His Penance, My Freedom

Two years, Alex.

It's been two years.

My whisper was dry, lost in the cold, vast living room where I knelt on marble, gripping his expensive trousers.

For two years, since his mother' s death, this had been my life, my prison.

He blamed me, twisted a lie of grief into his truth: I' d hidden her sickness for his company' s IPO.

Every week, a different woman.

They wore my robes, used my perfume, slept in our bed.

My task: welcome, serve, clean.

I swallowed humiliation because my father was sick, his treatments astronomically expensive.

Alex Thorne, my husband, was my only hope.