by Jorja Tabu
“Or they would’ve just been glad they weren’t married to some uptight prick!” Randall ran after her. “They might’ve actually enjoyed themselves--do you know how many women would’ve loved the freedom I’ve given you, to find yourself, to express yourself with whomever you wanted?”
“You’re lying, Randall,” Lena said calmly, taking in the bedroom. She remembered her suitcase was back in the living room closet and pushed past him again. “It doesn’t become you. The only time I wanted anyone, you told me no. You just wanted me to fuck your little girlfriends, and to act like it was okay when you went off with them.” She wasn’t even thinking about what she said as she walked; it seemed like the truth had been laying in the back of her mind for so long it had written itself out for her. Waiting for her to notice. “Well, it was never okay. It’s not the kind of thing you do to the person you love, especially when you know how much they love you.” She yanked hard on the suitcase and pulled it free from the clutter in the closet. “And I did love you, Randall. I would’ve done anything to please you, and you knew it. And you took advantage of it.”
“Oh yeah,” Randall snarled, pushing the suitcase back down, “you’re such a martyr, huh Lena? Or maybe you’re just a whore. Living in this great big house with nothing to do but wander around in your negligee? Women would kill for this life.”
“Then you’ll be remarried in no time,” Lena said firmly as she picked the suitcase back up. “I’m sure Sarah would be very happy to take my place, for example.” She briskly walked along the hallway with the suitcase bumping behind her and Randall trotting after.
“Is this about your poetry?” A hint of desperation tinged the question, but she didn’t slow down. “I think it’s great that you wanted to do that teaching program--why don’t we sit down and talk about this, please?” She looked at him for a minute, but began shaking her head almost as fast.
“This is an old conversation, Randy,” she said. “I’ve been trying to tell you these things for such a long time...And you didn’t want to hear me. It’s okay. It’s long overdue. Just let me go.” She began to move towards the bedroom again, but he grabbed the suitcase.
“You still want me, Lena,” he growled. “I know you. I know every inch of you, and I can make you happy like no one else.”
“I want to learn how to make myself happy, Randall,” Lena said softly, and pried the suitcase out of his hand. “That’s what you’re not getting. It’s not about you, any more.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said, standing as close to her as he could. “It’s about that fucking virgin--not a virgin any more, I guess.” He studied her, his eyes roaming possessively over her body. “Did that little boy make you cum like I do, you fucking whore?” Randall’s hands roughly pulled her robe off, catching the strap of her nightie and breaking it in half. Lena clutched it in time to cover her bare breast and turned her back to him.
“So what if you make me cum, you bastard,” she spat. “So what if you make a thousand women cum--which you might, with all the fucking around you’ve done--it doesn’t mean anything to you. Nothing is special to you.”
“Your whore pussy definitely isn’t now,” Randall growled from right behind her. Lena felt the hair on her neck stand up but kept walking calmly towards the bedroom.
“I have to pack, if you don’t mind,” she said, angling herself to try and close the bedroom door between them. “I’m a little busy right now. Maybe we can chat later.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Randall sneered, pushing the door open and striding inside defiantly. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“The hell I’m not,” Lena snapped. “You don’t have anything I want any more. This whole marriage has been your playground, and I’ve gone along with everything. Do you even remember the last time you told me you loved me and meant it?” She propped the suitcase on the bed and began shoving clothing into it, grabbing everything in sight.
“I always mean it!” Randall took her suitcase and threw it across the room, the bedspread going with it. He turned towards her, his dark eyes simmering. “I don’t say things I don’t mean, Lena! Stop fucking with me!”
“Me? Fuck with you? I don’t think so,” Lena said angrily. “I don’t do anything but what you want. If fucking with you means fucking your girlfriends, I guess I do, but otherwise--”
“So that’s what this is about? Sarah? Ling? I thought this was settled. I thought you’d agreed.”
“Of course I agreed!” Lena screamed this at the top of her lungs, and she could tell by the look on Randall’s face that she was finally getting through to him. “I would have done anything to keep you happy, Randy, anything--fuck around with your little girlfriends, let you talk me out of everything I ever wanted--except for this. I’m going.”
“And him,” Randall said, his eyes dark. “You didn’t let me talk you out of fucking that kid. I should’ve, goddamnit, but you...”
“I knew what I wanted, for once,” Lena snapped. “It’s not that you didn’t push hard enough this time--you’re always pushing me around. It’s that it didn’t work for the first time. And now for the second. I’m going.”
“What did he do to you?” Randall’s eyebrows were low on his handsome, hawkish face, and he took a step closer to her. “You can’t tell me some punk kid with no experience knows how to fuck you like I do. Could eat your pussy like me, make you cum like me. You can’t tell me that.” As he spoke, his hands crept to Lena’s torso, encasing her breasts with a soft, knowing touch. His thumbs ran over her nipples, and in spite of herself, a shiver ran over her body. “You can’t tell me he makes you feel this way,” Randall said in a hungry voice, and Lena, feeling herself unable to say the right words, turned away from him in silence. She reached across the bed to gather her clothes and her nightgown dropped below her shoulder, exposing her breast where he’d ripped the strap. Randy’s cock rubbed against her ass, finding the cleft of her cheeks as deftly as if they were both naked. “Nobody makes you cum like me, you whore,” Randy whispered, yanking her nightgown down over her abdomen, and Lena twisted to get away from him. The movement only made her more exposed, her body naked on the bed as he pressed between her legs. In spite of her resistance, her nipples were hard, standing firm against his insistent grasp, and as she lifted a leg to crawl away Randal deftly removed her nightie so her ass was bare to him, her pussy open and wet. “See? I knew it,” Randy said, and licked the back of her neck. Lena twisted her head back to look at him.
“You do make me cum, Randy. You know how to fuck me, but what do you think this is going to change? You’re just going to make me cum, and then I’m going to walk out the door. You decide whether you want that to live with that or not.” Lena held perfectly still before arching her back, knowing her ass was inviting him in. She was wet for him now, and she was also sure this was the last time they would ever be together. Maybe Randy needed to fuck her to find that out; she knew if she resisted he wouldn’t force her, but she also knew he would have to feel the distraction in her body to know this was real. She was leaving.
“Your pussy wants it, Lena. It’s begging for me right now.” He shoved a finger into her body, curling it as she groaned. “You really think you can walk away from this? Your pussy belongs to me.”
“Fuck me and see,” she dared him, and with that he roughly pushed another finger inside her wet slit while his other hand fumbled with his zipper. She squirmed in front of him, her nipples catching on the clothes scattered over the bed, her ass high in the air and his hand throbbing inside of her pussy. Finally he managed to get his zipper down; she decided not to make it easy for him and moved away, her legs sliding across the sheets and her nightgown gathering around her waist. Randall grunted as he grasped the delicate fabric over her shoulder and yanked it, ripping her gown all the way down her back. He roughly pinned her with his elbows before reaching down as she writhed beneath him and finding his cock; the tip of it slid along her wet pussy lips but she managed to wiggle away before he c
ould penetrate her.
“Hold still, whore,” Randall growled, but she managed to squirm even further away, her ass cheeks smooth and teasing beneath his cock. With a roar, he grasped her around the waist and reared up on his knees, dragging her body with him and firmly shoving his cock inside of her. Lena’s body spasmed with desire as he bit her shoulder, his hands squeezing her hips as he ground into her. Her pussy was so wet he had no trouble sliding in and out of her, his thighs slamming into the backs of hers; she knew he would cum soon. And then she would be free. That knowledge made her pussy squeeze him even harder, and his rhythmic grunting picked up speed as he pinched her breasts, biting her shoulder. Randall’s cock swelled inside of her as he approached orgasm, and Lena arched her back again to allow him the deepest penetration. Drops of his sweat spattered her bare back as he worked on her, gathering speed, getting rougher as he came close and grunting through clenched teeth. “Lena,” he said, “my whore. Mine. Mine. Mine! Mine!” As he chanted, she felt his hot cum inside of her, his cock spasming in time with his squeezing hands.
But his chant had only brought to mind the genuine words of ecstatic adoration Jordan said when he’d cum inside of her pussy mere hours before. Lena came again, hearing his voice in her mind as Randall pumped away at her. When her husband was finished, Lena knew without looking back at him that he could tell she hadn’t been with him when she’d cum.
The trick was getting him to admit it.
“I’m not yours,” Lena said quietly a moment later, as he breathed heavily into her shoulder. “Not any more.”
“How dare you,” he said, and rested his forehead on her back, spent. “How dare you continue with this, after that. After I tried to show you how much I love you.’
“That’s not love,” she snapped, moving to push him away. They looked at each other across the bed. “That’s not what you said. You think of me as another plot twist in the long production of your life. Another bit player. Fuck that, Randall. I’m not yours. I’m not going to be here with you, playing nice while you fuck other people and act like it’s okay just because you were honest about it. Coming up on twenty years, and this is how we feel?”
“Twenty years---you’re seriously going to leave me after all this time?” Randall’s face crumpled. “You can’t, Lena, you just can’t.”
“You’re not even going to spend one night by yourself,” she said softly, refusing to reach a hand out to comfort him. “You’re going to be swamped with sympathy fucks, too, so you’re not getting any from me.” She tried to smile at him, but he didn’t make it easy. Confusion and sadness worked across his face, slowly replacing the anger he’d felt earlier.
“You really mean it, don’t you?” He looked baffled. “You’re going to leave me.”
“Yes, Randy,” she said patiently, rolling over to look at him directly. “I’m leaving you.”
“How?” His brow lowered, and the confusion just deepened. She laughed, and he put out a hand and laid it on her arm. “I’m serious. You don’t have anything.”
“I don’t need anything,” Lena said, somehow knowing it was true. “I don’t think this was ever the life for me.” She waved an arm around their bedroom. “All of these post-modern paintings everywhere? And Mozart in the mornings? Come on, Randy. When you fell in love with me it was Bukowski and Art Nouveau. I was never meant for this.”
“You’re calling me bougie now, huh?” He gave her his most charming smile for a minute, saw that it didn’t light up her face any more, and dropped the act. “I am, I guess. I’m a professor of linguistics, you were a poet. It seemed like a match made in heaven.”
“Maybe it even was, at first,” she said kindly. “But it hasn’t been, for so long.”
“Maybe for you,” he said, looking sad for the first time. “For me...” He sighed. “What am I going to do without you, Lena?”
“Whatever you want,” she said, and this time she did pat his shoulder. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
“What will that be?” He still looked upset, his brow low, and then his eyes narrowed. “The kid?”
“Maybe,” Lena said softly, unafraid. “I...I don’t feel right answering for him.”
“Like I would for you, you mean.” Randall watched her face. “I think I’m starting to get it.”
“Good,” she said, and took her hand back. They stared at each other for a long time.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said. “I’m still not sure what exactly I’m supposed to do without you.”
“Randall, you hardly did anything with me,” Lena sighed. “You fucked me--and that’s exactly what you did, not making love, not sex, not any of that--but we haven’t been together like we were for so long I don’t even remember the last time we were just...together. Friends, even.”
“I don’t want to be friends with my wife,” Randall said suddenly, as if the fact things were changing had hit him all at once. He looked at her to sense her resistance and then moved closer, pulling her towards him. “I don’t want this, Lena.”
“You don’t want things to change, Randy,” she said softly into his shoulder. “It’s not the same thing as wanting me.”
“I do want you,” he said, and she heard the edge of a sob in his voice.
“You want me to be what I was--docile, hanging out at home all day, doing nothing...You know what? I really was kind of a whore. I don’t mean that in a demeaning way, but what did I do? I got fucked hard and cleaned house. So what?” She pulled back and looked at him. “Like I said, this has gone on too long. It isn’t for me, Randy. If you ever loved who I really was, you know that.”
“How did this happen to us?” He stifled the sob, but some tears ran down his rough cheeks as he stared at her, looking for an answer.
“I should’ve said no,” Lena said softly, “to a question you shouldn’t have asked.” She wiped away his tear with her thumb. “Who knows? But it’s no use continuing this. You have to let me go.”
He leaned back and looked at her, studying her face, and she knew that he was thinking about everything she’d said. All the tiny fractures in their marriage would be plain to him, if he would just look; Lena knew that, deep down, Randy loved her enough to see she was right. This wasn’t the way either of them wanted to live; they weren’t the people they wanted to be.
“You can have the house,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Lena said, shocked. “I couldn’t--”
“No,” Randy said, looking at her with a grim smile. “I’ve always been more practical than you, Lena, and the house belongs to you.” He closed his eyes for a minute before being able to continue. “It’s completely paid for, and I practically live at Sarah’s now, anyway. I picked out all this furniture, but...I’m sure you can fix it up the way you’d like.”
“I don’t know if I can take this house,” Lena said, still reeling. “I...I figured if I was the one leaving...”
“No,” Randall said, and reached a hand out to her, tenderly running his finger along her cheek. “I think...I think you’re right. You’re the one who’s fixing this...mess. But let me be the good guy? One last time?” He blinked back another tear. “Maybe for the first time?”
“Not the first time,” she said softly. “I loved you for so long for a reason, Randy.”
“I love you, Lena,” he said, keeping his finger on her cheek, not willing to move. “I might’ve always been the practical one, but you...You’ve always been stronger.”
“If you say so,” she said quietly. Her mind raced with images of her concessions to his requests, their lifestyle shaped by his whim. “I don’t feel that way.”
“Promise me something,” he said, taking his hand back, his eyes never leaving her face. “Promise me you won’t punish yourself for the things you did when you were with me...For whatever you might feel you gave up to be with me.”
“I’m not sure I can do that,” she said, and now there were tears in her eyes. He reached ou
t again to wipe them away.
“Please,” he said, as tears reappeared in his own eyes, “please don’t regret what you did because you loved me. If my life--if our life together--boils down to what you did because you loved me...I couldn’t stand it if that became some kind of horror to you. I couldn’t stand to be a part of what hurts you, even after you leave me.”
“I’ll try,” Lena said, smiling through her tears. “It makes it a lot easier, when you put it that way.” They stared at each other, wiping away the others’ tears, until they fell asleep.
When she woke in the morning, Randall was gone.
Day Seven
Lena didn’t know quite what to do with herself. She had gone out to the garden house every morning, religiously, but the boy had never appeared. Feeling ridiculous, she’d wrapped her robe around her body and peeked in his window; too embarrassed to break in wearing her skimpy clothing, she’d changed, come back, and used her key.
