June, this year #2
He moves toward a cabinet, and I move toward him. I put a hand on his bare forearm as he reaches for the door handle. His arm is skinny, but soft, with thick hair.
“Maybe with dinner,” I reply. “Come here.”
Come here.
I’m repeating the words Rufus had said to me — also in the kitchen of an apartment we shared in another life. Come here. God, what those words had done to me. That tug between my legs.
I reach my hand up to Stephen’s neck, and pull down gently. Finally, a moment like this with the right person. A good man and the man I wanted. Finally, I get to break the pattern I’ve been in for so long.
He raises his eyebrows, and chuckles lightly. “Not as tired and cranky as I thought, huh? I guess we’ve got some time.”
Stephen lets me pull his face to mine, and our lips meet. Softly at first, at least on his part. Maybe lacking a little passion, but then, for him, it’s not the first time we’ve kissed. Far from it.
I’ll just have to reignite that passion. Remind him who he’s married to.
I kiss him harder, deeper. I slip the other hand under his loose cotton shirt, grazing my fingertips around his ribcage, tucking my hand below his beltline at the back and pulling his pelvis towards mine.
I kiss his neck as I take a hand from his face and use it to unbuckle his jeans belt and undo his fly.
His rapidly growing hardness is pushing out his white boxer briefs, and he’s beginning to respond to my kisses with more fervor, his long fingers on my blouse buttons.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I like it,” he murmurs into my mouth. “Let’s take this into the bedroom.”
With his jeans halfway down his butt, he shuffles us through a door off the dining area, which opens to a small bedroom with a river-view window, a queen bed in green linens, and a pair of matching nightstands.
He pulls off his pants and socks, leaving him in nothing but his half-buttoned shirt, white underpants, and black glasses.
Adorable.
I reach for him again, unbuttoning and removing his shirt, draping it on a chair next to a closet.
I’ve never seen Stephen shirtless, not once in all the years we’ve worked together, which has included a lot of summer company events at the lakefront.
He’s one of those guys who always keeps a T-shirt on.
And sure, he’s pale and skinny, with some uneven dark chest hair, which might make a guy self-conscious around the buff, tan guys at the beach. But he’s always been beautiful to me.
I kiss him again, running my fingers over his chest, and pause to let him take off my top and jeans. My underwear is a sweet, slightly chaste-looking set in white cotton with a tiny floral print.
Stephen guides me slowly, respectfully down onto the bed, before taking off his glasses and setting them down on the nightstand.
He kneels forward onto the bed beside me — and once again seems surprised when I grab him and pull his pelvis hard towards mine.
Seemingly emboldened, his kisses down my neck become more passionate, and he tugs my bra off with enthusiasm.
His tongue lightly flicks my nipples, left then right, and I become desperate for him.
I pull off my own panties, and he takes the cue to down the same with his own briefs.
I glimpse his penis for a moment, slender and long, before he rises up the bed and pushes directly into my wetness with a groan.
I’m so hungry for him, my legs wrapped around his back, and he glides easily in and out of me, faster and faster.
It’s probably only a minute or so when he throws his head back, groans again, more gutturally, and the tendons on his neck strain.
He collapses on my shoulder, chest heaving, as I stroke his long back.
“Wow,” he mumbles into my neck. “I feel like I needed that and didn’t even know it.
” He raises his head to me. “But you didn’t get there.
You want me to . . . ?” His question trails off as he lifts a finger suggestively to me.
I’m still grinding against him, unsatisfied, so I give him a slightly embarrassed nod.
Stephen reaches down and slides a long finger between my legs, nuzzling my neck.
“You’re so wet,” he says. “I can’t remember the last time you were this turned on.
” He rubs in small circles, slowly gaining speed and pressure, taking his time, moving his mouth down once more to my nipple.
His tongue matches the movement of his finger, until I’m starting to moan — then his finger movement gets even firmer and much more rapid as he sucks on my nipple, his teeth and tongue squeezing.
I give a small cry as I gently come, and he slows, then stops.
He kisses my shoulder, pleased with me, and resumes his previous position against my neck. He wipes his hand on the sheet beneath us. “Guess we need to change the bedlinens,” he says, a smile in his voice. “It was time anyways. Your turn for laundry this weekend.”
I chuckle a little, although my laugh feels slightly performative. Something Stephen’s real wife might find amusing, that he would say that to her right after an orgasm, but me? Maybe not so much.
It’s weird, though, given that Stephen’s sense of humor was one of the things that attracted me to him. As well as lots of other things. His passion for the stars. His work ethic, his commitment, and how considerate he is.
And maybe — just maybe — that he couldn’t ever be mine.
Still, now he is mine, which is great. Sure, maybe the sex wasn’t quite as spectacular as I had imagined, but that’s doubtless because we’re a married couple who have been doing it for a while. I just need to learn how to be with Stephen as his wife.
Assuming that I get to stay here with him on a permanent basis, that is, which would mean replacing the Millie that was here. And never going back to my original world again.
Then again, I’m increasingly convinced it’s not possible to ever go home. So what choice do I have? This has to be the best option. My only option.
Stephen rolls off to lie beside me, and I snuggle into his slightly bony shoulder. The possibility of alternate realities was always a favorite topic of conversation between us, so maybe he has a theory on this.
“Do you still believe in the multiverse?” I ask him softly. “All the infinite different possibilities of our lives playing out?”
A light huff of a chuckle lifts his chest. “Wow. We haven’t talked about that in years. Not since Astrophysics Society. Uh . . . sure, I guess so. Theoretically, at least.” He pauses. “What makes you ask?”
Oh, no reason, just the fact that I literally just arrived here from another world, via a bunch of other realities, and I’m trying to figure all this out. No biggie.
I trace a finger across his bare chest. “I still think about it, that’s all.
Like, if you could travel across the multiverse, and try out alternate versions, whether you could find yourself in a reality that looked a lot like your own but wasn’t.
Maybe only something tiny and unnoticeable was different — a grain of sand in a different position.
How would you know what’s truly your home universe?
And how would you know which you is really you? ”
He shakes his head. “You never could. And arguably, there is no ‘home’ universe, and there is no real you. All those possible versions of reality, some with infinitesimally tiny variations, are . . . well, infinite, after all. And who’s to say that, at every moment, an infinite number of brand-new worlds aren’t spinning off — and all the worlds where we already existed now have new Stephens and Millies?
And all those versions of ourselves . . .
they’re all us. And we are all of them.”
“I guess so.” I pause. “So, you don’t think if you somehow found yourself living in an alternate reality, that you would’ve . . . I dunno . . . displaced the version of yourself who was previously there? That you’d be an imposter?”
He shrugs lightly, lifting my cheek with his shoulder.
“No, I don’t think it’d work like that. Even if all those versions of ourselves exist and are multiplying constantly, we’re all one being — and we’re each all of those infinite versions of ourselves.
Changed by circumstance and decisions, but still ultimately us.
In the end, I think home is where you make it — where it feels right to lay roots and commit.
” He laughs. “But I don’t think we need to figure this out now.
It’s not like it’s something you or I will ever have to worry about experiencing. ”
Yeah . . . I wouldn’t be so sure of that.
Still, I can’t help but feel Stephen has helped justify my search for a new life with him.
If the multiverse is truly infinite, it has to be virtually impossible to get back to my home reality.
Which, in turn, means I have every reason — and every right — to stay in this new life. The life I’ve been looking for.
Stephen extricates himself from my arms and swings out of bed. His naked body is pale and flushed in the evening light, even skinnier than I had realized when he was clothed, and his butt is cute and toned.
Something he had murmured to me during sex pops back into my head.
I can’t remember the last time you were this turned on.
Isn’t that what he said?
Is it a rare thing that I’m fully turned on by my husband? I sure hope not.
But if that’s true — well, that was before I showed up. This new and improved Millie is hot for Stephen, and he’s gonna love it. And, despite being a new version of myself . . . I’m still Millie. I may not remember our lives together, but I’m still his wife. I’m sure of that.
It just might take a moment for this world to feel like home, is all.
“Well, thanks for the impromptu quickie,” Stephen says with a chuckle, pulling on his underpants and jeans. “Maybe this time it’ll take. You should lift your legs up, keep it in. I’ll go check on dinner.”
Lift my legs? Keep it in?
Wait . . . are we trying for a baby?