She rears back. “How is that possible? He’s a stripper. How can he afford that property?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he has a rich family. Though, why would he strip if he’s wealthy?”
“Again, I don’t know. What I know is that we are staying far away from him.”
“Oh, come on,” she drawls, her tone teasing. I just know she’s about to coax something out of me. “You go out once a month to fuck submissives, and the end-all-be-all of subby men, who was so baby girl you couldn’t stop daydreaming for weeks afterwards, plops himself next door and you’re gonna tell me you’re never going to see him again?”
Dammit. I should have kept my mouth shut.
But this, gossiping about our sexual exploits, is something foundational in our sisterhood—it’s not how all sibling relationships work, but it is for us. We spent so long without each other that once she was finally back in my life, I clung to her like a lifeline. She brought back all that essential, in-between stuff that’s never really explained about girlhood, but feels so right when it’s presented to you. Girlhood had been missing from my life, even though I fight tirelessly to foster it between my daughters.
Fresh out of undergrad, I married Greg Matherson, a music producer from Nashville who swept me off my feet and promised me everything. He was fifteen years my senior and worked alongside my parents for most of that time.
I grew up as the child of bluegrass legends, David and Ophelia Wilde. Both musicians, both singer-songwriters, they traveled all over the United States with me in tow, eventually spotlighting me on their stage. Me, a brave little girl with a mandolin and mighty voice, who sang alongsidecountry music’s greatest. We were onAustin City Limitsand we even played at The Grand Ole Opry. I’ve been to holiday parties at Dolly Parton’s house, and watched Shania Twain’s television while she folded laundry next to me.
After I married and moved away, my parents continued to work and tour with artists like Billy Strings and Ed Sheeran.
At eighteen, I left my family on the road and attended college in California. Greg consistently checked in on me, inquiring about my studies and urging me to stay focused and avoid distractions from boys. Or girls, my closeted mind would add.
I obviously saw it much too late that he was grooming me. To the untrained eye, he was always a safe, appropriate distance away. But I always had butterflies for him, and he knew it. He played into them and teased me for having a crush on him. In my naivete, my infatuation with him never felt wrong, but inevitable.
Somehow, Greg’s charm and promises still swayed me, despite my rich childhood filled with music and tour buses. He knew exactly the things I wanted at the time—to rest from travel and touch grass, literally in this case. He saw my love of nature and encouraged a teenage Renée to find her passion in biology. My parents, equally encouraging, supported this too.
We married the week after I graduated college. And sure, he kept his promise and moved us into a beautiful home right there in Nashville. He paid for both my master’s degree and my doctoral degree so that I could teach the very thing I loved.
But as time went on, he wove lies into my head about my parents. He insisted they were manipulative and abusive for parading me around like some prize horse, profiting off my talent. It didn’t matter that my parents set aside all the money I earned. It didn’t matter that I once loved playing the mandolin and singing my heartout. He convinced me the only way to get back at them was to cut them out of our lives.
Then, without telling me, and seemingly out of nowhere, he bought a house in West Chester, Pennsylvania. We didn’t know anyone, and I left my brand new job because he made this decision for us. When I questioned how he was going to do his job, he said his clientele would come to him.
But when I saw our new house, a fraction of the size of our last one, I knew something was wrong. There was no studio, no grand foyer. There was a single-lane driveway off a main road and a kitchen so small we had to hang pots from the ceiling.
There were nights of endless, unanswered questions, and demands as proof of love. “If you really loved me, you’d give me babies,” he would say. “If you really loved me, you’d support me through this career transition and work full time.”
Over time his demands became less and less loving. Disdain and anger reigned supreme and I didn’t know how to handle that. I had never grown up around such aggression and violent words.
The day he found out I had an IUD implanted in secret, things became exponentially worse.
“EARTH TO RENÉE,” Amber exclaims, throwing me back into the present.
I shake my head. “Sorry.”
“You okay?”
“Just went down a rabbit hole.”
She watches me carefully, knowing where my mind wanders. I wish I could erase everything about Greg and restart. She wishes that too.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asks.
“No. What were you saying before?”
“Jonah, our new neighbor. You can’t seriously tell me you’re going to ignore him when he’s soclearly your type.”
“I don’t have a type.”
“Tell that to the all the submissives you’ve painstakingly selected and fucked over the last year and a half.”
