Cathie skipped across the backyard like a young girl, her tousled hair flowing behind her. Her bra flew from her strong, lean shoulders and fell like matching parachutes halfway to the old tree. He froze on the porch. His heart raced as she gripped the trunk of the tree. His hard-on collapsed.
Cathie climbed. Sean’s limbs tingled as she ascended higher into the dense leaves on one healthy side. She pulled off her panties and let them fall to the ground. Her pale skin sparkled behind the softly dancing leaves. “C’mon, baby.”
Sean swallowed hard and walked to the trunk of the tree. Cathie had positioned herself up above a spot where the trunk split into two, her nude body stretched long.
There was a rustling in the yard next door. He whispered hoarsely, “Come down from there, Cathie.”
“Make me.” She opened her legs wide and suspended her body with her strong hands like a pole dancer. Her pussy lips were beautiful. Her pubic hair glistened.
He so wanted her, and his cock rose again. “Really, Cathie, this isn’t funny.”
“You were right, it’s still a good, strong tree, see? Let’s enjoy it.”
Sean shook his head.
“Come on up. Please.” She brought her legs back down and blew him a kiss.
All the worries, all the fears knotted in his stomach, while his desire to atone for the prior night emerged. He grabbed the trunk of the tree. He ascended through the inevitable woozy feeling. He started to tilt his head down.
“Eyes on me!” Cathie pointed to each spot he should grab as he climbed toward her.
He trembled when he finally stopped across from where Cathie was suspended. “Put your hands there and there.” She directed him to lean back and grip two branches like a crucifixion. He did. Cathie leaned forward and took his jaw in her hands. “Thank you for being there for me last night.” She yanked his sweatpants down and his cock sprung out like the sunrise. “Sorry I walked away. I hate to cry, just fucking hate it.” Cathie straddled him and gripped around his shoulders. He was her only support, her legs dangled free, her pussy devoured him. “You feel so good in me.” She kissed his neck, then bit one earlobe.
Brappa. Brappa. BZZZZZ!
Cathie arched her hips above Sean to expose almost every inch of his cock to the morning air, then she compressed tight again.
KHHRRRT!
She stared into his eyes as she fucked him with a perfect rhythm that only she knew. He was unspeakably excited and devoutly scared. The cocktail was heady. He wanted to come, but that would not be practical. “Please, ease up, Cathie.”
The bark and spindles hurt. His fingers ached from holding the combined weights of their bodies writhing high in the balding tree. The echoes of the churning chainsaw and woodchips scattering in the next lawn could not overshadow the soft sound of Cathie’s ascending breaths in his ear. “I want it. Let it go.” She’d never asked verbally. Something in this struck him deeply and it took all his control not to release. He tried to distract himself, but it wasn’t easy, poised in a tree, the nude body of his wife pounding his hips like the back of a cleaver tenderizing tough meat.
She grunted into him with a shuddering, explosive, but nearly silent orgasm. He was still hard in her, still needing, still trying to distract himself. He began to ease his cock out. “Okay, let’s go inside, Cathie.”
“You are inside. Please stay.” She forced the weight of her hips down again. She reached around his biceps and the branches to brace them both. She moaned in time with the pumping of her hips and forced him to stare into her pale blue eyes.
“Oh, oh, Cathie. I—I—you know how I lose it when I come.”
“That I do.”
Sean’s balls were tight as an underripe peach. His hands twitched, his feet started to lose their grip. He tried to hold back. He looked away. He held. He held.
Her lip touched his ear. “Let go, Sean. I need it.”
He exploded, and a shockwave consumed his body as the chainsaw continued to methodically section the downed limbs of the fallen healthy oak next door. He gasped, writhed and gave a deep, hopeful, elated yell as he shot deep into Cathie’s body. His body was beyond his control. The most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life opened across Cathie’s lips; her lean biceps felt like a bodybuilder’s as she suspended the two.
The chainsaw idled. A strong voice called out. “Who’s out there?”
Sean looked out through the defiant leaves toward the workman who squinted, trying to make out where the sound had come from. “Get back to work.” Sean deliberately lowered his voice an octave. Cathie popped one hand to her mouth to silence a laugh and they teetered to that side. Sean grabbed the limbs and held Cathie and him fast. She coiled to him again. Their combined grips suspended them like they were a part of the tree.
The spindles and bark of the tree felt good.
Sean and Cathie sat on the lawn chairs on the back porch, each wearing a robe, their bare legs resting on the same little stool, feet entwined. They looked toward the balding tree in the fading evening light. Cathie rested her palm in Sean’s hand. “I made a nice sale today. Old neighborhood, young couple.”
“Seems you’re settling in at Harkin.”
“I just had to realize that I’m not a hard sell.”
“No shit?”
She laughed. “No shit. Wanna risk climbing a predatory tree?”
“I don’t know—”
“C’mon.” Cathie rose from the chair and lifted the hem of her robe to expose her beautiful, bare ass. She gripped Sean’s hand tight and towed him toward the tree.
Sean’s heart pounded double time and he pulled against her. She continued unabated, and he followed in choppy, hesitant steps until his stride widened with inflating confidence.
He paused at the trunk of the tree and watched her climb so nimbly. She stripped her robe off and let it fall to the ground. “Come on, slowpoke.”
He kept his eyes on Cathie as he climbed.
THE MITZVAH
Tiffany Reisz
Day One was the hardest. Watching her husband Zachary trying to pin the torn bit of black ribbon to his jacket with trembling hands nearly broke her. Grace walked over and took the ribbon from him. As she pinned it to his lapel, Zachary pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “Thank you.” She couldn’t even speak; she only nodded and kissed him quick.
Taking his hand, she followed him out of his childhood bedroom. Feeling lost among Zachary’s Jewish family, Grace decided that keeping her mouth shut and staying close to her husband would be her strategy for the day. Zachary’s grief at his mother’s unexpected death two days ago had been so acute that Grace hardly gave her own sorrow a thought. She’d loved Sara, Zachary’s mother, and still couldn’t believe the beautiful woman who’d given her husband his ice-blue eyes and his black hair and his love of literature was gone. Sara had been the first of Zachary’s family to embrace her after their suspiciously quick wedding seven years ago. “You’re too young for him. And you’re a gentile. But I know my son. He married you for love. Don’t ever think otherwise.”
Mute with grief, the Easton family assembled in the living room and filed out of the house and into cars. Grace glanced around at the other women and checked her dress against theirs. The youngest wife present by at least ten years, Grace feared her plain navy dress appeared too chic, too short. But her sister-in-law Dita, wife of Zachary’s rabbi brother, wore a tailored black suit that showed off her shapely knees and calves. Dita caught Grace looking at her and smiled a reassurance. Grace smiled her gratitude back and slipped into the backseat of the car next to Zachary.
Alone with each other in the back of the car, Zachary squeezed her knee.
“How’s my shiksa?” he asked, and Grace laughed a little.
“Your shiksa’s okay. How are you?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Sorry. Terrible question.”
Zachary gave her a tight smile. “You’re here. I’ll be fine. I think.”
She clung to his hand. “I�
��m always here.”
Grace looked away and gave him a moment’s privacy to wipe the tear from his cheek.
Zachary, as a former literature professor and current editor of fiction, had been the natural choice to write and give the eulogy for the family matriarch. Grace thought she’d never survive those few hours yesterday when Zachary had holed up in his home office to write his final words to his mother. It took everything Grace had not to barge in and throw her arms around her husband and sob with him all night long. His grief came first, so she held it together, gave him his time alone and cried silently in their bed.
She closed her eyes and remembered last night. At one in the morning, Zachary had finally come to bed. She’d heard a noise and turned toward the sound. Watching her husband undress in the dark, she’d chided herself for thinking torrid thoughts of him even in their shared grief. He’d crawled across the sheets to her and pulled her small frame against his much larger, six-foot-tall self.
“We can’t make love during shivah,” he’d whispered in the dark.
“When does shivah start?” she’d asked, wrapping her arms around his muscular shoulders.
“Tomorrow. After the funeral.”
“How long does it last?”
Zachary kissed her lips. She could feel the tension in his taut body as she ran her hands up and down his arms.
“Seven days,” he breathed.
“Oh, god,” she said. Zachary had laughed softly—the first laugh she’d heard from him since yesterday—as he pushed her gently onto her back.
He slipped his hand into her pajama pants and pushed a finger into her. Part of her relished the pleasure of reconnecting with him after so many hours of separation. But a small voice in her head told her she should be grieving right now, not panting underneath her husband.
“Are you sure?”
“Please, Gracie. I need this,” he’d whispered, and she’d slipped out of her clothes and opened her legs wide for him. He teased her clitoris with his fingertips and gently sucked on her nipples until they hardened in his warm mouth. Even in his sadness, he would never take her until her body was wet and ready.
When he entered her, she’d wrapped her legs around his lower back and clung to him with all her strength and all her love. Missionary wasn’t one of their favorite positions. Zachary far preferred her on her stomach, his hand in her long red hair, and with his chest to her back and his mouth to her ear. But tonight she felt he needed to make love to her face-to-face, needed the comfort of her whole body wrapped around him.
As he thrust into her, she caressed his strong back with her hands and his shoulder with her lips. Exhausted from grief and stress and packing for their week ahead at his parents’ house, Grace couldn’t relax enough to come. It didn’t matter. This time was for Zachary and she whispered that into his ear.
“Are you sure?” He kissed her face, her neck.
“Yes. Just come when you need to. Use me.” She rocked her hips in that way that always made his breath catch. “I want you to.”
He nodded and dug his hands into the soft skin of her thighs and thrust harder. Grace lay beneath him, happy she could do this one small thing to comfort him. He came with a quiet shudder and lingered inside her for a few minutes more before pulling out.
“One week,” she repeated. “Whoever invented shivah must be a sadist.” Grace ran her fingers over her husband’s handsome features. She loved his forehead the most. Or maybe his strong nose. His sculpted lips had given her more than a few happy memories.
“I think God invented shivah,” Zachary answered, pulling her to him and resting his head on her shoulder.
Grace rolled onto her other side and pressed her back to Zachary’s chest. He held her tight to him and she felt a tear sliding down her face. She couldn’t be sure if the tear belonged to her or him.
“I stand by my words.”
Finally at the funeral home, Grace refused to let go of Zachary’s hand. The few hugs he gave, he gave one-armed, while his other arm stayed with her. They took their seats in the front rows as Zachary’s brother, Rabbi Aaron Easton, led them in prayers. Usually she loved seeing him in his yarmulke. She found the traditional head-covering quite adorable. But today he looked grim and somber. Grace tensed as the time arrived for Zachary to read his eulogy.
His brother called him forward and Zachary squeezed her hand once, released it and walked to the front. He pulled his notes from his jacket pocket and opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Grace’s stomach dropped. Zachary took a deep breath and his brother reached out and touched his arm. Grace didn’t know what to do. She wanted to sob, to grab Zachary and sink to the floor with him and wail. Instead she stood up calmly and walked to him. She twined her arm through his, took his notes and began to read.
“My mother,” Grace began, wanting to cry but laughing instead as she read out loud the words of her husband’s eulogy, “would threaten to slap us all if she saw us right now. And then she’d make us eat something.”
That night Grace lay next to Zachary in his childhood bed at his parents’ home and reminded herself that it was only Day One of Shivah. And they had six days left to get through before she and Zachary could make love again. She knew it would make the waiting so much harder if she touched him, but she couldn’t stop herself from draping herself over his chest and pressing her ear to him.
“Your heart’s still beating,” Grace said as Zachary laid his arm over her back.
“That’s a comfort.”
“It is. It’s never allowed to stop beating.”
“It stopped once,” Zachary said, tracing her shoulder blade with his fingertips.
Grace looked up at him. “When?”
“The day I met you.”
Grace said nothing. She just crawled up his body and kissed him long and deep. Zachary took her face in his hands and didn’t let her move away for a solid five minutes.
With a shuddering breath, Grace pulled away from her husband and lay on her side away from him.
He lay close and rubbed her feet with his until she giggled.
“Not quite as good as sex, but footsie will tide me over,” she said, play-kicking him.
“She wouldn’t care, you know.” Zachary slipped his hand under her shirt and touched her back.
“But you do care. Even if you won’t admit it.”
Zachary sighed. “I do. I don’t know why I do, but I do. I’m usually a terrible Jew.” Grace laughed.
“Well, considering I’m Welsh Presbyterian, I really don’t think I can judge how good of a Jew you are or not. But you did worship your mother so I hear that makes you quite a good Jewish boy. And she died three days ago. So I think she and I both would understand if your mind were on something other than sex with your wife.”
“It’s a novel sensation.”
“What is?”
“Having my mind be on something other than sex with my wife,” Zachary said, moving closer to her but making no move to undress her. “Not sure I like it.”
Day Two had gone a little better. A steady stream of friends and relatives, many of whom she’d never met before, kept her mind off her grief. But by Day Three, Grace woke up dreading another night lying next to her husband and feeling guilty about how desperately she wanted to climb onto him, take him inside her, and help him forget all his pain, if only for an hour or two.
On Day Four, Grace had had enough of the house of grief. She pulled on her trainers and went for an early morning run before the parade of friends and relatives started again. When she made it back to the house, wet with sweat and shivering from cold, she found her sister-in-law Dita in the kitchen.
“Tea?” Dita offered, and Grace accepted with gratitude. “How are you holding up? It must be strange for you. Zachary tells me this is your first Jewish funeral.”
Grace sipped at her tea.
“It’s different. I appreciate the rituals—covering the mirrors, not cooking, not going out. It’s just…difficult. And more than a little
frustrating.”
“Yes, I miss the sex, too.”
Grace’s eyes went wide. Then she covered her mouth to stifle an unruly laugh.
“Dita, I didn’t say—”
“You didn’t have to,” Dita said, pouring milk into her black tea. “It’s nice to see that after seven years, you and Zachary still can’t keep your eyes off of each other. You might love him as much as I love Aaron. Maybe.”
“A close second at least. Yes. I’m not a fan of that particular provision of shivah. But Zachary’s really grieving. I’m sure it’s for the best.”
Dita rolled her eyes. “Nonsense. He needs his wife. And he needs a distraction. You can be both.”
“Not for three more days,” Grace said and counted not just the days but the hours until she and Zachary would be free of shivah and back home in their bedroom in London again.
“I’ll tell you a little secret from a Jew to a shiksa,” Dita said, leaning in. “Life comes before death. When a funeral procession meets a wedding procession, the wedding procession goes first. Shivah’s suspended during shabbat, Grace. And the shabbat starts at sundown tonight. And…during shabbat, sex with your spouse is a mitzvah.” A mitzvah, Grace knew, was a good deed, a divine commandment.
“Dita, I’m ready to convert.”
“Don’t you dare. I love having a redheaded shiksa for a sister-in-law.”
Grace took Dita’s advice to heart. She said nothing to Zachary, merely watched him all day looking for any signs that any advances on her part would be unwelcome that night. But as they sat side by side greeting yet another stream of visitors, Zachary rarely stopped touching her. He’d rest his hand on her knee or lightly scratch her back. His grief today seemed heartrending as usual, but calmer now. Late in the afternoon, the house emptied and the Easton family started to get ready for shul.
“Would I be a horrible wife if I didn’t go with you?” Grace asked.
“I’d consider it grounds for divorce,” Zachary deadpanned. “No, of course you don’t have to go. Go out. Eat something very un-kosher for me. Please.”
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