“You must have a huge collection,” I say, watching her. She’s drawn into a ball. Everything about her body language is projecting pain. Is she ashamed of being poor? Of not having enough money to buy books? Or is it something else?
She shakes her head. “Just the EQ. I had more, but, um, my mother got rid of them. I took the EQ with me to college, so she missed those.”
“She threw out your comic collection?” I ask, trying to keep my tone neutral. I don’t want Emily to think I’m criticizing her mother, particularly since she’s told me the woman has dementia.
Emily nods. “She’d kill herself if she knew how much some of those are worth now. I mean, I didn’t have any Action Comics or anything, but I loved Batman, so I had a really good collection of Dark Knight, and once the owner of the bookstore realized I was collecting, he sold me an entire box of New Mutants from the eighties for a month’s worth of babysitting money. That was when Chris Claremont was writing. Some of those have become crazy valuable. I loved my comics so I took good care of them. I made myself sick a while back looking up their values. One of the X-Men I had sold for four hundred dollars. I figured she threw away over five thousand in comics.”
“Fuck, baby doll.”
She shrugs and when I hold my arm out for her again, tucks herself against my side. “She didn’t know.”
If she was in her right mind, she knew she was destroying part of her daughter’s childhood, whether or not she knew the material value attached to it.
“Was this when she got sick?” I ask gently.
“No, it was before that, when I split up from my ex. I, uh, I didn’t have anywhere to go so I asked if I could move back in with her. Just for a couple of weeks until I found my own place. She told me I needed to grow up, go back to my husband, and make the best of my marriage. She threw out everything I’d left at home. All my clothes, my books, my comics, to make her point.”
I control my reaction tightly and stroke her hair. “Did you?”
“Go back to the man who gave me an STI? No, I did not. My college roommate, Gracie, and her husband let me crash on their couch until I found an apartment.”
Oh, fuck. “That’s why you left your husband?”
She nods against my shoulder. “I’d been bleeding on and off for weeks. I thought I had cancer. When the doctor told me it was chlamydia, I almost wished it had been.”
“No, sweetheart.” I stroke her hair.
“No, I don’t mean that. It’s just that cancer, you know, it would have been something wrong with me, instead of something wrong with my marriage. I could have dealt with it. Chlamydia, I couldn’t deal with.”
“So, he cheated on you?”
What am I doing with the stupid questions tonight? I know how to interview people without sticking my foot in my mouth. I’m still rattled, and seriously off my game.
She doesn’t seem phased by my stupidity. “He said it was only the one time, but I knew when it started and it was years before. Our sex life was never very good. Ash was the first guy I was with and I guess I just accepted that sex was a non-event for me.”
A non-event? For the woman who just had two howling orgasms on the rug we’re now sitting on? Could her husband not be bothered to learn what aroused her?
“After a couple of years,” she continues, “he really lost interest. We’d have sex once a week for like ten minutes. He didn’t even try to involve me. I finally understood all that Victorian crap about conjugal duty. And I knew he was getting it elsewhere. I knew, even though I couldn’t admit it to myself. At the time, it was a relief that he’d stopped demanding sex more often. But when it slapped me in the face in that doctor’s office, it wasn’t a relief.” She takes a deep breath. “It hurt so much.”
I kiss her temple. “I’m sorry, baby doll.”
“I don’t love him anymore.” She turns those big hazel eyes up to me. “I was telling the truth when you asked me those questions. But I still feel betrayed.”
“I can understand that.” I heard it in her voice when she answered me during the spanking. The careless bastard had her love and let it die, as much as from neglect as from infidelity. “Thank you for trusting me with that, Emmy. I know it wasn’t during my finest hour.”
“When you were asking me questions, how did you know? I mean, I realize it started as part of the scene, but then you asked about Ash.”
“You said his name a couple of times when you were crying. I’m sorry about that, too, sweetheart. If I’d known it was a trigger for you, I wouldn’t have asked those questions.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine.” She puts down her chopsticks and wraps her arms around my chest. “Seriously, it was totally fine. That part was fine.”
“What about the other part?” I prod gently.
“The first sex was really bad,” she says in a tiny voice. “I know it was meant to be. I mean, you said it wasn’t about pleasure. I just didn’t know what you were doing. Whether we were in scene or not and what I was supposed to feel. It felt like you might be trying to humiliate me or hurt me emotionally. I wasn’t sure, but it was awful.”
“Emmy.” I tip her chin up and give her a gentle kiss, flavored with soy sauce and regret. “I am so fucking sorry. I wasn’t trying to humiliate
