{"id":3610,"date":"2013-12-30T15:46:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T21:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/?page_id=3610"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:11:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:11:35","slug":"cassie02","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/extras\/vignettes-outtakes\/confessions\/cassie02\/","title":{"rendered":"Sold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

DECEMBER 1988<\/p>\n

Cassie: 24
\nUpper East Side, Manhattan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYOU KNEW!\u201d I screamed at my father late one night, long after the twins\u2019 second birthday party had wrapped up and all the girls had been put in bed.<\/p>\n

Gordon was out.<\/p>\n

Drinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t know<\/em>, Cassie,\u201d he protested helplessly in the face of my rage, all bubbling up like a volcano. Twenty-four years old and looking at a life living with a man who didn\u2019t want me, but wouldn\u2019t admit what he did want. \u201cI suspected, and only that morning. I had nothing to go on. What if I\u2019d said something, and I was wrong? It would\u2019ve ruined your lives, both of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I turned on my mother, who sat humped over on an expensive sofa, wringing her hands. \u201cYou knew,\u201d I snarled.<\/p>\n

She looked away from me and refused to answer and, I realized, she simply didn\u2019t want to speak of it at all, as if ignoring it would make it go away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want out of this marriage,\u201d I growled, looking at my father again. \u201cAnd you\u2019re going to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d breathed my mother, horrified, now staring at me wide-eyed and frightened. \u201cNo. That will not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stared at her, unable to figure out what part of \u201cdivorce\u201d she wasn\u2019t getting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t do that,\u201d she said in her sternest voice, the voice that had always quelled me into behaving as a proper debutante from the Upper East Side should behave. I was the good girl of my sisters, except for the times they had persuaded me to sneak out to go clubbing with them.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t resist the lure of the salsa floor, the chance to put my sterile ballroom dance instructions to the test, improve on them, become flushed with incomplete desire\u2014<\/p>\n

\u2014still incomplete after six years of marriage and four children because my husband was gay and he wouldn\u2019t admit it.<\/p>\n

Not that I cared.<\/p>\n

It had taken six months for my crush to dissipate. The mystery of sex was gone and there was nothing to write home about. I\u2019d since learned a saying: \u201cLie back and think of England.\u201d I didn\u2019t know where it came from; I\u2019d just overheard it one day when my friends and I were out to lunch.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d come to terms with Gordon, with living with him. I had a nice life, really, although my friends thought I was crazy, spending time with my kids, cooking, being a housewife. I had to hide my copies of Martha Stewart\u2019s books when they visited, as if I had something to be ashamed of.<\/p>\n

Hire somebody, Cassie. I mean, it\u2019s not like you can\u2019t afford a nanny and a housekeeper at the very least.<\/em><\/p>\n

I had a housekeeper. They meant a live-in housekeeper.<\/p>\n

Honestly.<\/p>\n

My frugality was ingrained, and that was another area where I didn\u2019t dare reveal myself to my friends. For whatever other faults my parents had, they had not let me have much money. My mother had drilled it into all of us, my sisters and brothers, that they had not been born into a rich family, as we had been, and we would learn how to work and save, what was a luxury and what was a necessity.<\/p>\n

They wanted us to know how to survive losing everything we had, how to not only survive, but to rebuild.<\/p>\n

The instruction had proven useful during Black Monday, October 19, 1987.<\/p>\n

You probably don\u2019t remember, but I do.<\/p>\n

My father had prepared for months, bearing the scoffs and scorns of his colleagues as he turned decidedly bearish.<\/p>\n

No topic having to do with money had been sacred in our townhouse. The TV was constantly on, tuned to FNN. We had several phone lines, all but the house phone dedicated to trading. You see, my father was a rare breed: He dealt in everything. Stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, precious metals, derivatives, REITs, and mutual funds. Each phone number was dedicated to one instrument or another, and he could shift gears as fast as hanging up one phone and answering another ringing one.<\/p>\n

My mother had always kept the household books, and it seemed my parents worked seamlessly together: He made it and she spent it.<\/p>\n

But my instruction\u2014and my sisters\u2019\u2014had only gone so far as to the management of a household because we were not expected to go to college; we were expected to marry well. It was, after all, why our parents had deemed the expense of the International Debutantes Ball a necessity<\/em>. We were \u2026 well, chatelaines.<\/p>\n

My brother went to college and I secretly seethed with jealousy because my girls\u2019 school had left me wanting, my thirst for knowledge unbearable, but with no idea how to begin a self-education and no time to do it. Yes, I wanted to be a wife and a mommy more than anything in the world, but to my mind, that shouldn\u2019t impede an education. Martha Stewart had done it, and Martha Stewart was my god.<\/p>\n

It was 1988, six months after that nasty day when the market crashed, and the only thing that had saved Gordon and me was my preparation, the frugality in the face of my husband\u2019s scoffs and profligate spending.<\/p>\n

I had sneaked money, slowly insinuated myself into our joint account and edged him out\u2014which he never noticed as long as he couldn\u2019t tell that I was the one incrementally lowering his available funds, always letting him believe he\u2019d simply \u201cover\u201dspent that month. I scrimped and saved, bore his complaints about the \u201cpoor people food,\u201d let my children whine about their homemade clothes when all their friends were wearing designer clothes.<\/p>\n

I had a garden<\/em> in the twenty square feet behind our townhouse. Thank God, the house was paid for\u2014by my father.<\/p>\n

In preparation for that day.<\/p>\n

Now, a year later, I stood here in front of my mother, wanting to be free of my marriage once I figured out Gordon\u2019s problem, and<\/em> having been driven almost to the brink of bankruptcy because he didn\u2019t have the business sense God gave a hedge fund, yet knowing that, no, we don\u2019t do that<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen give me an education,\u201d I snarled.<\/p>\n

\u201cCassie\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will!\u201d I screeched, knowing I sounded like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum, but dammit, I\u2019d just found out my marriage was a sham.<\/p>\n

For all his brilliance, my father had been swindled\u2014 By a man who knew his dilettante son\u2014the one draining him dry of money\u2014was gay and wanted to forestall any further rumors about his status as \u201cconfirmed bachelor\u201d and<\/em> get Gordon out of his bank accounts.<\/p>\n

So he\u2019d married him off to me.<\/p>\n

I whirled on my father and pointed at him. \u201cYou will<\/em> give me an education. You will<\/em> give me a bank account and this house and everything in it. If I can\u2019t divorce Gordon\u2014\u201d And really, why would I want to? He had one redeeming quality: He loved his girls and they adored him. He was the fun <\/em>parent, and yes, I resented that, too, his showering them with gifts and taking their side against me.<\/p>\n

But I knew I wouldn\u2019t take him away from my girls, no matter how bad I thought that was, how far against my training it went.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2014I want everything in my name so I can control it. I want an education and I want to be<\/em> somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, I got what I wanted, but it took years of constant war, threats, and cheating on Gordon with NYU.<\/p>\n

My father had aged rapidly after that night, watching me try to navigate this foreign world all on my own, foreign to me only because I now saw it for what it was, knowing he had done this to me, unwilling or unable to release me from it.<\/p>\n

And I despised my father-in-law.<\/p>\n

My spirit broke somewhere around my twenty-eighth birthday when he cornered me\u2014again, after my twins\u2019 birthday party when everyone had gone home\u2014<\/p>\n

I\u2019m five-nine, but I\u2019m rather skinny, and I never was prone to great strength. What muscle I had was because of my gardening and housework. I didn\u2019t have to constantly exercise to keep my weight down; on the contrary, I couldn\u2019t keep weight on.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know if that was because of the stress of living the life\u2014lie<\/em>\u2014I lived or because I simply never cared much about food; it wasn\u2019t as if I hadn\u2019t always been skinny to the point of ridicule.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, David was much bigger than I, bigger than Gordon, even, and he trapped me in the corner of my kitchen cabinetry, his big hands planted on either side of my hips, while he propositioned me.<\/p>\n

I might have to lie back and think of England with Gordon, but I certainly didn\u2019t have to with his father.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack off,\u201d I gritted.<\/p>\n

\u201cCassie,\u201d he crooned smugly and buried his face in my neck. \u201cI can tell a woman who\u2019s not getting any satisfaction. I\u2019ve wanted to fuck you since your wedding day and now \u2026 well \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I knew:<\/p>\n

I was a whore.<\/p>\n

Not because I had set out to be, but because this man and my father had made me one.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d had been waiting, biding his time, until he thought I would welcome his attentions. Too bad I wanted nothing to do with sex or men or anything but survival\u2014both emotional and financial.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet away from me,\u201d I growled, shoving at him with strength I didn\u2019t have. He didn\u2019t budge, but chuckled low in his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen you looking at me, Cassie,\u201d he murmured. \u201cDon\u2019t be a prude now. It\u2019s not like Gordon will care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll care when I out your son.\u201d<\/p>\n

He froze. Said nothing for half a second. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTry me. Get out of my house and take Gordon with you. I\u2019m filing for divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew away from me slowly, hatred written all over his face. \u201cI\u2019ll make sure he takes everything from you, including those brats you love so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

That terrified me. It was all mine, but at that moment, it felt<\/em> like he could do that. I could rebuild my wealth, I knew, with a bit of help from my father\u2014who owed<\/em> me. But I couldn\u2019t bear losing my girls to a man they adored.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know if they had a choice, they\u2019d choose Gordon,\u201d he said smoothly, sensing my fear. \u201cMean bitch that you are. You aren\u2019t fit to be a mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

I gulped because he got me where I lived, trying to rear my daughters with some semblance of discipline, which failed at every turn because Gordon swooped in to save them from me and, well \u2026 I couldn\u2019t always say I was right.<\/p>\n

Maybe \u2026<\/p>\n

Maybe it was true that I was too hard on them, too demanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d testify as to your unfitness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, they would.<\/p>\n

No matter I didn\u2019t want to be a whore anymore, I couldn\u2019t take the chance he\u2019d take my children away from me.<\/p>\n

I lived with that for a year before I was even willing to risk it.<\/p>\n

You see, I had been watching Gordon, watching him cast hungry glances at men he found eye-catching, and I had started to see a pattern.<\/p>\n

He would see Attractive Mr. X, and look away, immediately angry, which he would take out on me in some snide manner.<\/p>\n

I shrugged it off. It wasn\u2019t as if I had any investment in the way he treated me insofar as it didn\u2019t affect the girls\u2019 opinion of me (though that was a problem).<\/p>\n

But his resentment toward me deepened and broadened until he couldn\u2019t hide his contempt of himself\u2014disguised as contempt for me\u2014from either the children or anyone else.<\/p>\n

I was turning into the villain.<\/p>\n

Everywhere we went, I was the villain. I couldn\u2019t escape it. Our friends\u2019 glances flickered over me while Gordon was petted and coddled and commiserated with over his intractable and shrewish wife.<\/p>\n

This would not go well for me in divorce court if I ever got up the gumption to actually do it.<\/p>\n

★<\/p>\n

\nCassie Part 1<\/a>
\nCassie Part 2<\/span>
\nCassie Part 3<\/a>
\nCassie Part 4<\/a>
\nCassie Part 5<\/a>\n<\/div>\n
20260223<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DECEMBER 1988 Cassie: 24 Upper East Side, Manhattan \u201cYOU KNEW!\u201d I screamed at my father late one night, long after the twins\u2019 second birthday party had wrapped up and all the girls had been put in bed. Gordon was out. Drinking. \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t know, Cassie,\u201d he protested helplessly in the face of my rage, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1599,"menu_order":4318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3610","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3610"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23583,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3610\/revisions\/23583"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}