Just Business
Copyright© 2025 by Don Lockwood
Chapter 5
Romance Sex Story: Chapter 5 - Arranged marriages. Aren't they fun? Especially when the bride and groom hate one another. Will Brad and Ingrid ever be actually married?
Caution: This Romance Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Fiction Oral Sex Safe Sex
BRAD
Oh, lord. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. Now this.
I thought all her demons were Laura. I was wrong. And now, I understood exactly what Lorraine meant. But I didn’t know what to do about it.
She came down for supper. She mostly supervised Leah and ate very little. She left Leah with me and disappeared again. She came down for Leah a little later. She hadn’t said much of anything since she’d talked to me about what had happened.
I watched TV—by myself—until I was drained. I headed up to bed. I thought I saw her, peering around a corner, but I wasn’t sure. It almost looked like she was waiting for me. I got in, stripped down to my boxers, and got in the bed, exhausted but very pessimistic about sleeping. Just as I settled, a knock came on the door. “Come in,” I said.
Ingrid walked in, wearing a robe and carrying Leah’s baby monitor. She didn’t say anything. “Hey, what’s up?” I asked. She still didn’t say anything. She walked around the bed, until she got to the other side from where I was sleeping—this being a king-size bed, I usually only occupied half. She dropped her robe by the bed, wearing pajamas, which weren’t all that revealing—but she’d never worn that little in front of me. She put the baby monitor on an end table. She still hadn’t said anything. And then, to my shock, she started lifting the blanket, like she was going to climb in.
“Hey, if you pull that blanket up too much, you’re going to see I’m only wearing boxer shorts,” I teasingly warned. She responded by pulling the blanket all the way up, so she could clearly see my barely-covered self. She smiled, and climbed in next to me.
What on earth was going through this woman’s mind?
She quickly told me. “I’m not scared of you. And I’m going to prove it. I’m going to sleep here tonight. I will be at my most vulnerable. I’ll be asleep and if you want to hurt me I’ll be right next to you. And I’m not scared.”
I mean ... just about the last thing I expected, right? It was also kind of insane. And illogical. And incredibly trusting and brave ... which was the part that I really didn’t expect.
“You don’t have to do this,” I told her, with a smile. “If you say you’re not scared of me, and you were having flashbacks, I believe you. It’s fine. You don’t have to stay.”
She took a slow breath, and then said, “What if I want to stay?”
“Then you are welcome,” I told her. “Don’t think I want you to leave, because I don’t.”
“Then I’m going to stay,” she said.
Things were silent for a few minutes. I had something running through my mind. I didn’t know how to bring it up. So, I just said it.
“Ingrid? I think you should talk to someone. You know, a professional.”
She was silent for a moment. “Didn’t you say the same thing to Laura?”
“Well, yes, but that was a completely different situation. Laura was very, very, sick. You’re not. What you have is trauma.”
“Why would I have trauma?” she asked.
I looked at her, curled up under my blanket. “Because every man that has ever been important in your life has been an asshole. Your father. Your grandfather. The sperm donor. And I met your racist, misogynistic Uncle at the wedding. That’s four men in your life who have completely let you down.” I dropped my voice. “And then, you were forced into a marriage with someone you figured would be the fifth. And I’m not. And part of you knows I’m not, or you wouldn’t be in bed with me. But the part of you that has been let down by men your whole life not only half believes Laura but is also waiting for me to let you down. And I’m not going to let you down. And I want you to be able to see that—maybe talking to someone else about the shitty men in your life will help.”
She released a shuddering breath. She didn’t say anything else. But she looked at me and nodded. Then she flipped over.
She stayed the whole night. When I woke up, she had flipped again. She was curled up against my back. I stayed still for about a minute. Then, she woke up. I felt her quickly back up to get away from contact, thinking she was doing so before I woke. Sorry, Ingrid. I caught you.
INGRID
That’s what I was missing.
That’s the connection I hadn’t yet made.
Laura lied. I had way too many reasons to know that now. She lied. My husband, who was lying in this bed next to me, did not do those things. How did I know? Well, a lot of reasons, but here’s one: I doubted her when she told me. Just for a minute, before she upped the ante, but I did. Another memory that I’d seemingly buried that came back up at me. And why did I doubt it? Because I knew Brad. He was a nice guy, even back then.
So why did I cling to this belief for ten years?
Say it.
Fucking SAY IT, Ingrid.
Because part of me didn’t ever believe that any guy could be that nice. Guys sucked. Period. Any guy playing at being nice was just playing.
I remembered a conversation with Hannah, shortly after I’d had Leah and the sperm donor had vanished, where I told Hannah that one of my biggest wishes was to be attracted to girls. I would have had so much more of a chance of finding love if I’d been a lesbian. Alas, I’m completely straight. Which meant that I was going to be alone. That was it. Guys sucked. I’d never find one worthy of me.
And then I was forced to marry a man who I believed was a monster and could never, ever, ever be worthy of me. And that man had spent every single day of our marriage demolishing that belief. Every single day. In more ways than I could count.
Obviously, part of me had believed that, or I wouldn’t be in this bed. But the other part? Was still holding back. So it led to a combination of insane grand gestures while still waiting for him to show his true colors. But here’s the kicker, that I realized almost abruptly: if his true colors were what Laura had said, he shouldn’t be in this bed next to me. He should be in an auditorium somewhere waiting for them to announce his name directly after, “And the Oscar goes to...” Nobody is that good an actor. Look, I know a little: I was in theater all through high school and college. I was a decent actress, albeit on a small scale, especially in sidekick roles. It was never something I was going to do for a living, nor did I want to, but I loved it, and I understood how it worked. I knew what to do to be an actor.
Brad was utterly incapable of it. The man had the most revealing eyes I’d ever seen. He couldn’t even fake this marriage. He didn’t have the actor gene, not even close. He liked being married to me and couldn’t hide it.
He liked being married to me and couldn’t hide it.
That kept going through my brain: He liked being married to me and couldn’t hide it.
Then my brain flipped on me.
I liked being married to him ... and wanted to stop hiding it.
Holy fuck.
I stayed the night. I only slept a little, but when I woke up, I found myself sort of snuggled against his back. I quickly withdrew, but there was a voice inside me that said, “Even your subconscious knows.”
Brad had to go into the office today. After he left, I went searching for psychiatrists. I found one and scheduled an appointment. When he came home that day, I told him I had taken his advice. He was very pleased.
Her name was Dr. Matthews, or Marie, as she asked me to call her. She was great. She listened closely, waited for me to finish, offered advice rather than judgement. She sympathized with some of my issues: her father had been like a nightmarish combination of my father and grandfather. She told me that. She told me she understood the feelings that came from that. And then she made sure to tell me that she had been joyously married for 10 years to a man who never, ever, ever let her down. Or their two kids.
She also told me one of the things holding me back is that I was waiting for closure that might never come. “Closure is big among us shrinks,” she joked, “but it’s not always possible. Laura might be unreachable. Heck, you don’t know for sure she’s still alive. I know about the need for closure, but it’s not always possible.”
At our fourth session, she set off the detonator.
“If Laura had never existed, if you had married a man you knew little about before the marriage, how would you feel about Brad right now?”
I thought about it.
And thought some more.
And tried to deny it.
And then I couldn’t.
“I would be head-over-heels in love with him.”
“Even though you don’t trust guys,” she said, which was a bullseye.
She had two requests after that session. One was that she asked if I could bring Leah to our next one. I had no problem with that.
I explained to Leah that this was a doctor I was using to help me deal with my feelings, and, because of that, she wanted to know about Leah’s feelings. Leah was happy to tell Marie her feelings, which mostly boiled down to, “I got a new Daddy and I love him more than I love glitter or ice cream.” I mean, if I hadn’t been in a shrink’s office, I probably would have been laughing my head off. Even Marie had a hard time keeping a straight face. I mean, it was an endless list of, “Daddy did this” and “Daddy said this” and “Daddy says he’ll take me here” and “Daddy Daddy Daddy.” I mean, I was fully aware of how he doted on her, but to hear it in a litany like that was eye-opening.
Just before we wrapped up that session, Marie said, “Leah knows.” Yes, she did.
Her other request was a bit more difficult.
She wanted to talk to Brad. Just Brad, not the two of us, although she said that might come later on.
I questioned it. She told me that patient confidentiality was real, and that she wasn’t bringing Brad in to tell him what we discuss. “Then why?” I asked.
“To better help you,” she said. “This is your story, but there are two other main characters: Brad and Leah. If I get to know them a little bit, it helps me help you.”
So, I relented. Brad would have to agree, of course, but he easily did.
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