“Do you have to talk about this? Why can’t we just go on with the being together without trying to put a label on it. You know I love you, why can’t that be enough?”
“I know what you’re afraid of Grace. You’re afraid that it will be like what you had with Earl, and I intend to show you that it won’t. I don’t want to marry you because I want a cook, a laundress or a mother. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself. If nothing else, the navy taught me how to be a man who can handle his own life. I want to marry you because I love you, because I can’t think of another woman who I’d want to wake up beside every morning.”
I took a sip of my coffee to gather my thoughts together. I wanted to believe him but how could I be sure?
“And what happens ten years from now? You have so much of your life ahead of you.” I couldn’t say it out loud but I thought it. What happened when he grew tired of me? I was so much older than him and we were at different points in our life. “What about children? Even if I wasn’t too old to start over again with a baby, Beverly’s birth made it so that I can’t have any more. Have you thought of that? If you are with me, you will never be a father.”
“I want you Grace. Nothing else. I have never envisioned myself as a father, I’ve never had children and really wouldn’t know what I was missing. Beside, if there ever comes a time when we decide to have a child, we can adopt. I’m sure there are a lot of children who need a home.” He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “I know this is scary. It is for me too. You are the love of my life, and I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen years old. That will never change.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He seemed to have a counter for all my arguments, but I couldn’t just give in to him. The urge to protect myself was strong inside me.
“Just eat your breakfast Grace. We don’t have to decide right now.”
I did as he asked and ate the food he’d made for me. And thought about what it would be like to look at the man sitting across from me and realize that he was my husband.
Once we got past the subject of marriage, our time together passed in pleasant conversation as we talked about what had been happening in our lives since the last time we’d seen each other. I told him about my job at the flower shop, about how much I love being out in the world and interacting with people. He seemed genuinely pleased for how I’d managed to rebuild my life and I could feel myself weakening. Would marriage to him be that bad?
I shoved the thought away as I stood up to collect the dishes on top of the table. Michael reached out and took a hold of my wrist.
“I’ll do that. Why don’t you go do whatever it is that you need to do for the day and I’ll take care of this.”
At first I didn’t know what to say. It was like the world had turned into a topsy turvy version of reality, one where men did the dishes and women got on with their day. I turned and went back to my room before the world would turn itself right round and this turned out to be the most fantastical dream.
I went into the bathroom and waited until I thought enough time had passed for him to have filled the sink. It was Saturday, I had a belly full of breakfast and no where I needed to go. I went over to the tub and put the plug in the hole and turned on the water. I filled it with warm water with a squirt of my favorite bubble bath and before too long I was laying back in the tub, with a cloth over my eyes as all my cares melted away.
There was a creaking noise as the bathroom door opened, and a smiled played around my mouth.
“Do you feel like having some company?” Michael’s deep voice was a rumble to the left above me and I heard the rustle of clothing as he stripped his clothes.
“Always.” I took the cloth from my eyes and sat up. I looked over as he shoved his pants down his legs, and he slipped into the tub behind me. I relaxed back and sighed. I didn't know if today could get any more perfect than it was at this moment. I was with Michael again, laying in his arms as we just enjoying being together.
He bought this hands around in to my front, his broad palms stroking over my breasts through the water. I could feel him hardening behind me, and I wondered if it would always be like this. Would there ever be a time when we weren’t hungry for each other?
His right hand drifted down my belly and I parted my legs for him. I closed my eyes and melted against him as he stroked me. He knew just how to touch me, knew just what turned me on. His name was a sigh on my lips as he touched me. But eventually his hand between my legs was not enough. I needed him deep inside me, so I moved his hand away and rolled over. The narrow confines of the tub frustrated my efforts to straddle him, and he laughed at my growl of frustration.
“Easy, my love. I’m not going anywhere.” He gathered me close and kissed me. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub as he held me to him and stood up. It always amazed me at how strong he was. That he wanted me as much as he did only served to make me marvel at how I’d gotten so lucky to have him come into my life.
He dried my body once we were out of the tub, and I looked over toward the bathroom sink and my mind flashed back to another time when he’d taken me in my bathroom at my old home. I seemed like a perfect way for us to start our renewed relationship, for him to take me the way he had then. The only difference now was that I was certain that I wanted him in my life. I still wasn’t sure what form that would take, whether it would be marriage or not, but I was in now doubt that I needed him in my life.
I walked over to the sink and opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out the jar of Vaseline that I kept there. I handed it to him, and his eyes flared. He knew without me saying a word what I wanted, what I needed from him. I turned away from him, and watched him step up behind me as I braced my hands on the edge of the sink. I opened my legs as wide as I could, opened myself up to him to give him access to every part of me. He dipped his fingers in the jar, and then dipped them into the hole of my bottom.
I moaned long and loud as he pleasured me there with his fingers. He slid them in and out of me, gently stretching me in preparation for what he was going to do to me. I was trembling with the pleasure he was giving me, and soon his fingers inside me was not enough. I wanted all of him inside me.
“Please fuck me, Michael.” My voice was a plea that he moved swiftly to obey. It took him no time at all to prepare his cock for his entry inside me, and then he was there, right where I wanted and needed him. He slid in slow, past the tight ring of muscle that wanted to keep him out. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of the sink and I blew out a slow breath. So much had changed since the first time he’d done this to me, and above all else, I trusted this man completely with my body and my life. He was gentle with me, so patient while he waited for me to be ready to take all the passion he had to give me. I pushed my hips back to signal to him that I was ready for him to move inside me.
I closed my eyes as he slowly fucked my ass. God he felt so good inside me. How could I have gone the past ten months without him doing this, without him filling my body and making it sing? I opened my eyes again and watched in the mirror. I could see how turned on he was as he looked down at where he was sliding in and out of my body, and that only served to make me want him more.
His thrusts picked up speed and I pushed back against him as I met him stroke for stroke.
“Oh God, yes. Do it to me Michael, fuck me.” I was begging him to fuck me harder and with a snarl on his face he complied.
The sound of his flanks slapping against my ass was music to my ears, and when he reached around to bury his hand between my legs he took me to paradise. I came against his hand with a keening cry as I trembled and shuddered against him. I thought for a moment that I would die right there as my heart exploded with love for him as my body exploded with pleasure. My ass gripped his cock with every pulse that went through me and it was enough to send him over the edge to join me. I managed to lift my head enough so I could watch him as he came. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed tight an
d a look of such intense rapture was on his face that it almost looked like pain.
When our breathing had returned to normal, when he softened and fell from my body, he turned me and held me.
“I love you.” His voice was deep rumble in his chest as we clung to each other. “You don’t have to decide this minute, but know that you would make me the happiest man in the world if you would agree to be my wife. I will never leave you, I will never betray you. I want to build a life with you and I will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“Michael.” I didn’t want to talk about this now. It was all too new for me, I was only just learning to live the life I wanted. Did I want to take the chance of ruining what we had together by promising forever with him?
“Like I said, you don’t have to decide right now. Just be open to the possibility and prepare yourself to be courted within an inch of your life.”
I liked the sound of that, and I smiled up at him. “And what exactly would this courting entail?”
“It would entail me showing you how much you mean to me, how much I love you.” He leaned down and kissed me. My body was pressed against his and I wanted him all over again. He dragged his lips over the skin on my face until he got to my ear. “And lots of dirty sex.”
Epilogue
July 15, 1960
I smiled to myself as I pulled my birthday cake out of the ice box and set it on the counter. The sound of the laughing voices of my children and their husbands came to me and I didn’t think I’d ever been happier. I was with my family, and there was nothing in the world that could make this day any better.
As I put two candles in the centre of the cake I remember a different cake. One much smaller than this one, one quite sad looking if memory served me correctly. I remembered how I felt then, on the night I’d turned forty and it seemed like a far away dream to me now. I remembered the wish I made, and I knew now on my forty second birthday that wishes did come true.
I heard the front door of my apartment open, and my smile got wider as a wave of giddy happiness went through me. He was here, the love of my life and I turned my head to watch him come to the kitchen door and walk toward me. I never got tired of looking at him, of seeing that bright smile cross his face whenever he looked back at me.
“You didn’t have to run out to the store at this hour just to get ice cream. We could have managed without it.”
“A birthday isn’t the same without ice cream to go with the cake.” He leaned down and kissed me full on the mouth. “Happy birthday Grace.”
I looked up at him and thought for a moment I would never tire of looking at him, of being kissed and held by him. When Michael had promised to court me he’d been as good as his word. He’d shown me what life would be like with him, and patiently waited for me to get past my fear of marriage. When we’d finally exchanged our vows three months ago, I knew that he was the right man for me.
He never insisted that I be anything other than the woman I wanted to be. I kept my job at the flower shop, and my marriage to him made me feel free, instead of it being an anchor that dragged me down like my first marriage.
“Go in the other room and enjoy your family while I get the cake ready. The sooner we have cake and ice cream the sooner we can be alone.”
“And when we’re alone, can we have lots of dirty sex?” I knew I shouldn’t tease him like this when we had an apartment full of people, but I couldn’t resist.
He pulled me to him and kissed me full on the mouth in a flare of passion that left me breathless. When he pulled away he stroked a finger down my cheek and I could see the love he had for me filling his eyes.
“You know I could never refuse you anything.”
As I turned and went back into the living room to join our family I thought of how different this birthday was from any that I’d had before. I had my family around me and a husband who adored me. I was living the life I wanted, and I’d finally learned that I could only please myself and not anybody else.
The man coming out of the kitchen with a lit birthday cake in his hands had taught me many things, but the most important lesson of all was that it didn’t matter how things looked to other people, only how they looked to him and me. And as I took a deep breath to blow out my candles I realized that I didn’t need to make a wish this year because I already had everything I wanted.
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The Seduction of Mrs. Valentine Sample
September of nineteen-fifty four started like most other Septembers of my married life. Mr. Eisenhower was president, I'd been married to my husband Bill for seven year, and I had no children to send off to school like the other women in my neighborhood. Perhaps it was spending my days alone while my husband worked. Perhaps it was the seven years I'd been married that finally started to itch. Who can say what the cause of it all was, but it was that September that started something that would change my life and my marriage, forever.
The day he came into my life started like any other. I kissed Bill goodbye like I did every weekday morning, I washed the dishes left over from breakfast, cleaned the upstairs and downstairs of our home, and was preparing lunch when there was a knock on my kitchen door. I thought perhaps it was Gladys from across the street, wanting to borrow a cup of sugar, or perhaps a sales man wanting to sell me the latest gadget that would make my life easier.
I knew as soon as I opened the door for him that he was no sales man. No self-respecting housewife would buy anything from a man who looked like him. Dark denim jeans, white cotton T-shirt and a black leather jacket on a body with breadth of a boxer but the unblemished face of a man in his early twenties. There was no mistaking him for what he was, a young man rebelling against the constraints of society, or at least that was how he wanted to appear. He looked like an extra in that motion picture Bill had taken me to see last year, the one with Marlon Brando about the motorcycle gang. The only thing missing was the motorcycle, of which there was no evidence of in my driveway behind him.
The contrast between him and my husband was startling. Nervous energy that I hadn't felt for a long time moved through my bloodstream, making my heart race, my palms grow damp and the flesh between my legs tingle in a way that usually only happened when my husband touched me in our marriage bed.
Some instinct told me to close the door, to forget I'd seen him. This man was dangerous, but not in the way that worried most women at home alone. The only threat I sensed from him was to my faithfulness to my husband. Even after only looking at him for a moment, I realized if I let him into my home I would start down a path that could destroy everything that I'd built for the past seven years.
"Can I help you?" There was a wariness in my voice, and he must have heard it, because a smile came onto his face. The wind ruffled his light brown hair and there was an easy confidence in his eyes, but there was something else there too. An appreciation in the way his eyes swept over me, which gave me a funny feeling in my stomach and told me that if I was so inclined, he would be open to doing things with me. Things that I hadn't done with anyone other than my husband.
I tore my eyes away from his and he gave a little laugh. I was not going to be doing anything with this man. I loved my husband and he loved and trusted me. I wouldn't destroy that for a drifter who'd shown up at my door one day.
"I'm James Hurley, we spoke on the telephone yesterday. I called about the room for rent."
This was him? He was not the image I'd built up in my mind yesterday when I spoke to him. He hadn't seemed dangerous then, but perhaps his particular charm only worked in person. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have told him that there was some mistake, that the room had been rented and shut the door in his face. Of course I was not thinking clearly in that moment, and would not for a long time to come, so I stepped back and let him into my home.
He walked past me, and the scent of him wafted over to
me and I clenched the door knob in my hand. He smelled of leather, cigarette smoke and a brand of aftershave that I couldn't identify, but it had a clean woodsy scent that dampened my underwear. Was it because he smelt so different from my husband that was causing this reaction in me? Was it the novelty of a man who looked like him, who smell like him here in the middle of suburbia that drew me to him? As much as I loved my husband, I was aware that he dressed, smelled and acted like every other man in the neighborhood.
"I'm Mrs. Valentine." I made sure to emphasis my married status, but I wasn't sure if it was for his benefit or mine. My insides were trembling and there was an excited desire flowing through me that I was sure was written all over me. I knew this was a mistake, that this man could get me into loads of trouble, but I couldn't seem to stop this any more than I could stop a runaway train hurtling down a train track. "The room is this way. The rent is four dollars a week and it includes the room and your board."
I led him further into my home, and up the stairs toward the room that was available for rent. We walked past the bedroom I shared with my husband, with its neatly made double bed and I shoved aside the flash of an image of this young man kneeling naked behind me, taking me from behind. I needed to focus on the matter at hand, the reason he was here. He was here to see the room Bill and I had decided to rent out since there would be no children to fill it. Bill thought it would give me the chance to earn some extra pin money.
I swept my hand out when I got to the spare bedroom, and he stepped inside and looked around. It was rather plain, with a single bed and matching wood bedroom set. We hadn't known the type of person who would be renting from us, so we'd opted to keep the room simple looking. It seemed a lot smaller now that I was standing inside the door, with him only a few steps away. My eyes darted from his broad, leather clad shoulders to the bed. What would he look like there, on the bed without his jacket and perhaps his shirt?
A Wife Scorned: Complete Series Page 12