by Doyle, S
It wasn’t just the sex either. I missed her easy smiles and her overall happy demeanor. Not to use the scale analogy, because that was her thing, but on a scale of one to ten of happiness, Ellie lived between eight and ten most days.
This quiet fearful woman next to me in the truck was somewhat of a stranger. And talking to her was hard now. Talking to Ellie had never been hard.
I pulled up in front of the diner and parked.
“You ready?”
“Yep,” she said. Although she hadn’t moved.
“I know you’re not waiting for me to open your door,” I teased.
That got a flash of a smile. “You used to. I remember a lot of lifting me around back in the day.”
“That’s when I was wooing you. That part is over since we’re married. Besides, you’re fat now. The lifting would be hard on my back.”
“Jake Talley!” she screeched even as she swatted my arm.
There, I thought. That was better.
I opened the door and by the time I got out she was waiting for me. I took her hand and together we made our way to the diner. I opened the door and I could practically feel her tension as she stepped inside. Worried that the place would be filled with familiar faces.
It was. Hank and his wife were there. So was Mrs. Nash with the kids. We waved at them and then took our regular booth. It was Bernie who came over to us, which meant they had lost yet another waitress.
Bernie was Frank’s wife, and she preferred to keep the books and handle the food orders, but ever since Kathy left Riverbend to move back to be closer to her sister, it had been a rotating door of waitresses.
Bernie was always the last option because Bernie had a hard time not spilling things on people.
“Hey Jake. Hey Ellie,” she greeted us. Then she looked harder at Ellie, as if sensing what was different about her. “Oh my, Ellie do you have some news?”
“Nope. No news,” Ellie said quickly. Then she scooted closer to the table as if to hide the evidence.
I sighed. I kind of hoped everyone finding out might change her feelings about it, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
Bernie was clearly taken aback by the denial and at a loss for words. But she recovered quickly and nodded. As if realizing it wasn’t her place to push the issue.
“Well what can I get you to drink?”
“Water for me,” Ellie said.
“I’ll take a Coke.”
Bernie nodded again and shuffled off. I watched as she made her way over to Mrs. Nash and they started talking, looking over at us furtively.
I shook my head. “You’re going to have to tell people at some point, Ellie. It’s becoming obvious.”
“I know, but it doesn’t have to be today. Besides it’s not really anyone’s business but mine.”
“Ours,” I corrected her. Yes, it was true. She was the one who got sick, she was the one who was going to get huge, and she was the one who was going to have to pop the kid out, but this was part of me too. She needed to realize that. So she could share the burden.
“Ours,” she repeated.
Eventually, Bernie made her way back to us. I only got some of my Coke splashed on my shirt, so I called it a success. We put our orders in for burgers and fries and sat back to wait.
Then Ellie started to fidget. I could tell by the way she was ripping up the straw wrapper into tiny pieces something was on her mind. Something not good. Ellie only ripped up the straw wrapper when she was nervous about something.
“What is it?”
She looked at me.
“Ellie, I know when you have something you want to say, but are afraid to say it. So whatever is going through that head of yours just lay it on me.”
“I was thinking about something. It’s crazy and you’re probably going to be mad, but I just keep going back to it and…”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s about your mother.”
I flinched. Thoughts of my mother were never pleasant. Which is why I did my best to never think about her. Ever.
“What about her?”
“Have you considered that she will be the… you know…” She patted her stomach.
“The baby,” I said bluntly. Because I was getting tired of this avoidance crap and now I was annoyed we were talking about my mother.
“She’ll be the only living grandparent. The only blood relative we have between us, beside my aunt, who wasn’t there for me even when my dad died.”
“No,” I said carefully. “She. Won’t.”
“Jake…”
“No,” I repeated maybe a little too curtly, but I had gone from annoyed to pissed. We were in public so I couldn’t express that like I normally would have. Probably why Ellie waited until we were here to spring this on me. I took a breath and made my point crystal clear.
“That woman is not my mother. That woman is not my child’s grandparent. That woman is nothing to me. Certainly not family.”
She sighed. She couldn’t have expected any other reaction. “I just think… I mean maybe we should at least find out where she is. So we know. In case.”
I nearly saw red. “Ellie, I don’t give a fuck where she is. And there is no reason for us to know anything about her.”
“But it’s just us, Jake,” she protested.
“Yes, Ellie. It’s always been just us. We got this, remember?”
Slowly she nodded.
“This topic is closed. Indefinitely.”
She pursed her lips. Ellie didn’t do well with direct orders, but I was hardcore about this. My mother was not a topic of discussion. The less I thought about her existence the better.
Eventually, she nodded again.
Our burgers came and we had the distraction of food to cover up the fact that we weren’t talking to each other.
I hated not talking to Ellie, and the fact that she even brought up the subject of my mother meant she had some fucked-up shit spinning around in her head. I had thought once she was the past the first trimester things would change, but it was starting to become obvious this was more than just a fear of a miscarriage.
Ellie was afraid of something much bigger than that.
She was afraid we didn’t have this… and that broke my heart a little bit.
* * *
Ellie
I was turned on. I mean super turned on. I woke up with Jake around me, which was pretty normal but for the first time in months, I wanted him.
Bad.
It sounded like he was asleep. I wasn’t sure what time it was—early, before dawn, if he was still in bed. All I had to do was wiggle my backside against his crotch and that would probably do the trick. Jake woke up most days with a hard on. On a lot of those days I did something about it.
Because remember, me, sort of a horn dog. Now it seemed that those hormones I had read about, the ones that could actually kick a woman’s sex drive up a notch, were here and making their presence known. I was pretty sure I could squeeze my legs together a few times and make myself come.
Only why do that when I had a hot cowboy, who must be massively hard up because he hadn’t been getting it from me lately, in the bed next to me? If I woke Jake up and told him how I was feeling, I was fairly confident he would want sex.
Intercourse (which made my former sixteen-year-old self giggle when the doctor had said it) Dr. Jenkins had said, was safe. The books said it was safe. Logically, I knew all of that. But the problem was if I didn’t think it was safe while it was happening, then it wouldn’t be any fun doing it. Because I wouldn’t be thinking about how good it felt, I would only be thinking. About hurting the baby. About screwing everything up.
There was, however, more than one way to skin a cat, and by that I meant get Jake to give me an orgasm.
Although first things first. The man deserved a little oral attention. Plus, if I gave him his orgasm, then he would have to take care of me in some other creative way. It was a plan.
I rolled in his arms, whi
ch had him moving to his back with a sigh. He still wasn’t awake, but if I pulled back the blankets… hello!
Jake’s cock was like my favorite toy. He was semi-hard, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to gobble him up. The last time I tried this it sent me into puke-off central, but there was none of that today. In fact I felt super charged.
I scooted down on the bed and didn’t hesitate. I immediately took him in my mouth, pushing down as far as I could go before coming back up with a swipe of my tongue at the end.
It really was a perfect penis. Heavy and thick with a broad head. And after three years of worshiping it, I knew exactly what he liked.
“Ellie,” he sighed.
That’s right. He was fully up now, in every sense of the word. His fingers tangled in my hair and I loved that. Loved it when he got so into it that he would start guiding me. Jake was always so careful with me. My protector against the world, but when it was like this between us in bed, sometimes he lost some of that vaulted Jake control. And he would use that hand to push me to take more. To hold me in place while he fucked my mouth.
He was doing that now. Pumping his hips up into me. Fucking my mouth instead of letting me suck at my leisure. I was pretty sure one touch to my pussy and I was going to explode.
“Ellie, I’m going to come… do you want me inside you? I wanna be inside you.”
No, I wanted him here, where I was in control and not afraid of anything. I sucked on him harder and again, for a guy who had gone as long as he had without, his control was shot.
He groaned and then I felt the first pulse of his release hit my tongue. I continued to suck on him and he continued to jerk and shudder, and I knew it was good for him because he kept saying my name over and over again.
When he was done, I took one last lick, then popped my head up at him and smiled.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Fuck me,” he huffed, pulling his hands out of my hair, then scrubbing them over his face like he was coming to terms with how good he felt. “How you got so good at that when you’ve only had one lover I’ll never know.”
“Uh romance novels, Jake. The great sexual educator. Now it’s my turn right?”
“Yeah, if you give me a few minutes, I think I can make a pretty fast recovery.”
“I was thinking more… you know, tit for tat. Mouth for mouth.”
He popped his head up and he laughed. “Whatever my wife wants.”
I hopped on my back and clapped my hands. Then I took off my pajama shorts. And spread my legs.
“Wow,” he said, crawling over me. “Someone’s eager. You don’t want me to play with you a little bit first?”
My nipples were hard and achy. I wondered how his mouth would feel on them. It would hurt a little, but in that way that felt so good. Except just thinking about that had me revved up so much that was I already thrusting my hips in the air.
“Please… Jake. I’m so close already.”
He didn’t say anything. It was as if he could sense how on the edge I was. He dropped his face between my legs and literally that was all it took. One long stroke of his tongue over my clit and boom! Oh, and it felt so damn good. Like this all-over body orgasm that just went on and on.
Hello hormones.
But then Jake was still going and I was too sensitive. I tapped his shoulder and he lifted his head. “I’m good.”
“But I barely…”
“I said I was close,” I offered with a shy smile.
“You want to try for another? You want to see if maybe we can try and…”
I shook my head.
Then he plopped back on his side of the bed with a sigh. I knew that sigh.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I know I’m messing this all up. I broke our sex life.”
He turned toward me and pulled me into his arms, my back against his chest. “You did not break our sex life.”
“I keep going over and over it and all I can think about is what if you jar something loose? What if it triggers cramping or bleeding? I even thought about anal, but I know you’re afraid of it…”
“You say that all the time. I’m not afraid of anal.”
I looked at him over my shoulder with a dubious expression. “Jake, we’ve been married for three years. I’ve brought it up twice and you’ve shot it down hard.”
“Yes. Because once again you’ve only been with me, Ellie, so you might not realize this, but I have a pretty big dick. The idea of hurting you while I’m fucking you is not the biggest turn on for me.”
He was afraid of it. Trust me.
“Doesn’t matter anyway. I would be just as worried you would jar something loose from that end.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s biologically impossible, but listen.” He wrapped his arm around me and laid his large hand over the bump. I’m not going to lie, I kind of liked how that looked. “We’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. That’s a lot of sex. If we’re off a little for a couple of months… then we’ll deal with it.”
I turned to look at him again. He really was the best man. “Are you still going to want to bone me when I’m old and wrinkly?”
“Yep,” he said as he pressed a kiss to the back of my head. “I don’t care if your boobs are around your knees. I’m going to stock up on as much Viagra as possible and go to town on you every night.”
I giggled. Then I thought about where my boobs might actually be when I’m eighty, but that was something I couldn’t worry about today. For now we were two, for the most part sexually satisfied adults, and I was content.
It didn’t last long though. Because as much as I tried to move past it, as much as I worked not to think about it, the scary thoughts came back. The ones I didn’t tell Jake about.
The ones that made me do something super colossally stupid and almost cost me everything.
6
Ellie
October
(The month I really screwed things up.)
Family is family. Cody’s words from the barn that day had taken hold and wouldn’t let me go. I tried to talk to Jake about his mother, but he simply wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let me explain why I thought it was so important that we at least know where she was. What she was doing.
Heck, if she was even still alive.
My mother had died young. My father had died young. It wasn’t a given that this woman was alive. I told myself we owed it to ourselves to find out that much.
That was my justification, anyway. For hiring the private investigator. All I knew about Adele Talley was that she had come from Seattle, Washington. Jake’s father had fallen in love hard and brought her back to his ranch, but she’d never been happy in Montana. She might have left sooner if it hadn’t been for Jake.
She probably thought staying with her son until he was eleven was enough.
It wasn’t.
It’s not like I forgave her for that either. That’s not what this was about. This was about precautions. This was about safety nets. This was about my fears.
I sat in the study, which had basically become my office. While Jake handled the animal husbandry side of the ranch, the numbers, the accounts, that was all me. It worked especially now that I was sidelined from all of the heavier chores. At least here I still felt like I was contributing my fair share.
Which is why I had felt comfortable opening the letter from the investigator I had hired in Seattle. Jake never interrupted me when I was in the study with the door closed.
It was a final bill from the investigator along with an address. At least, a last known address.
My heart started to pound. Tacoma, Washington. Adele Tally was in Tacoma, Washington, and if Jake knew what I was about to do he would be so pissed.
Like on a scale of one to ten… a total ten pissed.
I could try to talk to him, I thought, but I didn’t see how his attitude would change. Not when it came to that woman. If he knew I had actually hired someone to find her, he would lose his shit.
&n
bsp; If he knew what I was doing now…
I looked at the Word document I had written and had up on the screen. I read it again. Then again. It was brief. It was factual. There was no emotion in it at all, I thought. It wasn’t as if this was some type of reconciliation. I just wanted to know where she was, what she was like as a person.
A precaution in case something bad happened to both of us. Like something bad had happened to me.
I knew it was wrong. I knew it. But if I told Jake about finding her, about reaching out to her… What if she didn’t reply at all? That could be because she was no longer at the address, or it could be because she had no desire to reconnect with her son.
To Jake it would feel like he was being rejected all over again. That wasn’t something I could handle.
That wasn’t a justification either. That was my truth.
I hit the button to print the letter. I stuffed it in an envelope where I had printed her name and her address on the front.
I could rip it up. I could tear it into pieces, delete the file on my laptop, and pretend I hadn’t done this thing.
Except I had.
Which is why I instead took the truck and drove to Jefferson to mail it.
Because I didn’t want Hank at the post office to know that I was stabbing my husband in the back.
Jake
October
(Or as I refer to it, the month Ellie royally screwed up.)
In hindsight I should have seen it coming. But things had started to normalize in October between us. My wife had morphed from a woman who enjoyed sex on a regular basis to a walking, talking hormone.
She was still shying away from intercourse, but everything else was fair game. Don’t get me wrong. What man has a problem waking up to regular blow jobs, and having a wife who he can get off with a look in the right direction?
One time I played with her nipples and made her come three times just from that. It was delicious and intimate and sexy.
Except it still felt like something was missing. I missed being inside Ellie. There was something deeply satisfying when we were connected like that. Like we weren’t two people, but one unit.