Master of Lust

Chapter 45  Gloria\'s inner turmoil

I never thought my life would turn out this way. Loneliness has become my constant companion, a shadow that never leaves. It\'s not that I don\'t have people around me, but the emptiness gnaws at me from the inside.

My husband, and I were never deeply in love. But we decided to build a life together, and had dreams of growing old together. But somewhere along the way, only responsibility remained and the marriage became a sexless routine. We were more like roommates than husband and wife.

The ache of longing for a passionate connection slowly corroded me, and I found myself yearning for something I can\'t quite put into words. I never felt that intimacy, the closeness, the way someone would look at me with desire in his eyes.

But if it was only him, I would have made peace with it. I thought I had my darling daughter with me. My sweet, beautiful daughter who used to be so close to me. Yes, used  to.

But now that she has grown into a teenager, she has grown all the more distant. It\'s like she\'s slipping through my fingers, and there\'s nothing I can do to stop it. She\'s becoming her own person, and I\'m proud of her, but it hurts to see her pull away. She\'s more interested in her friends and her own world. I worry about her, about the choices she\'s making, but I don\'t have a say in it not  any longer.

To cope with my loneliness, I\'ve thrown myself into the unnecessary management of the store chain my husband owned. It was not something I particularly enjoyed, but it gave me a sense of purpose, a distraction from the gaping void in my heart.

Every day, I would wake up early, put on my clothes, and head to any one of the five stores we had in the city.

The store chain became my refuge, my escape from the solitude that haunted me. I immerse myself in spreadsheets and data, trying to convince myself that these numbers matter. It\'s a way to fill the void, to make myself feel useful, even if it\'s in the most mundane of ways.

In the beginning, I had a heart full of hopes that maybe it will change. Maybe some day when I enter the house, my husband and I will have a heart to heart conversation. Maybe that some day, my daughter would look up from her phone long enough to share a meaningful conversation and reconnect.

But as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, my hopes grow dimmer, and my loneliness deepens. The store, with its familiar aisles and the hum of the refrigerators, becomes my sanctuary.

I immerse myself in the numbers, the inventory, and the daily operations of the store. I pore over sales reports and budgets, losing myself in the relentless pursuit of efficiency and profitability. In the intricate dance of managing staff, schedules, and suppliers, I find a sense of purpose that eludes me in my personal life.

I always tried to keep up a smiling face with my employees. But beneath the friendly facade, I carry a heavy burden. The knowledge that my marriage is crumbling, that my daughter is slipping away, and that the store, for all its distractions, is merely a Band-Aid for the emptiness in my heart.

As I watched couples come in, holding hands and sharing whispered secrets as they peruse the aisles. Whenever I saw parents with their children, laughing and bonding over snacks and treats. I couldn\'t help but feel a pang of envy, a deep longing for the connection and intimacy that have eluded me for so long.

So I did the only thing I could do. I buried myself into handling even more of the store chain stuff.

I was involved in hiring part-timers. It became my responsibility.

Approving leave requests, and arranging their schedule became my job. I was a good boss. I wanted my part-timers to have a work-life balance that I envied and rarely experienced myself.

But despite all this, amidst the hustle and bustle of the stores, there were moments of reflection. Moments when the loneliness would creep back in, like a ghostly whisper in the back of my mind. Whenever I would catch a glimpse of a couple sharing a tender moment in the store, or a mother and child laughing together, and I couldn\'t help but yearn for the same kind of connection in my own life.

I realized that my obsession with the stores had become a coping mechanism, a way to fill the void left by a distant husband and a growing independent daughter. It was a way to distract myself from the emptiness of my home life, to avoid facing the uncomfortable truth that I had become a stranger in my own family.

I continued to throw myself into the stores, pouring my energy and attention into every detail, every task. It was a refuge from the loneliness, a place where I felt valued and needed. But deep down, I knew that I couldn\'t keep running from the emptiness forever. Eventually, I would have to confront the loneliness that had become an unwelcome companion in my life, a companion that no amount of busyness could ever truly banish.

The loneliness in my life had taken root, spreading its tendrils into every corner of my world, including my marriage to my husband. It wasn\'t a lack of love that plagued us; it was something far more complex, something that had taken me years to understand.

My husband was a good man, a responsible father, and a loving husband in his own way. Our marriage was not after love at first sight. It wasn\'t based on love, but it was based on something far more stronger, responsibility.

After my parents died early, when I was nothing more than a child. My husband\'s family took me in. His father was a friend my father since before I was even born.

My husband\'s father was always busy with his business, rarely ever giving time to his son. My husband\'s mother had long passed away, while giving birth to him. So when my husband\'s father took me in, it was for his son. Maybe he knew that he didn\'t have much time to spend with his son as well.

The ear I turned nineteen, my husband\'s father had a serious heart-attack. Even half of his body was paralyzed. That was when he knew his time had finally come.

That day, a day before he passed away, he called me and my husband. He told us that he wished for me to marry his son. It came as a surprise to both of us, but deep down, I was elated. For the last few years that I had spent with them, I had actually come to love him.

And maybe my husband felt the same thing. For he agreed to his father\'s request pretty easily. And without wasting any time, we married the next day. And as soon as his father saw the marriage certificate, it was as if a burden was lifted of his shoulder. And soon, he passed away with a smile on his face.

I was sad and happy at the same time. Sad for the loss of a father figure from my life, happy to marry a man she actually loved. But maybe I spoke too quickly.

Not that my husband didn\'t care about me. No, he was a responsible husband. We had a daughter, together, and there was no doubt that he cared for us both deeply. But there was a shadow that hung over our marriage, a shadow cast by his unique and peculiar taste.

He never outright said it, but I could feel it in the years of sexless life that had followed after birth of my daughter. It was in the way his eyes lingered on handsome young men, in the subtle glances and appreciative comments he occasionally made. And sometimes he couldn\'t help but express how I would look with them, how our lives might be different if I were with  someone else.

At first, I brushed it off as harmless banter, a quirk in his personality. But as time went on, it became increasingly clear that his desires were more than just fleeting thoughts. It was as though he couldn\'t escape his own yearnings, his own complex fantasies that had nothing to do with me.

I tried to broach the subject with him, to understand the depths of his desires and whether there was a way to bridge the gap between us. But he  was reticent, evasive, as though he himself didn\'t fully understand the complexities of his own desires.

But because of him keeping a distance, I found myself yearning for the kind of physical affection that had become a distant memory. The gentle touch of his hand, the warmth of his embrace, the intimate moments that I had felt, rarely, but surely. And in their place was a profound sense of isolation, a gnawing loneliness that echoed in the empty spaces of our marriage.

I couldn\'t help but wonder if there was something I had done wrong, if I had failed to fulfill a part of desires that he couldn\'t articulate. But the truth was, I was at a loss. I loved him, and I wanted nothing more than to feel close to him again. But it seemed that his desires had taken him on a path that led away from me. A direction where I was not willing to go. Maybe because of the household I was raised in, or because of the gratitude I felt towards my husband\'s father.

And so, I would sometimes found myself staring out of the office window, lost in thought. It felt as though I have been adrift in an ocean of solitude.

But today, Rick walked into my life like a storm, unexpected and chaotic, but strangely exhilarating. He had a way of igniting a fire within me, a fire that had long been extinguished by the solitude and the loneliness that had settled into my marriage. Before today, Rick was just an employee of mine I had some impression of. I didn\'t even care much  about him other than sometimes instructing him about work.

But my impression of his changed yesterday. The sight of him fighting over a girl in the store had stirred something within me, a flicker of jealousy that I hadn\'t felt in years.

So as a mask to my envy, I decided to confront him today over his "supposed" lie. I wanted to confront him, to ask him why he was meddling in someone else\'s love life? What made her so special for him to fight over her. What was I lacking? But Rick had a way of sweeping the floor right from under my feet, leaving me speechless and disarmed.

He sauntered over with that intense gaze of his, his eyes locked onto mine with a magnetic pull that was impossible to resist. His smooth, cheesy lines tumbled from his lips like a playful challenge, and I couldn\'t help but be drawn into the whirlwind of flirtation that surrounded him.

Just as I was about to let myself loose, to give in to the temptation that had been building between us, Rick did the unexpected. He backed away, leaving me hanging on the precipice of desire, my heart pounding with anticipation.

I couldn\'t understand it. Was he playing a game, toying with my emotions for his own amusement?

Before I could gather my thoughts and demand an explanation, Rick told me my phone  was ringing.

When I looked at my phone, I found my daughter\'s name flashing on the screen. It was like a reminder to me. I was about to do the  unthinkable? But why? I have never ever thought of doing something like this in my twenty years of marriage. So why now?

I hastily picked up the phone, my voice filled with concern as I greeted her. "Hello, sweetheart? Is everything okay?"

Rick watched silently, his playful demeanor replaced by a sense of understanding as he realized the importance of the call. I could see the curiosity in his eyes, the questions that he left unspoken as he waited for my conversation with to conclude.

[POV End]

As she hung up the phone, Gloria\'s mind began to clear up. She knew that her role as a wife and mother was paramount, and she was just about put it all on stake in a moment of carelessness.

\'What took over me?\' Gloria thought as she looked at Rick with complicated emotions.

"Rick..." Gloria began to say, but before could complete. Rick leaned forward with an assuring smile. His eyes filled with a understanding.

"Family always comes first, Gloria," Rick said, placing his hand on Gloria\'s shoulder,  his tone softened by a genuine sense of empathy.

And just as he put his hand over her shoulder, Gloria felt a sense of calmness spread through her body. Though the call from her daughter cleared her mind, her body was still feeling the itch. There was a tingling sensation in her heart and an uncontrollable itch down below.

Her mind wanted her to stand up and leave, while her body wanted to hold Rick and let all hell loose.

But the moment Rick placed her hand over her shoulder and said those words comforting her, she felt the rampaging storm inside of her calm slowly. In less than a minute, she no longer felt like a woman in heat, craving for some dick.

There was still some attraction she felt towards him, but it was nothing she could not  control herself.

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