Thou Shalt Not

by Jj Rossum

  “Hey Luke,” she said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Do you mind if I stopped by for a few minutes? I had to run out and get groceries and he’s at the house with the kids.”

  “Of course not,” I said, heart beginning to beat more rapidly. Why would she want to come over on a grocery run?

  “I’m at the house,” I said. “Come over whenever.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  And before I could reply she hung up.

  There was only one reason she would be coming over. She felt guilty about what happened last night and needed to tell me it can’t happen again. She’s married. Oh god, why did I even let it happen? Nothing ruins a perfectly good friendship like fooling around after the woman’s husband tried to beat her.

  Within fifteen seconds of hanging up, there was a knock on the door.

  She had to have been right outside when she called.

  I set my soup down and didn’t bother looking around to see if the house was in order. My hands began to shake.

  I opened the door and she came at me before I even had a chance to see what she was wearing.

  Her hands went around the back of my head and pulled me to her. Our lips met with force and our tongues immediately began dancing.

  I took a few steps back, pulling her into the house and using my left foot to kick the door shut. Then I pushed her back up against the door and we continued to kiss.

  Her hands slipped up underneath my shirt and began running along my back. Feeling her warm skin on mine felt amazing, and my cock began to stiffen. I was already pressed against her, so she could feel my reaction. She pulled me even closer, grinding her lower body into mine.

  I picked her up and started to carry her over to the couch, the site of the previous night’s encounter.

  “No,” she said before we reached the couch. “I can’t.”

  Needless to say, that stopped any momentum we might have had.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  I lowered her to her feet and she stood next to me, hands still on my shoulders.

  “Nothing. I just can’t be here very long. He’s expecting me home.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say.

  “But, I needed to tell you something and I wanted to say it to your face.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  She sat down on the couch and I followed her lead.

  “Every year after the season ends, Marco take us all down to Cuba to see his family and just have a vacation. We usually stay a few weeks to a month, depending on what we want to do down there and if we need to get back to the States for anything. But, now Marco’s season has ended before everyone else’s, so he is ready to go.”

  “So, you’re going to be leaving for a while?” I said.

  “No. I have a job now. I told him I can’t just leave with him for a few weeks when they are going to be officially giving me the full-time job on Tuesday. I said if he wanted me to go he would have to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas break.”

  “So, will he wait?”

  “No, he booked the tickets after I told him. He’s leaving with the kids on Monday afternoon.”

  “How long?”

  “Three weeks. I have never been away from the kids for that long.”

  I could hear the worry in her voice. I think she was glad he was leaving, but sending her kids off when she had been taking care of them for so long by herself seemed to bother her.

  I pulled her toward me and held her in my arms. I didn’t have kids and didn’t have a damn clue what to say to even begin trying to assuage her fears or worries. So I stayed silent and simply held her. She didn’t fight it.

  After a minute or two of silence, she spoke up.

  “I really need to go. The groceries are in the car.”

  “It’s Florida,” I said. “Everything has probably already gone bad.”

  She laughed and we stood to our feet.

  I walked her to the door and hugged her before I opened it. When the hug ended, she pulled back slightly to look up at me.

  “My husband will be gone for three weeks, Luke,” she said, her eyes sparkling again. “If that’s not perfect timing, I don’t know what is.”

  I kissed her again, with the same intensity we had been kissing earlier. If it had gone a few seconds longer, I would have said “Fuck the groceries” and taken her right there in front of the door.

  But the kiss ended almost as quickly as it started, and she was out the door. The only evidence of her having been there was my pounding heart, my throbbing dick, and the words “Monday night” going over and over in my head.

  The rest of the weekend dragged by. If you are ever looking forward to something in life, be prepared for the days leading up to it to go by excruciatingly slow. It’s as if Father Time is the most sadistic bastard to ever exist.

  I spent Sunday preparing my lessons and assignments for the week, hoping the week of movies hadn’t completely deleted all the information I had taught them up until that point. But I’m sure it had, for most of them.

  I did some grocery shopping as well, and after I brought the food back to the house, I decided to go to the gym. I felt the need to work out before I saw April again. I had no idea what would happen while her husband was away. I wasn’t stupid though, and if things went like they had while April was at my house and her husband was still very much in the same country as me, we would probably be seeing each other naked.

  Now, I have no problems with my body. I have always been in good shape, and even on the occasion where I let myself go for a few weeks, a few solid workouts and I was back to feeling great. But, there was something about the prospect of being naked with someone for the first time that made a guy want to get a few extra push-ups in beforehand.

  Having Holly in my life had helped keep me focused on working out and running. She was health conscious when it came to exercise, and could eat whatever the hell she wanted and somehow lose weight. Plus, our sexual adventures together were often lengthy, and lengthy can’t happen if you don’t keep up with your cardio.

  I found myself lying in bed Sunday night, unable to sleep. Most of the day I had spent thinking about what it would be like to have sex with April, but as I lay in bed, my thoughts turned to what the repercussions of having sex with her would be. No matter how much I was attracted to her, no matter how much I enjoyed her presence, no matter how much better she made me feel about life in general, she was still a very married woman with a husband known to be a violent dick. But the latter was really beside the point; she was my married coworker. There was a poster above Principal West’s desk at school that listed the Ten Commandments. Thou Shalt Not it said before each one. Covet thy neighbor’s wife was lucky number eight. I ran a hand over my face.

  Had April and I gone from our serious make-out session the first time she came over right into sex that same day, I wouldn’t have thought about it. I wouldn’t have told her to hold on and wait so I could mentally run through the pros and cons of sexing up my new coworker. We would have fucked, and it would have been good.

  But, now that I knew the chances of us having sex in the next 24-72 hours were very high, all the different positives and negatives floated through my mind. In two months, am I going to be blaming my dick for leading the charge, for making the decisions for me? Am I going to be blaming my heart for starting to fall for someone who didn’t really want anything other than sex and a connection? Or am I going to blame my head for overthinking everything and missing out on an opportunity to start something special? I hated myself right now. Nothing was this complicated with Holly. Why didn’t I just stick with Holly? I reached into my nightstand and fumbled around until I found my box of toothpicks. Toothpicks made me think better. I stuck it in between my back teeth and continued to torture myself.

  Monday morning was muted. The students were in a weekend-coma that they hadn’t been revived from. I hadn’t seen April yet, but her classroom clearly wasn’t unattende
d or I would have found out quickly. She had probably just been running late again. Punctuality didn’t seem to be her strong suit.

  As the bell chimed to send our classes to lunch, I walked over to her classroom. She was seated at her desk, looking tired.

  “Hey,” I said, interrupting her from something she was doing on her phone.

  “Oh,” she looked up. “Hey.”

  “Coming to lunch?”

  “Not today,” she said, standing up. “I am taking the afternoon off to take them to the airport.”

  I could sense she still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being without her children for a few weeks, but as a childless man, I knew my words of comfort would have been ineffective. Most likely, she wouldn’t be comfortable again until they were home.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said as she collected her things.

  She walked toward me, and then past me, heading for the door.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the classroom as the door shut behind her.

  The worst part about giving people space is that normally when you know you need to give it, it just so happens to be the time you selfishly don’t want to give it. I wanted to chase her down the hall, call her, text her, just be in contact with her somehow. But I knew it wasn’t the time.

  I left her alone the rest of Monday afternoon and the school day dragged like a motherfucker. You’re a motherfucker, I told myself. And then I had to pull out my box of toothpicks.

  Holly texted near the end of the afternoon to ask what my plans were for the night, and I made the right excuses to keep her away. I didn’t want to be around her while my mind was completely on April. That wasn’t fair to her.

  The TV was on in the background as I made dinner. The Rays were beginning their final series of the season, and no mention was made of Marco to start the telecast. The situation was no doubt being swept under the rug, and the prospect of the team bringing Marco back the following year seemed to be remote. So, more than likely, by the start of the next season, Marco would be playing somewhere far away from the Tampa Bay area. The question remained whether April would be with him. Or with me.

  God, I’m thinking way too far ahead, I thought as I cut up mangos for a salsa. I had chicken cooking in a skillet on the stove. The mango salsa was a recipe from my mother, one of the few things of hers I still had with me.

  Once dinner was prepared, I plated it and sat on the couch to watch the game. My life during the school year really was pretty routine. Work all day, come home and make dinner, and then watch baseball or some other sport while papers were read or graded. Such an exciting life we teachers lead.

  As I was cleaning up the kitchen, my phone rang. It was April. My heart began to race. This would stop eventually, right?

  “Hello?” I answered, the racing of my heart not translating to my voice, thankfully.

  “Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  So nonchalant. God, she drove me crazy.

  “Just finishing up the dishes. What about you?”

  “I’m sitting at the bar in my kitchen, listening to a silent house.”

  “I guess if the house started talking, you’d have big problems on your hands.”

  “God, you’re dumb, you know that?” She laughed.

  “I know.” I smiled.

  There was a silence for a moment or two.

  “Do you feel like getting out of your silent house for a while?”

  “What are you proposing, sir?”

  “You’ll see. Be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “Am I dressing up?”

  “No, just casual.”

  “Okay.”

  “See you soon.”

  “Bye.”

  I threw off my work clothes from the day and put on shorts and a t-shirt. I made sure it wasn’t a Rays’ shirt this time.

  I drove to her house, remembering every turn as if I had been there a million times. I really had no idea where I was planning on taking her, but the idea of being spontaneous appealed to me. God, I just wanted to see her.

  I pulled into her massive driveway, the gate open and beckoning me to enter.

  She was standing by the front door, holding a duffle bag, waiting for me as I pulled up.

  Her hair was loose and flew behind her in the breeze as she walked toward my car. She was wearing white shorts and an orange tank top, her style very much Florida. Any man would have been forgiven for taking an extra long look at her extra long legs, but seeing as how she was getting into my car, I figured I could look as much as I liked.

  “Hey!” she said, markedly more jovial than the last time I saw her. “Where are we going?”

  She threw her bag in the back seat.

  “Just be patient, ma’am. You’ll see.”

  She fidgeted in her seat for a moment, and then bounced up in realization.

  “You got a new car!” She smiled as she said it and my heart did somersaults.

  “Yep. I finally said adiós to the Roller Skate.”

  “And hola to air conditioning.”

  I couldn’t stop the smile.

  “You have the sexiest, crooked smile,” she said, reaching out and touching the corner of my mouth.

  I left her neighborhood and headed toward the boardwalk. There were a bunch of shops there and they always had live music. Not necessarily good live music—but live music nevertheless. Tonight it was a mariachi band composed of five, chubby, grey haired men. We stopped to listen to them. April smiled and tapped her foot through two songs before I grabbed her around the waist and started dancing. She squealed and clung to me as I spun her around. I danced her through three songs just to have her body pressed that tightly against mine. When we were both breathless we headed over to an ice cream shop and grabbed two cones.

  “Have you heard if they made it there safely?” I asked. I didn’t really want to talk about him, but I knew I couldn’t just act like they hadn’t left.

  “Yeah,” she said. “He called before you got to the house. I made him call. It wasn’t a long flight.”

  “Did he not want to call?”

  “We haven’t really spoken the last few days.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”

  She reached out a pinkie and linked it with mine as we walked.

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  “My gut says leave him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. But then I start thinking about everything else and my gut seems less sure.”

  “Like the kids?”

  “Yeah. They love their dad. They are too young to realize what an asshole he is and how miserable he makes me. He buys them toys and takes them places so he is a god to them.”

  The last sentence was spoken with particular disgust. I wanted to change the subject, but this was clearly what she needed.

  “Plus, he leaves for weeks at a time, so every time they see him, it’s like a novelty. Like Cuban Santa Claus returning with presents.”

  “He brings them back something every time?”

  “Every time. At least now they still love me because I feed them and take care of them. But I am already the bad guy. It’ll only get worse the older they get. And then at the end of the day, he’s kind of a crazy person. I knew it when we got married. My dad thought he just needed a woman in his life to ‘tame’ him. But there’s no taming Marco. The older he gets, the more I realize there’s no end in sight. I convince myself that staying is best for the kids.”

  “But how is it good for them? Sure, they have their dad in the house who spoils them when he is home, but they are around you more than anyone. And how is it good for them to see their mom miserable, wanting out? You said you guys don’t talk much and that there’s nothing between the two of you. Kids pick up on stuff like that. They need to see you happy if they are going to grow up to be healthy adults with normal r
elationships.”

  “Plus, I feel like if I even started to think seriously about leaving him, he would blow up worse than I have probably ever seen. He is unpredictable already. And he’s aggressive. God only knows what he would do.”

  We simultaneously took off our shoes and started walking in the sand toward the water.

  This was the one lingering question I had about all of this: What will Marco do? If he found out his wife was making out with another man, I couldn’t assume he would just say, “Oh well, that’s cool.” And I couldn’t picture him crying and asking why. He would flip the fuck out, and if he found out where I lived, I could be sure that he would pay me a very loud visit. That’s just what he would do to me. It was April I was worried about.

  “Well, if you decide to go through with it, when you decide to go through with it, I’ll be there and I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “How can you promise me that?”

  “Because it’s true. If he lays another finger on you, he will pay.”

  I’m not an aggressive person, but every time I thought about him, I wanted to hit something very hard. Mostly his face. And since I am not a small, skinny twerp, I liked my chances if push ever did come to shove.

  “My fingers are sticky,” she said, holding them up near my face.

  “Well, if you weren’t such a messy eater you wouldn’t have that problem.”

  She laughed as I grabbed her hand and put her fingers in my mouth. I tasted blackberry.

  “That just really turned me on,” she said.

  She jumped to her feet and started backing away from me.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, still sitting on the sand.

  “Away from you!” she laughed. “My mom always warned me about men who randomly sucked on your body parts.”

  “What did she say about them?” I asked.

  “That they’d get you pregnant and ruin your life.”

  “Let’s test that theory.”

  I jumped up quickly, and she let out a startled scream. If someone had been watching from a distance, they probably would have thought something awful was going down.

  She took off running down the beach, her long legs propelling her smoothly through the sand. My initial impression of her having probably been an avid lifelong runner was being proven true.