Unashamed (19 page)

There was a long pause. My fingers repetitiously combed through the dog’s hair because I was nervous as to where he was going with this. Doug finally tilted his head, scrunched his eyebrows, and said, “You really
don’t
like having sex with me, do you?”

My hands immediately jerked to cover my open mouth. The tears filled my eyes in an instant because he wasn’t blinded by love anymore; he finally understood. It didn’t matter how many ways I explained my sexuality; it took another woman’s affections for him to see the comparison. It was a reminder of how a man and a woman should behave in the bedroom. Biology provided tangible evidence to support my claims. For an agnostic man, it was proof positive.

I cried because the reality of it all was a painful truth for him to discover. I never meant to cause him this torment, but there it was sitting on our coffee table. How we ever fell to sleep with our shattered minds frankly eludes me, but we did. The realization of our seemingly flamboyant lifestyle was pushed aside for a time. We didn’t know what to do with that information, anyway. I’m sure we felt everything would just work itself out. So, Douglas continued schooling and dating. My life resumed with two relationships and college. I phased out stripping as mud wrestling became my main source of income. It actually paid better after honing my skills to become the champion.

To be clear, it was never a legit job. It was something fun for the tourists to volunteer doing with the additional bonus of free drinks and money if you won. It was instant cash at the end of the night that I didn’t have to claim on my taxes. For months, it brought in about four hundred dollars a week.

The thing is, it was a show that looked very intense and real, but I knew when to lose too. Had I wrestled and taken the entire pot of cash every time, the crowd would have caught on. My talent was so perfected I learned how to flip girls from a kneeling position, making sure they landed safely, yet with just enough power to spray onlookers with a nice coat of mud. Because of my mad skills, I have been in the background of a few reality dating shows, but the true life story behind the dirt is always deeper than it seems.

The three of us maintained what we felt was the best scenario for our lives so, yes, mud wrestling was how we paid the bills.

One evening the manager of the show called to ask if I was coming in to “work.” She was worried because she only had three girls signed up. “Don’t worry, I always come, so I’ll get you more wrestlers.” That was when I began calling it my job.

Work began at 9:30 pm. At that time I would start manipulating the crowd for recruits. This was not part of the routine, but getting more girls to voluntarily wrestle was more money in my pocket. The night ended when the last girls showered. Then we all walked to the front of the casino for our payout. About six months after I began, the casino earned such a huge profit that they began doing it two nights a week, which was only more money for me. Patty went with me and was the only non-wrestler allowed in the ready room other than the manager. She helped clean up the hotel room at the end of each night and provided assistance to the manager. It gave her a validating role, and she rather enjoyed hosing off the bikini-clad girls in the walkway between buildings.

She was always supportive of the crazy things I did, including margarita wrestling at a club, which was broadcast on pay-per-view. I lost after six minutes in the green water, but it was the quickest 375 bucks ever earned. A seven-hour day shift at the strip club might bring in that much.

Money was tight, even with the National Guard income, so I entered myself into a karaoke contest in hopes of winning the thousand-dollar prize. After I made it into the top ten finalists, Doug and Patty went with me to the taping of the finale, which was to be broadcasted on a local television station.

It was a typical Vegas setup with lights and a flamboyant host. Most of the contestants were strangers to each other. Each won their place at different karaoke nights across Las Vegas.

While waiting in the wings, I befriended Kim, a thick Italian girl with an exceptionally bold personality. She had huge brown eyes, a large white smile, and huge tits that were almost too big for her body. Her wit impressed me more than her beautiful voice, which nearly had me in tears. After her song, she suggested we get a drink at one of the many bars in the casino. We were there about an hour before I got a text message from Doug and Patty, who wanted to wish me luck at intermission. They met us at the bar, where we shared brief introductions before Kim and I left for our losing results.

There wasn’t another mention of Kim until I ran into her at karaoke night the next week. Patty opted to stay in that night, so I went alone. When Kim invited me to sit with her and a few friends, my night was so much fun I had to tell Patty all about it.

After a year of absolute devotion to Patty, others found it hard to believe my level of faithfulness. We had our rare issues, but, otherwise, we had a great relationship. I never wanted to be with other women. Given my scandalous history, Rayya and Joy were stunned with my loyalty, especially since they thought she was the ugliest girl I had ever been with besides Lindsey, I mean “April.”

I always defended Patty’s beautiful green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. I doted endlessly over every freckle and dimple on her body. Her sense of humor was ingenious, and her passion for trying new things was a point I proudly emphasized. We were inseparable and had the most amazing, adventurous sex, with heavy lovemaking overtones. We were solid—until she accused me of cheating on her with Kim.

The accusation caught me off guard. In my reality, other women didn’t exist.

Did she see something developing that I did not? Doug and Patty fulfilled my every desire, so being with Kim was absolutely unnecessary, but a week later, I found myself fully engulfed in the middle of a makeout session in the back of Kim’s car. However, the guilt was as overwhelming as her passionate kisses. I felt terrible about each little pleasure and finally told her I shouldn’t be there. She backed away from my face for a moment to ask, “Then, why are you?”

It was that easy for me to realize my mistake and leave regardless of her protests.

Between Doug and Patty and the slow burn of self-discovery, my emotional state was beginning to unravel. Rivers of tears flowed in front of my friends that year. I cried on the phone to my stepmom about being gay. She told me that if I loved Douglas, I would let him go. My sister caught an earful of heartache and confusion every time she phoned. My mother pretended to understand until the actuality of my life was fully explained during a traffic jam on the Vegas strip. The conversation turned sour when she asked how Doug was doing and never asked about Patty, and then preached the Bible. She told me that I needed to start praying. This was the first time I ever scolded my mother and hung up on her. “Patty and I pray every night before we go to bed.”

When she called back, I reluctantly answered, but I was still in the standstill traffic jam, so, really, there was nothing else to do but talk through this.

“I have two relationships, Mom. I hate omitting half of my life. Do you know Patty and I studied for a week for her psychology exam and she got a B? I am so proud of her. But, you don’t want to hear that. So the next time you call and ask me anything, I’m just going to tell you that everything is fucking fine.”

“You shouldn’t be with a man and a woman. It isn’t right.”

“Well, what if I got divorced and was a lesbian?”

“No. That isn’t right.”

I raised my hand up and slammed it down onto the steering wheel. “So the only answer is to leave Patty and be married and have babies?”

“Yes.”

“Mom, I love you, but I really can’t continue this phone call. I am going to go now, okay?” We hung up the phone in mutual frustration.

My inner turmoil was the dominating factor in my infidelity once again. As if my chaotic life wasn’t messy enough, I found freedom in getting involved with a butch girl from my National Guard unit. In the same week that Zelda and I consummated our affair, I received a letter from my mother about living in sin and my hell-bound afterlife.

Mom wasn’t the only one who couldn’t wrap their mind around my life. On my weekly coffee gatherings, Joy and the rest of the gang, consisting of two straight men, one straight girl, and four lesbians, all demanded details.

“Come on, guys, of course Doug knows,” I defended myself as we sat at a table outside of the coffee establishment so we could chain smoke.

“How can you keep up?” Joy asked. Her labret sparkled under the plaza lights.

“Shit, I forgot you had a husband!” Troy lit another cigarette. “Where is Doug anyway? We liked him
way
better than Patty.” He high-fived the other guy at the table because they liked any straight male who joined coffee night. They joked that it was another pair of balls to counterweigh the estrogen at the table. Everyone laughed.

Then Ashley reminded the table of the mean shit she said to Patty the first and last time I invited her for coffee night. Specifically, after Patty joked about making me howl during sex, Ashley had chimed in maliciously, “Joy made that discovery long before you came around, honey. Tell us something we don’t already know.”

I was embarrassed all over again as I remembered the awkward intensity of the moment. “Come on guys, she is really not that bad.” My defenses surfaced through my smile. “I love her freckles, and I think she is beautiful,” I added with honesty.

“Is that what you tell Zelda?” Troy sarcastically chimed in, to which Ashley high-fived his nonsmoking hand as everyone, all seven of them, laughed. Admittedly I shook my head and laughed too. I totally asked for that one.

As happy as my life was with Doug and Patty, it was utter nonsense to continue my affair with Zelda, but the sex kept me coming back for more. We didn’t have much in common, and, to be frank, any deep compatibility would have never been reached no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t compete with the levels of love I shared with them.

It was madness.

To further escalate the insanity of my scandalous life, Patty inadvertently exposed the secrets of my Soldier Show sexcapades to Douglas. While I was chatting to her online one night, Doug stood behind me, as a way to passively tell me it was time for bed. There on the screen was the blinking cursor behind the last question Patty typed: Does Doug know you cheated with that guy in the Soldier Show?

“What guy? What did you do?” Doug asked. His face went pale. I said nothing because I was caught.

As my skeletons fell out of the closet, the arguing grew more intense while I sadly attempted to explain that it was simply a mistake I made five years prior. There was no need to lie at that point, so when he asked what else I had done, I purged, divulging the fact that I prostituted myself once to a virgin as eloquently as possible. Without hesitation, he started packing a bag.

Through hysterical crying, my desperate words begged him not to go while snot dripped from my nose. My body grew tired from the hysterics, and eventually it slumped to the floor in our bedroom as he paused from packing only to yell, “Give me one good fucking reason why I should stay!” His heart was beating so hard that I could almost see it through his chest. It looked as if he was about to burst as each pump created an unnatural motion forward.

From my slumped position on the floor, with tears in my eyes, I attempted to explain. “I’m in
love
with you, not them. I have made mistakes that I deeply regret.” I tried to inhale, but the mucus and swelling on top of hyperventilation made it nearly impossible. My attempts to receive air made me choke. A pause to breathe was necessary for me to continue and to get a grip on the reality that surrounded me. “I don’t even like men. I don’t know why I did it. I will never be with another man in my life, I swear to you!” I began to calm myself more by sucking air into my lungs through my mouth as I wiped my swollen, snotty face. Finally, with controlled conviction, I added, “But I’m never leaving the women. Don’t ask me to leave the women. I will understand if you can’t handle that. I’m just so sorry, Doug. So sorry.”

His heart was absolutely broken, crushed before his very eyes with lies from a woman he vowed to love forever. He stood at the end of our bed with his clothing crammed into a bag, half of which was hanging out of the opening. In my feeble position on the opposite side of the bedroom, my knees pressed painfully into my chest, I waited for his reaction. A part of me fully expected a slap in the face as he walked out, but he was beyond disgusted and couldn’t muster the energy to waste on touching me.

I slept on the couch for the next few days.

He stayed, obviously because he loved me, but in later months, I learned of an indiscretion he’d had before our open marriage agreement. I suspect this is why he succeeded in letting my infidelity go although the pain of it never left. Throughout this adversity, Douglas and I resumed our marriage. The brutal truth of the matter was that we were both cheaters every day that we continued to have relationships with other people. The way we saw it, all of the others were secondary.

Zelda was asking for drama in her life by being with me. She knew about everything but deeply hoped for a sincere chance at love. She didn’t come from the best life and repeatedly explained how she only passed high school because she was the star athlete. She also told me I was the only real lesbian she had ever been with, despite being married.