by Aidèe Jaimes
Cassandra pulls back, and her blue eyes look into his. Whatever she was looking for, weakness I suppose, she must have found.
This time, when she kisses him, he responds. It’s a slow, sweet contact at first. Partly hesitant. He opens his mouth when he feels her tongue begin to probe. It was then, at the first real taste of another woman that the heat in his core began to rise to the point of no return. Where there is nothing to do, but to put out the fire with the person who ignited it in the first place.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that what he’s doing is going to change his life. Even as he pulls down the black straps of her shirt and bra over her shoulders, there is a voice in his head that is screaming for him to stop!
But it becomes background noise when she bites his neck and purrs into his ear. And when she takes off his shirt and pulls on the zipper of his pants, he can’t think of anything but her mouth on him.
She lifts off him, and pulls him up with her, leading them to the bed. There, she removes the remaining bits of clothes. With a gentle push, they’re both on the bed, and then she’s hovering over him, and just like that, he’s inside her.
Cassandra’s face comes into view, and for the first time since they came into the room he focuses and realizes what he’s doing. Bile rises to his throat and he rolls over, tossing the girl onto the bed as he jumps off and dresses as quickly as he can.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demands.
“I’m married!” he tells her.
She laughs sarcastically. “You don’t say?” Suddenly, she doesn’t seem so sweet or so young. Now she seems calculating. She’s someone who’s been around the block more than a few times and she knows how to twist a man until he’s so confused he doesn’t know which way is right.
Owen throws her an annoyed glance. “I love her. This was a mistake. I was too drunk.”
She sits up, completely unabashed at her nakedness. “Pfft. I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I think you should leave,” he tells her, barely able to keep eye contact.
She looks him up and down and laughs at his shame. “Are you serious? I thought we hit it off.”
“We did. This isn’t your fault. I should never have brought you here,” he says, acknowledging the fact that she shouldn’t have been in his room in the first place.
She stands and begins to dress. “Whatever.”
Walking to her big brown bag, she pulls out a small stack of sticky notes and writes something on one of them, then stands in front of him. “Here, when you come back to town, call me. Maybe we can finish what we started. I won’t tell your wife, pinky swear.” She sticks the yellow thing on his chest and goes to kiss him, but thinks the better of it when he winces. “See you later?”
“I’m sorry, Cassandra.”
“She was only in my room five minutes. That was all, I swear it. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t sleep with her. But I want you to understand that it was only a matter of seconds before I ended it. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Those five minutes have nearly cost me everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the moment you came home?” I ask him. “Why try to hide it?”
He looks at his lap, saying nothing until Dr. Riker prompts him to. “Go on Owen. Speak with honesty.”
“Shame. Guilt. Fear that I’d lose you. I thought about it. All the way home, on the plane, in the car, I went over every possible way that I could bring this up. How I could keep you from leaving me. I had already hurt you, even before you knew it, and I felt like the worst piece of shit for it. I couldn’t face it. The coward in me took over.”
“You fucked me when you got home. Instead of telling me, you fucked me,” I spat, remembering how awful it felt to know he’d been with that woman only a day before, not knowing if she’d had a disease.
“I wanted to brand you. Maybe it was to brand myself.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Owen. It’s all…” I started to say, then I replayed something he’d said at the park months and months ago, when we’d been at a company picnic and we’d run into Mike and his girlfriend. Her name had been Cassandra.
While I had imagined the woman to be an exotic beauty, at some point I’d subconsciously changed the image to the young redhead from that day. Owen had sworn to me then that it wasn’t her. That it was a coincidence that their names were the same. But just now, he said Cassandra had shown interest in working as a receptionist at the Chicago office.
My stomach turns as I realize the truth of it. “You lied about the girl at the park. That was Cassandra, wasn’t it? The girl you slept with.”
“Yes.” I know it pains him to answer honestly. But it seems that now, in this office, he’s decided to lay it all out for me. Maybe this is what he needs to heal. I’m not so sure it’s working for me.
I don’t press him further because I know why he did it. There would have been no holding back for me had I known the truth. As it was I’d slapped him so hard it virtually turned his head. I’m sure his ego took a very big hit, too, because I did it in front of his entire office. No, as crazy as I was that day, I probably would have thrown myself on him like a wild cat, trying to claw his eyes out.
Even so, to know that I’d actually met the woman made me want to slap him all over again. Harder this time.
Turning away from them, I look at the wall to my right, and see all of the doctor’s accomplishments, degrees and awards. There are pictures of herself with other people I assume are her family. Colleagues maybe. It takes me away from the present enough that I can move on from it.
“I need a break,” I say, still looking at all the little faces on the wall. I’m not crying, not even angry right this moment. It’s more of a strange calm that takes over me. “Can I step outside for a minute, alone?”
“I want to come,” Owen says standing up, but the doctor stops him with a wave of her hand.
“Take your time, Cristiana. We still have another hour in our session.”
Dear lord, another hour.
Killing time, I stare out into traffic for a good twenty minutes, wishing I still smoked. It’s that kind of day where you crave all of your past vices.
Really, I couldn’t fathom what more we could talk about. It felt like everything that I needed to know, or ever wanted to know about that damned affair, I knew.
I’d been angry for so long, had created so many scenarios in my mind as to what could have led him to do what he did. While some of it did play out as I’d imagined, it did answer a lot of questions. Like, did he enjoy himself with her? How did I compare sexually to her?
I don’t know if relief is the right word. Maybe it’s more like a release of tension that something else is going to be revealed. Or that I ever have to worry about her coming into the picture again. Because I believe when he says that he was only with her a few seconds, and I also believe that he was so revolted by what he’d done, he pushed her off.
Even though I myself was done talking, he apparently felt we still had more to discuss.
Then the thought hits me. Now that we are done talking about him, we would move on to talk about me. As willing as Owen seemed to be to discuss things, and as much as he felt the need to have everything cleared up, things were very different with me.
For one, he doesn’t love Cassandra. He was with her for less than five minutes. And even though I hate to admit it, he was right. His mistake was not premeditated. It was stupid. He was stupid. But it was not something he set out to do and he felt great remorse the moment he did it.
Not only was I with Bo for two days, but I fell in love with him. Everything that I did with him was planned, it was meant as a way to get even. And yes, I knew that it would hurt Owen. It was an intentional injury, even if it was done as a reaction to my own pain. The worst part is that even now I don’t feel regret for having slept with Bo, only regret that I didn’t feel guilty over it.
Bo… His face comes into my mind and I push against it, m
entally sending it back from where it came. I may not have a choice when I sleep, dreaming of him almost every night. But I’d learned to repress those memories during the day.
Wiping at my eyes and straightening myself, I walk back in, my mind made up on what I would be willing to discuss on the subject.
Nothing.
CHAPTER 5
“What do you want me to say, Owen. Sorry I wasn’t very friendly towards Dr. Riker. I was uncomfortable around her.”
“Friendly? Forget being very friendly, Cris, you were downright hostile.”
“I don’t like her, Owen. I don’t like how she looks at me, or that she writes shit with that fancy pen while she’s looking at me. It’s like she’s already judged and tried me. She hates me!”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“Oh yeah she does. And if I had to guess a lot of it has to do with her feelings for you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Owen gives me a quick side-glance, then faces forward once again as he drives us home.
“Have you not seen the way she looks at you? Her eyes soften and light up when they’re on you. I swear, she wants your bones.”
“Cris, she’s like sixty.”
“No, she’s definitely younger than that. And even then, women in their sixties still have fantasies, you know. I know I will!”
The words are silly, even to my own ears, and we both burst out in laughter. I turn to him as the deep rumble of his voice fills me with warmth. When he looks at me with that smile that I have loved for so long, I nearly melt.
Maybe we did get something out of this visit after all. Reliving the day we met was like a balm to my soul. Not that I’d ever stopped loving Owen, I never will, but today I fell in love with him all over again.
Unable to resist, I reach out and touch his cheek, run my fingers through his hair and around his ear. His smile falters a little. Without warning he turns right, into a small side street, and parks in front of an Animal Hospital.
He turns to me, worried. “Cris, I’m sorry about today. I thought maybe, if we laid everything out on table, it would help bring us closer. But it looks like it had the opposite effect. It wasn’t supposed to dredge up awful memories. All I wanted was to be sure there was nothing left that would create distance between us.”
“I know.” I feel awful for putting him through this. “We are closer. At least I think we are. I thought we’d gotten past all that anyway.”
“Yeah, sometimes if feels that way. But then when I really look, I can see there’s still something off. It doesn’t feel like we are us anymore. And it’s not that I’m not taking responsibility for my part in the deal. I am taking full blame. I want us back. All the way back.”
“I do, too. I want that, too. The thing is, I don’t think there’s anything left to put on the table. No, that’s wrong. I know there is more. We can sit and talk circles around it and always come up with more. But I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I want to heal and move on. With you. Can we just do that?”
He squeezes my thigh in reassurance. “Yeah, we can,” he says, reaching out and wiping at the moisture under my left eye.
When we arrive home, Katie and Mia race out to greet us. I suspect they were at the door anxiously awaiting our return.
My kid runs past my outstretched arms and straight to Owen. “Daddy!”
“Of course, chopped liver whenever Daddy’s around,” I grumble, but really it’s a sweet bond those two have, and my heart swells when I see him lift her into his arms.
Then my stomach drops as he throws her in the air and feet go over head when he flips her, and she squeals in delight even as I nearly faint.
“Owen!” I cry out to him. “You’re going to drop her one of these days!”
“Nah, kids love this. Don’t ya, love?” he asks her, tickling her round belly.
“Yeah! Again, again!” Mia begs.
I shake my head and walk away from them. “Better not to see,” I tell Katie as I pass her. She giggles and follows me in so I can pay her.
Katie, a college student that lives in our neighborhood, started working for me last month. She’s a sweet girl and so great with Mia. Recently I found a part-time position at Firth and Wells Bank. The shifts are short, but still, they go beyond Mia’s preschool hours.
After a lot of thought, and calculating, we realized it was worth the few hours I’d pay Katie for the “wrap-around care,” watching her Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-1:30 and Wednesdays a little longer since she picks her up from school. Though I do miss my little girl like crazy, I still get to spend most of the day with her, and I know she is having a blast with kids her age, and learning more than I could teach.
That evening is like any other. Playtime with Mia for Owen while I cook us dinner. We sit and have what my daughter has requested, mac n’ cheese pizza. It’s not my favorite, actually it’s a little hard to get past the idea, but both she and Owen gobble it up like it’s manna from heaven.
Much to her delight, we both put Mia to bed, each one of her parents taking a turn reading to her. Though it’s Owen in the end who stays to scratch her back and fully settle her.
“There’s a movie I want to watch on demand,” he tells me when he walks into the room.
“Yeah, that sounds nice.”
After we both shower, we settle into the bed and he sets up the movie. Generally, he and I don’t have the same tastes when it comes to films, and this is no exception. The military story is confusing to me, in part because I don’t keep up with the world enough to know who’s fought who, when and where and why. There are too many wars now a days, with too many bad guys. Which is another reason I don’t have interest in it. Life is already full of sadness; I don’t want it in my entertainment. In no time at all, my head begins to droop.
Looking towards him, his body so warm, my feet so cold, I scoot over and melt myself into him. Whether or not we both assumed tonight we’d be having hot sweaty sex didn’t matter. I am out like a light, the heat of him and the soft pillows at my back, combined with a movie I found boring proving too much for me.
I was out for a while, however long the movie was. When my eyes flutter open, the first thing I see are soft green ones looking right back. Owen is laying on his side facing me, his fingers tracing an invisible line from my hand up to my neck and back.
“How long have you been watching me sleep?” I ask around a yawn.
“Not long enough.” He moves the hair out of my face and tucks it in behind my left ear. “You’re so beautiful, Cris. So beautiful.” His voice is barely a whisper, and there is no question of what he wants. Especially when he leans in and takes my lips softly, his arms around my waist pulling me to him until there is no space between us.
The kiss isn’t soft, but it is slow. Tentative. He’s taking his time exploring, tasting. And so am I. My hands on his shoulders drop slowly down his arms, my fingers tracking every valley of his muscles there.
When he pushes me onto my back, I move my arms around his neck and open my legs to him. With a hand to support his weight, he uses the other to peel off my spaghetti tee and sleep shorts, and his boxers, hardly breaking lip contact during the process.
He enters me then and moves slowly at first. His kiss finally breaks, but his eyes remain glued to mine. It’s a connection that’s deeper than a kiss could have been, and I feel trapped in his gaze. “Owen,” I moan his name as that pressure builds between my legs, and with my heels and hands on his buttocks, I pull him into me harder.
“I love you, Cris.” His climax approaching, his thrusts speed up and he puts his face into my neck, nibbling at the soft skin there. When he comes, he falls onto my body, barely moving off so that I can breathe, our limbs still intertwined. “You didn’t come.”
“No. But it was still amazing. I love you, Owen.” I smile at him in a real content sort of way. There was no expectation of coming for me, not this time. And it didn’t matter. We’d just made love, and it was something so new f
or us because we only ever fucked. We’d never even tried to have this connection. And it was a wonderful thing.
Owen flipped onto his back and brought me with him, not caring that our bodies were now hot and sticky. I lay my head on his chest and snuggled in, playing with the hair on his chest, listening to the even beat of his heart.
We fell asleep and never moved.
What follows is an entire month of falling in love all over again. There’s that magic, that high that makes you giddy and act the fool when you first meet someone you’re crazy about. That’s how I feel with Owen now.
We often talk about the crazy things we did when we first met, all of the places we had sex. The car out in a parking lot because we got kicked out of a restaurant after being caught trying to get it on in the ladies’ restroom. And that was after we were married!
Then there was the time we were driving down to South Carolina to visit a friend of Owen’s. I’d started fingering myself in the passenger seat, more to torture him than anything. I’d ended up so wet and desperate he’d had to pull over to help get me off. Luckily I-95 was dead that day, with very few cars going by, and none of them police.
Every time we pass each other, we have to make some sort of contact, whether it be a hand reaching out for a slight touch, or a soft caress. Or as is the case right now, a hot make out session in the guest bathroom.
I’d gone in to put away some towels, when Owen pushed inside, too, and closed the door behind him.
“What are you…” is all I have time to say before I am pinned to the sink, his mouth hard against mine. Instinctively I react to him, and I begin to fumble with his t-shirt, tying to divest him of that and then his pants.
He lets me go only to flip me around. “Put your hands on the sink and don’t let go. I want to see your face in the mirror when I fuck you.”
