Cherry Blossoms

by KT Morrison

  She let her hand fall into his lap and she found his hardness through his pants and she stroked it for him. She smiled and it touched him, wound his lips up to a smile too.

  He kissed her and she closed her eyes and felt his wonderful lips press against hers. She lay back for him, arms up legs spread, wanting her husband to take her. Reclaim her. If he made love to her now everything would be all right. He turned her to her side and he slipped in behind her, his buckle clinked, she felt its cold metal on her back. She brought her knees up a bit, thrust her sex out, then she felt it. Her husband’s gentle erection slip up inside her. She was sopping wet. Her own nectar and that of her large-testicle lover’s enormous discharge. Dino came a lot. More than most men. His balls weren’t just for show. They produced volume. Geoff was finding out.

  “Nia, he made you so slippery...”

  “He comes a lot...”

  “Can you even feel me now?”

  “Yes, Geoff...but you’re a lot smaller than Dino...”

  “Really? I feel smaller.”

  “You’ll feel bigger tomorrow. I’ll be tighter.”

  “He stretched you?”

  “A little.” She smiled to herself knowing that turned him on. It was true but she figured he liked to hear it. She was tuning in to her husband, getting to know how he worked. Dino had left her a little loose but it was temporary. She could feel her husband, but it wasn’t the same. Dino’s semen slurped and gurgled around Geoff’s cock as he stroked it in and out of her easily. It felt like a real wet mess back there.

  “Geoff, put it in my ass if I feel too loose...”

  “You feel so loose...”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah, it’s okay.”

  “Put it in my ass, Geoff.”

  “I’m okay. I like it where it is.”

  “You still feel good.”

  “Do I?”

  “You do, tiger.”

  With that she felt him tremble. He clutched a breast suddenly, his hand gripping her flesh tight. He was coming already. Just a few strokes and he was done. She’d given him the show of his dreams today and there wasn’t much hope for him to last long. “Did you just come?” she asked him.

  “You didn’t feel it?”

  “No, baby.”

  His hand went down her side and felt her hip and her thigh. He kissed her shoulder.

  “Did you like fucking him?”

  “He’s so hot, Geoff.”

  “Yeah, he is. You two look good together.”

  She turned to face him, his cock slipping out of her without protest. “Hey, don’t...”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You sound mopey...”

  “I’m fine, Nia. You really did look good together.”

  “Did we?”

  “You know you did. Don’t be coy.”

  “Tell me,” she laughed.

  “I mean it, Nia. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world. I loved seeing you like that. I loved seeing you so turned on, so satisfied. I loved the noises he made you make.”

  “You make me make those noises.”

  “Sometimes. Still, not like that.”

  “No.”

  “Ah,” he sighed and clutched his chest. “Is it okay that I like this?”

  “It is, Geoff.”

  “You don’t think I’m weird? Or crazy?”

  “I showed you mine, you’re showing me yours...we’re both fucked up turns out. Who’d have thought two nice kids like us would be so dark.”

  “I don’t feel so good.” He laid his hand over his stomach and his face grew pained.

  She kissed him, pressed her lips to his forehead and hugged his head to her breast. “Don’t fight it, Geoff. It’s what you wanted. I know it’s hard. I love you. You’ll...it’ll feel better in a little while, promise. That was a lot for you. Baby, you know you wanted it.”

  “Am I going to lose you?”

  “What? Geoff, don’t be crazy, don’t—”

  “Do you love him?”

  “No, Geoff, I don’t.” She cradled his head and looked in his eyes, smoothed his hair at his temples.

  His hands came up and slipped under the collar of his shirt. He fiddled around with a chain he had, unclasped it, held something in his palm as he drew the necklace through it.

  “What’s that?” she asked him.

  “Give me your hand.”

  She let her hand drape across her bare chest and watched him lift one of her lazy fingers and he slipped a big silver ring on it.

  “Oh, Geoff,” she cried. She held it up in the sunlight and looked at it. A chunky hunk of shining silver with a gem stone, turquoise and mottled sea green, flecked with veins of gold. “Geoff, it’s beautiful.”

  “Chrysocolla,” he said.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a Goddess stone. A stone of empowerment for the feminine energies, a stone of communication, compassion. It looks good with your skin.” He kissed her bare stomach and they laughed together at the flutter it gave her.

  “You’re so smart, Geoff,” she said and she scratched his neck, scratched at his stubble, watching her new ring wink. He hovered over her and she saw, under his usual warm benevolence, a sadness in his eyes. “You okay?”

  He nodded, his mouth a firm line. “Yeah. Let’s go get our daughter...”

  GEOFF

  Nia drove the BMW all the way up to Agincourt with the top down and her hair untied. It fluttered and whipped around her and Geoff watched her from the corner of his eye. She was stunning. Looking again like she did when he was twenty and was just her friend. She looked like she was out of Geoff’s league. Big black wayfarers on, in her black convertible, her thin neck and perfect face framed in the frightening tangled sexy black mane. How was she married to this slim chump in the passenger seat?

  Since the spring, his love had fucked two other men. Both of them studs of the highest order. One was a lover, one was a demon. She loved the sex with both of them. Her lies had put a guiltless young man in the hospital with serious injuries. Their marriage was forever changed. Their daughter was missing her mother who was always working now. He spent every day with her, but she was fucking growing up too, wasn’t she? Getting older. Getting closer to the time she might leave him.

  In some ways he wondered if that blip of time, those seven years Nia had spent sequestered in the Kane household with him and Odie would be, in retrospect, the best years of his life. He’d never get them back now. Too much had transpired. He didn’t even know if it was for the better. His animal lust had been fed. The darkest parts of him had got nourishment but was it worth the extra calories?

  That happy time was gone. He loved this woman next to him but she was a different person now. Different from how he knew her. But this was who she really was. This was the one he wanted all those years ago. She scared the shit out of him. He was nothing to her and it felt like it was just a matter of time before she remembered that and ran off with one of the Dragonieri brothers and he’d see her over a cup of coffee on the weekends and she could confide to him how anal sex with a big cock hurt too much.

  It was his own doing. He set her free. Maybe it was best for her, but for him—he wondered how that bird out soaring and flying would ever find her way back to the tiny little door of her cage.

  His sister was excited to see them. He put on a brave face. Did it for Kelly, Odie, and Nia too. She seemed happy. Elated, really. She’d brought her bikini and they stayed the afternoon and swam and Kelly and Trish barbecued. His sister and her girlfriend separately ogled Nia. She was a sight. He caught her a few times, adjusting the crotch of her bikini bottoms, like what she had under there was bothering her.

  Odie was all over him. Showing him her set up. She’d put the tent by the pool, angled so the morning sun would light up the front fly. That’s what the Algonquins did, she said, for thousands of years. Not tents but stone huts. Odie cheered him up. He didn’t tell her about the book. There would be time for that. Krist
a didn’t want that book until his first two were done, and Laetitia’s was done. She wanted time for it to develop. He could appreciate that.

  By dinner time he was feeling a lot better. Had come to terms with what he saw that morning. In a way, could appreciate it. Nia was right, it would just take time. He held Nia’s hand while they ate hamburgers under the patio umbrella. She was happy. He made her happy. Things weren’t as bad as they might seem. They were just different. It would be whatever he made of it. It was up to him.

  As Kelly’s boys and Odie swam in the big pool and Nia waded with her arms over the tiled edge he watched her long tanned legs kick under the water. Next week they would look at cottages. He could do it now. He would get a place just for them. Far from all these new distractions. Far from the city. Another place to keep them all safe and together. He was going to get this family back on track.

  Part VI

  Temporal

  27

  Dollhouse

  Wednesday, August 16th

  NIA

  Geoff was out of bed before she was. She put her arm over where he should be and felt his cool absence. She frowned, her head nestled in her warm pillow. She missed her snuggle buddy.

  Geoff was a demon since coming home from NYC. How could he not be changed? Stellar recognition from a prestigious publisher then coming home to his naughty cheating wife, going down on her after her lover, then watching said lover arrive by thundering motorcycle, sweep her off her feet and give her one of the most memorable all-time fuckings she’d ever got. Part of its greatness was because she was being watched. She liked being watched. She liked Geoff watching her.

  She moaned in the empty room and stretched, squeezed her girl muscles and smiled. Touched herself a little. Too bad for Geoff he was down in the studio, she could have gone for it. A quickie before the shower. She looked at the clock. Fuck, she had to go to work.

  Geoff’s demonic possession manifested in an invigorated work ethic that was already inordinate. The last two days he’d clocked more than fourteen hours. He was happy though. She worried about his breaking point. He was bound to have one.

  She got in the hot shower and scrubbed herself, washed her hair and her face, towel dried. Did her makeup, her hair. She smelled bacon. She smiled in the mirror.

  She went down to the kitchen fully dressed for work, tight skirt, tight black top, and a new pair of Gucci leather snake pumps. Way too much for work but she got them in the mall out in Vaughan last night after work on a tip from Ang and they were half price. Black leather, with a band around the cuff in red, white, and black that looked like a coral snake. They were unbelievably sexy.

  Geoff was cooking bacon and eggs, tea towel over his shoulder, steam billowed from the kettle behind him.

  “Look at you,” she said, “don’t you ever sleep anymore?”

  He turned and his face lit up to see her, she went to him and hugged him, let him kiss her neck.

  “Morning, baby. I’m just so excited.”

  “About what?” she said, taking a piece of bacon off a paper towel laid over a plate.

  “About everything, Nia. But look, come here,” he said and he walked to the booth and pointed out a folded up newspaper placed on the set space where she would eat.

  “What is it?” she said and she came to the table, pulling a bite off the bacon strip.

  “Sit, sit,” he said. “I’ll bring your breakfast.”

  She sat down at the table, slid herself into the booth, looking at what he’d left. Geoff went back to the kitchen in his bare feet and sweatpants. It wasn’t a newspaper, it was a real estate insert. He hadn’t been drawing, he’d been cooking and circling listings.

  “You weren’t drawing?” she said, looking at the photos he’d marked.

  “No, not yet. I went out to get the paper, I cooked breakfast...” he said, scrambling eggs. Toast popped from the toaster at his elbow.

  The first listing he’d circled was a two-bedroom bungalow on a lake just south of Georgian Bay. “Cottages? Really, Geoff?”

  “Yeah, Nia, I circled some...look.”

  “I see,” she said, feeling a little of his excitement travelling her way now.

  “We should do this, right?” he said, leaning on the counter.

  “We should, Geoff.”

  “I gotta wake up Odie...your breakfast is ready,” he said, and he forked scrambled eggs with caramelized onions onto her plate. He brought it to her and put the plate onto the table, all smiles. She held his wrist.

  “Slow down, tiger,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Baby, you’re manic.”

  “No, I'm not,” he laughed, letting her hold him still while he slid himself into the booth opposite her.

  He was looking thin, tired, his eyes were wide. “Look at your beard, you have to take care of yourself—”

  “I want so much for us, sweetheart, I have to work hard—”

  “No, you don't, Geoff, I want you alive and happy and healthy, okay?”

  “I know...”

  “Take care of yourself—once my job slows down we’ll do yoga together, you know, over the winter…”

  “Okay...promise?”

  “Yes, no offence, but you look terrible...” she laughed.

  “Thanks...what’s wrong with my beard?” he said, running his palms over it.

  “When was the last time you combed it?”

  He rolled his eyes, then looked her up and down. “You’ve never looked better.”

  “I love you. What are you going to do today?”

  “Pfft, draw. Can I get Odie now? I want us to have breakfast together.”

  “Geoff,” she laughed, scooping eggs up on her fork, “it’s so early, baby. Let her sleep.”

  “Don’t you want to sit like a family?”

  “Geoff, honey, it’s not even six. Let the poor girl sleep...”

  NIA

  She got to the yard before seven o’clock. It was still mostly dark, the sky a spacious blank indigo. Traffic was sparse on the main drag and she turned the cabriolet up the short paved ridge past the retail store and into the gravel. She turned her stereo down.

  There was a large, gleaming white pickup truck in her headlights. It was parked haphazardly on an angle in front of the back door that led to the offices, like it had arrived in a hurry and screeched to a halt. She pulled the BMW around it, headed to her usual parking spot. Saw the truck’s plate. MARIA 1. Her stomach tightened. Maria never came here. Maria had nothing to do with the business, was not interested, not part of the show in any way. Her presence was strange. She bit her lower lip, still sitting in her car, headlights lighting up the brown brick now, engine still running.

  There was a thousand things Maria could be here for that were benign but something about the way the truck sat, some paranormal feeling, told her this was not good. She sat in the car until the clock rolled over past seven. Then seven-oh-five. Now she was late. There were men in the yard behind her, Doug was there, some other black silhouettes she recognized—Mike, Gerry, Glen, construction crew one, loading trucks, going to Bloor Village today. She shut the car down, gathered her purse reluctantly, hoped to see Maria’s big shape come through that door and leave before she got out. Nothing happened. She went through her lunch, saw the things Geoff had packed for her. Held the apple, tested its weight for no reason. Still nothing.

  “Fuck,” she sighed. Maria needed cash, papers signed, kiss baby Peter before I take him to a doctor’s appointment, give him a blessing...a thousand regular life things. She grabbed her purse and her lunch, laptop, thrust Geoff’s circled listings into her bag, got out and made her way to the brown-painted metal door. She looked at her shoes, her bare legs. Great. Sexy Guccis. Thousand dollar shoes she decides to wear today.

  It was almost ten after seven and if Maria was here for her big strong husband to loosen a jar of fucking pickles or something there was a good chance Rocco would yell at her for being late. She took a deep breath and walked in.
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  The offices were dark, none of the lights on. No one from administration usually arriving until near nine o’clock. The place was still but there was a commotion from Rocco's office. His desk lamp was on. She stood in the concrete vestibule, the metal door closed loudly behind her and now it was too late. She'd been heard.

  Across the space of three darkened messy desks, no dividers, she could see through the door to Rocco's office. It was open, and even if it weren't, the walls were glass panels from the waist up. She could see Rocco in there and Maria too, turned to look over her shoulder to see who'd come in. Who was stupid enough to come in. Nia felt frozen, debating if it were more awkward now to turn and leave or to walk to her desk. She did neither, stood uncomfortably still.

  Maria was red-faced. She was angry but she'd been crying. She turned again to face her husband. Nia could hear her voice but not the words, saw her hair shaking as she hissed angry venom at him, her face thrust towards him, her hand at her side, her finger pointed in anger but jabbing aimlessly to his tile floor.

  Rocco stood and took it blankly. Not guilty of whatever condemnation she was hurtling but not defending himself either. He stood next to his desk, shoulders sloped, thumbs hooked in jeans pockets. At the end of a long vitriolic castigation Nia distinctly heard, “Such a fucking asshole,” and with that she swiped a backhand across his desk, swatting a collection of pamphlets and papers, and business cards in a holder in the miniature form of a kidney-shaped pool with water slide—knocking them all to the floor in a fluttering mess. She looked then like she may hit her husband, her hands tensed, her arms shaking with restraint.

  Maria held herself back, turned on a Reebok heel and barged out of his office heading Nia’s way. She bristled. Held her breath, stepped to the side so Maria would have clear path to the door—so she could get in her truck and get the fuck out of here.

  Maria’s eyes fixed hers the whole way, locked on her and Nia felt herself shrink under this charging woman. She had something to say to her and Nia knew she absolutely didn't want to hear it.