by CD Reiss
“I had to manage something for Eva and didn’t want to drag it into dinner. Everyone done with their alt-lit dissemination and social critiques?”
Shut up. Just put a fucking cork in it.
“The air went out of the balloon when you left.”
Her hands under my jacket. Around me. Her lips on the line of my jaw. My bones were china and my muscles were stone. My lungs shrank to the size of fists. My dick was the only part of me aroused. The rest of me battled shame and rage.
With one hand, she slid my belt out of the loop. The other stroked me through my pants. “I thought you came home early to take me to bed.”
Sure.
But no. I pushed her hand away.
“Zack didn’t follow you out the door?”
She stepped back as if I were made of acid. “What?”
“The way you two look at each other—”
“I cannot even—”
“It makes me sick,” I growled. I wanted to push her away. Wanted her to get the fuck out of my sight.
“He doesn’t look at me, Adam. This jealousy is bizarre.”
“Fuck he doesn’t.” I turned around and faced the sink. “And you.”
“Me what?”
I rinsed the glass.
“Me what?!” She pushed me on the second word.
I put the glass in the rack. “You. That’s all.”
I pushed myself off the counter and walked to the door, picked up my jacket, my keys, my fucking pride, and closed the door carefully behind me.
I paced the city for hours. When I got back, she was awake in bed, a book in her lap, under the cone of lamplight.
She closed the book. “Are you all right?”
On your knees. Hands behind your back. Right here.
“I’m fine. I’m just anxious. I don’t—”
Open your mouth. Push the back of your tongue down so I can fuck your face.
“—I don’t think you want Zack, but he looks at you like you’re—”
You’re so beautiful when you’re tied down. I can control you with one finger.
“—a goddess, and it bothers me. Just fucking bothers me. I’m afraid to turn my back on that guy.”
“He’s not even on my radar.” She said it as if I was out of my mind to even think she’d touch him.
I believed her. I always believed her, but I needed a cover story for what was really on my mind.
Submit to me, and I’ll let you come.
Impossible fantasies. I held them down, tied them up, locked them away, only letting them breathe when I fucked her.
Submit to me, and you’ll be happy.
I never thought of trotting them out, because then she’d know I was a monster.
Submit to me, and we will rule the world.
I’d die not telling her.
Chapter 52
PRESENT TENSE - DAY FOUR
Diana was getting more comfortable, and I was getting further away. After telling her what had happened with Serena, I’d locked myself off. I told her where to put her hands and legs. I gave her easy tasks to execute. I put my fingers in her mouth and corrected her posture. But I didn’t have the space in my heart for more intensity. She knew about me. She knew what I’d done. She knew how ashamed I was.
I’d locked myself off before, but this time I knew I was doing it. You might call that progress.
I’d just gotten in the door after my run. Diana was sitting on the steps with her hands folded on her lap. She wore a short black dress that had been in the closet. Everything in the house made her body accessible, and this was no different. She pressed her knees together, but I could see the lace between her legs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Waiting for you. I wanted to talk.”
“About?” I leaned on the door and pulled the bow of my wet laces apart.
She watched me, weaving and unweaving her fingers as I worked my laces.
“We haven’t gone this long without sex since the first time,” she said.
“But who’s counting?” I slipped off my right sneaker and worked on the left.
“Do you wanna?” She picked up her skirt, showing me the lace garter she’d put on for my benefit. She’d shaved herself smooth, and she crossed her legs just enough to hide herself.
I dropped my other shoe. “When I want your body, I’ll take it.”
A flash of rage rippled across her face. She didn’t get the game. She didn’t intuit the right way to act, and she didn’t want to be there.
I was sweaty and loose, faced with an expanse of skin and a cunt hidden between crossed legs. My dick stretched my pants and begged for release.
She started to lower her skirt. I took the hem and I took one of her wrists and lifted it again.
I tapped her toe with mine. “Open your legs.”
She did it. A saucy arousal replaced the flash of rage.
“Why do you think I haven’t fucked you?”
“What you told me the other night,” she said, and my back and arms went rigid. “I think you’re worried that I’m—”
“Wrong,” I shut her down. I didn’t want to hear what she thought I thought she thought.
Ridiculous. She had no fucking idea what I thought. She had no idea what I was worried about, and as a sub, it wasn’t her goddamn business. I shouldn’t have told her. Part of me had wanted to drive her away by telling her about Serena’s first time, but part of me couldn’t bear the loss of hope.
“Hands on the bannister,” I said. “Bend at the waist. Ass up.”
Puzzled, she dropped her skirt.
The bottom step had a winding wood pole at the base that connected to a slightly flourished handrail. When I didn’t change my instruction or add to it, she turned slowly and did exactly what I told her. She put her hands on it.
The anger that had started to spin inside me quieted. Not because she did it right. She didn’t. She could have been steering a bus. But I was slipping into a place where I was in control.
I put my hands on her waist and pulled her back until her arms were stretched. Kicked her legs open. Pressed her lower back down until her ass was up and the skirt slipped away enough to show me the snaps on the crotch of her underwear.
“So,” I said. “You want to fuck?”
“Yes.”
“Are you getting yourself off at night?”
“It’s not satisfying. Not all the way.”
I flipped her skirt over her ass and pulled her damp panties to the side. My God. That cunt. So beautiful. I could smell the bouquet of her sex.
“Show me what you do,” I said. When she took too long, I egged her on. “Come on. Let me see.”
Her hand left the bannister and crept between her legs. “Can I say something first?”
I went around her until we were face to face. “Yes.”
Her eyes were huge and clear. Her lips enunciated each syllable, letting them roll around her mouth as if they were surprisingly delicious. “You are filthy.”
She wasn’t disgusted. She was turned on. And she didn’t take a second to wait for me to react to her comment. Her eyelids fluttered. Her lips parted. Her cheeks flushed. I’d intended to watch her fingers move over her cunt, but her expression was everything. It was complete submission to desire.
I bent to get close to her face.
“Look at me,” I whispered. She opened her eyes, grimaced, loosened. “I haven’t taken you yet because the next time I do, you’re going to submit to me. After that, you’re going to compare every man who fucks you to that one time, that first time I owned you. Every guy you bring home for a night. Every man you date. Every one you think might be more than a fling. You’re going to compare every fuck to that first time you submitted completely, and every one of them is going to come up short.”
Her breath got shallower and her body jerked below the waist. Her fingers gripped the bannister.
“You have to be ready. You have to earn it. I have to be sure I wan
t to give it to you.” I took her chin. “Look at me. Eyes open. Good.”
A crackling sound came from her throat. I knew her so well. We’d cut our bodies into matching shapes for years. She was going to come. Having her jaw in my hands, I couldn’t resist. Not another second. I kissed her while she moaned her orgasm into my mouth. I used my tongue to seek out the taste of her soul. The corners and crevices of her body, the hard and soft, slick and rough, feeling her throat vibrate with the last of her release.
She knew me. She knew the ravaging of Serena ate me from the inside. She knew telling her about it was why I’d shut down, even if I’d told myself another story.
I pulled away a few inches, leaving my spit on her face and my taste on her lips. I had another few weeks with those lips. I could enjoy them as much as I wanted and choose not to worry about our future.
“And yes,” I said. “You’re right. It was about what I did the last time I was here.”
She stood up straight. Her skirt dropped and her right hand was shiny and wet. “Why couldn’t you just say that?”
I took her by the right wrist and put her finger to my lips. I sucked it clean, tasting her. She had the same look of awed arousal as she’d had when she told me I was filthy. I dropped her wrist.
“Come to breakfast,” I said. “Let’s just sit.”
I walked across the house to the breakfast table. She padded after me, washed her hands, and sat with me. The hot dishes were already out. Coffee made. Settings laid out. I put eggs and potatoes on her plate.
“Eat,” I said.
My wife could pack it away. She’d eat a man out of house and home, but she took a smidgeon of egg and put it on a single sliver of toast.
“That’s it?” I asked when she sat.
“Yeah, why?”
Normally, I’d shrug and say, “Nothing,” but I wasn’t feeling normal. I was feeling like a man who knew a woman better than he had the right to, and I was feeling the need to take care of her. “Because it’s breakfast and you’re always starving in the morning.”
She shrugged and pushed her eggs around.
“That was fun,” she said without an ounce of fun in her voice.
“If you’re miserable,” I said, “just say it.”
“I haven’t said it.”
She had said it. She’d said it in writing and to my face. I’d believed her but hadn’t understood it until the breakfast table in Montauk. I hadn’t seen the depths of her sadness until that morning, when I told her to finger herself but didn’t fuck her.
“You have.” I put milk in my coffee to give myself a second to think, but it was too long for her.
“I don’t know what to do. I kept hoping these past few months that if I dropped enough hints, you’d catch on and say, ‘Yeah, I want out of this marriage,’ but you never did. And I thought a clean break would be best. Then this…” She drew her hand over the scene we’d found ourselves in. “I came here because of McNeill-Barnes. I admit it. But a part of me thought if I came, the breakup would be easier for you. I figured, ‘How bad could it be?’”
“Has it been bad?”
“No. Not really. I see…” She stopped herself, looked out at the ocean. “I see the appeal. You kissed me back there and…” She put a chunk of eggs in her mouth, eyebrows knotted as if looking for a word. “You haven’t kissed me like that in all five years. I mean, ever. And then I think of all the times you seemed so far away. The time we took a vacation in Ojai. We talked about work the whole time, and when we were in bed together, it wasn’t… something was off. Were you here? In this house?”
“Yes.”
She nodded into her lap. “Were you with someone else? In your mind?”
“Yes.”
She blinked. A tear fell. Then another. I hated hurting her, but I couldn’t lie. We were past that.
“It couldn’t be you,” I said. “Do you understand that?”
“I do. I really do. You told me that story, and everything clicked into place. You love me. But why? Because we’re a great team and I’m never going to ask you to rape me? I’m safe. You can take that side of yourself and pretend it doesn’t exist. Put it where it can’t hurt you. But all that time, it’s beating down the doors to get out, and it ate at us. It ate us alive. Adam, there is no us. There never was an us. I loved a man who didn’t exist, and you loved me because I wasn’t in your world.”
She covered her face with her napkin, and I was glad. I didn’t want her to read me. This whole project was a mistake. If I hadn’t been sure about it before, I was sure now.
But I didn’t know how to give up. Even as I told myself I’d had no business bringing her to Montauk, I told myself there must be a way to get her back.
Diana wasn’t a blubberer, but she was sobbing quietly into her napkin. I got up and put my hands on her shoulders. She pushed me away.
“Stop it,” I said. “We’re going through this together.”
“No, we’re not. I’ve never lied to you. I loved you honestly.”
She wrenched herself out of her chair, standing and running away at the same time. I caught her three steps away and yanked her to me.
“Let go!”
“No. Listen.”
“I don’t want to listen.” Her face and mouth were painted with spit and tears. I’d pushed her, and now I’d gotten exactly what I’d asked for. The truth. “I’m sorry you did that to her, and I’m sorry she liked it. I’m sorry you felt like shit about it. I would have been there for you. If you’d just trusted me, I would have been there for you.”
I couldn’t bear it. She was right. Every word was right. I’d asked her for trust I’d never given her. Instead of letting her go, I pulled her closer, trapping her in the circle of my arms. I knew it was the last time I would. I knew that once we left the kitchen, we would change.
I was the architect of this marriage and divorce. I was the catalyst. All she’d done was what I’d pushed her to do, then she took the blame for it.
“It’s easy to say now you would have been there for me.” I squeezed her shoulders.
“I would have.”
Monday morning quarterbacking. Pure bullshit, but she believed it, and that was the important part.
“When I’m sleeping next to you, some nights, do you touch yourself?” I asked.
“Yes,” she exhaled.
“I know,” I said softly into her ear. “I’m not always sleeping. I feel you move the tips of your fingers. I feel you trying to stay still. I feel your muscles tighten.”
She swallowed hard.
“I didn’t give you what you need. That changes today. I know you throb for it. I know you need it. Let me tell you something, my wife. For the next twenty-six days, I own every single one of your orgasms. If I don’t take your pleasure, you don’t have any.”
She touched my fingers, and I put her hand back in her lap.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re really sexy when you’re bossy.”
“Now you tell me.”
Her shoulders hitched with a silent laugh.
“Tonight, we’ll reconvene.” I kissed the back of her neck, taking in her scent of orchids and oranges.
“I need to go for a walk,” she said. “Alone, if you don’t mind.”
“The general store is open from ten until two. Don’t take the shortcut.”
She stood. “Tonight then.”
“Seven sharp. Winter clothes are in the closet, in the drawers.”
She took a step then stopped herself. “Tonight?”
“Yes?”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
She skipped away, and I stood in shock.
Chapter 53
PRESENT TENSE – DAY FOUR
Diana knew how to get to the general store since there were no turns, but I followed her anyway. The town was dead in winter. Year-round residents were known for hunting and drinking. I was a city boy, and I didn’t trus
t the miles and miles of desolation and empty houses.
She trudged along on the side of the two-lane blacktop, head down with a Manhattan tempo. As if she had a meeting to get to or a train to catch. Storm clouds gathered over the horizon, dark grey eating the lighter grey. It would be light and charming. A little snow cover adding to the romance.
She stopped at the underpass, looked at where I’d taken Serena five years before.
What did she think? What was on her mind? Did she really hate me for lying about it, or was the act itself repellent? Maybe both?
She was stepping away from the fence and the icy stream when a truck pulled up. I heard the crackle and roar of it before I saw it. Stefan’s truck. I chided myself for thinking he would stop, then I was surprised when he did.
That motherfucker.
He was talking to her.
I couldn’t make out what they were saying past the treeline, but she laughed at something he said. Some other shit came out of his mouth and I saw in his rearview mirror that he was smiling. Entertaining her. Charming her.
Oh, fuck this.
Fuck no.
I stomped across the street. As if he could sense my decision, Stefan said good-bye and drove away. I was left exposed in the middle of the road, no truck to block my stalking from Diana’s view.
“What are you doing?” she called.
“Following you. It’s not safe.”
“Then why did you let me go alone?”
“You wanted to. Listen. This is…” I looked down the road. He was a speck in the distance. “Don’t talk to him. That’s all.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She jammed her hands in her pockets, looked toward the general store, then back to the house. Didn’t move.
“What?” I asked.
“Either you let me in or you don’t. Either you tell me about this other life or you shut me out. You can’t have it both ways.”
“And if I let you in? Then what? Miraculous healing and a joyful marriage? Is that what you’re promising?”
