The first time Henry and I were truly bare before each other was five years into our marriage. It sent him into a volcanic rage. “Annabel, will you die if you don’t try to seduce me for a single day? Have you no concept of what Platonic love is?” I opened my eyes, realizing I had fallen asleep in the tub, exhausted. Before I could explain, he had thrown his clothes back on and was dragging my naked, dripping body into the courtyard. “If you love being naked so much, then enjoy it out here!” He ignored my desperate pleas, blind to the biting winter cold. He even called for the entire household staff to come and watch. He didn't relent until I collapsed from a raging fever. Later, burning up and delirious, I stumbled out of my room to find medicine. That’s when I heard it—the desperate, rhythmic sounds of passion coming from his bedroom. Through the crack in the door, illuminated by the sliver of light, I saw the woman tangled with him in the sheets. It was his widowed sister-in-law, Helen. So, this was his so-called Platonic love. I staggered back to my room and dialed my mother-in-law’s number. “Eleanor,” I said, my voice hollow. “That proposition of yours… about Henry helping Helen have a child to carry on his brother's legacy… I agree to it. But I have one condition.” There was a stunned silence on the other end, followed by a rush of excitement. “Anna, my dear, are you serious? You’re willing to share Henry? You’re not just pulling an old woman’s leg in the middle of the night, are you? Name your condition, anything! I’ll agree to it!” I stared at the ceiling, a silent tear tracing a path down my temple. The first time Eleanor had made that absurd suggestion, I had been so furious I’d shattered my teacup. She wanted me to give up my husband just to keep Helen, her precious widowed daughter-in-law, tied to the family. How could I ever agree? But now… they were already betraying me behind my back. What good was my refusal? The man who swore he loved me, who wanted to pursue a higher, spiritual love with me, was already tainted. Filthy. The bitter irony was that when he’d paraded my naked body in the courtyard, he had blamed me for soiling his perfect, idealized love. Everyone in our circle knew us as the model couple. Even I had believed that our love, even without physical intimacy, would be eternally fresh. But that beautiful fantasy had just been shattered by the rising and falling moans from the room next door. I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not pulling your leg. It’s real. I just need Henry to sign a document.” Eleanor’s voice became shrill with glee. “Wonderful, wonderful! I knew you were a sensible girl, Anna! I’ll talk to Henry first thing in the morning. And I promise you, dear, this is just to help Helen get pregnant. You and Henry will still be the model couple everyone envies!” After hanging up, I curled into a tight ball. The heating was on, and I was wrapped in a thick duvet, but my body wouldn’t stop shaking. The sounds from the next room continued until dawn, each gasp a knife twisting in my heart. Five years of marriage. Five years of Platonic love. It was all just a joke. I first met Henry in the university library. He was sitting by the window, the afternoon sun framing him in gold. He was reading Plato’s Republic, and the focused intensity of his profile made my heart stop. “You like Plato, too?” I had asked. When he looked up at me, his eyes were startlingly bright. I didn’t know then that this simple question would become the shackle of my five-year marriage. Before we were married, Henry treated me with the utmost respect. I thought it was because he loved me so deeply. After the wedding, he refused to share a bed with me. Seeing my confusion, he cupped my face, his gaze tender. “Anna, true love transcends the physical. We must pursue a higher, more noble spiritual connection.” I loved him, so I believed him. I even felt a sense of pride. Our love was so pure, untouched by base desire. Every time my own feelings overwhelmed me and I tried to get closer, he would gently push me away, murmuring, “Don’t defile our love.” Looking back now, the clues I ignored were so obvious. The flash of heat in his eyes when he looked at Helen. The way he would meticulously dress up whenever she visited. The times I stumbled upon them alone, and the guilty, hasty distance they would put between themselves… My pillow was soaked with tears. My heart was completely hollow. I stayed up all night drafting a divorce agreement before finally falling into a restless sleep. The next morning, I was woken by a soft voice. Henry stood by my bed, wearing an apron and holding a plate of my favorite strawberry pancakes. “Morning, darling. I’ve made you a special breakfast. Time to wake up and enjoy.” He leaned in to kiss my forehead, but I flinched away. He froze for a second, then his smile became even more gentle, as if he wasn’t the same man who had humiliated me in the snow the night before. “What’s wrong? Didn’t sleep well?” He reached out to touch my face, and again, I avoided his hand. On his neck, a series of angry red marks burned my eyes. Noticing my stare, he scratched his neck awkwardly. “I don’t know where these mosquitoes came from last night. How did you sleep?” I didn’t answer. Outside the door, a few of the staff exchanged glances, their eyes filled with a mixture of pity and amusement. I walked straight to the bathroom, but I collided with Helen right at the doorway. “Morning, Anna,” she chirped. “Don’t mind me, just popping over for breakfast.” She fiddled with the collar of her silk robe, deliberately exposing more of her skin, which was peppered with the same damning marks. “Strange, isn’t it? There shouldn’t be any mosquitoes this time of year.” “Henry and I both got bit. How come you didn’t?” She glanced pointedly at my unblemished neck, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. I clenched my fists, my nails digging so deep into my palms that I couldn’t feel the pain. “Move.” Helen chuckled and stepped aside. As I passed, she whispered, “You must have heard how passionate he was with me last night. A pity a woman like you will never get to taste something so good…” It all made sense now. Henry always locked his bedroom door like he was guarding a fortress. Last night, Helen must have deliberately left it ajar so I would discover the truth. The mockery and triumph in her eyes were the last straw. My self-control snapped. I raised my hand and slapped her across the face, hard. Helen stumbled back, clutching her cheek, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “Anna, if you didn’t want me here, you could have just said so. I would have left. Why did you have to hit me…?” She turned and made a show of running away, right into the arms of a furious Henry. He immediately cupped her face, examining the red mark with undisguised concern. When he turned back to me, his eyes were blazing with fury. “Annabel! What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you hit my sister-in-law? How dare you?” She provoked me to my face, and I’m not supposed to hit her? Before I could speak, she leaned weakly against him. “Henry, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have intruded on your private time. Anna has every right to be angry. Please, don’t blame her…” Her words were like fuel on the fire. Henry’s glare was a physical force, flaying my heart. “Apologize to her. Now.” I looked him straight in the eye. “She deserved it.” That sentence sent him over the edge. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and started dragging me towards the stairs. I fought back, clawing at the banister, but he pried my fingers off one by one. The staff watched from a distance, whispering amongst themselves, but not one dared to intervene. My silk pajamas ripped in the struggle, exposing swaths of my skin. The humiliation of the previous night washed over me again, but Henry was blind to it. “It seems you’re still bitter about last night,” he snarled. “But if you have a problem, you take it up with me. You don’t take it out on the innocent!” “You will kneel here and reflect on what you’ve done! When you’ve figured it out, you will apologize! Otherwise, people will think the great Sinclair family can’t even tolerate a poor widow!” With that, he shoved me out the door and into the snow-covered yard. My knees slammed onto the hard, frozen ground. A biting cold shot through my thin pajamas. “Henry, I did nothing wrong.” I gritted my teeth, my body trembling uncontrollably, but I refused to lower my head. Henry let out a cold laugh and ordered the housekeeper, “Gather everyone. I want them all to see how the lady of the house throws a tantrum!” In less than five minutes, more than a dozen staff members were assembled on the veranda. I knelt in the center of the snowy lawn, like a criminal at her own trial. “I’ll say it again: direct your anger at me! If you’re so damn desperate for a man, I can hire you a hundred escorts to service you! But you do not lay a hand on my sister-in-law!” His words were more shameful than being stripped bare for all to see. This was the man I had loved for three years, been married to for five. He could tolerate the thought of other men seeing me naked, even sleeping with other men, but he could not tolerate his precious Helen being wronged in the slightest. Helen stood beside him, feigning concern. “Henry, let it go. Maybe Anna’s just in a bad mood…” “A bad mood gives her the right to hit people?” Henry raised his voice for everyone to hear. “If she doesn’t apologize today, she can collapse out here for all I care!” Snowflakes began to fall, quickly coating my hair and eyelashes in a layer of white frost. My fingers were numb, my lips trembling beyond my control. Helen took the opportunity to crouch down, pretending to help me up. She whispered in my ear, “You know, Henry told me you’re not worth a single strand of my hair. He said the thought of touching you makes him sick. A woman like you might as well be dead.” I snapped my head up and saw the venomous glee in her eyes. All my pent-up fury exploded. I scooped up a handful of snow and threw it in her face. Helen shrieked dramatically and fell to the ground. Henry went berserk. He ripped open my pajamas and shoved my face into the snow. “It seems you still don’t know how to admit when you’re wrong!” He grabbed handfuls of snow and stuffed them down my collar. The icy shock made me scream. He ignored me, rubbing snow harshly against my face and neck until my skin burned with a raw, fiery pain. “Apologize!” I choked on a mouthful of snow, coughing so hard that tears streamed down my face, unable to form a single word. Enraged, Henry stood up and commanded the housekeeper, “Set a timer for two hours. She is not to get up before then.” With that, he took off his own overcoat and wrapped it gently around Helen. “Let’s go inside, my dear. We don’t want you to catch a cold.” The sight of their retreating backs was a physical pain. The staff whispered among themselves. Some snickered. Most just looked at me with pity. The minutes ticked by. My consciousness began to fade. My knees were long past feeling, and my body pitched forward, collapsing into the snow. “Ma’am!” someone cried out. “She’s fainted!” Henry opened the door, his face a cold mask. He called out from a distance, “Have you learned your lesson?” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The world went black. I finally gave in.
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