WHY IS THIS IN THE FILE?
Nobody took responsibility quickly enough.
My husband and I sleep with other people. We tell each other about it. The system works reasonably well until somebody needs the car.
I am forty-seven and have been married for sixteen years. The woman I was at thirty-one thought a second bathroom would solve most of her problems. She would be astonished by the calendar.
I like my husband. I also like the woman I sometimes spend Friday nights with and a man I see when our schedules permit. We have been doing this for two years. Recently, there was a terrible incident involving the only set of car keys.
We made agreements before we opened the marriage. We revisited them. We talked honestly about jealousy, safer sex, privacy, and what each of us actually wanted. I expected these conversations to be the difficult part.
Then my husband scheduled a date for the evening the plumber was coming.
He said the plumber had a window. I said so did his date. We both stood in the kitchen looking at a calendar that had become too colorful to be trusted.
At first, we used discreet labels. Dinner. Friends. Evening out. Unfortunately, those were also the labels we used for dinner, friends, and evenings out. On one memorable Tuesday I put on earrings for an encounter that turned out to be our appointment with the accountant.
We tried initials. Two people had the same initials. We tried emojis. My husband used the aubergine for an actual grocery trip, which I considered an act of sabotage.
The confession I find harder to make is that I once came home from a casual overnight visit and felt jealous of how little washing-up my lover appeared to generate.
She had two plates. They were clean. She had not asked whether we were out of dishwasher salt. I briefly confused this with a superior philosophy of living.
Then I stayed with her for a long weekend and discovered the plates were clean because she ate standing over the sink. Desire had been editing the evidence.
My husband, meanwhile, has acquired a habit of dressing beautifully to go out, then asking me where his other sock is. I support his freedom. I object to being its wardrobe department.
We are happy more often than not. Sometimes I am lonely at an inconvenient moment. Sometimes he needs reassurance. Sometimes one of us changes a plan because the person at home matters more than the plan. None of those things fit neatly into a colored square.
Last Friday, I canceled a date because I wanted an evening with him. He ordered noodles. We watched something stupid. I had a very good time.
Afterward, he leaned over and asked what I was doing next Thursday.
I told him to send an invitation.
He has marked it Private.
Fiction from Slutty Confessions. Roxie Bell is a Broken Zine persona.
