Sex, Lies and Videotape Ch. 03

"God-dammit Roger, I'm your wife and you didn't want to tell me that my ex-boyfriend was sending you videos of me having sex, or that you were going to meet with him to talk about me? This is a big part of why I've been so angry with you. That you'd keep all this from me."

"Well, you weren't exactly forth coming yourself when I spoke to you. You wanted to keep your past a secret, so I kept the fact I knew about it a secret as well."

Taylor looked away shaking her head, muttering words to herself before looking back at me to respond.

"Do have any idea how much I despise Ben? How much I've tried to forget everything about him and my time with him? The last thing, the very last thing I wanted to do was to drag that all back up with you. You were right about there being two different people, me when I was being used by him and then who I am with you. I hated who I was with him, that I allowed him to have that kind of control over me. I never want to be that person again, to even think about how he emotionally abused me that way always makes my skin crawl, it makes me feel depressed. Do you get that? Can you understand that?"

"Yeah, I think I do. I didn't know what sort of person he really was. When I met him here, he was basically just saying he was trying to help us, so that I could understand who you were so it wouldn't screw up our marriage."

"And you believed him?"

"No, not all of it. He is good at manipulating people though, that's for sure."

"You don't say."

"He did say that he was trying to help you, and when we spoke about your past relationship, you said he'd been in contact with you, that maybe it was because he thought he could still help you. What was that all about? What help did he think you needed?"

"Oh god, he believed that by helping me to have and explore my sexual freedom, that it was good for my soul. Like it makes you whole, makes you a better person, that we shouldn't hide that part of ourselves away."

"And you believed all of that crap?"

"No, but I think that maybe he does. That maybe it's a way for him to live with himself and for what he was wanting me to do. I think it was really just so that he could convince me to have sex with other guys, so he could watch."

"Okay, the other part of what he said was that you cheated on him, that he had to let you have your fun or you'd have left him. That you'd cheat on me too, you couldn't help yourself."

"And then you saw what happened with Phil, right?"

"Right. I really did believe that you were making out with him like he said you would."

"Fucking Ben, I never cheated on him before all of this started. He gave you those videos and told you I'd cheated on him so that you wouldn't trust me, so that you'd suspect me with every guy I'd talk to."

"Yeah, I do believe you now about what happened with Phil if that counts for anything."

"Now you believe me? Why now?"

"On Wednesday, Ben called me again. He was gloating about how he fucked you over once more. He said he despised you ever since you rejected him when you were both freshmen, that you went out with Mike instead of him."

"That's crap. He used to get off on watching me dating those other guys, I used to play it up with them in front of him too because I knew how turned on he got. Whenever he came over to our place, I would make sure to have very loud sex just for him. It was like a game we were playing. I never should have dated him later though, that was my biggest mistake."

"Why did you go out with him if you knew what he was like already?"

"He started telling me what the other girls were saying, like he was my confidant, telling me what they didn't want me to hear. It ended up being all lies, that they said I was a whore, a gold digger and stuff. I found out later that no-one cared, no-one thought I was being a slut. Everyone was jumping from one relationship to another, it was college after all. He was just playing on my insecurities because he knew how much I cared about what other people thought of me."

I sat quietly, letting Taylor gather her thoughts while I ate more of my lunch.

"I even stopped dating guys in senior year because I felt ashamed, that everyone thought I was a slut. But it was all just him wanting to be with me, he couldn't do that if I was still dating other guys. He knew if I thought everyone despised me as a slut that I'd most likely want to do the opposite, to not be what they were saying I was. To not date any of those guys. After a while of being alone, he just seemed like the best option, no-one could call me a jersey chasing whore if I was with someone like Ben."

"And the videos, how did he get you to start fucking other guys?"

"Mainly because he couldn't perform. Believe it or not, he struggled to get hard whenever we tried to have sex and then struggled to stay hard on the very few occasions when he did. After wanting to be with me all that time, after the lengths he went to, to then not be able to get hard enough to fuck me should have made me walk away if I'd had enough sense. But I didn't, I felt sorry for him, and he somehow used that to have me thinking that it was my fault."

"How could you not have seen what an unstable person he was by that point? How could you stay with him?"

"It's easier to see that now, but like I said, I felt like I didn't have a lot of options at the time, I didn't want people to think I was a slut. I also felt sorry for him and thought that some of that was on me."

I sat there shaking my head at Taylor. She's one of the brightest, most intelligent people I've met and yet she couldn't see this for what it was. She then continued to explain.

"Later he began to ask me to talk about the times when I'd fucked my ex-boyfriends, about what the sex with them was like, how big their cocks were and stuff like that. That's when he would get hard and stay hard. It was the same as before we were dating, him fantasizing about me having sex with those guys is what gets him going. He would masturbate while I spoke about them, not having sex with me himself."

"I'm still struggling to understand why you'd stay with him if he didn't even want to fuck you? If all he wanted was for you to talk about other guys while he wanked himself?"

"First off, like I said, I felt sorry for him and that some of it was my fault. But also, because he was interesting, in his own way he was very loving as well. He gave me confidence and encouragement all the time, it was like having your very own cheer leader behind you pushing you to do well and enjoy yourself. He gave me the whole sexual freedom spiel, that monogamy was just a construct for men to control their women like property. That to truly be yourself, to be happy, you had to be able to explore your sexual urges on your own terms, not society's."

I kept quiet, taking another bite of my roll as I listened to her explain their relationship together.

"Then he began asking me to tease some of the guys when we were out. They were always hitting on me, they couldn't understand why I was with him. Then he wanted me to start making out with them too. He was just preparing me to be ready to sleep with other guys so he didn't have to fantasize anymore, he wouldn't have to ask me to tell him about them, he could watch it himself. I knew where it was going, and I'll admit it excited me too. It shouldn't have, but it did. I was so desperate for some proper sex myself by that point."

"So, you then started to act like the slut that you were trying not to be by being with him in the first place?"

"Yeah, I know, the irony right? He would tell me that we shouldn't care what other people think, that if we're together they can all go to hell. It was the whole 'us against the world' bullshit, but I bought into it. Mainly because he was giving me the excuse to have good sex again with some hot guys. That and the fact that we were already out of college meant that it was easier for me to no longer care so much about what other people might think about me."

I just nodded at Taylor, I think I was finally beginning to understand how all this evolved. And just how screwed up Ben must be. That the only way he could get off with the woman he loved was to watch her fuck other guys. Normally, I'd say who am I to judge, but he brought that shit into my marriage with Taylor. So, fuck him, I'm judging.

"So, in the beginning you enjoyed those hook-ups? Didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did."

"You enjoyed the sex you were getting from those guys?"

"Yeah, of course."

"You enjoyed teasing and humiliating Ben when you were with them?"

"Yeah, although it took me a little while to get comfortable saying it to him when I was with someone, but I got used to it. It's what he was craving more than anything."

"Then it all went too far, didn't it?"

"Yes, as soon as he pushed for me to fuck more than one guy at a time, I knew that eventually this wasn't going to end well. I kept trying to tell myself it was just fun, it was just us enjoying ourselves, but I think I knew deep down even then that it was more to do with him being able to control me. Pushing me further and being able to get me to do whatever he wanted."

"And yet you didn't leave him?"

"No, it's hard to explain. I'm not a stupid person, but for a while I found it impossible to walk away from him even though I wanted to, I can't explain why."

"Anything else?"

"Can we talk about what happened at the club, Roger?"

"What's to explain? You were angry with me, so you got drunk and made out with the first guy that showed an interest in you."

"You're right, and that's fairly accurate. I am so sorry about it though, and so ashamed too. I just wanted to not think about you after feeling like shit for weeks crying over you every night. Even though I'd been drinking a lot that night, I knew I was stepping over the line. I never should have kissed him, that was so wrong and going too far. I almost died inside when I saw you standing there, I couldn't believe that you'd caught me at my weakest point. I knew how much it would hurt you, that it would justify everything you were thinking about me. I just wanted to die right then."

"You're right, it did hurt, and it did justify what I was thinking and feeling. More than anything I was disappointed in you, a part of me was convinced that Ben had lied to me, and that you'd done nothing wrong. When I saw you, I knew he was right, and I didn't want him to be."

Taylor sat there, I could see tears welling up in her eyes.

"But now I know he was lying to me from the start. He was playing me so that I didn't trust you. That doesn't make it any easier to now be okay with you kissing that guy, but at least I understand it for what it was now. Not something more."

"I'm sorry though, it still shouldn't have happened."

"You were right about what you said outside the bar, that if I'd believed you from the start none of this would've happened. I should never have listened to that asshole from the beginning."

We sat silently finishing our lunch for the next few minutes, looking at each other, staring into each other's eyes almost like we were speaking without saying anything. I miss her so much.

"What now? Where do we go from here?" She asked me.

"What do you want to happen Taylor?

"More than anything, I want to come home."

I nodded my head, it's what I wanted too.

"Alright."

To be continued.