Sifting through the third bag, I come up empty-handed. We have been home for a few months now, and I have yet to unpack completely. Since our return, I’ve been even busier than before.

Before we left, I was still living alone. Although we were traveling together for just under two months, it has been an adjustment to move in with Maxwell and Bella. I feel like I’m living in another city, for one thing. And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve had to hit the ground running since we got back. There is always one crisis after another to deal with at work, and then I have Bella to look after as well. I’m not sure where I stand with Maxwell either, which adds to the mental load that I’m carrying around with me.

“Did you get that email?” Sam knocks on the door while he talks. His eyebrows are raised, and he waggles them the way he does to Bella when she’s being stubborn and he wants to cheer her up.

I give him a half smile. “I did. I just replied to him.”

“You’re an angel.” He grins. “What’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be working from home today?”

It’s interesting to me how Sam never mentions Max in relation to me. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge our relationship at all. Had he not attended our brief ceremony, I would assume he didn’t know about it.

“I was going to, but there were a few things that I had to come in for anyway, so I’m making it a half-day,” I explain. “Bella has a ballet recital today too, so I need to take off early to take her to that.”

“Oh, I see.” Sam glances back toward Max’s office. “It explains why he’s in a rush to leave. I’ll go take care of my end of that email; you let me know when you’re leaving so I can watch for any others incoming. I can’t be as quick as you, but I can try.” He winks as he leaves.

I watch him go and wonder why he hasn’t mentioned any girlfriends or even expressed interest in anyone. Not that I expect him to confide in me, but I find it odd that he’s still single because he’s funny, attractive, and wealthy to boot. I notice several women in the office eyeing him, but he never gives them attention beyond what is necessary for work.

A movement catches my eye, and I see Max talking to a woman from Riley’s floor. She’s standing close to him and touching his arm while she leans in and laughs. I feel jealousy rise up inside me, but I push it away. I don’t have any right to feel jealous about someone who is with me for some predetermined amount of time.

I must be staring at her hard because she notices me. But she doesn’t have the decency to remove her hand from my husband’s arm.

My husband. Where did that come from? I never think of him in those terms, and doing so now makes me feel odd. Max catches my eye and gives me a quick nod before he begins backing away from the woman. He looks like he’s moving toward Sam’s office until she steps closer still to him. I can’t read Max’s expression but there is tension on his face.

I sigh and look away, pushing back from my desk. When I look up again, they’re gone.

A few months ago, I was worried about myself and how I was going to pay off all my debt. Now the debt is the furthest thing from my mind because that particular problem is all but eliminated thanks to Max.

But where that problem ended, several others have cropped up, also thanks to Max. I don’t miss wondering where I might get the money to pay everything off, but I do miss the simplicity of it. Worrying about where my situation with Max might leave me emotionally is always on my mind. It feels like I’m trying to keep myself afloat, but I find myself being pulled under by the current.

It’s also confusing for me to pretend that I don’t care about Max in front of him, but to pretend that I do care for him in front of everyone else. The hardest part is pretending to myself that I don’t care about him, though. I notice myself worrying about him when he doesn’t come home on time. I feel jealous when other women in the office get too close to him or make him laugh. The laugh he shares with them seems so carefree, but when he gets around me, I sense a tension.

When we were still in England, Max said he wanted to extend our agreement, but I didn’t want to at that time. If he asked me today, I would say yes, but I would have some addendums to the original contract.

I want something more substantial. I want to let go and feel something for him and have him feel something for me. But how do you spell that out in a contract and make it stick? What I want is something authentic.

“Hey, are you busy?” Riley is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. She looks like she has something on her mind.

“Come in. I was just taking a break,” I tell her. Smoothing the wrinkles on the front of my skirt, I gesture to a chair where she can sit. “Sorry. I ran out of table space and moved some of my work to the chairs, so wherever you can find a perch, take it.”

“You and I have a lot to discuss,” Riley says seriously. As usual, she’s not one for small talk.

“I already knew you had something on your mind,” I grin. “What is it? Lay it on me.”

“You need to stop moping around and start putting more into your relationship with Max, or someone else will.” She arches an eyebrow and tilts her head back in a gesture meaning someone in the office.

“Yeah, I know, the blonde, right? What’s her story anyway? She seems really hands-on.”

“I know you’re new to the whole dating thing—forget that. You haven’t even really dated, which is what makes this so difficult. You do not understand the dynamics at play here. Women know when there’s trouble at home, first of all. And a man like Max is the ultimate goal. The only thing that held these women off before was the fact that we all thought Max was done with marriage and long-term relationships. He married you out of the blue, and granted, no one knows the terms of your marriage, but that tells them that he still wants commitment.” Riley pauses to grab some candy from a jar I have in the corner and crunches on them while she thinks.

“What do you think I should do?” I ask. “I want a more authentic relationship, but I don’t know how to ask for it at this point. Everything is so confusing.” I collapse into my chair and rub my temples.

“I knew this was going to happen!” Riley exclaims.

I glare at her. “Congratulations.”

“Sorry, you know I had to say it. Okay, let’s talk strategy here. You want him, and he seems to want you back. We can work with this. It was his idea to get married, after all.”

I tell her about Max wanting to extend the contract, and Riley claps her hands in excitement. “I knew it! He’s thinking about it, too! All you have to do is open up, Laura! You’re not showing him that you want this as much as he does!”

“But he never said anything about having feelings for me,” I argue. “He just said he thinks it’s a viable, convenient option for both of us.”

“Wow, sounds sexy,” Riley drawls. “You two really know how to make the sparks fly.”

“Shut up and help me,” I shoot back.

“It’s simple, really. You need to show him that you’re really interested in him—invested in him.”

“How do I do that?”

“How’s your sex life?” Riley asks, pacing the length of my office. “I’m assuming fairly active. Both of you are willing participants?” She whirls on me suddenly, her fingers poised to pop another piece of candy into her mouth. “Did you use any fun stuff?”

“What, like toys? No, it’s active without any supplements.” I think about how much I want him constantly throughout the day, to the point where I feel as if I need him more than he needs me. “If anything, we don’t do it enough, but it’s because we’ve been so busy since we got back.”

“Damn, you guys are so hot for each other you don’t even need to introduce edible panties.” Riley’s eyes narrow into the distance, and she looks back at me to nod in approval. “That’s awesome. Same for my guy and me, but we like to experiment. But back to you. So you haven’t hit a plateau or a routine, right?”

“Well, the frequency has definitely decreased since we returned,” I respond. I’m worried. Maybe Riley is onto something. If we’re not as active as we once were, that could mean that Max isn’t as interested in me. It’s possible that he’s following through with his “duties,” but he’s waiting for it to end. The thought makes me shiver.

“Then it’s your job to kick it up a notch,” Riley declares. She’s eating more candy now, stuffing the small pieces into her mouth as she wears a path into the carpet and plots my next move.

“Wear something crazy sexy, blow his mind. Wear something that leaves nothing to the imagination—I think you need to give him a show so he knows exactly what you want. Don’t make him guess because that hasn’t gotten you anywhere.” She stops chewing and looks thoughtful. “Do you have time tonight? I can help you find the perfect outfit.”

“I think so,” I say slowly. “I can get the outfit and wear it, but then what?”

Riley lets out a huff. “You follow your instincts. You’ve spent too long suppressing everything, and now you need to let go and allow yourself to feel.”

I think about her words quietly while she continues to talk about the skimpiest outfit that would get his attention. After deciding that everything should either be completely see-through or have an inappropriate quantity of fishnets, Riley looks satisfied.

“We’ll definitely find something like that at the store I’m thinking of,” she says as she gets up to go back to her office. “I’m going to go finish up my work so we can leave early. You do the same. It should leave us plenty of time to find you an outfit and get you to start thinking sexy thoughts.”

I don’t mention that it’s almost all I think about when Max isn’t around. The way I want to go to his office and shut the door and have him in any number of positions. But that’s never been our problem. We communicate so well without words. By instinct, I think. Riley is right. I need to make Max aware of how I feel.

* * *

“If you don’t buy this for yourself, I’m going to buy it,” Riley proclaims, holding up a lacey, see-through piece with silky edging. I’ve never seen the inside of this store that Riley seems well acquainted with.

“Buy it. It’s not like we’ll be caught wearing it in the same place,” I joke.

“You’re right,” she says, admiring herself from several different angles in the mirror. “But you should buy it, too. Give yourself some options for tonight and have some more pieces ready as options.”

I look at the options with different styles in front of me. Red, pink, or black. The first two look tacky against my skin tone, so I throw the black into my shopping bag.

“These too.” Riley dumps the other two colors in as well. “Options, Laura!”

“But that red one is just two pieces of lace and some ribbon. I’m not even sure what I’m paying for!” I protest.

“Less is more.” Riley smirks. “I vote that one for tonight. Black is too somber.”

Riley drops me off at home and gives me a few pointers on how to put myself on display tonight. “Be available. He doesn’t need you playing hard to get now.”

“I wasn’t playing hard to get in the first place!” I tell her while I gather my purchases.

“Well doing nothing is the same as playing hard to get,” she insists. “Men can’t read our signals, so they need us to be obvious about our intentions.”

“What are my intentions anyway?” I mutter when I see the scraps of lace spilling out of one of the bags. “I don’t think this says, ‘I want a long-term relationship with you,’” I tell her.

“Maybe not, but for your ass-backward situation, it does. You two did everything in the wrong order—consider yourself already in a long-term relationship. You make the rules now. You determine what this means. You can woo him and show him how much you want him and exactly what he’ll be missing if you two end your little contract.” Riley flips her hair and looks in the mirror to adjust her lipstick.

“Follow me,” she demands. We go down an aisle toward the back of the store, and she proceeds to toss items into the basket.

“Wait, what is this stuff?”

“You guys can experiment.”

“With what?” I pick up one of the items, and it trembles in my hand. I shriek and drop it back into the cart. “I’m not using that!”

“Well, not with that attitude,” she scolds me.

“I don’t even know what it is!”

“Relax, there are instructions, you prude. Here, look at the display.”

I look over at the poster of a cartoonishly round butt with the product I picked up inserted into it. A look of ecstasy is on the woman’s face. “Are you kidding me?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” Riley comes around the corner with some clamps.

“Have you?” I’m incredulous.

“I plead the fifth. But I will say my new guy is a delicious blend of vanilla and spice if you know what I mean.”

“Is this the same guy from a while ago? Since when did you start keeping secrets anyway?”

“Since I decided to try not to let my big mouth ruin things this time. It’s called maturity. So, answer me. Are you into a little pain?” The jaws of the metal contraption in her hand open and close, and I cringe.

“I don’t even want to know where that goes.”

“Beauty of these is that you can use them or Max if he’s into it. He doesn’t strike me as the type, but I could be wrong.” She clamps one of the traps onto her nipple through her shirt and immediately takes it off. “Shit. I’ll stick with my man’s teeth instead. Jesus.”

By the time we get to the counter, the basket is overflowing with so many tubes, and flavors and battery-operated things that I can’t look at the clerk in the eye.

“At what point do we actually have sex?” I hiss in Riley’s ear. She’s deciding between strawberry and blueberry flavored lube.

“Can I taste them before I buy one?” she asks the younger man sweetly.

“Sorry, lady. You have to buy it first. We don’t have testers of anything.”

“Huh. Okay, I’ll take both. Laura, you want one? I wonder how many calories are in them,” she mutters while she takes out her wallet.

The clerk takes a moment to detangle the pieces of underwear, and I want to crawl under a rack when the door opens and some sleazy guys walk in. They look us over and smirk.

“Is this all on one card?” The clerk is oblivious to my embarrassment.

“Yes, here.” I push my card forward since Riley is having trouble finding hers. I just want to get out of here.

“Aw, I wanted your first butt plug to be on me,” she coos teasingly. “I’ll have to get you your next one.”

“Shut up,” I say through gritted teeth. Riley is loving this. We get out of the store minutes later, and I can finally breathe.

“I’ll pay you back for my half tomorrow. I’ll be trying out the peach number tonight,” she says slyly. “But my message is entirely different. Mine says I want some serious action.”

I watch her drive away and turn to climb the stairs to go into the house. I envy how open she can be with her boyfriends. She’s always able to articulate what she wants out of a relationship, and she leaves when her needs aren’t being met. I think this is why she isn’t able to relate to my inability to express my feelings to Max.

I peer into the bags once I get inside. The housekeeper is bustling around the formal living room and greets me when she sees me. “Do you need help with your bags, Ms. Laura?” she calls out from behind a couch.

“No, I’m okay,” I tell her. “Where is Bella?”

“The piano teacher came late today, so she just started her lesson,” she says, wiping her brow. She’s already bustling towards me, despite my refusal.

“You look flushed. Let me take those.” She grabs the bag, and it begins to shake. Oh fuck.

She drops it immediately. “Oh! What’s in there? Did you get a toy for Bella?” Before I can stop her, she’s peeling open the bag. I die a little inside when the colorful cock ring comes into view.

“Oh, my.”

“Just toys for me, Helen.” I might as well own it. If Riley can do it without getting embarrassed, so can I.

“Mr. B. is a lucky man,” Helen says, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly. “I’ll tuck these away in your closet for you.

“Okay, I need to use the bathroom.” What I really need is a splash of cold water on my face. Even Helen knows about cock rings. Where the hell have I been this whole time? “Can you let me know when Bella’s done so I can give her dinner and get her ready for bed?”

“Sure thing,” she says. I hear a smile in her voice and half turn back to see her making her way towards the gallery. When I first moved in, she was cordial enough. But as the weeks have gone by, she’s warmed up to me quite a bit. After this incident, I don’t know what to expect. It seems like she approves of the sex toys. That both comforts and concerns me. At any rate, she’s the only other person besides Max that Bella listens to. Without her help, I don’t know what we would do.

Thirty minutes later, I’m standing in the bathroom, wearing the red lingerie and feeling more exposed than if I were simply naked. It’s definitely transparent, but it also adds an element of spice to it that being naked doesn’t do.

Tying a robe around my waist, I wonder what to do while I wait. I fluff up my hair and decide to curl the ends so it’s bouncier. When I finish that, I touch up my makeup and stand back to admire my handiwork. I don’t look like I want to discuss work, that’s for damn sure. I don’t look like I work in the office, either. If Max can misinterpret this message, there’s no hope for him.

As soon as I think of him, I hear his voice downstairs. It’s a low rumble that sends shivers of anticipation up my spine. I can’t wait to show him what I’m wearing, but I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve as soon as he sees it. Follow your instinct. Right, that’s what I need to do, I remind myself sternly.

“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” he says. I hear him getting closer to the room, and I freeze up. I see some flaws in my makeup and use a wipe to clean up the edges of my eyeliner and lipstick.

“I miss you too,” Max says. He’s in the room now, but he doesn’t know I’m in the bathroom. I know he’s sitting on the loveseat and looking through the mail like he does when he comes home.

Miss? Who is he missing, I wonder. I mentally sift through all the people that I know he’s close to, and can’t think of any female he would say that to, let alone a male. As far as I know, he’s not especially close to his mother so it can’t be her. I’m out of ideas.

“Yes, I remember that.” He laughs. This time, I hear a woman’s tinkling laughter on the other end, and I’m on edge. So he’s talking to another woman whom he misses, apparently. I wonder if it’s his ex-wife but I discard the thought. It can’t be her. He has spoken about her in passing and only with bitterness. He wouldn’t be so relaxed if he were talking to her.

“Okay, well I made reservations at that place you wanted to see when you came into town. I know how much you like sushi.” He sounds excited, and I feel tears stinging my eyes.

He’s moved on, and I’m foolish for thinking this was possible. That thought makes me angry. He can’t discard me when he feels like it; we’re still under six months away from the date this contract terminates.

“I’ll send you the address,” he tells her. He gives her the intersection where it is, and I make a mental note of it. If he’s going to have an affair, I need to see it with my own eyes to make my heart understand. I squeeze my eyes shut and will myself to keep the tears inside. Two drops spill out and roll down my cheeks. I have to wait for him to leave before I can come out of the bathroom. I don’t want him to see me like this.

“Daddy!” I hear Bella coming into the room.

“Hey, Bella!” I hear him end his conversation and promise to see the woman in an hour.

He leads Bella out of the room to get her ready for bed, and I am grateful. I have a chance to compose myself before I have to face the inevitable. I have no right to feel betrayed; it’s not like we pledged to be with each other for the rest of our lives. I don’t think the contract spelled out monogamy within the marriage either. Although, I would think that marriage itself should be monogamous.

I change out of the lingerie and discard the scraps on the floor. Putting my work clothes back on, I look at myself in the mirror again. I look like I’ve aged since I came into the bathroom, and remove some of my makeup to make myself look fresher. It works, but not as well as I’d like it to.

Gathering up my purse, I order a ride to go to the sushi restaurant that Max is heading to and steel myself for what lies ahead. If he’s cheating on me, I can use it as an excuse to extract myself once and for all and move on with my life. I did it once, and I can do it again.