The Other Wife

The Change Came For Me

PENÉLOPE

"I want to leave Paris," I told Camille one day. I was determined to flee the only place where Ulises could find me and search for answers about my sale by myself. My tactic of seeking answers while being close to him wouldn't work anymore.

"Why the sudden change?" Camille asked while she looked at herself in the mirror, getting ready for one of the many social gatherings she attended every week.

"It's been three months since I've heard anything from Ulises, even though he knows where to find me. I don't intend to wait for him any longer."

Camille was applying lipstick while still looking in the mirror. She soon turned towards me with an indifferent expression, then returned to her place and opened one of the drawers of her vanity, from which she took out three pairs of necklaces with matching earrings.

"You took a long time to make the decision to leave," the indifference still lingered in her voice.

I watched as she tried on the necklaces, seeing which one looked best on her. The jewelry she possessed denoted exquisite expertise by the jeweler. I could see that at a glance.

"Use the emerald necklace," I told her as she tried it on. "It matches your dress and represents power, elegance, and youth."

She looked at me with a frown reflected in the mirror. I approached her, confident in what I was saying.

"How can I trust someone with such poor taste?" I didn't blame Camille for doubting my ability to guide her in choosing her jewelry.

"I haven't wasted my time. I can consider myself an expert in jewelry. Maybe I don't have glamour in dressing, but I assure you I know what I'm talking about regarding jewelry."

I made a modification to the way she wore the necklace to make it fit closer to her neck and look more stylish. I put on the small earrings, and I couldn't hide the satisfaction I felt when I saw her surprised expression.

She got up from her seat and took her handbag, ready to leave.

"There will be a jewelry exhibition next week. You can't leave until you go with me. The only condition is that we get rid of your atrocious clothes," she turned around and left me alone in her room.

"Next week" was the only thing echoing in my head.

Days passed, and two days before the jewelry exhibition, Camille came to wake me up very early in the morning.

"Get up, we have things to do. I can't believe they'll see me walking with someone like you, but let's go get your wardrobe. Consider it a luxury that I'm accompanying you," she opened the curtains, and my eyes protested against the sunlight.

"Camille, it's not necessary for us to go get a new wardrobe for me. I truly don't care if people see me this way..."

"Lies. Your appearance reflects how you are on the inside. You look like an old woman for someone in her twenties."

"I don't want a new wardrobe, I feel comfortable... like this." I doubted myself a bit, but it was the only thing I felt comfortable with lately.

We fell silent. She approached me with her arms crossed, looking at me with that air of superiority she put on sometimes.

"You can't live in that hole forever."

"I don't think you know what I've been through." I was getting impatient with her insistence.

"It's nonsense."

"It's not. I don't want people to recognize me on the street or pity me. That's what you're doing right now. And to think that you could be somewhat salvageable, but you're just sinking into your misery."

"What do you know about my life?" I shouted at her. "A woman like you, so superficial and selfish, doesn't know what a normal person is feeling right now because your whole life has been perfect!"

"You don't know me to make such a stupid assertion!" she shouted back. We fell silent for a moment, and she approached me, sitting on my bed as a sort of truce between us. "I like expensive handbags and would never buy an imitation of anything, but that doesn't mean I don't have feelings. What happened?"

I fixed my gaze on a fixed point on the floor. I was sitting on the bed with her beside me, emitting a scent of her high-end perfume. I bit my lower lip with teary eyes before deciding to let out, for the first time, everything I had kept inside for years.

"I'm going to tell you one of the most bitter things I've experienced in my life, before I met Ulises," I said, determined to tell her everything.

Camille wasn't the best person I wanted to confide in at that moment, something so raw that had happened in my life. However, she was the only person all this time who had asked why it happened without even knowing me.

***

PENÉLOPE (THREE YEARS AGO)

I was going to marry someone else before meeting Ulises.

Three days before the wedding, I decided to surprise Rodrigo at his apartment. I had bought a set of fishnet lingerie that he liked so much, a bottle of wine, and some chocolate-covered strawberries to bring to him in the middle of the night.

"Penelope, what are you doing here?" Rodrigo asked when he opened the door.

I showed him the plan I had for the night, raising my hands with the wine and the box of strawberries. He smiled, looking around to let me in.

"Can't you wait until the wedding?" he asked, mischief in his eyes. He opened the wine bottle and took a sip.

"Can you?" I took the bottle from him to mimic him.

He picked up one of the chocolate-covered strawberries I had left on the table. He took it to his mouth to eat together with me.

"To tell the truth, no." His eyes turned black with the lust he felt at that moment.

He gave me a couple of spanks before lifting me onto his shoulder to carry me to the bedroom. It was the hardest and wildest s*x I had with him. It was quite animalistic and not very affectionate, but that's how he liked it, and I loved pleasing him with the orgasms we had in those carnal encounters.

I had fallen asleep next to him when suddenly some strange noises woke me up. I blinked slowly until I regained some clarity in the darkness of the room. I searched for Rodrigo with my hand, but he wasn't in the room.

I didn't know if something had happened, but I decided to be brave and walk towards where the noise was coming from. My legs were trembling because reason knew what was happening, but my heart refused to accept it.

"That's it, give it to me like that," a female voice repeated in whispers interspersed with gasps.

"Never sleep with her again."

My heart stopped at what I was hearing, but I decided to be brave and walk towards where the noise was coming from. My legs were trembling because reason knew what was happening, but my heart refused to accept it.

"I told you she came as a surprise..." more gasps from Rodrigo "I could do nothing but take her, but you're my favorite. You're the prettiest... the most desirable... I do you differently..."

"Leave her. Don't marry her, I can give you what she can't." More moans from her "Oh, don't stop. Keep going, I'm almost there..."

The guest room door was open, and I felt my soul shatter as I saw my sister reach orgasm with my fiancé inside her. She writhed in the sheets as Rodrigo kissed her passionately, something he didn't do with me in intimacy.

Why had Rodrigo betrayed me like that with my sister? I entered the room at that moment.

"You're both damn traitors!" I screamed angrily, throwing things in my path. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Tears of frustration and pain streamed down my face at that moment. As I threw everything I saw in my path.

"Penelope, calm down! Stop acting like a damn crazy person!" Rodrigo shouted at me.

"Calm down, you damn animal! Calm down when you're screwing my sister!"

"Have you ever wondered why I'm with your sister and not you!?" he questioned me. I stood with a brush in the air "because, unlike you, she's a woman who knows how to please me in bed, and I'm much more attracted to her than you."

"Aaah!" I threw the brush at his face. My sister was behind him, naked, hiding from the flying objects. "And you, you damn traitor!" I approached her, giving her a strong slap. "Never again say you're my sister." She brought a hand to her face. She smiled brazenly without saying a word. "You and I, Rodrigo, we're done!"

I left the apartment in the early hours of the morning. I cried in my car until I fell asleep stranded five blocks ahead of where my ex-fiancé lived. If you ask me if I was always so careless, my answer is no, but the pain had been so deep that the words that my sister was prettier than me had hit me so hard that I began to neglect myself. It didn't matter if one day I didn't wear makeup. It didn't matter if I didn't brush my hair one day. It didn't matter if one day my clothes didn't match. My life and what happened wouldn't change. Rodrigo would still prefer my sister.

The last thing I knew about them was that they got married three days later. My sister took my place, even wearing my wedding dress, and I fell into a deep depression, and a wound that I haven't been able to heal.

***

PENÉLOPE (PRESENT)

I had tears in my eyes from telling my story. Camille had stayed silent, listening to the story behind me meeting Ulises.

"My dear, in this world there are two types of women, those who lament misfortune, or those who get better and kick sadness's ass. Stop crying for an i***t who hurt you years ago. It's time to bring out the badass inside you and start a real change."

Yes, that was the exact moment when the change in me began.