Radical Honesty

And other ideas that get you into big trouble

I told you not to name me. Now I have a target on my back.

The angry messages from Rory had been unrelenting. When I told him that I’d confessed to my husband that we’d been sexting, he acted like I’d said he had to meet him at dawn with a single bullet in a pistol.

I tried desperately to calm him. He’s not going to come after you. We’re on the other side of the world.

He wouldn’t see reason though. Kept saying that what happened in my family was my business, he wanted to be left out of it. I apologised over and over but he was unforgiving.

Franc was silent. He played with the kids and went to work and watched Netflix but he barely looked at me for days. I felt so guilty.

He had told me that his biggest fear was that I form a connection with another man, and now I had confessed to two of them. These weren’t random strangers, they were friends that I had major crushes on. People that I shared my feelings with and confided in.

I was convinced I had fucked up so bad, I was going to end up alone again.

Like the time that my boyfriend Stu dumped me in the same week that my sister had a nervous breakdown and bought a ticket to Mexico before throwing all her credit cards in the airport rubbish bin and boarding the plane. That same week I tried to lean on a friend from university, and he gently told me that he’d rather lie on a busy train track than come round and lie next to me. They may not have been his exact words, but that’s what I understood he meant. I was left in an empty house wondering if anyone would ever speak to me again.

But I had survived. I had used creativity to get through, writing poems and songs, and life had gone on. So I knew I could handle it if I had to.

Here we go again, I thought, listening to Franc crying at night when he thought I was sleeping. He’s going to leave or kick me out and I’ll be in some cheap hotel, only allowed to see the kids every second weekend. Or not at all if he bundles them off to France when I’m at work.

Finally, I heard from Ludo after weeks of silence.

I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. My wife asked me if I’d slept with anyone on my trip to South America and I told the truth. She basically lost her mind.

Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I replied. I assumed you had some kind of don’t ask, don’t tell situation going on.

We did. She put condoms in my bag when I was leaving and everything. But it turns out, she couldn’t handle it. She didn’t think I would actually go through with it.

That sucks, I replied. I told myself not to make it about me when he was obviously hurting, but I just couldn’t. Meanwhile, Franc found out about everything, I wrote.

Sorry, what?

I tried to tell you but you weren’t responding. He smashed my computer.

How did he find out? he wanted to know. Don’t you delete the messages?

I do.

There was no reply while he waited for me to explain myself.

I told him. I said I wanted to go see you in Germany in January and then he started asking about Paris last year and he just kept pushing and pushing until I told him.

Yeah, there’s no way Germany is happening.

I know. I added a sad emoji. But then I said I wanted to be radically honest with him and told him about all the sexting. With the guy from Paris and with you.

OK. Can you walk it back? Tell him that you made a mistake? We’re just friends?

I tapped on the reply field.

No, I’ve told him everything. I said it was one-sided though. He asked if I would leave him if you asked me to and I said it wasn’t an option and he asked how I know and I said because you told me.

I pushed send and started composing the next message. And that’s when he smashed the computer.

Why?

Because it means I have feelings for you and you know it.

I waited, watching the three little dots that meant he was composing a new message. There was nothing new here. With Ludo, I was completely open. I wasn’t scared to tell him how I felt and I trusted him to accept my feelings and be clear about his. After Rory and Franc’s reactions though, I anticipated anger. Would he say we couldn’t be friends anymore? That he didn’t want to work with me anymore? Had I let him down too badly?

Which is why the next message to come through was a massive surprise:

I see. How are you feeling now? Are you OK?

I stared at the screen. I felt like I could melt into a puddle on the floor. I could dissolve and blow away in the wind. I could have wept.

I was so used to feeling like the villain in the story. A sex-crazed maniac who was breaking the heart of the person who loved her the most, taking my picture-perfect family for granted, looking to the wrong people and places for physical pleasure, and now this person that I barely knew, who I’d kind of betrayed too, had asked if I was OK.

I said yes, I’m fine, and thanked him for asking. Of course I was lying about being OK. But I appreciated him asking more than I could express in a few short words on a phone screen.

I don’t know what to do, I admitted. Everyone is mad at me.

You’re going too fast, he said. He’s accepted everything so far, but you need to slow down. You’re close to having everything you want.

I don’t even know what I want.

I typed another message:

Meaningless sex is one thing but now he knows that you can dominate me like I want, he’s crazy jealous.

“What are you writing now?”

My head shot up. I was sitting in the living room, hunched over my phone in semi-darkness. Franc leaned forward to pick up the TV remote and sat on the couch opposite me.

“Nothing,” I quickly put my phone down next to me but kept my hand on it possessively.

“Hm, so much for radical honesty,” he said, but he didn’t turn on the television.

“I’m texting Ludo,” I admitted. “You really want to see?”

“Sure.” He held out his hand.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said, but I handed over the phone.

As I watched him scroll through my private messages, I burned inside. The shame and vulnerability and violation all battled within me as I felt my carefully constructed boundaries crumbling like a castle wall being attacked by hundreds of flaming catapults. I prayed that Ludo wouldn’t reply while Franc was reading, and snatched the device back as soon as he had seen enough.

Franc stood up from the couch, walked out to the front yard and sat on the step, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. I sat down beside him.

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” I said stiffly.

“Well, it puts me in my place,” he said. “I can’t dominate you like you want. So what? You’d like me to beat you?”

“No, of course not.” I was defensive. “I don’t expect anything from you. Clearly, I don’t deserve a nice guy like you.”

Getting up, I returned into the house and immediately texted Ludo to tell him what had happened.

Oh shit, he replied.

You know, I’m not scared to be alone. I hit send and kept typing. When I think about being on my own again, the overwhelming feeling is relief.

I wanted Ludo to know that even if I left Franc, I wouldn’t expect anything more from him than friendship. All my relationships were on shaky ground but I was bracing myself for loss. The most important thing was to protect the kids from the fallout. I wouldn’t leave them under any circumstances.

You’re probably just upset right now. Give it time.

When Franc came to bed, I was lying with my back to him and my eyes open. “This is too hard,” I said. “I think we should just be friends and co-parents.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

I swivelled around to look at him grimly. “I don’t want my actions to have such a deep effect on you. I don’t want to feel owned by you. I don’t want to be responsible for your happiness, it’s too much pressure. I think it would be easier if we were just friends.”

Sitting up, I continued, “The expectations would be lower. We can be two individuals instead of this malfunctioning couple.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” he said. “This is the first time you’ve shown any real emotion since this began. When he’s involved.”

“This has nothing to do with him,” I replied, unsure of the truth in my statement. “I can’t handle this anymore. We have to find a better way. I’m going to sleep now.”

I lay back down, closing the conversation, but of course, it would be many hours before I fell asleep.

In the morning, there had been a strange shift. Franc emerged from the shower and grabbed the coffee I’d poured with a renewed energy compared to the preceding weeks, before planting the mug back on the bench and smiling at me, “I have a suggestion.”

I frowned.

“I want you to be honest,” he continued. “Radically honest, as you put it. I want you to break it off with Rory and anyone else you’re seeing. But you can keep working with Ludo and I don’t need to know what you talk about with him.”

I cocked my head to one side and blinked slowly. “Franc, I don’t think…”

“Obviously, I prefer if you don’t…what did you call it…sext with him either,”

“We haven’t for ages anyway.”

“Whatever. He was right about one thing. You’re going too fast. It’s not like I don’t want to go to the clubs. I’m just not comfortable like you are. I need more time. I’ve told you before that my dad cheated on my mother. I saw how much it hurt her, and I hated him for that.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” I said. “I don’t want to be that person. I’ve been trying to bring you along with me, really! But it’s hard. It’s not sexy to have to take you by the hand and lead you every step of the way.”

He flinched a little and I felt bad. “Sorry, that’s harsh.”

“No, I get it. But I can’t help it. I’m not like you, I seize up. I can’t control it.”

I recognized the behaviors he was describing from each time we’d been swinging. There was always a moment where the fear overtook him. When I’d tried to pull his dick out that first night and he wasn’t hard. When he’d refused to let me suck him while I was being gang-banged. When I asked if he wanted to tie me to the cross after he’d spanked me at the Saints and Sinners Ball.

Those were the opportunities for me to pause and check in. The only time I had paused even slightly was at the gangbang, when I stopped after the fourth or fifth guy, so not much of a concession, really. I was always too far into my own desire and couldn’t or wouldn’t pull back.

“So,” I ventured. “You’re saying you’d like to continue going to the clubs?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Yeah.”

“What if we went to a regular night, not MFM?”

“We could try.”

“OK, I’ll organize a sleepover for the kids one of these weekends.”

He nodded. “No rush. Anyway, today, we have another mission.”

“What’s that?”

“We need to get you a new laptop.”