Slip of the Tongue

by Jessica Hawkins

  “What’s this shaking?” He looks up at me, sounding as tense as I feel. “Are you nervous?”

  “No.” Seven years I’ve had this. Seven years we’ve been making love. Yet, I have butterflies, as if I’ve been waiting to do this my whole life.

  He wiggles a finger under the crotch of my panties. “Too bad.” He knows I’m lying. “I like the idea that you might be nervous.”

  He bends his finger to tug the fabric away, knuckling my folds. I grip the flannel in my hands tightly, melting under his controlled touch.

  He stands from his seat and takes a step back. I’m bared to him, my pants and underwear around my ankles, my top pulled up. The TV glare flashes behind him.

  I wait, afraid to make the wrong move. He might leave me panting like last time, even though his cock is already straining the fabric of his suit pants. It’s that mouthwatering outline that makes me bold. “Why’d you call me a slut?” I ask.

  He looks from my tits to my face. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “It was the only way I could be with you that night.”

  It’s the answer I expected, but hearing he wanted anyone but me still hurts.

  “I thought I could turn you into someone else,” he continues, “but I can’t. You’ll never be that in my bed.” He doesn’t take his eyes off mine. “It’s one of the reasons I haven’t been able to be with you since.”

  I breathe from my stomach. I want to find the meaning in his words, but the tender ache between my legs hurts so much, it’s not even pleasant. “Nathan,” I plead.

  “Sadie.” The rough playfulness of his voice makes my skin pebble. His eyes glimmer. He begins unbuttoning his shirt. “Are you sure you want this? After everything we’ve put each other through?”

  Even if I could form a coherent thought against sex, I know what my answer would ultimately be. “Yes.”

  “Go get on the bed. Hands and knees.”

  I shouldn’t hesitate. It’s not like he hasn’t had me in every position possible. I trust him, but it’s been weeks, and if I’m this turned on, he must be going crazy.

  He pulls his belt through his pant loops and drops it. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

  “No.” I go to pull the top over my head.

  He stops me. “I’ll do that. Just get into position.”

  Nathan gets demanding in bed when he’s hot. This feels different, though. There’s a calm edge to his commands that isn’t new, but it’s sharper than I’m used to.

  I turn and go to the bedroom, feeling his eyes on me. I climb onto the bed, facing the headboard, and do what he says. I display my most intimate places for him. At the same time, my flannel hangs from my torso, covering my upper half like a blanket.

  Seconds later, his footsteps cross the living room, and he enters the room. The mattress trembles when he gets on it behind me. I barely register the sound of his zipper before he’s teasing me. He slaps the head of his cock against my crack, then drags it up the back of one thigh. His soft skin on mine is maddening, and I drop my head toward the mattress, breathing hard. A trail of pre-cum dries on my skin.

  “I’m going to fuck it all out,” he says. “I could take my time with you, but I don’t want to.”

  “I’m ready,” I say.

  “Unless you beg me to,” he says, ignoring me. “I can eat your pussy now instead of later. I can tease you to the brink first if you want.”

  “No,” I say, the word hard and imploring. I realize I’m squirming, and I stop moving except for the heave of my chest. “I don’t need it. I just need to feel you inside me.”

  He lines himself up with my throbbing slit, wraps my hair in his hand, and pulls my head back. Kissing me sideways, sloppy but determined, he begins pushing into me. “Like this?” he asks into my mouth. I hear the torment in his voice. I feel it in his touch.

  I simultaneously nod and moan. My pussy salivates for him. It’s my core, and he’s the only one who’s truly been there.

  He slows down. Takes his time filling me. I’m given each inch with agonizing deliberation, like being fed dessert in tiny bites. I try to push back, but he stops me—scolds me—with a firm hand on my ass. We’re still kissing. He’s never, in seven years, stopped kissing me. Sometimes we fuck quick and hard, other times long and slow. But he doesn’t skip the kissing, not ever.

  When he’s all the way in, he stays there. “I’ve been dying without this, babe. Fucking you is an addiction I can’t kick.”

  “Really?” I goad him. I just want to be torn apart. “Because you’re going easy on me.”

  “No, I’m not, and you know it.”

  “This is how you’d fuck a slut?”

  He growls in my ear, rears back, slams into me. That’s more like it. “Go on,” he says. “Ask for what you want.”

  This much edge is new for us, but it’s just what I want. “Use me. You need this,” I say. “You aren’t going to break me.”

  He straightens up and stretches my pussy lips with his fingers until they burn. He thrusts in and out, faster than before, but still with restraint. He holds me in place like that, as if I’m a doll or some kind of toy.

  “Quite a view,” he says. “Sorry you can’t see it.”

  He’s smug. He doesn’t realize, though, that the closet door is open. With my head bent and angled, I can see flashes of us in the mirror. Nathan’s shirt is off, but his pants are around his knees. His muscled ass cheeks clench and release with each thrust like a well-oiled machine. If he bent over me, his big body would consume mine in one bite. We’re in our bed where we belong. It’s right. Wonderfully familiar. I’ll end my affair tomorrow and put my secrets on the table. All of them. I promise I will. I’ll hurt him, but then I’ll heal him. When he tries to leave, I’ll throw myself in his path. Anything so I don’t lose this.

  He closes over me again, trailing his lips along my neck, and then bites my shoulder blade. I cry out, and he kisses it. No longer holding back, he shoves my face into the mattress so my lower half is propped up to take more of him. My shirt falls forward around me, but he doesn’t fix it. I said I wouldn’t break, and I won’t. My cheek chafes against the comforter. He leans his weight on my shoulders, angles deep, owns me top to bottom.

  I grasp for the bedspread and hang on. He slips one finger and then two over my clit. My control spirals free with his little circles. With a touch honed and perfected from years of practice, he tips me over the edge and into a rippling orgasm. My hips give, and I flatten out onto my stomach. The force of his fucking moves me up the mattress. I slither over the side, catching myself on the floor with my palms. He keeps my bottom half on the bed. My shirttail sticks under my stomach, but I’m still in the dark, facing the belly of the mattress. The way he takes from me is like the first night we dropped the pretense of lovemaking and fucked like animals on a futon in his studio.

  “Want me to come in you?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I beg.

  “Wrong answer.”

  Blood is rushing to my head. “What?”

  “You’re supposed to tell me I can have whatever I want.”

  “Whatever you want, Nathan,” I repeat. “You know you can have anything.”

  He holds my hips down, and my attention is reduced to one simple thing—the unrelenting pounding inside me and then the heat of his release.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I’m still half off the bed, waiting for Nathan’s cue. We finally fucked again, and two weeks apart made us wild. But the following silence scares me. My locked arms wobble from my weight. Nathan shudders over me, his breathing loud and raspy. After some more languid thrusts of his hips, he stills completely. Seconds tick by. When I think my elbows are going to snap, I move.

  “Shh.” He runs his hand down my back. “Don’t.”

  I stay where I am, waiting. Darkness creeps on me like an ocean tide. My upside-down face pulses as blood rushes to my head. It’s turning painful, but I think he knows. After what feels like forever, he swivels his hips.
My stomach drops, my walls clenching around him.

  “You’re hard again?” I ask.

  “Almost.”

  He pulls out and slides me back up the bed by my hips. My arms tingle. I bend my elbows, but I don’t move other than that. This is Nathan’s event. He gathers up my shirt and pushes it over my head. Picking up one of my limp hands, he begins to massage it, working his strong fingers into the meat of my palm, around my wrist, and up my arm then down the other. To my shoulders, he applies more pressure. My eyes shut. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more tranquil.

  He straddles my outer thighs, elbows the spot where he bit me, and gets a guttural groan. “Keep making noise,” he says as his cock twitches against my leg. “I’m almost there.”

  He moves down my back, and I don’t hold anything in. My breathing picks up when he massages my ass cheeks, opens them, and closes in on my anus. I can come again, but Nathan knows it might take more than it did the first time, so he lightly presses against it. As soon as I anticipate it, though, he abandons my anus and slides two fingers into my pussy.

  “I came hard,” he says. “You’re sopping with it.”

  My arousal springs, a jungle cat waiting in bushes. He knows just how to touch me, just what to say. He pumps into me two, three more times and then slides his hand up my crack. He eases one slick finger in my asshole. I clutch the sheets but relax the cluster of muscles he’s currently working. All at once, it’s good.

  “This will never not get me rock hard,” he mutters.

  The comforter flutters with my desperate, gaping breaths. “Not even when we’re old and gray?”

  He grunts and removes his finger. “Turn over. We can make love now.”

  His cold, robotic tone can’t scare me off. He stands and looks at the bed as if he can’t decide how to proceed. I get up too and take over, pushing him into a sitting position on the mattress.

  We wrap our legs around each other. This time, we’re face to face. When I lower myself onto him, he’s nice and hard inside me. “Press your tits against me,” he nearly groans. “God, you’re so fucking hot inside.”

  He circles me with his arms, urging me into his warm, open chest. He teases my asshole again with the tip of his finger. When he slides it in, my face gets burning hot. He moves it, and I move on him, swiveling my hips to stroke all the right spots. We kiss, and with his tongue searching my mouth, his finger working inside me, and his cock filling me up, I’m possessed by him.

  “Watch my face when I come,” I rush out, feeding my words into his hungry mouth. “I want you to tell me how I look.”

  “I already know every detail of how you look.” He sounds much calmer than me, although his hairline is damp. Sweat beads on his upper lip.

  “What do I look like?” I ask.

  “Not yourself . . .”

  Instead of distracting me, talking this way is ballooning my arousal. “Is that a polite way of saying ugly?”

  “Not ugly, but not pretty. Sexy as fuck, though, like . . .” His breath comes in hot bursts against my nose. He’s getting close. “An animal,” he grates, “whose prey is just out of reach.”

  I wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself onto him more furiously. He meets my pace, plunging his finger deeper and faster. His honesty makes me hot. Like my face at the peak of my pleasure, it’s not pretty, but it’s real. That’s more erotic than anything.

  He whispers, “You’re killing me. Hurry. I’m going to explode. I won’t finish before you.”

  “You can.”

  “I won’t.”

  He keeps his promise. The balloon pops. When I come, my ribs rattle, my hairs stand on end. He continues to plumb my depths because fingering my asshole turns him on as much as it does me. Inaudible words pass between us. He takes the skin of my neck between his teeth. For a moment, it’s as if he’s going to rip my head off when he comes.

  He doesn’t.

  When I once again feel my heartbeat independently of his, he detangles from me and steals off into the bathroom. I flop back against the mattress and shut my eyes. Listening to him piss after intense lovemaking is oddly comforting. It’s small, but it’s ours, and it means something to me.

  Our bed is a cloud, and I begin to drift, but then Nathan is back, standing over the bed, looking down at me.

  “Everything okay?” I rasp. I remember all of a sudden that his things are on the couch, that we haven’t closed this distance yet. He looks torn, as if he can’t decide what to do.

  But then he says, “Yeah. Let me just get my pillow.”

  I yawn, watching him pick up his suit, put it in the closet, then walk out of and back into the room. We never finished our conversation, but I slide over in bed to let him in next to me. I turn on my side, facing him. His eyes are closed already, so I study his face, the strong, straight nose, the angular, stubbled chin. I drop my eyes. I haven’t had much of a chance to appreciate his body lately. He’s been working out harder, and it shows. His arms are sinewy and strong, his pecs firm. When he turns over, the muscles move under his skin. He’s always been godly to me, but it bothers him when we eat more and do less. He says he likes to know I still find him sexy. It blows my mind he thinks I might not.

  Because I’m content enough to have him back, it takes me a moment to register that he turned away from me. After this long sleeping apart, and after the way he just owned me, all I want is to burrow into his arms. He doesn’t appear to feel the same way, though, and with that realization, a chill passes through the room.

  In the morning, I wake late and to an empty bed. My joints crack when I sit up, my body sore and aching from last night. I warm as the memory oozes over me. The way Nathan lost his thoughts and his control just from seeing my breast. The way he bit and fucked me, then kissed and made love to me.

  I pad into the kitchen. I should already be out of the shower, but I can’t bring myself to care about being behind schedule. I find my coffee mug waiting and a note from Nathan.

  Ginger already fed and walked, sleepyhead.

  I smile to myself at the endearment. My chest aches, and for the first time in a while, it’s in a good way. Maybe I read too much into his distance last night while we fell asleep. He came back to bed, and that’s a start. What’s more, the conversation has begun.

  In the fridge, there’s an unopened quart of milk. Nathan must’ve gone to the grocery store last night. I forgot to on Sunday . . . because I was screwing Finn instead. Jarred by the thought, I grit my teeth. He’s been noticeably absent from my mind the last twenty-four hours. Screw isn’t really fair to Finn—he cares. He wants me. He doesn’t screw. He loves. And as much as his intensity scares me, it also delights me. Will it still if Nathan and I continue down this path to reconciliation?

  I put milk in my coffee and take it into the bathroom. I undress and reluctantly shower off last night. I have to forget about Finn and focus on Nathan. As I shave my legs, I decide I want to do something nice for him, something to build on the progress we made last night. I can feel his guard dropping. He just needs a push over the edge. An idea doesn’t take long to hit me, and when it does, I know without a doubt, it’s the right one. Cook for him. Not just any meal, though. His favorite—barbeque ribs. My imagination blossoms, and I picture him coming home to a candlelight dinner, a sparkling apartment, and a safe, warm environment where we can finally put everything on the table and wipe the slate clean. The more I imagine it, the harder my heart beats.

  High on adrenaline, I call in sick to work feeling no guilt as Amelia reams me out. I barely hear her anyway since I’m picturing the shock on Nathan’s face when he walks through the door and sees the spread. I hear his laugh when I admit I played hooky from work to get everything perfect. For dramatic effect, I cough into the receiver before I say goodbye to Amelia, hang up the phone, and get started.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Though I’ve made barbeque ribs countless times throughout our marriage, I stand in the kitchen, reading the recipe over and over.
On the counter are bags of groceries from my trip to D’Agostino. They hold ingredients for dinner, a six-pack of craft beer recommended by a young employee, and the best calla lilies in the neighborhood. They’re Nathan’s favorite flower.

  I brush the ribs with seasoning. While I work, I try to mentally prepare for the emotional side of tonight. Nate and I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m confident barbeque ribs will get him to talk. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear what he has to say, but I doubt I ever will be. If we don’t fix this now, and it continues to get worse, it’ll eventually send one of us over the edge into madness.

  Once I’ve spaced out the ribs on a baking sheet and get them in the oven to roast for the next few hours, I turn and look around the kitchen. Nathan should be home between six and seven, and that gives me plenty of time to scrub the apartment spotless, especially since it’s fairly clean to begin with. I unpack the groceries, get the flowers in water, and pick up any mess I’ve made.

  I move into the living room, bundle up Nathan’s sheets and blanket from the couch he’ll no longer be sleeping on, and add laundry to today’s to-do list. As I’m passing the desk, though, I stop. Even though his laptop sits there most days, I notice it now because it’s open and dark instead of shut. The urge to snoop is new to me, thanks to the last few months. Nathan doesn’t keep secrets. He’s terrible at it. But maybe instead of secrets, there are answers there, behind the blackness.

  I don’t sit down, but I drop the linens on the back of the chair, lean over, and tap the space bar once. After a second, his spotless desktop appears. I open the browser and check over my shoulder, my heart in my throat. I shouldn’t be nervous, though. I use Nathan’s laptop all the time, and he uses mine. If he were to walk in right now, he wouldn’t think anything of it.

  Ginger whines, and I jump, forgetting she’s even here. I glance over at her, and I swear, she shakes her head, warning me not to proceed.