LOVE IN REWIND

Chapter 1: Love doesn't live here anymore...

“Louis, are you up? Baby, please you gotta wake up,” I cried out as I woke up covered in cold sweat, trying to pull awake my sleeping husband beside me.

        “What is it, Em?” he mumbled groggily in a disoriented state. “Are the kids calling? Are they okay? Em, are you all right? Shit, what's wrong?” he asked in a now worried tone as he sat up. The bed dipped. I could feel him turning to face me in the darkness.

        “Louis, the kids are fine. It's me. I just had a horrible dream about us. It didn't even feel like a dream; it felt so real.” I took another deep breath to try and shake away the images still flickering in my mind. “We were making love ... No! Not love; we were fucking, but not each other. I was watching you having sex with another woman. You were happy. I was crying, begging you to stop. It was so painful to watch. The sick part was that you were watching someone else fuck me and you were smiling and nodding. You had this expression on your face as if watching me with another man turned you on. It was so perverse. I can't get these images out of my head.”

        I looked at my husband, hoping he felt how vulnerable I was at that moment. He needed to take me in his arms and obliterate my nightmare with his soft lips, his gentle hands and soothing words. He was supposed to tell me how much he loved me, only me, and no one else. Hearing me say that in my sick dream he enjoyed watching someone else have sex with me should've made him enraged and outraged simultaneously. The man I married would've gone on an imaginary crusade into my subconscious to annihilate any man looking at me, let alone fucking me. But tonight there was no war, just silence.

        “Baby, I need you to touch me,” I begged him in the dark. Even I could hear how desperate I sounded. “Louis, you have to make love to me. It's been too long,” I commanded while trying to pull him close to me. I couldn't see his eyes in the dimness of the night. All I saw was his face, cast in dark shadows, looking away from me. He was moving his head from side to side and irritably sneering. He had to know how much I needed him to reassure me that he would never ever be intimate like that with another woman.

        “Say something. I'm falling to pieces in front of you and you won't even make a move to touch me!” I yelled at him, trying to get close to him. He moved farther away from me on our big bed while tears silently rolled down my face at his lack of emotion and coldness. How could he not even attempt to console me after my heartfelt plea? He turned to look at his watch laying on the nightstand.

        “What time is it? Fuck, are you crazy? It's five o'clock. It's still dark outside. I have a meeting in less than three hours. Let me sleep, for God's sake. Em, forget about that stupid dream and calm down. You need to just go back to sleep. Don't get yourself all worked up over nothing.”

        With that, Louis turned his back on me and my tears. To add insult to injury, he murmured to himself, “I can't believe you woke me up for this shit.” Then he went back to sleep as if nothing had happened. There was no hug, no kiss, and no contact whatsoever. I was hoping this was still part of my nightmare ... I wasn't that lucky.

        With tear-stained cheeks, I lay on my side of the bed shaking and screaming on the inside, yet strangely still and quiet on the outside. Was the man sleeping beside me really my Louis? I looked down at my now blissfully sleeping husband. I didn't quite believe what I was hearing, or not hearing from this man who once upon a time couldn't get enough of me. Where was the man who promised to move heaven and earth to make sure I was his and no one else's?

        I took small shallow breaths to try to calm the tremor inside. I kept counting down from a hundred to stop myself from screaming out loud and frightening the kids. He doesn't want me! kept repeating in my head. He doesn't need me! He doesn't love me! What did I do wrong? How did I let us get to this fucked up point in our love story? I realized sadly that even in my dreams I couldn't have Louis the way I once did.

        I woke up a few hours later numb, cold, and broken. I was all alone, both physically and emotionally. That was when I knew that our happily ever after had gone terribly wrong.

Ninety-five days.

        That's how long it's been since I last had sex with my husband. I shouldn't be sad or pity myself, right? I live the life! I have a great man who adores and loves me—or did once. Louis works incredibly hard. He has built up his New York-based real estate development firm from nothing to a billion dollar company in less than fifteen years.

        We have two beautiful kids: Rose, who just turned eight two weeks ago; and Eric, who's almost four. I gave up running an event planning company with my sister to stay home and be there for the kids and Louis. My husband wanted me to always be available for him.

        We live in New York City the majority of the year. Our Upper East Side townhouse was once an embassy and takes up a good half of a city block. If I walk a few feet to the right, I'd be in Central Park, and if I take a few steps to the left, I'd be on Madison Avenue, the shopping mecca for the rich and famous.

        I have need for nothing. I have a live-in nanny, a house-keeper, a cook, a driver, a masseuse, and a trainer. However, I would give it all up to have my husband want me like he once did. I'm twenty-nine years old but I feel like I'm eighty. You couldn't tell I suffer from depression and self-loathing by looking at me. On the outside, I'm glowing and happy. I'm skinny thanks to André, my personal trainer. I look twenty-one thanks to Botox and my mom, who's a dermatologist and keeps my skin looking young and flawless. Bergdorf Goodman keeps me dressed like a movie star and yet neither Hermès nor Van Cleef can put a genuine smile on my face these days.

        Some who don't know me would say Emily Bruel is just another spoiled little rich bitch. Well, that's why I keep my mouth shut. I don't complain. I take it as it comes and yes, I thank my lucky stars. But I'm starting to think that if I keep going at this pace, I'll lose the love of my life.

        My husband is the one and only Louis Bruel. He was once deemed New York's most eligible bachelor; now they call him “The Baron of New York Real Estate.” He, like the rest of the world, seems to be oblivious to my dissatisfaction with our love life. He works fourteen-hour days and comes home to the picture perfect family he created. He has provided lavishly for us, and as I already mentioned, we need and want for nothing. Except, of course, the need I have for him to stop ignoring my existence.

        When we first met, I was an eighteen-year-old nobody. He was almost thirty years old and very much a somebody. How could I not fall madly in love with the wonderful Louis Bruel all those years ago? Lord knows, every woman who sets eyes upon him still does! Why should I be any different? Besides his obvious sexy good looks, he has this animal magnetism, a kind of swagger that attracts anything in its path. I will never forget that magical night eleven years ago when I first laid eyes on Mr. Louis Bruel. I can see it all play out from the very start. If I close my eyes and rewind, it seems like yesterday.