hooked his hand under my thigh and draped it over his hip, and we both groaned as the angle made my pussy narrow around him and brought my clit up tight against his pubic bone. In the aftermath of my orgasm his cock felt huge and every thrust sent little aftershocks of desire pulsing through me. He still wore his jeans, had tugged them down just far enough to free his thick erection, and the open zipper scraped against my slick, sensitive skin while the sharp edge of the counter dug into my back. I didn’t care. Pleasure with a side of pain, I thought fuzzily. It was entirely worth it just to hear him grunt my name.
I could feel his cock swell and twitch inside me and I clung to him, hands fisted in the fabric of his T-shirt, my leg wrapped high on his hip and holding him close. I nipped at the taut corded muscle in his neck, hard enough to hurt, which made him jerk against me. He went still and quiet, only his ragged breath and racing pulse letting me know how hard he was coming.
We stood like that for an endless moment, holding tight to each other, unwilling to move away and lose contact. Finally, he pulled back just far enough to look at me. Crow’s feet framed his laughing blue eyes and silver strands sparkled in the tousled chocolate-brown of his hair. Had it really been thirty years?
‘Rachel. I love you, Rachel.’
Staring into his eyes I had the sense that time had melted away. Suddenly, we were standing there the day we’d moved into the house, when we had a four-year-old and I was pregnant with our second, but didn’t know it yet. We’d scrimped and saved for a down payment on our dream house and finally it was ours. It was one of the happiest days of my life.
I blinked and it all came rushing back, reality knocking the breath out of me. Tears stung my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Nathan watched and held me, never saying a word. Then he bent and kissed a tear away as it followed the curve of my cheek.
‘Now what?’ I put a hand in the centre of his chest and gave him a firm push, my wedding rings flashing in the light. Mocking my moment of weakness. ‘Was that just one last time, for old time’s sake?’
‘Is that what you want it to be?’
‘Damn it, Nathan, could you for once in your life answer a question without asking a question?’
I sounded angry and bitter. But what I was really feeling was overwhelming loss. The anger was familiar, comforting. I clung to it the way I’d clung to him moments ago, using it as a protective barrier against the words he was about to hurl at me. But there was no angry retort. He simply laughed.
‘I do that, don’t I?’
‘You just did it again!’ I said, smacking his shoulder in exasperation. ‘Just answer the question.’
‘I will if you stop hitting me, woman.’ He pulled me close, trapping my hands against his chest.
‘OK. Sorry.’
He laughed again, shaking his head. Then his smile faded. ‘I don’t want it to be the last time, Rachel,’ he said, sounding all growly-voiced like he had earlier. ‘I don’t want it to be over.’
‘But we’re divorced! And we sold the house.’ I pointed out the truths, but I neglected the most important truth of all – I didn’t want it to be over, either.
‘So what? We don’t have to be married to give it another go,’ he said, making it sound completely reasonable. ‘Let’s start over. Somewhere else. Someplace new. Let’s be new together.’
‘Let’s fuck on kitchen counters, you mean?’
‘Yeah. Let’s figure out where the hell we went –’ he shook me gently for emphasis ‘– and where we want to go now.’
I gazed at the kitchen floor, littered with remnants of my mother’s dishes while we stood half-naked in front of open kitchen windows that looked out on the street. My thighs were sticky with his desire and mine, too. It was crazy. Ridiculous.
It felt right.
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘But we have to clean up this mess.’
‘Why? We’re not done yet.’
I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the mess or the sex, and I didn’t care. I knew what had to be done.
I twisted out of the circle of his arms and unwrapped one of the dinner plates I’d already packed. Turning it over in my hand, I examined the tacky gold trim and the faded scene of pheasants in a field, and shrieked with laughter. It really was hideous. Maybe if we got rid of all the bad, the only thing left would be the good. I made a sound most often heard in karate class and flung the plate against the wall.
‘Rachel!’ Nathan said, as if shocked. But he laughed with me as I unwrapped and smashed another plate. ‘If the neighbours didn’t already get an eyeful and think we’ve gone stark raving mad, they’re definitely going to call the police now.’
‘I don’t care!’ I said, giggling helplessly and swiping at tears between bouts of destruction. ‘Help me! This will take all night.’
I froze in place as he cupped my breast through the bodice of my dress and ran a callused thumb over one bra-less nipple. ‘When we’re done, I’m going to fuck you good and proper in our bed.’
It was a promise I believed and the only vow that mattered right now. We’d take it one day – or ugly plate – at a time and see where it went. Who knows? Maybe we’d cobble together something even better from the shattered pieces of our life together.
‘You’ve got a deal,’ I said, flinging a teacup to the floor and feeling something hard and brittle inside me give way. ‘And I love you, too.’
We destroyed every dish long before the sun came up. And then he kept his promise.
Some fairy tales don’t end happily ever after. And sometimes happily ever after is in the eye of the beholder.
My boyfriend and I have what some people would call a volatile relationship. I used to call it dysfunctional and addictive. Late at night when I couldn’t sleep and I was replaying our most recent fight, I called it fucked up. I hated him for bringing out the worst in me – but I loved him for it, too. And he felt the same way about me. We were on a path to destruction and neither of us was in a hurry to put on the brakes because it felt too damned good.
It’s not like Brian beat me or something. Nothing like that. The only bruises he ever left on me were during sex and I didn’t mind at all. But we fought a lot and we had broken up at least five times in as many years, maybe more if you counted the number of times I had thrown him out of my apartment and told him not to come back. But he always came back and I always let him. It is what it is, you know? It was just hard to say exactly what it was. It took me a long time to realise that the label was less important than the emotions.
My friends who have overheard some of our fights, or heard about them in the aftermath, ask me why I don’t just dump his ass and find a nice guy who will treat me right. I could. I know I could. I’m attractive, if not gorgeous, and I have a lot going for me personally and professionally. I’m not lacking self-esteem over here, trust me. But those nice guys my friends talk about leave
