i miss u
The text appeared in tiny pixilated letters on her cell screen.
"You have no idea," she whispered, clicking the reply button. It had only been two days, but it felt like weeks already. Jay's presence in each day was a force -- powerful and overwhelming. While he was away at camp with his students, she -- normally driven, energetic, optimistic -- suddenly felt she had nothing to do but sit and wait.
As she texted a message in return, her mind wandered back to the night before he left. The memory of his strong hands, his body on top of her sped her heartbeat up. As she flushed, warmth spreading from her center, she placed her palm flat on the skin between the two soft mounds of her breasts. It was cool against the red skin.
They had sat in the tub together as the water slowly cooled, talking of nothing sexual. The trip. A concert she wanted to go to. Food. His students. The lessons she was teaching that week. How many concerts she wanted to go to. The dog going to the vet. In retrospect, she marveled at the comfort and peace she felt with this man, naked and vulnerable, but totally unaware of it. It took so little to snap them into a totally different reality, though. They dealt so easily with one another after these seven years of marriage. He seemed to know what she needed before she knew herself, and there was never anything but a reassuring contentment to their actions -- whether those actions were of the everyday or out-of-this-world hot variety. They switched between the two elements of life seamlessly. He need only lean forward and put his mouth on hers to waken something far less "comfortable" within her. And he had. That mouth -- it had a strange power over her, she knew. His lips, impossibly soft, fit hers perfectly, and her body always responded to them without thought or premeditation, as instinctive and natural a response as a hungry animal's reaction to an easy meal.
She wondered what he was doing at that moment. Wrangling eighth grade boys into their bunks, no doubt. She sighed. While she hated for him to be away, the thought of his patience with them, his kindness to those kids who needed him, the joy he took from them (whether he admitted it or not), was an attraction in and of itself. It seemed a primordial draw -- a woman's desire to find the man who would best provide for her children. Not that she had any desire for a baby -- she was fascinated only with the act that created one.
She counted up the hours she would have to wait for his return. It was a childish and pointless activity, she knew, but opened the light at the end of the tunnel. Twenty-four hours until this time tomorrow, another eight to sleep, eight to work... Forty. He would be home with her in forty hours. Surely she could last that long. She drifted off to sleep on his pillow, the memory of how he had filled her the previous night filling her mind.
The next two days were not her best as a teacher, to say the least. She seemed constantly behind herself. Words flew from her mind just as she opened her mouth to say them. She called students by their classmates' names. Finally, the last bell rang on Friday afternoon.
He was just stepping out of the car when she pulled into the drive. She knew his huge grin was mirrored in her own face. Just seeing him through the glass of her windshield raised her skin in goosebumps. She jumped out of the car and ran, crashing into him. He wrapped his arms around her and just stood that way, fondling her hair, for a full minute.
When he finally kissed her, she thought she would melt under the pleasure of it. With his lips, he pressed her backward into the garage, closing the door. By the time they had entered the dining room, where the dogs jumped wildly around them, they had peeled off a layer of clothes. Their hands were frantic on each other, hungry. She felt a trail of electricity follow wherever he touched.
