Broken

Adam was already in bed, but he turned his head to look at me when I came through the doorway. He’d been reading something on his laptop. “Close program,” he ordered the computer. He could operate most everything in his room via the voice-operated command system. “You’re late tonight.”

“I feel so loved. You’re the third person tonight to tell me so.” I kept the reply light, joking, slipping so easily into the role of wife.

I pushed the computer table out of the way and bent to brush his lips with my evening kiss. His mouth felt cold beneath mine, and I closed my eyes, willing it to warm.

“Long day?” Adam asked when I’d pulled away. “You look bushed.”

Even before I could answer, my stomach gurgled, and I put my hand overtop to quiet it. “Mrs. Lapp made soup. I’ll go have some. I wanted to say hi, first.”

He smiled again, still looking so much like the man I’d fallen in love with it made my guts hurt. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I reached to push his hair off his forehead. His mouth had been cold but his forehead and cheeks were flushed. “You feel warm.”

“Ah, you caught me reading.” He wiggled his eyebrows. For a man without the use of anything below his shoulders, Adam never had a problem making his expressions clear.

I looked at his laptop. “You’re reading smut again?”

“Please.” He affected a haughty tone. “It’s literature.”

“For class or for fun?” I stroked my hand across his forehead again, pretending a caress but really checking for fever.

“Class.”

Adam’s poetry had once won national awards. Now he taught online English courses for Penn State University. As far as I knew, he no longer wrote poems.

“Prison Poets?” I straightened a hand that had fallen askew, legs that had bent a bit during the course of the day. I tucked blankets in all around him with swift, practiced movements, making him a mummy.

“The Marquis de Sade versus Oscar Wilde.” Adam’s eyes followed my course around the bed.

“Sounds positively kinky.”

I leaned across him to tuck the blankets on his other side. He breathed in deep and his lips grazed my throat. Heat and memories flooded me.

“You smell so good.” Adam’s voice was hoarser than usual.

I froze. He tilted his head to brush his lips against my skin, and breathed in again. He nuzzled me. My nipples tightened and knees got weak as instant arousal, eager as a puppy, bounded through me at that one, simple caress.

His tongue flickered out. “You taste good, too.”

I turned my face to his and kissed him, our mouths parting. His tongue stroked mine and another bolt of pure liquid pleasure washed over me. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself. The flannel of his pajama shirt was soft, the bones beneath padded enough by the fabric not to hurt my palm.

I wanted to kiss him forever, to melt into him. The kiss broke and left both of us breathing hard. I leaned in again, my mouth seeking his and finding it closed to me. Shut out, I pulled away.

“Hey, how about we watch a movie tonight?” My hand lingered on his cheek. “Give yourself a break.”

“Can’t.” He smiled, rueful. “I’m already behind on this stuff from being sick.”

Even a simple head cold knocked him harder than it would have for me. I understood. Even so, my heart still hammered in my chest and my thighs trembled with desire. Joe’s stories did that, but so did Adam’s kisses, as they always had. I leaned close to breathe into his ear and run a hand over his chest.

“I could make it worth your while.”

“Sadie,” Adam said after a moment. “I really need to get this done.”

We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment infinite with silence. I had no illusions that my husband did not know every part of me, every thought, every single stir of emotion. The accident that had taken the use of his body hadn’t damaged his mind. He’d always known me better than anyone ever had.

So why did it so often feel like he’d forgotten?

I pulled away, putting the mask back on. This was not the first time he’d lacked interest in physical intimacy. It wouldn’t, I was sure, be the last. I could’ve asked him why he’d rather read about sex than have it, and in the past, in our life before, I would have. But that was long ago and far away, and those sorts of questions often hung between us, never spoken. We both bore scars, and not all of them were visible. There was enough damage to contemplate without creating more.

“You’d better go eat,” Adam said. “Your stomach is growling.”

I nodded. “Do you need anything?”

“No. I’m good for now. I’ll finish this up and go to sleep.”

The entire room had been adapted to his use. He was perfectly capable of putting himself to sleep without me or Dennis to help him, though he’d still need help with the regular turning that helped prevent pressure sores. Tonight was Friday, and that meant it was my job to wake every two hours and check on him, since Dennis was off-duty for the weekend.

I kissed him again, without the heat from before. “Call if you need me.”

His attention had already gone back to his work, shutting me out. “’Night, babe.”

“G’night.” I pulled the door half-closed behind me and stopped to lean against the wall with one arm crossed over my stomach and the other elbow resting on top of it to support the hand covering my face. I was trying hard not to shake, but not quite succeeding.

“Sadie? I’m heading out now.”

At Dennis’ concerned tone, I straightened up and shifted my features again into neutrality. “Thanks, Dennis. Have a good time.”

He studied me and looked as though he were about to comment, but instead just grinned. “Yeah. It’s open mic night at the Blue Swan.”

I laughed, the sound barely hollow. “Ah. And what are you planning on reading?”

“Me? Nothing. I’m there for moral support. Scott and Mark are going to sing.”

Envy attacked me from behind, biting the back of my neck and jabbing its stinger into my spine like an electric shock. I wanted to go out with friends, have some drinks. I wanted to—

“Have fun,” I told him, and he nodded.

“I will. See ya Monday.”

He headed down the stairs two at a time, quiet despite his size, and I waited until I heard the front door slam before I went down the stairs after him.

I lingered over a single bowl of soup and a mug of hot tea. I washed the bowl and mug carefully by hand instead of using the dishwasher. I fed the fish and set the timer on the coffee maker. I checked the locks on the doors, all three downstairs and the one in the basement.

When at last I climbed the stairs again, the hour had grown late enough that it almost made me wonder if I should bother to go to bed at all. After all, I’d only have to wake again in a couple of hours. I’d regret it if I didn’t, but though every muscle ached and my head throbbed, my mind was too restless for sleep.

I peeked in on Adam. His lights were out and his breathing slow and steady. The faint green glow from the night-light gave his face an alien cast. I didn’t need light to see what I was doing. Adam barely woke as I turned him. We didn’t speak. We never did if we could help it, as if somehow silence made all of this a dream. I finished everything I had to do and made sure he was all right before I crept away.

Though I slept in his room on the weekends when Dennis was off-duty, we no longer shared a bedroom. The room that had been ours now needed every inch for the equipment and supplies that kept Adam functioning. I’d made that room a haven for us in the early days of our marriage, when the rest of the house had been a hodgepodge shambles of late ’70s décor and early ’80s substandard renovation. I’d loved that bedroom and our art deco furniture, salvaged from thrift stores and auctions. I’d loved the bathroom, with its claw-foot tub and Victorian toilet with the pull chain. Now gutted to accommodate a wheelchair-capable shower and toilet, it was a room of function, not luxury.

The room I used was just on the other side of the back stairs. It was much smaller than the master, but I’d cut an arched doorway through the wall into the room next to it, creating a sitting room/study that gave me all the space I needed, and that room connected to the bathroom also accessible to the hall. I only had to share when we had house-guests, since Dennis had his own bathroom on the third floor.

I made certain the intercom was working and set, in case Adam woke and needed me, then set about stripping out of my work clothes. The mirror tried catching my attention, but I ignored it. I no longer knew the woman who lived in there.

I ran a bath and added essence of lavender, then dimmed the lights. I settled into the water and let it enfold me. Hold me. It cradled me, and I slid deeper, up to my chin, while my hair spread out around me like seaweed.

I found sanctuary in the dark and quiet, in the one place where I didn’t have to be strong, optimistic, happy, or anything else anyone thought I should be. Where I couldn’t and didn’t have to pretend I didn’t know the truth.

My husband didn’t love me anymore, and I didn’t know how to make him.

I met Joe two years before, two random strangers sharing a bench in the atrium of a local business complex for lunch. Frigid January weather had made our secluded bench a real treasure, and we’d shared it with the glee of kids who’d stumbled onto a candy shop giving away free samples.

We’d made polite conversation, nothing serious, nothing deep. We checked each other out in the surreptitious way men and women do when they have no intention of flirting but want to see if it might be worth the effort. I noticed his smile first, the expensive suit some time later. He made me laugh almost right away during a time when I thought I’d forgotten how.

Remembering Joe’s smile, I slid my hands over my body in the hot water. The bath oil made my skin slick. Smooth. My palms skidded over my belly and thighs. I sank lower, my ears covered, listening to the secret underwater shush shush of my heart beating.

With one thing or another, I didn’t make it back to the atrium until an entire month had passed. It was something like a magic number—thirty days—and when I flipped my calendar something reminded me about the man on the bench and my feet led me back there as if I had no choice but to see if he were there again. I’d ignored the way my heart jumped into my throat when I saw him striding toward me beneath the hanging ferns. The sun had lit his hair into shining gold. His smile was even brighter than that. That was the first time he grumbled about tomatoes on his sandwich. We spent an hour and half on that bench talking. I didn’t ask him if he had to get back to work. I was late for my first afternoon appointment. And something unspoken had passed between us. An agreement.

In March, I made sure to wear lipstick. In April, we moved outside to the park, where a hanging willow muted the echo of our laughter and made it something secret. In May we shared a thermos of lemonade, in June he brought me a muffin and I’d lent him a book we’d talked about the month before.

By July, the conversation was no longer polite.

The first time he told me a story, I’d sat, riveted to the bench, my sandwich eaten but untasted. Joe was an exquisite raconteur. He left out not even the smallest detail of sensation. He’d enthralled me, bound me with his words.

Joe, in his words, loved women. Their curves, their scents, their moods. He loved long hair, big asses, sturdy thighs, concave bellies, tiny, cherry-tipped tits, blue and green and brown eyes. He loved women, and he loved fucking. And every first Friday of the month, when we met for lunch, he had a new story to tell me. He was Scheherazade, saving not his own life, but mine.

I cupped my breasts, their weight made light in the water’s embrace. I stroked them, passing a palm over my nipples before pinching them both between forefinger and thumb. A sigh leaked out of me as they burned and tightened. I tugged and felt an answering pull in my clit, my cunt, my ass. I moved the firm flesh back and forth, jerking them like twin erections.

My thighs fell open as my hips pushed against the water. Eddies left behind by the motion swirled heat against my clit and I rocked harder, but the pressure was too light to do more than tease.

Still tugging on my left nipple, I slid my right hand between my legs. My clit already poked out of its hood, hard, ready for my touch. I bit my lip, the gentle stroke-stroke enough to make my hips jut forward again. I pinched my clit like I pinched my nipple, moving in time, alternating. The water supported and lifted me. My shoulder blades bumped the bottom of the tub as I pushed my pelvis against my fingers.

My clit swelled. My cunt opened, aching to be filled, and I left my nipple to slide three fingers inside. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what I wanted—a thick, hard cock fucking me. I dreamed of it, being filled, dreamed of taking an erection down the back of my throat while another filled my vagina, another in my ass, while hands stroked and pulled my body all over. I dreamed of being consumed by men who made me come over and over again with their tongues and fingers and pricks, until I exploded and disappeared.

You didn’t need a doctorate in psychology to analyze that.

I might dream of faceless men who consumed me with their sex, but when I fantasized, it was about Joe. I didn’t need to analyze that, either.

My skin had gone pink from the hot water and arousal. I looked down over the curve of my breasts and belly to where my hands moved between my legs. I wanted more than my own hands there. I wanted Joe’s mouth on me. I wanted to feel him lick the soft, wet slit of my cunt, feel that smile on my clit. I wanted him to fuck me with his mouth until I came.

I slowed my hands, fingers sliding in and out of my pussy without friction. I pinched my clit again. It had gone dark red, pushing up from my trimmed-short pubic curls. I stroked it up and down and my pelvis jumped again. A spasm shuddered through me.

I wanted to scream myself hoarse with this pleasure. I wanted to moan and whimper. I bit my lip, hard, to keep back a cry, mindful that I was not alone, not ever alone.

I moved my hands away and rocked my hips, moving the water over my clit. Fuck, it was good, almost but not quite like a tongue. I let it lick at me for a while until I shuddered and banged my elbows against the side of the tub.

I could bring myself off in another second. I’d been on the verge all day, first in anticipation of my lunchtime meeting, then with Joe’s story, then with Adam’s unexpected kiss. I’d been slick from need all day, my clit aching. Another second, one more touch and I’d go over.

I waited, breathing hard, heart pounding. The water began to cool. I wanted to come and I wanted to stay poised here forever, with every nerve on fire and every muscle tense. I wanted to feel alive just a while longer.

I waved a hand in the water over my body, not touching my skin but letting the water do it for me. The ripples felt good, and I imagined Joe’s hands. His long, strong fingers and clean, neat fingernails. I’d memorized his hands—every wrinkle of every knuckle, every vein. The exact spot on his wrists where the hair on his arms began.

Thinking of Joe’s hair, I fought back another moan. My hands slipped down to stroke myself again. I wanted to bury my face in his chest hair, to rub the coarse curls of his arms against my eyelids. I wanted to feel his hair on my belly when we fucked, cock in cunt.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to come. I thought I might die if I didn’t let myself finish, right then.

I thought I was dying when I did.

Everything stopped.

Then all at once, it started again. My heart, beating. My breath, held in my lungs, rushed out. Water splashed as my body quaked. My clit had filled to the point of bursting and now it emptied in small, perfect spasms of ecstasy. My anus puckered as my cunt rippled, bearing down on nothing.

Unable to hold it back, I gasped. My back arched and water sloshed over my face. I closed my mouth, fast, so I didn’t choke myself. Some got in my eyes, stinging, but the pleasure was so intense I didn’t care.

When I was done and returned to myself, I put a hand on the edge of the tub to haul myself upright. I was cold and shivered, my nipples peaked now not from arousal but from chill.

Nausea twisted my gut in the aftermath. I was light-headed when I got out, and had to stand, head down, for a moment or two before I felt steady enough to grab up my towel from the hook on the wall.

I moved too fast and the room spun. I got on my hands and knees, my hair sodden and stringy over my shoulders and down my back. I shivered, teeth chattering, and then I wept.

The towel I clutched smelled of lavender and I pressed my face against it to stifle my sobs as I’d bit my lip to hold back my sounds of pleasure. I dissolved on the bathroom floor, giving in to magnificent and overpowering grief.

I loved my husband but wanted to fuck another man. I wanted it so much it tore me apart and knitted me together over and over. I lived for the stories Joe told that let me imagine myself as the women he took to bed. I had called him names, but I was wrong. It wasn’t Joe, it was me.

I was the cheater.

Chapter 03

February

This month, if I have a name, it’s lost in the pounding beat blaring from the speakers in the club. I’m wearing a short, tight skirt and a shirt made up of two scarves tied behind my neck. No bra, and my tits push against the silky fabric like twin melons. They barely bounce when I dance, and I’m proud of them. They’re worth the college tuition they cost to buy.

Guys have been approaching me all night. I let them buy me drink after drink, but I dance alone or with a girlfriend, shaking our asses in time to the pounding rhythm. My skirt rides up over tanned, taut thighs, and tawny hair glistens in the blue strobe lights. I’m hips and tits and hair. I’m smooth, fluid motion. I’m sex for the sake of sex.

There’s a guy watching me from across the dance floor. There are lots of guys watching me, but this one is different. He’s alone, not part of a pack. Just standing there, watching. His long-sleeved, black sweater hugs his shoulders and chest and fades into the black of his trousers, making him a shadow.

I put on a little more effort for him, a wiggle of my hips and ass and tits. I crook my finger. Come hither, stranger.

He detaches himself from the dark and moves forward, cutting through the crowd. I lose sight of him and frown, my dance losing a little of its steam until a moment later when the crowd parts and he’s standing in front of me.

He smiles. I smile. I raise my hands over my head and wiggle, turning, writhing. He likes it.

And damn, he’s a good dancer, too. He molds along my body. One hand goes to my hip. With the other, he curls my fingers around the back of his neck. The back of my head rests against his chest, because even in my four-inch heels he’s still about five inches taller.

We move in time, ignoring the other dancers who sort of bounce up and down, as if on pogo sticks. We move more like water. His hand on my hip drifts down to brush along the hem of my skirt and the bare skin of my thigh.

My nipples get hard. He’s subtle but I know what he wants. I want it, too. It’s not like I’m here to find Mr. Right. More like Mr. Right Now.

The song changes and some people on the dance floor leave. Others join. I turn and tilt my head to smile at him. Fuck, he’s got pretty teeth.

We can’t talk, really. The music’s too loud. We communicate with a look, a touch. He’s good at that, too. He actually looks at my face.

If we’re not going to dance, we need to get off the floor. Besides, I’m hot and thirsty. I gesture toward the bar and he nods, so I grab his hand and tug him along to the bar where he buys me a margarita and he orders a bottle of water.

I don’t think he’s drunk, which is really interesting, considering it’s Saturday night and the entire bar is halfway to wasted, including me. I lift my margarita, and he toasts it with his bottled water. We smile and sip. It’s quieter here by the barest margin, but still not enough for real conversation.

“You wanna go someplace?” I have to shout the question twice before he answers.

He leans in to say directly into my ear, “where do you want to go?”

That’s how we end up at my place. I feel okay with him driving me home since he hasn’t been drinking, and it saves me cab fare, anyway. I live on the third floor of a converted brownstone, and the margaritas have made the stairs too steep for me. Laughing, I stop to take off my shoes. His eyes follow the motion of my fingers unbuckling the ankle strap. His eyes look dark until he raises them to my face, and then I see they’re not dark at all, it’s just that the pupils have gone wide and black.

At the top of the stairs I unlock my door and push inside, then turn and grab him by the front of his black leather jacket. I back him up against the door, closing it, and press my body to his, still cold from being outside. He smells like winter air and leather and smoke, and I pull him down to kiss me, but he turns at the last second so my mouth lands on his cheek.

His hands have found their way to my tits without a problem. His hands are cold, too, and they slide up over the silk scarves and my tight nipples. I push his jacket off his shoulders and toss it on the floor. He bends to pick it up and hang it over the back of a chair.

“Oh, you’re fussy,” I say, as if that’s cute.

He doesn’t deny it. He even smirks a little. Maybe he’s proud of it. I take off my jacket and make a show of hanging it up on the coatrack, using exaggerated movements he watches without changing his expression.

“What’s your name?” This I toss over my shoulder as I head to my kitchen and yank open my freezer to pull out a bottle of lemon vodka.

“Joe.”

I set out the bottle, a shot glass, the sugar bowl. I grab a lemon from the basket on the counter and slice it into quarters.

“Joe, you want a lemon shooter?”

When I turn for his answer, I see he’s followed me into the kitchen.

“Sure.”

I pour a shot, wet the back of my hand with the lemon and sprinkle it with sugar. “Bottoms up.” Down goes the shot, lick the sugar, bite the lemon.

He does one, too. I like the noise he makes when he sucks the lemon. It’s a little half-growl. I wonder if he’d make that same noise if I sucked hard on his cock. And suddenly I want to find out.

I move closer to him and grab his belt. I’m not as drunk as I was an hour ago but I’m still pretty buzzed. Holding his belt helps keep me steady. I’m glad I took off my tottery heels.

“C’mere,” I tell him. “Be nice to me.”

His hands come up to hold my hips. I don’t bother with trying to kiss him. I undo his belt with a couple quick jerks that move his whole body. He’s already hard, and I stroke him through his pants. Up and down. I look up at his face. He’s still smirking, but I recognize the bright gleam in his eyes. He wants to fuck. Well, don’t they all?

As soon as I undo his button and zipper, I push his pants and briefs down over his thighs. He’s got a nice dick. I take it in my hand and stroke it couple of times, hard, and he puts a hand over mine to hold it in place against him.

It’s my turn to smirk. “Too rough?”

“You don’t want to break it.”

He thinks he’s clever, and I have to admit, he’s cute enough to get away with it. Besides, I’m not exactly thinking clearly at this point. I stroke again, moving both our hands along his erection, but softer.

“That better?”

“Your mouth would be better.”

My heart skip. “Yeah?”

He looks down at his cock, and at our hands, then back to my face. “Yeah.”

It’s because he’s looking at my face when he says it that I get on my knees. The tile is cold and hard but I don’t really notice. Maybe tomorrow I will, when I’m sober and my knees are black and blue, but right now I’m focused on taking him in my mouth.