Chapter 52 #4
Tom lurched again. His hand caught her jaw, beneath her chin, and Cherry’s weight nearly gave out. She pictured herself hanging
from his grip, her feet swinging.
His mouth hit hers too hard, and she made a noise at the very top of her throat—a sob, maybe. Yes, probably. Her eyes were
burning. Her mouth felt wet. She was kissing Tom back clumsily, her jaw was working too hard. She pulled on his sweater. She
sobbed again when his arm locked tight around her waist. “Tom,” she said into his mouth.
Tom moved his other hand from her chin to the back of her head. He was holding her waist so tight that he was doing all the
work of holding her up. She was swaying on the balls of her feet.
Tom’s mouth was as clumsy as hers. Kissing and kissing. Missing her lips. Humming from his sternum. Cherry was still holding
on to the charm bracelet. She wrapped both arms around his neck. If Cherry were magic, she’d grow six more arms to hold him.
He kept kissing her. He kept holding her. Cherry’s feet hurt. Her back hurt. Her pussy felt like a hand, grasping. Her heart
felt like a wind tunnel. Her head had stopped working.
Tom pulled away and pressed his face into her cheek. “Tell me what to do, Cherry.”
“Stay,” she breathed out. “Tom, stay.”
He nodded. His face was still in her cheek. Cherry hugged him as tightly as she could.
Tom started kissing her cheek and neck. He stepped back, toward the stairs, and Cherry stumbled forward—there wasn’t enough weight in her feet to walk. Tom loosened his grip and her heels hit the floor. He’d stopped at the bottom of the staircase. His expression was helpless.
Cherry stepped away from him, grabbed one of his hands, and pulled him up the stairs. She led him to their bedroom like he
didn’t know the way. She was glad she couldn’t see his face when she pulled him over the threshold.
The bed wasn’t made. Cherry had left her nightshirt lying out. There was a pile of laundry by the door.
Tom started walking more quickly, pushing Cherry, grabbing at her waist. She turned to face him, and he pushed her onto the
bed, crawling on top of her, kissing her again. Cherry put her arms around him. She wrapped her legs around him. She was still
wearing shoes. His kisses were softer now—he wasn’t missing her mouth—but he still seemed desperate. Cherry’s hands scrabbled
at the back of his sweater. She was holding the jewelry box—she dropped it on the bed. She tried to kick at her heels to take
off her shoes, but Tom’s whole body was in the way. Tom’s heavy body. He was so much thicker than Russ. He was exactly the
right size. His skin was exactly the right temperature. She pulled the back of his sweater up, and the back of his shirt.
She touched the broad spread of his ribs.
Open. Cherry was wide open to him. He could take what he wanted, even if he never brought it back.
He was holding himself up with his knees and one hand. He was on her. He was kissing her. Cherry was dragging his sweater
up over his head.
Tom moved away and pulled his head through the opening of the sweater.
He sat up and took his T-shirt off, too.
He really had lost weight. He looked different—slightly deflated.
Cherry felt herself adjusting to it in real time.
Like her eyes were refocusing. Tom was pale.
The hair on his chest was darker than the hair on his head.
His arms were still thick. His shoulders were still broad.
This was still Tom, she still wanted him.
He was reaching back to her right foot—he tried to slide the shoe off her heel, but it wouldn’t come.
He picked the laces open with one hand and pulled it off. The left shoe came off easier.
He crawled onto the bed again, next to Cherry, facing her, pulling her into him. She’d missed her chance to get undressed.
They were kissing frantically again, their knees bending between each other’s thighs. Tom’s hands were on her back. She loved
them there. She touched his bare shoulders. She cradled his jaw. She moved her hand up into his hair and groaned. All of those
curls. Those fucking curls. He’d run away from her and grown out his hair. She fisted both hands in it. She kissed him like a wolf, devouring,
a curl wound round every one of her fingers.
Tom shoved her onto her back. He wrenched his mouth away from hers and rubbed his face in her neck. “Cherry,” he said. She
held on to his head. “Cherry,” he said again.
He kissed her neck. He kissed her throat. He hunched down to kiss her stomach. To push up her sweater and kiss her ribs. She
squeezed her eyes closed. She scratched his scalp. He kept pushing up her sweater. Pulling at it. Pulling up her body so he
could lift it over her head. She had to let go of his hair. And then he was yanking her jeans down over her hips, taking her
lace underwear with them. Without ceremony. (They’d already had the ceremony. They’d exchanged rings.) He kissed her hip.
His cheek in her belly. “Cherry.”
She was still wearing a red plaid bra.
She was still wearing pink fishnet knee-highs. One of them was sliding down her calf.
“Tom,” she said.
Tom reared up to take off his own pants. To take off his socks. She watched him. He’d lost some weight, but he moved the same.
He loomed the same. He looked at her with that same dumbstruck hunger.
Maybe Tom looked that way no matter who he was mounting. Like he wanted it so bad, he couldn’t think. Like he wanted it so
bad, he’d let go of all his insecurities and inhibitions.
She reached up to him, grasping at air, spreading her legs. Skipping ahead to the part she wanted.
Tom groaned and crawled over her again. Cherry closed her arms around him, kissing what she could reach—first his shoulder, then his neck.
Feeling their skin come together, warm everywhere and mostly naked.
Feasting her hands on him. (She’d looked at him once and decided to keep him.
She’d been his first, and he’d been her only.
If something happened to Cherry today, tomorrow, all her worldly possessions would automatically be his.)
Tom held her by the chin—by the throat, the way he liked to—a thumb in her cheek and finger at her jaw. He kissed her less
frantically but with no less intent. His body was everywhere, as far as Cherry could stretch. As far as she could reach. She
moaned and whimpered beneath him, in a state of constant assent.
Tom pulled away—just enough to reach for the drawer where they’d kept condoms.
Cherry caught his arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not . . .”
He looked back at her, confused—then hungry again. His mouth was hanging open. His bottom lip was wet. He kissed her. “You’re
not . . . ?”
“Ovulating,” she whispered. She pulled on his arm. “It’s okay.”
Tom was slow to give in. His hand was still reaching for the drawer. He was studying her face. Cherry arched her neck, baring
it. Tom went for her throat. She hugged him. She did the math in her head. She was very probably not ovulating. (She needed to feel his skin. She needed to feel his come. She needed every part of this. Was parched for
it.) (Cherry wasn’t always strong.) (Or good.) She closed her eyes while he kissed her.
Tom pushed into her without any more discussion. They didn’t talk during sex. They didn’t talk enough, generally speaking—Cherry knew that. She knew it was a problem. Maybe even a red flag. (Probably their downfall.) But she
didn’t think she could change it. She certainly couldn’t change it now, in this moment, at this late hour in their marriage, this early hour in their divorce.
Whenever Cherry and Tom made love, she didn’t want to say anything that would slow them down or change the mood.
She didn’t want him to feel bad about not talking.
Or ashamed. Cherry never wanted Tom to have even a moment of shame when he was naked in bed with her.
She wanted him to feel like he was gorgeous and good.
He was gorgeous and good.
He watched her, always. He was watching her now, as he pulled his hips back and pushed into her again, his eyelids heavy.
Cherry’s legs were spread, her knees were up. She felt a little faint from how right this was. How correct. Tom in her body,
in her bed, in her house, in her city. Tom at the center of her world.
He lifted up to push deeper, to hold on to her hips. He watched her face. He watched his cock move in and out of her. (Cherry
couldn’t see it, but she knew it was thick.) “Cherry,” he said. “Baby, baby. My baby.”
Cherry nodded. She reached for him, but her fingertips could only brush his chest. He leaned forward to kiss her fingers.
To let her cup his cheek. He held her hand to his face and kissed her palm again and again. “Tom,” she said.
Sex with Tom could go on and on . . .
It didn’t follow Freytag’s Pyramid of rising action/climax/denouement. Maybe it had, in the beginning, when he was still figuring
it out . . . (When they were figuring it out, together.)
But it had evolved into something less predictable over the years. He might fuck Cherry for a while and watch her come, then
turn her over and fuck her some more, then take a break to touch her, to lick her, to let her come again. She couldn’t predict
how he’d finish. Tom seemed to like her every which way. Sometimes he wouldn’t finish—he’d sort of fuck her past his ability to come, like he didn’t want to stop as long as she was hungry for more. And
then he’d fall asleep half hard. He might wake her up again in the middle of the night, asking with his hips and hands to
be let back in. (You could see why she didn’t beg for more conversation.) (With a man who never made her beg.)
But tonight Tom was already gritting his teeth, like he was on the edge. Cherry nodded up at him.
He pushed his hand between their bellies—it was always awkward like this—reaching for her clit, giving her two knuckles to rub into. Cherry would take it. She didn’t need much. She’d already started to clench inside.
She came in a thundering way. Seizing up from her toes and fingertips. Tom wedged his hips deeper, to take it. He closed his
eyes and shook his head. He said her name. He twisted his hand to rub her more directly.
The second orgasm came up from Cherry’s stomach. Through her chest. Hung out in her throat and hitched. Cherry sobbed.
“Cherry?” Tom asked. Square-faced. Angel-haired. Sweating.
“Don’t stop,” she said through tears.
“Baby . . .”
“Please don’t stop.” She was coming again. Or still. “Tom, Tom . . .”
Tom pulled his hand free when she went limp. He lifted himself up again and held her by the hip and the back of her thigh.
He was half on his knees.
Cherry was still crying. “Don’t stop,” she chanted. “I love you, don’t stop.”
Tom came with a long groan. With his eyes closed and his mouth open.
After a few panting breaths, he slumped forward, with his head on Cherry’s chest. She brought a hand up to his hair.
He kissed the top of her breast. “My baby.”