“I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”
I stare at the dark ceiling. The only light coming in is from the street lights outside.
They make little white lines on my bed, peeking in through the blinds.
Fuck, it’s late, and I can’t sleep. My mind has been racing, and all I can think about is the look on Thalia’s face when I caught her staring at the bar.
I smile thinking about her gaze. Her eyes went wide when I captured her gaze, piercing mine in the process.
My mind goes to the fantasy of bending her over the bar, fucking her under the glow of the Edison bulbs.
Her black shirt is barely holding in her perfect tits, putting them on display for me.
Thinking about her round ass in her tight jeans makes my dick hard under my sheets.
In the dark ambience of our bedroom, I turn to look at my wife on her side of the bed.
She has her back to me while her face looks towards the blank white wall.
Her bare shoulders peek out from under our gray comforter.
The sheets quietly rustle under the sound of me moving closer.
Her body tenses as I pull her close to me with my cock resting on the curve of her ass.
I kiss the side of her neck. My hands move up her arms, gently grazing my fingers up to her shoulders.
She stirs in response, her sleepy, blue eyes flutter as she turns to look up at mine.
I kiss her full, pink lips, moving her around to face me, and then pulling her on top of me.
Her hands land on my chest, and mine on her hips.
By routine, I peel off whatever nightgown she has chosen for the night.
Tonight it is her light blue silk gown. Her paid for sun-kissed breasts are exposed for me.
I glower at the picture of plastic-made perfection, and she situates herself on my length and moves her hips like she always does.
She grinds just the right way, making me harder.
As if it is part of our intimate routine, her eyes close. She puts herself in her perfect fantasy. I move my hand up between her breasts to the crook of her neck. It feels too comfortable resting there.
“Fuck,” I moan, and she moves her hips faster. My eyes go heavy, and I am transported to a fantasy of my own.
Ashley’s blonde, loose waves evolve into bright red curls. Her sun-kissed skin has become a milky white complexion covered in vibrant tattoos. Her eyes, now hazel, look into mine as I dig my fingers into her pale thighs.
“Good girl,” I moan, and Ashley’s hips continue grinding harder against me. Both of our breaths meet the same rhythm. She brings her face down to meet mine and presses her full lips to kiss mine. In my mind, they are a devious shade of red, dark as sin.
I bite down on Ashley’s bottom lip hard, making her whimper. My hands go through the back of her hair. “Don’t you fucking move,” I tell her.
My lips graze her jaw and move to the middle of her neck, nipping and licking as I explore, leaving imprints of my teeth along her sensitive skin.
She squeezes her pussy around me, making it hard for me to last much longer.
She plants her hands on the pillows on either side of my head.
I can feel her toes curl on the side of my legs.
Ashley sits straight up, making my dick hit the perfect spot.
She closes her eyes, only to go back to her mind, and I go back to mine.
My hands go up to what I imagine would be Thalia’s breasts.
They’re fucking amazing, fitting in the palm of my large hands.
I sit up to meet them in my mouth. After rolling my tongue over each nipple, I gently bite down.
Her breathing gets heavier, and I imagine her eyes rolling back as she bounces up and down.
“Just like that,” I praise, matching her movements.
She clamps down around me and collapses on my chest, pushing me back down.
I remain on my back while her chest moves up and down against mine, and her full lips softly touch mine.
There is a brief moment in time where everything is perfect, ecstasy flowing through our veins.
I watch her as she slowly makes her escape to the adjoining bathroom.
It is then that I’m transported back to reality when I see her red curls become the gold waves that fall down her naked back.
As quickly as it began, the fantasy fades.
The colorless life I’ve surrounded myself with is coming back into focus.
I turn to my side and feel for my glasses and my phone on the cherry wood nightstand.
“Fuck, what have you done to me?” I ask aloud, scrolling through Thalia’s Instagram page.
The black wheels of my chair slide on the protective plastic covering on the gray carpet.
My phone is like a spotlight in my studio; her picture is a beacon, drawing me in as her picture takes all of my attention.
Does she not know the way she looks makes my heart feel like it’s going to fall out of my fucking chest?
I wonder what she’s doing right now. It’s the middle of the week, she’s probably working.
What time is it? The late hour is shown in the lower right of my computer screen, just barely past eleven.
My focus on the newest episode wavers. A half hour passes while I stare at my laptop, working on the intro for next week's episode. Lee is going to kill me if I don’t send it to him tonight.
Our newest episode is on the “sick fuck” as Lee would call him, Joel Rifkin. He was sentenced to prison for two hundred and three years. It looked like they thought he might have killed seventeen people, nine of them being women. Who fucking knows though. It may have been more.
He killed his first victim, we’ll call her Susie, in 1989. According to the research I had made, she was a “prostitute” or a more politically correct term, a sex worker. A lady of the night, as my grandmother would call her. Words like “prostitute” were too dirty and too real for her to say.
Rifkin took her back to her place and bludgeoned her to death.
He later dismembered her body. He put her teeth, fingertips, and head in a paint can and disposed of her legs, arms, and torso in the East River around New York City.
They later found poor Susie’s head on the seventeenth hole of a golf course in New Jersey, of all the fucking places.
Susie’s skull wasn’t identified until 2013.
Shit, that’s a long time . My focus changes from the computer to my phone. Fuck, I can’t concentrate.
I scroll through Thalia’s Instagram page again.
Stopping at each picture, examining the photo.
Wondering where she is, and who she is with.
I look closely at what she is wearing, paying attention to the details.
It’s the small details that matter. My eyes move from Joel the Ripper on the monitor on my laptop, and then to my phone.
Fuck it, I give up. I need to get out of this house and get my mind off of her.
I shut the lid to my laptop and slide out of my large, leather chair.
The room goes dark, and I walk towards the long hallway.
Ashley is asleep on the couch, clutching her Kindle that rests on her chest. The television is playing soft ambient sounds, showing a picture of a fireplace.
It looks like she is spending the rest of the night in.
Like the good husband that I am, I spread the white throw blanket across her lap.
She won’t miss me if I leave; she won’t even notice.
I continue down the hallway to our room, and with a flip of the switch, the light turns on.
I search the closet for something more casual.
Once I take off my slacks, I hang them neatly on the velvet hanger that I have specifically for my work clothes.
The metal hook slides precisely next to the row of freshly ironed pants.
Next, I neatly hang up my silk, black shirt.
Buttoning up every button, making sure it stays snug on the hanger.
It fits neatly next to the other button-up shirts, hanging in a long row in my walk-in closet–all in order by color.
My black T-shirt is hanging up exactly where I left it, sitting next to the other row of shirts, which are also categorized by their color.
It fits comfortably but clings tightly to my arms. I reach for a pair of dark gray sweats and pull them up over my thighs.
They sit perfectly just below my hips. My white and black Nike tennis shoes mold perfectly around my feet.
They are where they’re supposed to be on my small white shelf in my closet, next to the few others that I own.
Each is a different color to match my different color-coordinated outfits.
My reflection stares back at me in the large mirror in my bathroom.
A few strands of auburn curls hang just above my eyebrows.
Walking towards the front door, I notice Ashley still sleeping soundly on the couch.
She hasn’t stirred since I covered her up with her favorite blanket.
I walk quietly through the front door and shut it slowly so I don’t wake her.
My run begins through the black iron gate that’s attached to the iron fence, which runs around our property.
The gate squeaks loudly as I push it open.
The brisk wind hits me when I turn towards the long sidewalk.
With every gust of air, the hair on my arms stands up, and I push myself through the cold.
I need to clear my head. Anything I can do to distract myself from thoughts of Thalia.
I shouldn’t be having these feelings, I can’t be having these fantasies.
I’m a married man. Fuck, I don’t even know this woman.
Her face flashes across my mind, and it clouds my vision.
In my head, I see her smiling up at me through the whiskey glass she hands me.
Damn, she’s beautiful even through thick glass.
My legs keep pumping through the cold air.
She’s just a listener, like the other thousands you already have. Keep telling yourself that.
Nothing special, just another listener.
My legs move faster around the corner. Maybe if I push myself harder, I’ll think about something else. With more exertion, my breath gets heavier. The heavy breathing only makes my thoughts worse.
I imagine our heavy breaths syncing in tandem while she lies underneath me. She sweetly moans my name as I move inside her. Fuck. She’s just another listener, just another listener and nothing more.
My legs move faster and harder, and I come up on my property. “Thalia, what have you done to me?” I mentally ask myself while quietly walking back inside my house, my heaving breaths the only outward sign of my internal struggle.