Epilogue #2
A torrent of tears practically bursts from her eyes, and my stomach leaps into my throat.
I overpower the urge to jump to my feet, ready to do battle.
There’s a baby on my lap, and also, I already know that whatever’s wrong is something I can’t fight.
I wouldn’t trade the Cora I know now with the woman I married, not for anything, but it’s humbling to be a kingmaker who sways markets and influences the course of modern events and who is also completely powerless in the face of his wife’s tears.
“Cora, what is it?” I ask quietly, but Pearl has already noticed.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” She runs over, Gonzo at her heels.
Winnie lurches, grasping for her mother.
We’re a scrum of children and dogs and tears, and I’m supposed to be the man, and I’m struggling to keep a baby from casting herself off my lap.
“He brought me a toy,” Cora chokes out through the tears.
“It’s wet,” Pearl declares. She’s already picked it up.
Winnie lets out a squeal of indignation, and I know I’m beat. I pass her over. Cora instinctively wraps the baby in her arms. The fugitive is kind enough to move his snout over an inch to make room.
“I knew a dog once that brought me toys. I guess I miss him.” Cora explains as she tries and fails to stifle the flow of tears.
“Ellis Island?” Pearl asks.
Cora nods.
“Daddy, what’s another island?”
“Staten?”
“Okay, his name is Staten,” Pearl declares. “You have to tell the lady he belongs to Mommy now.”
That’s how our family of four became six. I’m only grateful I didn’t say Long Island, which was the first that came to mind.
Many hours after playing with Gonzo and Staten, and walking them, and showing them to Vera, Minh, Sal, and the guards, and stuffing them with way too many treats, the girls are asleep, and my wife is riding me to completion.
I lie back on a stack of pillows and enjoy the view. Her head’s tossed back as she furiously works her clit, bucking her hips and whimpering each time I hit that spongy spot she’s lined up for me.
I’m close, but I can hold off as long as she needs. She bites her plump bottom lip, and I quickly shift my gaze to the muted television. I’m only human. There’s no way I’m lasting without a little distraction.
She comes almost every time we fuck, now.
I used to let her fake it once she’d had enough.
When we first got together, I’d keep going as a matter of pride, trying to get her across the finish line even after she faked her orgasm, but she’d start to lose her lubrication.
She’d never stop of her own accord. If I let her, she’d pretend to enjoy herself until I came.
I figured it was better to come after she faked it.
I hated that she’d hurt herself so I could get off.
It’s different now. We actually talk in bed. Not at length, or anything, but she’ll tell me to go ahead and come if she’s not feeling it, or she’ll order me to keep doing something, and she’ll yell at me if I mess up the tempo or the angle. I love it.
“Adrian,” she whines and drags my hand to her breast. I happily let my gaze return to her bouncing tits, lift one in my palm, and do a crunch so I can wrap my mouth around a fat, dusky nipple.
I suck hard, and she shrieks, her pussy squeezing my cock like a python, and I come so hard I lift her up like a bucking bronco.
She lists to the side, nearly tipping over, and giggles like crazy as I set her straight.
I bend my knees so she can lean against my thighs.
My cock has slipped free and is nestled in the cleft of her ass.
My cum is dribbling out of her and onto my lower abs, and I don’t care.
In twenty minutes or so, I’m going to see how much messier I can make us.
I just have to keep Cora exactly where she is. If she goes to check on the girls, the pajamas go on, and my odds get a lot worse. I wrap my hands around her waist and press my fingers into the muscles at the base of her spine.
She moans. My cock twitches. Maybe fifteen minutes.
She smiles down at me. Make that ten.
“Are you ready for therapy?”
And now I’m totally limp. I exhale a long breath and focus. “Absolutely.”
I’m currently being extorted by my wife. The deal is that every time she goes to therapy, I have to do a session, too. She’s the shrink. I have to “really participate in my treatment,” or she cancels her appointment with Deborah.
Sometimes she asks me questions that Deborah asks her.
Other times she asks about my childhood or my life before we met or how I feel about parenting.
Once in a while, she lets me off the hook and asks me dumb questions like whether I’d rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses.
She thinks I hate it. I don’t.
“Okay,” she settles herself in my lap, tucking her thighs close to my sides. “How come you used to need to be on top all the time?”
I relax slightly. She’s not playing around, but it’s not as hard as some of her questions.
“I don’t need to be on top. I like being on top.”
“Why?”
“It feels good.”
“And this doesn’t?” She wiggles her ass.
I stifle a groan. “No. This feels great, too.”
“You have to dig deeper,” she says, glancing down her nose at me, her mouth pursed. Her Deborah impersonation.
I have no idea how to answer. Now that she mentions it, I did prefer missionary with her, but that wasn’t true with other women. I enjoyed all the positions. Who wouldn’t? She’s onto something, though, I guess.
“I like being on top with you.”
“But not other women?” she asks.
The specter of Delaney enters the room and floats past, casting a chill, but not derailing us.
“No. Just you.”
“How come?”
There are a few things I could say that would be true enough—so I could look into your eyes, so we could touch everywhere. But this is therapy. This is about trust.
I dig deeper.
“It felt good. You under me. You couldn’t go anywhere. You were all mine. You belonged to me.” I shrug. The explanation is less than eloquent and more than a little fucked up. For what it’s worth, though, it’s true.
“I was trapped?”
“You were caught. I’d caught you.”
“But you don’t mind me on top now,” she says.
I smirk. “Not at all.”
“Because you’re not afraid to lose me anymore?”
I huff a short laugh. “No. I’m afraid. All the damn time. I’m afraid you’ll wise up. That you’ll find someone better. That you’ll wake up one day and just not give a fuck about me anymore.”
“That’s horrible. I don’t want you to feel like that.”
“Too bad. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. If I have to feel my feelings, so be it. It’s a small price to pay for this.”
Cora’s forehead furrows as she puzzles through what I’ve said. I don’t blame her. It hardly makes sense to me. And then she must figure out a way to understand me because her beautiful face breaks into a smile, and she tosses herself down onto the mattress beside me.
Throwing her arms above her head, she wriggles and says, “Oh, no. I’m caught. I can’t go anywhere.” She looks over at me still lounging on the pillows and narrows her eyes. “What are you waiting for?”
As I roll over onto her, she laughs with delight, wrapping her arms and legs around me.
And I am hers.
And she is mine.
And we belong together.