Wife Living Dangerously Read Online Free PDF Page B

of my thumb to my forefinger.
    “Like this?”
    “Yes. You’ve got it.” His enthusiasm for this endeavor made me laugh. I wanted to kiss his soft pink lips, wanted to touch
     every one of his freckles, run my finger over the slope of his nose. “Now put your fingers in your mouth, and sort of flip
     your tongue back and down.”
    “Like this?”
    “Yes. That’s right. Now tense your lips a little and blow.” I produced one of my more restrained whistles; I didn’t want to
     show off.
    He kept his eyes locked on mine as he followed my instructions but what came out wasn’t a whistle, just a hollow whoosh.
    “What am I doing wrong?”
    “I think it’s the way you’re holding your fingers.” I stood on the tips of my boots and peered into his mouth. “And your tongue.
     You need to… here… let me show you…” As I reached up to adjust his fingers he took my hand and held it there
     with my fingertips resting against his cool lips. He gave me a look that seemed to say,
I could make your head explode if you let me.
    But I didn’t, not for another year, not until we were married.
    My new husband was an eager, adventurous lover who believed that sexual technique could be cultivated like any other talent,
     flying a kite, for instance, juggling, or cooking Indian food. He had been initiated at the tender and highly adrenal age
     of sixteen by a divorcée who had hired Michael and his brother Dave to care for her four parakeets whenever she was out of
     town. Both boys got fifteen dollars but only Michael received the bonus.
    His lovemaking was intuitive and hungry and he was always pressing me just past my comfort zone, boundaries I’d arbitrarily
     set for myself in the absence of experience; I didn’t know enough to know what I’d enjoy. But Michael was a persuasive teacher
     and I a willing student; my repertoire quickly expanded as he showed me that my body could be explored in ways I’d never imagined
     and all of it felt good. Sex was as natural as breathing but also a little bit naughty, exotic, and purloined. Michael would
     tease me while I was on the phone with my boss, slip a hand into my panties in the crush of a tightly packed elevator, flick
     his tongue against my cheek at a church picnic, which appeared as a polite kiss to anyone who happened to be watching.
    I’m not sure when things began to change, maybe between kid two and kid three, or maybe when Michael moved from Legal Services
     to Weimar Bott. I’m just not sure.
    I set the Victoria’s Secret things aside for later, but Michael is asleep by the time I’m done brushing my teeth. I lie there
     a long time under the glare of my full-spectrum reading lamp and listen to my husband snore.
    Inspired by an article in a women’s magazine (“Twenty-one Ways to Keep Romance Alive & Kickin”) Michael and I are going on
     a date. Our evening will be a study in marital compromise. He gets the action movie—in which a famous grizzled actor and nubile
     young actress survive a plane crash, detest each other, have sex, and get rescued—and I get sashimi. For the kids, I managed
     to snag über-babysitter Heather Cradduck who charges eight dollars an hour but comes equipped with a backpack full of diversions
     including her own Game Boy, which she handles with the virtuosity of a nine-year-old.
    The movie is at the Superplex in theater six, the one that smells like sewage and tater tots. In the canvas tote bag I got
     for renewing our membership to public radio I have packed a box of Junior Mints purchased not at the movie concession but
     at the supermarket, along with two tangerines and two bottles of water. This is the first time in my life that I’ve sneaked
     food into the movies (not counting the Metamucil wafers I brought to the movies when I was pregnant with Jake and perpetually
     constipated). I feel like a heroin mule. Michael and I sit silently as a series of movie trivia questions appear on the screen.
     Which actor was a