Educated: A Soul's Price

A pair of nude and open legs pictured on a bed with white sheets.

By. Traci Musick

Content Warning: Sexuality

There are certain events, certain moments in time most people would rather forget. Hide it under a rock, pack it away into storage, seal it eternally.

“Meet me at the apartment. See you at midnight.”

That’s all the text message stated.

So, I waited for time to cover me in the blackest veil of night. I slipped away, drove the dark streets, and parked a block away. I didn’t want to be seen in front of the Village Park House apartment complex. Meeting at night minimized the risk of someone recognizing my car.

As usual, I arrived too early. Ten minutes. Time offered its window of reflection. Waiting for the stroke of midnight, I thought…

What was I doing?

I was a married woman meeting a man—my supposed good friend—at his apartment while he was going through a divorce. While my husband worked the midnight shift, I was sneaking off. Having an affair. I won’t deny it. I was a terrible, awful person at this point in time.

I own it.

It was the baggage I carried around. What I once despised from my mother during early childhood years, I had become. In my late thirties, I was the slut, the whore, the cheating spouse who was not happy or grateful for the life she was living.

How did it happen? How did a child repeat similar mistakes set forth by her parent? Was there a genetic disposition for having affairs? Was that possible? I understood addiction could be passed on genetically. But could the danger of meeting men in strange apartments also be transferred along the DNA route? Maybe it was, instead, a passage of generational loneliness.

During those cheating days, I don’t remember much other than a few disgusting details. I recalled men’s smelly bodies. Pounding against me. A pungent salted vinegar and mildewed sweaty locker room of smells. My extra-sensitive nose struggled to ignore the permeating, pore-penetrating damp odor of maleness. Men I used as an escape. Putting my head between legs remained one of those dirty details that I preferred to forget.

So, as I waited outside the apartment of this doctor “friend,” I recalled our first sexual encounter.  My initial thought centered on his nakedness. His penis, like the rest of his body, so small. In silence, I questioned, “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Added to it, the smell of Dr. Tiny Tim was a strange mixture of Polo cologne tinged with the essence of locker room. It was a heady, sour smell of old age. Lest I also forget his style. He fucked like a jackrabbit. Pounded away at my body. Lightning-fast. He made sex feel like a construction job gone bad with a jackhammer. How could anyone enjoy that incessant pounding? It was a relationship symbol that I tried to ignore--to overlook.

The hammering at nothing.

But he made promises. Promises he’d take me away from my dull, monotonous life. Away from bills, responsibilities, a boring husband… He was my escape fund.

But to what?

On that dark night sitting in my car with stereo softly crooning its chant, I wondered…

What’s the price of a fuck buddy? Could I live in this world of perpetually bad sex? Was the money worth it?

The wonderful aspect of age and hindsight is the ability to realize how bad fucking equates to bad relationships.

Why hadn’t my mother told me? Why didn’t she ever sit me down and have a sex talk in my early teen years? The warning would have been nice. To know that bad fuckery represented a sign. It’s a silent protestation to “Get the hell out!”

But my mother never said a word. About sex. Or relationships. She only said, “get your degree first.” She thought it important that I get educated before marrying. This notion was understandable considering my parents married at young ages. Then, worked on college degrees with four children in tote.

So, I defied that path. Sort of. I earned the degree. And then headed quickly into marriage. At that time in 1992, all I ever wanted was to achieve three goals: get a college degree, get married, and have children. That’s it.

Why didn’t I want more for myself?

This, too, rules as some bad fuckery for females. To be reared thinking one’s only role in life should be wife and mom. It leads one in a downward direction. Of feeling miserably trapped in marriage. Then, sneaking out at midnight for bad sex. With repulsive-smelling men.

For a price. It costs a person her soul.

How girls are raised in society needs addressed. No one should ever think her value lies in the hands of another. No girl should ever think she exists just to wear labels of “wife” or “mom.” We are much more than playing a role. Or wearing a label. We are half the world’s population.

Because I headed into adulthood unprepared, ill-equipped for relationships, I screwed up a million ways imaginable. I chose wrong husbands—numerous times. I defiled, degraded myself with affairs. Placed energy into sexual exploits that amounted to… nothing. To making me feel less than human. I created opportunities that I’d rather hide and bury.

Educated, indeed.

As a female lacking self-confidence, I travelled a path that my current 50-year-old-self would not travel.

But back in my car…so many years ago, I remember...

At midnight, I exited my car. Entered the apartment complex as the shade of night enveloped my form. Stepped into the elevator and punched the second floor button.

How long does a repugnant, fuck-lie last? How far does insecurity take a woman?

When the elevator doors opened, I dropped my head. Then watched it close.

Going down…

I have lived to tell the tale. But the tale is one filled with regret and remorse. It remains a lingering bonfire burn in this woman’s soul.

Education…it is an exorbitant price to pay.

Traci is pictured wearing a wide toothy smile, silver hoop earrings, shoulder length auburn hair, and a gray short sleeve shirt.

Traci L. Musick-Shaffer is a twenty-seven year teaching veteran who lives and works in the tristate area of Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. She earned a BA from Marshall University in Huntington, W.V., and a MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. Her writing has appeared in Fourth and Sycamore, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Mock Turtle Zine, and Turnpike Magazine. She is featured in recent editions of Rubbertop Review, The Finger Literary Journal, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Currently, she teaches in southern Ohio where she prefers her log cabin country living with her husband, David, and border collie, Holly.