Commitment

by K. M. Golland

  Taking in a deep breath, I turned towards him and placed my hands on his chest, smoothing down his business shirt before gripping the lapels of his collar. ‘I love you today.’

  His lips lightly touched mine. ‘I love you every day.’

  And he did. Even the days I got home late.

  * * *

  By the time I’d read Thomas’s school reader with him, tucked the little wiggly worm under his covers, eaten my dinner, revised William’s times tables, cleaned the kitchen and ironed my blouse for the next day, I was knackered. My boobs ached. My back ached. My brain ached. Every part of me from hair follicle to toenail ached. Even my nice hot bubble bath — which was now lukewarm — had failed to dull the ache.

  ‘Damn you, temperature reduction,’ I groaned. ‘Damn you to hell.’ My legs trembled, barely holding me steady as I slowly stood and stepped out of the bath. ‘Ouch ouch ouch,’ I whined.

  ‘I are ou o ore?’ Dean mumbled from his position at the basin, his garbled words the result of speaking while brushing his teeth.

  ‘What?’ I winced through the pain.

  He spat his mouthful into the sink and handed me my towel. ‘Why are you so sore?’

  ‘Oh, because I did self-defence class with Alexis this morning.’

  Dean’s eyes nearly resembled those of an astonished cartoon character, both of them bugging excessively. Exercise class wasn’t exactly high on my to-do list and he knew that.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I affirmed, slowly drying myself with the towel. ‘Trust me, it wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘I think it’s good. Did you have fun?’ Warm fingertips settled on my shoulders and began kneading my damp skin.

  ‘Fun? Surrrrrre,’ I moaned, my head dropping back. ‘Ohhh, that feels good.’

  ‘How ’bout you go lie on the bed and let me see to this sore body of yours.’

  ‘Mm-hmm.’ I was fast slipping into shoulder-massage heaven.

  ‘Come on. Walk with me.’

  Gently directing me out of the bathroom and into our bedroom by steering my shoulders, he removed my towel and helped me onto the bed, every movement I made enforcing that self-defence was actually self-harm. Stupid bloody class. Stupid bloody Alexis.

  ‘Ow ow ow. I don’t care if it was fun. I’m never doing it again,’ I mumbled into my pillow. ‘Screw it. If the time comes to defend myself, I’ll wing it. I don’t need to practise for it.’

  He chuckled and climbed onto the bed, straddling my hips. ‘Are you sure that’s wise, love? There’s nothing wrong with being prepared.’

  ‘For what? The unlikely chance I’m attacked — oooooh … yeah, right there, babe. That’s perfect.’

  His fingers and thumbs pressed firmer into my skin at the centre of my back before they moved in slow circles, creeping down my spine ever so slowly.

  ‘Yesss. Oh my God, you should’ve been a masseuse,’ I garbled, my eyes, mouth and brain heavy with sedation. ‘It’s your calling. I swear it’s your calling.’

  ‘You’d be all right with me doing this to other people? Other women?’ Yes. No. Possibly … Donuts.

  ‘Uh huh’ was all I could manage to say as my body rocked with the motion of his rubbing. I was so sleepy, exhausted and relaxed. Relaxed because my husband was a magician with his hands.

  ‘Tash. Tash!’

  That was my name. It was given to me at birth. Actually, no, Natasha was, but Tash was what people called me, and it was what my husband was calling me as I drifted to sleep. I tried to answer him. I really did. But like I said … he was a true fucking magician.

  CHAPTER

  4

  DEAN

  ‘Tash. Tash!’ I gave her a little shake but all she did was mumble something that sounded like ‘magician’. Magician? Is she calling me a magician? ‘Yeah,’ I scoffed. ‘I magicked you to fuckin’ sleep, didn’t I?’

  Shifting my body down to straddle her legs so that I could kiss her lower back, I pressed my lips to her fruit-scented skin. ‘Wake up, love. I’m not done yet.’

  Nothing.

  Radio silence.

  Goose fucking egg.

  ‘I swear you’re narcoleptic,’ I groaned, face-planting into her arse.

  For a second, I considered biting it, considered sinking my teeth into the soft pink flesh caressing my nose and mouth, but I chose not to. I chose not to risk her filing for divorce or bucking me off the bed, both highly probable reactions.

  Growling deep within, I rolled off her and lay flat on my back, looking up and following the continuous loop of our ceiling fan as it rotated. Narcoleptic or not, my wife was a keeper, the most stunning woman I’d ever laid eyes on; back then, now and forever. No matter how much she’d changed, or would change in future, my desire for her was and always would be unwavering. And not only was she a milf or cougar, or whatever the fuck middle-aged hot women were referred to, she was also the perfect mother to our boys. Plus, she worked her arse off just as much as I did.

  She was my perfect.

  I turned my head on the pillow and studied her face, her brown wavy hair cascading over her cheek and shoulders. It made my dick hard. I fucking loved Tash’s hair. It was what first caught my attention when we met … at the hairdresser’s of all places. We’d both been getting a trim, except she’d been deliberating with her hairdresser about whether or not to chop it all off. The thought still made me shudder.

  I remember looking in my mirror and noticing Tash in the reflection, her hand covering her face, her head shaking just slightly, yet she was ready to give the go-ahead and have it cut. At the time, my chest had constricted and everything had felt wrong, even though I had no idea who she was or why I cared so much. All I knew was that her hair was long, healthy-looking and gorgeous. It was perfect. And it had needed to stay attached to her head.

  Every fibre in my being had told me not to let her go through with it even though it was none of every fibre in my being’s business. Still, as she’d said the words, ‘yes, just chop this shit off’ I’d stated — rather loudly — ‘NO! Don’t do it’ and spun my chair around, nearly knocking my hairdresser on her arse.

  Thankfully, for her, she hadn’t picked up the scissors yet.

  Tash’s eyes had met mine, her relief palpable in the way her curious smile had asked me ‘why not?’ So I’d told her why not…

  ‘If you cut your hair I can’t ask you to go out with me this Friday night. And I really want to ask you.’

  It was the most arrogant and presumptuous I’d ever been in my life. And to be honest, I still have no idea what had come over me. Whatever it was, it had worked, because she’d ended up getting the smallest of trims, a blow wave, and leaving me her number by writing it with lip pencil onto a McDonald’s napkin she’d pulled out of her handbag.

  The rest was history.

  Gently reaching out and tucking a loose tendril behind her ear, I kissed her forehead then shoulder. And fuck me did I want to keep kissing a path down her body to in between her thighs where the tastiest place on earth was located. But I couldn’t; her legs were closed for business and I wasn’t one to break and enter. Mind you, I had a customer between my legs who needed an alternative business. The only alternative.

  Porn.

  Pulling the sheet over my wife’s naked body, I sat up and grabbed my iPad from on top of the bedside table. I’d found this great channel a few nights ago that had some hot, kinky shit. Shit I’d never try on Tash. My wife was adventurous but not in the bedroom. She liked it soft, smooth, sensual and missionary.

  She liked our sex life as it was.

  And that was fine. I wasn’t complaining. I loved having sex with Tash however it came. Pun not intended.

  Poking my headphones into my ears, I clicked on the newest video uploaded to the kinky channel and rolled onto my side, facing away from Tash. I placed the iPad on the mattress and pulled my boxer shorts down so that I could fist my cock. Ideally, I’d have gone for some lube, but I didn’t want to wake Tash with the opening of the drawer or
popping noise of the tube cap. So instead, I pressed play on the screen and slowly began to stroke. And dry or not, my cock reacted. Oh, what do we have here? … A tall brunette in heels with a nice fake rack and a shitload of lipstick.

  The actress in the video was hot, and if Tash were ever a porn actress, she’d look a bit like this woman, except Tash’s rack was real. Perfect.

  I smiled and stroked faster, deeper. The video looked promising. It had that hallmark open-air condo backdrop, white leather sofa, and eager businessman with a moustache. Why do they always have a mo? Either that or they’re bald.

  Tits and Mo — not their real names, obviously — had just entered the condo, holding hands, Mo leading Tits directly to the sofa, of course. She performed a customary flick of her hair and smooth-down of the skin-tight plastic dress she was wearing, pretending to be shy and unsuspecting, which was always a load of bullshit because underneath that skin-tight cloth was a body ready to be taken and fucked, hard.

  It was perfect porn.

  Perfect timing.

  Mo stepped in front of Tits and indicated she undo his belt and trousers and take him in her mouth. He did this by simply standing in front of her. THAT’S IT! If I tried that, Tash would tell me to move out of the fucking way because I was blocking the TV.

  Porn wasn’t real.

  But porn was my other best friend.

  Tits happily obliged, ooohing and aaaahing over the size of Mo’s cock before spitting and rubbing it all over the tip. She then sucked him in, hard. She was a dirty one. I liked her.

  ‘Yeah, baby. You like that?’ I murmured quietly, thrusting my cock into my hand. For a split second, I forgot where I was and who was lying beside me, so I quickly shut myself up and hoped to God Tash was still fast asleep. I couldn’t hear her over the sucking, lip-popping and moaning from the video, so I turned my head just slightly to check I hadn’t been busted.

  She was still comatose.

  She hadn’t moved an inch. Thank fuck for that.

  Stopping mid-jerk wasn’t something I was keen on doing. It was the equivalent to drinking half a perfectly good coffee then tossing the rest away for no good reason. No one in their right mind would do that. It was illogical. If you had a perfectly good coffee, you drank the fucker. All of it. The same could be said for masturbating; you didn’t start that shit unless you planned on finishing it.

  Golden rule.

  Turning my head back towards my iPad, I wiggled my fingers that were supporting my head in order to rid the feeling of numbness slowly setting in. Time was of the essence due to the position I was in, so I needed to speed things up, swiping the progression bar at the bottom of the video panel to skip roughly halfway into the scene. Tits and Mo would be fucking by then, and I’d get a nice close-up shot of her wet pussy as Mo drilled into it from behind. And sure enough, it was exactly what I got, what I wanted, and what I needed.

  Feeling heat roll through my body like a wave, my balls tightened and that fucking sweet pressure in my dick began to build. Mo slapped Tits’ arse hard, twice, leaving a pink handprint before leaning over her and slapping her tits.

  She cried out.

  She loved it.

  I loved it … only because she loved it.

  Mo loved it too and reared back, yanking on her hair as if it were the reins on a chariot and he was the gladiator driving it, I mean her. Driving her.

  She cried out again.

  So did he.

  So did I, as I came harder and faster than I’d anticipated, shooting my load onto the iPad and somewhere fucking else I couldn’t see because the lights were off and the glare from the screen was right in my face.

  ‘Shit! Where the fuck did that go?’ I pulled my earphones out, lifted the iPad up like a torch and reached for a tissue.

  ‘Dean? What was that?’ Tash asked groggily.

  ‘What?’ I looked over my shoulder, expecting to find her open-mouthed and ready to raise hell, instead finding her somewhat asleep, one eye struggling to open and focus on me. ‘Nothing, babe. I just … sneezed. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Okay,’ she mumbled. ‘Bless you.’ No. Bless you for being tired as fuck right now.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding and wiped the iPad screen, tilting it so that I could find the rest of my jizz.

  My jizz was gone.

  Like magic.

  Fuck! Maybe I am a magician.

  * * *

  By the time I’d gotten to work the next morning, I was twenty minutes late, no thanks to accidentally knocking the alarm clock switch when fumbling for a tissue the night before. I’d also rushed about like a maniac and hadn’t even showered, not to mention that my lunch was still sitting in the fridge at home.

  I was pissed off; leftover spag bol was the shit.

  ‘Late night last night?’ Rob asked, pretending to fuck my desk.

  This wasn’t unusual for my sex-starved, forty-something-year-old colleague.

  I deadpanned. ‘Depends. If by that desk you mean my hand, then yes.’ I could’ve lied and said, ‘Fuckin’ oath. I was buried balls-deep in my wife’s mouth for half an hour before fucking her unconscious,’ but who would I be kidding? Not Rob. Not me. There was no point spinning shit. He knew that sex was a blood diamond just as much as I did, and he knew this because he’d been married for seventeen years and then divorced.

  He’d been in the diamond trade for longer than I had.

  Rob rested his arse against my desk. ‘You need one of those pussies in a can,’ he said, as if it were the solution to all my problems.

  I leaned back in my chair, confused. ‘A pussy in a what?’

  ‘A can. You get them from sex shops. They’re great. Feels like the real thing … if you warm it up first.’

  The look on my face must’ve said it all, or nothing, because I had no words.

  ‘Mate, it’s the male equivalent to a dildo. If the women can have ’em, why shouldn’t we? Seriously …’ He picked up my stapler remover and tossed it in the air as he walked towards the door to my office. ‘It beats a hand.’ He chuckled. ‘Get it? Beats … hand?’

  I shook my head and smiled. ‘Yeah, I get it, Rob. Now where the fuck do you think you’re going with my stapler remover?’ I indicated towards his hand. ‘Bring it back.’

  ‘Get a can, Deano. Get. A. Can. I’m tellin’ ya, if ya did, you wouldn’t give two shits about this little thing.’ He tossed it in the air one more time then exited my office.

  Dickhead. Maybe he was right. Maybe I needed a pussy can. Do other guys have them? Are they as common as dildos? I’d have to do a bit of research. After all, I was a numbers man.

  Sitting up straight, I clicked my mouse and activated my email and calendar, confronted by a never-ending list of shit to do and people to see and speak with. I groaned. It was gonna be a long day. Tash would have to pick up the kids from school this time around.

  Thankfully, her position at City Towers was flexible so her leaving early was never a problem. We took it in turns and covered each other. It was what we did. We were a team. A bloody good one.

  Just not always in the bedroom.

  CHAPTER

  5

  TASH

  One of the best moments in the world was waking from a night of uninterrupted, heavy sleep. It was pure heaven dipped in awesome sauce, and when I opened my eyes and sprung up in my bed like a hard-on released from a pair of underpants, I was ready to take on the day, the world … and weirdarse colleagues named Dale.

  ‘BOYS! Get up. Get dressed. Get fed. Get toileted. GO GO GO!’ I shouted, flicking off my sheets and planting my feet on the floor. Why am I butt-naked?

  Waking up without my PJs on wasn’t something I did very often, and at first I worried until I remembered why. I also scrambled to grab my robe from the hook on the back of my bedroom door because greeting my seven-year-old son first thing in the morning was something I did often.

  ‘Mum, I don’t want—’

  ‘Hold up!’ I barked, stoppi
ng the door from continuing to open with my foot, causing it to ricochet and hit Thomas in the face.

  ‘Ow. My nose. Muuuum! Why’d ya do that?’

  Quickly knotting the tie around my waist, I slowly opened the door to find my baby boy rubbing his nose with a not-so-impressed scowl on his face. ‘Sorry, matey. I didn’t see you there. Quickly, what’s up? You gotta get ready for school.’

  ‘I don’t want to go. I don’t feel well.’

  I narrowed my gaze. ‘Why?’

  ‘My tummy hurts.’

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘Bad, as in poop and spew? Or bad, as in you just need to fart but can’t?’

  He thought about it for a second, his little eyes looking to the ceiling. ‘Bad, as in I need to fart but there’s no farts in my bum.’

  ‘Right. Well … go sit on the toilet and try farting. You never know what might happen.’

  He hung his head. ‘All right. I’ll try.’

  ‘While you do that, what do you want on your toast?’ I subtly ushered him towards the toilet so that I could get breakfast underway.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I don’t want to eat.’

  Thomas disappeared around the corner, and that’s when I realised he might actually be telling the truth. It was also the moment my phone rang: ‘You Sexy Thing’ by Hot Chocolate.

  It was Dean.

  ‘What up, you sexy thang?’ I asked as I answered the call and walked back into our room, opening the wardrobe doors and sitting on his side of the bed, contemplating what to wear.

  ‘Morning, love. Sleep well?’

  ‘I did, thanks to you. You’re magic. Have I told you that?’

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah, you have.’

  ‘Really? Good.’ I hit speaker and placed my phone on his bedside table before flicking through my blouses and settling on my red sleeveless turtleneck. I felt bold today.

  ‘Listen, something has come up at—’

  ‘MUUUUM! I CAN’T FART,’ Thomas shouted, interrupting Dean.

  ‘KEEP TRYING!’ I shouted back.

  ‘NO! Tell him not to force it. Bad move. He could splart.’