Thirteen
H e sends me an email afterwards.
An email.
And yeah, I know he kind of has to communicate some way other than just talking to me, considering he has to go help Dina, and I have to actually make a start on the welcome pack and various ideas for writing assignments he suggested, in this offhand sort of way. You don’t have to do the ones they say, you can set your own based on things you like more. There’s nothing wrong with something science fiction-y, or maybe a little soft and warm. Or some combination of the two. Just think about you , he had said, over his shoulder, as he got ready to go.
But even so, man. Why didn’t he text?
Or DM me, on whatever they’re calling Twitter these days?
I know he has an account, I’ve seen it. Mostly he retweets videos of dogs that sound like they’re talking, occasionally with comments like, wow, I think this might really be the one, folks! So it was definitely possible.
But instead I get this, just as I’m honestly, totally, seriously so close to writing a first sentence on the writing prompt, you see a huge explosion from a distance :
Dear Hazel,
I hope this email finds you not hating me for too vigorously groping your posterior. And if it does, I understand. I have no excuses for my uncouth and frankly licentious behavior, only apologies, and a promise to take more care in the future.
Sincerely,
Henry Samuel Beckett
And what am I supposed to do after reading that? He used the word licentious . And the word uncouth . And the word posterior – like some old waistcoat-wearing man, last seen serving in World War II. In fact, I’m starting to think he might have been frozen back then by government scientists, and just got thawed recently to help save the world from CGI threats.
Frankly, no other explanation makes sense.
Though you know what makes even less sense than that?
That it still excites me when he does. I read those words, and I get the same sort of thrill I did over the pocket thing. That kind of weird contrast between his wholesomeness, his guilelessness, his sweetness, and the idea of anything ruffling that. Of anything scandalizing that, in the drawing room, as elegant society mingles just outside the door.
He’d whisper the word licentious to you in a hushed and breathless sort of way , some part of me insists, and then somehow I’m biting my lip and fanning myself with the welcome pack and wishing Doug and Tammy weren’t still downstairs. The walls and floors of this place are thin as fuck. I can hear them so much as breathing loudly.
They would definitely hear me doing myself.
And that means doing something else to distract my horny brain. Like writing, actually writing. Though of course, I don’t expect that telling myself this will work. I feel pretty sure that ten seconds after putting my hands on the keyboard of the laptop Beck let me borrow, I’ll be scrolling social media, or texting Berinder about a hat I saw on Etsy that I just know she’ll love.
I mean, that’s what usually happens.
But then somehow I just start typing. A whole sentence comes out of me. And another follows it, and another follows it and another follows it, until I inexplicably have an entire paragraph. A good paragraph that I don’t want to immediately discard on rereading.
She sees the flash from the building she is about to jump from, bright as a small sun in the darkness , it starts. And I think that might be good. Or at least, no Mother-ish voice comes along to tell me it isn’t. That I should do something more appropriate for a middle-class girl looking to settle down with a good husband.
Instead there are just my current chaotic feelings, all spilling out of me in story form. As if they’ve never felt allowed to spill out before. Or have never been strong enough to overcome that conditioning in order to do it. Because I can’t deny that, either – nothing I’ve ever done or experienced has ever made me feel this excited and mixed up and thrillingly uncertain. Even terrifying things that have happened to me in the past ultimately just seemed wearying. Dull. The same old. Oh, another man does something dreadful on a date.
Shocker.
So I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m writing as if in a fever. Or that what I’m writing is so horny . God, it’s unbelievably, ridiculously horny, even though it’s also about the end of the world. I find myself describing the sweat gleaming on the arch of someone’s back, the feral need to fist your hand in someone’s hair, the greed over something as small as a glance.
And I get so lost in it I almost forget:
I haven’t reassured Beck.
He’s still hanging on, waiting for an answer to his unhinged email, most likely stressed about me being annoyed, instead of how I actually am – fired up by the very thing he thinks he did wrong.
So I let that fire guide me in my vehement reply.
Dear Husband,
You barely touched me, you great, hairy Steve Rogers.
On my sexual history Richter scale, it did not even register.
I made a sound because of the deer, not because your hand breathed on me.
Never, ever worry about this again.
Smooches,
The posterior you are licentiously, uncouthly married to.
And after I have, I fully and absolutely expect him to be satisfied that he’s done nothing wrong, but maybe also sort of flummoxed? Possibly a little sheepish? An oh, I don’t know what I was bothered about kind of thing?
But instead, I get this :
Dear Wife,
I have never in my life felt more complimented by an insult. For that I am definitely going to have to save you from Thanos, most likely while blushing because my sleeve accidentally brushed your elbow. Forgive me, my sexual Richter scale is calibrated only to the sort of movement that might simply be someone on the next seat of the same couch farting.
Forehead pecks,
The furry Captain America you are married to.
He doesn’t even take a lot of time to do it. It hits my inbox in under a minute. Like it takes him zero effort to be this funny and self-deprecating and able to take my threads and run with them, suddenly. Forehead pecks , I think, and giggle, and rush to reply.
You know, just in case it’s a fluke.
Dear my furry Captain America,
Brace yourself then, because I have more compliments for you.
That is the funniest email I’ve ever gotten.
Now pretend I never gushed like a schoolgirl over your ability to bend words to your will like they are made out of some sort of lovely elastic.
Earhole tonguings,
The totally normal, dignified woman you are married to.
I write, almost as feverishly as I wrote those three pages of frantic fucking.
And thirty seconds later, I get the evidence that this is not a fluke at all .
Dear my completely undignified and all-the-better-for-it wife,
Take comfort from the knowledge that I would never believe you had gushed, even if you did venture into any state I could name as such. Because of course I can’t name this as anything of the kind, considering your email history to date most likely consists of men like Bob telling you the fiscal year starts on Friday.
Though you should still know, I fluttered a little over lovely elastic.
But only because you write as beautifully as you think I do.
And also I am as used to praise as a ferret is to flying.
Now just imagine a sign-off in a way that matches the brain-searing energy of earhole tonguings, because I could not actually manage one myself,
The husband who wishes he was as good at this as you are.
I swear, I kick my feet while reading it. And I curse him for not knowing his own worth. And I end it by wondering how the fuck he’s so free here and so not elsewhere. It seems impossible – until I remember the notes, passed under the door.
Then I get it.
Only now I’m thinking it’s more than just the distance it gives him. It’s not just the pressure he doesn’t feel while writing. It’s what he’s into. He loves it, he loves writing, he loves the written word. His ideal state is probably being some lighthouse owner, in a big cable-knit jumper, sending letters to someone he’s forbidden to be with.
And oh god, that thought is something else.
It makes me go all hot all over.
I have to stop before I can respond to him, because honestly I don’t know what I might say. I want to suck the cock of every word you’ve said , I imagine, then close the laptop just in case I’m tempted. Besides, letting it end there is probably for the best.
The whole thing seems too much like flirting, for a man who wants a kind, soft wife who makes love to him in a sedate manner, and a woman who currently feels like an electric charge is running through her. Don’t corrupt him, I tell myself as I unfold from the bed, and straighten myself out a little.
I splash more water on my face.
Brush away the evidence of constant hands in my hair.
By the time I hear the door go, and sounds of hellos downstairs, I’m pretty much calm and presentable. I walk down the stairs as casually as you like. I am the picture of cool.
Then I see him, framed in the doorway. All thick thighs and big shoulders and hair as black and lush as the pelt of a beautiful animal. Like some pinup from the seventies, who made his name in a series of scary movies. He’s the wholesome sheriff who saves the final girl , I think, and when I do, every normal word I want to say dries up. I just stare at him, with probable hearts in my eyes, and he stares back, with I-don’t-know-what in his.
Bashfulness, it looks like to me.
As if he realizes he was too forward in those emails. Too saucy, in a way he doesn’t know how to be in person. And now he has no idea how to act. And I have no idea how to help him. I feel like we just got finished sexting and aren’t ready to see each other in the flesh so soon after.
Just as Doug strolls in from the kitchen.
He sees us, looking like heavily breathing bookends.
‘Well,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you gonna greet your wife with a kiss, bow-tie?’
And of course I know what he’s saying it for.
It’s a test. This is a test, of the most awful and complicated kind I have ever had the misfortune to experience. Because the thing is, I am completely primed to make this the most convincing kiss anyone has ever beheld. Every part of me is genuinely ready to fuck his face with my mouth.
But I can’t do that, for about seventeen different reasons.
Starting with how big Beck’s eyes go when he hears those words. And ending with the thought of how such a thing will look. Not like an old married couple who are going to divorce extremely soon. But like a pair of people who aren’t even married, and feel all juiced up at the thought of a single snog. So now I have to somehow try to do this, with all of that in my head.
None of which I can easily manage. I step toward him like I don’t know where the bombs are between us. Legs all jerky, body trying to stay behind, face trying to smile but somehow only managing terror.
While he barely moves at all.
He seems frozen with uncertainty. I can almost hear him thinking, She said that she was okay with the butt touching but what if that doesn’t extend to mouths pressing against each other? And he’s definitely still stuck on that when I get there. He doesn’t even seem to want to lean into my space, never mind invade it with a hand somewhere on me.
But he’s going to have to, because I can’t reach him.
I go up on tiptoe and am still about a foot short of his face.
The only thing I can kiss on my own is his chest, and somehow I doubt he wants that. So I urge him with my carefully shielded expression. I make a face that I hope says it’s okay, go ahead . Then he does, and oh, fuck me sideways with a spoon.
He goes so, so agonizingly slow.
By the time he gets within an inch of my lips, I feel as if breathing has become a thing of the past. Something I used to do, back when I was normal. But I can no longer manage, under these circumstances.
But that’s not even the worst part. No, the worst part is that I get to see everything, in magnificent detail. The way the lids get heavy over his eyes; how his eyes lower to my lips like he simply can’t help it. How dark they look, how deep – like rich, expensive chocolate.
And the way his lips part...
It makes the lower one look even sulkier and softer than it had seemed in the car. When it pushes against me, it’s going to feel so good, so sweet. I don’t think I’m going to be able to stand it. Then he makes contact, and it’s so slight I feel as if I should be able to.
He barely touches me.
I get just the faintest hint of pressure, of soft hair, of skin brushing skin.
But it doesn’t matter. I still react like a fever has gripped me when he goes to pull away. Because I just can’t stop myself following him, oh god, I follow his mouth like his mouth is food and I’m half starved. My hand fists in his T-shirt before I can even think about it; my body arches up into his. I think, for one heart-stopping second, that I almost rub myself against him.
It’s only his quick thinking that saves us.
He pulls back and laughs, in a way that disguises his obvious panic.
Then he claps his hands together. He says all brightly, ‘Well, I better get dinner started.’ As Doug looks on, clearly annoyed at being thwarted. He thought we were going to fail, and we didn’t.
We were convincing.
And everything is now completely okay.