by Ruby Storm
“Oh, shit, I hate to think of getting up.” The voice still came from somewhere beneath the covers.
“Come on, get up.” He slapped her butt again as he walked by on his way to the closet. “I’ll tell you what. You get up without any more prompting, and I promise I’ll take the kids to the park in the morning. You can lie in bed and watch Saturday morning cartoons.” He disappeared into the walk-in closet.
She heard his muffled voice a moment later. “Maybe you’ll get enough rest to remember that it’s fun to have sex.”
Payton bolted upright and eyed the closet opening. She was certain he hadn’t meant for her to hear his remark, but it still angered her. She waited with her lips drawn in a tight line.
Finally, he appeared. Her husband walked back through the closet doorway with a white shirt in his hands. His perfectly pressed slacks hung open from his slim waist. Andy stopped short and stared at her. “So what the hell do you look so pissed about?” He threaded his arms into the shirt and waited for her answer.
“Is sex the only thing you think about anymore?”
The normally gentle look in his eyes disappeared instantly. “So now I can’t even think about it?” Andy sat on a chair and jerked a sock over a waiting foot.
“That’s not what I said.”
“You might as well have.”
“If you’re referring to last night, I was tired.”
“You’re always too goddamned tired, that’s your problem,” he spouted back. “You’re not the only one in this family that works their goddamned ass off.”
Andy’s rare anger surprised her. He was the one who always kept a level head when they argued. Now his nostrils flared when he stood to yank his pants open and stuff his shirttails past the waistband. “It’s okay if I open my pants in front of you, isn’t it? I’d hate to go to work with my shirttails hanging out.” He hesitated a moment. “I’d also hate to offend your virginal sensibilities and have you think I was making a pass at you.”
“Where do you get off acting like such an ass this morning?”
“Where do you get off—” His hands stilled as he stared at her. “Wait a minute, I stand corrected. You never get off. That’s why I’m acting like an ass, Payton. I’m sick of how you don’t want me anymore. I’m sick of wanting to hold you in my arms to feel the sexy woman I married. I’m sick of going to bed and wanting you so goddamned bad that it hurts.” He yanked his briefcase off the desk before he pierced her with another glare. He’d finally gotten out what he wanted to say to her, but the sight of Payton sitting forlornly in the middle of the bed softened his tone. “I just want it to be like it used to be between us. Just once, I’d like to know that I drove you over the edge of reason like I used to. No more fake moans. That’s what I want.”
An immediate flush of red spread across her cheeks and extended down into the neck of the t-shirt she slept in as his observation hit her square in the stomach. The ruse was up. She hadn’t fooled him at all.
Andy’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. He grabbed a suit jacket from the back of a chair and headed for the door. “I’ll start breakfast. You better get in the shower.”
He disappeared into the hallway and missed Payton’s reaction to his dismissal. She flopped back onto the pillow and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. A second later she pulled the sheet up to her chin and squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears.
Chapter 9: The Fix
Andy reached for the carton of eggs, yanked out a bowl from the cabinet, and cracked six eggs into its center. A second later, he whisked them into one swirling yellow mass, then poured them into the heated frying pan. His actions were automatic as his brain raced in circles. It was a good thing, because all he could think about was Payton’s reaction when his flippant comment about her faking it met her ears. She was flushed with obvious guilt when he left the bedroom.
Christ almighty, she’s a grown woman with three kids. She used to be turned on by me. What the hell does she want? He jabbed at the eggs with a wooden spoon, stirring them until they began to congeal into lumps.
His broad shoulders fell again with the deep sigh that left his lips. Andy dropped the dirty wooden spoon on the counter, his thoughts still on his inflexible wife, and pulled three more bowls from the cabinet. A box of Fruit Loops followed. He dumped everything on the table in the breakfast nook so things would be ready when the kids woke up.
With another heartfelt sigh, Andy sank onto the bench, rested his chin on a closed fist, and stared out the window. I’ve got to do something about this. Enough is enough. She’s driving me insane.
He dropped one elbow to the surface of the table and watched two squirrels dash up and down the oak tree in the back yard. One chased the other. It didn’t take Andy long to realize that it was a male in pursuit, and the female wanted nothing to do with him.
“Good luck, buddy, but if it’s anything like mine, you won’t be getting any fucking in today—or tonight.”
“Daddy, what’s uckin?”
Andy spun to see his three-year-old daughter standing in the kitchen doorway. Her ragged pink blanket dangled on the floor as she looked up at him with big blue eyes that mirrored Payton’s.
His own eyes slammed shut for a second as he admonished himself. “Nothing, baby. Come here and see the squirrels.”
Sara scampered across the kitchen floor. Andy hoisted her into his lap a second later. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against the pane of glass. Mr. Squirrel was still in hot pursuit of his frigid wife. Her chubby finger pointed out as she looked up with serious intent at her father. “Squirrels uckin?”
“No, Sara, squirrels are funning. They’re having fun and playing in the yard.” His eyes rolled heavenward in hopes that she would catch on. Payton would have his balls if she thought he was teaching their daughter to curse.
Suddenly, the smell of burnt eggs reached his nostrils.
“Shit!”
He carefully dumped Sara onto the chair and hurried to the stove. Smoke billowed from the pan. Andy grabbed the handle and slid the pan under running water to cool it down. “Fucking eggs…”
Sara tucked her ragged blanket beneath her chin and watched her father scrape the burnt contents of the pan into the sink, then switch on the garbage disposal.
A moment later he turned with a furrowed brow and tight lips, leaned against the counter and counted silently to ten. Another angry sigh left his mouth.
“Shit, daddy!”
His eyes flew open. “No, Sara.”
His daughter clapped her hands. “Eggs ucking shit, daddy!”
“Sara, you can’t say that. Here—” he hurried back to the table and poured Fruit Loops into a bowl. “Eat your breakfast. Mommy will be here soon.”
She looked at him with wide eyes and a smile as she picked up a spoon with her chubby fingers and waited for him to finish pouring milk into the bowl.
“Frue Oops!”
“That’s it, baby. Let’s get your mind on something else. Good Fruit Loops—look at all the colors.”
Once he had her mind going in another direction, Andy’s spun back to the problem with his wife. He had to figure something out or he was destined to burn eggs the rest of his life.
* * * * *
Later that morning, Andy sat and stared at his computer screen. Nothing made sense inside the flickering monitor. He hated himself for blowing up at his wife when all he really wanted to do was fix their problems. And that was it in a nutshell. It was their problem, not just Payton’s. He shouldn’t have placed the blame entirely on her beautiful blonde head. Andy was just as guilty for letting this…lag…in their sex life happen.
Determination suddenly squared his jaw. He left his chair and crossed to the open door of his office. Closing it, he returned to his chair and clicked the Netscape icon. Placing the curser in the Google search box, he typed in the word sex, then quickly backspaced to erase it. He leaned back in the chair and stared at the screen.
“Think, Andy.”<
br />
He leaned forward again and typed in problems, sex, spas, seminars, Minnesota. He waited until his choices appeared. The first three pages were Internet sex sites. His eyes examined each line. His dark eyebrows lifted as he read. “Holy shit.” He was surprised at the lurid choices that were presented. “I don’t want to buy it, I want to do it with my wife for chrissakes.”
He continued to click through the pages, searching for what he wanted to find, trying not to get discouraged.
Ten minutes later, he found a site that looked half-assed promising.
“Sex and Love, Inc. promises to make your deepest fantasies come true…
He clicked on the URL and watched the page load.
Sex and Love, Inc:
Capture that lost feeling; recreate the sex you’ve only dreamed about; become the love slave you’ve always wanted to be…prepare yourself to lose all inhibitions. Serving the surrounding states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Andy clicked on link after link and read about a small business outside the city of Detroit. Sex and Love, Inc. was a spa/seminar of sorts that catered to couples who were having sexual problems. It could be considered a learning experience if a patron wanted, or simply a hedonistic weekend getaway where no children were allowed.
He read on, getting more excited by the minute. This was the kind of place he was searching for. Hot tubs, spacious, luxurious rooms—a place created for the art of seduction; a place where he could find the old Payton and bring her back.
Andy grabbed a pen and scribbled down the toll-free number. He closed out the site, grabbed his cell phone from his briefcase, and dialed the number with a smile splitting his face.
* * * * *
Payton swore again, pushed herself away from the computer, and grabbed her coffee cup. A quick glance at the clock told her it was only two o’clock.
For the past two hours at work, she had managed to slowly mess up every document she worked on. Her presentation had gone well this morning and was accepted unanimously. Now she was in the implementation stage, but numbers meshed into one large jumble as thoughts of her morning argument with Andy still rang in her head.
He knew. Andy wasn’t fooled by her fake moans. Her cheeks stained a dark shade of red. All this time, she apparently hurt him with pretending that she enjoyed every sexual encounter they’d had. It would have been much smarter to simply be honest with him.
She bolted from her chair and headed for the staff lounge to refill her cup. As she entered the austere room, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was empty.
Payton poured herself a cup of coffee, sank onto one of the hard chairs around the ugly brown table, and stared at the corkboard filled with stupid memos.
What the hell am I going to do? She leaned forward and rested her forehead against her hand as she blew lightly into the hot liquid, and then took a sip.
This morning, she entered the kitchen and he could hardly even talk to her. He seemed preoccupied during his usual morning tasks and didn’t quite meet her eyes when she spoke to him.
“Not that you had anything interesting to talk about,” she mumbled into the cup. “You’re going to lose him, Payton, if you don’t do something.”
The door opened behind her. Payton glanced around to see her coworker, Brenda, enter the lunchroom.
“Hi, Payton.”
“Hi, Bren.” Payton said no more—and only sipped at her coffee.
Brenda poured herself a cup while keeping an eye on Payton’s slumped shoulders. She placed the pot back on the burner and seated herself in a chair across the table. “How’s the implementation policy going?”
“It’s not.”
“Payton, if it’s any consolation, everyone thinks Mr. Henderson is an ass to expect you to get on it so quickly, but you’ve got to present something in a few hours. Need a little help?”
The blonde woman simply sipped at her coffee with a faraway look in her blue eyes.
“Payton? Did you hear me?”
“What?”
Brenda placed her cup on the table. “All right. What the hell is going on with you?”
“What do you mean?” Payton looked confused.
“You don’t think you’ve been acting strange all morning?”
Payton shrugged.
“Shit. You’ve been swearing under your breath since you got here, you seem nervous as a cat, and just the fact that you haven’t got the policy together—like yesterday—is proof enough. You’re always on top of things at work.”
I should be on top of something else… Payton almost gasped out loud at her silent retort.
“Anything I can do to help?” Brenda leaned across the table and clasped her friend’s hand. “Are you having some sort of personal problem? I don’t mean to pry, but we’ve worked together for six years. I’ve never seen you like this.”
How could Payton tell her that she was in danger of losing her husband—the one that everyone thought she was so lucky to have? To hell with the numbers and the policies. She wanted to say to hell with work, call Andy, and meet him in some hotel room before she went home. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry for the years of always trying to be the upright and hard-working woman her parents expected her to be.
Why should I care what they think anyway? They’ve done nothing but look down their self-righteous noses at me since I got pregnant with Tyler.
She sat stunned. Is that what she had been doing? Working like a maniac to find some acceptance from parents who never just simply loved or forgave her when she’d made a mistake?
It’s Andy who never left my side. It was Andy that worked two jobs to assure I had time to study and reach for my goals—not them.
She wanted to go home.
“Payton? You sure you’re all right?”
Her mind raced. There was no way she could get out of work today, yet the meeting would be useless because she had nothing to give them. The implementation plans were a bunch of computer printouts from the week—nothing solid and nothing that would endear her to her supervisor.
“I just want to go home. I can’t keep my mind on what I’m doing—I can’t get anything together.” She sat back and looked at Brenda with a dawning look of discovery in her eyes. “And you know what? The strangest thing is that I don’t give a shit. I could walk out of here right now and never come back.”
“You’re scaring me, Payton. You? The office goddess who never does a thing wrong? You’ve got to pull yourself together and get that plan down. This organization is depending on you.”
“Screw them.”
“Payton! I don’t know what’s gotten into you!”
I know what’s going to get into me…
“But I’ll help you out. I’ve had lots of experience with budgeting and the type of policies that Ol’ Man Henderson likes to see. Come on. Let’s get something together. You can go home at the end of the meeting, then come back on Monday and say, thank you, Brenda, for saving my ass.”
Payton shook her head as if hearing Brenda for the first time. “You’d do that for me?”
“You’d be there for me if I needed it. Come on. We can pull something together even if we have to dazzle them with a little bullshit. Whatever is bugging you will have to wait until 6:00.” She stood and waited expectantly for Payton to join her.
Chapter 10: The Solution
Payton eased her Blazer into the garage and pressed the button on the automatic closer. It didn’t take long for the sun to be blocked out as the square door lowered to the cement.
She slid out of the vehicle and hesitated a second to gather her wits about her. Over the course of the ride home, she had practiced her apology to Andy over and over. Payton planned to be honest and open with her husband for the first time in a long time.
Opening the adjoining door, she entered into the kitchen. The house was completely silent.
“Hmmm, that’s odd.” She dropped her briefcase and purse on the counter and walked into the living room. The TV was off
and the blessed silence was almost eerie.
“Andy? Are you here?” she called up the staircase. “Where are the kids?”
Receiving no response, she turned to walk back to the kitchen. Nothing was pulled out of the freezer for supper. Payton popped the fridge open and inspected the contents. There wasn’t much but staples like milk, cheese, and some fruit.
Shoot—I’ll have to get something going. Oh, to hell with it. I’ll call him on his cell and order a pizza if he didn’t pick something up.
As she turned for the phone, a shuffling noise to her right caught her attention. Payton swiveled to see Andy in the hallway entrance. He leaned against the jamb with his arms crossed before his broad chest and one ankle propped against the other.
She took in his long muscular length. He simply stood there and stared at her. His expression was unreadable. Her heart sank.
“Hi, where are the kids?” It was difficult to keep her voice level. Suddenly, she was frightened beyond belief, and she wasn’t sure why.
“At my mom’s.”
Her slender eyebrows dipped in a frown. “Your mom’s? What are they doing there?”
“I sent them off for the weekend.”
Payton’s blue eyes widened as she chewed on her bottom lip. “Why did you send them there?”
Andy swallowed silently and continued to watch her closely. Don’t turn me away now, Payton. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute? I’ve got something I want to discuss with you.”
She recognized the seriousness in his gaze. Payton swallowed back the instant fear that pierced her heart. She had waited too long. Andy had had enough of her virginal responses over the last few years of their marriage.
She crossed stiffly to the breakfast nook and seated herself with an air of calmness even though her hands shook.
Andy seated himself on a stool across from her. His stare unnerved her.
Payton ran a hand through her hair and glanced up at him. Figure something out! You can’t let him leave you. Andy—I love you so much! I’m sorry…