by Les Zig
I tense. ‘Sure.’
‘I think he hit on me at your staff Christmas party.’
‘Are you for real?’
‘I think.’
‘What does think mean?’
‘We were talking—I told him I worked in web design, and he started going on about wanting his own website, so I gave him my card.’
‘You gave him your card?’
‘It was a reflex. But then he really began to flirt.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He complimented my dress, my hair, said you were a very lucky man—you know, to have me.’
I’m unsure how to take this. Jane’s manner is straightforward—she could be telling me about the weather.
‘Then he asked if I wanted to see his car because he’d leased a Porsche or something.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was one of those superficial conversations you have. It wasn’t until later that I started wondering if I should’ve read more into it, but by then, there was no point saying anything. It’s not like we bump into Roger on a regular basis.’
‘You should’ve told me.’
‘Are you upset?’
‘I’m just saying you should’ve told me.’
Jane puts a hand on my knee, squeezes. ‘He flattered me because he’s a bore. And it’s not like I went to see his car. I told him I wasn’t interested. Then Beth joined us. He even told her he was telling me about his car and had offered to show it to me. That’s why I thought I’d overreacted.’
‘Where was I?’
‘Getting drinks.’
I remember that. I came back with wines for Jane and Beth, a beer for myself. Roger hadn’t wanted anything, like drinks served in plastic cups were beneath him. He’d taken Beth and left not long afterwards. It should be a nothing thing, so small it seems dismissible. But it makes me think about the things Jane keeps from me.
‘Hey, we okay?’ she asks.
‘Sure,’ I say.
The Noble Temple is an Asian restaurant with hardwood floors and a stylish bar. The tables are crammed together—although there isn’t much of a crowd, given it’s a Monday night—and in the corner there’s a stage with a karaoke machine. A plump middle-aged man sings Chicago’s ‘Hard Habit to Break’ to an equally plump ash-blonde woman who giggles girlishly at a nearby table. Just as a waitress comes over to seat us, Jane gets a text from Renée saying they’re running fifteen minutes late, so Jane tells the waitress we might wait at the bar until our friends arrive.
We grab drinks—me a Corona, Jane a red wine—and I put my arm around Jane’s waist, wondering if anybody else has held her this way. Jane sways and watches the plump guy finish his song. He plonks down from the stage and his partner pops up to hug him. Jane places her hands in the middle of my chest.
‘Let’s go sing a song!’ she says.
‘God no.’
‘Come on!’ Jane tugs my wrists.
I survey the patrons—there can’t be more than ten or fifteen people in here, but I have zero singing talent. Jane can carry a tune, as long as it’s not too demanding, and years ago she used to do karaoke regularly. I’d join her if I’d had enough to drink. But she sees now I’m going to be immovable. She downs her red wine in one gulp, plants the glass dramatically on the bar, raises up on her tiptoes, and kisses me on the lips.
‘You’re such a wimp,’ she says, then flees up to the stage and cycles through the alternatives on the karaoke machine, before a song kicks off—backing vocals with a slow, building tempo that takes me a while to recognise as The Partridge Family’s ‘I Think I Love You’.
Jane smiles like she’s going to laugh her way through it, but settles into a rhythm, bouncing around as she does a great job with the vocals, pointing at me and wiggling her hips whenever she hits the chorus. It feels like it’s just me and her, and the spotlight she shines on me makes me forget my doubts—she wouldn’t be doing this if something were going on. Would she? Would she?
That’s when Stephen and Renée find me, although I don’t immediately recognise them—nobody’s seen much of them since the baby was born. Stephen used to be fit, but now his stomach’s starting to hang over his belt and shadows mark his eyes like mascara. Renée looks great given she had the baby only six months ago. She’s a gym junky and was hitting the treadmill hard even when she was carrying. She must’ve really upped the ante once she squeezed the baby out.
We sway in unison, like we’re at a concert, and Stephen even grabs a nearby candle and holds it over his head, waving it until the waitress comes over and politely reprimands him. When Jane finishes her song, the few people in the Noble Temple applaud, and I note some of the men ogling Jane, including the plump guy who sang before her. She trots back and I hug her—unwittingly so tightly that she mocks a gasp—and we all tell her how great she was.
‘It was nothing,’ she says.
The waitress returns and because the night’s warm, we decide to sit outside on the balcony, which has the glorious view of Main Street traffic. After all the pleasantries are over with, and Renée and Stephen apologise for being late (they say they’re always late nowadays), we settle down and order more drinks—another Corona for me, and red wines for everyone else.
Then, it’s the baby. It’s all the talk for the first fifteen minutes. Stephen and Renée show us a ton of pictures while they lament they never get any sleep, are constantly stressed whether they’re doing the right things, and never have time for themselves. Jane coos and talks nonstop about how beautiful he is. I say nothing new and just agree with Jane.
‘This is the first night we’ve been out since he was born,’ Renée says.
‘So he’s … what?’ I say. ‘Home alone, watching a few movies?’
‘Casper!’ Jane slaps me on the thigh as Stephen and Renée laugh.
‘He’s with my parents,’ Stephen says.
‘He’s so sweet,’ Renée says. ‘Such an angel.’
‘You wouldn’t believe the lungs on him, though.’
Are they as good as Wallace’s? I almost ask, but know that won’t go over well. For right now, their son is perfect. Everything he does is perfect. They wouldn’t appreciate him being compared to a dog, even one as cool as Wallace.
The waitress comes over and asks if we’re ready to order. We scan the menus. Jane puts a hand on mine.
‘They have calamari,’ she says.
Stephen rolls his eyes. ‘That still all you ever have?’
Jane arches her brows. ‘We were out a couple of weeks ago, and he got a bad batch. He was vomiting all night.’
Stephen and Renée wince. ‘You poor thing,’ Renée says.
‘It wasn’t pretty,’ Jane says and pinches her nose. ‘Well?’
I scout the menu, checking the price of each meal—a habit I fell into when we started saving for IVF. Jane orders the king prawns—one of the more expensive dishes—while Renée orders the seafood and bean curd hotpot, and Stephen a sautéed beef eye fillet. I do find calamari, but it’s some chilli calamari type that sounds too exotic for me.
‘I can be different,’ I say, although I keep looking for something conventional. ‘Chicken teriyaki, thanks.’
Jane rubs my hand and laughs.
‘So …’ Renée says, once the waitress has gone.
‘So?’ I ask.
‘How’re … you know?’ Stephen says.
I do know and I hate the tiptoeing. Renée and Stephen met at our wedding. They dated, had a long engagement, and married a couple of years later. Because of that, there’s a guiltiness about their questioning, almost like they’re apologetic about beating us to the baby-making.
‘Are you still trying?’ Renée asks.
Jane casts a shy glance in my direction. This always comes up—and not just with new parents who want to impose parenthood on everybody. Because Jane and I have been married for six years, everybody expects that we should have an assem
bly line going. A few friends, like Stephen and Renée, know we’ve had problems. We used to talk to them about it often enough.
‘Well, it’s not like we’ve stopped having sex,’ I say, taking a swig of beer.
But the baby-making, yes—having sex when Jane’s ovulating; her drinking foul herbal brews meant to help with fertility; the positions meant to increase the chances of conception; and even Jane lying there after sex with her legs up, as if that’d turn my sperm into guided missiles to seed her eggs.
‘Now, if it happens, it happens,’ I say.
Renée squeezes Jane’s hand. ‘It’ll happen for you. I know it will.’
Jane wipes her eyes. The silence is too long. Stephen and Renée must think me heartless, not consoling Jane, but I don’t know what to do. When she miscarried, I tried to hold her, but she said she didn’t want to be touched, locked herself in the bathroom, and sobbed. The next night, she crawled into me and I held her. I’m never sure of the etiquette.
‘I saw Luke!’ Stephen says, too loud, breaking the silence. ‘I bumped into him at the market yesterday. He said we should catch up.’
‘Yeah, that would be good,’ I say.
‘He told me to tell you to drop him a line.’
‘Sure.’
Jane looks at me with brimming eyes. She’s so pretty and vulnerable, but her face is also so laden with disappointment. It’s times like these I notice how ingrained it’s become in her, this absence. It makes her prematurely old, and I want to save her from that, from that crushing expectation.
I hold out my arm and she leans into me.
I sink into bed while Jane’s in the bathroom.
I try to decide what to do, once and for all. I should ask. But I’m beyond shoulds now. I will or I won’t. And if it’s the latter, I have to accept that this is a secret that may never be uncovered—unless Jane is cheating, and one day surprises me by telling me she’s leaving me. Of course, it’s impossible to not know. It’s like living with a lump and not knowing whether it’s cancerous.
Jane comes out of the bathroom, slips into bed behind me. She spoons me, her body warm. Her pubic hair presses into my buttock. She’s come to bed without her little boxers.
Her arm curls around me. I turn and her mouth lands on mine. Her lips are cold. She tastes of the two red wines she had at dinner—red wine always makes her frisky. Her hand slides down my belly and into my underwear. She grabs hold of my cock, strokes me.
‘What’re you doing?’ I say when she breaks the kiss.
‘You don’t know?’
She trails kisses down my chest and stomach—her hair a contrail that tickles me—and then pulls down my underwear and takes me in her mouth. I hiss as she swallows me whole. She runs her mouth up and down the length of my cock, first so quickly that it feels like I’m going to explode, then slowing and tightening until I arch my back and grip the sheets.
Releasing me, she runs kisses back up my stomach, over my chest, my neck. Her tongue parts my lips. I run my hands down her back and cup the swell of her buttocks. She sits up, straddles me. I squeeze her breasts, her distended nipples. She guides me into her. She is so wet. She isn’t always, but now I slip into her. She grinds into me, swivelling her hips and tilting her head until her breasts push into my hands and her hair falls back.
Our rhythm is comfortable and familiar, and I feel myself ready to come. This position always gets me going easily. But I know Jane is nowhere near ready. I feel it in her body. Hear it in her soft cries.
I sit up, lock my arms around her, kiss her. My tongue wrestles hers and all I can think now is how much I hate red wine, although I’ve never told her this. I taste it in her mouth, on her tongue.
I push forward until she yields, falls onto her back. I hook one of her legs over my shoulder, her other on my bicep, and thrust deeper into her. My knees slip from under me. My feet tangle in the covers. I brace my knees and thrust. Jane whimpers in my ear, tells me it feels good. My hands find her breasts again as my butt pistons back and forth, but my knees keep slipping.
I slow. Stop.
‘What?’ Jane says in my ear.
‘I’m slipping.’
‘Out?’
‘My knees.’
‘What?’
I sit up, pull her up, kiss her and relish the feeling of her body against mine. She kneels in front of me, gets on her hands. Her butt thrusts out towards me. She has a great butt, and I’ve fantasised sometimes about sex that way, but we’ve never experimented. That’s the way married life goes—or ours has. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me.
I grab her hips and enter her from behind. I look at the hourglass of Jane’s hips as they contour into her narrow waist. A sheen gleams on the arch of her back.
Jane’s buttocks quiver and her breasts bounce. The sound of colliding flesh is a metronome in the bedroom. Her cries grow louder. I wish I could make her scream, like in the porn that Stephen, Luke, and I used to watch, so I can be certain what I’m doing is exciting and satisfying her. But those reactions don’t seem to happen in real life, and married sex becomes measured sex.
I see those two bruises on her right buttock. My pace slows. My hand hovers above the bruises—my thumb and forefinger. They would be a perfect fit, if that’s what caused the bruises. But they’re not mine because Jane and I haven’t done it this way recently.
Then, in the doorway, I see Wallace sitting there, watching us, his head cocked as if he’s trying to figure out what’s going on. Or maybe he knows and is trying to figure out how to throw a bucket of water on us.
Jane propels her butt back into me hard and fast, and I drive myself into her over and over. The pain in my shoulder from trying to sledgehammer the wall screams but I don’t stop, even as I feel ready to blow. Jane lifts herself until her back is pressed against my chest. I keep thrusting, one hand squeezing her bouncing breasts in turn, the fingers of my other hand hopefully finding her clit. Her cheek nuzzles against my lips.
Her body becomes rigid. All sounds from her cease. A guttural moan escapes my lips as I come. My hips stutter, slow. It’s the only time that we’ve ever come so close. Usually, I’m first, although there are times I don’t come at all.
Jane and I collapse, still welded together, our heads by the right corner at the foot of the bed. Our chests heave and the sweat cools on our bodies. I feel chilled, and know Jane will, too, so pull the cover over us.
We stay like that and I kiss her ear. She pushes against me, although it’s not like we can get any closer. My arms embrace her as my deflating erection slips from her.
Jane smiles—a small contented smile. ‘I love you.’
I blurt out the question before I can stop myself. ‘How much?’
‘Out of ten? Six, maybe seven when you take out the garbage.’ Her smile broadens and she kisses me on the nose. Then there’s nothing but the chorus of our breathing falling into sync as we hold one another.
And, eventually, we sleep.
Tuesday
7
The clock radio’s alarm wakes us. Jane tries to swat it off, but we’re sleeping the wrong way. She buries her head under my chin. I put my arm around her. The clock radio continues to buzz.
‘Do we have to get up?’ she says.
‘Somebody’s gonna have to switch off the alarm,’ I say.
‘How long before it shuts itself off?’
‘About fifteen minutes, I think.’
Wallace jumps up onto the bed, licks Jane’s forehead.
‘Wallace, get the alarm,’ she says.
Wallace continues to lick her.
She sits up, pats Wallace. Her hair is dishevelled, but there’s always been something sexier about her that way. I put my hand on her back. She smiles at me. Her breasts look so inviting. Already, I feel myself growing erect.
‘I should shower,’ she says.
She switches off the alarm, walks into the bathroom. I stare at her butt as she does her morning stretches, her lean form taut and perfec
t. As she holds her tree pose, I have the unbidden thought that she’s a monument to our marriage, to our life together. Then the thought evaporates as she releases the pose, gets in the shower, and closes her eyes as the water runs through her hair.
Wallace’s mouth hangs open like he’s laughing.
‘What?’ I say.
Downstairs, I fill Wallace’s food and water bowls. I call for him but he doesn’t answer, so I walk to the rear windows and look out to the backyard. The sky’s blue—not even a wisp of a cloud. It’s going to be another hot day. A grey cat stands in the middle of the yard—Vic’s cat Silver.
Wallace emerges from the side of the house, completely unawares. He sees Silver. Stops. Then breaks into a sprint. Silver bounds for the fence and pauses there, hissing at Wallace. Wallace leaps around the base, barking until Silver jumps back into Vic’s yard.
I feel like marching to Vic’s front door and complaining about his stupid cat being in our yard. It’s the perfect salvo in the battle of one-up-pet-ship.
Wallace patrols the fence to make sure Silver’s not coming back, then canters to the back door. Moments later, he bursts through the doggy door and comes into the house. I kneel and rub him, tell him what a good boy he is, although he gives me a look like he doesn’t know why I’m so happy.
It doesn’t matter. It’s a beautiful day.
As I make breakfast, I convince myself there’s a harmless explanation for the condom. There can’t be anything insidious, and yet doubts still flood my mind. I butter the toast, the knife digging into the bread.
She could’ve had a fling. It could be over. Or she could’ve thought about it, but never went through with it. Either way, last night might be her attempt to reconnect with me.
I eat and decide that I’m not going through another day of this. I put the plates in the sink, then go into the study and take a seat at my desk. Wallace jumps onto the couch. Jane’s running late; I hear her thumping around upstairs.
I take my sketchpad onto my lap, hold a pencil above the blank page, but all I can think about are the different approaches I can use with Jane. None of them sound right in my head. I’ll wing it—if I can. I want to be diplomatic, but I’m scared of the way things will come out.