All Fore Revenge

by Piper Denna

  The light came back on. “Thanks. I wanted to see you.”

  Yet again, I felt his tensed muscles relax. I tugged the shorts down, leaving him in briefs. Take it slow. Slow. I crawled back up him and we kissed, long and deep. My mouth hit the trail again, in a more rapid descent than before. Wherever my hands rubbed, I pointedly avoided touching his shaft, deliberately teasing him.

  “Ali. I’m ready now.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. The briefs were off in no time, my fingers wrapped around him. Aaron watched as my mouth lowered over him, then I backed off so I could tongue him.

  I’d only got started when I felt him tensing, his breath sucking in sharp. “I’m gonna…”

  Since I didn’t want him in my mouth when he came, I pulled off. He stopped in time, but looked miserable, like he’d failed somehow.

  “It’s okay. Here, let’s just get this one out of the way real quick, okay? It happens all the time.” My hand slid up and down, while he watched uncomfortably. “Does it feel good?”

  He nodded.

  “Then show me. I like this. I wanta see you come.”

  He moaned in answer and relaxed again. I licked him some more, to make it more slippery. As my mouth pulled away, I felt him tense in my hand, and then he came with a pained groan, pulling handfuls of the comforter while my hand pumped ‘til the last spurt was finished. He was red again when I wiped my hand.

  “Now we’re even,” I told him.

  He smiled up at me.

  “Ready for the fun part?”

  He pulled me on him to kiss.

  I stretched along him, riding just high enough that he was nestled between my legs in a hot, wet embrace.

  He rolled us over so he was on top and sat back, looking excited but anxious. I drew his hand to me again, and his brows shot up when two of his fingers entered me. “It’s really tight now. Will it hurt for you?”

  “It’s tight from wanting you.”

  His abs visibly clenched.

  “And from when you made me come. It’ll fit like a glove, I promise.”

  He closed his eyes as his fingers felt inside me for my now-engorged g-spot. I forced myself not to yelp when he touched it, lest he think he’d done something wrong.

  “Do we… need something?” he asked.

  “I won’t get pregnant, but we should, in case one of our other partners…”

  His head shook, but he disappeared in the bathroom and returned shortly, sporting a condom. He leaned forward and I spread my legs more as he guided himself in. I was so swollen and tight inside, I could feel every bump and ridge as he entered.

  With a groan, he collapsed tight against me for a long time. He sniffed my hair, and his hands slid under my arms and then held my head, tangled in my hair. “Ali. Oh God.”

  My hands traced the muscles on his back, lower, until I reached his butt, where I clasped him until he began thrusting. His thrusts massaged my spot only a couple of times before he came with a fierce yell, driving himself hard into me, smashing me into his bed beneath him.

  His voice was shaky, and so was he, when he was finished. “That was fucking incredible.” Drinking, gambling, fornicating, and swearing all in one night. And with a woman of the world, too. Big night for Aaron. “I’m sorry. You didn’t get to…”

  “It’s okay. You’ll make it up to me in a little bit, trust me. I’ll show you.”

  “Ali, thanks. It was actually my first time.”

  No kidding. “Why’d you do it now, with me, if you’ve waited so long?”

  “Well,” he admitted, “there’s this girl…”

  “TELL me you did not just cheat on her.”

  “No, but I’ve got my eye on her. When we get married, I want her to think I’m a natural in bed. I wanta be good for her.” Aside from the deceit involved in letting her think he was still a virgin, it was sweet that he wanted to be able to please her. “Show me more?”

  I did.

  When he dropped me off in the wee hours, it was time for my walk, but I was too exhausted and sore to go.

  “I’ll never forget this,” he swore, whispering in my ear at my front door.

  “I know. Neither will I. You’re gonna be great on your wedding night.”

  With one final kiss, I went inside.

  All Fore Revenge

  Chapter 8

  Collapsed on the couch with my purse next to me, recalling my “one crazy night” with Aaron, I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone rang.

  “Shurre, Jesus Christ! It’s five a.m.!” Then, worrying, I asked, “Is there an emergency?”

  “No, silly. I know you go walk early, and I wanted to join you today.”

  “Ugh. I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

  “I’m out of bed at five. This normally only happens on January first because I haven’t been to bed yet, or if one of my kids has stomach flu. I’m coming over and we’re walking.”

  Ten minutes later, Shurre was there. I’d changed into my running clothes and was working my ratty hair into a ponytail.

  “Why’s your neck all red?” she demanded.

  Aaron’d had quite the five o’clock shadow going on by the time we’d finished up.

  “Oh my God! Who were you with?” she squealed.

  “Shit, not so loud. I’m exhausted.”

  “Who did you sleep with, A?”

  “There was no sleep. You can’t tell a soul, understand? Not even Kerri.”

  “Was he married?”

  “NO! Of course not!” Unable to suppress a smile, I confessed, “It was Aaron.”

  “Church Aaron? Had sex? With you?”

  “Yeah, don’t look so surprised. We’ve always had an attraction.”

  “I know, but… Church Aaron had sex!” She collapsed back on my bed, staring at the ceiling in wonder.

  “And he’d be in big trouble if he got found out, so keep it in the vault. Yes, to answer that snoopy look you’re wearing, it was amazing.”

  “You’ll go to hell, you know,” she teased.

  “Yep.”

  “And you don’t even care.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m happy for you. ‘Bout time you did some crazy shit. Seducing Church boy, wow!”

  *

  The walk didn’t kill me like I’d feared it would, but Shurre nearly did, with all her damn questions. When she had a complete, pornographic picture of my night with Aaron, she started asking about Cam.

  “A guy who sacrificed his career for his child. That’s something new. Wasn’t there a Ben Affleck movie like that?”

  I rolled my eyes in answer.

  “So what’s Bill up to?”

  “He’s in Cancun for a tournament. He doesn’t usually call much from there, because it’s a pain and expensive. Maybe he’s getting laid, now that we’re separated.”

  “I always wondered how you could trust him when he went on tour. So many women hanging around the cameras, so many good-looking men all together, bending over all day...”

  We stopped to lean on a fence and watch a black colt frolicking in my neighbor’s pasture.

  “I don’t think he’d mess around on me on tour. Brianna just went for him, seduced him. As for all the good-looking men, yuck! Are you a pervert, or what?” Her suggestions hit home in a way she couldn’t guess, and alarmed me in a way I wouldn’t admit.

  She shrugged. “It happens in prison all the time.”

  “Jesus, Shurre! Those guys are locked up together, with no women! And half the time it’s a violent thing, not consensual sex. Not even the same as being on a golf tour. They aren’t a bunch of animals, for God’s sake!”

  “We’re all animals, Ali. Everybody gives in to sexual desires.”

  I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling acutely uncomfortable. “My point is that civilized people control themselves and don’t have the urge to screw other humans just because they’re within reach.”

  “When did you get so fucking uptight? I seem to remember a wild night
with a bottle of Malibu Rum, and you and I…”

  “Shurre.” My chest instantly contracted and I could feel a cold sweat coming that had nothing to do with the sun shining above us. “We were so wasted, and young, and experimenting. And friends.”

  “Friends!” she sniffed, stepping much closer to me. “How many of your friends showed you how to masturbate senior year?”

  “You didn’t show me, you told me. Come on, I’m too tired for this teasing. You’re married anyway, you sex-psycho.” My heart was beating faster than it should have been, from her reminder of that ‘wild night’ I’d tried hard to forget, and from her proximity. Teasing, that’s all it was. And exhaustion.

  She laughed when I stepped away, and I could tell she was either mad or hurt.

  “Yeah, married,” she muttered. “Kinda weird, me being married for once, and you being single. Thought you’d be with that rich bastard ‘til we died.”

  “Have you always hated Bill?”

  “He took you away to the Scorpion State and left me here all alone!”

  “Bullshit!” I laughed. “I came back for your first wedding only a month after we went to Phoenix. Besides, I’ve always been there for you, just like you have for me. Remember the insane phone bills we used to run up?”

  She nodded. “Shoulda bought stock in AT&T, instead of letting that cute con guy get the money Grandpa left me. God, he was worth it, though.” She smiled, remembering, and her hands fanned away a hot flush which left her pink. “How could I not hate Bill, when he never scammed you or conned you? He was just so damn debonair, and you fell flat on your face for him. Sometimes I wanted to hate you for getting out of this shithole town and having a life that worked, without even trying to catch a rich guy. And here I spend my life in everlasting pursuit of the world’s first worthy, wealthy man who’s hung like a horse and a warrior in bed, without ever finding him.” She shook her head, then her face brightened with a smile. “But see, Bill’s not so perfect after all. Does my heart good to think he’s just your average piece of shit in Dockers and three hundred dollar golf shoes. Other times, I wanta go knock his teeth out with his driver iron for hurting you.”

  Shurre and her golf clubs. No matter how many times I’d taken her out golfing with me, she still referred to the clubs as “sticks,” and would try to hit long drives with a putter if I didn’t stop her.

  “It’s okay with me if you hate him now, but honestly, he’s a good guy. I really did love him. Do still, I guess. Not that I’ll admit it to him.”

  We turned back toward my house.

  Out of the blue, Shurre blurted, “My Uncle Ronnie moved back here.”

  “Oh. That’ll be… nice. You two were always, um, close.” Truth be told, Shurre’s favorite uncle always gave me the creeps. He looked too long and hard at the wrong places on a girl. He and his wife never had any kids of their own. I once heard Shurre’s mom telling mine that he was sterile. Shurre happily went to Denver a few times a year to stay with them and came back with tons of cool new clothes and cassettes, pretty much whatever she’d been wanting. This was a good thing. I think the only family I knew who was poorer than ours was Shurre’s.

  “Yeah, remember I told you Aunt Pam passed away. I guess he wanted to be closer to my dad and…” she cleared her throat, “…everybody.”

  At my door I told her, “Thanks for the walk. I’m gonna crash awhile.”

  “You’re gonna be okay on your own, Ali. It just takes time.”

  *

  When I slept, I dreamed of that long-ago night with Shurre, and woke up feeling the same regret as the morning after it. I lay there and remembered I’d had a date earlier that evening with Bill, our third date. I hadn’t slept with him yet, and I’d been a little disappointed about it when I met Shurre at her apartment. It felt like he’d never put the moves on me. She told me to just initiate it myself. I was afraid, though. It mattered to me, so much, that I didn’t mess things up with him.

  Lying in the noon-warmed bedroom of my little farmhouse, I guessed Shurre had been jealous, and probably scared shitless of losing her best friend to some stranger from out of state. She’d known, even then, that I was crazy in love with Bill. No wonder she’d done what she had that night, convincing me that as long as it felt good, it couldn’t be wrong. Jokingly singing, “Will you still love me, tomorrow?” in whispers against my breasts, even as her hands took my breath away, trespassing in my south forty.

  It did feel good, if foreign, having her soft skin against mine, hearing her feminine sighs with mine. But it felt like incest; awkward in that we were entirely too close to be lovers. Lovers are intrigued and surprised to learn the secrets of one another’s bodies.

  I’d known Shurre since we were in kindergarten, and seen her naked a million times. I’d been in the school restroom with her when she got her first period. She was more sister than friend. Definitely more sister than lover.

  And yet my body had responded, and I hated myself for having given in to the carnal pleasures of touching her intimately, sharing in building the illicit heat between us, tasting her arousal. It was the first time another person had brought me to orgasm, and for years after, when Bill helped me come using the technique I’d shown him, I felt like I’d stolen my pleasure and didn’t deserve it.

  Fifteen years later, it came to me—Shurre had been trying to make another connection between us, to keep me from leaving her behind in a life she didn’t want. I’d been so caught up in the perceived sin, and more, the feeling that it wouldn’t be wrong to have such an encounter with just any girl, but this was Shurre, who I cared for in so many ways, and I’d had sex with her only because it felt good. I should have stopped it, I’d felt, never mind that she was as old as me and we were equally drunk when it happened.

  Shurre was a sex-expert compared to me, promiscuous from a much younger age, with much older guys. I’d always admired her easy way with boys, with men. In the days following our encounter, I felt guilty. I managed to convince myself I had secretly lusted after her and she’d been acting on my subconscious signals.

  Then I started believing I’d been very inebriated and couldn’t remember much that happened. I’d buried it deep in the chest of personal secrets that I suppose we all carry, and there it sat until Shurre brought it up during our walk. And why had she brought it up, after all those years?

  Whatever her reason for mentioning it, the memory of that night had come back, and I finally saw her as the aggressor. This shook me up no small amount. Had everyone I’d had sex with been the aggressor, until Cam? What did that mean? I shuddered to think of the things Bill had talked me into trying during the course of our marriage, and no matter how strongly I’d felt, I’d always succumbed. Did I have no convictions, or was I simply so eager to please, so afraid of losing him, that I’d do anything to keep him happy? Maybe I was trying to avoid getting the shaft the way Mom had. And in the end, no amount of compliance had mattered; Bill had gone looking for greener pastures anyway. Life sucks. Either way, you lose.

  I rolled over and lost myself in a sleep-fuddled, depressed funk, ‘til late that evening when Cam called me.

  “Hey,” he said, with a smile I could hear.

  “Hey.” I was down, and even hearing him didn’t pull me up.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you’d be working.” He sounded like he felt guilty, but I didn’t care.

  “I have a headache.” I just wanted to get off the damn phone and go back to sleep. Forever.

  “I tried to call you last night. A lot. And this morning, too.”

  “Oh. Last night, I was… ahem, with an old friend, and this morning I must’ve been asleep…”

  “An old friend,” he interrupted. “All night?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Oh.” Silence. “You must be very tired.”

  “I am.” Tired of all this bullshit. Tired of being conscious.

  “Okay. I’ll let yo
u rest, then.”

  Cam sounded very disappointed, and on top of everything else eating at me, now I felt terrible for being short with him, and giving him news which was probably as welcome as a houseguest with a flu bug.

  I cried for what felt like hours after we hung up, and then went back to my depressed sleep.

  All Fore Revenge

  Chapter 9

  “How long have you been here like this?” Bill demanded.

  I threw my forearm over my eyes to block the sunlight from the blinds he’d just thrown open.

  “Depends. What day is it?”

  “It’s three days since I’ve been calling you without an answer, goddammit! Your sister kept telling me she’d been here and you had a headache, but I couldn’t believe you’d ignore my calls! That’s pretty fucking inconsiderate. I’m still the father of your kids, and we’re still married.”

  Not bothering to answer, I rolled to my stomach and stuck my head under a pillow. Did he even answer my question? A fuzzy recollection of Kerri coming by and making me call the boys was all I could remember for days. I was thirsty. Very thirsty.

  “Alison! It’s Thursday. What’s wrong with you?” Thursday. Hmm. Odd that I wasn’t hungry. Maybe I could get Bill to fetch me some water before he left. “Fine. Have it your way. I’ll take you to the ER. Maybe they’ll pump your stomach, or do some other fun thing.” He wrenched the pillow from my hands, unearthing my head.

  “No ER!” I hated the ER, which he knew. Andy had drunk shampoo when he was two, and I’d had to take him to the ER to have his little stomach pumped. While I’d been holding him down on the exam table, Will had climbed the shelves behind me to the sink, tried to wash his hands, and gotten antibacterial soap in his eyes before falling and splitting his forehead open.

  After poison control, eye irrigation, and stitches, I’d ended up staying all night with the boys for observation on Will’s concussion. An early morning nurse, who had no inkling Will’s injuries had occurred while in the ER, called a social worker who delayed our release by grilling me and then insinuated I’d neglected my boys and couldn’t handle two kids so close to the same age.