“We did. We didn’t balk once. And the way we fucking ended it, tying it back into the pierced nipples…you realize it takes comedians years to learn how to do that in their stand-up shows, to bring everything full circle to the initial joke. That’s a special talent, and we did it, on the fly, without even communicating with each other. Fuck.” He holds his arm out to me. “Look, goose bumps.”

Goose bumps?

He has goose bumps.

Is he really that dense?

“Wilder,” I snap. “That was not how it was supposed to go.”

“No, it went even better.” He takes his shoes off and then flops back on the bed, the shake of the mattress causing the handcuffs to clatter against the poles. “I’ve never felt so alive.”

“Are you really not going to acknowledge how badly you incriminated me back there? The basis of our marriage problems revolves around pierced nipples, Wilder. Pierced nipples!”

“A problem he’s probably never heard before.”

“Because it’s a problem that doesn’t break up a marriage,” I shout and start pacing. “God, I never should have gone through with this. I never should have thought this was a good idea. Now my boss’s husband thinks I’m a prude with small nipples and that my husband is a Velcro-hating, pierced sex fiend with a fetish.”

“I mean, the pierced thing is accurate.”

I pause my pacing and glance over at him, only to catch him wiggle his brows.

“Are you…are you really pierced?”

“You tell me.”

I shake my head. “We’re getting off topic. This was bad. This was really bad.”

“This was good, Pips,” he says and sits up. “I was really impressed with you. The number of things that you kept coming up with, things that bothered you… I was seriously frothing at the mouth, waiting for your next complaint. I loved it. You exceeded my expectations. It’s almost like you’ve done this before.”

That causes me to pause, because…I have done this before.

I’ve been through this.

I’ve experienced this anger.

The yelling.

The wedge placed in the middle of the marriage, constantly being hammered in with every little, pesky fight.

Did I just spend the entire day airing out my grievances from my previous marriage?

I try to think back to what I said, but it all feels like a distant memory now.

“Hey,” Wilder says, his voice growing concerned. “Everything okay?”

But I ignore him as I take a seat in the chair in the corner, slowly beginning to consider my time with Matt.

How he never did anything I asked him to do.

How he complained about buying my feminine products because he believed it was embarrassing.

He never attempted to show interest in what I thought was fascinating.

He never took the blame, never participated in our marriage, and never helped out around the house.