Tell Me Everything

by Amy Hatvany

  “We need to find a counselor,” he said, in a flat voice. “I don’t think we can work through this on our own.”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling heartened; a little hopeful. “Okay. Let’s do it.” Though I’d suggested the same thing the day after the whole nightmare with Andrew came to a head, we had yet to act on finding someone, choosing instead to see if time and a little distance from each other could heal our wounds. But time alone is not a cure-all, so Charlotte and Richard’s therapist gave us a referral, and two days later, we went to our first appointment. A month after that, Jake returned to our bed.

  In the end, we were in therapy once a week for three months, during which time I understood again and again that it wasn’t the sex I’d had with Andrew that had hurt my husband: it was the fact that I’d hidden things from him—that I’d concealed the nature of the connection I felt with someone else. And so, in repentance, I gave Jake access to every part of me, whenever he wanted it. He had the password on my emails and phone, and could check them as often as he liked, though he seldom did. We agreed to take a long break from any sexual encounters outside of our marriage, and focused instead solely on each other. We spent time with the kids, even though for the first several months, both Ella and Tucker wanted to stay at Peter and Kari’s more often than with us, something that was painful for me, but I needed—and our counselor advised—to allow them the space to do. Tucker came around more quickly than Ella, who took almost six months before she would hug me, again. When she finally did, it led to tears and some very meaningful conversations about slut-shaming and a grown woman’s right to have sex with whomever she wanted, however she chose.

  As it t turned out, my sex life wasn’t a topic of interest in Queens Ridge for as long as I feared it might be. There was chatter, of course. For months after Andrew hacked my accounts, my coworkers would often stop talking when I entered a room, and Charlotte had shut down more than one gossipy conversation about me at the various functions she planned. But there were no overt, terrible consequences—none of my clients fired me, other than Diane. Thankfully, we never heard from Andrew, again.

  Tiffany became one of my staunchest allies, telling everyone what a help I’d been to both her and her daughter, reaffirming, if anyone brought the subject up, that the hack of my accounts had been a malicious, vengeful act, and what I did behind closed doors with my husband was our business, and ours alone. Gradually, she started spending more time with Charlotte and me, dropping the occasional F-bomb and drinking martinis with us at the Tipsy Sailor on Friday nights. She even cut down on her Neighbors’ postings realizing more and more how it made her come across. After a fairly rough few months dealing with the fall-out of what had happened to her at the party, Lizzy was doing better, too, trying to develop friendships with other girls her age instead of searching for affirmation from boys. Even though she was now off at the University of Washington, she and I still texted on occasion, and in giving her advice on how to let go of any shame or embarrassment the incident had caused her, I learned to give that same generosity to myself.

  In addition to our couple’s therapy session, I began to see a separate counselor on my own, where I talked about some of my own issues, especially around my sexuality. I told her about my early, overwhelming desires and feelings of shame that seemed to come right along with them—how my mother’s words, “you don’t want to be that kind of girl,” had become etched into my psyche, so even after all the openness Jake and I experienced together—the sexual adventures we had—when Andrew outed me, I was taken right back to that moment with my parents when they walked in on me with Ryan’s tongue in my mouth and my hand on his dick. The moment I decided that my enormous curiosity about, and appetite for, sexual exploration was wrong.

  “Am I normal?” I asked my therapist, Diane, during that same session. She was a lovely woman in her early fifties, with short black hair and flawless skin. She possessed a level of calmness I found comforting, but also, a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is demeanor, so I never worried that she was coddling me. She helped me examine the mistakes I’d made with Andrew, but never crucified me for them. She was all about taking action to improve myself, instead of allowing me to wallow around in self-pity. She was exactly what I needed.

  “That’s the wrong question,” she said, as she crossed her slender legs, carefully balancing the yellow legal pad she held in her lap. “The right question is, are you normal for you—your particular set of life circumstances, how you were raised, and how, when you found your brother’s magazines, you were exposed to not-so-Puritanical ideas of sex. How you internalized that, and your parents’ focus on practicality and logic instead of emotion.”

  “Do you think that’s why I was capable of having sex with men without needing to feel something for them, first?” I asked, pondering what she’d just said. “The way my parents were with each other?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe you just really like sex, and like you told me, the only way you were able to explore this kind of dynamic with Jake was because he already filled your emotional needs. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. What you did with your husband wasn’t wrong. What was wrong was not being totally open with him about every single detail when you met Andrew, as you agreed you would be. And once you hid that first detail, it became easier to hide the next. That’s how we all justify the things we shouldn’t do. We rationalize. We make excuses for our bad behavior, and then one bad choice leads to another. It’s not hard to do.” She gave me a big smile. “The good news is that you realized pretty quickly that you couldn’t, and shouldn’t, go on seeing him. You didn’t let it get to a place where you actually did develop feelings for him. What you had with Andrew was mental and physical stimulation. You didn’t love him. Right?”

  “Right.” Jake and I had discussed this point with our mutual therapist more than once. I think knowing that—understanding that very clear delineation, in addition to having me reiterate it over and over again that my heart was, and had always remained his—was what made it possible for Jake to forgive me. To believe that however difficult this entire episode in our life had been, we would only grow stronger for it.

  It also forced me to confess something I had resisted articulating for too long: I needed him to take control more often in the bedroom, even when I tried to fight to take it back.

  “I know one of the things you love about me is how strong I am,” I told him. “But always having to be the strong one gets to be tiring. Once in a while, I need you to take the reins, even if you have to yank them out of my hands.”

  “I can do that,” Jake said. Later that night, he proved it, and not long after that, we decided that we felt connected enough as a couple again that we could stop going to therapy. Our work wasn’t over, but we were finally on solid ground again. And so today, almost two years after the private details of our sex life was outed to all of Queens Ridge, he and I stood in the bathroom room, getting ready to go meet someone new.

  “Are you sure you’re good with this?” I asked him for what had to be the hundredth time in the last couple of weeks.

  He looked at me in the mirror and smiled. “I’m sure. You don’t have to keep asking.”

  “Sorry,” I said. It was difficult, sometimes, to let go of how much I’d hurt him.

  He came over to stand behind me, then, and put his hands on my hips. “Stop apologizing,” he whispered, his blue eyes still on mine in the mirror. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

  We’d decided that we would dip our toe back in slowly, with the understanding that I would not be having sex with anyone without Jake there, too. We hadn’t ruled it out as a possibility, later, but for now, this was what Jake was comfortable with—it was what we had talked about for the last few months, our naked bodies pressed together at night, working each other up into a heated, passion-filled frenzy,.

  We knew this way of life wasn’t for everyone. After everything that happened, we more than understood the risks. But we knew
each other so much better now—and I, for one, certainly better understood myself.

  “We’re not perfect,” Jake said about our marriage, not long after we entered counseling, “but we are perfect for each other.”

  I couldn’t agree with him more.

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  In the era of #Metoo and Time’s Up, we are finally having more honest conversations than ever about how women experience negative sexual encounters. As essential as these discussions are, it is equally essential that we talk about women having good sex. We need positive portrayals of women who take ownership over their sexuality, who embrace it as a very real and necessary part of their identity, and of partnerships in which female pleasure is valued as highly as male gratification. Without that, how can we ever hope to get to the root of such complex issues as toxic masculinity, sexual harassment, and rape culture?

  It was with this goal in mind that I began writing Tell Me Everything. At first, I was unsure how to explore this subject in depth, so I must first thank Sarah Cantin. She insisted that what I was writing was vital and important and worthwhile. Thanks also to Haley Weaver for her positivity, responsiveness, and support.

  As always, I must thank my agency team for always having my best interests in mind, including Victoria Sanders, (queen-bee, agent-extraordinaire herself), Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Diane Dickensheid, Jessica Spivey, and Allison Leshowitz. Twenty years and still going strong with Victoria, I can honestly say she has been my rock, as well as my lovely, funny, intensely brilliant friend and trusted publishing-world guru. The Pool-boy, Street Urchins, and I wouldn’t know what to do without you.

  Thanks to my early readers, who provided me with amazing insight and emotional encouragement: Tina Skilton, Liz Fenton, Lisa Steinke, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Andrea Dunlop, Caroline Kepnes, Jen Lancaster, Tammy Greenwood, Carol Mason, and Sarah Strohmeyer. To every other writer in my tribe, thank you. I’m honored to know you all.

  Being a writer is a somewhat isolating job, so I am incredibly grateful to my social media family, especially those who make it a point to reach out to me and let me know how my writing has affected them. Thank you for opening up and trusting your worlds and feelings with me. I promise to keep them safe.

  Thanks also to my other friends and family, the ones who witness the day-to-day struggle of me attempting to birth a book. Thanks especially to my husband, Stephan, who smiles and orders take-out when I’m so deep in the weeds of a story that he comes home to no dinner and a wife with questionable hygiene.

  And finally, my gratitude must reach across the Universe into the great beyond. This book would have never come to be without the constant loving support of one of my dearest, closest friends, Kristie Miller, who passed away in September 2017 after a life-long struggle with Cystic Fibrosis, despite a double-lung transplant meant to save her. In our Odd Couple friendship, Kristie was the Felix to my Oscar—a sweet, kind Christian woman to my (big-hearted) cussing heathen. She was also one of my first readers for Tell Me Everything, and after getting through three chapters of the rough draft, she called me, laughing. “Oh, boy,” she said. “This one’s a doozy.” She paused then, before adding, “Get back to work. I need to read more.”

  Unfortunately, Kristie’s health kept her from having that chance, and her death struck unexpectedly in the middle of working on this book. My soul ached so deeply, I wasn’t sure I could finish. But then her voice entered my head each morning, as I sat down in front of my computer: “Get back to work.” Never one to deny her, I lit a candle and did as she said. I miss her every minute, but I know that she is always with me, cheering me on, telling me to simply take the next indicated step—write the next indicated word.

  I love you, Kristie. This one was for you.