Listen

"You have to go?" she said.

"Eventually," he said.

"We all have to go eventually," she said.

"Yes, well. I won't be convinced until they put the pennies on my eyes."

"You really would want to live forever?"

"It's the only way I can come up with to avoid dying," he said. "I don't know. Maybe living forever would be a bit much. But dying? Ick. I can't even stand falling asleep. I feel so... helpless. The curtain's going down... It just gives me the creeps. I like being conscious."

"Well," she said, "that's interesting, and I'm sure I'll probably think about it with more depth a little later. But I was really asking if you have to go right now. As in, leave my house and be, physically, elsewhere..."

"Right now?" he said. "No. But eventually."

They were lying side by side in her bed, supine. The backs of the fingers of his left hand were resting against her thigh, but that was their only contact at the moment. She had just come, massively, from his deft handling of her, her own thoughts, and his articulation of making love to her, and she needed a little breathing room.

"Well," she sighed. "I have to go. Make water, I mean. Wanna watch?"

"I think I'll just listen. Leave the door open, so I can hear."

She padded softly across the Berber and he could not resist raising his head from the pillow to look at her, striding naked across her own bedroom, her body bronzed and shadowed from the late afternoon sun that seeped around the drawn blinds. Her doppelganger appeared briefly, differently angled, in the cheval mirror as she stepped by. He realized that he could never tell her how much he loved that she wasn't young anymore—that slight mound to her belly and a gentle pouchiness to her bottom, an indolent rim of flesh here and there.

He listened to the delicate, almost musical sound of water kissing water—God, we're so alive, he thought—and then the trk-trk of the toilet paper roll. She didn't return straightaway but instead went downstairs, and reappeared several moments later with two rocks glasses, ice dinging softly.

"It's vodka," she said. "So she won't smell it."

"Oh, I never smell of anything," he said, propping himself up on his elbows and taking the drink from her. "Many years ago," he said, "I began the habit of showering immediately upon coming home from work. It's happened to serve me well."

"You're so smart," she said, climbing back into bed next to him. "That's why I let you fuck the fucking shit out of me."

"Really?" he said.

She sipped her drink and seemed to think about this.

"No," she said, finally. "No, I let you fuck the shit out of me because you're the only one who has ever demonstrated the proper measure of lust for me."

"I'm not sure I know what that means," he said. "And besides, I'm sure that there's a great deal of lust for you going on all around you. You might just not be aware of it. And when you were younger and single, of course, I'm sure the lust for you was in great supply. I am a man, after all, and I'm familiar with how we lust."

"Maybe you are—familiar, I mean—and maybe you're not," she said. "I'm not talking about that amorphous lust, that one person feels for another physically attractive person."

"Amorphous Lust?" he said. "That's the name of a Bond girl, right?"

"It's about a complete lack of inhibitions," she continued, "based on a complete trust in desire. Look, people almost always use the word lust to mean something superficial, biological. But there are different kinds of lust. There's that kind, the superficial kind. Like, when you're watching porn, and you see some pneumatic 20-year-old worshiping a cock with her mouth, screaming Fuck My Ass, and all that. She's hot, she's young, she's skinny, she's flawless, and she wants you to come on her—it turns you on."

"One would hope," he said.

"But what if she stepped out of your television screen and was right there in front of you, you there on your couch with your hardon in your hand?"

"I'd probably swallow my gum," he said.

"But would you fuck her? I mean, she's there to fuck you. She wants you to fuck her ass, you know, and then pump your load all over her pink tongue. That's what she asks you. Would you?"

"Yes," he said.

He was lying on his back, his drink cradled in his hands atop his chest. She was lying on her side, head propped up on one hand, balancing her drink on her hip. She took a big gulp of it, then reached behind herself and placed it on her nightstand. She brought that cool hand between his legs and cupped his balls.

"And afterwards?" she asked.

"Umm... is this a trick question? I'd... smoke a cigarette? Ask her how she came out of the television? Ask her when she planned on going back into the television?"

"I mean, what would you take away from the experience?"

"Jeez, I don't know," he said. "Chlamydia?"

"Let me put the question this way," she said, exhibiting more patience than perhaps he deserved at this point. "Would you feel the same way you felt a half hour ago when you came in MY mouth? Would you feel the same way as you did when I asked you, begged you, to give me your hot cum? To shoot it on my face, in my mouth?"

She felt his cock, which was lying atop her thumb as she gently massaged his balls, begin to twitch.

"Ahh. Well," he said. "No, I would not feel the same way. I would feel like I had just facialed a pneumatic porn star who stepped out of my television screen and that would be the end of it. Blue ball crisis averted, carry on and all that."

"Right. The physical part would have been taken care of. But there's no psychological part to speak of. Or emotional part, maybe. This whole business about sex being 95 percent mental or whatever—that's bullshit, I think. It's more like 50 percent mental. But the other 50 percent—call it psychological, or emotional, or... it's about identity. We... crossed a line at some point. I have a general idea of that point, but I don't know exactly how we managed to cross it. But we did cross it, and from there... I want you to fuck me in any way that you want to fuck me. Fuck me up the ass or jerk off on my face or pump a seedless cucumber in and out of my cunt... it's not degrading or hurtful or humiliating to me, because I know that it's about me. It's about your thoughts of ME. You know what I mean? We do things and say things to each other that, honestly, completely astound me in some respects. I mean, I can't believe I say the word cunt. Or fuck, even. Something has happened here that I don't think I've entirely gotten my mind around, and yet I'm not especially troubled by it, because it all feels... correct. I'm... fascinated by the way I feel. When I'm with you, when I think of you, I have a CUNT and I want YOU to fuck it."

"Everyone has all these different parts to their lives," she said, "and this is a part that I didn't even know I had, but I do have it. You brought it out, or animated it, or something, but it definitely exists, and it's a significant part of who I am. Do you know what I mean? And don't be flippant, for a change."

His eyes were closed now, and he joggled his vodka gently atop his chest and smiled.

"I do know what you mean," he said.

"Really?"

"I think so," he said. "Because when I'm fucking you, I'm thinking about fucking you, and I'm also thinking about thinking about fucking you."

"Yes!" she said. "Not the pneumatic blond from the television, or Angelina Jolie—"

"I'd never fantasize about fucking Angelina Jolie," he said. "Rachel Weisz, maybe."

"Whoever. Or not whoever," she said. "All I could think about was having sex with you this afternoon. I kept looking at the clock and thinking things like, in another two hours, my legs will be spread and his hard cock is going to be pounding away at my pussy while I hold onto to that ass of his and his sweat drips on me and the bed groans and groans and his cum spurts into me. Oh God," she said, moving her hand from his balls to his thickening prick. "I could never have imagined, even in the most drunken state, that I could be so turned on by the smell, the taste, just the thought of semen. But yours... no matter what I'm doing, the thought of your cum makes me wet, makes me want to fuck you, be fucked by you."

"If you'd have asked me, fifteen years ago," she continued, "in those couple brief years when I could legitimately say I had a happy marriage, when everything seemed fine and we had sex a couple times a week and I actually looked forward to it... if you'd have asked me, Hey, so what does your husband do that turns you on, or what it is about having sex with him that makes your toes curl, or makes you thinking about fucking him again... I'd have had to make up an answer."

"Oo, that's cold," he said. "No one should ever have to hear that about themselves."

"It's a shame, really," she said. "Maybe it's because I really wasn't a sexual person, or he wasn't, or both. I don't know. It's probably all more intricately complicated than that. Maybe I wasn't a sexual person because I didn't feel that he thought about me that way, thought of me as one. And maybe because he simply didn't think of me that way, I didn't think of him that way. Maybe maybe maybe."

"Too young, sweetheart," he said. "Remember, we all got married far too young. There were many, many simpler things that I didn't know about myself in my twenties, let alone what kind of quote sexual person unquote I was."

"Yeah, I know," she said.

"And then when I started to, you know, explore a bit, I thought, Jesus, maybe I'm one of these guys that just needs to fuck a lot of different women. But that really wasn't the case. I was looking for something."

She looked down at his partially erect cock that she held in her left hand, and squeezed it softly.

"Do you remember the night of the triple?" she said.

"Are you kidding?" he said.

"Everything changed for me that night," she said. "That's when I crossed the line and then allowed myself to really do this, and indulge in it exactly for what it was, or what it could be. I couldn't figure out what I was doing, or what we were doing. We would fuck and then I would feel bad about it, like I was just being spoiled and selfish. Then I would get really angry and think, that's it, grow up, just keep your fucking knees together. But a couple days would pass and I would see you and I just had to fuck you. And then I'd go through the whole thing again."

"I felt pretty much the same," he said. "It wasn't especially satisfying in a lot of ways. Too many inner conflicts: yours, mine..."

"But that night you came over when Ray was out of town, that was going to be it for me," she said. "I mean, I told myself that there was no way we were going to fuck, we were just going to talk since we had some privacy and some time."

"I knew that," he said.

"Really? Did you?"

"Oh, yeah," he said. "You were so deathly serious when informing me of this opportunity and my mandatory presence."

"Fortified myself with a couple glasses of wine, and just kept sitting there, looking at the clock. I was so agitated, and I felt so dark, she said. I kept thinking, why are you so gloomy, isn't this what you want? But I felt like I was waiting for a sentence to be handed down."

"And then came the epiphany?" he said.

"No, not then. That really didn't happen until much later. But I realized that everything was the opposite of how I thought things were. You showed up, and I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was talk."

"You were awfully grim," he said. "You were frowning. Or looked depressed."

"I was depressed," she said. "And I couldn't figure out what to do. I thought that if we fucked, it might just make me more depressed. But just sitting around looking at you wasn't going to make me feel any better, and sending you away... well, that just seemed unthinkable. I was so confused. I thought I felt the way I did because I had no control over myself."

"And then?" he said. "What happened? And don't leave anything out."

His cock was still only partially erect, but he had begun to feel a greater stirring, much to his surprise since he had already come twice within an hour. The night she was talking about he had thought of quite often; they both did, apparently, and referred to it regularly.

"I brought you upstairs to this room," she said. "Were you surprised?"

"Yes," he said. "Marital beds had been off limits."

"When we sat on the edge of the bed kissing, I felt very sad," she said. "Again, hadn't a clue why. But I kept having these little realizations, like I said. I realized I wasn't sad because I was doing something contrary to what I had planned. I wasn't sad because there I was, continuing with this, but just the opposite. I was sad because I realized that this might be coming to an end, and it would be my doing."

"You seemed so... hungry," he said. "You'd kissed me like that before, but still it was different. Never so prolonged."

"Right," she said. "Another bit of understanding bubbling through my blood. I thought, in some form or another, that things weren't as they were because I had no control over myself, but because I had too much control over myself. Everything started falling away."

"You became very verbal," he said. "I thought you were possessed. Or drunk. You'd never said the word cock before. Or dick, or anything. Just It. You always called it It. Hell, you never even said the word suck."

"I felt like a different person," she said. "But, at the same time, exactly like myself. Exactly like who I was."

****

She broke their hard kiss long enough to peel off her t-shirt, and he pulled back the bra cup from her left breast and put his mouth on her nipple, which was already puffy with desire.

"Oh, Christ, suck it," she said and reached down to grasp the crotch of his trousers, massaging his balls, his erection. "Oh yeah... oh yeah," she repeated, panting lightly. She needed to touch flesh and began fumbling with his belt, clawing at his trouser button. Finally she dropped to her knees, unfastened and unzipped him, and yanked his pants and boxers down to his ankles. She wrapped her fist around the base of his hard cock and, without ceremony, plunged her mouth down overtop of it. She fellated him wildly, roughly, her teeth catching and grating his cockhead, and then sucking hard.

"Jeezus, baby, take it easy," he said, but softly, flinching. She didn't apologize, but stood and unzipped her jeans.

"I need you to fuck me," she said and stripped down her jeans and panties hurriedly, kicked them across the bedroom. She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to her, then fell back crosswise on her unmade bed, gasping from his weight landing on her. They both squirmed, trying to turn themselves lengthwise, locked in a hard kiss. He put his hand between her legs, his thumb grazing the close-cropped chevron of pubic hair on its way to her clitoris, and then slipping between her lips: she was oddly dry.

"Shit," she spat and threw out an arm toward the bedside table, groping for the tissue box, knocking a book to the floor, shoving aside the alarm clock. "Wait," she said when she'd finally snatched a couple Kleenex from the box and reached down between her legs with both hands. He'd propped himself above her, their eyes remaining locked as she extracted her tampon, wrapped it in the tissues, and threw it on the floor.

"Okay," she whispered. "Now. Fuck me. I wanna be fucked. Do you hear me?"

He smiled gently, brought a hand up to brush the backs of his fingers across her cheek.

"Yeah, I hear ya," he said. "Just relax."

"I don't want to relax," she said hotly, knocking his hand away. "I want to be fucked. Make me your whore. Fuck me like one. If I'm going to walk around feeling like a slut, then I should at least be fucked like one. Or is that too much for you?"

He rose up on his knees and looked down at her, evenly and without expression. Then he put his hands under the crooks of both her knees and yanked her closer to him. She gasped, surprised. He held her legs apart.

"Play with your cunt," he said.

She smoothed both hands along her inner thighs, brought them together between her legs, and carefully parted her lips. He watched as she drew her middle finger up her slit and then dipped the tip inside herself, the other hand still holding herself exposed, delicate folds of pinks and browns. She pumped her finger in and out three or four times before drawing it back out and up to press and joggle her clit.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to fuck you now. And when I'm ready to come, I'm going to shoot my load in your mouth."

He grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and shoved it under her ass, propping up her hips. Then he took her behind both knees again, lifting and parting her legs, and pressed the head of his cock between the folds of her cunt, which she still held apart for him. He stroked in only halfway at first until she grew more moist, and when his shaft felt slick enough, he pushed himself in completely. She looked down along the plane of her chest, over her belly where her soft flesh creased from having her legs bent back toward her, and watched him begin thrusting his cock in and out of her. His shaft gleamed moistly in the lamplight.

"Do you like that?" he said. His voice was different than usual, less solicitous. He wasn't playing, she thought. Or perhaps he was; they both were. She wasn't sure. She didn't feel like she was pretending to be someone she was not, but rather only one part of who she was—this part, this "lover" part, this "adulterous affair" part, this "sexual" part of herself: for this night, or for at least these moments, abandoning all those other parts of her self. Leaving her public and her private world for her secret one, exclusively.

"I said," he slammed into her harder, "do you like that?"

"Yes," she grunted, her entire body jerking from the force of his pumping. "I like it."

"Tell me. Tell me you like to be fucked."

"I. Lovetobe. Fucked," she said, in time with his thrusts. "Fuckme... fuckme... fuckme till I can't walk. Yes...fuck... yes...giveittome."

She was lost in it now, her eyes hard shut, thinking about what she was feeling: his balls slapping her ass, the very base of his shaft barely tapping her clitoris as he drove into her... as if she was already fantasizing about the fuck that she was actually getting. One outstretched arm clutched a fistful of counterpane; her other hand went suddenly, instinctively down between her legs, and she stroked herself, somewhat startled to feel the long slide already beginning... so soon, she thought, so soon...

And just that quickly she was there. She arched her back up off the bed and opened her eyes, though she wasn't really seeing anything. He took that moment to put one strong hand around her throat; the shock of this and its timing caused her to buck violently and come hard, gasping as if she'd been struck. She grabbed his arm above the elbow, the arm that was holding her, and tried to hold him still, to hold him in place, as she quaked and rocked through the orgasm. She crossed her legs around his back; her entire torso flexed up and off the bed as a great, purling wave of intense sensation spread through her, holding her suspended for what seemed like forever in its depth, and then—in the trembling immediate aftermath—like no time at all.

Just as quickly, he broke free of her grip and knelt over her, pumping and aiming his glazed, reddened cock. "I think my whore needs her cum," he said, and before she could speak, a narrow ribbon of his hot semen spurted over her belly and between her flattened breasts. Her skin, still extremely sensitive, tingled from the feel of his cum, and she continued to watch him jacking his erection and decorating her sweat-gleaming stomach with the spray of his warm, cloudy load. A fist of incredible lust seemed to knot in her throat: she realized that she'd never seen him come before tonight, only felt it pass quickly over her tongue and down her throat, or leaking from her fucked pussy and down the crack of her ass.