5 - NIGHTDREAMS AND DAYMARES
Lacey
The bedroom was full of evening light and Brad's hands were on me as if he couldn't stand an inch of space between us. His mouth was at my throat, my collarbone, the buttons of my blouse coming loose under competent fingers. None of it hurried. None of it had to be asked for.
He moved down without negotiating it, exactly how he never did, and settled between my thighs. And when his mouth found me I forgot to control the sound I made.
This was the thing I'd begged for in the early years and then stopped begging for. And here it was, his tongue slow and then exact, and I was already close, embarrassingly close.
"Come for me," he said. Not a question. Not the measured voice he used at the kitchen table.
I obeyed.
The word obeyed was still in my mouth when I jolted awake, heart slamming, sheets twisted around my legs. The room was dim, morning light edging through the blinds.
The wanting didn't go when the dream ended. It sat there insistent and with nowhere to be.
I shouldn't. The thought arrived the way it had since I was thirteen. It had never once stopped me.
Downstairs I could hear the coffee grinder, the small domestic sounds of a Saturday morning. I pressed my thighs together, which only made it worse. Years of scheduled sex that never quite satisfied me, and one dream had taken the wall down in a single morning.
I shouldn't.
I did anyway.
Two minutes in the bathroom, efficient and silent. The orgasm hit fast and almost angry. I bit my lip to stay quiet.
I washed my hands twice, and looked at my reflection like it belonged to someone else.
By the time I got to the shower I was steadier. Slightly.
Steam clung to the mirror in faint streaks. I dried off and dressed in jeans and a soft sweater.
Downstairs, Brad was at the kitchen table with the newspaper open, glasses perched on his nose, coffee steaming at his elbow. Whiskers wound around the table legs. Brad looked up and smiled. "Morning. Coffee's ready."
"Thanks." I poured a cup and sat across from him. Soap and aftershave. The same as every Saturday.
I let him finish his paragraph, because he didn't like being interrupted, then set my mug down. "About tonight. Could we try something different?"
He lowered the paper an inch. "Different how?"
"Oral. You, on me." I said it fast, before my nerve went.
His face made a small twist, there and gone, a I'd suggested something faintly unhygienic.
"Lacey." He took his glasses off, which he did when he wanted to seem patient. "You know I'm not comfortable with that."
"There's no risk. I'm a doctor, I can promise you that much. We're monogamous, we're both healthy."
"I hear you," he said. "And it's a hard boundary for me, and I'd think you'd respect that, as I respect yours. I'd rather not start a Saturday with you pushing on it."
As if I had any boundaries for him to respect.
Whiskers twined around my ankles until I fed him.
"Set up the cat camera before you leave?" I asked. "Whiskers threw up again last week. I want to see how he's eating when we're not home."
"I'll handle it." He said, sipping his coffee. "I'm going in to grade papers later. You expect to be late tonight?"
"Six or seven. Four admissions, and groceries after."
He nodded. No hurry home. He'd stopped saying that years ago, and I'd stopped noticing I missed it, mostly.
I leaned in for the goodbye kiss. A dry brush of lips, no heat in it, even on Sex Saturday.
On my way out I checked the camera app. He hadn't touched it, of course, the way he handled most things he said he'd handle.
I looked up the instructions for Argos Pet Monitor, angled it to take in the living room and the kitchen, and watched the test feed resolve on my phone, the empty room, the full bowl, before I locked the door behind me.