by Cara McKenna
His cock is heavy and intimidating and wonderful, the first couple inches filling my mouth. I fondle his balls, gently squeezing and pulling. I free my mouth to say, “Tell me what you need, Patrick.”
“Just suck me. Hard.”
I leave his balls to wrap my hand firmly around his base. I slip his head in my mouth and take him, aggressive.
“Fuck, yeah.” His hands clamp tight around my flesh. “Just like that.” His tongue laps me in long strokes and I know it’s about him tasting me, not about my next orgasm. I love that thought, that he wants this for his own pleasure and I shiver, imagining him as a ravenous, greedy beast.
I feel when he’s close. His hips move—tiny, involuntary jerks that beg me for more. I keep stroking and sucking and do my best to take what he gives me when he starts to thrust. His mouth abandons my pussy and he fills the room with his moans and pleas.
“Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
I wouldn’t dream of it. I taste more of his pre-come and on a primal level it’s the most addictive flavor I’ve ever experienced. His smells are all around me, his frantic energy, these intimate parts of him right here in front of me.
“Oh yeah,” he groans. “Yeah. Don’t stop. Please. Robin.”
His hips thrust and freeze a moment and I taste the first spurt. Another thrust, another taste, again and again until he’s empty. I swallow everything he gives me and lave his cock as his body relaxes.
“God, Robin.” He sounds delirious and I feel giddy. I extract myself from his grasp and flip around to lie against him, chest to chest. He grabs me around the waist and pulls me on top of him, knocking out my breath. We kiss for a minute or two—light, fond kisses.
As the euphoria wears off it feels obscene, reveling in this post-sex haze with him. I glance at his bedside clock—five minutes of seven. I’m usually home by six fifteen, plenty of time to hang out with Jay while he finishes the dinner prep. “I need to go soon.”
I feel very cold again, very suddenly. I roll gracelessly off Patrick and pad to the bathroom. It’s odd, his bathroom. Really clean, so bare and white it’s nearly like a hotel. A razor and shaving cream, toothbrush and paste on the sink, a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo in his shower stall. A stick of deodorant and a nearly empty prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet. I glance at the label—nothing scandalous, just scrip-strength pain reliever. Patrick J. Whelan, 14 Fencroft Drive, Dereham, Vermont. Take up to four times daily for muscle aches.
I quit my snooping and stalling and get myself tidied up. I walk through the living room past where Patrick is finishing dressing, tugging on his socks. I feel his eyes on me through the kitchen threshold as I get my clothes on. When I finish he comes over to me, puts his hands on my shoulders and stares me straight in the eyes.
“I know you’re not supposed to be here.”
I shake my head.
“If you get home and all hell breaks loose, you can always come back here to stay. But if he takes it okay, I think maybe we shouldn’t talk until we’ve both had a week or more away from each other.”
“That’s probably wise,” I say.
“I shouldn’t have come by your work, just like you shouldn’t have come here. So let’s not talk until at least next weekend. Why don’t you call me if you see fit? Or don’t call if you think that’s better.”
I nod. He lets me give him a quick hug and a kiss on his stubbly jaw. He walks me to the door and holds it open.
“Have a nice holiday,” he says.
“You too. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Chapter Five
I feel near to vomiting as I turn the knob to the side door of the house. I’m not afraid of Jay’s anger, but I’m shaking, petrified of the pain I might see on his face. I checked my phone in the car before I left Patrick’s and he’d called three times. Two messages.
“Hey, lady. It’s six forty. Did you go to Italy to get that olive oil?” Shit. I forgot about that.
Then, “It’s almost seven. Give me a call so I know everything’s okay.”
I push the door in and there he is. Jay. Jeans and a button-up sweater. Jay’s one of those rare, slender, modern men who can make a cardigan seem hip. He’s stirring pasta sauce in a pan by the stove, looking as though it’s all he’s done in the last hour. He must have heard the car when I pulled in. The fact that he doesn’t stop stirring to hug me says he came to the right conclusion about my whereabouts.
“Hey, you.” Still stirring. “Where have you been?”
I had the whole drive to think up a lie and I think it’s some meager sign of redemption that I didn’t. I meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I stopped by Patrick’s on the way home.” “Stopped by” in this case meaning I drove clear to the far side of town.
Jay’s expression goes blank. “Oh,” he says, and keeps on stirring.
I shrug my coat off, sure that I’m sending a huge cloud of enemy-male scent wafting in his direction.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have called. And I forgot the oil.”
His hazel eyes look grayish-yellow tonight and distrustful. “I see.”
I’m not sure what else I can say. I’m very good at admitting when I’m wrong but this isn’t like stranding Jay with inadequate toilet paper or shrinking his sweater. There’s nothing I can offer that will fully express how far off the deep end of wrong I’ve plunged.
“Did you guys…” He trails off.
I shake my head. “Nothing you said we couldn’t.” If barely. “But I should have called to ask. I don’t know what to say. I did it without thinking.”
“You knew I’d be here, waiting and making dinner. Expecting you.”
“I know.”
He looks down, at my knees or something behind me. “That’s pretty shitty, Robin. I’m pretty fucking pissed.” You have to really know Jay to spot the signs that back this statement up. I know all of them. His ears are pink and there are tight lines beside his lips. His voice sounds flat. His eyes look dull and they won’t meet mine anymore.
“Would you like me to leave or go in a different room?” I realize I’m wringing my hands and will them to be still.
“Dinner’s ready,” he says. “Why don’t you eat in here and I’ll take mine in and watch the game.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t really want to talk to you right now, but I’ll let you know when I do.”
“What do you think about tomorrow? Should we still go?”
Suddenly, Jay laughs. Not a big laugh, but a genuine one. “I’m not going to break up with you, Robin. We’re still getting up at five and driving to Michigan. If I’m still pissed, it could be a long-ass thirteen hours.”
“Okay.” I want to hug him so badly. It’s strange how only a half-hour ago Patrick felt like the entire world. Now that I’m here, Jay is the only man I can imagine. “I’ll be in here then.”
“If I don’t speak to you before I head up,” he says, “you should still come to bed. Just don’t talk to me, if you can help it.”
I nod. I dawdle in taking off my shoes and scarf, creating plenty of time for Jay to get his dinner and leave the room. I walk to the stove. Marinara sauce with big slices of chicken sausage. The linguine look sticky and gluey, overcooked and in need of oil. I hope dinner tastes so bad that I can’t eat it since I probably deserve to go hungry. But I will eat, because not eating would be a willful display of self-punishment and Jay hates theatrics. He meant what he said. He doesn’t want to talk to me right now. Everything else can go on like normal.
Like normal.
I stare at the pans a long time. I know I’m going to do the dishes like normal after dinner, but I bet I’ll do a better job than I ever have before in my whole life.
* * * * *
Jay did talk to me before we went to bed that night. We didn’t have a discussion, but when he came into the kitchen to drop his dish in the sink, he stopped behind where I was sitting at the table and put his hands on my shoulders.
“I always knew
this whole idea was crazy,” he said softly. “But tonight was the first time when I couldn’t recognize you during all this.”
I held my tongue, feeling his fingers gently squeezing and releasing as he thought. “I’ve been really good about what you need.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve been amazing.”
“You really let me down tonight. I would have said it was okay, if you’d just asked me. It really fucking hurts that you didn’t.”
I nodded.
“Am I losing you, Robin?”
Maybe. “No.”
Jay sighed, long and mournful. “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” he said. “Let’s sweep it under the rug and get on with everything.”
“I’ll never do that again,” I promised him. “And I don’t think I’ve ever felt so horrible in my whole life. I’m so, so sorry I hurt you.”
God, I was. I still am. There’s a danger when you’re with someone who loves you enough to forgive you and you know that about them. I’d never exploited that aspect of our relationship before—never did something bad because I knew Jay would eventually forgive me. And I didn’t mean to do that, Tuesday night with Patrick. I went there as if under a spell. I feel utterly humbled, having accidentally abused my power. Over both of them.
Thanksgiving went as it always does. We had a couple lovely meals and played board games and took long walks with Jay’s parents and his younger sister. Jay treated me as he always does, both in their company and when we were alone. The only thing different was that we didn’t have sex.
Penitent or not, I thought about Patrick a lot when we were in Michigan. I thought about how lonely I suspect he is. I thought about him pulling up to his mom’s house and seeing piles of stuff looming behind the garage windows, or whatever evidence of her hoarding might be visible. I imagined him sitting in his truck with the engine running, refusing to go inside. I pictured him having a frustrating holiday and then driving back to Dereham to his cold house all alone, sleeping in his cold bed. A couple times I pictured him lying on that bed, jerking off, thinking of me, but I caught myself and pushed the image from my brain.
Presently I look up from my crossword at the smell of burning ginger.
“Fuck!”
I run across the kitchen and yank a sheet of blackened cookies from the oven.
It’s Sunday afternoon and Jay wanders in from his office holding the business section of the paper.
“Everything okay? Smells smoky in here.”
“I burned the first batch,” I say. “It’s okay, there’s plenty more dough.”
Then the smoke detector blares, those hateful, mind-splitting beeps assaulting my ears. Loud noises terrify me—I fear the smoke detector more than an actual fire. I run into the other room and up the stairs. It stops shortly and I know Jay’s climbed onto a chair and disabled the battery. I go back down to the kitchen as he’s opening windows, letting the freezing outside air drift in to fix my mistake.
“Thanks.” I’m jangled, nerves buzzing like wasps. Tears come to make up for all the ones I’ve been blocking since Tuesday.
Jay hugs me while I sob into that favorite, good-smelling sweater of his. I feel his palm running up and down my back, feel the cold air on my hands and face, smell the scalded sugar. I step away when I’m calm.
“Thanks,” I say again, and wipe my cheeks on my sleeve. I go back to the counter to roll out a fresh ball of dough. Jay stands beside me and watches. I hand him the male gingerbread person cutter. The other one has a skirt and before you decorate the cookies they look like bathroom door icons. We cut out the shapes, doing our best to make them tight like tessellations and not waste the dough. I’m going to ice them when they’re cool and leave a heaping plate of them on the counter at the shop tomorrow. I did the holiday decorating there this morning and aside from the crying and the recent drama, I’m feeling very sparkly and yuletide-y. Christmas is like Bailey’s to me. It’s so sweet you don’t notice yourself getting drunk on it until you wake up with a hangover on December twenty-sixth.
Jay slides the sheet into the oven and I muster the good sense to set the timer.
“Thanks,” I say for the third time.
“I think we should have that asshole over for dinner,” Jay says, the words like a baseball flying out of the clear blue sky to hit me in the teeth.
“What?”
“I think you should ask Whelan over for dinner.”
“Dear God,” I say. “Why?”
“Because he’s a part of our lives now, like it or not.” He’s leaving something out of this answer, I can sense it.
“I sort of… I sort of assumed you’d forbid me from seeing him anymore. After what happened on Tuesday.”
“The longer he stays a taboo, the longer you’ll want him,” Jay says. “See if he’s free some night this week.” He turns away to move dishes from the drying rack to the cupboards. “Tell him to bring a bottle of something.”
I blink at his back a few moments. “You aren’t planning on murdering him, are you?”
Jay laughs. “Just ask him. He might say no.”
I feel uncomfortable. Not suspicious, just…scared. About talking to Patrick. About hearing him say he doesn’t want to ever see me again. I’m positive he’s decided that’s best in the few days since I made him an accomplice to infidelity.
After the dishes are put away Jay wanders back into his office. I stand stock-still in the middle of the kitchen floor, staring at the motion of the curtains as the breeze pushes them in. I shriek when the oven timer buzzes.
* * * * *
The gingerbread men are going over well. I missed out on Black Friday, keeping the store closed through Thanksgiving weekend, but the first few days of shopping are mall days, when shoppers want to hit a dozen stores all in one trip. People think about cards and crafts more after the initial big-picture items are purchased. Business is bustling today, Monday. The locally made stockings are selling especially well.
At twelve forty-five I get Carrie’s attention, once the lunch-hour rush begins to lag. “I have to run an errand in a bit,” I say. “Will you be okay for a half-hour?”
“Sure thing.”
At one fifteen I get into my car in the little employee parking lot behind Main Street. I drive ten minutes to the edge of town to Mullaney Lumber, a long, spruce-colored building like an airplane hangar. Rows of fresh-cut Christmas trees are lined up in front of the parking lot.
It smells good inside, like a new house. Paint and sawdust and potential. I head to the nearest apron-clad employee, a chubby man wearing a Santa hat and a down-home friendly smile.
“Afternoon, miss. Can I help you?”
I grin and try to look as un-sordid as possible.
“I’m trying to find Patrick Whelan, but I’m not sure what department he’s in.”
“Whelan’ll be out back.” He motions for me to follow him and takes me down the fixtures aisle and through a heavy door into a cold warehouse. We walk to where some guys are unloading a pallet of boards off a forklift. I recognize Patrick by his height.
“Whelan!” the friendly man shouts.
Patrick turns and I catch his eyebrows bob up above his clear safety glasses. He leaves the project to walk over. He’s wearing a forest green hard hat and thick gloves and a work shirt with his last name embroidered above the pocket.
“Thanks,” I say to the friendly man, who does as I hope and leaves us alone.
Patrick glances around then leads me out through a back door, into the bright sunshine and the cold and the privacy.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon,” he says.
“How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Aggravating,” he says, making a face to match. “Why are you here?”
“You’re invited to dinner,” I blurt.
His brows jerk up again and stay there. “Am I?”
“Jay wants you to come over. And he said he’s not planning to murder you. You can think about it first,
of course. But he said pick a day this week and bring something to drink.”
Patrick’s dark eyes roam all over the lumberyard. He takes his gloves and hard hat off and runs a hand through his matted hair. It looks as if he got a trim for the holiday but it’s still pretty messy, just how I like it. I breathe him in while he ponders and marvel again at how his proximity makes me flush.
“Um,” he says, putting his hat back on. “Thursday?”
“Sure, whatever you want.”
“Do you know what this is all about?” he asks.
“Not really. I think he wants to clear the air. Or demystify you. I think he thinks if I see you somewhere boring, like my house, you won’t seem so…exotic. Or irresistible.” I feel my cheeks color.
Patrick shakes his head. “You are one fucked-up couple, Robin.” This time when he says it, he doesn’t smile.
I’m tempted to defend us but he’s right. “So, Thursday? Feel free to change your mind, just let me know ahead of time if possible. I’ll let you get back to work.”
He nods and motions with his hand after he tugs his gloves on. “Go around the side so you don’t get clocked by something.”
I head toward the corner of the building, looking at him over my shoulder. “I’ll see you Thursday. At seven!”
* * * * *
By six thirty-five on Thursday night, I still don’t know what Jay’s up to.
I watch him open the oven and reach in to peel the foil off the top of the casserole dish so the cheese on top of the lasagna will brown just right. He makes a kick-ass lasagna and he knows it. I wonder if he’s trying to impress Patrick or shame him by showcasing what a perfect husband he’d make. Maybe he just felt like Italian tonight.
I wander around the first floor of our little house, puttering. Not cleaning, just doing things no one will ever notice—squaring up the angles of the photo frames on the mantle and pounding the couch cushions until they’re fluffy. I’m painfully aware of my own house right now. It’s a cute place with decent furniture and neat accent pieces. It looks decorated, unlike Patrick’s, and it’s bigger than his house. I wonder for a moment if he’ll feel poorly because of these facts, but then I realize two things. Firstly, Patrick built his own house, with his own hands. He surely made it the exact size he wanted. Secondly, he probably makes more money than Jay and I combined, so it’s not as if he couldn’t own nice things if he wanted to. These thoughts flip-flop my worries, making me feel shallow and materialistic.
