Romance Bullshit

Money got tight so I shifted our household budget. Hubby works security now, and for the first time in years I stayed home more. I don’t do idle, so I hit the public library and started ticking off the classics I’d always skipped—Tolstoi, Dickens, whatever people name-drop. One afternoon, wedged between Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, some pink-spined trash caught my eye. The woman returning it had been whispering to the librarian, and I leaned in like a thief. Got it home, wrapped the cover in newspaper so the kids wouldn’t see the heaving tits and half-open mouths on the jacket, then read the filthiest pages the second the house emptied out. One hand on the book, the other buried between my legs. Came hard. Next day I grabbed three more. Mornings blurred—masturbate, vacuum, masturbate, cook, masturbate again. On the couch, the kitchen table, my marital bed. Eventually I stopped being shy and tried the shower head; bought a couple of those hot-and-cold lubes I used to peddle to newlyweds and went at myself like a kid who just discovered porn. Late forties, acting like a teenager. Was I losing it? Or was I finally figuring out what I wanted? The dirty stories made me hungrier for my husband, but they also planted this itch: would I actually take a lover? My secret shame is these stupid, badly written romance novels. I know they’re trash, know the sex is make-believe, but I can’t quit. Now I’ve landed a new job and I’ll need a new hiding spot—maybe the library bathroom stall—to keep getting off.