Throwback

by Zeia Jameson

  “Livy,” I start. I’m going to tell her I can’t do this. We have to quit. I begin shaking my head but before I can get any words out, she says, “Hey, it’s just you and me. Husband and wife. Just getting soapy together.”

  I exhale. She’s trying to calm me down. Convince me this isn’t a big deal and she has no idea how sexy she is being right now. “You saying words like soapy is not helping me right now.”

  She smiles bigger and laughs, “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to tease you. I just want you to relax. Come on. It’s just us. An old married couple, getting naked and cleaned up.”

  “You can’t say naked again.”

  “Am I allowed to say anything?”

  “No.”

  Still smiling, Livy begins unbuckling my belt. “Ok, well then, I will shut the fuck up and...”

  “Ahhhhh! Don’t say fuck!”

  Livy laughs again. She brings her hand to her closed lips and makes the zipping motion. She turns to get the water for the shower running. She’s leaning over the tub checking the temperature of the water and all I see is ass. Sweet mother. The combination of having just watched a porn, Livy saying words, her putting her hand into my underwear and now her ass in my face, is going to make me pass out. I cannot take this pressure anymore. Once the shower is going, Livy turns back around to me. She’s looking at me questioningly but she doesn’t say a word. I pull her close to me and I kiss her. Hard. I lift her up and sit her on the counter. Before I even know what I’m doing, I remove her shirt and bra. I’m on autopilot. I’m kissing and touching her everywhere, just like she and the trunk said I could do. Livy moans but she doesn’t say a word. She puts her hands in my hair and tugs. God, I love it when she does that. I run my hands down to her stomach; my next goal is to get her pants off. However, as soon as my hand touches just above the waistband of her pants she withdraws and instantly covers her bare skin with her arms as much as she can manage. “You were right. This is stupid. I don’t want to do this.” She attempts to maneuver to get down from the counter but I stop her. “Livy, what just happened? What did I do?”

  “Nothing, I just can’t do this.”

  “You can’t take a shower with your husband?”

  She shakes her head.

  There’s a shift in dynamic. Thirty seconds ago, she was all on board and I was the hesitant one. Now, somehow, our roles have reversed.

  “Why? Please tell me.”

  With the smallest of whispers she says, “Please don’t make me say it out loud.”

  I take a step back from her, exasperated. I hate it when she does this.

  I motion my hand toward the door. “Fine. I can’t make you talk if you don’t want to.” I grab my shirt from the floor and walk out of the bathroom. I run my hands through my hair and down my face. I’m completely confused and frustrated. I have no idea what I did and because of that, I have no idea what to do to fix the situation. So I lean up against the wall next to the bathroom door, raise my eyes to the ceiling and say out loud the first thing that comes to my head. Loud enough for Livy to hear. “We are supposed to be following the trunk’s orders. We are deviating and it’s probably not a good idea.”

  Livy’s response is to cry.

  Livy never cries.

  Never used to cry.

  Goddammit, what the fuck?

  I exhale, even more frustrated and head back into the bathroom. Livy is still sitting on the counter but now she has her knees to her chest and her head is hidden. Her shoulders are shaking. I approach her as delicately as I can, knowing that anything I say or do right now potentially could be misinterpreted in a negative way and the aftermath could last indefinitely.

  I watch her for a second, before I intervene. She’s still topless. And even though she’s crying and I can’t really see anything but her bare shoulder and side, I still think she is so beautiful. I want to touch her. I want to run my hand over her shoulder and trace the line of her collarbone. Her skin is so soft; I just want to touch it. But I resist. My brain is back on, thinking its logical thoughts and I know if I try to touch her anywhere that’s unclothed right now, she’ll somehow take it the wrong way.

  “Livy.” I touch her knee instead. It’s still covered in pants.

  “If you want me to leave you alone I will. But if you tell me why you are crying right now maybe I can help.”

  Livy shakes her head into her knees. “You won’t understand. You’ll think I’m being dumb.”

  This shit aggravates the hell out of me. Why can’t she just fucking say what’s on her mind. I know I need to handle this delicately but I just can’t tolerate it. The more I baby her, the more she’s going to act like this. So, I decide to be direct with her. At least if I piss her off, she’ll say what’s on her mind. She never holds back when she’s pissed.

  “Livy, I think what you are doing right now is dumb.” She shoots her tear stained face up from it’s hiding place and glares at me. Oh yeah that pissed her off good. “You are crying, and I did something to make you cry and you won’t even give me the courtesy of telling me what I did so that I’m sure not to do it again.” Her eyes narrow and her look is slicing right through me. I don’t know what hurts worse. Seeing her cry or looking at her when she’s looking at me like that.

  “Livy, just tell me what it is. Since when do you care if I think what you do is dumb? So what if that’s what I think. Obviously, it’s bothering you enough to make you cry, and that is what I care about. Why don’t you get that?”

  With her arms still wrapped around her knees, Livy leans her head back against the bathroom mirror. She closes her eyes and takes a moment to compose or figure out her next move. When she opens her eyes, she looks at me again this time with resolve. She removes her arms from her legs, and lets her legs fall down over the edge of the counter.

  Yep, she’s still topless. I look at her bare chest. It’s an automatic reaction. I cannot help it. A man can’t stand in a room with a topless woman and not look at her chest. It’s male nature. I remind myself that if Livy is about to speak, I need to focus on her face and listen.

  Livy wipes her eyes. I don’t think she caught my moment of weakness or the fact I nearly drooled all over myself when she put her legs down and revealed her half naked self to me. I knew she was naked. I’ve seen her naked before. Hundreds of times. But none of that matters. Every time I see her naked it’s as breathtaking as the first time.

  Livy motions off of the counter and stands. She looks at me but doesn’t say a word. She hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her pants and pushes them down and removes them. If she had on underwear too, they must have gone with the pants because now she is completely naked.

  Completely naked.

  She stands there for a long moment without saying a word. I look at her. All of her. I just want to touch her everywhere.

  Finally, she speaks, “Look at me, Jeremy.”

  “Uh, I am looking at you, Livy.”

  She places her hands on her breasts and lifts them up. Then she lets them go.

  Holy fuck, she’s naked and she’s touching herself. I reach behind me to find something solid to prop myself against.

  “Look at my boobs, Jeremy.”

  “I am.”

  She lifts them up again. “This is where they used to be.” And she lets them go “This is where they are now.”

  “Ok.”

  She moves her hands down to her stomach and traces over her stretch marks. “Look at these. They are going to be there forever.” She grabs my hand, which was helping me brace against the wall. I nearly fall. She runs my hand over the stretch marks. “Do you feel that? How can that possibly feel sexy when you touch it?”

  I can’t respond.

  She spins around and leans over the counter slightly. “Look at my ass, Jeremy.”

  “Can’t help but not.” My throat is so dry.

  “It’s saggy.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  She looks at me through the reflection of the bathroom
mirror. “Yes it is. I haven’t worked out in a really long time. Look at my arms.” She raises one up into a flex position. “I used to have tone. I don’t even know if I can even do a pushup anymore.”

  “Ok. So workout.”

  Livy spins back around and narrows her eyes again. “Well, fuck. How ingenious of you to think that. What a spectacular idea. Except there is this full time thing I do called being a mother that takes every last ounce of energy I have that makes it so I don’t want to do anything else.” Tears well up in her eyes and her face contorts. She begins to cry again but she doesn’t hide it. She looks me straight in the eye. “Becoming a mother made me look this way and being a mother is stopping me from making it better. And on most days, I don’t really care. But right now, standing here in front of you, all I want to be is sexy. I want you to look at me with lust. I know that sounds stupid but it is what I want. I want you to look at me and think, ‘Goddamn that’s a fine piece of ass.’ I want you to look at me the way you were looking at the women in the porn. You don’t look at me that way. I feel like you fuck me because you have to. You used to make me feel like I was irresistible to you. But I don’t feel that way anymore, and I guess I’m afraid that one day, you’ll find something more appealing. I mean, look at you. You look exactly the same as when we first met. And look at me. I’m just a hot mess. My body expanded and then just fell wherever it wanted to. I don’t even like looking at myself in the mirror. How on earth does this turn you on? I can count on my two hands how many times we’ve had sex since Amelia was born and none of those times was anything like what we used to have. You don’t look at me with passion. “

  I’m speechless. I try to think of words and I clear my throat. “Livy,” is all I can say. I move to her and wrap my arms around her. My heart is fucking broken. She is crying into my chest. I have to act fast. Say something. Do something. If I stand here with no reaction, she’ll think she’s right and that’s irreparable. I don’t think about what to do next, I just do it. I move her head from my chest and place both of my hands on either side of her face. I kiss her and I clutch her hair into my fingers. I move my mouth to the side of her face and down her neck. I’m kissing her hard, leaving red marks everywhere I touch. I kiss her collarbone, from one side to the other, touching her nowhere else. I look up at her and her head is tilted back, eyes closed, mouth open, tears running down her face. “Look at me, Livy.”

  And she does.

  I touch her face again with just one hand. Then I use both hands to cup her breasts. “Your tits are gorgeous, babe. If you knew what was going on in my head five minutes ago when you stood up from the counter, you wouldn’t have a doubt how much I enjoy looking at these. Touching them. Kissing them.”

  Which I proceed to do. I lower myself and put both knees on the floor so that I’m eye level with her stomach. I touch each stretch mark and I kiss them all. I look up at Livy. “You’ve got to own these. They are beautiful. You have these because you have Amelia. You shouldn’t dare be ashamed of that. When I see these, it reminds me of what you gave me. What you did for me. You sacrificed. These are your battle scars. Battle scars are sexy as hell.” I kiss her stomach once more, looking up at her simultaneously. She smiles. I spin her around so now her ass is in my face. I take a hand full of each cheek. “And this ass. Fucking Christ. How can you think this ass is anything less than perfect? I just want to bite it.”

  Which I do.

  “Jeremy!” Livy screams and laughs. She turns around and lightly smacks me on top of the head. I stand up. “Livy, I am sorry if you see yourself that way. And I’m sorry that our past few sexual encounters have been lackluster. Totally my fault. We do it so little because of our circumstances and by the time I actually get the chance to have sex with my wife, I’m so out of control that I can’t think straight and before I know it, it’s over. Then, before I have a chance to make it right, it seems you always find a reason to get up and leave. And I’m so sorry that made you feel like I didn’t want you. I do want you. So much that it’s too much. And I think you are fucking gorgeous.”

  I know saying that is helping, but I have to show her. That is the only way to convince her. “Does the trunk have any limitations on kissing and touching?” Livy smirks and gives me a devilish look. The look she used to give me a lot. One I haven’t seen in a long time. Among doing other things to my body, it makes my heart skip a beat.

  I notice that after all this time, the shower is still running. I look at Livy and hold my finger up to her, “Don’t move.” I go to check the shower water, and sure enough, it’s run cold. I turn off the water. “We still have to shower at some point. We have to follow orders, right?” Livy nods. “So, while we wait on the water to heat back up, I have other plans. I’m going to show you just how fucking beautiful I think you are.” I begin my kissing all over again, starting with her mouth and covering every square inch of her soft, naked flesh. Even all the way down to her toes. I’m kneeling on the floor, kissing her feet, as though I’m worshiping her. In a sense, I am and I hope she feels that way too. After I’ve made sure that I’ve covered every single spot, I lift Livy up back onto the counter and proceed to give her exactly what she deserves. Pleasure. I’ve been a selfish douche bag for too long. Maybe that’s why the trunk won’t let me have sex with my wife. Because it knows that’s not what Livy wants. She wants to feel sexy. She wants me to want her, not just to want sex. So I try my damnedest to show her just how much I want her and only her.

  Propped up on a counter top, waiting on the shower water to warm back up, I kiss and touch my wife until she nearly rips the hair out of my head and screams my name. Multiple times.

  ***

  44

  Livy

  Shower

  Jeremy and I are sitting on the bathmat by the tub on the bathroom floor, both of us completely naked. He’s sitting with his back against the tub and I’m sitting in front of him with my back leaning against his chest. Our arms are entangled, wrapped around my chest. Jeremy has his face buried in my neck while I have my head tilted and leaned back against his shoulder. We are both panting and out of breath and holding onto each other for dear life. We might have bent the rules of the trunk a bit, but there were no specifications on the clarity of the definition of sex. What we just did to each other was not sex but it wasn’t something you’d see in a PG-13 movie either.

  After Jeremy was done showing me just how amazing he thought my body was, which I’m fully convinced of now by the way, I felt the need to thank him and reciprocate. Although my legs felt like mush, I stood up from the counter and pushed him back against the wall and showed him just how appreciative I was.

  When we were spent, Jeremy sat down on the floor and pulled me into him. He kissed me and stroked my hair and told me he loved me.

  Now we are sitting in silence, trying to catch our breath.

  I feel like such an idiot for not telling Jeremy sooner about the way I felt about myself. It’s partially my fault for the mediocre sex we’ve been having. I didn’t put forth much effort because I didn’t want Jeremy to actually see me. I felt ashamed and embarrassed and I thought that if he actually took the time to look at me really closely, he’d see me as ugly and wouldn’t be attracted to me anymore. The reality is that if I had just trusted Jeremy enough to tell him how I felt in the first place, we may have resolved this long ago.

  When am I going to learn?

  With our breathing and heart rates slowed down, Jeremy kisses me on the cheek and whispers into my ear, “Are you ready for a shower now?” I only nod. Jeremy stands up and reaches for my hands to help me up as well. He leans over to turn on the tub water and I can’t help but to smack him on his ass. He jumps, turns and tickles me. I scream. He laughs. We kiss. A lot. Jeremy breaks our connection and says, “We should get in the shower, or we’ll have nothing but cold water again.”

  “Well maybe cold water is what we need. What we just did was amazing but if I don’t have sex with you soon, I’m going to explode.�
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  “You are preaching to the choir, love. That was why I was so hesitant to begin with. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to see you naked and not throw you over my shoulder, take you into the bedroom and have my way with you.”

  “Oh my God, please don’t say that. You are making my insides tremble.” I smile and stroke his scruffy face with my hand.

  Jeremy turns on the shower head and throws back the curtain. He leans in to kiss me before he offers his hand to help me in the shower. “Good.” He smiles back.

  We are in the shower, doing the simplest of tasks: bathing. But there’s something about being in a shower with your lover, who you aren’t allowed to have sex with, and lathering each other up, touching soapy skin, watching the water fall over each others bodies that turns the menial, hygienic chore into your own live porn show. We end up making a repeat performance of what we had just done outside of the shower twenty minutes before.

  If that fucking trunk wasn’t going to let us do what we both so desperately wanted to do, then we were going to utilize our own interpretation of the rules until we were told otherwise.

  We stay in the shower until the water begins to run cold again. “Fuck! That’s cold!” I scream, me being the first to feel the change in temperature. “Oh my god, turn it off!” I yelp. Jeremy reaches and turns off the faucet. We laugh and kiss like teenagers who just snuck away to make out under the bleachers.

  We stay in the tub for what seems like forever until I catch myself yawning right into Jeremy’s mouth. It’s contagious. Jeremy yawns right back. “Are you tired?” he asks.