Sugar was what she made for a living but sweetness was missing from her life.

From the day she discovered he cheated on her, it was finished. Her love for him. Her respect. Her hopes of a sweet marriage.

She was a sex expert and he, she thought, knew little about sex positions and a woman’s erogenous zones.

When she found out he had cheated on her, she felt a failure. She and her hopes of keeping him glued to the pleasure between her thighs.

Her sense of failure morphed into anger. She cast her fury into an iron mask to protect her perforated self-esteem and this she wore at her workplace everyday. Her employees saw a tough boss. They could not see what was left of her, when everyone went home. When she took off her mask. They could not understand why she never employed the nosy type.

Until she met a young man who saw through her mask. She let her mask down and let him see. The shame. The pain. The decaying self-esteem glued to an iron mask. She was tired. The pretense and the nobody to open up to.

Slowly, she unpacked herself to him, till she stood before him naked.

But he didn’t have the courage to eat her twice. Guilt. She hoped this affair could go on secretly. Her small way of biting back at her husband’s infidelity till his wounds became large.

But this young man was a boy. He didn’t have a heart strong enough to carry the burdens of a married woman. He neither knew how to end an affair amicably and send his mistress back to her place of a Mrs. And now she feared she might need a bigger mask if her husband hears of it and if her employees gets to know.

All this she put into her husband’s casket when she buried him. It’s been three years now. The past was behind her, unfortunately reaching in front of her with its long hands.

Another young man was in charge of her business now. He too saw through her mask. He had taken her business like his and was always there for her. It had taken some time for him to gain her trust. She had held on for so long, and was beginning to give in. She was in love again. With me. Until Brenda came.

And everything was never the same…