Infidelity

Part 2/2: Redemption

Reset the scene. The air has leaked away. The night isn't expectant; the joke has been played. Two people stand apart and alone, batting idle thoughts into the dark. Nothing of significance will come of this.

She has made her decision to do the right thing, to live with that burden. Now she can't stand the thought of reentering the crowd, nor can she stay on the deck with him. There is a third option. She turns toward the steps and walks down into the yard, to be alone.

Everything is hard. She thinks: How will I get home tonight?

If this were a movie he would follow her, to confront her. She would welcome that; it would give her the chance to give in, having tried to be good. Nonsense. She knows that she wouldn't, gets almost teary thinking: I'll always do the right thing. If she gets far enough away she may be able to let herself cry over doing the right thing.

What he does is follow her and take her hand from behind.

"Don't go. Please don't. Stay with me for awhile." He is still speaking very softly, but urgently.

"Please stay."

"I don't know," and she looks to the house. Do the right thing. She needs an excuse to repulse him. "What if someone had come outside just then? We could have been caught."

Oh you idiot! No! That's not what you mean. Tell him the truth. Tell him you can't be with him ever.

He counters: "Then let's just walk in the yard and talk. Just talk. No kissing, okay?"

He makes a wan smile, more a grimace than a grin. She gives up on leaving, and she leaves her hand in his. Neither really knows what that means, but it is something.

Of course she loses her words again, distracted by his hand. He leads her across some stepping stones, past a few new bushes in mulched earth and a dogwood that is so bright it gleams in bits of reflected light. They are holding hands. She stumbles a little, and so has to catch onto his arm, an arm that is as warm as the rest of him, while she tries to hold her wrap tightly to her chest.

Why are we still holding each other?

Anyone could tell her.

*****

Her behavior last fall weighs on her. She didn't know then that she had hurt him, not exactly, not like that. She wants to apologize, but how do you bring that up? She certainly can't tell him what drove her. There are some things one just doesn't say. They are both so shy now that they may not say anything at all, but she tries because she can't stand the silence.

"I'm really sorry about ... back there. I shouldn't have let things go so far. I think I led you on. You must think I'm terrible."

He doesn't say anything, though it's his turn. They are still holding hands but he isn't saying he doesn't think she's terrible. She stops waiting, and goes on.

"I don't know how it happened, and it frightened me. And about last fall ..."

A deep breath. The night is full of such breaths. He pauses in mid-step, eyes open wide in the dark, and finally says something, finishing for her:

"You don't have to tell me. I know I should have controlled myself more."

"No. It wasn't you. Oh Lord no. Please believe me. I did try to avoid you. I'm sorry about that too. But it wasn't your fault. There were other things going on. I really can't talk about them."

"That's okay. You don't need to excuse me. I'm sure I deserved it."

"No! No, you don't understand. Listen. Oh God!"

She finds herself looking desperately left and right, to the trees, the lights, the house, looking for the right words. They aren't there, so she gives up and stares him directly in the face:

"Look, the truth is I was attracted to you, and it scared me then, too. Okay, I said it!"

To whom is she confessing?

She can't face him and looks away right after she finishes, then waits to hear him respond, but he is silent again. When she looks back to him he has the strangest expression. What parts are amazement and delight, thoughtfulness and fear she can't tell at all. He takes both of her hands, holds them firmly, and she is afraid of what he will do, but then he drops one and they start to walk all over again. As they move through the dark he keeps turning toward her as though to express something he can't quite say.

They avoid the center of the long yard, open grass lighted by floodlights, and hug the landscaped edges. Some tiny night bird flashes away, perhaps tired of watching them from an oak. It must have seen the two people walk randomly, slowly, always to the side, away from the open yard, to the hidden areas. There are footsteps, nothing else. They look to the ground, occasionally to each other. That cool, damp ground is heady and sweet. Too cool. She lets him put an arm around her to warm her ("Is this okay?") and as she nestles against him in their walk, she can feel the night reviving itself.

*****

Far out in the shaded part of the gardens, hidden by a magnolia from the house and the possibility of discovery, he turns to her. He is very close, though touching only her hand.

"May I kiss you again?"

"No. We agreed: 'no kissing.' I don't think we ... "

She doesn't finish.

Just as she started talking he had lifted his free hand to her cheek, not quickly, almost lazily, not quite touching it. It is an odd movement. She has a dreamy memory of the way her cat sometimes touches her face when she is at the computer and he wants her to get him food, reaching out very gently and very slowly, pads getting closer and closer to her cheek.

She stops to look at his hand, hovering not an inch away. It seems as though he is waiting to see her reaction, then his palm is at her cheek again and, yes, it is still warm. She thinks: he'll seduce me with temperature.

What he uses to seduce her is the most unoriginal of lines: "I'll stop anytime you ask me. I won't do anything you don't want me to do."

Her response will be that he should stop now, that she doesn't want to do *anything*.

She doesn't answer.

It's been scant minutes since their crisis; can there be a second chance already? How did it build so suddenly? She draws in a breath to say the words that will end it finally. They look at each other, half covered in shadows, empty of words in their shelter.

It seems quieter than it really is. There are distant music from the party, some car tires hissing on the streets, this or that other noise, but nothing makes any impact. They are two breathing statues, and they stand that way until they both realize that her answer is "yes."

This time she doesn't stop him. He moves his mouth over hers, opens her lips with his, and brushes them lightly. Their lips caress one another, back and forth, first the outside parts, then that exquisitely soft flesh just inside the mouth. When his tongue probes into her mouth she is blindsided by such an unexpected jolt of lust that at first she does nothing but breathe and feel him invade. It is several seconds before she sucks his tongue in deeply and tastes him. He sucks both tongues back into his mouth. She knows that he could do anything with her that he wanted and she wouldn't object. She has crossed over.

*****

They may have kissed forever before he moves his hand from her face down to her neck, then to her chest. It is another dreamscaped movement, as a feather pulled by gravity, until his palm comes to rest on her left nipple.

At that she stiffens, especially in her shoulders, though she doesn't completely step away. It is like a dance with them tonight. Together, apart. Where will it end?

She speaks in an odd, low voice. Anyone could tell something was different, not just from her tone but from her choice of words, the way she looks at the ground, and her shoulders. The night birds could tell it. It is as though she is shouting to the trees, not of a rejection of the touch, but something else.

"You're barking up the wrong tree, there. You won't find what you're looking for."

He knows what she means. He leaves his hand on her, lifts the other to her chin and raises her face with exquisite care. If she had resisted he wouldn't have raised it. They gaze.

"Won't I? Won't I? I've known you so long, I know what you have. Believe me that you have what I want. I'm not sure how to convince you of it, such a beautiful woman."

He has an idea.

"Don't you ... yes, don't you tickle when stroked?"

He brushes both nipples with just the tips of the fingers of both hands, and watches closely as takes an almost inaudible breath. Her shoulders are still tight, but she's waiting.

"And don't you have skin so tender that your breath stops when you're caressed like this?"

He moves his hands up above her nipples, then slides his fingertips down and around them, barely touching her on the outside of her thin blouse, then up across her nipples and again down and around. Up, around, barely touching her, letting quivers follow his hands over and around her nipples. She begins to pant quietly while he does this, and her eyes close almost completely. Her shoulders finally release.

She is a still life. She is holding the ends of her wrap to the side, away from her front, and she stands silently except for those shallow breaths, looking down at his hands, leaving him to do what he will.

He doesn't hesitate. He unbuttons her blouse from the top button all the way down, and she lets him. Then he caresses her fully on her bare skin, through the opening in the blouse, again following that circular pattern, becoming familiar with her breasts, happy in her responsiveness, confident in his touching. He pinches her excited nipples as his hands pass over them, until she seems in her own mind to be all swollen nipples and goose pimpled flesh, until she is all shivers and her eyes close. She begins to sway.

He pulls her to him and holds her, faces together, and starts kissing her again. She pants into his mouth.

"Take off your panties."

She is back in the present before his words disappear. Her eyes go to the deck and the back door. When she speaks she is breathless and her whisper squeaks:

"We can't do that here!"

"Just your panties. Please. Give them to me."

She stares at him for five seconds, ten seconds. It is time for a final decision, the one she's already made. So she rucks up her skirt and grasps her panties to pull them down her thighs. At her knees she reaches the tops of the boots she has worn against the weather and has to work them down.

He takes the panties and shoves them into a pocket. Then he takes her with his left arm while he snakes his right hand under her dress and up the insides of her thighs to her pudendum. While his hand is moving up she again tilts her head back, but instead of swaying she leans against him. When he reaches her sex, where she is so wet and slippery that his fingers go right between her lips, she moans, almost silently because she has so little air.

That's when she sees the back door open. A figure, now three, are half out onto the deck.

"Someone's there!" She whispers, hardly getting the words out, wanting his hand but afraid of being caught. He has already pushed two fingers up into her vagina as far as they will go and is massaging her with his thumb.

He turns around to face the house but continues to hold her to him and to pleasure her. Now she can't see the house. She listens but doesn't hear anything, and it is hard to concentrate because he won't stop sexing her. His hand never moves away. His thumb moves slowly up and down inside her lips, just barely grazing her clitoris going in both directions.

What do I do? She trusts him with her security and forces her face into his shoulder, working all the while to be quiet while her body surges.

"They're gone," he whispers down to her finally, then he is moving his face over her hair, kissing her hair, her face, and she turns her face up to him, searching for his mouth, finding it, breathing hard.

The Moody Blues were wrong. You can't keep getting higher and higher. There are limits, and what was held back breaks loose. Her explosion is waiting impatiently. She feels herself at the edge. But then he stops. He pulls his hand completely out of her and out from under her skirt.

"Over here." He has to half-pull her, to a wooden bench set further back from the open area.

"Damn! Wait here. I'm going to get something to dry it with."

No! He walks to the house, leaving her teetering. She has to hold the back of the bench with a hand to keep from swaying again. Her other hand goes to her mound and holds it hard, to keep the feeling in. She has a superstitious thought that it will spill away.

She needn't worry. He walks back out of the house carrying an entire roll of paper towels, strolls to her -- it seems to her that he is in no hurry -- and dries off the bench. He helps her to sit, then to lie back along the slats. The rest of the roll goes under her head. Her feet are on the ground, but he lifts her right leg all the way to the back of the bench and hooks her heel over it. He lifts her skirt to her waist. It is utterly unromantic. She is completely exposed, mortified because he looks straight down onto her spread vagina.

She intends to let him do whatever he wants and to watch the house for him, but when he leans down and puts his open mouth on her she forgets to watch. She has just one moment of panic, thinking: Don't do that! I didn't wash for you. I didn't know.

It is too late.

He sucks both labia deep into his mouth and chews them with exquisite softness, and she forgets everything. His mouth crowds out everything else. The house is still there, still a source of danger, but she can manage only one or two glances, then thinks a little prayer: Please don't let anyone come outside now.

Does she realize the irony of the request, certain to pique her Lord? Unmindful, she puts her fate in His and her lover's hands, again releasing herself to pleasure, and lets her head fall back. Her eyes close completely. She had started to shiver from her exposure to the air, and the contrast with the wet heat of his mouth is astounding. His body heat was nothing compared to this. He sucks on her, licks her, giving her more pleasure than she can endure. Her orgasm begins with a vibration that spreads outward from her sex. Suddenly she is crying out and then his hand is over her mouth to stifle her and she is crying into it.

She has never done this in sex before, cried loudly. Afterward she will recall it as being shrill, like a banshee's cry, and won't believe him when he tells her there was no real danger of being heard. She is loud enough.

He pushes his hand harder on her mouth, still sucking and licking her, and she pulls the hand in with both of hers, getting the edge of it well into her mouth, screaming behind it but unaware until afterwards that she is biting it as well. She can't help the crying, keeps coming, tastes his hand as part of her orgasm, comes again, still, and finally pushes his face away from her because she just can't breathe anymore.

It doesn't end quickly, at that. She moans and makes keening sounds for what seems a long, long time. When she can finally pay attention to her surroundings she finds that her face is wet -- she really has cried -- and that he has changed hands, rubbing the first one against his leg and shaking it in the air. She is dizzy, winded, languid.

*****

It is a terrible time for people to come outside and walk their way.

God has honored her prayer, but just barely. They are almost to the bench before she hears her lover's sharp whisper, and then she is horrified, legs still splayed open, vagina naked for the world to see, but he rises, slips her leg off the back of the bench and helps her sit up and smooth her skirt. When the couple get to their hideaway he is telling her the derivation of the term "blue moon." They can't see that under her shawl she is pulling her unbuttoned blouse together.

"Evening folks. Beautiful night, isn't it?" Yes, they agree it is and they stop to chat.

She is still trying to get final control of her breathing, can't think of much to say anyway, and believes that almost anything will give her away. The night is bright enough with the floodlights that junipers are blue-green in the light, while dark gray below, and this strikes her as a thing she could mention, if she could bring herself to speak. Her body isn't completely done with her.

She tries to look attentive, her arms crossed over her chest, leaning back away from him, looking at the couple while they talk, but really looking more closely at him. What is he thinking? What is he feeling?

Will he be irritated at her emptiness with the other couple? No. When they finally leave, before they leave, when they have first begun to walk back toward the house, he pushes his left hand along the bench to her to touch her leg. Three more steps, then she takes his hand in her right. She brings it to her mouth and kisses it during the next few steps, then eases over to him, puts her head down on his shoulder, moves her left hand lightly to his chest so that her fingers can rest ever so lightly over his right nipple. She can feel his breathing in both his shoulder and his chest. Though she is starting to chill again, he is as warm to her as ever.

"Oh darling, I thought they'd never go."

She stops. "Darling"? Will that scare him away? Worse, is she going to scare herself away?

None of this is going to happen. He says:

"Oh Jesus! 'Blue moon.' What was I thinking?"

He turns to kiss her, and when he does she smells herself on his face and is aroused all over again.

*****

It is so good to be away from all those people.

They had made their exit quickly. Each had to get home, they'd said. She had poured wine into two plastic cups while he washed his face, then they'd gone straight to the door. They drove more or less toward her house but turned off into a hidden little parking lot. There is a tiny grassy area with a tree and a picnic table that no one has ever been known to use.

Here he half sits against the table-top while she leans into him and they talk. He moves his hands all over her. She surveys the night, nuzzling his neck, scratching her nose luxuriously on his whiskers, making soothing sounds over his poor hand. How will he explain the bite to his wife? She counts the tooth marks in dim, yellow light and kisses them one by one.

She says: "My poor baby." She thinks: My dearest. We don't know what he thinks.

The night is so different from every other night. Where is she going? What is right and wrong? Will she wander a sexual wilderness? Will she be alone or will he lead her through it, her Moses? No, not Moses. He got me all the way to the promised land. She smiles at her wit.

She is still sexually high. Or is it again? She can't tell. She thinks: where is there a bed when you need one?

She wants to pleasure him back, but he tells her that being almost caught once in a night is enough. He can't mean it. Every time she leans between his legs she feels his hard penis pressed into her. Has he been hard all evening? That is something else she can't tell.

She decides to take action. She reaches for his zipper and pulls it down all the way.

"Wait. Don't. What if a cop came by?"

"Well I'm not going to strip you, darling. Just keep an eye open for them -- if you can."

She tries to pull his penis out through his underwear and open zipper, but there are difficulties, given how erect he is and that she's never done that before, and finally he has to unfasten his pants and belt himself and push everything down. She grasps his prick and pulls it forward and back, masturbating him. Even in the shadows she can tell that the head is glistening with a thin liquid coating. The penis is darker than the rest of his skin and it is hot to the touch.