Love is Love...Morticia Knight

Being Honest With Yourself

That seems simple enough, right? I mean, it’s not as if we have to try and impress ourselves – we can just be completely free with our thoughts and not worry about what others think – even if it is just in our minds. But that’s not necessarily true. Sometimes in order to maintain a life that we think is acceptable to the others in our lives, we tell ourselves that we don’t really feel the way that we do. We try and do the things that are generally deemed “acceptable” to our friends and family.

Those things can be manifested in several ways. We can tell ourselves that we really like the career we’ve chosen, that an annoying friend is actually great to hang out with, that we’re not really attracted to the same sex. Some of the dishonesty we have with ourselves doesn’t hurt us that bad. But sometimes, it can have devastating consequences.

I’ve recently been through a very distressing time in my life. I won’t go into the details, because if I’m being honest with myself and with you, I’m not really ready to share it with anyone yet. But I was struck by how closely it mirrored some of the subject matter that I write about. Many of my stories involve people coming to terms with their sexuality in varying degrees. I also like to promote acceptance. The acceptance that comes when you’ve been honest with yourself, and being ready to be honest with those around you. The second part can only occur when you’ve dealt with the first.

No one promised us it would be easy, but we were all made to experience and express love; however it feels right to us. Don’t lie to yourself about who you are. Even if it hurts in the beginning, the ability to be honest and to express yourself eventually makes it all worthwhile. Sometimes, you might even be surprised to discover how much others love you after all. In my upcoming release from Total-E-Bound publishing, Set Ablaze, Eric has come out to his wife after twenty years of marriage. Her anger, and his son’s anger has been a devastating blow. But he needed to finally be honest with himself, and while he works on repairing his relationship with his son, he’s also found that there’s someone else out there that is ready to give and share love with him: the new young firefighter in town. The following is a short excerpt from when Eric finally is signing his divorce papers.

From Set Ablaze, Coming March 18^th at Total-E-Bound

Eric put his signature on the last of the divorce settlement papers, and slowly—almost reverently—put them back in the envelope. He would give them back to Charlene in the morning.

“Why don’t we wait?” he had pleaded with her. “Matthew will be headed to ASU in the fall. Can’t we just keep our family together for a little while longer?”

“Fuck you, Eric,” was all she’d had to say.

After twenty years of marriage and raising a wonderful son, that was all he warranted, a ‘fuck you’? He wanted to punch their marriage counsellor in the face. The counsellor had been the one who had encouraged ‘complete and open honesty, no matter how it might hurt’. Yeah. Great. Telling his wife he was, and always had been, swinging for the same team had been a wonderful move. That had really worked out well. She’d initiated the divorce proceedings that night, but not before she’d accused him of a countless number of things that were absolutely not true. She’d slapped him, saying that she’d have to get screened for ‘gay diseases’, and that she knew that he’d been cheating on her all those years. She’d even started accusing some of his straight friends of being his secret lovers.

“I knew it!” she’d screeched at him. “My mom warned me from the beginning! All those camping and fishing trips! Just excuses to go away with your boyfriends, just like in that stupid movie!”

His head had been spinning. She had yelled so many outrageous things. There had been one affair in high school that he’d thought he’d hidden well, but Charlene’s brother knew about it and had blabbed to her parents. Being young and scared, he’d lied and told her none of it was true. He couldn’t tell her the truth. She never would have married him. The unfortunate reality was that he never should have married her—it had been wrong to mislead her the way he had. He had never been attracted to women, but he came from a family that would have had a fit and cast him out if he hadn’t married and led a ‘normal’ life. How could he regret his son, though? He didn’t, and he actually really did love Charlene, just not in the way she needed and deserved.

Yes, it was the right thing to do ultimately. Maybe the asshole counsellor had been on point after all. Sighing, he put the envelope in his desk drawer, and focused his mind back on the other issues he was dealing with. He had a firefighter out with a broken ankle, and a temporary replacement coming in. He also had a meeting with the arson investigators at four o’clock—just fifteen minutes away—to discuss their latest findings on the arson fires that had been plaguing the town recently.

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Morticia Knight Author Bio

Erotic Romance author Morticia Knight enjoys a good saucy tale, whether it is contemporary, paranormal, historical, ménage, M/M or BDSM - she loves it all! One of her passions is bringing people's fantasies to life on the page, because life is too short for even one boring moment. Her stories are volcanic in heat, deep in emotion, and sprinkled with doses of humor. When not indulging in her passion for books, she loves the outdoors, film and music. Once upon a time she was the singer in an indie rock band that toured the West Coast and charted on U.S. college radio. She is currently working on a three-book series called Uniform Encounters set in the Southwest that features those yummy men in uniform, and a steampunk horror ménage.