I’m awake before Jack Henry, studying his sleeping figure—it’s a fine one—but that’s not what makes this morning a new experience. I’m waking next to him as my husband. Wow. I did it. I married a man who propositioned me a year ago, asking me to be his companion for three months. His idea of our pairing deciphered into something much different back then—an offer of noncommittal sex in exchange for the time of my life. Translation? I agreed to be his whore. There, I admit it, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made regardless of what kind of label we place upon it. Now he’s my husband—forever mine—and I couldn’t be happier. No number fourteen for him. Ever. We began as strangers—as most couples do—but our beginning was so much more complicated. That simple word makes me giggle each time I hear or say it now. There’s never a time I don’t recall the freakish control my husband displayed when he told me he was a man who didn’t do complicated.
