Mania

“I don’t know what to do anymore?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, peering over the rim of his glasses, looking at his wife.

“You don’t talk to me anymore. I can’t keep guessing what you want without you saying a word. I can't read your mind,” she stated quite calmly standing before her husband. “It shouldn’t be this way. How could you just sit there when our marriage is in shambles!” He paused, his gaze so completely and irrevocably confused. Then the slew of questions proceeded: “What do you mean? Shambles…What’s going on? Are you alright? Did something happen to the kids? Why are you yelling…” he continued with the questions, however, at the sudden attention the woman began to weep, her emotions were shocking and pulled her down with them.

“Maria, Maria!” The man shouted grabbing hold of his sinking wife. After twenty-five years of marriage he’d seen his wife loose control of her emotions multiple times. “Here we go again with the dramatic. Are you off your medication again-!”

“Everything!” she shouted, tired of his voice, she wanted the answers not more questions.

“…everything is wrong…we are supposed to be a unit, but ever since Lucas left the house for school, I’ve been feeling like a half of a whole. And this house. This empty house keeps on getting filled with voices. With questions attached to them and they swirl around me. Forever. Even when you get home, you’re not really home. Walking in here smelling like lavender and sex… and you own nothing with lavender in it. Trust me, I’ve checked. So, when you get home smelling like an entirely different person -- wearing the scent like one of your custom suits -- and ignore my presence entirely, the loneliness only increases, more so than if I were the only breathing person in this house.”

She told him while staring at the hardwood floor as if the subtle wood engraving would lead to a river deep inside it. She focused on the wood, so she didn’t have to feel her husbands grip around her slowly, but surely loosen as she voiced her complaints and fears. She searched for the river so that she could drown herself. Searched so she wouldn’t have to know the panic her husband felt as he realized she knew about the affair. The continued affair that had been in progress since the birth of the second out of the five son’s, all she born to him. The gifts she gave him for loving her.

She prayed for the river to sweep beneath her and swallow everything in its path. But it didn’t. For the voices had done their job, the river was not necessary. His overwhelming silence made her peak through her graying locks, and his expression of guilt was clear as the morning sunrise in the desert. She knew now, that he still cared, and that’s all that mattered. She knew, now, what needed to be done.

Slowly standing to her feet, she walked over to the closet. Her husband sat on the sofa, glasses hanging in between his fingers, as he raked his soft gray hair. She opened the door with her left hand. Grabbed the riding crop on the immaculate costume shelf with her right aged hand. Then took hold of the naked girl by the collar of duck tape wrapped around her shoulders with her left hand and dragged her into the living room.

“What in God’s green- Ruby?” the man said reaching for the semi-conscious woman on the floor. Stripped naked on the floor, while the gray tape caged the woman's limbs, spiraling around her body. After a moment, the woman awoke from her trance-like-state and began to stir, slowly fluttered her eyes open.

Caressing the side of the encaged woman he continued, “Maria, what have you-”

“Shut up Henry!” Maria shouted as she slapped the tip of the crop against his cheek, causing him to flinch while he knelt by his paramour. Immediately, the man raised his arms, hands were palm forward. An understanding ran through his mind -- his wife has gone back to her old ways, before the child stole all her attention. A shiver of excitement ran through his spine as flashes of the past grazed his conscious mind.

Suddenly, on the floor, the woman began to worm her way to Maria’s soft and delicate feet. Once there she begun to rub the sides of her cheeks and throat on the tops of Maria’s lightly aged feet.

“…Ruby…what are you doing?” The man asked again completely taken aback by her reaction. He had seen her that Thursday. She’d taken Friday off to go meet with her sister whom she hadn’t seen in some time. He had not seen her since then. Sunday, later that evening he had made plans to drive over to her house to wake up from his sleepy weekend with his wife.

“She’s greeting her Mistress, of course.”

“…Mistress…what have you done?”

“Well, since, practically our whole marriage has included this woman. I thought it was only fair that I got to play with her as well…since we share everything,” she said dryly and dropped the riding crop onto the couch, then reaching behind the seat Maria grabbed hold of something and pulled it out. The woman on the floor began to tremble and pant, as she saw the instrument, and tried her best to open her body up to her Mistress.

“What a good pet. You really like it when I use this,” Maria said while trickling the tails of the flogger down the flushed woman’s body. Ruby’s toes curled, and her entire body vibrated a deep red, living up to her name.

“See. She can be obedient, why can’t you,” she stated calmly her previous panicked emotions completely wiped from her visage. “I know it’s been a long time since we've played, but don’t worry love, I'll break you in gently. If you're good and behave, it won't hurt too much....”