Cherry Blossoms: A Losing His Wife Novel

by KT Morrison

  Odie was working her little body overtime, gearing herself up for an early power crash once they ate. O was on cloud nine with this inflatable castle and having her daddy patiently treading in the deep water, letting her jump to him over and over again, him never getting tired of encouraging her. She’d bounce at the knees, getting ready and Geoff would clap his hands and urge her and she would hesitate and vacillate and he’d keep after her til she clamped her nose and jumped to his outstretched arms with her legs tucked up and one arm pointed straight up like she was Michael Jackson. Those two. Father and daughter, acting like they did when she was five. Geoff was going to have a heartbreak on his hands when that little girl discovered boys.

  Nia waded over to the dock and she fished through her shorts, grabbed her iPhone and bobbed back, holding it high up out of the water, not needing to ruin yet another phone. She swam up behind Geoff and she put her hand on his shoulder, said, “Let me get this,” waved the phone so he knew.

  He bounced his eyebrows, his white smile parting his soaking blonde beard. She kicked her legs behind her and got to the inflatable edge, a lower section, with squeaky red plastic stairs. Hauled herself out and scooted her butt down so she could get Geoff and Odie recorded. Odie was waiting for her, dancing in place, doing some sort of crazy Mash Potato, her arms pumping straight up and down, alternating, her hips swinging, her bottom lip sucked into her mouth and biting it. Then, when she saw her smiling mom holding the phone, she turned to her dad, asked him if he was ready. Nia had them both in the shot and her heart swelled watching them, the love they had for each other.

  Odie bounced at the knees again, acting with more trepidation than she probably had, hamming it up because she loved her dad and she loved to have his attention. The more she hesitated the longer he waited for her. Geoff would wait all day and never say a bad word. Then she was off, jumping in the air, nose plugged, a cannonball splash between Geoff’s waiting arms, his head whipping back, his face twisted up so he wouldn’t get water in his nose. She got it recorded, put the phone down, held it to her wet skin and watched the two of them out there, Geoff taking her by her arms and swimming her back to the stairs.

  Dino was on the shore, that asshole. He was out there in his shorts, shirt off, showing off the muscle. He caught her looking and she looked back to Geoff and Odie. Weirdest fucking thing having him back in her life on a now somewhat regular basis. She knew it would be weird working with Rocco but she had no idea that Dino would be around so much.

  “Did you get me, Mom?”

  “Yeah, Odie, I got you, sweetheart,” she said.

  Odie was climbing up the steps to come and see, running her hands over her face and pushing her wet black hair back, blinking and spitting water.

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah, come see, O.”

  Odie came to her, and Geoff bobbed over, put his hands on Nia’s knees while he paddled in the water below her. She angled it so they both could see. Odie bent at the waist, both her hands on her knees, dripping water from the tip of her nose while she watched.

  Nia could see Maria now, up at the deck that ran along the basement level. Rocco was there and he was at the barbecue. He had two on the go, and he was smoking a pork roast in a Big Green Egg as well. He was happy and content, puttering around, entertaining his friends and drinking enough beers that he had a warm glow on. Maria was nagging him about something. She had Peter held against her, his fat legs hanging out of his diaper and straddling her hip. She never got shit like that when she saw it. Who the fuck did she think she was? Look at that goddamn house, Maria. I know the one you live in in the city too, it’s pretty fucking stunning as well. Why would she give him a hard time? He’s out here cooking. Doesn’t she appreciate how hard he works for her, all he does for her? Maybe she should spend a day in the truck with him, get a perspective on all that he does to provide for his family.

  She said to Geoff, “You think I should go help in the kitchen?”

  Geoff shook his head.

  “I’d like to help,” she said.

  He just kept shaking his head, not looking her in the eye, solemn kind of face.

  She said, “You don’t think so?”

  Still shaking his head, now scrunching up his nose and twisting his mouth in his beard.

  A Jet-ski started, on the other side of the dock. A dry rattle, exhaust chugging. Then loud revving, water spraying in a rooster tail. She looked—Dino. No life jacket, bare chested on the machine. He looked around, saw her watching then he blasted off, going way too fast with all these kids around. She watched him go, watched the muscles of his wide back flex. He was always so grouchy, always irritated by something.

  Geoff said, “Nia...” lightly tapping her knee.

  “What?”

  “Boss man looking for you,” he said, hugging the side of the bouncy castle and throwing a thumb over his shoulder.

  Rocco was on the deck, getting her attention, waving a spatula at her.

  “Gotta go,” she said to Odie and Geoff and she scooted her butt along the side of the big inflatable and dipped back into the water where the stairs met the surface. She swam to the dock on her back, her phone held up out of the water. She climbed up the dock, saw she had no towel. So she slid her phone back into her pants, slipped on her flip-flops and walked up the dock in just her bikini, giving Geoff a little wave as he swam himself into position again. Odie was running up the side of the castle and she yelled she was going to climb up to the turret but Nia knew there was no way her daughter would get the nerve to jump from that height.

  Male eyes followed her up the lawn as she walked to see Rocco. She folded her arms up and tried to cover a little bit, felt a little self-conscious suddenly.

  “What’s up?” she said to Rocco’s back as she got to the barbecue.

  “Huh?” he said and turned, “Ay, Nia, what does your crew want to eat? Hot dogs, hamburgers, the pork is ready in about ten-fifteen...Geoff want a pulled pork?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Odie will take one hot dog, Geoff’s a hamburger guy.”

  “You want pulled pork?”

  “I want to try your pulled pork.” She was waiting for a lewd reference from him but it didn’t come. She watched his big hands work as he flipped the burgers on the grill. He dwarfed his human-sized spatula with those big strong mitts.

  He looked at her again, did a double take, said, “Ay, where’s your wine?”

  “I’m dry.”

  “Shit, Nia, get yourself a glass of wine.”

  “What do you have?” she asked.

  He put his spatula down and pulled Doug over who was facing away and he shoved him in front of the grills, said, “Take over.” Doug nodded and took up the spatula.

  “Come on, let me show you something,” he said, and he headed to the sliding glass doors.

  “Rocco, I’m dripping wet, I don’t even know where my towels are.”

  “Take mine,” he said and he reached between two people talking at the railing of the deck and he snagged a big beach towel. “Come here,” he said and she walked to him, stood under him. He held the towel out, said, “Turn around.”

  She turned and he put the towel over her shoulders and she felt his hands on her through the dry terry fabric. He rubbed her shoulders and she felt the power he had even in that small act. Then he let her go. She dried herself off, squeezed her long hair out into the towel and tossed it back over the railing.

  “Okay,” she said, opening her arms while he watched her, showing him she was dry, wanting him to see her almost bare body. His eyes went over her, his face grim. He looked up to the upper deck unconsciously, up to where the kitchen was.

  He led her into the basement of the house, through the sliding glass doors. He took a short flight of wide concrete stairs, down a wide hall that had a sauna and a bathroom. It led to a slightly lower section of the basement. There were half windows here that ran along the top of the wall all alon
g the lake side of the house. This was a plain unfinished open area. Bare concrete floor, taped drywall walls, framed doors set in along both sides, wedges still in them to keep them square. There were two purple-stained barrels pushed against the right wall, two blue plastic drums and two angle iron shelving units with bottles and other assorted items. Stained wooden boxes were stacked against the wall, UVA PER VINO stencilled on them. Everything neatly organized, pushed to the side. Rocco walked to the shelf and took an unlabelled dark green bottle down. A cork was wedged into it, and he pulled it out with a squeaky pop.

  “Try this,” he said, and he held the bottle out to her.

  She took it from him and sniffed it. It was wine. Sweet and vinegary, she watched him suspiciously as she put the bottle up to her lips. She took a long sip. Not the best wine she tasted at all, but not completely terrible.

  “You like it?” he asked her, putting an arm on the shelf, making it bend with his weight.

  She stood holding the bottle still, gave him a coy smile, cocked a hip out. The two of them alone in the basement, her wearing practically nothing. She could see his eyes going over her and she really liked it. She wanted him to look. Over her shoulder she could see the lower legs and waists of other guests out on the lawn in the sunlight, enjoying the party. She still felt very private with him in the quiet bowels of his huge cottage. “Yeah, why?” she said, narrowing her eyes at him, always suspecting something from him.

  “It’s Maria’s wine. Homemade.”

  “It’s nice. Yeah,” she said. “How’d she make it?”

  “With her feet.”

  “With her feet?” she laughed.

  Rocco laughed too, a deep low sound. “Yeah, crushed the grapes with her feet.”

  Nia exhaled, raised her eyebrows high, said, “Old school.”

  Rocco said, “You think I’m kidding? She did it in a huge tub out on the lawn out there last summer,” he said, pointing with his chin out the window.

  “Shit, that is hardcore Eye-Tie.”

  He snorted, “Yeah, her family is wops ten times over compared to my folks and you know what they’re like…”

  She handed him the bottle back and he put it on the shelf.

  “You don’t want a glass of that?” he smirked.

  She shrugged, let her breasts heave in the light fabric of her top for him, let them swing gently.

  “I get it,” he said, eyes calm and narrow. “Walk this way,” he said and he went deeper into the empty room.

  He brought her to one of the doors, set loosely in a frame. The door itself was solid wood, a deep reddish colour, dry, not yet stained. He put a big hand on a brass lever and he opened it and pushed it wide for her to enter. “Go on,” he said.

  “It’s dark,” she giggled.

  “Ladies first,” he said and he gestured with his hand for her to go ahead. She could see the floor lit up a foot or two into the room. Irregular granite flagstones, like a castle’s floor. She put a foot forward and stepped into the cool dark space. Her skin went to goosebumps and the hair on her neck raised up. She felt her nipples clench hard and quick, felt her sensitive tips drag across the lycra underside of her bikini.

  “Go on,” he said, coming in behind her. She could feel his enormous presence. Felt the heat of his body, felt something else radiating from him. Desire. His huge frame blocked out the light.

  She had visions of him closing them in there and the two of them fucking against the wall, his powerful body crushing her up against stone, grabbing a knee and pulling one of her legs up and forcing himself deep inside her from behind as she cried out into a soundproof room...

  He flicked a switch and the lights came on. They were in a custom-built wine cellar. The walls were cedar panels, the ceiling too, there were bright halogen spotlight bulbs, small ones, lighting up the edges of the room. There were racks of wine, two along the outer walls and a double-sided one, elbow height along the centre.

  “Nice, she said,” and she turned slowly, watched his face, watched his eyes lower and see her arousal. Knew her nipples were engorged buds pressing out against her top right now. She could feel the tightness, knew what he would be seeing.

  “Nice,” he agreed, looking at her chest. “So, what does pretty little Nia like to drink,” he said, turning from her and running a hand along the tops of the bottles of wine stacked in racks on their sides. He walked to the other side of the rack, looking at the collection.

  She said, “I like a Primitivo.”

  “Of course you do,” he said and slid a bottle off the rack, dragging the glass along the metal edge. He came back to her, said, “You need a glass?”

  He held the bottle out and she softly held the end of it, the narrow neck poking out the end of her grip. “I’m not an animal.”

  His eyes went up and down her and she felt that chill again, felt her buds clench tighter under her top. He said, “Maria wants to kick your tits off, walking around in that bikini.”

  “My tits?” she laughed and she put her hand up over her chest, touching herself between the turquoise triangles of her top.

  He nodded, looking at her hand on her chest, his eyes drawn to her.

  “It’s just a bikini, what?”

  “Right. Just a bikini,” he smirked.

  “Well, should I change? What?”

  He leaned on the rack and got close to her, right up near her ear and he said, “You change out of that bikini and you’re fuckin fired.”

  She laughed softly. “Would she be mad she caught us down here?” she said, and she tilted her head and twirled a finger through a lock of her wet hair.

  He watched her hands work, watched the splayed tips of her hair drip on her skin and tickle the flesh of her collar.

  “She came down here, saw you in your bikini talking to me like this in our windowless cellar...we’d both be dead.”

  Nia laughed, leaned now against the top of the wine rack too and let a breast be pressed by the end of a stacked bottle, knew he could see the tip of the bottle press into her ample flesh. “How would she kill us?”

  There was a noise outside of the cellar, someone on the basement level. A sliding glass door rumbled open, a shadow crossed the rough drywall out there.

  He huffed, smirked, his eyes took one more long and very indulgent look at her almost bare body, he sucked his lower lip and hefted his weight off the rack and went to the door.

  “I don’t wanna find out,” he said, he clicked the light off and turned the room dark except for the light from the open door. “Not here.”

  She hesitated, thinking he might close the door on them in the dark but that was crazy. His wife was here, his kids running around, Geoff and Odie, dozens of other potential disturbers. What did she think was going to happen?

  GEOFF

  Geoff was a nurturer. It was so fucking obvious, sitting on the dock with an exhausted daughter on his lap. Rocco was slumped in a Muskoka chair set in the thin strip of beach with a beer in his hand. Dino was sitting sideways on an idle Jet-ski bobbing in the water, hunched over, tight mid-section bunched up, big round shoulders. Maria was on the upper deck with Rocco’s kids, Stacy as well, up there with Dino’s. Dealing with that chaos while the two men did their easy man-thing.

  Geoff loved to take care of his women. Without them he’d be nothing. He would do anything for them. Anything. Nia had disappeared in the house with Rocco and they were gone for an agonizingly long time. Nia could do what she wanted. If she wanted Rocco to fuck her down there, to slip away during this family time and take one in her wet pussy, if that made her happy and turned on...if that satisfied her...Geoff was all right with it. He would even cheer her on, support her. Support her even as the blurry edge of doubt started to tinge the fringe of his erotic excitement at the thought of his wife being satisfied by another man, one that aroused her. He’d support her even though this was maybe a bad path for them. Rocco was married. He had a family. His wife Maria was very aware of Nia’s presence. He’d found that out this
afternoon, didn’t he? She wasn’t some benign presence in her husband’s life, Maria was on to her. Of course she would be, besides Geoff, who wouldn't be worried about their spouse spending every day alone with an incredibly attractive member of the opposite sex? Of course Maria would worry and keep an eye on her husband. This might be bad indeed.

  He rested his chin on Odie’s head and looked over at Nia. She was sitting like him, on the side of the dock, her legs over the edge, feet dangling in the water. They were facing Dino on the water, talking to his brother and some of his friends on the beach. She had her palms resting on the cedar, her shoulders up, still in that hot fucking bikini. Her tits swung gently while she talked to them, ran her hand through her hair, gestured... Her tummy was tight and flat, her long legs pressed softly together. She had an audience and he knew she knew it—knew it and liked it. She’d drawn a lot of boys. Rocco in his chair, Doug, some other husbands who were going to fucking hear about it from their wives on the drive home. And Dino, surly Dino, chip on his shoulder, hunched on his Jet-ski with no shirt on. His shoulder muscles were big and round, cut striations in them. He flexed them absently as his hand worked idly, peeling the label off his beer bottle.

  Odie was pressed to her dad, sleeping lightly. She dripped wet. She was straddling his lap, her butt on his thighs, her little feet on the deck behind him. Her arms were around his neck and her head pressed to his narrow chest.

  He watched his wife entertain her group of admirers. Nia was very different around men. Not his meek couch partner of the last nine years. In the last four weeks she’d changed. She was reverting to normal, or at least what normal was for her when she was twenty and on the prowl. She hadn’t been this sexy in a decade. It was the stimulus, maybe not her natural state. She wasn’t naturally like this. It was just the environment she existed in now. Just like when she was a hot twenty-year-old she was like a delicate flower and all the bees would just show up, no invitation necessary, they’d just buzz around her pistil, want to stick their big stinger in her hot little stigma. Not that bees had sex with flowers. But they helped flowers get it on with other flowers and Geoff was a flower like Nia.