultrier chuckle as she said, “Get those clothes off, Jase. Let me see you now.”
Cass reclined on her elbows, one leg up on the bed and one hanging over the edge, bare sex lewdly on display for me. She idly toyed with her nipple piercings as she watched me undress, biting her lip in anticipation. There was an appreciative noise when my shirt came off; I hadn’t gotten to the gym as much as I’d meant to recently, so that stroked my ego nicely.
But it was when my pants came off, and more specifically my briefs, that her eyes went wide with shock, followed by a gleefully horny expression. “Jesus Christ! Kim may have been Malibu Barbie, but you sure as fuck ain’t a Ken doll!” Cass’s hand slid down to her pussy, almost without intention, and she lightly fingered herself as I approached the bed. “It’s, um, it’s been a while, handsome. And never with someone so, ah, gifted.”
In a reassuring tone, I told her, “I’ll be gentle.”
She tugged at a nipple piercing and chided me. “Baby, do I look like the kind of girl that wants to be fucked gently? Just gimme a minute to get adjusted, and then I want you to fucking ruin me with that thing.”
I laughed as she clambered up the bed a bit, then kneeled between her legs. Cassandra’s eyes never wavered from mine as I placed the head of my cock at her entrance, but then they dipped to look at it once more. She giggled, “I feel like I won the dick lottery!”
A voice in the back of my head told me not to say it, but the urge was nigh-irresistible. “So you’re saying you wanna Powerball?”
The disgust on her face was something to see, part mock and part real. She finally grumbled, “Are you trying to get kicked out of this bed?”
My hand reached for her breast, hooking the nipple ring on one finger and tugging, forcing a little moan from her throat. “It’s my bed, Cass, and you put yourself in it.” I twisted it just a fraction, and she moaned louder. My glans pressed into her, and she grunted as I stretched that sweet little hole as it hadn’t ever been before. “Whose woman are you, beautiful?”
She gasped, “Yours!” as I slowly, steadily fed her tight, hungry cunt what it needed. “Oh god, Jason, oh fuck! It’s so big, so fucking big!” I eased my assault, not sure if that desperation in her voice was desire or discomfort, but then her legs crossed around my back, and I gave her my full length, plunging deeper into her than any other man ever had or ever would. “Oh, Jesus! God, Jason, I love it! I love you!”
Cass clung to me, arms and legs wrapped tightly around my body as I began to move in and out, steadily and slowly at first, then with long, almost punishing strokes. Her nails drew blood from my back, and I reveled in the painful, stinging manifestation of her lust. “What do you want, Cass?”
“Harder! Fuck me like a whore, Jase! Like your perfect little whore!” She bit me, nipping at my neck, whining and cursing as I ravaged her newly, roughly stretched hole. Then she was still and silent suddenly, her cunt fluttering around my cock and her heart hammering against mine the only motion I could feel in her body. Cassandra almost screamed in my ear, a long, loud wordless shout of triumph as she came around my dick, the one that was hers now and hers alone.
I felt more than heard a single, solitary sob as she relinquished her grip on my back, body exhausted for the moment. “Cass?” I went up on my elbows, worried I’d hurt her, really hurt her.
Her blissed out expression told me that nothing could be further from the truth. She giggled, “Yours.” Another little giggle, “Fuck yes, yours.” Those sweet lips kissed mine as she summoned the strength that she could to lean up, then she flopped back down onto the bed. “Goddamn, Jase. God fucking damn.” Cass looked up at me with concern. “You didn’t come yet. Are you–”
I flipped her onto her stomach, bringing about a sudden, wicked laugh from her, then chuckled in her ear, “Just wanted to take it easy on you at first, yeah?”
My gorgeous gothic whore groaned, “Oh god, don’t tell me that was ‘taking it easy.’ You’re gonna fucking kill me, lover.”
She was still too noodle-limbed to go on her hands and knees, but that was okay; I pulled her up on her knees anyways, leaving her face pressed against the mattress. As I entered her again, I moaned, “God, you’re so fucking tight, Cass. You’re perfect.”
My joking aside, this was the slow and easy time, letting her regain her strength a bit, and giving me time to focus on how good she made me feel. It was still fucking, still not gentle, but also not without tenderness. Little happy sighs were Cass’s nonverbal vocabulary now, not the whimpers and desperate cries of our previous rutting. “Love that dick, Jase. My dick. All mine now, handsome.” She giggled dreamily, ” Cut a bitch if she gets near it.”
I laughed and picked up the pace. “Better give it to you good, then.” Cass pushed herself up to all fours, then reached back to place one hand on my hip as I fucked her, nudging my trajectory slightly now and then.
On a hunch, I wetted my thumb in my mouth, then placed it against the tight pucker between her cheeks. A new expression, more like a purr than anything else, entered Cass’s lexicon of sounds; I interpreted it correctly, pressing inwards until my thumb was deeply embedded in her. “Better– ah, fuck— better not get any ideas, Jase.”
“Too late.”
“L- later. You’re too– too big. Need to pre- prepare first.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “But soon, baby. Soon, I promise. I want to be all yours, every part of me.” That was enough for me, more than enough. Those beautiful eyes, the way they looked at me with love and devotion– not submission, not exactly, because I couldn’t fathom Cass truly submitting to anyone– but a need to be mine, and a need that I be hers.
“Gonna– fuck, Cass, I’m gonna cum!” That look of love had driven me over the edge.
The hand that had guided my hip pulled me tight to her, nails digging into my flesh. “In me, please! In me, lover!” She hadn’t even finished her sentence when I erupted, balls tightening and unleashing a load of molten heat against her cervix as she came for the third time that night.
Afterwards, we lay together, gasping and panting, spooned on the half-bare mattress; somewhere in our frenzied fucking, we’d dislodged all of the bedsheets.Her long hair tickled my nose, but I pushed it to the side and kissed her neck, and she pressed herself back against me. “I love you, Cass. I love you so much, baby.”
She sighed with contentment, quietly basking in the post-orgasmic haze. “Mmmm, me too, Jase. God, this is… you’re so fucking scrumptious.” Her head turned slightly, and I pushed myself up on one arm to give her a lingering, loving kiss before laying back down again.
We were quiet then for a while. I was lost in thought, and I’m sure she was as well, but we were also just enjoying each others’ company and bodies, and exulting in the pleasant low-key happiness of our first post-sex cuddle. Then I felt her body tense just a little. “Cass?”
Her hand pulled my arm a little tighter around her. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“A lotta shit.” She snorted. “First, how happy I was. This is way more… like, just way, way more than I ever expected. You know, I’ve had a little crush on you for a long time; I wasn’t, like, in love or anything, but I always thought you were cute and sweet and just completely wasted on her. And then, when we got to be friends, that crush got a little bigger. And then you kicked her out…”
A little chuckle. “I tried to not look at it as an opportunity, because I wanted to be a good friend, but, well…” She patted my thigh. “We can see where that ended up. I fell in love with you somewhere in there, and I’m so glad it was mutual.
“And I was… I honestly felt so loved when you told me that you wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to at the party, and why. I felt really… really seen, I guess, for the first time. When I knew that you understood how important… ” She shook her head. “I just– God, I love you so much.” I hugged her tightly.
“But then, that got me to thinking about Kim. And I just felt sad. Sad about her, about what a fucking trainwreck she is. About what she did to you, how… as much as I love this, us being together, I hate that she did that to you. I hate that…”
Cass grew quiet for a moment, then softly spoke. “You are everything, on paper, that she should want. A hot, sweet, guy that can fuck like nobody’s business and still provide for a wife and family. Like, you’re a complete jackpot– don’t you dare make another Powerball joke– and it still wasn’t enough. Nothing’s ever going to be enough for her. She’s never going to be happy.
“And– and she’s a bitch now, but she’s my sister. I used to love her so much, and I just…” She sighed. “I wish things could have been different for her. And that made me wish things could have been different for us. I wish… I wish I had met you before she did.”
I chewed on that a little bit, then slowly said, “I don’t think we would have worked out if you had.” A little kiss on the back of her head quieted her almost-protestation. “I wasn’t in a place where I could have let myself love you. I was… I think you would have really disliked me. The last few months have taught me a lot about myself and who I was, and I don’t like the old me very much. I wish I hadn’t married Kim, for a lot of reasons.
“But I think… I think maybe I needed to find out who I didn’t want to be before I could figure out who I did, you know?” Another affectionate kiss. “And we’re here now, together. However we got here, as much as it sucked, I wouldn’t want to change that.” She nestled closer to me, and I gave her a squeeze.
We snuggled up together for a few more minutes, but then I felt myself stir against her, and we didn’t speak for a long time after that. Cass may have preferred a nice hard fuck, but I learned that she also enjoyed a nice, slow, languid lovemaking session. I pressed into her from behind and slowly took my lover again, hands cupping those tiny little tits and playing with her jewelry as she pushed back against me, taking my length into her welcoming pussy over and over again. She came again on my prick, and then one more time before I emptied myself into her and we drifted off to sleep, enraptured with each other as only new lovers can be.
The blank places on her stomach and chest, on the intimate places that she showed only to me, were filled over the years. Over her heart went our initials and a date when we were married. Other spots were filled with the names of our children. As she aged, and as she bore my sons and daughter, her body changed, adding texture and wrinkles to the art, remaking it anew. I watched as the tapestry of our lives together took shape on her skin.
When she would sleep, I would gaze in wonder at her beauty, both her art and just her. And sometimes she would wake as I stared, and she would invite me into her arms, and we would renew the love that had started to form when we were just kids, stumbling in the dark towards ourselves.