“What’re you watching?”
Marcy jumped so high she tumbled out of the chair. Recovering, she squared her shoulders, pressed the pause button, and turned to face her husband.
His lovely eyes were less green and more gray, their natural color when lenses were not in place. Without contacts, she doubted he could see enough on her computer screen to grasp what she’d been up to. So she could have stood up right then, lifting her cheery yellow dress over her head, welcoming her husband into her arms, enfolding him in her embrace. She could have opened herself to him and taken him deep inside. She could have rocked him until he came with a scream of marital, coital exuberance. She could have made her husband happy. That would have been the best defensive strategy.
But she didn’t make that move. Instead, Marcy pressed the play button and said, “Explain this, motherfucker.”
On the screen, the blurry visitor moved toward the camera. The person was holding a canvas case, a bag the size and shape of a valise for a musical instrument. A bag that might contain a clarinet or saxophone, something windy, long, and thin. Since there was no sound to accompany the video, the person wavered in an alternate universe like a silent film star. Were there sex toys in there, a short leather whip, tickler feathers, a set of fur-lined handcuffs?
As the small suitcase was unzipped and propped open in front of the camera lens, Marcy and Jess watched the close-up of a pair of moving hands.
Big, hairy hands.
The kind of hands that would have to belong to a big, hairy man.
Marcy gasped.
“What the heck? You filmed us?” Jess’s voice was filled with awe.
He’d been leaning over her shoulder, squinting and frowning. Now he reached over to press the stop button.
He turned on her and yelled, “That’s unbelievable. You have no right!”
Marcy wiggled out of the chair. Her heart rate was in the danger zone, her voice quivering when she yelled back at him.
“I have every right! I’m your wife! Something’s wrong, very wrong. I had to find out what it was. I need to know what’s happening to us.”
She stopped, gasped for breath, then blurted, “Look me in the eye and tell me there’s nothing going on.”
He looked her in the eye. “Oh, Marce. You don’t even know me, do you?”
He was wearing nothing but a fluffy white bath towel wrapped around his narrow waist. His hairless chest did not ripple with muscle, his flat belly did not display a six-pack of rock-solid abs. He squinted at her, trying to see her expression through the haze of his myopia. The man was right. She didn’t know him, would never know him.
They were standing so close she could smell him. The garlicky odor filled her head and made her dizzy. And, to make things worse, he suddenly started snickering.
The chicken she’d been roasting with sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, onions, and olive oil, was filling the room with a competing, distinctly Venetian aroma. Still chuckling, Jess sniffed at the air for a moment. His smile widened.
“You’re cooking my favorite—” he began.
But Marcy jumped in and trounced him.
“Shut the fuck up! Don’t you dare change the subject. What the—”
Before she could finish, he grabbed her shoulders and moved her aside so he could plop down into the chair in front of the computer.
“Make sure the chicken doesn’t burn. I’m fast-forwarding so you can see what I’ve been up to. Maybe you’ll calm down once you see exactly what I’ve been doing after work.”
While he fiddled with the keys, Marcy stood her ground, watching the blur of high-speed images rush by on the screen. Fuck the chicken, she wasn’t going to miss one second of video! Even if she had to watch her husband having sex with a big, hairy man, she was going to keep her eyes glued to the little movie she’d made of his secret life.
Jess pressed pause and sat back in the chair.
He looked up at her and said, “Marcy, meet Ian.”
She leaned over his shoulder. The man on the screen was grizzled, hunched, older than Jess. A big, hairy guy. Not attractive in any way. He appeared to be cradling something in his hand. Jess zoomed in to enlarge the image.
Ian was holding a chess piece. A white queen. The chess piece was smooth, cool, impassive—like the pale, blonde woman in Marcy’s dream.
Jess laughed softly. “Ian and I play chess three times a week. At my office. When we’re supposedly working late. Instead, we get together and play chess. Sometimes for money, sometimes naked. Which means just for fun.”
He looked up at her, smiling sheepishly. “Ian’s wife doesn’t like it when he’s not selling shoes, which is what he does for a living, or home fixing the plumbing, or mowing the grass. I figured you wouldn’t like me playing chess all the time either. But the thing is, Ian and I . . .”
He paused, then grinned.
“We’re in love.”
Her heart stopped. She felt the absence of a steady pulse, the pulse of her life. The room darkened around her.
In that black hole moment, Jess added, “With the game.”
Sputtering with relief and shock, Marcy didn’t know what to say. Chess? He’d been playing chess? And lying to her about it? What a total nerd!
“I didn’t think you’d understand why I want to hang around with some old Russian guy and play a board game for hours at a time. So I pretended I was doing other things. So I wouldn’t have to try to explain how I feel.”
“How you feel? About what?” Marcy managed to say.
Her throat was like flypaper. Her legs felt rubbery.
“Chess,” Jess responded.
His eyes sparked, and his voice rose, like he was about to break into song.
“I love it. Always have, ever since my dad taught me to play when I was like five or six. I was good, Marcy. I could beat the adults, so my parents got me a tutor. They let me play in tournaments. I worked hard at the game until I was professionally ranked. Seventeen-fifty, that’s my national rating. Which is pretty damn close to master level. Or so we amateurs like to tell ourselves.”
He stood up and eased by her. “Shouldn’t I turn off the oven?”
She nodded and sank onto the desk chair. Chess? All this worry had been about him cheating on her with a bunch of pawns and rooks?
His back was to her as he fiddled with the stove and continued to explain his love affair. With chess.
“Marcy, chess is so awesome. It’s the ultimate high. It’s intense. I get the biggest charge out of playing in tournaments. It’s so damn tough, and so intellectually stimulating, you can’t imagine the rush. All your brain cells are activated, and you sweat like a pig. While sitting absolutely still for four, five, eight, ten hours. At a weekend tournament, you can rack up twenty or more hours of chess. It’s fantastic.”
Which explained the way he smelled when he arrived home. Not reeking of sex, but rank from the tension of competition and high-stakes mental exertion. That was the odor: the garlicky smell of nervous sweat.
He leaned against the stainless steel stove for a moment, then moved away from the heat.
“As a kid, I won a few local tournaments and traveled to some out of state. I entered as many as I could afford, even in college. But I stopped playing around seven years ago. Because I wanted to focus on my career, on establishing myself as an engineer and entrepreneur. And then we met. And I wanted to focus on you.”
He smiled at her, even though Marcy was sure she was just a big blur in his eyes. She looked away, embarrassed. What if she’d gone ahead and fucked Peter? What if she’d left Jess, filed for divorce? Over a misunderstanding about his lifelong secret passion. For chess, of all things.
Jess continued, “I wanted to make us work, Marce. And I knew I had to really focus my energy if I wanted to make us some serious money. Because that’s what you wanted.”
Marcy’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t believe he’d say such a thing. As if becoming filthy rich had been all her idea. But she c
lamped her lips together and nodded, allowing him to continue.
He inserted the bottle opener in the Prosecco she’d selected from the wine cooler an hour before.
“This is the thing about chess. It’s incredibly time consuming. Hours disappear while you sit there like a statue, brainstorming for the best move, looking for the traps waiting for you, weighing all the tactics you could try, examining each of the avenues available to you. You have to expand your mind so you can imagine the move after the move after the move after the next move you make.”
He yanked at the cork until it popped free.
“And you have to study the game in order to improve. You have to study a lot. “ He bent to smell the cork. “These days, unlike when I was a kid, you can study chess with computer programs. And you can play online. Anytime, day or night. So that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Cork in hand, he thumbed over his pale shoulder in the direction of his home office. “In case you’ve been wondering. I’ve been playing chess on a website that matches you up with players from all over the world. It’s awesome, Marce.”
While he poured the sparkling wine into two crystal glasses, she recalled the clock-like sounds she’d heard emanating from his office. Digital timers, for when your turn to move a chess piece had ended. How geeky the whole discussion had become. They were talking about chess moves instead of an illicit love affair. Which explained why her legs had stopped shaking and her pulse had slowed. Her stomach, however, still roiled.
Jess handed her a full glass of wine, and she took a long draw on it.
“Honey, I resisted the desire, then I gave in to it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be deceptive. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to follow my passion.”
She could relate to that. Who couldn’t? She made herself swallow the wine.
Jess continued. “I just wish you played. Chess, I mean. You’d understand me better. And I’ve been thinking. We’ve done well, we’ve got savings, maybe we could relax a bit. I really don’t have to keep working so hard. We could spend a good portion of our time traveling. To chess tournaments. London, Paris. Saint Petersburg, Budapest. St. Louis, Las Vegas. Rome! Think of what we could share.”
He watched her for a reaction to all he’d revealed. His eyes glistened. He wanted her to play a role in his geek fantasy. Which was so much better than replacing her with a Swedish model. Marcy had no interest in chess. None. But she understood why his fantasy of indulging his passion for chess included her. Or could, if she were open to it.
Marcy placed her glass on the desk next to the laptop.
“My belly aches,” she said. “It’s been bothering me a lot lately.”
Jess smiled.
“Really?” he said.
He sounded excited.
“Is it the same as last time?”
“What last time?”
How irritating he could be so amused by her discomfort. Marcy cupped her abdomen. The wine had tasted weird, vile.
“When you were pregnant, remember? It stated with a stomach ache, a real belly buster. Then the nausea. You were super emotional too. Unstable, actually.”
He said this with a straight face.
“Me, unstable? I certainly don’t recall that.”
They both smiled. Marcy reflected on what she’d felt like during the brief time she’d been pregnant. That short period in her life was vague, as blurry as the image of Ian and his white chess queen still frozen on her computer screen.
She’d been happy though. She did remember that.
Jess walked over and picked up her wine glass.
“I’ll drink this. Just in case.”
When he lifted the glass to his lips, she reached for him. With a deft tug, she loosened the towel around his waist. It dropped to the black and white tile floor.
Jess placed the empty wine glass on the desk and cupped his hand under her chin. He tilted her head up so she could see his eyes. His beautiful green-gray eyes.
“I’m sorry I don’t treat you with more respect. I’m sorry I don’t always make love to you the way you like it. But the other night, I remembered how damn hard I fell for you. Your wildness, your sexy love for me. I’m still crazy about you, Marcy Buenaventure Margate.”
When Marcy looked ahead a few moves, she didn’t see herself playing chess with her husband. But she did see the two of them traveling together, making love in hotel rooms between sightseeing jaunts. Jess could indulge his passion for chess while she indulged some of her own, dining out and shopping in some of the most exciting cities in the world. When she envisioned their future, she saw Jess teaching their children to play chess. She saw them both showing their little ones the tactics that work in life and some of the best moves to be made. And, when she pictured the rest of their lives, there was no place in it for flings with other people. Only trust and fidelity.
Marcy stood up and hugged her husband. For good measure, she made a point of thrusting her hips against him while she kissed his soft pink lips. He stuck his tongue deep in her mouth and swirled it around, his hands fondling the crack in her ass.
“You’re not over the hill, baby,” she said. “Not by a long shot.”
“Right now, I do feel like a younger man,” he told her. “Except for the bruises on my back from your fuck tantrum last night.”
She laughed, and he patted her rear possessively. Like he meant it. Like he was promising more to come.
“Do you want to eat first, or should I just mount you right now?” she asked.
He pointed at his erect penis. “The food smells delicious, my geek whore. You are a great cook, my smart and sexy wife. But I’m afraid dinner will have to wait. I’ve been walking around with blue balls for twenty-four hours now. I need you, Marce.”
As Marcy reached for her husband, the smell of roast chicken filled her head like a pesticide bomb. She gulped, trying not to throw up. She was pregnant, all right. But nothing was going to stop her from making love to her geek. And nothing ever would again.
~~~
Geekus Interruptus: it can happen to the best of us. In this post-postmodern, super high-tech digital age, you can so easily make a wrong move. In the blink of an eye, the flash of a breast, the click of a mouse, you can find yourself checkmated. Imploding an awesome game with a terrific opponent, and for the stupidest reasons. Due to a weak strategy, lack of foresight, or the use of dumb tactics. Blunders made simply because you don’t understand what makes the other guy tick.
In our nanosecond society, today’s lovers need to be savvy, aware, cognizant of the facts. Geeks are the new gods, and their love is oh-so-good. But our gods are not like us. They don’t think the way we do. Geeks have their own set of rules, their own guilty pleasures.
So you might want to keep Marcy’s story in mind as you make your way through the complex world of contemporary love. Take some time to think ahead, figure out if you would be happy with a geek lover. And if you do find yourself in geek love, remember what Marcy learned about her husband—and herself. So that, if it ever comes up in your life, Geekus Interruptus is merely a temporary blip on your screen.
The End
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan lives and writes and gets into trouble in South Florida, where the men run guns and the women run after them.
Mickey is the author of a number of e-book novellas. The cyber sci-fi romance Dream Job (2012) has been compared to The Matrix and the Twilight Zone. Professional Grievers is a spicy romcom for the second chance crowd. BabyShares, a financial crime romance, and Me Go Mango, a fun novella for the over-forty romantic, are other titles by Mickey.
Bottom Drawer Publications will soon release two new stories by Mickey. Normal, a sexy novella about everyday marital discord and some very
unusual solutions, and Mickey’s new novel, The Ghostwriters.
Find Mickey at her website:
www.mickeyjcorrigan.com
Bottom Drawer Publications
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