unhappy with what I saw. I was no longer a bride, true, but time hadn’t been cruel, either. No children had stretched my stomach and breasts, and diet and exercise had kept me in shape. There was no reason for me not to show my husband my body, displayed in the finery of his gift. Yet it took me a full minute to gather the courage to turn the door handle and step out.
Candlelight is forgiving, but if I’d had any doubts about how Adam would see me they vanished the moment I stepped through the door. His eyes gleamed, and his low whistle of appreciation sent a warm flutter through me. I moved closer to the bed, foolishly shy, and twirled slowly so the material flared out from my hips and thighs.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” Adam said.
My heart skipped at his words, so affecting. It had been a long time since he’d written poems praising the arch of my eyebrows and fullness of my lips. “You like it?”
“What do you think?”
In the past, his erection would have let me know how much. Now I had to be satisfied with the curve of his mouth and tone of his voice. I was ashamed to find them poor substitutes, and forced myself not to think about it.
“Come here.”
I moved closer to the bed. Déjà vu hit with me with force and I stumbled and had to steady myself. For one moment I’d imagined him reaching for me with such clarity I’d felt his hands on me. Breasts, belly, cunt. I’d felt his kiss on my bare skin, his tongue on my clit.
“Kiss me.” Adam’s voice was rough. His eyes roamed over my body, touching me in all the places he’d once stroked and licked and nibbled. He looked at the sheer triangle between my thighs, and his eyes gleamed. He licked his mouth.
Always, in our life before, Adam knew what he wanted and how to get it, was never afraid to ask for things I’d have been unable to voice aloud. Adam had liked dirty talk, bedroom games, adventure, all things in which I’d been content to follow but never lead.
I kissed him. Our breath mingled. He stroked my tongue with his, making me gasp. I wanted his hands on me but had to be content with putting mine on him. His shoulder blades jutted forth and I moved my hands to cup his biceps, so still.
Our faces so close, I could almost forget the rest of him had changed. I could pretend it was like the past, when he could lift me with one arm to toss me, laughing, onto our bed where he’d cover me with his body and pull orgasms out of me like pearls on a string, one after the other.
“I want you so much,” Adam said.
“You have me.”
Something flickered in his dark blue eyes, and I wondered if he was thinking about the man who’d propositioned me in the store. “Touch yourself for me?”
I had to swallow hard at that request. Masturbation was such a private thing, a solo pleasure. For me, a necessity. Release. It kept me faithful, at least in body.
“Sadie? Will you?”
I nodded and stepped back. My hands went up to cup my breasts. Adam’s gaze went there, avid. Bright color had flushed his cheeks. I let my thumbs rub across my nipples, making them hard again.
“I love your breasts.”
This was how it had to be, with us. He would make love to me with his words while I acted out his commands, bringing myself the pleasure he couldn’t.
“Take them out of the nightgown.”
I did, easily enough, for it was made for easy access. I licked my fingertips and pinched my nipples, wetting them. Adam groaned. I did it again, until they glistened and darkened with arousal.
“Yeah, just like that. Stroke them. I love to lick your tits, just like that.”
My breath caught at his words. He used to whisper them to me before taking my nipple between his lips and suckling. The memory made my nipples throb, and I rolled them with my fingers until I had to moan, myself.
“I want to taste you, Sadie. Let me see your pussy.”
I sat in the chair, my legs spread so wide the panties could no longer cover me. I pushed the scrap of lace to the side, showing him my clit, my cunt, my thighs. His words became his hands and tongue, my hands his cock.
He told me how he wanted to lick me, to suck my clit between his lips and eat me until I screamed. I groaned, spreading myself open to his sight. I licked my fingers and circled my clit, rubbing fast until my hips jerked upward. I pushed a finger inside me, then another, feeling my wetness. The heat. I closed my eyes and lost myself in Adam’s voice, in the story he wove of our passion.
“You’re so tight and hot,” he told me, and he was right.
My cunt closed around my fingers. My hips lifted again. I withdrew and used my slickness on my clit, making the motions smooth. I found a pace I liked, mimicking the way he’d have used his tongue.
“You’re so beautiful,” he told me, over and over, until I wanted to scream at him to shut up. To stop talking and fuck me. To come with me so hard there would be no breath for speeches.
I came, but alone, and at the last minute it wasn’t Adam’s face I saw between my legs, but Joe’s. I cried out, the noise of passion not so different from despair, and was ashamed the pleasure ripping through me was made no less because of my guilt.
I kissed him when I could breathe again, and we smiled at one another. I nuzzled his neck, the way I used to, and peppered kisses all over his face. Our embrace was no less because only I could make it.
I love you.
Words that used to slip from my lips without thought now stuck in my throat. At times like this, when he was being soft and warm, I could almost believe this was all working the way it should. That tomorrow would be better than yesterday and we’d move past this pit stretching deeper and wider between us every day.
I’d always wondered why people who’d throw away an appliance that had ceased to function would hang on to a marriage that no longer worked. Next to my husband, the only man I’d ever loved, ever made love with, ever slept beside, I thought I knew.
Hope.
Chapter 05
March
This month my name is Brandy, and I giggle a lot. This annoys Joe, but he pretends it doesn’t because he wants to get laid. I also snap my gum while we’re talking, unaware this makes him want to scream. You wouldn’t know it by the way he smiles. All teeth.
I met Joe a while ago in the coffee shop where I work. He comes in a few times a week for coffee and muffins for his office. The other girls and I giggle about him all the time, because he’s so cute. A businessman. I have a thing for businessmen, all buttoned up in their suits and ties. I like to think about what they look like under all those clothes.
He asks me out, not for coffee, thank god, though you’d be surprised how many assholes do. What, I work in a coffee shop, you think I don’t like to do anything else?
No, Joe asks me out someplace real nice, a real fancy place with tablecloths and flowers and, like, waiters who describe the specials with all these fancy words like they’re reading a play.
I borrowed a dress from Cyndi, the girl I work with. She’s way jealous Joe asked me out, but that’s cool because she’s got a boyfriend anyway so she can’t really go out with Joe even if he did ask, which he didn’t because he asked me, instead. Brandy.
“Like the song?” He asks when the waiter’s gone with our orders.
“Huh?” I never heard of a song called Brandy, though I do know it’s a kind of booze.
“Never mind.” Joe doesn’t seem to talk much, which is cool, because I talk enough for both of us.
I tell him all about the classes I’m taking, and he seems really interested that I’m studying communications. I want to be an anchorperson on