11
Elise
Whenever I pass the bakery section of our local grocery store, I stop at the pastry display case for a little while, usually for inspiration. Sometimes I think about what I’ve already got in my cart and how I could combine it with something as simple as croissants, or if I could swap a different spice into a cinnamon roll.
But this time, I’ve been standing in front of the pastry display case staring at a fresh tray of Danishes, watching the little decorative lines of icing slowly drip off of them.
You can’t call him. You blocked his number forever ago.
I can’t even rationalize to myself that I’m thinking about how the pastries should have been given more time to cool so that the icing wouldn’t be melting off, or that there’s something wrong in the liquid to powdered sugar ratio for the icing to have that consistency.
A movement on the other side of the case pulls me from my thoughts, and looking up, I see the baker in his white smock.
He glances between me and the Danishes, and then raises his eyebrows. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Oh, no, thanks though.” I shake my head quickly.
I stare for a beat too long, trying to convince myself to be attracted to the baker. Someone who I haven’t been legally bound to before.
He gives me a friendly smile, but it doesn’t spark that same heart-thudding, breath-stalling sensation that Shawn does. Fuck.
I shuffle away, moving my cart towards the checkout. Now that the menu for the reception has been finalized, I can start getting some of the ingredients before the prepping stage. I’ve spent most of the day successfully avoiding Shawn, and not wondering about him in the slightest. Re-contextualizing some things about our relationship, maybe.
“Oh, hey.”
I still, the checkout conveyor belt snagging a box of flaky salt out of my hands. I know it before I even look up.
I brace myself, and—dear god, he’s wearing gray sweatpants, and an old maroon college sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
It’s not just the way the fabric drapes over his legs and everything in between, it’s the way it moves. The way the waistband ties frame the imprint of his dick. It makes my mouth go dry. I don’t need to be doing this. I remember what it looked like, don’t I? Or was my memory on that a little faded as well?
Rationally, I know I don’t want his attention, or to be in the same town as him even. I moved across the state to get away from him and avoid this kind of moment.
“Hey, yourself,” I answer, as nonchalantly as I can manage, even though I’m definitely on the chalant side of the spectrum. It’s fine. I can exist within the same ten feet of Shawn and not be completely weird about it.
“Is that more of the wedding prep?”
“Oh, um, yeah. Some. The Danishes are for me, though.”
He reaches over for one of the plastic checkout dividers and drops his stuff on the belt. Literally all he has is toothpaste and a toothbrush. Yeah, he would forget to pack those.
Shawn glances at my cart and frowns. “What Danishes?”
“Oh, um,” I say, and in that moment, realize I was so hypnotized by the icing that I forgot to get any. My cheeks flush full red, I’m sure. I can’t even think up a good excuse that makes sense to tell him, I just wave the thought off.
“Do you want me to go grab you some Danishes?”
“No, never mind what I said.”
His tone borders on too pleasant. “It’s not a problem, they’re just over there.”
“No, I, uh, I forgot I decided against them.”
“It sounds like you still want them, subconsciously, maybe.”
“Oh my god, stop.”
I move strategically to the other end of the checkout, where the cashier is piling up my things after she scans them, the cart now between me and Shawn. He leans over the edge of my cart and puts the last couple things I had in there up on the belt and I try to focus on bagging everything up as the cashier passes it to me. It’s so hard.
Don’t stare. Seriously, don’t, I think, even as my vision snags on the way the fabric hangs precariously off one hip. Going over here was a mistake; all it did was make it easier to look directly at him. I swallow.
The moment everything I got is all bagged up and paid for, I leave. I’m not fleeing, I swear. But I do have a pint of ice cream and its staying frozen is suddenly a huge priority.
I pause right before the exit, glancing back at him one last time, and get stuck on what I see. The cashier girl is scribbling something down, and as she hands it to him I realize she wrote her number on the back of his receipt.
Holy shit.
I look away immediately. I have a number of feelings in that instant, none of them kind. That’s completely inappropriate, did he ask for it? But also, I should warn her about what he’s like, and maybe . . .
I swallow my feelings down. It’s none of my business.
I take a deep breath, and the grocery’s automatic doors close again. Shawn sees me standing at the exit and jogs over. Oh god, he’s going to think I waited for him. I mean, I kinda did. Not on purpose.
Catching up with a few strides, he asks, “Need help loading your car?”
Weakly, I swallow and nod. “Sure.”
Outside, he gets to my car first and opens up the trunk. I watch him start loading up bags, and all I can do is stare. It gnaws from the back of my brain until it’s at the forefront of my mind.
It’s none of my business. But it’s going to haunt me.
The question comes out without preamble or any semblance of an excuse. “Hey, did you, uh, date anyone since we . . . ?”
I watch Shawn’s expression, the way he freezes ever so imperceptibly, when he suspects a question is a trap.
“Not because I’m, uh, jealous, or anything like that,” I say, and wince to hear myself say it. I find my arms crossed over my chest and maybe that’s a little too aggressive for this conversation. “I just. I was curious if anyone else had to go through what I did, with your family.”
He relaxes a little, the tension easing from his shoulders. He shakes his head. “Oh. No, no one else had to go through that. I wasn’t on speaking terms with my family.”
I nod. That is the answer I asked for, and yet, it’s not the one I wanted to know.
A beat goes by, and I prompt, “Because there wasn’t anyone . . . ?”
His stupid, gorgeous eyes lift to hold mine, blinking those long dark eyelashes at me. “Do you think I haven’t slept with anyone in eight years?”
The back of my neck becomes hot.
“No! That would be ridiculous,” I say and force out a laugh. I feel like I am undoing years of therapy with every word. My cheeks are burning red. “I . . . no. No. I wouldn’t think that.”
I’m regretting every step I’ve taken into this quicksand of a conversation, but I can’t seem to stop.
“But you’ve . . . dated, probably, since, uh. In the in-between of then and now, and—” I try to twist it over and over into something not accusatory, but all I manage is to make it not really a question. “Because that would be normal. And healthy.”
He nods, and I feel so incredibly transparent in that moment. My only hope is that Shawn’s reliably dense enough that he might just take me at my word and not read into my stammering.
He looks me up and down, considering. “What about you, did you date at all?”
I’m not prepared for him to turn the question back on me. I mean, when it comes up in therapy, I usually say it was good to have relationships where I didn’t feel like I was going crazy trying to get a straight answer out of a guy.
“I . . . yeah, I guess I did some dating after we divorced.”
I shrug as neutrally as I can manage. “Obviously none of them went the distance, but I feel like I had some good relationships.”
“Oh. That’s good. I’m glad. Happy for you,” he says, turning away at that moment, and I only just catch the hint of red clouding his cheek as he returns my cart to the corral a couple spots over. “I’m happy for you that you found that.”
“Thanks?”
What a diplomatic answer. And he said it twice.
We lapse into silence, the only sounds are the highway and the rattle of the empty cart on pavement, unable to look at each other. It stretches several moments, and I wonder if I should take this as a sign to leave.
He looks at the sky, and there’s something artful about the shape of his neck against the evening.
“I, uh . . . I tried, y’know. To date,” he starts to say, “but . . . I don’t know. I think I needed a lot more time away from my family before I could really be my own person. Deconstructing, and all that. Sometimes it would start to go somewhere, then I would remember you, and that would always sort of end the relationship.”
“I . . . what?”
I blink. There’s some terrible, possessive need to know specifics. Some small island of rationality in my brain knows it’ll hurt more to hear them.
Shawn’s eye holds on the distance for a moment, then catches mine. He seems to remember himself, or at least realize what he said, a hint of panic in his brow.
“Not that I was always thinking of you when I hooked up with someone else, that would be weird. And obsessive,” he says quickly, maybe a little too loudly.
Something in my heart softens. I cram my hands in my back pockets, trying to look casual, nothing so obvious as making heart eyes at him. “Yeah, you’ve never been weird or obsessive.”
Shawn cracks a bashful smile at that, actually laughs a little. He takes a step forward that borders on invading my personal space, reaching an arm up to grab my trunk door.
I’ve read the phrase “wolfish grin” before, I’ve spent too much time on my e-reader not to have. But I don’t know that I knew what that looked like before.
Somewhere between the flash of his teeth to the curve of his mouth, I forget where I am. I wonder how many times I’m going to get close enough to kiss him and watch the chance slip away.
“You keep that under your hat, alright?” he almost murmurs, and for a moment, feeling like we’re sharing a secret, I remember what it meant to be on the same side as him, to be a team, instead of feeling alone and against everything and everyone else.
He takes his other hand and mimes tugging on the hat I’m not wearing, and my god, he’s such a dork, he even hums a little sound effect along with it. Somewhere in the edges of my vision, he closes my car trunk.
He walks away at that, and I watch the way his shirt shifts with every step, the breadth of his shoulders, the way those goddamn gray sweatpants fit him. I am stupid horny for that dork. I can feel my clit pulsing alive like it was about to get some special attention.
I watch him reach into his pocket and toss a little balled up piece of paper into the trash, and that’s the sight that makes me get into my car.
Even after I go home, I feel like I have too much energy after that encounter. Just being around him is enough to get me hot and bothered. I can’t tell if it’s like an anxious sweat or he’s hot and maybe I’m ovulating a little early this month.
Because I’ve seen Shawn’s arms before, I swear, without contemplating dropping my panties. Is that just a side effect he had on me that I forgot about?
There’s nothing all that different about him now to justify it, either. I mean, maybe he seems a little more mature.
I can’t sleep, that’s for sure. I pull on a pair of boots and leave the cottage. It starts as just a quick walk to calm my nerves, my body, and maybe tire myself out. I’d give anything to sleep and stop thinking about all this.
I thought I was over him. I guess not, because it hurts too much just to exist in the same space as him, painfully close and still not enough.
I had spent a lot of time mad that Shawn hadn’t stood up to his family for me in the way I needed him to, hurt that he hadn’t done enough. But I hadn’t realized how hard it must have been to have done as much as he had.
I probably would have kissed him in that hallway if the conversation hadn’t turned so morose.
I don’t know what to make of that little revelation. I mean, I guess family tragedy is always hard to explain. It does seem to me like thirty years is too long to let it control you, but then again, a lot of his family issues never made any sense to me.
Seeing Shawn here with his family contextualizes him in a way I’m not quite sure how to put to words. Something’s clicked, and I feel like I understand more than I did when we were married. It’s in the little things, the way they interact, the things they do and don’t say, cutting around the shape of something I can’t quite make out yet.
It’s such a small thing. It doesn’t make him seem so different now that it’s worth trying to reconnect with him at all. Not that I would even want to.
I don’t want to feel sorry for him. Not when I’ve spent years teaching myself to have better self-worth after what our marriage did to me.
It’s not really the closure I wanted, but the knee-jerk anger I used to carry about Shawn and how he handled our relationship in the face of his family’s disapproval sits oddly cooled in my chest. Part of me still struggles with hurt that he never told me any of those things about his family, but it’s not fueled by senseless anger now.
I stop at the sound of a distant howl. Coyotes, I remind myself.
Do coyotes even howl? It’s long and low, oddly melodic. And complex. And . . . is that fucking Bohemian Rhapsody?”
No. No way. But I hum a little along to it. Figaro, Figaro. Yeah, that’s it.
I stand outside a good couple minutes wondering if I’m maybe losing it. It could happen, I’ve had some pretty weird shocks this week. Another few minutes and I’m questioning if I actually heard what I think I did.
What is going on with me lately? I don’t think I’m old enough for even early menopause. Is this what PCOS is? Do I need to Google that again? Is Google actually going to helpfully answer the unstudied medical mysteries that are having a uterus?
Then again, none of that would explain how specks of dirt and leaves ended up in my bed, or where my pajama bottoms went.
Why can’t good things just stay good? Why’d he have to show up here and ruin a perfectly fine job for me? Why couldn’t things just be easy? Why can’t I go back to having my little family? Maybe not a real family, maybe just an overly friendly employer and their delusional catering partner.
No, that was stupid to want.
Hot, frustrated tears well up around my eyes as I linger over it. I just wanted a distraction from all the drama happening at the main house, and now I’d made things worse.
And now here I was, getting lost in the woods because I couldn’t stand another minute in the place he’d rejected me.
Why’d he have to ruin our relationship in the first place?
It’s dark and I make the decisions of which way to go haphazardly, thinking I recognize the slope of the hill and this cluster of trees until I stop nearly recognizing any of it.
No, I know this path, maybe. I think I can see the house through the trees, or maybe that’s someone else’s house. But I’m sure there’s a bench just around the bend, and it’s still part of the grounds. Why couldn’t I have just opened a window and done jumping jacks in my bedroom?
It’s only when I hear the snap of a branch behind me that I remember the animal attacks.
The woods are dark, the trees almost blending in with the night. But I can see something there, something moving in the tree line. It’s only barely perceptible.
I should not have wandered this far.
There’s no running this time. I begin to turn and immediately slip on some wet leaves the moment I take a step, just as it snarls and crashes through the bushes.
I stumble into a wide tree, the bark biting into my palms as I try to use it to steady myself, my body ringing with the impact. I’m able to catch myself from hitting my head, but as soon as I look up, there it is, crouching over me, filling up my whole field of vision.
The monster’s dark-brown eyes hold me, pinning me to the tree. It’s the same beast I met before, I’m sure of it. I know those eyes.
I nearly forgot that strange dream I’d had a few nights ago, with everything else that had been happening. I didn’t think it had been real.
There’s intelligence in its expression, an understanding I couldn’t ascribe to just any creature.
The same as before, it greets me by sniffing me. The creature’s snout passes over my shoulder, my stomach, to my hip. It hovers at the crux of my legs a moment, its breath hot against the thin fabric of my pajama shorts.
I hold still, leaning back into the tree bark, though my hammering heart makes me feel like my whole body is trembling.
Last time, it just wanted to smell me, not eat me alive, I think wildly.
A half-baked thought enters my mind and I go with it, moving my knees further apart. I slide down the tree, landing in the leaves with a small thud. My knees spread wide, revealing the growing wet patch on my PJs.
There’s no mistaking it for sweat; I can feel my clit pulsing awake with all the adrenaline in my body. My body is empty and needy. I haven’t gotten so easily and intensely turned on since I was in college, when every experience was brand new to me.
Look, my self-preservation has never been strong. My heart is pounding in my chest and my clit, and my nipples are hard points that have nothing to do with the temperature. I delve a finger inside, and the pleasure is so much greater than it normally is. A small gasp escapes me.
The creature dips its head, drawing back up with its tongue hot against my thigh, trying to taste me through my pants. The feeling is a tease, and all I can think is that my body needs more.
The beast crouches over me, head bowed between my thighs. I hear a low growl come from it, before it licks me once through my shorts.
At the slight brush of its snout against me, I’m already bucking my hips into that touch. My body feels strange, still aching for touch, for closeness. The way my heart thuds in my chest and my pulse quickens in urgency only fuels it. In this moment, I’ll take what I can.
I cry out as I feel its mouth open and its warm breath graze my thighs, followed by teeth. They drag gently across my skin, sweeping from one thigh to another, snagging on my shorts.
I hold my breath, choking on fear as elastic snaps and the beast’s teeth shred through my pajama bottoms.
With a snarl, it flicks its tongue against me, and my body goes rigid from pleasure, before melting back into the ground. My knees fall apart wider, and I feel the tongue again.
As needy as my body feels for it, I’m surprised by how good the beast licking at my entrance feels, dragging its hot tongue roughly through my folds, the sensations chasing that rush of terror and excitement.
It licks me thoroughly, lashing ferociously against my clit, then snarling as its tongue delves deep within my cunt, single-mindedly seeking my taste.
I was so sure last time that this was a dream. And now that it’s happening again, it feels so real. The heat and pleasure coursing through me are so vivid.
The beast’s body hangs low over mine, and—
I know this smell. I used to live here. I used to sleep here, in the bed that smelled like this. I would breathe it in, roll over and stretch and wrap myself in it, and sink back into pure bliss. I used to bury my face in his pillow, steal his side of the sheets when he got up to shower and I was still sleeping in. Then he would sit on the bed next to me while he got dressed, waking me up slowly with languid scratches up my legs, kisses pressed to my forehead. Under his laundry detergent, his shampoo, his deodorant, there was something unmistakably Shawn.
Wolves don’t wear deodorant, I think hazily.
It has to be a dream. A stress-dream. I feel weirdly feverish. What’s the alternative? I’m hooking up with a monster I encountered in the woods?
My hips buck as its tongue catches my clit again, and I arch off the ground with a gasp.
“Yes, oh my god, yes,” I pant without thinking. Its ears twitch, but it obeys with newfound fervor.
My body reacts, my moans growing louder and becoming cries. A new, different sensation enters the chat, as I lose some distant sense of control and squirt, releasing bursts of liquid as my begging for more becomes practically incoherent. The wolfish creature devouring my cunt is only too happy to keep licking me harder, faster, until the sensations peak again.
It feels like an orgasm, it feels bigger than one. All I know is that when I come back to myself, my body is strained and tired, my eyelids are so heavy I’m not fully able to open them for a few minutes.
But I’m back in my bed.