“Say it.”
I wouldn’t, not at first, though I knew sooner or later he’d have me doing what he wanted. He always did. It helped that I usually wanted what he wanted me to want. We were well matched in that way.
James bit down into the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. “Say it.”
Instead, I writhed under his touch. His finger dipped inside me, then out, swirling gently when I wanted him to press harder. Teasing me.
“Anne,” James said seriously. “Tell me you want me to lick your cunt.”
I used to hate that word until I learned its power. It’s what men call women who have bested them. It’s what women call each other when we want to wound. Bitch has become something of a badge of pride, but cunt still sounds dirty and harsh, and it always will.
Unless we take it back.
I said what he wanted me to say. My voice was hoarse but not weak. I looked into my husband’s eyes, gone dark with lust. “I want you to put your face between my legs and make me come.”
For one moment, he didn’t move. Against my hip, his heat and hardness shifted and grew. I saw the pulse beat in his throat. Then he blinked slowly, and the smug smile spread across his mouth. “I love it when you say that.”
“I love it when you do it,” I murmured.
Then there was no more talking, because he moved down my body and lifted my nightgown to put his mouth exactly where I told him I wanted it. He licked me for a long time, until I shuddered and cried out, and then he slid up again to fill me and fucked me until we both came with shouts that sounded like prayers.
The telephone’s jangling interrupted the postcoital laziness to which we’d succumbed. The Sunday edition of the Sandusky Register, spread out on the bed, crinkled and rustled as James leaned over me to grab the phone from its cradle. I took the chance to lick his skin as he did, sneaking a nibble that made him jump and laugh as he answered.
“This better be good,” he said into the phone.
A pause. I gave him a curious look over the lifestyles section. He was grinning.
“You son of a bitch!” James settled back against the headboard, his naked knees pulled up. “What are you doing? Where the hell are you?”
I tried catching his eye but the conversation had immersed him. James is an intense butterfly, flitting from focus to focus and giving each his undivided attention. It’s flattering when it’s you. Not so charming when it isn’t.
“You lucky son of a bitch.” James sounded almost envious, and my curiosity was piqued even more. Generally, James was the object of admiration among his peers, the one with the newest toys. “I thought you were in Singapore.”
I knew, then, who had disrupted our Sunday afternoon lassitude. It had to be Alex Kennedy. I looked back to my paper, listening while James talked. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting in the newspaper. I didn’t really care about the latest summer fashion or what cars were trendy this year. I cared even less about burglaries and politics, however, so I scanned the columns of text and discovered I’d been ahead of my time in painting my bedroom pale melon the year before. Apparently it was the season’s hot new color.
Listening to only one side of a conversation is like putting together a puzzle without looking at the picture on the box. I listened to James talking to his best friend from junior high school with only the barest comprehension and frame of reference to help me assemble the pieces. I knew my husband as well and intimately as any one person can know another, but I didn’t know Alex at all.
“Yeah, yeah. Of course you did. You always do.”
The keen admiration was back, along with an eagerness new to me. I glanced at James. His face was alight with glee and something else. Something almost poignant. Despite having what could be a somewhat narrow focus on his own priorities, James was unafraid to be happy for someone else’s fortune. He was, however, rarely impressed. Or intimidated. Now he looked a bit of both, and I forgot about the vapidity of pale melon altogether to listen to him speak.
“Ah, get out, man, you’d rule the fucking world if you wanted.”
I blinked. The sincere, almost puppyish tone was as new to me as the look on his face. This was startling. A bit disturbing. It was the way a boy speaks to a woman he’s convinced he loves, even though he knows she’ll never give him a second look.
“Yeah, same here.” Laughter, low and somewhat secret, crept out of him. Not his usual guffaw. “Fucking-A man, that’s great. I’m glad to hear it.”
Another pause while he listened. I watched him rub the curving white scar just above his heart, his fingers tracing the line of it, over and over, absently. I’d seen him do that before, rubbing that scar like a talisman when he was tired or upset or excited. Sometimes it was brief, a passing touch like he was flicking a crumb from his shirt. Other times, like this, the stroke-stroke of his fingers took on an almost hypnotic pace. I could be mesmerized watching James run his fingers along that scar, which sometimes looks like a half-moon, or a bite, or a frown or a rainbow.
James’s brow creased. “No. Really? What were they thinking? That sucks, Alex. Really fucking sucks. Fuck, man, I’m sorry.”
From elation to sorrow in half a second. This too was unusual from my husband, who might move easily from focus to focus but always managed to maintain his emotional stability. His syntax had changed during his conversation, reverting a little. I’m no prude about bad language, but he was saying fuck an awful lot.
In the next instant his face brightened. He sat up, bent knees going straight. The sunshine of his smile burst from behind the storm clouds of a moment before.
“Yeah? Right on! Fucking-A! You got it, man! That’s fan-fucking-tastic!”
At this I could no longer hide my expression of surprise, but James didn’t notice. He was bouncing a little, shaking the bed so the papers rattled and the sadly neglected classifieds fluttered to the floor.
“When? Great! That’s … yeah, yeah … of course. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great. Of course I’m sure!” His glance flicked toward me, but I was certain he didn’t actually see me. His mind was too taken up with whatever was happening in Singapore. “Can’t wait! Yeah. Just let me know. Bye, man. See you.”
With that, he thumbed the disconnect button and settled back against the headboard with a grin so broad and vibrant it looked a bit maniacal. I waited for him to speak, to share with me the piece of brilliant news that had so excited him. I waited quite a bit longer than I expected to.
Just as I was about to ask, James turned to me. He kissed me hard, his fingers tangling in my hair. His mouth bruised mine a little, and I winced.
“Guess what?” He answered before I had time to reply. “Alex’s company just got bought out by a much larger corporation. He’s like a fucking millionaire now.”
What I knew of Alex Kennedy could fit on one side of a sheet of notebook paper. I knew he worked overseas in the Asian market and had since before I’d met James. He’d been unable to attend our wedding but had sent an elegant gift that must have been exorbitantly expensive. I knew he’d been James’s best friend
