Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 9 - "Twenty" (PG)

by James David Denisson

Or did you say no so that you don’t have to face seeing me and Wade together in the same room.”

  “That might be the reason,” I admitted.

  “Well, you’ll just have to man up, won’t you? I’m not going back to Wade. I’m never going back to Wade. So, I’m going to call her back and tell her we’ve changed our minds.”

  “Crap,” I said a third time.

  “See you at home,” she said and hangs up.

  Can’t wait, I said to myself.

  Quinn is annoyed but it soon passes. Before she would have held onto some grievance for days, even weeks, if the crime was sufficient enough to warrant it. Now she moves on quickly, but she lets me know in no uncertain terms that she has intentionally forgiven me. I guess I’m doing the same now, but Quinn doesn’t hurt me the same way and there is little that I have to forgive her - other than the obvious.

  I’ve been thinking the last few days about our date night on Friday. I think that I need something to top the night of the shooting stars, but truthfully I can’t think of a thing. Something will come to me I’m sure, and it doesn’t have to be spectacular, it just has to be intimate and allow us to connect and talk. Maybe I’ve set the bar too high.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about what Grant was saying about bonds and exchanging Wade for me. If Quinn has been thinking about those same bonds then she’s keeping it to herself. We haven’t been sleeping in the same bed regularly though and she’s not pushing the issue, so maybe she has her issues that she’s working out as well.

  We’ve gone to bed in our separate rooms. I’ve turned the light off and I’m laying back with the door closed and in the dark. I’m thinking of Quinn and her beautiful body, slowly changing. I’m interrupted by the door and the light and I’m caught in an embarrassing position. She stands there, looking at me, and I imagine she’s wondering why I can do this to myself while I can’t to her. But her face does not mirror those thoughts. She looks at me with a curious smile and I think maybe I’m not in as much trouble as I thought.

  She comes to me and kneels down and her hands take the place of mine. She smiles as I arch my back, looks me in the eye. Then she winks and puts her head in my lap.

  “I expect you to return the favour,” she tells me when things have reached their conclusion.

  “Now?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head. “Later,” she says. “I’ll tell you when.”

  Then she turns and heads to the door, stopping at the entrance to my room. I’m still lying there, vulnerable and shocked.

  “By the way,” she says offhandedly, “I’ll need you to drive me to the doctors on Friday morning.”

  “Sure,” I say. It’s all I can say.

  “Okay then,” she says and turns out the light. “Night.”

  I’m still laying there. “Damn,” I say. “What the hell just happened?”

  Thursday

  We don’t talk about what happened the night before. Perhaps it’s become as normal as putting out the trash or cleaning the toilet. It had to be done, so why dwell on it. Quinn has stopped waiting for me to make love to her and decided that there are other ways to let some pressure go. Really, there is a crazy amount of pressure between us, just under the surface. Well, I know that I feel better, so I’m waiting for the word and I’ll return the favour as she said.

  Friday

  I take Quinn to the doctors in the morning. I don’t go in with her this time because she asks me not to. I guess there are some things that she still holds private. I get that. There are still some things that I’ve not told her about, things that she doesn’t need to know. Maybe I will tell her, if I need to, the point is I’m open to share my life with her when and where it’s needed.

  She has a blood test down stairs from the exam room and feels a little dizzy like I did. It makes me think that I haven’t heard from the doctor back home. I may have to ring him, but I’ll wait. Sometimes these things take time.

  I take her out that night to a place we haven’t been to, a little out of the city. It’s a French place, a little fancy, and it’s new because we haven’t tried French food before. I tell her to dress up, but I don’t need to because she always looks good. I’m in my father’s suit again, because I seem to look good in it.

  We ask our questions. I ask her about baby names. We haven’t thought about them yet, but we should, but she chides me, because we’re not supposed to talk about our baby while we’re on a date. She’s right.

  She asks me what I thought of her visit the other night and I’m lost for words. Everything is proper and formal around us and she wants to talk about what she did to me. She knows I’m flustered and that is exactly what she is trying to do to me. I tell her it was very good, but she won’t let me off the hook. I tell her that her technique has improved and she smiles. She’s been practicing, she says in a way that suggests that it had nothing to do with her former lover. I don’t know what to say. I guess I’m glad that the improvement isn’t down to Wade, but I don’t say that. He has no place on our date.

  Our dinner arrives and we eat. I find French food a little rich for my liking but Quinn is wrapped in it. We order desert.

  She leans in, brings her lips to my ear and whispers something wicked, something seductive..

  She gets up and moves, perhaps a little seductively, toward the bathroom which is thankfully hidden away behind a partition. I wait for perhaps a minute and follow her, slide into the women’s restroom.

  There is thankfully no one in there except for Quinn. I walk quietly down the line of stalls, sort of looking under the doors for signs of my wife. I see the expensive heels she wearing and inch the door open. She’s sitting on the toilet with the lid down.

  “When,” she says and I understand…

  I sit in my chair with desert in front of me. I can still taste her on my lips. I wait for her to return. She’s looking like nothing has happened. Her face has returned to its normal color and she redone her makeup.

  “Ah,” she says casually. “This is the best part.” She starts on her desert and I look at her, astounded and still aroused by her.

  She smiles as she eats some unpronounceable sweet, winks at me.

  “Thanks,” she says when we’re in the car. “I needed that.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  Then she laughs. “They knew what we were up to.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The waiters.”

  “Damn,” I say. “I thought I saw a little smirk when I paid the bill.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It was thrilling though, right?”

  I have a couple of fantasies about sex in public that she knows about, but we never did any of them before. Maybe she’s feeling freer to explore these things with me, I don’t know. I just know that I like it. It’s the thrill of the possibility of discovery, or the downright dirtiness of it, that appeals to me, but most of all it’s because it’s her and I don’t want to do any of it with anyone else. I know that now.

  I knock on her door after she’s gone to bed. I hear her say to enter though the wood between us. The light is off, but I can see her by the streetlights forcing their way through the cracks in our blinds. She’s sitting up, looking as lovely and sexy as always.

  “Judd, what is it?” she asks.

  “Can I join you?”

  She nods and I climb in the other side, my side from before. The bed is more comfortable than my single bed, and warmer. She snuggles into me, wraps her arms around my back and pulls me closer. I stay there for a while, enjoying the closeness of us, but neither of us can sleep like that. I’m on my side with my back to her when I drift off and I don’t wake until sunrise.

  Saturday

  I’ve slept in the same bed with Quinn a couple of times now, and I’m feeling much better about it. I’m also feeling like I could make love to her too – the oral sex has proved that I can be intimate with her in other ways and other places than our bed. But the proof will be when I’m with her in our bedroom.
I can still see the bonds between her and Wade, but they’re getting thinner by the day. They’re almost gone after our restaurant antics, and the lines between us have gathered strength, I can feel it.

  But still I see him there in my mind’s eye. Waiting for the chance to usurp me again, to take my place and be her man and her husband and lover. But that’s my job and I won’t let him get away with it.

  “So Judd,” Grant says to me during our session, “what do you think Quinn’s strengths are?”

  It’s an interesting question. For as long as I can remember we’ve been dwelling on the things that are wrong with us, with her, with me. I’m off balance now, waiting for some discussion about how I messed up, but really the Uptons want to talk about what we’re doing right for a change.

  “She’s stronger than I thought,” I say, remembering back to the weekend before. “I mean, last week was tough, but she’s right back here again. More than that she’s just faced the week like she’s made of steel.”

  “Very good,” Grant says. “Go on.”

  “And she’s not afraid. She just faces things that I would hesitate to. I’m kind of inspired. And she forgives me. I keep making mistakes but she forgives me anyway.”

  “What about you, Quinn?”

  She smiles at me. Takes my hand. “He’s cares for me and he doesn’t ask for anything in return. I love that. He stands by me, no matter what, regardless of how I’ve hurt him.”

  We talk for a long while about the things that we do for each