here, take a shower, before I hit the office.” He studies me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
His hands fit on my hips when he kisses me. Open mouth. Tongue working. No surprises; we’ve danced this dance many times. When I cup his crotch, though, he pulls away to give me a look.
“Well, well.” His brows raise. He’s making a joke.
I’m not.
It’s easy enough to walk him back a few steps to the bed. He sits. I push. I straddle him, already pulling at his tie and the buttons beneath. His body is tan and firm because he exercises even when he travels. He spends time outside in the yard, on the golf course, biking.
I’m not thinking of Will when I work my way down my husband’s body with my mouth and teeth and tongue. There aren’t any surprises. I know the dip and curve of every part of him. I know where he likes to be touched, and how. For how long. He’s hard in my fist in a minute or so. Then in my mouth. His hands tangle in my hair.
I want to be surprised. I want to find something new. I want this to feel different.
I use my hand in tandem with my mouth. Up. Down. I want to hear him groan in pleasure, but Ross doesn’t make much noise when we have sex. He never has. I’m the one who moans and sighs, even if the habit has been lost because of so many years when we had to muffle ourselves so the girls wouldn’t overhear. There’s nobody to hear us now, and I want him to shout from what I’m doing to him. I want him to shudder and writhe and clutch at the comforter while I mouth-fuck him until he can’t stand it anymore. I want him to come saying my name.
There is a surprise when he tugs my hair to lift my mouth from his cock. When he pulls me upward, over his body, to nuzzle and nudge at me through my clothes. Fingers work. We shift, we roll. I’m naked somehow, while he’s still mostly clothed. He pushes me onto my knees and slides beneath me to get at my clit with his tongue, his hands gripping my ass. My hands find the wall above the headboard, my fingers curling against the wallpaper I’ve never liked but have always been too lazy to change.
Oh, this, this, this. Spread wide, thighs trembling, all I can do is ride his face and let the pleasure take me over. He knows how and where and how long. How many times and in what direction. I come, hard, without making a sound.
I slip down his body and find his mouth with mine. The first time Ross ever went down on me, he was shocked when I kissed him, after. But if I can’t stand the taste of myself, how could I expect anyone else to? Anyway, it’s erotic, tasting myself on his mouth.
I slide one hand beneath his head, fingers in his hair. The other goes between us to grip the base of his cock and hold him steady as I slide my body onto his. Our mouths seal for just a moment before the kiss breaks on my sigh.
Twenty-two years. That’s how long we’ve been doing this. The first time was in a cheap hotel room after his fraternity’s spring formal. He told me he loved me first, and I didn’t believe him, but I let him kiss and touch me, anyway.
Ross doesn’t say he loves me now. He pushes up inside me. His fingers grip me a little too hard. His eyes are closed. His mouth is open.
He might always look this way when we make love, but it’s been a very long time since we did it in the light. I put my hands on his face and trace the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth with my fingertips until he turns his head to capture my fingers with his mouth. He bites gently. Pleasure surges, and I lose myself in it.
This is comfort. This is compatibility. This is familiarity, and it works. We both tip over into climax within moments of each other, and Ross gives me what I wanted. A hoarse shout. It sounds a little, just a little, like my name.
“What’re you up to today?” Ross asks a few minutes later, when I’ve fallen onto my own pillow.
I’d been teasing into sleep, but this wakes me. I scrub at my face before I look at him. “Work.
John Steinbeck, Richard Astro