See You on the Other Side (3 page)

“You’re going to fuck me,” she said, and I swear in that moment my heart damn near stopped.  “You’re going to fuck me-- not just make love, not take to bed, but really truly fuck me-- one last time.  And then you can leave.  I won’t ask anything more of you.  Your conscience can be clear.”

She didn’t understand at all.  It wasn’t my conscience that was keeping me from leaving, it was my conscience driving me away.

Then, she kissed me, before I could tell her that I didn’t deserve the taste of her lips.

It had been so long since I’d kissed Karen properly, I’d almost forgotten how it felt, but as her mouth pressed against mine, it all came flooding back to me like juice from crushed berries rolling over my tongue.

It all came back to me, and as it did, everything else-- Karen, my own worthlessness, even the trio of rescue dogs barking and sniffing at our feet-- all but the lovely pressure of her lips against mine faded away.

Holding her against me again felt like coming home.

And then she came at me like a hurricane, the urgency of her need stripping me down and leaving me bare and restless beneath.

We slammed against the wall to hard that the framed photo of the two of us cutting the cake at our wedding crashed to the floor.  The impact nearly knocking the wind out of me as she kissed me, harder and harder, only pausing for the brief moments that it took to pull our shirts over our heads.  Her nails, so natural and modest compared to Tammy’s acrylic talons, dug into the skin of my chest and left deep red marks in their wake.  Then, she wrapped a leg around my waist, still as flexible as ever, and suddenly I was hoisting her upward, holding her against me like we were horny twenty-somethings again instead of the parents of three twenty-somethings ourselves.

I carried her into the bedroom, stumbling clumsily and tripping over my own feet.  We crashed into every obstacle in our paths along the way, the door frame, the dresser.  And then finally, with the assistance of the golden retriever beneath my feet, we tumbled downward onto the bed, Tammy beneath me and my face against her breasts.

And in that moment, suddenly something clicked inside of me.  The breasts that had nourished our children no longer seemed ruined, unattractive, imperfect.  A wrinkle here, a stretch mark there, they were both goddesses in their own rights, asymmetrical and lovely just the same.  Her nipples bloomed at the peak of each pale mountain,  rosy and hard and begging to be sucked.  I lashed out at one, and then the other with my tongue and she moaned so beautifully, so deep that I did it again.  My fingers worked the one on the left while I used my mouth on the right.  Lips, tongue, teeth all paying homage to her in rhythmic unison until I had had my fill.

God, why had I ever tried to stray?

I moved my hands downward, unbuttoning her jeans and sliding them off her legs.  When I slid my hand back, caressing over the cellulite just as I had the virgin skin, I dipped my fingers past the soft patch of hair between them, then took the same fingers into my mouth when they came out wet.  She tasted amazing, subtle and sweet and tart all at once like the juice of an apple against my tongue.  I moved to her lips, pressing my own against them as I leveled my cock against the her dripping pussy.  I wanted to prove to her how much I loved her, to show her how good she tasted while I took her over and over again.

But she pulled away, put a palm on either side of my cheek, and turned my head downward.

I could take a hint.

With a grunt of satisfaction, I settled between her thighs.  I’d almost forgotten how much I’d always enjoyed eating Karen out, but that didn’t mean that I’d forgotten how.  I kissed down the tender skin of her thighs from her knobby, bruised knees to her softness of her pussy lips.  As I spread her folds with my fingers and licked her from bottom to top, the silken hair of her muff tickled my nose and brushed against my lips.  I knew that Tammy waxed-- she never seemed to shut up about it, in fact-- but I never had the heart to tell her that I really loved a woman with an unshaven pussy.  There was something so incredibly sexy about the look of it, the dark womanly curls against the narrowing V of Karen’s pale skin.  A bare pussy would have looked unappetizing, childlike in comparison.

I sucked her clit into my mouth, held it there gently between my teeth and worked it over with my tongue until she was was moaning like she had on our wedding night.

And then, and only then, as I looked up at her with her juices shining off of my lips and chin, did she invite me inside of her, and I came almost instantly.

“Okay,” she said softly, curled up in my arms afterward.  Her body burned hot against my skin, and I couldn’t seem to get enough of her warmth.  “You can go now,” she told me.

And there it was.  The last time I would ever hold her.  The last time I would ever feel her skin against mine.  The last time I would ever smell her hair, her breath, her neck, take in the sweetness of her lips or look into the chocolate depths of her eyes.

“I… I don’t want to,” I said slowly.  “I don’t know that I can.”

She bit her bottom lip.  In that moment, I was certain she was going to kick me out of the bed and out of her life.

But instead, she only pulled me closer, nuzzling against me and holding me tight.

“Then Tammy can go fuck herself,” she murmured sleepily.  “You’re mine.”

That was it.  That was all it took.  The battle was over. 

My soul was saved.

♦♦♦

Sunlight flowed through the lace curtains of my studio, casting networks of shadows and diamonds of light across the floor.  Outside, Karen was playing with the dogs, her hair whipping around her in the wind.  She was laughing.  I could see it on her face.

              I stepped back from my easel and tucked my brush behind my ear.  After months of struggle and confusion and uncertainty, I was amazed that I had finally sorted it out.  It was finished, thick with reds and blues, yellows and greens.  At first glance, it might have looked a little simple-- just a picture of a woman, pretty but not terribly profound-- but the longer I stared at it, the more it spoke to me.  A wrinkle here, an age spot there… I’d started it with such muddled intentions that I was still a little amazed that I’d managed to shape it into something with meaning.

“Didn’t know I modeling for you,” Karen said from the doorway.

I hadn’t heard her come in.  Her clothes were filthy, mud splattered in all the places that weren’t already marred by paint stains.  The dogs rushed past her and flooded inside to greet me, licking and sniffing and barking.  She’d named the bulldog Patton, after the general, and the lab Poe, after the author, but the golden retriever was going by Coconut, and I was too charmed by her strange sense of appropriate dog names to question it any further.

“I don’t think I realized either,” I said.  “Looks good though, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm,” she hummed.  I loved the way her hips swayed as she came closer, wrapping her arms around my waist and laying a kiss on my cheek.  “I don’t know-- do I really have that many wrinkles?”

I grinned.  “Absolutely.  But at least they’re all laugh lines.”

“They had to be.  Too scared of needles-- I could never do botox.  Speaking of which,” she said, tracing the letters of my Iron Maiden t-shirt, “I think Tammy must’ve taken out our mailbox this morning when she left.”

“Shame.  That’s a federal offense, you know.”

We laughed.  It wasn’t like we were getting mail anymore anyway.

It was a strange sensation, like coming home after a long trip away, but with every passing minute I felt like I was falling more and more in love with my wife.  Her hair, dark tones broken up by streaks of silver lightning; her skin, warm and rich beneath my hands; her smell, like pine trees and salt waves and wind.

“I don’t deserve you,” I murmured, kissing her hair and breathing her in.

“You never did,” she laughed.  “But I loved you anyway.  What a lucky man you are, huh?”

A lucky man.
I had saved my marriage with a few meager months left to enjoy it.  Still, Karen was there in my arms, staying by my side, loving me like she always had...

All things considered, I was inclined to agree.

INDIA REID is a sci-fi lover, bourbon enthusiast, cerebral tart and longtime lover of all things erotic. To read more Reid, visit
www.indiareid.wordpress.com
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COMING SOON:

HAND IN HAND INTO OBLIVION

Ten Erotic Tales of an Impending Apocalypse

The end is nigh-- so how would you go out? A lusty secretary finally finds common ground with her hard-ass boss... bent over his desk with her skirt over her head! When two roommates and self-proclaimed “cat ladies” consummate their friendship, the cat's finally out of the bag! A fallout shelter becomes a romantic love nest as a couple rekindles the dying flames of a passionless marriage, and a priest gets a little more than he bargained for as he receives an extra offering with one of his parishioner’s final confessions. As each scene plays out and Cometfall draws nearer, catch these characters and more in intimate moments of passion as they finally lower their inhibitions and throw caution to the wind! A steamy, surprisingly charming anthology detailing the psychological and philosophical repercussions of the human experience as humanity learns the date of its own destruction. Included is an exclusive bonus story,
Daddy, Please,
and an excerpt from the upcoming post-apocalyptic spinoff novel,
With a Whimper
. AVAILABLE AUGUST 2014!