Now and Then

Now: they're brutal.

Her shoulders smack the door of the janitor's closet. The handle catches her side and pain knifes into her rib. There'll be a bruise tomorrow, deep and dark, a shadow of wounds beneath the surface. They always end up like this, clawing at each other in small spaces. Bathrooms, stairwells, closets, anywhere insignificant. Their fucking indecent. A bed too soft for what they do with each other. To each other.

Then: they loved.

G rolling on top of her, warming her goosebumps when she was too cold to stand her own nakedness and too poor for much heat. Limbs thrown over each other in the night. Sheets tangled around her waist. Breath catching, and holding, and mingling. The brush of fingers against her cheek lighting up the world. Simple gestures inspiring smiles. Love easy and constant, the white noise of her heart.

Now: they clash.

They're opponents. The art of seduction and the art of war. The arts of power. An hour before, G flashed across her phone screen and her heart pounded. She ignored it. She ordered a drink from the bar and scanned the club for a distraction. Something. Someone. Anyone but G. Her screen lit again, a beacon, or a siren call. She didn't have to read the texts to know what they'd say. I want you. I can't stop. Tell me yes. Tell me to come. Her panties grew damp. She sipped her drink as all the strangers morphed into G.

Then: they built.

The roof leaked in their first house. The pipes froze in the winter. The latch on the bedroom door never quite caught. They didn't care that it was too small, too ugly, too falling-down. The house a home because it was theirs and they were them. An us. An always just short of forever. G painted the spare room yellow for the baby they'd never have. They sat on the floor, chipped mugs sloshing cheap wine, and dreaming dreams that would never come true.

Now: they destroy.

She craves so she caves. She texts G back. Meet me. Hurry. They dance a dance with no steps, no melody, only touch. They pretend they're going to stop. It won't happen again. They'll dance a last dance and she'll let G go. Force her to leave as G forces her to stay. Back and forth. Coming and going. Over and over. Until G groans in her ear and kisses her mouth. Surrender. G whispering dirty words, half plea, half rebuke. Pressed together with not an inch to spare, not a breath unused, not a second to waste. Kissing, but not fucking. Not loving, but not hating. She wants to drag the pleasure out on a scream it feels so good. Hurts so good.

Then: they neglected.

G, the incurable flirt. One eye on a woman, attractive only in her unavailability, and the other on her, to see how far she could go without getting caught. Her married to her job, late nights and business trips stretched to avoid home. Online flings and conversations postponed by shrugs and swinging doors. An old cliché weighed down by laundry, and bills, and arguments. Insignificant minutia given the importance of Gods.

She walked away but she always came back. A boomerang of insecurity. They were good together, until they weren't. Not good, not happy. Surviving. Living off scraps doled out like treats to a dog.

Now: they're irresistible.

Her heart broke. Her desire splintered, burrowing deep beneath her skin, sore and inflamed. The need to pick irresistible, and the pain oddly satisfying. She can't stop. G matters more than ever, and so much less than before. Temptation lures not with the angst of resistance, but the pleasure of submission. Pleasure. The devil she getting to know.

They stumble to the janitor's closet tucked into an unseen corner. Barely discernable from the outside but they've been there before. The door slams, her back slams, her rib aches, and she drags G against her with fingers in her hair. G falls roughly, palms slapping metal. G corners her, she's trapped by unyielding metal and impenetrable woman. Everything she shouldn't want. G imprisons her with hands and eyes and lips on hers. They kiss the way she needs it, rough and crude. G's teeth rip her bottom lip, and she moans into her mouth.

Then: they bled.

She kept a tally of injuries inflicted and hurts unhealed. Their relationship a painstaking list of grievances mediated by love and diluted by time. She wasn't the kind of wife who levied old complaints mid-argument to obfuscate and redirect. She'd have quite liked to forgive G all her sins. Quite liked to have her own absolved. Forgetting was her problem. Their friends whispered about the arguments too loud and the panties not hers. The half-truths and lies of omission built until everything they'd left unsaid echoed in her ears. Filtered through her brain. Seeped into her pores until all they no longer shared found home in her heart. She wanted to forgive, to stay, to ignore the truth. But how could she unknow what was staring her in the face?

Now: they burn.

Her blood smears across her mouth. G slides a hand to the back of her neck and the other up her skirt fingernails catching on the flesh of her thighs. More marks and memories when all she desires is oblivion. She wants G the way they should've been. The way they never were. She wants G more now that they're apart than she ever did when they were together. Breaking up the aphrodisiac needed to rouse her indifferent desire. Irony ice cold and heartless. G's eyes flash, G's fingers brushing against her clit, turning her knees liquid. Please.

"You're so fucking wet," G whispers in her ear, breath hot against her cheek.

Then: they're cold.

G was always pointing out the obvious. She was never home. She was always preoccupied. She was so fucking wet. Only she wasn't ever wet. She wanted to want, but lust spat like rain barely reaching the ground. She'd turn in the night, awakened by a pulse between her thighs and reach for G, only to stop. She had an eight am meeting. G had only just fallen asleep. So much faster to do it herself. To close her eyes and picture a stranger as pleasure rippled and release stole her breath. Her imagination more compelling than the woman who shared her bed. Fantasy seductive and expedient. Reality a poor return on investment.

Now: They demand.

She shoves her hands under G's shirt, her touch selfish and desperate. Smooth skin heating beneath her caress. Her fingers find the warmth of G's breasts, unencumbered as always, and she brushes fingertips against hardening nipples. G whimpers into her ear. "Yes. God. You feel so good."

She shouldn't be here. Their desire only exists because it's wrong. Forbidden passion somehow much more alluring than store brand lust. When she could have G any time, later was convenient. But now. But this. Feeling good is guilty red. A lipstick stain on a starched white collar. A crumpled receipt tucked into a jacket pocket. A string of messages accidentally saved to the cloud. Guilty good. Like the breath against her ear and the push of G's pelvis into hers. Urgent. Wanting. Artificial.

Then: they fought.

She hit a woman. That's the kind of thing she'd rather not admit. The sting in her palm faded almost instantly and imprinted on her mind so she'd never forget. Fucking Lady Macbeth. Red bloomed across G's cheek as they stood there facing off, her heart dead but racing. G's eyes accusing, a deep line dug between her brows, anger carving her features in stone. That's what kept them together toward the end. Their anger wound around them like rubber bands holding them in place. When they let go, she snapped.

She hit a woman. Just that once, not that the number mattered. Numbers were inconsequential when the string of women G fucked behind her back was too many to count. G never forgave her, and by then, she wasn't looking to be forgiven.

Now: they need.

They should hate each other. They did. Or, they thought they did. But rage is more love than hate. Raging. Caring. Loving. Hate is empty, and she can't summon it despite her will to try. She needs G too much. G tastes like liquid courage, beer, and bourbon, and the excuse she'll allow herself tomorrow sweet on her lips. She's wet and slick and G's fingers slide easily on her clit. Stroking and rolling and slipping as she quakes. "You fucking like that, don't you?" G mummers into her hair, her voice throaty and not her own. "We had an entire house for five years and instead we're fucking with dozens of people only a door away and you love it."

She refuses to answer, to debase herself with words. To face herself with words. But G knows, can somehow see the truth even as she hides it from herself. "You love it," G repeats and thrusts inside her, desperate to convince them both.

I loved you and you turned me into this. She doesn't say that. Doesn't blame G. She was already this. Her shadow side unrepentant.

Then: They leave.

G's the one who left, in the end. The slap had done it. The brand of her fingers against fragile skin too much despite all of G's blows to her heart. It wasn't okay. Sorry wasn't enough. She wasn't forgiven. Not even by herself. She couldn't stand the memories and let G have the house. She got the cat and the coffeemaker and that seemed the better trade. She got full custody of the baby born in her dreams. Divorce should've been simple and rarely was. She lost so much, but the dumb things were what she missed in the end. The way G would scrape the ice off her windshield. The light left on for her at night. The extra Snickers bar tossed into the grocery cart.

Now: they punish.

G's fingers are relentless inside her, stroking and curling and pumping in and out as if fucking is oxygen at high altitude. She gives herself up to G's passion as merely an echo. It's her own need that drives her hardest, G's ceaseless fingers no match for the demand buried deep, of her body, yet untethered and formless. "You are fucking loving this," G says again and again talking dirty as if for the first time. She doesn't love it. She despises the weakness, the need, the shame that overflows her skin and seeps into the air to be swallowed anew on her gasp. The bad makes it good. Wrong and dirty and fucked in a way no therapist could untangle. Needing bad is still needing. Shame for not stopping, for ever starting, for hurtling toward disaster is the only emotion she has left. Staring into G's eyes, pleas for more a caress on her lips, her orgasm builds to a roar.

Then: They performed.

G started this. They'd run into each other six months ago at a dinner party hosted by a clueless friend. A meet-cute 2.0 if only life were a movie. They'd ignored the hell out of each other. Ignored so hard she'd been more aware of G three chairs down the table than when they'd shared a couch and pillow. Her chest never stopped aching. Her breath never deep enough. Her heart breaking the four-minute mile. She'd wanted G to see. Everything G'd walked away from. Everything G'd given up on. Everything her. She'd lied to G that night like so many other nights. See how happy she was? How over G she was? How she never once looked G's way? See? But G saw only what she already knew, and that was her downfall. Known for the bad and the ugly. Everything good long escaped. G knew her.

And G started this.

Now: they break.

G fucks her deeper until the passion, wild inside, is strung so tight she can't breathe. "God. Please, come," G mummers, lips wet against her neck. Honesty isn't her closest cousin, but she's not too proud to admit that sends her over. Not the semi-public location, not the uninspired words ripped from cringey porn, not sex with the person she's had more sex with than anyone. The power makes her come. G begs for her, even after everything she's done. This admission the only thing better for their being broken. She comes in a rage, passion driving her faster, splitting her open, glassing her eyes and melting her bones, until G's moan in her ear is all the world.

She gives G her release, the fuck of her body, and takes the reward, the fuck of G's mind.

See her? See?