“What did you say, Jim? Do you remember?”
I shrugged. “What does that have to do with… anything?!”
Molly’s lip trembled and she nodded. “You said, 'Why do we need to go somewhere for a vacation? What’s wrong with staying home?'”
I blinked at her. “Are you telling me that you were fucking some suit in our bed because I didn’t want to go to Disney World?”
Molly sighed, closing her eyes and then opening them to me again. “You always miss the point.”
“I guess you got my fucking attention!” I snapped, gritting my teeth.
She sat up on her elbows, her eyes flashing. “Well, it’s about time!”
My chest was too tight for me to speak. I curled my fingers around the mattress edge and took a deep breath.
“Jim…” Her eyes dipped down and caught mine. They were the same bright blue, eyes that had caught mine a thousand times before this one, but today there was something new there. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know if I wanted to know.
“Where have you been?”
I shook my head at her, trying to clear it. What did she want from me? “Work.
Where I always am.” I couldn’t get the image of her beneath him out of my head.
She sighed. “Yeah.” Shifting onto her side, the sheet pulled over her hip, and her breasts dipped, too. I looked at the large, brown areolas, her nipples fat in the center,
and wondered if he had found that sweet spot at the bottom edge. I closed my eyes, hating how beautiful she still was to me in that moment.
“But Jim…” she sighed. “Where have I been?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured. “You tell me.”
I felt her hand moving over mine, soft and warm, her fingers as delicate as ever.
“I don’t know, either. Raising kids, making supper, the same thing, day after day… I don’t know who I even am anymore…” I allowed it for a moment, just a moment’s worth of pressured comfort, before shaking her loose.
“Maybe you need some time to find out?” I saw that there were tears in her eyes and only the smallest part of me cared. “Is this your version of a mid-life crisis, Moll?
The cooking lessons, the computer classes…” I stopped, something suddenly dawning on me. “That’s where you met him, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter.”
I snorted, swallowing past something stuck in my throat. “He looked like he mattered when he was fucking you in our bed.”
I don’t know if the pained look on her face matched mine or not. It felt awful, saying it, feeling it. I wanted to say more, and I wanted it to stop, to end it, to leave right now and never look back. Staying was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
Just sitting there in the pain of it, the both of us, drowning in the flood.
I’m still here…
And so confused,
But I can finally see how much I stand to lose…*
I don’t know how long it was before we spoke again. It grew dark outside, dark inside, in spite of the lamp light. My belly ached, my balls were drawn up like two rocks,
and Molly shivered, but she still didn’t cover herself. I thought I knew why. She just looked at me, like she was waiting for something. I was waiting, too. I didn’t know for what, until it happened.
The timer in the kitchen sounded with three short, sharp blasts. Dinner was ready. Menu was on the fridge. It was time for me to walk through the door, home from work, ready for Molly’s embrace and a quick kiss before I got changed and ready to eat whatever she’d concocted for the evening meal. I had taken to picking up two beef jerkys at the gas station and eating them on the way home, just in case. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. Keeping the little things secret had never seemed to matter.
“I hate the crap you’re cooking lately.” I gave a quarter turn toward her on the bed.
She nodded. Almost smiled. “I know.”
“I could kill you with my bare hands.”
“I know.” Her mouth trembled again, but no tears fell. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I wasn’t… thinking…” Her voice was thick, trembling, too.
“I want…” I held my hands out in front of me, palms up, just looking at them.
“Fuck, Molly… what are we going to do?”
She slipped her hand into one of mine, using my steadfast weight to pull her to sitting beside me, the sheet pooled in her lap.
“I don’t know.” Her voice was hoarse. “Will you hold me?”
I shook my head, swallowing thickly, still seeing him, like a ghost, hovering over our bed. But I did. I pulled her familiar body into my arms and held on. She melted into me, like she always did, fitting perfectly in all the right places.
“This doesn’t mean—” I started, brushing her hair off my cheeks. “I don’t know what this means.”
She nodded, and I could feel the edges of her pain flowing into mine, somehow, as if they were one thing. Love didn’t stop, like turning off a light switch, as much as I willed it to.
“It doesn’t matter…” she whispered. I could feel her tears wetting my shirt.
“Nothing matters, except you… Jim… I’m so…”
“Don’t say it,” I choked, lowering my head to hers, holding her a little too tight.
“Don’t… just… don’t…”
She didn’t and I didn’t and we didn’t… we just sat, and rocked, and felt it, the love and the pain that ached like a raw wound between us. It was us. After all those years, there was no separating it anymore.
DO NOT EJACULATE FOR 24 HOURS!
What is it about something you can’t have that makes you want it even more?
When we were in college, my future husband donated plasma every week. He did it primarily for the money (like most college kids, we were strapped for cash) but he really had a truly altruistic nature. He donated blood every six weeks, and that didn’t pay a thing. When we found out about a sperm donation program in our area, he jumped at the chance. The pay was fantastic (I think it was like $50 a pop… ha, literally) and he liked the idea of helping someone have a child who couldn’t.
The process wasn’t as easy as donating plasma, though. He had to go through lots of screening, questionnaires and blood tests before he could even think about going into the back room with the plethora of porn and a little cup. Finally, all the details were taken care of and he was ready to donate. He’d left his instructions from the lab on the kitchen table and I stood there in my bare feet, shorts and a bra (it was hot that summer and we had no air conditioning) eating an apple and reading them.
They were pretty standard—where to go, what to expect, etc. But the thing that stood out to me in big, red flashing letters was: DO NOT EJACULATE FOR 24 HOURS
BEFORE YOUR APPOINTMENT. It was dinner time (hence the apple—I was starving and we didn’t have much to eat in the house) and his appointment was early the next morning, before his first class. He was in the shower at the time—he took two showers a day when it was hot. Sometimes three.
When he came out, I was masturbating on the bed, my shorts down to my knees and my bra pulled up just over my nipples so every movement made the material brush them and send delicious twinges of sensation down to my aching clit. He stood there for a moment, watching and dripping water onto the carpet. I smiled when I saw the towel wrapped around his waist start to rise in front. I knew how hard it made him to watch me touch myself.
I know, I know… I’m such a bad girl! All I needed to see were the words “DO
NOT” and I immediately rebelled. Reverse psychology works on me every time! His towel dropped to the floor as he came near the bed, his eyes between my legs as I spread my lips to show him pink. He knelt between my thighs, his cock rising like an exclamation point. I reached for it, squeezing, pulling him toward my pussy.