Romance in Color

by Synithia Williams

  “I have an IUD,” she murmured, wriggling her rear back toward him when his press wasn’t forthcoming.

  “Baby, you’re rocking my world right now and we haven’t even started.” At that, Matt got up onto his knees and reached one hand around her waist to mash her swollen nub.

  She tried to raise up at the sensation but Matt pushed her torso flat once more with his other hand so only her rear was in the air. He kept rubbing, flicking, and while she was too busy squirming to worry about what he was doing behind her, he gently spread her lips with his fingers and worked the head of his dick past her tight opening. Matt froze there, shuddering at the novel sensation and feeling his abdomen already starting to contract. Nora had gone tense at his entry, being so full of him already and not even having half of it inside.

  He slowly pulled it out and let his pulse slow down for a precious few seconds and then capitalized on her arousal by forcing his cock in slowly all at once, as far as it could go, taking up rubbing her clit once more. She was good and stretched and with his left hand now free, Matt leaned over Nora’s back and used it to prop himself up as he started the work of drawing out, gliding in. Nora was already biting down on the comforter her face was pressed against, her warm cunt spasming around him. God, she was worth the wait. He would have waited forever for her if he’d known it would be this good. She wasn’t going to last long. Neither was he.

  Matt bent close to her ear and whispered, “I’m going to come in you.”

  “Okay,” was all she could manage.

  With a few more tentative, slow thrusts, Matt increased his tempo and pounded more urgently into her, slamming his end against her cervix, hardly able to catch his breath between strokes. She felt so good. The first ever without that damned latex skin. The only one ever, if he had his way. Mine. He reached down and grabbed a fistful of her thick hair and gave it just enough of a pull to lift Nora’s head off the bed and then wound his fingers in it so that every time he bucked he pulled her head back just a bit. He watched her carefully, looking for signs of distress, but judging by her parted lips and the eyes fluttering behind her lids, she was in just the right headspace.

  Matt pressed her clit rhythmically while thrusting into her and she came without warning, screaming wordlessly into the mattress, and the jumping muscles ensconcing his cock throttled what reserve he had left. He panted and his thrusts began to grow ugly, less rhythmic, until finally he gripped Nora’s waist with both hands and allowed himself one more deep, hard thrust that made Nora call out his name from the force. He spilled his seed into her as she continued to writhe in front of him, stars spangling his vision as if he’d just lost a quart of blood.

  • • •

  Five o’clock the next morning, Nora paced on her front porch in the pre-dawn light wearing nothing but her bathrobe, ratty rubber flip-flops, and her new cardinal scarf around her now disheveled twists. “I feel like such a tramp. I can hardly walk,” she whispered into the phone. Bennie, having been up all night dealing with a bout of prenatal insomnia, stifled a yawn.

  “You’re such a prude. You’ve been with, what, three guys? One of those was your husband and the other your first long-term steady. Having sex with a guy you like and enjoying it isn’t a condemnable act in my opinion. It’s not like you’re slutting around like some people I know.”

  “That’s not the point,” Nora hissed, peering through the screen door when she noticed a light in the stairwell come on. “He’s not going to give up about this relationship thing. His grandmother is trying to lasso me into the family.”

  “His grandmother?”

  “Yeah, oh, by the fucking way. Gerta, who I thought you hired, is his grandmother. She just let herself in thinking I needed an overseer or something. She’s moving in with him and Karen to help with the baby.”

  “The baby? What baby?”

  “Fucking shit. I’ll tell you later. I think he’s up.”

  “Listen, before you go, here’s my advice. Take it for what it’s worth. He says he can tolerate you? Let him try. Show him how you really are when you go all anti-social when you’re painting. Let him see it to the extreme. If he wants to deal with your ass, let him. You like him, right?”

  “I think I a little bit more than like him.”

  “So what do you have to lose? The way I see it, you’re going to be brokenhearted with him or without him, because if he hooks up with someone else, you’re going to be all ‘woe is me’ and shit.”

  “I guess you have a point. I just worry this could end just as badly as it did with Elvin.”

  Matt’s heavy footsteps sounded down the stairs and Nora pulled the screen door open to step through.

  “Screw that douche bag Elvin. Elvin could marry a Mother Teresa-June Cleaver-Linda Lovelace hybrid and still find plenty to complain about. You can’t base every future relationship on the way that one ended.”

  “You’re right,” Nora said, shutting and locking the storm door behind her as a fully dressed Matt appeared at the stair landing. He bent down and gave her a tender kiss.

  “You okay?” he asked, fondling the tie of her scarf.

  “Yeah. I got up to go to the bathroom and saw Bennie had called.” Close enough to the truth in Nora’s opinion. “I’ll be off in a second.”

  “Take your time,” he said, heading to the kitchen with his boots in his hands.

  “Did I catch some innuendo in that ‘okay’?” Bennie asked, sounding like she was starting to perk up.

  “No, you did not. He asked me that enough times last night between goes one and two and then two and three. After go number three, I had to throw in the towel.”

  “Wow! He’s got stamina, huh?”

  Nora groaned. “Oh, you have no idea. I’m pretty sure I have arthritis in my hips now.”

  “Ha ha! You got turned out by a white boy.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Just saying. El puertorriqueño amante never managed that for all his swagger, huh?”

  “No comment.”

  To Bennie it was a big deal. She’d always said she’d marry the first guy who could make her orgasm two out of three times. She hadn’t found him yet. Nora felt like she could orgasm just from thinking about the last night. After the first time when Matt had untied her and slid her into a warm bath to ease her aches, she thought she could get used to rough play. And then he’d helped her out of the bath, dried her off there on the rug, and spread her legs to start licking up her thighs before she even knew what hit her.

  “Mm hmm. I’m going to try to get an hour of sleep before work, so let me go. You going to take Chantilly the painting today?”

  “Yeah,” Nora said, walking toward the smell of perking coffee, figuring the most scandalizing part of the conversation was behind her. “How did you guys work this out?”

  “We’re banking on intrigue and curiosity and in the initial showing period are only allowing people to see the painting by appointment only. No cameras or phones allowed in the viewing area. We’re hoping the news of the painting’s installation goes viral and Chantilly sees a slow build-up of foot-traffic.”

  “Wow, Bennie. Sounds like you’ve actually got a pretty good head on your shoulders.”

  “Duh! I’ve been trying to tell you that. It wasn’t my fabulous tits that got me into MENSA, doll.”

  “Bye, Bennie.”

  “Yup.”

  Matt was sitting at the kitchen table shoving his feet into his harness boots when Nora arrived. He smiled at her contentedly and drew her close by her waist to sit her on his lap. She cringed as her bottom pressed against his leg. She wondered whether she should pick up some numbing spray while she was in town.

  “I gotta go hock fish. You gonna be okay here by yourself all day?”

  “Oh, Matt, please. I spend most of my time alone.”

 
“Well, let’s change that. You want to go out to dinner later? Have a real date?”

  “I … ” Nora thought about what Bennie had said. It was better to show her true colors sooner rather than later. “I think I’m going to be painting. Besides, your grandmother left me a stocked fridge. I’ll probably work through the night.”

  “That’s funny,” Matt said, giving a breast a friendly squeeze. “She didn’t leave us shit.”

  “You should probably take some home to Karen, then. No way I’ll eat it all.”

  “Okay, baby. We’ll come get it later. Maybe you can take a break and eat with us.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He lifted her from his lap and gave her a gentle swat on the bottom, which made Nora yip. “Sorry about that,” Matt said as he walked toward the back door. “There’s a reason I always prescribe extensive foreplay. Next time.” He winked and was gone.

  • • •

  Nora was in the process of uploading portfolio items to her website when suddenly her Internet connection slowed, then sputtered, then quit altogether. She jiggled cords, yelled at the router box, and even hauled a ladder out of the garage to climb onto the roof. Satellite dish looked okay.

  She sighed, and resignedly called E.A. Dillard’s.

  “E.A.D., this is Patricia.”

  “Nora Fredrickson here. Welch Road? My Internet connection is down. Should I call the dish company or … ”

  “No! I’ll page Chad. Hold tight.” Patricia hung up. Nora stared at her quiet phone and shrugged.

  She was in her kitchen dumping beans into a massive batch of chili when she heard tires crunching gravel on her driveway. Nora dried her hands on a towel and pulled open the heavy wood front door to see Chad jumping down with a toolbox.

  “Well, that was fast,” she said after poking her head out the storm door.

  “I was nearby.”

  Nora nodded and started pulling the door shut. Chad ran up and stuck his boot in the way before she could get it all the way closed.

  “Can I come in and check the inside line?”

  “Pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with my inside line. It was working fine up until an hour ago. Maybe you should check the signal outside.” Like hell was she letting him in. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him and thought it was oddly suspicious he’d showed up so quickly after avoiding Matt for weeks. But then, Matt wasn’t home. Neither was Karen.

  “Okay.” Chad worked his mouth left to right and switched his toolbox to the other hand. He made no motion to remove his foot.

  “Anything else you need? If not, please move your foot.”

  “Yeah, uh. Think I could look around? I’ve always been real interested in this old house.”

  “No. I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”

  Chad’s nostrils flared. “Why not? You let Matt in.”

  “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

  “Well, it is. He’s my best friend, you know.” He ran a tongue over dry lips.

  Nora had been trying to keep her expression calm, blank even, but gave it up and let her forehead furrow and eyes narrow. “Oh yeah?”

  “Mm hmm.” Chad licked his lips again and scanned the woods around them.

  “With a best friend like you who needs enemies? Get off my porch. If my Internet isn’t back up in the next thirty minutes you’re going to have a big problem.”

  He laughed. “Stop being such a bitch. You’re so uptight. You should be flattered.”

  “I should be flattered?” The words pulled a trigger Elvin had been responsible for installing in her. “You some kind of masochist?”

  “You’re not the only ass out this way. I ain’t got to work this hard. Karen gets home before Matt, doesn’t she? She’ll probably want to see me.”

  Nora felt something snap inside. A maternal kind of something. “Karen?”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s in love with me. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “I can think of a few people.” Nora let go of the door handle and watched as her fists met Chad’s eyes, one after the other. She couldn’t help herself.

  • • •

  Matt was in his office at the fishery squinting malevolently at the employee schedule for the following week when Alice Stanley rapped on his open door. “Someone out here to see you, big man,” she hooked her thumb in the direction of the double doors to leading to the dirt parking lot and flicked some fish scales off her shirt sleeve nonchalantly.

  “Thanks, Alice,” he said, glad for the distraction. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out how with a retail staff of ten they never managed to have enough fish cleaners on the floor. They’d gone way too long without having someone to keep an eye on the scheduling, and now the mess was in his lap to fix. He would have much rather been out on one of the boats, but the reason why he took the promotion in the first place was that he wasn’t getting any younger. He wanted to preserve his joints for as long as he could — even if that meant sitting behind a desk for most of the day. He didn’t want to get old before his time like his dad had. He wanted to be able to toss footballs with his kids one day, should he have any.

  Matt walked past the tables piled high with fish where the ladies cleaned and bagged the day’s catch for the customers working their way down the line like a buffet. The fish there in the store were only a small portion of what they caught each morning. The rest was sent all over the state to restaurants and grocery stores. Fortunately for Matt, Albert handled all those contracts and coordinated transportation logistics. Albert had been hinting that he might let Matt take over some of those chores, but Matt had excused himself from the conversation, saying he thought he heard the lead cleaner calling him. Matt knew what Albert was striving for: more time on the golf course. That meant more time in the fishery for Matt and less time handling his messy personal life. He sighed and made his way to the exit, seeing no one standing just inside, so he pulled one of the heavy metal doors open and poked his head out. Standing about ten feet away leaning against the front grille of his SUV was Chad sporting a hell of a double-shiner. Further, the bridge of his nose had a deep gash horizontally across it. He looked like he’d run face-first into the wrath of hell.

  “Your girlfriend’s got a hell of a one-two punch,” he said, smiling wanly.

  Matt was at the truck with his fingers around his throat, squeezing it before Chad knew what hit him. “I should fuck you up.”

  “Yeah, probably,” he rasped, visibly struggling to swallow. “Job’s already been done pretty good, though. Bitch knows how to swing.”

  Matt gave him a good shake and then let go, telling himself that nothing that came out of Chad’s mouth was worth him spending the night in jail. “What do you want, Chad? Are you some kind of fucking idiot? You trying to die?”

  Chad rubbed the new hand-shaped bruises on his neck and adjusted his collar. “Karen won’t take my calls. Heard some rumors today when I was in town. Wanted to see if they were true. Someone who works at the hospital with her said she’s been throwing up a lot and falling asleep at the nurse’s station.”

  “What’s it to you?” Matt crossed his arms over his chest to help prevent his repeated attempt at second-degree murder.

  “If it’s my kid I want to know is all.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my right.”

  Matt didn’t think Chad sounded convinced himself of that. Matt cracked his knuckles. “Just like it’s your right to ruin my twenty-year-old sister’s life, huh? You think she’s not going to have it hard enough going to college, so you add a baby on top of that? What the hell were you thinking? I should kick your ass anyhow.” He jabbed a finger at Chad’s shoulder. “Of all the lowlife shit you’ve done, I would have never expected you to fuck my little sister the moment I turned around.”


  “It takes two to tango, man. She coulda said no.”

  “Shut up,” Matt hissed, pushing Chad back against the SUV. “Bennie is one thing. She’s mature and can deal with this shit even without you, which I suspect she has to.” Chad’s expression indicated that would be exactly the case. “Karen is a naïve kid. She may look like a grown woman, but her world view is very limited. She’s known you all her life. Probably idolized you as her big brother’s best friend. This is sick in so many ways.” Matt walked away from his ex-friend and raked his hands through his hair with frustration.

  “I’ll take care of the baby.”

  “I don’t think you will. Just like everything else in your life you’ll pass the buck and leave the hard stuff for someone else to do. Just like in high school. You wouldn’t have graduated if it weren’t for me writing all your papers, right? You know how close I came to getting kicked out of school for that shit?”

  Chad shrugged.

  Matt scoffed. “Of course you didn’t know. Teacher was discreet. Said she wouldn’t say anything because she didn’t want to see me go down the tubes. All that stress because I was being a good friend, huh?” Matt gave the smaller man a shove. “The kid’ll be better off without you. I’m used to playing daddy. Might as well do it for your kid.”

  At that, Chad took a swing at Matt’s face and missed horribly. Matt gave him another two-handed shove back toward the truck. “Do I even want to know why Manora punched your lights out?”

  “Maybe she can’t take a compliment,” Chad said, voice dripping with irreverence and his lips turned up into a sneer.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Chad. There’s something wrong with you and you need to get yourself checked. Stay away from my family.”

  Chad started backing up toward the driver’s side, but was shaking his head. “Can’t stop me from seeing my kids, man, and if Karen wants to see me … ” he put up his hands in a “what are ya gonna do” gesture.