With This Ring, I Thee Bed

by Alison Tyler

  “Oliver!” she screamed. Just his name. That’s all she had time for before her orgasm crashed over her like the thunder shaking the ground beneath her.

  He pressed his tongue to her, moving it slowly over her wetness as she came. The constant contact was too much—and not enough. She cupped the back of his head and pulled him into her, wanting more, wanting it to last forever. She rocked against him, feet braced against the sides of the rowboat, clenching her muscles around the tip of his tongue as he slipped it inside her.

  The sensations subsided, little aftershocks quaking through her and making her tremble as Oliver kept up his steady pressure. Finally, she lowered her feet to the bottom of the boat and pulled him up by the shoulders of his shirt. He settled his weight on top of her, pressing her deeper into the hard wooden boat. She wrapped her legs around him and rocked against him even though he was still fully clothed.

  “I promise to never fake it again,” she whispered as she pulled him down for a kiss, tasting herself on his tongue. “Now fuck me.”

  Oliver rose up and she reached between them, unfastening his pants and palming his erection once she worked the zipper down. Between the two of them, they got his pants down around his knees. She squeezed his cock before guiding it into her, arching her back to take him inside. He groaned as he sank into her, inch by blessed inch.

  “I promise not to go eight months without making love to you,” he said, his face buried in her neck. “I promise not to go eight days without fucking you senseless.”

  She wrapped her legs high around his back, feeling him go so deep it almost hurt. It was a familiar feeling, a familiar longing to have him this close, but she’d let herself forget it. They found their rhythm as easily as if they’d just had sex the day before, as if it hadn’t been months since the last time and years since it was good. He slipped his hands under her and gripped her ass, pulling her up high on his cock, rocking into her slow and deep, just the way she liked.

  “I promise not to forget what this is like,” she gasped as he thrust into her. “I promise to tell you how good it is and how much I love you inside me.”

  He sucked at her neck, no doubt leaving marks on her pale skin. She trembled under him, the emotional sensations nearly as powerful as the physical ones. The rowboat shifted under their weight, banging against the wall of the boathouse and making the whole structure shake.

  Charlotte pulled his head up and looked into his eyes, feeling another orgasm building. “I’m going to come again,” she said with a gasp as his pelvic bone rocked against her clit.

  “Promise me you’ll come hard.”

  She tightened her pussy around him, nodding. “I promise.”

  He leaned down to kiss her hard, nipping her lip. “I promise not to come until you do.”

  And then she was coming again, coming with him so deep inside her she felt impossibly full and stretched and whole. She moaned as she strained up against him, going mad with the pleasure as he fucked her just as he had promised. Senseless.

  She had made love to him too many times not to know when he was ready to finish. His cock pulsed inside her and the vein in his jaw throbbed in response as he tried to maintain control. She slid her hands down the taut muscles in his back to grip his ass, pulling him into her, her pussy still quivering and tightening around his length.

  “Promise me you’ll come as hard as I did,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to that vein his jaw. “Promise me you’ll come right now.”

  His response was the groan of an animal in pain—or pleasure. He quickened his pace, thrusting into her slick wetness, the boat thumping hard against the wall. She whispered promises in his ear, promises of the things she would do to him later, promises of the things she would beg for from him. That was all it took. He arched up over her, his expression as wild and out of control as the storm outside.

  She held on to him and soothed him like a wild thing as he came, thrusting into her again and again. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said, an affirmation in response to the look on his face, the feel of his body. “Yes.”

  He lowered himself on top of her, his cock still throbbing inside her. She wrapped her arms and legs around his still trembling body and held him close, reveling in the smell of his hair and the steady thump of his heart against her chest.

  After a while, he pushed up on one elbow and looked down at her. His expression was unreadable and she licked her lip nervously, waiting for him to speak.

  “I promise not to let you go,” he said.

  She nodded. “Me, too.”

  A smile slid easily into place on his boyishly handsome face. “As much as I liked those other vows we took, maybe we should come up with something more appropriate for tomorrow.”

  She wiggled under him. “As easy as that? We’re…together again?”

  He rocked his hips, his softening erection still enough of a presence to make her gasp. “Do you want us to be together again?”

  She knew it shouldn’t be that easy. She also knew that they had too much to gain not to try. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then we are. We start over. We begin again. New vows, new promises. You and me.”

  It sounded good. She cupped the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. She had meant it just as an affirmation of her feelings, but it turned into a long, slow tongue kiss that had him hardening inside her.

  “Again?” she gasped as he gave a little thrust.

  He smiled, all husbandly pride and masculine arousal. “I promise.”

  The Wedding Stoppers

  Michael Hemmingson

  1

  The morning of the wedding, they had sex. She showed up at his door at 7:00 a.m. Somehow, he knew she would do this; he knew she would torment him one more time with what he could not have: her body, her touch, her pussy.

  “I thought you said no more.”

  “You know I’m a liar,” Chloe said.

  She walked past him and into his messy apartment. “Maid didn’t come yesterday?”

  “So once you’re a married woman…”

  She put fingers to his lips. “Quiet.”

  They went to bed.

  She said, while he was inside her, “You had to come play sloshball that day, didn’t you?”

  “I should show up today and object to your wedding,” Gabriel said.

  “You wouldn’t dare. Would you? Would you?”

  As in: would you, please?

  2

  His name: Gabriel Barnes, twenty-eight years old and in love with Chloe McNamara, twenty-three, who worked in the same office as he did. She was engaged to the son of the woman who owned the company they worked for—a very rich and powerful woman in Encinitas, California: Gretchen Binkowski. Chloe’s intended was Gregory Binkowski, who always wore immaculate suits. Gabriel hated him. Gabriel had noticed Chloe at the office—what man didn’t—but she was engaged, after all, and at the time he had a live-in girlfriend, Hannah. Everything changed the day of the office sloshball game, considering what happened between Chloe and him. Or maybe it started the day at the Binkowski house, to celebrate the announcement of the wedding day….

  3

  Hannah Tate: twenty-six years old, aspiring playwright and actress, unhappy about the theater prospects in San Diego. She had come to San Diego when she was twenty-four because the drama department at UCSD had given her a scholarship. She was from Boise, Idaho, where there was no significant theater. One day she met Gabriel Barnes and six months later they moved in together. The problem: she could not be faithful to him. She enjoyed sex too much to keep to one man, no matter how much she loved Gabriel. She preferred variety and she was a playwright; after all, she needed new experiences to write about. The problem: most of the men she had sex with weren’t very interesting.

  Take, for instance, the day of the announcement party. She was to meet Gabriel there. He had to go because he worked for the woman throwing the event; she had to go because she was his girlfriend and companion. She was late, though, because s
he was having sex with a surfer guy she’d met two weeks ago at Starbucks.

  When she realized she was late, she jumped out of the surfer guy’s bed and quickly got dressed.

  The surfer guy lay naked on the bed, his cock resting on his belly, and stared at her. “Why the hurry?”

  “Wasn’t watching the time.”

  “Who cares about time? Get back here.”

  “Have to be somewhere. I’m late, I’m late, said the rabbit to Alice. Poop! Where’s my other sock?”

  She looked around, couldn’t locate the sock.

  “Oh yeah?” said the surfer guy. “Can I come with?”

  “No, you cannot ‘come with.’”

  “Dudette.”

  “What?”

  “A quickie before you go?”

  “Dude,” she said, “it’s never a ‘quickie’ with you.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  She smiled. He had a point. She said, “Actually, it’s your most endearing quality, that innate penchant you have for stride and stamina. It’s not like I come here to discuss high literature and string theory with you.”

  He stood up. She admired his body: tanned and muscular, his cock already hard and ready.

  “Come hither, chick-eee.”

  “I wish I could come hither. Gotta jet, cockmaster.”

  She found the sock!

  She headed for the door.

  “Whoa,” said surfer dude, “what’s so important?”

  “Prewedding party thing!”

  “Yeah? Yours?”

  “Funny,” she said, “bone.”

  4

  Gabriel was on his third beer and wondering where Hannah was. She was forty-five minutes late. Everyone at the office was here, plus their various spouses, significant others and friends. The party was in the lavish backyard of Gretchen Binkowski’s home in Encinitas. Home—mansion, with twenty rooms. The event was catered, open bar, with a string quartet playing chamber music on the lawn. There were also a lot of people he did not know, friends and business associates of Mrs. Binkowski’s. He counted seventy people when there should be seventy-one.

  People were too well dressed for this, the men in their suits and ties and the women in their suits and gowns. He thought this was to be informal. He tried to avoid Mrs. Binkowski noticing his lack of proper attire.

  Hannah drove her beat-up VW bug quickly on high way 5 north to get to Encinitas, part of San Diego’s north county line. She almost got into three accidents; with a small car, she could swerve adeptly and avoid death.

  She was impressed by the mansion, located on a cliff overlooking the ocean. She found Gabriel standing by himself on the grass, holding a beer.

  He seemed relieved when he spotted her walking his way. “There you are!”

  She took his half-empty bottle and drank. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Traffic was a bitch?”

  “Rehearsal was a bastard,” she lied.

  Gretchen addressed the guests at her house. “Ladies, gentlemen, guests, friends, family and coworkers. We are here today to celebrate the official wedding date, one month from now, of my son, Gregory, and his bride-to-be…Chloe, dear, and Gregory….” She waved to the couple. They joined her, fresh drinks in hand, and the three of them raised their glasses and toasted, as did many of the attendees. “To the future,” said Gretchen, “to family!”

  Hannah raised a half-empty beer. “Rah-rah-rah,” she said. She looked at Gabriel and thought about her life, about art, about sex. There was more to life than struggling to be a theater artist in San Diego, a city that was artless and had little interest in serious theater. She had always talked about moving to New York, where real theater was done; no Los Angeles, that was a TV and movie town, and actors and writers viewed theater as a hobby until a TV or film job came through. New York was the answer and she was going to go there.

  At home, after the party, Hannah said, “I have to move to New York.”

  “Um-hmm,” Gabriel said. He’d heard it before.

  “Will you go with?”

  “We’ve talked about this already.”

  “And we can talk about it again.”

  “I’m not going to just quit my job and move all the way across the country….”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s crazy, is why.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “New York, New York,” he said.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  5

  The next day, Hannah went to rehearsal of her play, watching a scene with the male lead. His monologue was not going well and she didn’t think the director got her play at all. This sucks, she said to herself. The actor held a prop gun in his hand during the monologue, contemplating suicide. Hannah wished it was a real gun so she could shoot him and the director.

  Three hours later, she was in the studio apartment of the male lead actor, another one of those twentysomethings with Hollywood on the agenda, not her play. They fucked twice.

  He lit a joint and sat back on his futon, watching Hannah—naked—pace back and forth.

  “It sucks it sucks it sucks,” she was saying.

  “What does?”

  “You know.”

  “I think it’s going okay,” he said.

  “That director…”

  “He’s all right.”

  She stopped pacing. Hands on her hips. “Yes, he is. That’s just it. He’s ‘all right.’ Not good or great or marvelous or fantastic. ‘All right.’ That’s the problem with theater in San Diego—it’s. All. Right. So what. Where does that ever get anyone? Would Arthur Miller have made a name for himself in San Diego? Huh? No. Eugene O’Neill? David Mamet? Wendy Wasserstein? Even Whoopie Goldberg had to leave San Diego to become a superstar. I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m sick of going nowhere. I’m in the wrong body!”

  She paced again: back and forth, back and forth…

  “I like your body,” the actor said, watching parts of Hannah jiggle and wiggle.

  “I’m sick of being an unknown nobody! I’m tired of everything just being ‘all right.’ I’m weary of the struggle, don’t you understand? It’s a snarling one-note performance in this shitty town.”

  6

  Gabriel was cooking spaghetti for dinner. Hannah came home and said, “That sure smells good.”

  “Your fave.”

  She watched him cook.

  “I know that look. What is it?”

  “I have to leave,” she told him. “With or without you, I’m going to New York. I have to or else I’m gonna go insane or kill myself. I’m serious.”

  “Oh,” he said, and went back to cooking.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I think we should.”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do we have to?”

  “I think we should,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  An hour later, they went to bed and made love. It was slow and nice and tender and sad all at the same time.

  Hannah said, “I’m sorry.”

  Gabriel replied, “Don’t be.”

  “I am. Really.”

  “No need. Really.” A bit sarcastic.

  “I want to be sorry,” she said, because she wondered if she was.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Is it ‘okay’?”

  Pause.

  “No,” he said.

  “Look. Just come to New York with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “My wife—life is here.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Life.”

  “What life? Your job?”

  “Yes. My job, for one.”

  “That job? That’s not a career,” Hannah said. “That’s ‘a job.’ And you hate it.”

  “I like my job. I like San Diego,” Gabriel said.

  “I can’t stay here, Gabe. You know that.
Moving here was just an experiment, you know that.”

  “Yeah…”

  “My career…”

  “I know.”

  Pause.

  Hannah said, “Are we breaking up?”

  Gabriel replied, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “Listen,” she said coldly. “I haven’t been faithful. I’ve had…lovers.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Wait. What do you mean, you know?”

  “You think I didn’t? That I didn’t smell them on you when you came home? The stench of their sweat, their cum? The smell of fuck.”

  She was surprised, and angry. “And you never said anything?”

  “What was there to say?

  “Are you angry with me?” she asked. “I’m…sad.”

  “Why have you stayed with me…if you knew?”

  “Because I love you,” he said.

  7

  Three days later, Hannah was packed and ready to go. She had two suitcases. She was traveling light.

  Gabriel sat on the couch and looked at the TV, ignoring her.

  “I’m going now.”

  “Okay.”

  She said, “Tell you what. I’ll give it a year. Just a year. If things don’t happen with my playwrighting career one year from today, I’ll come back. I’ll come back and we’ll pick up where we left off. What do you say?”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it,” she said.

  8

  The next day was the office Sunday sloshball game, which had been planned for three weeks. The office played sloshball every summer, or the last two summers Gabriel worked there.

  From Wikipedia.org: “Sloshball is an unofficial variant of softball…the inclusion of alcohol has been implemented to enhance amusement, while diminishing both mental and physical acuity.”

  That’s what it was, all right. The game started at 10:00 a.m. and by noon, the entire office attendees were, well, sloshed: drunk, snookered, smashed, bombed.

  Softballs were pitched, hit, people drunkenly ran and tried to drunkenly get to bases while other drunken people drunkenly try to touch them with the ball.