Silent Treatment: The 25th Day

I looked at the double bed, then remembered that Manfred Junior had left a beautiful single mattress in his room downstairs, with a single sheet, single blanket, and a magnificent single duvet. He was at college in another state, and wouldn't be home for months. It was the ideal solution.

.

- - - - - - - Chapter 2 Epiphany: Camel Toe and Camel's Back.

.

An old proverb says, sooner or later comes that famous single drop. "The drop that breaks the camel's back."

She always thought of me as a porter. She only called me to lift weights: to carry sacks of potatoes, take out the rubbish, and move the cupboard. So the comparison with a camel, or a mule, or an elephant seemed fitting. After all, the Mammoth is a very hairy elephant.

In porn sites, camel toe means something else entirely. But in our marriage, camel toe was just a way of saying that every gesture of one of her toes was enough to summon a porter, a factotum, a butler cook, and a waiter.

I had given her a birthday present.

She had never changed the presents that came from her family of origin. It was almost a form of superstition. Sometimes her sister had given her shoes that were the wrong size, or trousers that were too long, but Trudy had kept them, never wearing them, rather than changing them in the shop.

I don't remember what I bought her. But I liked it. She insisted she wanted to change it.

Was that the famous drop? I don't know. Maybe not.

At the same time, she had rejected my sexual advances for dozens of consecutive days. And it wasn't a consensual game of enforced male chastity, with a keyholder and a caged cock: in our marriage, for 25 years, it was always just her unilateral decision, a tyrannical dictatorship, a lazy inertia. And I didn't even have a safe word to get out of it!

In her family, divorce was always conceived as an immoral thing. None of her relatives had ever divorced. So we were stuck together until old age took us to the afterlife.

We were having dinner at a restaurant that only she liked. I had tried a few times to say that the food was too spicy for me, but she didn't care.

Halfway through dinner, with the plate still to be eaten, one of us said something the other didn't understand. I don't remember what. But it's not important. It wasn't that, the drop.

She said: "I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Why did she say that? I don't know!

But the fact remains: she said it.

She got up and left the restaurant. Her family nurtures some superstitions, mine nurtures others. One of the cultural superstitions of my family of origin is that no one should ever leave food on a plate in a restaurant. Was that the drop?

I paid for the restaurant, and she got into the car, in silence.

I drove the car home. She went to the bathroom and then went to sleep without speaking to me.

The Silence Treatment had begun.

Dear reader. Can a person who loves you, decide to ignore you for a whole day just to teach you a lesson? Or will the person who loves you decide to talk to you as soon as possible and then spend that whole day in bed having sex for hours?

This silence inflicted by the wife on her husband (it is domestic abuse: it is domestic violence) is so widespread, that when we see it in a movie, nobody is surprised. Have you seen "The Sixth Sense", 1999 movie, with Bruce Willis? His character sits in front of his wife, but the wife doesn't speak to him, she hardly even seems to see him (I don't want to spoil it, but hey, the wife doesn't see him at all!). Why does the director manage to make it seem like a normal situation? Because the audience recognises a behaviour acted by millions of wives every day: ignoring the husband, not talking to the husband, not looking at the husband. And never give a compliment or a thank you: in the repertoire of those wives, there is only room for complaints about anything (and thus, sooner or later, also about the husband!) and for recriminations about ambitions still unfulfilled (and thus, sooner or later, also about the husband's desire to declare himself unsatisfied). And what can a husband do? He can only endure stoically, as long as he can endure: giving up his Life, his Freedom, his Sex with her, and his Pursuit of Happiness.

I know that someone very wise suggests sabotaging a wife who gives you Silent Treatment. He suggests giving her some sheets of paper and a box of colored pencils: because she is acting like an immature child because she can't use her "Big Girl's words", with a big girl tone of her voice. Ah! Brilliant. But even that move would only serve to allow her to play the Victim with the other women: "You can't imagine, girls, what an asshole! Instead of apologizing, he insulted me by handing me his fucking colored pencils!" (chorus: "Oh what a moron!", no one ever will defend him).

###

Of course, short Silence Treatment was often a frequent weapon in Trudy's hands, in the previous years. And after all, isn't reading novellas and sagas for hours a larval form of Silent Treatment?

If I had been wise, I would have noticed many Red Flags some years ago. 25 years ago.

Suddenly, as the rapper's song says, the Veil of Maia had been torn (Eminem, I suppose).

Trudy did not just inflict Silent Treatment on me. Over and over, she insisted on dismissing my feelings and playing Victim. Oh, yes I know, each daughter learns that trick at the beginning of her activity in the great circus of Life: females learn to tear out their eyes when they want to, they learn to fake pain, they learn to blush out of mock embarrassment, and they learn to fake orgasms like Sally inside a New York Deli. I know this because Trudy was able to imitate Meg Ryan's acting at dinner with friends, and everyone laughed except me.

Trudy was always judging me. She was always critical of me, and always in a destructive way. The only thing she didn't criticize was the way I worked in the office, simply because she didn't understand what I did. But she always judged my paycheck as 'too little', which was very substantial. But as the saying goes, the greedy never get enough food.

Usually, however, Trudy's Silent Treatment lasted only a few hours. Never more than a full day: perhaps the longest duration had been 25 consecutive hours.

But who was it that made the peace? Me. I would ask for forgiveness, I would bring a gift, flowers, or chocolate, and I would look for a new vibrator with which to make her happy (assuming she would let me use it).

But one drop...

I don't know what the drop was. Whether the dish at the restaurant, or the gift to change, or the tone of voice, or a misspoken word. I don't know.

The friends to whom I later recounted the events, asked me many times what had triggered it all. And I honestly don't know.

All I know is that that night I could not apologize (but for what?) or propose peace (but why?) because she was already asleep. She was farting, and she was asleep.

Yes, after 25 years women take confidence and fart.

The next day I could have humiliated myself, I could have degraded myself by belittling, bought another present, perhaps. Instead nothing: I did nothing at all.

She would not look at me or speak to me.

Three days later, in an absent voice, she told me at 5 pm I want you to take me to change the present. It was not a question, it was a statement. She needed a driver and a porter: she needed a camel.

Was that the drop? No.

This morning was the 25th day. I woke up, as always, before her. Oh, don't listen to those female journalists who claim that mothers and grandmothers woke up at 4 a.m. to milk the cows and gather the eggs... those were men's jobs. And anyway, with the excuse of her low blood pressure, in all the mornings of 25 years, I always woke up first, I made breakfast for my children, I dressed them and took them to school, and I went to work while she was still sleeping in slumberland.

I was already dressed, even with my shoes on. I went next to the bed on her side.

I hesitated because it had already been 25 days since she had imposed Silent Treatment on me.

I did not fear her. I feared MYSELF.

I feared that kissing her would drag me into perdition.

I kissed her forehead. She slept on her side. On contact, she rolled onto her back. It might have seemed a spontaneous gesture, but I knew what it meant in her mind.

Rolling with the tummy down meant 'don't touch me, go away: deny'.

Rolling with the tummy upwards meant 'touch me, make me orgasm, possess me'.

Not a word. Not even a grunt. Nothing.

I slipped a hand under the sheet. With my thumb, I brushed a nipple, which immediately became engorged. The tits were warm and soft.

I lifted my pajama top (yes: women after 25 years sleep in children's pajamas, with cartoon princesses. The opposite of the sexy lingerie you see in porn movies).

Underneath, the nipples were already erect.

I took one with my mouth, sucking on it like a suction cup. With my fingers, I pinched the other nipple.

I expected her to say a few words, like "Go away" or "Leave me alone" (her favorite phrase).

Trudy said nothing.

I have two hands, she has two nipples, but she also has a pussy. While with one hand I pinched her nipple, with the other I crept between her inner labia: and she was soaking wet. Who knows what news she had read the night before! Or maybe she was genuinely aroused, that asshole. She could have repelled my hand with her hers, or resisted my tyrannical will as usual, instead, she kept quiet and waited for me to make her orgasm. Lazy inertia, as usual. That would have been the right tattoo for her: Sloth, Laziness, and Inertia.

While I continued to tug at her nipples with my thumb and forefinger, I opened her lips with my tongue and insinuated myself between her teeth.

The same teeth that 25 days earlier had hissed that she no longer wanted to talk to me.

Teeth that for twenty years had snarled orders. Teeth that for twenty years have demanded a new car, a new house, a new dog, and who knows how many more things.

Teeth that have devoured, bitten, bitten every hour of my time and every coin of my paycheck.

Teeth that could have bitten my helpless tongue.

Instead, her tongue took me in. Her arms had remained inert and lazy: message tested countless times, it meant 'you do it all, I don't have enough energy to devote to you'.

Ah. Trudy was beginning to moan with pleasure. Do you want to see the insatiable little one craving cock? It would also have been understandable since she hadn't received penetration in over two months.

I removed my fingers from her pussy, to concentrate on her tits with two hands.

Among the many tricks I learned from pornography, one of the most effective was torturing her tits (without exaggeration: a balanced dose). She was the queen of the nipple orgasm. And on the rare occasions when she allowed me to have sex with her, her tits were by far the star of every session. The nipple orgasm is a real thing: maybe not all women can do it, but those who can, have very intense orgasms. And Trudy was the queen of that.

As I kissed her, her soft, warm lips reciprocated, contradicting the words those same lips had spoken 25 days before, and the silence those lips had flaunted afterward.

I tugged on her left nipple, stretching her tit upwards. My wife moaned with pleasure. She knew what would happen next: I would slap her nipples, with gentle energy, then suck them for hours. Then she would have her first orgasm from her nipples. Then, tired but still eager, she would weave her fingers in my hair, pushing my head towards her tummy, and then towards her pussy. And she would keep my head pressed to work on her pussy for hours on end until she orgasmed again. Meanwhile, a big drop of precum would wet my boxers.

That would have happened before today.

But it didn't happen today.

My thumb pulled her nipple upwards. But then, my shoulder pulled her elbow back, which pulled her wrist back, which pulled her fingers back. No beating.

I know the boob was expecting a slap. In a way it would have been cathartic for both her and me: a brief adrenaline rush, an aggressive gesture on my part, received with divine patience on hers. And perhaps, in her mind, it was also a cunning way of making up for it and then playing Victim, playing the Wild Card.

As if to say, "There, you see, all males are rapists and beaters, you proved it by whipping my nipples with the same rage as Achilles, and now with feminine, tear-filled doe eyes I deserve all the adoration in the world even though I may not have behaved well in the last 25 days but in the last 25 seconds you have whipped me and so we are even".

Because my wife reasoned like this: you put in a whole paycheck, I bought bread, so we are even: one counts one. You give the kids the whole evening to do their homework, I folded a tablecloth, we're even: one counts one.

You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, say the wise men.

But the slap didn't go off. The boob was waiting for it, but she didn't get it.

I left her in bed, unsatisfied. Is there such a thing as a ruined female orgasm? I don't know: if it exists, that was it. I don't care.

Did she masturbate to orgasm afterward?

I don't give a fuck.

Literally.

###

That morning, I guessed that she would allow me to have sex.

If I had slipped my hand under her panties, she would have reacted only with moans and small protests (useful only to confirm to herself and her bigoted upbringing, that she was not voluntary!), let me lick her for an hour, then anal beads, vibrator and magic wand. Then, after she had achieved an undeserved orgasm, without even wearing any lingerie or perfume, she would say she was tired and had to get out; intimating to me, to cum soon, either on her tits or on the floor, because she was in a hurry to take a shower.

But here is a Revelation, which contains a Revolution: I don't need to cum like this. She doesn't even turn me on if she just lies there in bed inert and lazy. Sure, firm, soft tits are a pleasure in themselves, but that's not enough: it won't be enough for me, it won't be enough for me. She will have to be the one to start, to take the initiative: she will have to be the one to choose perfume and heels and to parade like a model with handcuffs at her elbows and her shirt unbuttoned. But first, I'll send her to change her shoes, so she'll wear the stiletto heels I bought her years ago that she doesn't even know are there. Are those shoes difficult to wear, and do they make the walker suffer? She will have to put up with it, because I like her: just as I went to work in a difficult trade that makes people suffer, to give her pleasure. If she loved me, she would do things and buy things thinking 'This pleases my husband'. But it would never happen. Will it happen? Maybe, I don't know. We'll see.

And before I allow her to kiss me, I will demand to watch her masturbate with the magic wand on her knees in front of me, and beg me as I have begged her for over twenty years.

###

Now I know what the drop was. It was the drop of cum that did NOT come out of my cock that morning. Trudy, with her inert laziness, can't even get me hard. At this point, she can remain silent for the next 25 years.

I will never again do anything to try to get her consent. Maybe she will be the one who will have to take initiative, and maybe she will have to take my refusal. We shall see. We'll stay married, anyway, what difference does it make to me? This is the house I paid for with my salary. I'll sleep in my son's room, so she won't be able to steal my blankets and sheets, she won't be able to kick me if I snore, and she won't be able to keep the light on to read yet another chapter of another pointless saga. And if she wants to have sex, she'll have to come to me, in the other room: walking down the corridor in heels, lingerie, music, and soft light, and all the things she knows perfectly well that I want, but which just out of spite she has never wanted to do for me.

I don't give a fuck about her.

I walked out of the room and out the main door of the house, completely fucking her. Finally, after more than twenty years of rejection and denial, and after 25 days of Silent Treatment, I was happy in the end.

.

- - - - - - - Final Chapter: A Morning Dream.

.

"I love the smell of unsatisfied pussy in the early morning. It's the smell... of Victory" (movie: "Apocalypse Now", but I'm not sure of the exact words, I'm quoting off the top of my head).

With the smell of my wife's unsatisfied pussy still on my fingers, I ride the underground to the office.

Music in my earphones. I don't know who sent me a short video with a song. Coincidentally, it matches my state of mind: I couldn't care less about meeting another woman. But to quote the Great Bard: "the bare necessities of life will come to you: they'll come to you! Oh man, that's really livin' so just try and relax, yeah, cool it... Fall apart in my backyard 'cause let me tell you something, dear reader: if you act like that bee acts, uh uh... You're working too hard! And don't spend your time lookin' around for something you want, that can't be found! When you find out you can live without it and go along not thinkin' about it (I'll tell you something true): the bare necessities of life will come to you, yeah man." (W. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Jungle", 1967 I suppose).

An underground train braking pushes against me the inert body of a student in her early twenties or so, who was reading something on her phone hearing something in her ears. Without a bra, her small firm tits push proud nipples against my chest. She looks at me from under her thin glasses, blushing. "Excuse me, sir..."

I have two sons, but this girl could be my daughter: same age, same awkwardness, same obsession with social media.

"Excuse me, sir, I'm so clumsy, and ugly..."

"No, little girl, let me contradict you: social networks want to brainwash you, to bring you into a state of neediness that feeds your consumerism."

"Wow! But are you a lecturer in sociology? I study but I still have to..."

"No, child, I'm just a normal average 50-year-old man, these things I know because I've lived."

"Oh! But why does a wise man like you, waste your time with an ugly girl like me?"

"You are not ugly, little flower. You are healthy and full of life. How old are you?"

"Twenty!" she exclaimed, as if quoting Abba's musical "Mamma Mia!".

"Perfect. I should go to the office, and you should go to the library to study, I guess, but instead here's the plan. I'll take off work and you skip the study session for once. We'll get off at the next stop and I'll show you that you're a healthy, energetic girl who deserves to have all the orgasms she wants, without dreaming them from these novels."

The screen had switched to the cover of the book that had so excited her: a werewolf with a torn shirt. Why are cover artists so obsessed with ripping off shirt sleeves, each one like Hulk? It must be a plot by the International Tailors and Seamstresses lobby.

We went to a hotel. She was shy but eager. She whispered "Be gentle..." as if I was about to penetrate her immediately. Instead, I dived to lick her down under, under the red tuft of hair like fire: incendiary carpet matches incendiary drapes! She groaned, saying "I feel so dirty, I am so ugly, my tits are too small, my labia are lopsided" Then she stopped uttering intelligible words and started alternating moans and grunts.

"If you keep this up you'll make me orgasm before you even impale me!" she sighed, before letting go in the post-orgasmic bliss.

I continued to kiss her softly and caress her without waking her up. A long time later she woke up. I asked: "You're awake, I've been waiting for you, I'll order a coffee from room service, how do you want it?"