What Relationship?

"You don't own me, Steven."

"I never said that I did Josie. What the hell?! Why do you always have to say that shit?"

"Uh, maybe because that's what you think! You never ask me if I'm ok with doing this or that! You don't ask for my permission to do that crap!"

"Oh, come on! You know that's what I like why is it so hard for you to do it and just say 'yes please'. Why do you always have to fight me on this?"

"Because Steven…I hate being controlled. I don't like being tied up, forced into painful positions, and made to be a slave!"

"Josie, I—love—you—you know. I just like what I like, why can't you understand that?"

"If you love me, Steven, I mean really love me then you should be able to understand me."

He rubs his right brow furiously closing his eyes with his left hand on his hip.

"Just because you get pleasure from tormenting me and forcing me to bend to your will, doesn't mean that I get pleasure from being forced. You are a vindictive, arrogant, self-absorbed, masochistic man that thinks that everything must go your way. I only went along with you for as long as I have because I thought that you needed to feel validated as a man that is independent from his father. I just can't do it anymore Steven. I can't."

"You can't? Did you forget Josie? You are still my wife. We can only be separated for so long before our friends spill the beans to our parents. What then?"

"We will cross that bridge when it comes. For now, I can't live in the same house with you anymore Steven. You want too much."

"I'm not lying when I say that I love you. I can't or won't change the person that I am. I have to have control over the situation especially in the matters of sex. That's just the way that it is. Maybe one day for the sake of our families we can move pass this and live as husband and wife again."

"I'm not so sure. After all, the marriage was for our parents' sake…not ours. The passion was never there…my passion; I have only done everything that you have told me to do since high school. Not anymore."

"So where do we go from here?"

"Continue to live separately and put on a good show at birthdays and holiday gatherings as we have done for the past two years."

"I can only pretend for so long Josie."