Unconventional Therapy Ch. 01

Donna glanced around the sprawling fruit and vegetable section, impatiently waiting for the older woman to find what she needed. Get moving, lady. She wanted to yell out, growing more irritated by the second since pressing the dial button to call Maddie before noticing her. Anger over the wait to share the latest marital troubles with her best friend regarding Donna's husband, Mark, had hit peak tolerance. If she had a free private moment, Maddie hadn't. When Maddie was available for her to vent, Donna wasn't able to. Now it was this old hag, she fumed. Their two husbands being partners in the same law firm didn't help when it came to pulling something off discreetly.

"Let me put you on hold for a minute or two," Donna reluctantly told her when Maddie answered. "Someone is in range of being nosey," she whispered, sighing. Believing the woman would move on quickly.

"No problem, I can..." Donna heard Maddie's voice fade while lowering the phone.

The neighborhood grocery market was typically empty around 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings, so Donna had settled for then to phone Maddie. But venturing into the store to call versus talking in the car was a tradeoff. Ultimately, she concluded that sitting in her vehicle for an extended period could trigger suspicions since Mark demanded that location tracking stay enabled on her mobile device. Donna had never cheated on him but theorized sitting around in your automobile chatting on the phone was one of the ways folks having extramarital affairs communicated. And she didn't want to arouse suspicion in a community where people sometimes recognized her as the wife of a publicly visible attorney.

Daily living in a bubble of tracking and surveillance equipment had increasingly become a reality for Donna. Mark thrived on tech gear and gadgets and was constantly upgrading them. After reading case notes and before allowing a new client to enter his office, he would spend 5-10 minutes studying them on his high-resolution surveillance system. Their home was more of the same. He had the whole thing surveilled. Either wired or wireless, but he preferred hardwired. Some tiny cameras had gotten hidden. Other large ones were strategically placed in plain view to intimidate anyone entering the premises. Donna's protests about it didn't matter. "It's a personal security thing," Mark would tell her, immediately shutting down any debate. "Furious men getting taken to the cleaners, don't like divorce attorneys, and what's happening to them," he repeated more often than she could remember. In the end, she always conceded to his side of the argument because most of his clientele were wealthy, jilted women looking for a golden parachute as they bailed into a new life. So there were legitimate risks, but guests often felt uncomfortable.

For Donna, the line in the sand regarding Mark's surveillance system was the family home's main bedroom and bath. Whenever she inquired about the status of the cameras before they engaged in sex acts or when Donna was bathing, he would always insist they were off. But Donna always felt uneasy about that explanation. Mark typically controlled everything with his smartphone. She knew he could instantly turn various recording zones on and off, and the video files got stored somewhere unknown to her on a cloud server. Or the clips could get shared anywhere in moments via the home's Internet connection if needed by law enforcement. Donna was clueless about when Mark was watching or recording, and living under constant monitoring kept her anxiety levels high. She believed that that stress was by design because Mark prided himself on always keeping everyone in his circle under control and on their toes, especially his wife.

But that changed after Donna enlisted Maddie's son Tyler, a student at one of the nation's top technical colleges, to hack the security system and create two new administrative accounts the previous day. And because Tyler did it on a Friday afternoon, Mark had yet to realize that his admin account had gotten downgraded to shared file viewing only.

A fair-skinned, green-eyed brunette, admittedly, Donna was stereotypically suburbia overweight. At five feet, five inches tall, and 155 pounds, she'd always been the prim and proper housewife her husband claimed he wanted. His MILF, as Mark liked to put it, during rougher sexual activities, which had become increasingly common. An odd term in Donna's eyes because she'd never given birth, Mark's fault due to infertility. However, despite the extra pounds, it wasn't like Donna had an unattractive figure. But she considered herself as nothing more than an average-looking housewife, albeit without the stretch marks or damage below from pushing babies out. Donna's perspective of the situation was at age 41. Her body had just naturally aged, something inescapable. And men, she'd long ago noticed, were capable of sexualizing almost everything, including the age brackets of females.

Mark's most recent bedroom antic was to hold her arms behind her back while Donna was ass up and face down on the side of the mattress as he grunted out his before-bed load, making her suspect he was graduating to more hardcore porn in the evenings. MILF was sometimes getting replaced with harsher new terms like bitch, cunt, and slut, which gave her conflicting feelings. On the one hand, Donna felt she was supposed to be offended by being called vulgar words. But on the other, Donna could get aroused if she fantasized that men in the romance novels she read used those derogatory names to describe her instead of Mark during sexual intercourse. She'd long since ceased being attracted to him but felt compelled to be a vessel for his seed when he beckoned.

His total domination of her daily life also intruded into Donna's wardrobe. Despite growing up poor in the suburbs of D.C. and graduating from a top-tier college in the Northeast on a free-ride academic scholarship, Mark demanded that she pass herself off as the equivalent of some rich guy's daughter from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And to dress like that and act like it. Whatever that meant, something Donna still hadn't figured out. Adding to the intolerable situation, he left her at home full-time, overseeing the grounds of their little hell's quarter-acre. Tending to their 5,000 square foot living quarters and creating new culinary dishes in the expensive country kitchen he'd gotten installed. The out-of-kilter lifestyle for her personality left Donna feeling like a character forever stuck in an awkward, off-balance role.

Regarding marriage vows, Donna took them seriously, in line with her rearing and teenage birds and the bees talk. She'd never cheated on Mark or allowed men immodest viewing pleasures. Or an inroad to think they could get that or more. Doing whatever it takes to please her husband would keep him from straying, Donna's mom had repeatedly instilled. Divorce, her parents had infused because of their religious beliefs, is never an option.

But Donna waivered on her commitment to those ingrained values after standing over Tyler's shoulder in the den for 30 minutes when he hacked Mark's desktop computer, angrily watching him sort through the private files.

"Did you know Mr. E's been recording you during sexual activities, Mrs. E," Tyler inquired, displaying a clip of Donna getting forcibly taken from behind on the marital bed. Donna remembered the occasion all too well. Mark had painfully pulled her hair to yank her head back uncomfortably while penetrating her. Say it! Mark had commanded. "Repeat what you are?" Donna winced as she heard her tinny voice coming through the monitor's speakers. "I'm your whore wife, dependent on you," she whimpered as Tyler listened intently.

"Tyler, that's enough," Donna scolded, sensing that he was enjoying watching Mark make her suffer. "I can go through the files after you leave."

Ugh! Men are all the same, she thought to herself. Donna hated to admit it, but many women, her included, depended on them for certain things.

"Whoa, what do we have here," Tyler blurted out in an elevated voice, ignoring Donna's request to stop examining the system as he began browsing Mark's Internet history next. "Are you aware that Mr. E has uploaded some of these video clips to tube websites?"

Suddenly rethinking wanting him to quit examining the computer, Donna instead quizzed Tyler about the definition of a tube site. A question that he wasted no time answering like a computer nerd.

"They're free porn sites where men can anonymously share video clips," Tyler began before a brief analytical pause. "Mostly stuff of their wives and girlfriends, but sometimes revenge porn too." Throwing this in as an afterthought to rattle Donna. "Viewers can also download the movies and reupload them if the victim gets them removed."

"Let me see the websites!" Donna demanded, absolutely livid. "Show me what Mark's been putting on the Internet." A request Tyler hastily set in motion by selecting and clicking on multiple links in the history manager at once, causing browser windows to populate the entire screen of Mark's monitor.

"For fuck's sake," Donna exclaimed, recognizing her naked body as window after window of movies featuring various sex acts cascaded across the screen.

"At least Mr. E was respectful enough to blur your face some, " Tyler sarcastically replied before downgrading Mark's admin privileges to a user account.

"Do guys masturbate to this stuff," Donna naively wanted to know while Tyler created admin accounts with secure passwords for the two of them.

"Oh, sure they do," Tyler laughed, reflexively moving his left hand to his crotch as he watched another clip, a closeup of Donna performing oral sex to completion on Mark. "Many high school and college kids, the former illegally, watch this stuff, and your videos have 80 percent and higher approval ratings."

Donna didn't have to ask. She'd already surmised that Mark had put her in the MILF category, among others.

"Tyler!" Donna shrieked afresh, digging the fingernails of her left hand into his shoulder because of noticing him rubbing his cock through his shorts.

"Sorry, Mrs. E. This stuff is hot," Tyler told her apologetically, catching Donna off guard with his response.

"Really?" Donna inquired, relaxing her grip on him but keeping her hand on his shoulder. "At nineteen, you find my body attractive at twice your age?"

"I'd be crazy not to," Tyler responded, confessing to Donna that he'd always been attracted to older women but had never had the opportunity to score sex with one.

Donna tried to bury the burgeoning thought, but the longer she stared at Tyler's growing bulge, the more she realized how different the situation felt from when she was with Mark. With him, she merely performed sex acts to keep her husband happy and keep the marriage together. There wasn't a genuine sexual attraction like she was feeling now with Tyler. Why is this so different? Donna asked herself with a tinge of humiliation.

When Tyler unzipped his fly, pulled his penis out, and stroked it, Donna could not protest. Make him put that thing back in his pants. Donna's brain kept repeating, in collision with how her body reacted. Nor did she stop him when Tyler spun the desk chair around and used her arms to guide Donna to her knees slowly.

"Suck my dick! Tyler commanded as she instinctively took him into her mouth. "Do it while thinking about all those men jerking off to your videos."

Suddenly remembering where she was, Donna felt wracked by guilt as she recalled the previous afternoon with Maddie's son.

"Should I call you back, or do you want to keep holding?" Donna asked, growing more remorseful and suddenly feeling like she needed to bail on the conversation. The last thing she wanted was to destroy the friendship with her sole close friend.

"I'll hold," Maddie cheerfully responded from a lounge chair. "I'm watching a pretty Blue Jay in the bird bath."

Under Donna's intense gaze, the woman continued to dawdle between the produce displays, reigniting her frustration. "Can't you see I'm on the phone having a meltdown over here," she thought about shouting. "A little privacy, please." She wanted to cry out. But she managed to talk herself down. This marital mess is my problem, not hers. Donna reminded the anxiety-driven inner demon urging her to lash out.

Ongoing reflection about her behavior of late revealed that sarcasm and unhealthy coping skills were increasingly becoming outlets to deal with the anxiety, depression, and rapid mood fluctuations she was experiencing from the marital stressors. Donna wanted to blame her rollercoaster of emotions on being married to an abusive husband, but deep down, she wondered how organic it was. Am I becoming mentally ill? She sincerely asked herself. The gods of psychiatry had drugged her mother for most of her upbringing. Am I next? Donna worried before her thoughts shifted to other things.

Giving the woman time to finish shopping, Donna unconsciously tapped her foot and switched the phone to an insecurely balanced position while peeling off a produce bag from the reel. The temporary distraction was a reprieve from her inner turmoil. God, I hate these fucking things, Donna remembered as she fumbled nervously to separate the invisible edges of the thin plastic. Momentarily projecting her anger elsewhere.

Donna always contemplated if other shoppers felt like people were staring at them whenever they struggled to open one of the flimsy things. So she waited until the woman was facing away before defaulting to her method of last resort, licking some fingers that were previously on the disgusting shopping cart handle. But the gross trick made it feel like testing positive for an infectious disease within a few weeks was a distinct possibility because of not having cleaned it beforehand with a disinfectant wipe. Still, it finally allowed Donna to get the bag open to slip the several bananas she'd been holding in frustration with her left hand into a protective covering to survive a potentially equally disgusting checkout counter conveyor belt.

Gawd, that was nasty. Donna grimaced while picturing the grimy hands of some screaming little brat with a sugar high and a soiled diaper frantically pawing the shopping cart handle like a maniac where her hands had been. Staring at her fingertips for several seconds, imagining she could see the microscopic brown fecal matter, Donna waited for the icky shuddering feeling to pass.

With the bananas bagged and still unable to speak with Maddie, Donna realized she wanted to scream. And scream. And scream until she couldn't possibly scream anymore. And kick things! And hurl fruit and vegetables at the woman and the walls. Afterward, she imagined cradling her face like the tortured pose of the famous painting while a group of cops led her off to the closest psych ward. Mark would win, she fretted. It's probably the outcome he wants, she told herself. "I had to divorce her. The bitch was going batshit crazy." He would tell all their friends.

While she calmed down, Donna's thoughts shifted to how Mark hated it when she risked breaking the expensive electronics he'd bought her. All the more reason she was doing it now without thinking about the consequences, Donna realized, finding herself dangerously balancing the phone between her shoulder and cheek a second time. But isn't that why we have cellphone insurance? She mused while still waiting for the woman to finish selecting her stuff.

As the seconds ticked by in silence, Donna entertained devilish ideas about what might happen first. Would the woman finish shopping before her $1,200 cell phone slipped from its precarious perch? And if it did, would it crash end-first? Or take a hard blow on one of the prettily formed corners. Would the screen belly-flop onto the stained concrete floor and delightfully spider-web shatter with a 3-inch crack? Donna mulled.

When the other shopper, at last, exited the area with her basket, Donna wasted no time letting the cat out of the bag: a cruel thought crime that one of her animal activist friends despised. "Mark is having an affair, cheating, or up to something inappropriate with another woman!" She exclaimed, relieved to be alone and able to finally spit it out. "With who, I don't know," Donna added in a note of exasperation.

"Oh please, not another episode of that," Maddie's crackling voice quickly shot back from speaker mode. "Are you sure?"

"Take me off speakerphone, please." Donna pleaded, causing Maddie to go silent.

God, it felt good to share that at last, Donna observed, feeling her mood buoy ever so slightly. But she was disappointed that her brain was still spitting out reprehensible animal idioms despite trying to stop thinking like that. "What the fuck is wrong with these people?" She recalled her hairdresser beginning to rant out of the blue about using such terms one day when the two were alone in Miriam's salon. "Kill two birds with one stone," she shrieked. "Beat a dead horse," Miriam continued in a bloodthirsty diatribe. "Who the hell thinks like that?" The stylist demanded to know as Donna sat nervously in the chair, watching Miriam elevate to increasingly animated movements while armed with stylist scissors mere inches from her face.

"How are things going with Bethany?" Donna had asked to change the subject and get Miriam out of orbit.

"She's okay. Working at the rescue today," Miriam responded before expressing regret about suddenly going ballistic. "You know how I am when it comes to harming animals," she reminded Donna, who mainly remained quiet for the remainder of the appointment.

Delivering the news about Mark's latest fling to Maddie simmered Donna's previous urge to act out instantly, flipping her mood from destructive anxiety to semi-somber. It was better to tell someone like Maddie than some worthless realty whore that had gone from selling houses and condos to peddling talk therapy a year later for $200 per hour. She reminded herself.

On the other end of the phone call, Donna could imagine a half-awake Maddie out on the patio in a sheer nightgown and slippers, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and her cell phone in the other so she could get some privacy from Rob in case he awoke. Likewise, she could envision what he probably looked like at that moment. Rob was hideously overweight, likely laid out flat on his back in a deep slumber, wearing nothing but boxer shorts with the CPAP machine chugging away because he never exercised and drank too much.

She would never admit it to anyone, but Donna thought Rob was a pig and a literal bore. He spent his waking hours calculating things like stopping distances in car wrecks. Or how much money each stitch or broken bone warranted an accident victim for their pain and suffering from a collision with a big rig. The heyday of the madness for Donna was when Mark and Rob's law firm had briefly been a sponsor to the local evening news. Mark had beamed with malignant pleasure during the commercials. While Donna faked a smile, hiding her repulsion.

Donna's visualizations panned to thoughts of Mark next. His arm of the firm wasn't fit for the evening news. He was an aggressive divorce attorney who made his client's spouses bleed dollars in the courtroom. Lean and muscular, the polar opposite of Rob, she guessed Mark was probably on the third or fourth hole at the public golf course, grinning as he drove balls up to a hundred feet further than his peers. And with equal disgust, she visualized him relishing the feeling of crushing competitors on the golf course as he did departing husbands or wives on the witness stand because the competitiveness never ended for Mark. When 5 p.m. or the weekend arrived, he merely changed venues and kept the contest going in another fashion until it began anew on Mondays at courthouses.