“Oh,” Vance mumbles, his eyes dropping down to the floor before popping back up to me, his giddy mood returning. “How about we compromise? We’ll watch both. Evil Dead now, and your thing after.”

I lean back against the plush cushion of the couch and sigh, because Vance and I both know we’re not about to watch two movies back to back. After the first one is over, Vance will say he’s too tired to watch another, and he’ll want to go to bed. So, this compromise is just his way of dodging the movie I want to watch. It’s so fucking annoying, and I don’t remember him being this irritating in the beginning.

“Sure,” I say with no enthusiasm whatsoever, hoping Vance would hear my dread and catch on, but he plows ahead with a smile like a spoiled kid who just got his way, and presses play on the remote.

As the movie starts, I decide I’ll need a glass or two of wine if I’m going to make it through my fifth viewing of Evil Dead, and I take my time getting it as the movie roars to life. I choose Chardonnay for its crisp taste and ability to get me buzzed off one glass, and I make sure the liquid is near the top before I stop pouring, wine glass etiquette be damned. I grab a blanket out of the closet in the hallway and make my way back into the living room, hoping with everything in me that I won’t fall asleep before the movie ends. I can only imagine the tantrum Vance would throw if he looked over and saw me sitting there with my eyes closed.

An hour into the movie, my first glass of wine has been guzzled down, and I’m gifted with the feeling of warmth radiating through me. I honestly couldn’t care less about the ugly girl on the screen with the peeling skin, and I barely look at the TV as my mind wanders back to The Patient. While Vance is consumed by the horror flick, I’m thinking about the way Dr. Colson had his hand around Ava’s throat in the last scene I read. I think about the way he told her to spread her legs for him so he could see her pussy, and it doesn’t take long for me to feel warmth in my favorite place. I don’t want to watch movies anymore, and I think it’s time Vance and I got our relationship back on track with some heart-pounding, toe-curling sex.