Today, I wish I would have had two more children.
But, then when I could, children represented repression, control, male dominance. No, was more than just a word. No, meant liberation from men. I was an ardent feminist. Along with many other women in college. I had entertained sterilization, but I could not afford it. The answer was total abstinence from men, make do with another woman. Learn how to be a lesbian.
I degreed in Social Services and had a job with the county. A very low salary, for every opening, there were a hundred women. I was a starving feminist, destitute. I was overwhelmed by this guy’s income, he made six figures. Already had a house. When he asked me to get married I accepted. Sex was the first argument, on our wedding day. I locked myself in the bathroom. No.
But he didn’t listen, in the morning he knocked the door open, he imposed his authority over me, crawling across the floor he got on my back, and inserted his penis me. And ejaculated. I was pregnant.
Over the next five years I had two more children, I didn’t work outside the home, I was ordered to breast feed. Cooking was my worst duty. Demeaning. But, with three children, no money of my own, no home for my children, I did what I was told, went through the motions.
It never crossed my mind he was getting sex elsewhere, from a woman who willingly gave herself to him. I hated him, my life, my situation. I had a lunch with a girl from my college days. “I heard you married an Alpha. Good for you, I heard you have three children, and you’re living in this house, you did good girl”.
Of my college feminist friends I was the only one in a home with a husband and children. And not a lesbian. They were jealous of me, must be nice to have an Alpha go getter husband. When she met my husband, “he reminds me of my father”. Then, “I bet you get on your knees to give him his blowjobs”.
For the next ten years I hid what I had done. I had my tubes tied behind his back and pretended to be on birth control. When I confessed to him, his eyes told me everything. I was no longer his wife. No longer his woman. His other woman was then put to bearing children.
I regret having sterilized myself. Those other two children were mine to bear, not her. I was his wife. Now, only legally, he sleeps with her, has sex with her, calls her his ‘woman’.
