The Good Husband

by Lucian Bane

  He kept his head down as she entered the bathroom. When he didn’t lift it, she decided to hurry toward the shower, taking that as a sign he wasn’t ready.

  “Stop,” he ordered, making her stomach jolt.

  “Okay, stopped.”

  He remained with his head down, still. “Can you… turn me to the mirror?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, turning him, eyeing his averted reflection while her heart hammered. “Remember I love you,” she said, feeling like he needed the support.

  “That’s not helping,” he muttered, keeping his face turned.

  “Let’s wait,” she gasped suddenly.

  “Why,” he demanded.

  “I…I don’t want you to be…h-hurt.”

  He gave another dry laugh. “Hurt?”

  “I just don’t want you to experience anything negative, why don’t you just take your shower first? Relax? Please.” Her beg broke with her desperation.

  He started nodding a little. “You need me to wait.”

  It was one of his observations, like he’d done earlier. She didn’t remember him doing that before. “I guess I do.” She wouldn’t lie.

  “Because you’re scared I might have a freak out on you.”

  “I’m scared…it somehow hurts you. I can’t stand seeing you hurting, that’s all.”

  He nodded a little. “I’ll wait.”

  She let out a huge breath and hurried him to the shower. “Do you remember this?” she asked when she parked him.

  He looked around. “Should I?”

  Oh God. “Uh. No, I’m just making small talk, I guess.”

  He looked up at her, staring with that studious look. “You’re lying,” he said.

  Guilt made her stomach sick as she stared back at him. “How are you doing that?” she asked.

  “Doing what?” he wondered, confused.

  “Knowing things.”

  He gave that shy teenager smile and half laugh. “Because it’s obvious?” he said.

  “But…how?”

  “I can hear it in your tone loud and clear. So…why are you lying about it?”

  “I’d…it’s private.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Fair enough. Not my business then. Only I think it may be, but if you’re not wanting to tell me…”

  “We…did…marital things in here.”

  “Right,” he said, nodding with his lowered head. “I knew that too.”

  “You…you remember?” God what if he did? What should she say and do? What if he remembered it differently than she did? Or remember it and not remember the feeling of it?

  “No. I just knew it was that.”

  “How I wonder?”

  “I don’t know how. I just did or do. Maybe it’s your voice, maybe…I remember what you mean when you say things, I don’t know. Tell me how to work this then you’re free to go.”

  Free to go. Pain cut through her chest at those words, at hearing how they sounded and what they meant. He thought she didn’t want to be there. She did, she just…felt like any second he’d remember the truth and not want her there.

  “I want to help you,” she whispered. She held her breath, waiting for him to say she was lying.

  “Why?” he asked, instead, sounding genuinely curious.

  “Because…I want to.”

  Again, he didn’t call her a liar but again asked, “Why?”

  “Why? Because I love you.”

  “I don’t want you doing it out of pity,” he said like that should be obvious.

  “Do you want me to do it?” she asked him now, ready to know how he felt.

  “I do if you want to.”

  She realized something was off with his answer. “But…what do you want if you didn’t know what I want?”

  “I’d want to know what you want.”

  “But…what do you want?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  It was like he didn’t remember anything about the turn in their relationship, maybe. Like her old Ben, the one who decided what he wanted based on what she wanted. The idea sickened her to think he’d been forced to live that way. Because he feared losing her love.

  How was she supposed to fix this? She’d start over, and do it right, that’s how. If he remembered later and wondered why she didn’t tell him, she’d…deal with that then.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” she said. “You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you what I want, and you’ll do your mind reading trick and tell if I’m lying.”

  “I want you to stay,” he said without hesitating. “I want you…to help me.”

  “And I want to stay and help you.”

  The shy smile he gave while looking off to the side melted her. “So that’s true,” he said.

  “It is,” she whispered, swallowing emotion. She didn’t understand how this kind, sensitive man was the same cold one in the picture. “Let’s start with getting you undressed.”

  “Okay,” he said, a few degrees shyer than before.

  She got before him and said, “I’ll start with your top.”

  ****

  Ben watched her. He needed to watch her, she was linked to memories, he could feel that much.

  “You’re scared of me,” he observed again.

  “I’m…nervous.”

  She was telling the truth. “Why?” he had to know.

  “Feels like…a first date, maybe.”

  She regarded the hospital pants now while his brain acknowledged she’d spoken the truth. And again, her answer affected his cock. She was waking things in him and everything said he needed follow that thread until it unraveled the missing things. There was a lot missing, he sensed. Not just the feelings of his memories but a lot of the recent memories themselves. Like what they’d done in the bathroom, and why it was hard for her to talk about now.

  “I want to know about us,” he said, helping her get his bottoms off, watching her avoid looking at his body.

  “Okay,” she said, going behind his chair and pushing him to the contraption under one of the showers. A kind of lounge seat, the kind you might see at a beach. She helped him stand and he quickly lowered onto it at feeling his weakness. She helped fix his legs on the seat.

  “This thing is really cool,” she said, rolling it back from the shower a little and locking the wheels. “How hot do you want it?” she asked, her eyes blazing over his naked body.

  His brain sparked and he closed his eyes. “Hot. I want it…very hot.”

  When he opened his eyes, one look at her said he’d said something strange. He considered, suddenly caught in her stare until his cock grew by inches in his peripheral. She finally saw it and cleared her throat, turning to the shower panel.

  But he’d seen everything in her gaze. It was potent and made his blood burn and his muscles quake. He suddenly needed to know what they shared and why it affected his body like that.

  “You have to tell the shower to turn on,” she whispered. He heard it in the words, how she needed to change the subject.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a program with a name. AHNS. Automated Household Navigation System. You call the name AHNS and tell it to turn on the shower to whatever degrees you want, and it does it. Kind of weird for me, but it’s easy to get spoiled to.”

  He looked at the panel. “I don’t remember that either. Did I shower in here?”

  “Uh. Not…no. AHNS, turn on the shower to eight-five degrees.”

  “Did you shower with me in here?”

  “Turning the shower to eight-five degrees,” a female computer voice announced.

  “I didn’t,” she said.

  She didn’t want to tell him. And yet did. Which is why he kept asking questions. “Were we… fighting before the surgery?”

  She finally met his gaze with a light smile. “No. No fighting.”

  “Why do you treat me like we’re not married? Is it the head?”

  She stared at him, turning her eyes when they teared up. “I’m sor
ry, no it’s…nervous, I promise.”

  It was the truth. He angled a look at her, realizing. “You like it.”

  She got behind his chair and rolled it slowly under the hot water, stopping when the stream hit his chest and midsection. He nearly forgot everything at the intense sensation it caused on his skin. Coupled with what was going through his mind, it made his cock harder than ever. She liked his head. And that had her…guilty.

  There was a brief war of feelings over that inside him. Part of him not happy with that and part of him ecstatic. He needed to know why both feelings existed. And should they?

  “Hotter,” he said with his eyes closed.

  “AHNS, turn the shower to ninety degrees.”

  Ben’s mouth parted at the increase in temperature. He managed to slide his legs over the edge of the chair, letting his feet rest on the floor. The position let the water hit his cock fully and he was suddenly drunk with the feeling it produced as he sat there with his arms resting on the chair next to him.

  “Is it hot enough?”

  The heat in her whisper burned him like the water. He fought to open his eyes, needing to see what he heard. Fuck, he wasn’t the only one on fire.

  “Can you wash me?” he barely asked, his cock jerking at the thought.

  “Yes,” she said, sounding eager to do it.

  “You’ll get your clothes wet.”

  She stared at him. “Maybe…I should take them off.”

  She wanted to. He wanted that. “Yes,” he blasted, barely nodding.

  He didn’t know what was coming but it was making him hotter than he thought humanly possible.

  She went behind him, and he sat there with his eyes closed, letting the water torment him. He opened his eyes at the first glide of her soapy hand over his chest. He didn’t stop the blast of air the feeling brought. He kept his eyes closed, feeling like she needed that even though he needed the opposite. To watch her face while she touched him, learn exactly what she was feeling. He focused those intuitions on her hand. He learned everything in the press of fingers, the slow, learning pace she moved. And her hunger had him making sounds that might increase her fear, but he couldn’t stop it. He craved this. And her fear was no match for that. She slid her fingers over his pec, pausing to feel his nipple. He opened his eyes, letting himself watch. She remained there, toying with the tip until his cock burned and jerked. Then he caught sight of her breasts, hanging near him. He stared at the perfect tip and the fire in him burned all his fears. The new head, the memories, her inhibitions. Her hand lowered over his abs and he moved his hips down, opening wide for her as he watched her face now.

  She knelt next to the chair and captured his cock in her hand, stroking it slowly up and down. Ben strained out several groan, heaving with desire. She poured more soap on her hand and covered his balls next, softly stroking everywhere between his legs. He braced his hands on the chair and lifted his hips, reaching for her touch as he filled the bathroom with the sound of raw lust.

  She stood and pulled the shower head off the wall and brought it between his legs, rinsing him. Ben grabbed his cock in one hand and stroked his balls, watching her now. She used her free hand to stroke her fingertips over the top of his cock and he seethed and grabbed her hand. He forced her to hold his cock, wrapping his hand over hers and making her stroke him hard. She set the shower head between his legs and the feel of it hitting his balls made him fucking crazy.

  He turned his gaze to her face and gasped at running right into her dark gaze. She stared at his mouth then leaned in, blasting his lips with her hot breath while placing delicate kisses. She strangled his shaft until he felt he’d go insane. Sliding his fingers in her hair, he gripped tight.

  “Ben,” she gasped. “Come for me.”

  “Come for you,” he blasted, wondering over those words. She needed him to come and he couldn’t stop wondering why, even as he did, even as she lowered to catch his seed with her face, closing her eyes.

  The sight of it changed everything he’d interpreted before now. She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to give him pleasure. No, she wanted much more than that. And all of it had something to do with her guilt. But it was more than just liking the new head that had her guilty.

  His questions shifted to what, how much, where, and when. The memories behind her guilt were suddenly the only thing that mattered, except for the feelings that went with them. He needed both. He craved them. Maybe not much as she did.

  Ben’s Memories

  After watching Cheryl finish up his shower with a kiss on his forehead like all her work was done, Ben was stumped as to how to proceed. On the way out of the shower, he decided he wasn’t ready to face the head in the mirror yet, not with the conflicting puzzle in his head with her. He’d wait for her to give him more information and direction. She wanted something from him, and he’d wait to be sure what it was. The guilt was worse than before and it was more than his new head, he was positive now.

  Had she been unfaithful? Was he not remembering something in their marriage that she’d rather him forget?

  He only had knowledge about her he realized. Like a set of data. He didn’t know how he knew it, and he didn’t feel how he knew it, he just knew it. There was no perception with that knowing and the need to examine the data—her—was getting harder to deny by the day, even if it was only the third day.

  He’d given her space even when he sensed she wanted the opposite. He surely did. He didn’t know what it was that said it was the right thing to do but followed it. He didn’t touch her, but if she wanted to touch him, he’d not deny her.

  Today, he started physical therapy. He was stronger and able to walk more than ten feet at a time, but he was ready for a lot more.

  It had to be early because the window coverings were still on and yet he couldn’t sleep. Obviously, Cheryl couldn’t either. Where was she?

  He’d finish reading Charlie’s journal then get a shower. He opened the closet and paused.

  “Shit!” Cheryl gasped, putting her hand on her chest before her gaze lowered to his chest. “You…need clothes?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stepped aside and watched as she tried to scurry past him, catching a whiff of her smell. Was it getting stronger? What was it? It wasn’t perfume, it was something else. Something sexual, judging by the way his cock got hard when it hit his nose. And was it growing stronger, or was it his senses growing? They never seemed lacking but maybe they were.

  He went through his clothes selections only to again come up with the same distaste as the first time. He was kind of hoping he’d remember that he liked it, but he still didn’t. It had to be that he dressed for her. Why would she like this?

  He found a white t-shirt and a pair of black pajama pants. He held up a pair of black underwear and tried them again. He fought to arrange himself in the confining material, still unable to get comfortable. Another puzzle to work out. Didn’t like his clothes or his underwear. He didn’t even like the foods she claimed were his favorite. He had to believe that taste, like the rest of his feelings, was something that would take time to gain back, reconnect to his memories.

  He took the underwear off and put the pants on, then the shirt. So much better. Maybe it came from having it that way for over a month in that hospital bed.

  He walked into the room and found Cheryl sitting on the bed, holding a phone toward him. He eyed her as he came up to her, feeling the need to always study the answers before him. That’s what she was, the answer keys. That he couldn’t read, because she was hiding them.

  He sat on the bed next to her and took the phone. He recognized it. “Was this my phone?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He slid his fingers along it. “I remember it.”

  “That’s the video journal I told you about. I’ll let you review everything. I have uh, dishes. And laundry.”

  He nodded, eyeing her ass in the thin cotton pajama pants. She was lying again. She didn’t want to be there whe
n he saw. And why? He clicked the play button and watched as she came on the screen talking. She was talking to him, he realized.

  “Come on, we have to…” Ben watched his old self sitting on the bed, watching her video him. He waited for any feeling or memory of this but had none. “Say something that you’ll want to remember, that you never want to forget. Liiiike how pretty you think I am? And sexy?”

  Ben watched himself smile at his wife, trying to imitate it, sure it looked nothing like it. He still didn’t recognize his own face. He hadn’t looked at his new one yet either and wasn’t sure he ever wanted to now. He just cared less and less about it each day.

  “Uh, oh, what’s that look?” The camera moved like she lay next to him, bringing an angle of him from the bed. “You don’t think I’m that seeeexxxyyy?”

  His old self stared into the camera at her. “I never want to forget that…you’re good at hiding your true feelings and I need to ask you questions so you can’t hide from me. And I’m sure that if I were to get fifty head transplants, I’d never forget that I love you more than anything in this world since the moment you gave me a piece of gum at church when we were barely teenagers.” Ben remembered that day clearly. “And I especially never want to forget that you love pleasure and you need a lot of it, and it’s my job to give it to you.”

  He watched as his face turned serious on the screen.

  “Cheryl…”

  She sat up with the camera. “What?” she barely quipped, sounding like she was crying.

  “Don’t… let me forget those things. Everything that’s important to you, make sure I know it. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  And yet she was hiding that very thing from him, Ben realized.

  The camera turned, and it sounded like they might be kissing. “I’ll make sure,” she whispered. He listened as their breaths kicked up and the sounds of clashing lips filled the phone. “I’m sure once you kiss me it’ll all come back to me,” he whispered.

  Ben stopped the video, then realized his cock was hard, like it remembered.

  “Cheryl,” he called.

  “Yes?” she called back.