The music comes to an end, and Isabelle and I stop kissing.
I tell myself this is all an act for the sake of our cover. But as much as I try to convince myself of that, I’m having a hard time believing it.
The sexual tension between us has been bubbling under the surface for a while now. For the longest time, I thought it was just me who felt this way.
But the pull Isabelle has on me is getting harder and harder to ignore.
And now we no longer can.
The kiss has brought down our unstable house of cards.
“You and I need to talk after this,” I tell her.
She cringes. “How about we don’t and pretend we have?”
That gets a chuckle out of me, even though it’s probably not the best response.
“Well, let me tell you,” Gabrielle says, preventing Isabelle and me from saying anything else. “That was hot. And your husbands felt the same way. Why don’t we give them a few minutes to recover, and I’ll tell you our plans for this afternoon.”
Isabelle disappears from view. The soft sound of someone sitting on an exercise mat behind me reaches my ears.
“We have a cooking class this afternoon. You’ll be making a delicious meal and dessert, which you’ll get to enjoy afterward in our special dining room. But things won’t be as simple as they sound.” She doesn’t go into further detail.
Instead, she explains what we can do to keep our marriages healthy, suggestions for keeping the lines of communication open between partners. Fun activities we can do together to remind ourselves why we fell in love to begin with—and so that as the years of our marriages tick past, we’re still growing together and not apart.
“There is noonemagic ingredient to a successful marriage,” she says. “And anyone who tells you that marriage is easy is lying to you. It takes work. But I assume since you’re all staying at the resort, you’re happy to do whatever it takes to get and stay there.
“Of course, having a healthy sex life does make a difference. Research has proved it. Often when one partner feels the need to cheat outside a marriage—either physically or emotionally—it’s because those needs are no longer being dealt with at home. That’s not to say it’s the other person’s fault—because it isn’t. It means the communication between the couple fell apart, and the cheater didn’t know how to state his or her needs.
“For some individuals, they cheat because they’re unable to become aroused with their partner. The woman doesn’t experience orgasms. The man has trouble getting an erection. So they wonder if these problems will go away if they have sex with someone else. That maybe the problem isn’t with them…it’s with their partner. They cheat on their partner without talking to them about it first. Maybe if they had addressed the issue head on, things would have improved. But now they’ll never know because they assume they can only enjoy sex with someone else.
“That’s not to say every relationship that goes astray is due to a lack of communication. Some partners cheat just because they can. It’s a thrill, and they don’t care about the other person in their relationship. They only care about their own needs. Those are the individuals you want to get rid of like yesterday’s trash.”
A murmur of agreement ripples through the group as I wonder which category my ex-fiancée fell into: the one who cheated because I wasn’t there for her due to my deployment overseas…or the one who cheated for the thrill of it.
I guess that’s an answer I’ll never know.
I twist around on my chair, wanting to see Isabelle’s reaction to Gabrielle’s comments.
“Husbands, are you recovered enough for the next activity?”
17
Isabelle
Jayden joinsme on the gym mat. From the quick glance I indulged in before he planted his butt there, it’s clear he’s recovered from my lap dance.
And I’vealmostrecovered from that and our kiss.
Holy shit, the man can kiss.
“How many of you have trouble communicating with your partner what you like when it comes to sex?” Gabrielle asks.
A few people raise their hands. I treat it as a rhetorical question.
“We’ve been taught from the days of the dark age that while it’s natural to have sex—that’s how our species survives—it’s not acceptable to talk about it with our partner. If there’s something we enjoy or don’t enjoy, many of us keep silent, hoping our partner will figure it out on their own. That they’ve developed the ability to read our minds.”
Yep, that sounds about right.
