“So tight, Marilyn, so freaking good,” he told her rubbing soft circles on her behind.
“Please don’t come in my ass,” she begged him.
“Don’t say ‘come in my ass,’ or I’m going to fucking come in your ass,” he admonished her.
She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was holding back a laugh.
“So, what do you think? You like my cock in your ass?” He fucked her with trained strokes full of compassion that inexplicably made her tear up. She sniffled and he patted her rump with affection. “You love it,” he whispered into her ear after he leaned forward. With a handful of her hair, he pulled her head back. “You love getting your ass fucked.”
“Ohfuck, ohgod, sofuckingtight,” he said as he increased his pace.
“Please,” she reminded. Her answer came in the form of a hand to her clit that also picked up the pace. Marilyn screamed as the orgasm tore through her, shredding her dignity and splitting apart her soul. The center of her climax was a raging firestorm with rings that resounded outward, rattling her very bones. She shrieked as she began to come down and lose touch with the bright light. Her body oozed into a pile on the bed, she was liquefied, her mind obliterated into nebulous vapors that drifted around her head.
Decker pulled out, then yanked her down on the bed by her feet. He walked on his knees to her body and spread her legs. She couldn’t move, nor could she speak.
Lowering himself down on his strong biceps, he ran his impressively virulent and resilient cock through her folds. She quaked in response and dragged her eyes to his face.
“Come inside you, still the name of the game?”
She nodded once and closed her eyes. He rammed forward to the hilt and tremors wracked her body, spiking her nerve endings into action. He stroked once, twice, and on the third stroke, he spilled what she wanted inside of her.
“Happy?” he asked her.
Marilyn nodded.
* * *
Marilyn awoke with a start in the middle of the night. Decker was beside her, his arm extended under her neck, his hand casually touching her hip. He was naked except for the sheet that draped around him like an Italian Renaissance sculpture. He snored lightly, more of a rasp than a full-on honk like the one Ove did.
Ove.
He’d probably fallen asleep in his chair with his glasses still on. She could never figure out how his neck didn’t fall forward. He’d stumble to bed without even realizing she was gone—or if he did, he’d guess she missed the last ferry back and had spent the night at her parent’s place—as she often told him.
Ove was a good, good man. Fascinating, so smart, still curious and positively engaged in life. He was kind, generous, and noble, a decent man if ever there were one. She knew that even at his age and on his fifth run on the course, he’d be an exceptional father.
She loved Ove. And the guilt from the betrayal curdled her stomach. So, she pushed it out of her mind and focused on the task at hand. Despite feeling existentially exhausted, her statistical chances would surge if she could get the sleeping male angel beside her to go again.
Marilyn decided to wake him with a blow job. All men liked to be woken up that way and if they said otherwise, it was a case of petulant denial.
Decker was still semi-hard and wore the scent of their two mingled bodies. She started slow at the tip and worked him into a raging hard-on by sucking him deep and slow. He rolled on his back and opened his shockingly green eyes. The smile that spread across his face was decadent, like a cloud of whipped cream atop an already indulgent dessert.
He touched her face and let her long hair run through his fingers, with an affectionate look on his face that made Marilyn sad she couldn’t take his feelings into consideration.
“I’d think you were a succubus or some kind of apparition, if you didn’t feel so real.” His voice was husky, gravelly after waking. She imagined getting him coffee and bringing him the paper like she did for Ove every morning. Decker wouldn’t need slippers or a robe, he’d walk into the kitchen barefoot and wearing nothing more than boxers.
Marilyn admonished herself for having domestic fantasies, forced herself to focus on the present. Take the semen and run. Nobody gets hurt. Desperation can make anyone lie to themselves.
“You know today started out totally fucking terrible and then got even worse when my truck broke down. Felt like I was being tested, put to the limit. And then this happened.”
“They don’t call you a lucky sonofabitch for nothing,” she said. He laughed openly, and the sound struck her as melodic and joyous.
She crawled up his fit but slender form, admiring not only his pulsing cock, but the way his abdomen tapered, the strawberry-blond color of the fine hairs that covered his body, the warm scent of his flesh—like summer rain. That’s what he was, a sun-shower.
She lowered herself onto his straining erection while he took her sore breasts in his hands and began once again, the sweet torture of her nipples. She was raw, dead-tired, and feeling delirious, but her anatomy responded to his touch like a soldier standing at attention. Eager, committed, ready to go—they had chemistry, the two of them, and she couldn’t deny the glint of connection that was brewing between them. It wasn’t a good thing.
* * *
She rode his body with pure hedonistic lust. As his cock dragged leisurely through her channel, she thrust harder so that his tip rammed into her G-spot.
The third orgasm that rocked Marilyn that night was painstakingly slow to rouse and usher forth. But when it finally arrived, it was worth the effort and her noises of pleasure were so erotic and uninhibited that it pulled Decker’s climax into the race, and they detonated together. She collapsed down on top of him as her muscles continued to suck the precious potential toward her womb. She smiled into his chest hair, while he scribbled invisible sonnets down her back with the tip of his pointer finger.
When at last her knight of pleasure had returned to his gentle rumble of sleep, she separated her torso from his cautiously and crept from the bed. She took the risk of showering because even a sleepy, absentminded professor would be able to detect the heady scent of sex on her flesh. Her clothes, still wet from the rain, were a bother to shrug into and felt like a prison to her extra sensitized and over-stimulated skin.
She pulled her hair into a knot and peered into the dreary bathroom mirror. There were cigarette stains on the porcelain sink and she smirked thinking about how much they must weigh on the proprietress Josephine’s prude and judgmental conscience. After looking just once at her reflection, her eyes flashed back, for she saw a touch of change that registered immediately. Marilyn laughed out loud and slapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes pricked with tears and her shoulders wracked with silent sobs.
For in the echo of herself she saw what she’d always wanted to see, and it didn’t take a pee strip, or an ultrasound, or a blood test for her to confirm that her life, at that moment, had changed on a fundamental level. Her woman’s intuition had never failed her. She was pregnant. There was a new life growing inside of her. It was the one wish she desired more than anything else.
* * *
At this stage of the game, she’d grab her purse and march to the car. Sometimes suffer the wrath of Josephine who’d come sniff the room in disgust and look at her as if she were a whore. But today was different in so many ways. Marilyn spotted a pad of paper by the phone. She grabbed the pen supplied beside it and began to draft Decker a note. Since he was the one, it seemed only fair. And there was a trace of innocence to the man that had her feeling obligated to some accountability—not an explanation—but a token of gratitude to help soften the blow.
He lay there looking like a Greek god, so beautifully chiseled and still semi-hard. Bless his heart, she thought to herself. A man like that you could fuck every day for the rest of your life and always find a new attribute to appreciate.
To eat and run was terribly rude and she knew it. She also knew
all too well what getting fucked and ditched felt like, and even though they were men, she didn’t wish upon anyone the sense of worthlessness those few nights in college had made her suffer. Decker was special, so she’d leave him a note and then hightail it the hell out of there.
* * *
Dearest Decker,
I’ll forever be indebted to you for the joy you’ve brought me. I hope that an ounce of what I experienced was mutual and that you will look back upon this night with utmost fondness. But I do ask now for protection, when last night I likely appeared adamant to forgo it altogether. I implore you not to speak of this encounter, to allow it to live in your memory alone and never seek me out. I am in love with another man, and any further communication on our part would inflict damage and heartache. I wish you well. Success. Happiness. Deep love. Gratifying adventures. And last but not least, a lifetime full of exceptional sex. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Tonight could not possibly have been any better.
-M
* * *
SIX YEARS LATER
Mr. and Mrs. Nilsson, although it’s apparent that your son is very, very bright, I’m just afraid he’s not a fit for our school at this time.
Marilyn’s eyes blurred with tears and she crumpled the offensive letter and tossed it clear across the kitchen. In the cabinet above the plates was her secret stash of cigarettes, which she’d convinced Ove had been given up completely, over a year ago. She lit one on the stove and sucked in the welcome blast of nicotine.
Another day, another rejection letter. Maybe private kindergarten just wasn’t for them. She wouldn’t mind getting out of the commute on the ferry to the mainland every morning. The local public option wasn’t terrible and it was conveniently close. She hid the smoke behind her back and opened the glass sliding door into the fenced-in backyard.
Ove Dexter chased the dog, and they ran back and forth through the sprinkler, making a muddy mess of the grass.
“Do you want lunch, darling?”
Ove Dexter stopped and handed her his undivided attention.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s taking the last ferry in. He had errands to run and a meeting at the university.”
“I thought he was retired,” Ove Dexter said, tilting his head to the side. The child was articulate—on another level in comparison to neighborhood children his age—or maybe every parent believed the same about their kid.
“Emeritus doesn’t always mean completely retired. Or like Dad says, he has to show up a couple times a year or they’ll stop sending his paychecks.”
“What would happen if Daddy didn’t get paychecks?” Ove Dexter inquired.
“Then we’d eat fish for dinner every night and we’d have to catch it ourselves.”
Ove Dexter smiled at her answer, revealing the gap where his two bottom teeth used to be. His bright green eyes made her heart surge like the roar of a jet engine. The child was the greatest gift, and the center of her whole universe.
“Would we live on a boat?”
“Yes, and you would wear your pirate costume for real.”
Ove Dexter looked thrilled.
“Okay, Mommy!” He lunged at the dog and they both slid in the wet grass.
At least he’d already ditched his clothing and wouldn’t stain his last decent pair of pants. The cigarette singed her fingers. She’d forgotten she was holding it. She flicked it haphazardly in the direction of the sink.
“I’m going to heat up the chowder from last night and we can have that with grilled cheese. How does that sound?”
“And crackers!” Ove Dexter hollered as he waterskied in the grass, holding the dog by the tail. His underpants were sopping wet and covered in mud. She’d have to sic the hose on them or wrangle them into the bathtub.
She closed the door to preserve the air conditioning and picked up the crumpled letter, tossing it in the trash. She’d save Ove from the disappointment of reading it himself.
In truth, their son was peculiar. He didn’t show any interest in the amusements that other children lost their minds over. He didn’t like sweets, or birthday parties, and Marilyn would be hard pressed to get him to watch an episode of Sesame Street, or any television at all for that matter.
He liked doing activities alone and would express only high stress, or sometimes terror, at playdates. Ove Dexter was oddly devout when both she and Ove Sr. had no tolerance for religion. Now Marilyn found herself in service every Sunday, holding his little hand and filling the collection plate with his weekly allowance.
He loved the ocean like she loved him—without pretense, endlessly, and at times, so much it hurt. He’d learned to swim at the tender age of three and braved the ocean waves on days the sun didn’t shine, and it was too cold for her to even stick her toes in.
The two of them began every day with a walk along the shore and Ove Dexter wore his swim trunks—rain, shine, or delirious with fever from chicken pox. She wore baggy jeans rolled up to mid-calf and was always prepared to jump in after him for rescue if the occasion arose.
The boy had an ecological and environmental concern that bordered on obsession. In fact, she’d consulted a psychiatrist about how to protect his developing brain from reading catastrophic reports about the state of the climate, and the fate of the world’s water.
“How does he know in the first place?” the doctor had asked with an air of incredulousness.
“He reads anything he can get his hands on.”
She’d cancelled the National Geographic subscription and refused to take him to the Marine Museum. But he’d seen the fishing nets come in and Marilyn had no way to erase that, or to console his broken heart over how hateful humanity could be to the great mother who had created it.
So, he cried and prayed and worried himself sick. Spent days picking up garbage on the beach and in the parks. And Marilyn walked dutifully behind the child, steadily picking up the scattered pieces of his heavy heart.
It didn’t mean that Ove Sr. wasn’t present—he was, by all standards, a devoted and loving father. Ove Dexter was whip smart due to their investigative interactions. The child knew more about pirates and shipwrecks and marine navigation than most adults who dabbled in those subjects. He could rattle off oceanic currents, and depth charts, wonderful and weird facts about obscure flora and fauna. The child was a walking sponge and nothing got past him. When he slid open the patio door after finally tiring of his antics with the dog, she wiped him down with a bowl of soapy water and a tea towel.
“Mama, were you smoking your cigarettes?”
She smiled at him and put her finger to her lips. “Can that be a secret between you and me and not your father?”
He nodded, wide-eyed, and Marilyn trusted that nod about as much as she trusted the current political administration.
Ove Dexter was incapable of telling lies. She herself was a reformed liar. She hadn’t cheated, or even so much as looked at another man since the night of her son’s conception. She loved Ove, and this life was perfection.
* * *
After lunch, they changed and made their way to the garage that was now converted into her painting studio. The minute her body was cultivating new life, the urge to create was upon her like an all-consuming maelstrom—to call it a compulsion would have been a gross understatement. She’d suffered through her first trimester gagging and puking at the scent of turpentine, yet it didn’t deter her from producing six new works in the months leading up to Ove Dexter’s birth.
“Mama, what are you working on?” the boy asked her as he chewed thoughtfully on a celery stalk.
“Just a landscape. Turbulent sea in a storm.” She pulled the drape back from her easel and showed him the ominous scene.
“Is that a warm front or a cold front? Or maybe a nor’easter?” he asked her, tilting his head to evaluate the chop of the waves and the height of the clouds.
“Hmmm,” she replied. “Maybe last October when we got that st
orm that took out the weather vane and over-turned boats down at the marina?” She took a wild guess.
“Warm front. Tropical depression from Hurricane Maria,” he said. Ove Dexter filled her recycled stewed-tomatoes tin can with fresh turpentine, celery stalk fitted securely in the gap provided by his missing lower teeth.
“Right,” Marilyn told him. “Did Dad tell you the carnival is in town? I was thinking maybe we could go this weekend?”
“Okay,” he shrugged, looking less than thrilled. “Mr. Bridgeport once told Dad that carnies were all sex offenders who couldn’t find any other jobs. He said, ‘caaah-nies are all forma’ convicts and sex offenda’s.’” The child reproduced a near perfect old timer New Englander accent on demand.
Marilyn tried not to smile and brought the back of her hand to her lips.
Ove Dexter tied the strings of her waist apron around her back. Her painter’s smock consisted of one of Ove Sr.’s giant flannel shirts worn with the buttons toward the back. She was always covered in paint and she wore it like a gold star, in her hair, on her fingers, and sometimes on her face.
“Maybe we could hold your hand the whole time and not let you go?” she suggested.
“All right,” the child agreed. “I’d be interested to know how the mechanisms in all those rides work.”
* * *
She painted until the sun began to set with the boy perched next to her on a stool. He, in turn, read until natural light faded and looked up at her, blinking expectantly. The dog barked signaling Ove Sr.’s arrival from the ferry.
“I guess we’d better go in,” she lamented, setting down her paintbrush. “You’re going to need glasses soon at the rate you’re going, kiddo,” she said, mussing up his sandy blond hair.
“Did you make a plan for dinner?” he asked.
Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology Page 20