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frantic in its unending assault against all that I knew, and my body was changing swiftly. It seemed that while my light dimmed with the years, Richard’s just got brighter. While I had to start putting all sorts of creams and potions on my skin every night to keep from looking like Margaret Thatcher, he just became George Clooney with better hair. My laugh lines got deeper every month, certain body parts were starting to droop, and I’d even found four grey hairs the other morning. Four! Long nights spent on my ass (along with the Lil’ Debbie cupcakes I routinely kept in my pantry) had made me about ten pounds bigger than I would have preferred, and my depression wasn’t exactly helping me get the motivation to hit the sidewalks and melt off the weight. My face wasn’t terribly unattractive and my eyes were a pleasant hazel, but I was by no means a MILF or a cougar or whatever horrible name the kids were using these days to refer to any woman over the age of forty who still possessed a healthy sex drive. And sure, Richard had cheated, but he was a man , and male indiscretions were far more accepted in this world, no matter how much people claimed we had moved forward. I was already seen as enough of a failure for being forty-two and childless; I didn’t need even more labels added onto my Resume of Doom, too. I’d seen it time and time again: a straying husband was almost always pitied by society, and if not pitied, than at least understood. People assumed the wife had neglected him at home, and somehow failed to fulfill her womanly duties – she hadn’t given him enough pussy, or emotional support, or Eggos, or whatever – and the poor shmuck had been forced to seek companionship outside the home. Meanwhile a cheating wife was sneered at and seen as some pathetic, predatory Demi Moore-type figure who went out every night to chase men (and, not to forget, her fading youth) while her poor husband and children sat at home with no dinner on the table. Every way I looked at it, I lost. And there was another big factor, too. I hadn’t even considered what would happen if anyone discovered my real identity, and who my husband was, and why the stationery on our side table held government seals. I hadn’t asked for this life, and I’d been just as astonished as everyone else to watch Richard rise through the ranks with dizzying speed and reach his current lofty position. He had become so successful, in fact, that there was talk about him reaching for an even higher office, a prospect that would complicate my life to an extent that I couldn’t even think about…
    I shivered a bit, pulled in my legs, wrapped my arms around my knees, and pushed the stupid app from my mind. I was going to sit on this couch, treat my Acute Numbness of the Heart with white wine, and be content with my weird little life. The risks of using the app and alienating Richard were too much to even consider. And I didn’t have to do this – if worst came to worst, I could always slip into my favorite red dress, grab the keys to the ’86 Corvette my husband kept in the garage as a passion project, and thunder down the road; maybe find redemption in the burnt-out canyons of the West like something out of my windswept romance novels. I didn’t have to make such a bold move as Hookd, especially now…I still had time...and maybe, just maybe, Richard would make everything right and rescue me from myself…
    I was a few chapters into my latest book, trying not to cringe as the main characters had a terribly overblown sexual interaction involving an apple and a mirror, the biblical imagery all too obvious, when my phone rang. Something between terror and anticipation shot up into my stomach as I noticed the name “Richard” on the screen. And for some reason – maybe some insane hope that he had realized what he’d done, and was going to beg and plead for forgiveness for the rest of his stupid life – I answered.
    “Hi,” I said, putting the