Page 14 of Breathe Again

I sucked in a breath.

My face burned.

Still, I took in his words, all of them, not just the ones that made me wince, the ones that pinballed through my brain, setting off lights and buzzers, increasing my panic. I did not miss his dismissal of myneeds, but the part of me that was logical registered the possibility that it wasn’t me that was the problem. Even so, my breath stuck in my lungs, and my stomach solidified into a knot.

I whispered, “Zale, I need it.”

His voice softened. “I know it hasn’t been ideal. It’s temporary. I promise you, it’s not about you. I love you, with all my heart.”

He lifted my hand that he was still holding and pressed his lips to my wrist, then tucked my hand back inside his.

“I need your support, baby, to get through these next few months. We’ll get back on track.”

I swallowed hard, tried to silence the alarm wailing inside me, and beat back the swell of panic. I could not survive without his touch. I’d split my skin. I'd come undone.

I looked at him, his melting brown eyes locked onto mine hopefully. His beautiful lips pressed tightly together making the lines around his mouth more pronounced. He looked tired. He had needs, too. I had to do better, be better. I nodded. His expression relaxed and he lay back on our bed, opening his arm to invite me closer. I tucked my head in the indent between his bicep and his pec and closed my eyes. I breathed in and out slowly, counting backwards from one hundred.

I woke two hours later, our room pitch black, pressed up against his warm back, his hand over mine slung across his chest. My bodywas buzzing and the angst in my belly had climbed to wrap around my throat, choking me.

Our sex life had slowed over the past year as pressure at his work increased. I’d tried to initiate, several times, only to be gently, and sometimes not so gently, rebuffed. The cumulative effect of so many rejections had left my heart battered, bloody and bruised.

Up until a year ago, everything was great. I’d roll toward him in the bed and he’d side-eye me, crinkling his pleasure, lifting his arm to invite me closer. I’d throw my leg over his and he’d drop his hand that was around my back down to my hip, pull up my nightie and tuck his fingers in the back of my panties. I would slide my hand along the wall of his chest, lightly brushing over his nipple.

He’d dip his fingers further into my panties, and in his deep, mellow voice he’d murmur, “What do you want, baby? Do you want to play, do you want to fuck, or do you want to make love?”

Making love was languid, easy, marked by long caresses, slow, deep kisses, a leisurely mutual rediscovery, skin to skin, holding tightly, coming together wrapped around each other. Gentle hugs, sweet affection, I love yous whispered softly in the dark.

Fucking was hard, demanding, sometimes fast, with deeper, harder kisses, hands grasping, squeezing, pulling my hips into position, changing position, a taking, a claiming, limbs shaking, breath gasping, the climb so ferocious it made me light-headed, finally combusting, me first, then he’d take his. I loved the claiming, the taking, the ownership touch.

Playing was by far my favorite. By turns it combined the best of making love and fucking, with the delicious addition of teasing out the climb to orgasm, testing limits of control, mine as well as his, driving me to oblivion, hazy, boneless, compliant, willing, free. He could play forever, reduce me to begging, often giving me two, sometimes even three orgasms on a few occasions. By the time he took his, I would be incoherent. No word or thought could survive. My mind at rest, my body replete, I loved playing.

He hadn’t asked in a long time, but if he had, I’d have been happy to take anything. A crust of bread from a Thanksgiving table, anything that would take the edge off my hunger, anything to quiet the panic inside, anything to still the storm.

For two more hours I tossed and turned, unable to reclaim sleep. Seeing I had only two hours left before I had to get up, and knowing I needed sleep to parent the way Olivia needed me to parent, I stopped resisting, moved as far away from him as I could, and slipped my hand into my underwear. I came quietly a few minutes later and drifted off to sleep with thoughts of what a loser I was to have to masturbate myself to sleep when my husband was not two feet away from me.

I needed to lose weight to be more attractive, I needed to be happier so I could set a better tone at home, be more organized to make our home a more relaxing space and make more progress with Olivia so Zale could stop worrying so much.

My intentions were good but the next morning I was in a worse state than the night before, because my touch, while quieting my body and allowing me to sleep, did nothing to quiet the storm inside, and everything to stir up the recriminations.

.

Date Night In

Mara

Willa was out the door, Olivia in tow, chatting away. This happened often, Willa taking Olivia overnight. She was the most devoted aunt I could have ever imagined for Olivia. We had always been close, and thankfully that did not change when first Zale, and then Olivia, entered the picture.

When we first got the inheritance left to each of us by our dad, Willa had the opportunity to purchase the condominium she’d been renting. Great building, safe neighborhood, and she had set up her spaceperfectly.

There was only one problem. It was on the fifth floor and Olivia could not tolerate elevators. As in, she refused to go in them at all. The few times we did manage to get her in, she dropped to the floor in the fetal position the moment it moved, and when it stopped we couldn’t get her out.

Willa sat on that money until a unit went up for sale on the second floor. It was a mess. It had also been a rental and it showed. She bought it for a song and spent the following year fixing it up until it was as it was now, a thing of beauty, corner to corner reflective of her and her taste, and better by far than the first one. Olivia had her own room there and she loved it. It was truly a second home for her, one where she was just as much at ease, most of the time.

Zale and I used to go out on Friday nights whenever Willa took Olivia, but we’d fallen out of the habit. Not necessarily by accident. People, of the female persuasion, got all dolled up for Friday nights, and although I tried, I always felt dull and drab and conspicuously out of place. When Zale was home just with me, I could pretend we were well matched, but out in public, where all the beautiful people gathered, and seeing the interest he garnered, I could not lie to myself. I kept up the pretense, as best I could, for him.

Eventually, using Olivia as an excuse, I begged off the majority of those outings. When Jack, Bex’ first husband, died, the outings did, too. Now, Bex was with Rhys, and they wanted to go out with us, and I was running out of excuses. But not tonight.

Tonight, we were having a date night-in.

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