Dar Jeans Dar Eyes

We'd had sex in my kitchen, which I had just carefully cleaned the day before. I had been inhaling the scent of bleach on my counter, while he fucked me from behind, pounding into me.

Now he had found a clean dishtowel, was running it under the warm water, wiping us both up.

"You know more Spanish than I thought," he finally remarked.

"Yeah. And you called me a whore."

"I called you a goddess, first," he reminded me. "You called me an asshole."

I almost told him that he was an asshole. We were pulling our clothes back on, and I felt a small bit of desolation when he pulled his boots back on. As if he was getting ready to leave.

But he and I sat on the sectional, drinking iced tea, flavored with peach and mint.

"You have a lovely house," he told me.

"No, I don't," I smiled. "I hate this place. I hate the textured walls, and I hate the eggshell color. I hate the ants and the mice, and I hate the lack of storage. It doesn't just lack soul. This place is soul-crushing."

"You could sell it."

"We're renting," I sighed. "Mr. Baseball doesn't want to own anything, if he has to move suddenly for his imaginary job."

Juan studied me.

"Do you consider yourself rich or poor?" he asked me.

It was one of the things we had never discussed.

"I don't know," I confessed. "I've been working class, or lower, most of my life. Raised by a single parent with personal issues and the inability to hold a job longterm, lots of government cheese and school lunch programs. I never starved, though. And I went to Stanford, so I can't really whine about a lack of opportunities."

I had hated Stanford. I'd worked abysmally hard to get there, and it was so difficult, an unexpected challenge, and I barely made it through even with a couple of semesters on academic probation. I was also so lonely and isolated, I had latched onto my future spouse, who was there on a baseball scholarship and felt a lot of the same sadnesses and desperations that I did. We got each other through. I had thought he was my soulmate at the time.

"How much is your car payment?" he asked.

I was a little offended, but I let it go.

"I own it outright. I bought it at auction. It was a repossession, and I had to pay through the ass to get it rekeyed, but it was still a bargain, barely more than a year old and very low miles, since the prior owner hid it to keep it from being repo'd," I explained. "I decided when I turned forty-one, that I needed a decent car for once in my life. I was actually shopping for a Toyota or Volkswagen at the time." I paused. "Are we having the money talk?"

"I – realize that I don't know everything about you."

"You've only known me for six weeks," I replied. "And we've mostly had sex, not talked. So I try and keep the bills paid, and not live beyond our means. My husband is a little foolish with money, but always less than four figures, and we both got screwed when the stock market took a dive. The credit cards get used, then we work hard to pay them off, and then they get used again, so we pay them off again. It's not entirely functional. But we're not starving, either."

"What's in your future?" he asked.

That was a leading question.

"I need to find another job," I said. "I don't really want to do what I was doing, and I'm a little afraid that my skills and knowledge are not up-to-date with the current tech. But I have few options. There's lots of stuff I've applied for, and one potentially good position coming up in Seattle."

"What about your marriage?"

I shrugged.

"Would you move to Seattle?" he asked me.

"I wouldn't mind," I said. "If that's where my next job is, that's where I'm going. I love Seattle. I have to think about more than myself. My kid needs to be in a good school system, or I need to be able to afford a private school."

"What about your husband?"

"He needs to grow up. I'm not going to miss out on yet another great job for him. He hasn't worked in over two years; his last paying position was a minor league base coach. If he doesn't want to move, that's fucking tough."

Juan was considering me for a long moment. Then he leaned in, and began to kiss me. He pulled me to him, and his hands began to move under my shirt. I checked my watch, told him we had about an hour, and we were stripping down again.

It occurs to me that I have never before had sex on this sectional. It also occurred to me that I didn't like my real life interfering with my sex life.

Being with Juan was like a separate part of my existence that didn't intersect with the reality of my home and family. His house had been something of a romantic sanctuary for me, where I could be the person I wanted to be. Here, in this house, I was who I really am, the tired and rumpled mom with too much on her plate. His home was dimly lit, was deliciously appointed for sex. This house was brightly lit, stark and sterile, furnished with the most bland and utilitarian furnishings, constantly in the state of chaos provided by a five-year-old boy.

Seeing him in this setting was almost incongruous. The contrast was painful, not even considering that he was in a position to be revealed as my illicit lover. His place versus my place was like the contrast between candlelight and fluorescent light, and I realized he could see every flaw in my forty-plus body. I concentrated on his face, watching his eyes, as we moved together, the familiar dance.

He was being slow and gentle again, none of the frenzy of our craziness in my kitchen. He spent a lot of time kissing me, tasting my mouth, his lips on my neck and shoulders and breasts. When he fucked me, he was deliberate and controlled, relishing each thrust, each stroke. When he came, his entire body trembled with it as he tried to push his cock deeper into me.

I was lying in his arms, determined to remember that love was love and sex was sex, and love was never sex and sex was never love. He was asking me if he should leave before my husband came home, and I told him to do what he wanted to do.

So when my husband came home, I introduced the two of them.

My husband was his usual vague self, clasping Juan's hand and then going straight to the fridge. We obviously had no alcohol, and his doctor was warning him to stay away from the soft drinks for now. So we had a large selection of spring waters, sparkling waters, vitamin waters, and sports drinks.

"Have we met?" my husband asked Juan, after asking me about the hiding place of the multivitamins.

"I don't believe so," Juan replied.

"You look totally familiar," my husband said, taking a long drink from his water as he took his vitamins and pills.

"Juan is sometimes an actor," I told my spouse, reciting the forgettable movies my spouse likely saw with Juan in them.

My husband responded enthusiastically, was asking Juan what he was working on lately. Then Juan started asking my husband about his baseball career, which took up a good twenty minutes.

"So how do you guys know each other?" my husband asked.

"We were both waiting for help at Homeland Security at the same time," I replied, glancing at Juan.

"No shit," my husband replied. "That no-fly list is a fucking beast, isn't it?"

Juan glanced at me.

"Yeah, it is," he agreed.

"You leaving the house today?" my husband asked me.

I shrugged.

"Okay, cool," my husband said. "I'll take the kid out to the park or something while you get the groceries and hit the hardware store. We're out of mousetraps. Oh, and you might take my truck to get washed. The birds are at it again."

"Anything else?" I asked, faking my sweet voice.

"I'll let you know. I may have a prescription for you to pick up. Nice to meet you, Juan. What were you guys planning on doing today?"

"Juan and I were planning on having crazy-hot sex, right here on the couch," I replied.

"Okay, good," my husband replied, turning on the TV, immediately searching the listings for his baseball game. "She's hilarious, isn't she?" he said directly to Juan.

"Completely," Juan replied, his eyes locked on mine.

There it was, then. Everything I didn't or couldn't tell him about my marriage, and all of it blazingly obvious.