It Happened While You Were Away

You weren’t here. It happened that one weekend you were in Chicago for work. I had a few friends over and called you drunk before I remembered the time change. You were in bed. 

“I’m tired too,” I said loudly, words paced and pronounced so my guests would overhear. “I wish these asshats would leave already.”

“Boo hoo,” they shouted. “You love us! You are obsessed with us!” 

I said good night to you and, an hour or so later, despite their theatrics, everyone else started yawning and checking Uber rates.

Only he remained, lingering over the stack of plates in the sink and loading them slowly into the dishwasher. I wiped down the counters. I don’t know why I didn’t make him go, didn’t protest, “I got this mess, don’t worry about it.” Nor did I let him idle near the door. Just took his keys and dropped them in your baseball hat. Put a movie on. 

When I woke up in the middle of the night, I was in his arms. One or both of us had moved toward each other in our sleep. Maybe we were cold without any blankets. His steady breath fluttered the hairs on top of my head. 

The next thing I remember it was light out. I woke because his breath had changed, now quicker and in his chest. His heart thumped under my ear. I knew he was awake. I opened my eyes to his stomach, his blue cotton t-shirt and the waist of his jeans. One of his feet was on the rug. The other leg was propped up on the couch, tucking my body into the cushions. 

I willed my own breath deep and steady. I hadn’t slept in another man’s arms for 12 years. I haven’t been in yours in four. 

But I urgently needed to stretch. Last night’s highballs seemed to have sucked all the grease from my joints, all the strength from my muscles. The last round, we hadn’t even bothered to add ice. The drinks weren’t good. Maybe that’s why I had so many.

Now my limbs screamed. The more I willed myself still, the more uncomfortable I became. Before I knew it, my hand, the one resting on his chest, raised, hovered a few inches. It trembled, sweated, the space between every finger swampy with nerves and bourbon withdrawal. His chest muscles clenched but neither one of us made a sound. 

I waited for my hand to make a decision. I willed it to smack my forehead in regret. Or to push myself up and off of him, to usher him out the door with his shoes in his hands. 

But my hand did none of these things. There it hovered, like a kid gauging the heat of an oven burner. Then, there it was reaching down, down, over his chest, over his stomach, over his waist and lap, to the side of his leg stamped to the floor. There it grasped the hip of his jeans, tugged lightly. It pulled in that fake way people do when they’re trying to move someone else’s body to do something–nudging more than actual lifting. It invited him. Bring your other leg up, it said. Lie with me.

And he did. His leg did what was asked, stomach tightening with brief effort. There isn’t much room on our couch, you know, so he shifted to his side, facing me. Our eyes still did not meet. I merely tucked one leg between his and pressed my forehead into his chest, swaddled myself farther between the soft couch and his firm body. 

He took a deep breath and his heart slowed. This can be enough, it seemed to say. 

We stayed that way for a while, me trying so hard not to cry that suddenly I found myself laughing. I sat abruptly, turned my back to him, felt insane. Dawn sliced through the blinds. The air smelled like Febreze and barnyard brett. It reminded me of college, of our earliest days. It was hurt feelings and poor decisions without consequence. 

I admit I stopped thinking then. No, it’s not an excuse. I was still there somehow, still me, just suddenly without any trace of inhibition. My capacity–for logic, for shame–had evaporated, blissfully, I admit, even now. I flung one last chuckle from my chest and peeled off my shirt. I unclasped my bra. I undid myself.

He didn’t touch me. He was still. Maybe he was scanning the moles on my back, the scars from years of doctors slicing off skin cancer. My B.O. was probably nauseating. Mascara crusted the edges of my vision. I could feel my love handles pudging out from yesterday’s jeans. 

But then I stood. And then I slid down my pants. Then my underwear. My body was mid-thirties soft, belly bloated but small breasts still perky. I hadn’t shaved in a while. My knees knocked together like they did when I was a kid. 

And like a kid, I prepared to take. 

I turned around and faced him. In his eyes was hunger. His mouth parted. 

The simple act of disrobing tight clothes had already blunted the edge of my hangover, but my muscles remained as cramped as ever. I cactused my arms and leaned back, squinting at the ceiling. One of my vertebrae cracked, and I giggled. 

When I straightened, he was standing–facing me, watching. Maintaining eye contact, I rolled my head, heard the cartilage crackle around my neck joints, showed him my throat. Whatever I did, he copied: rotated his shoulders, popped his knuckles. His body begged for air, distending the thin cotton of his t-shirt. I gripped the hem and peeled it up and off. He unbuttoned his own pants and let them drop. 

As he pulled down his boxer briefs, his cock sprung back up over the elastic waist. It measured the space between us, the better part of the wooden ruler I keep in my desk drawer. A pearl of precum bloomed from the tip. 

I had seen him naked before. You remember that time in college when Dan bet him an eighth to run around the block with a paper bag on his head? Then, with my longing so firmly directed toward you, he just seemed pale and gangly, like a limp scallion from the back of the refrigerator. 

Not now. Fifteen years and a steady career as an aviation inspector, hauling tools in and out of plane fuselages, had carved a set of abs that I, quite frankly, wanted to polish my clit on.

Despite dehydration, my mouth watered.

“Want to see our new shower tile?” I turned for the hallway.

He followed, then paused. “I’ll meet you in there,” he said, pointing to a large spider above the doorframe. 

I shrugged.

From the bathroom, I could hear him rummaging in the kitchen. Then footsteps, followed by a pop against the adjoining wall. So long, spider. 

When he came into the bathroom, I leaned against the shower wall. The shiny tiles cooled my back. He pulled open the glass door and took the spot next to me. We wiggled our toes toward each other and bumped hips. His dick jiggled. 

He turned on the tap and used his body to block cold water from mine. He put his whole face under the spigot for a drink. Then he was absolutely chugging, slurping, for what felt like full minutes. I remember being surprised he wasn’t gagging himself. My breath quickened; I was panting. A spray of droplets bounced off his shoulders onto my breasts, where they trickled down and hardened my nipples. I swallowed a gulp of dry air. 

Then he simply gargled, shut the tap, and settled back into the tile. “Ahhh,” he sighed and wiped his mouth. “Refreshing.”

I needed a drink too. I hoisted one leg and straddled his glistening erection. I rubbed my own wet on him as I licked water drops from his pecs, his nipples. He reached between my legs and scooped out a palm of pussy slick with his hand, brought it up for a closer look. With the other, he pinched a gob of precum from the head of his penis before slapping both hands together and mixing us together like lotion. 

He spread that shit all over me–circling each of my shoulders, nipples and knobby knees, using a couple of fingers to scoop out more and more lube from the swelling spigot between my legs. His hands swirled the nape of my neck and down my back. My hips, as he turned me to face him. We backed under the showerhead and then he bathed me, even soaped the pockets under my buttcheeks, the folds of my vulva, fingering me briefly and softly, teasing. The shower water pooled in my open mouth and he kissed and slurped it out of me. I reached and begged for all of him inside me. 

“No.”

He turned off the shower and handed me a towel. I pouted while we dried off, and he smirked at my petulance. I dropped the towel on the floor, defiant. He picked it up, folded and replaced it on the towel rack, then lifted me atop the bathroom vanity. I scooted forward and opened my legs. 

He ignored me. Kneeling, he began to rub my feet–arches, bridges, heels, instep, ankle, achilles tendon. He even wedged his pinky between each of my toes, which hurt in a satisfying, itchy way, like getting your teeth cleaned. At one point, I closed my eyes. 

When I opened them, he wasn’t looking at my feet anymore. His gaze had traveled to my pussy. He glanced up at my face, winked then moved in, nudging my thighs further apart with each cheek. He kissed the mound of my pubic bone, pressed my clitoris with the tip of his nose. I could almost feel the drip seeping out of me, into the freshly grouted countertop.

Finally, his tongue, first soft, then suddenly stiff against the spot. I gasped and he pulled back a little, but I yanked one of his ears, urgent, back into my lap. His fingers found me then too. The counter squeaked with steam and sap. I inhaled the damp.

Before I could finish, he stopped and stood. My breasts heaved, and I glared at him through foggy vision. He smiled, stretched his arms in the air, then put his mouth close to my ear. “More?” he whispered. 

I didn’t reply. Two could play this game. Instead I lifted my toothbrush from the cup by the sink and squirted a ludicrous blob of toothpaste.

“Open,” I said. He did. And I brushed his teeth. I scrubbed his molars and polished his canines. “Tongue,” I demanded. He stuck out his tongue and I brushed that fucker, too. Toothpaste dripped onto his chest.

I flung the toothbrush on the counter and cupped my hands. “Spit,” I said. Really? his eyes asked. I raised my eyebrows. “Now.” He spit. I tipped back my head and dribbled the foamy mess into my mouth. I swished and gargled. Satisfied, I spat it into the sink. Then we kissed. 

We kissed like everyone kissed in college—feverish and grabby. Objectively needy. Thrilled to be wanted. Tongue and more tongue and hands and more hands. Squished noses. A deepening ache, nearly a cramp, as our cores grinded closer, as if to subsume the other’s body. I hiccuped. I thought, Someone is thinking of me. 

His fingers raked into the flesh of my ass. He made to lift me off the counter, but I put my hand to his chest and pushed him into the wall behind. I slid off the counter and faced him, sucking the juices from inside every corner of my mouth. He thought I was going to kiss him again. But instead I pursed my lips and spit straight down between us directly onto his outstretched cock. Bullseye. 

Then I massaged it into him. With the other hand curled under and behind his scrotum, a gentle pressure on his taint, I led him back out the hall, like a horse on reins. He gasped in delight and maybe a bit of nerves.

Inside the room—our room—we each looked at the bed for a while. I still could have made it stop. Part of me wishes I had. But then again, you had been gone. 

So I led him to the bench at the foot of the bed, where you had flung a couple of work shirts you decided not to pack. I won’t tiptoe around it: I went down on him. He lay back on the edge of the bed. After a few minutes, when I knew he was close, I gave him a taste of his own medicine: I uncorked myself and climbed him. My pubic hair left a trail of dampness up his chest. I hovered over his face, pinned his arms into the mattress with my legs. He lifted his head and tried to lick me, so I grabbed one of your shirts and gagged his mouth. 

“You ok?” I asked. 

He nodded, eyes fierce with appetite. 

Then I touched myself above him. He watched, sweating as I writhed my ass above his throat and rolled my knuckles across my throbbing clit. 

I closed my eyes and inhaled the cologne of this new sex. It smelled of walnuts left to oxidize in the sun, which is to say like old crayons—the freebie pack that comes with a kid’s menu at IHOP. Flat and primary. The minimum. 

My eyes welled, like they do when I near climax, involuntary streams of tears. 

Above his head, your beard oil had stained one of the pillowcases. We had never put a headboard on our bed. It was just a plain metal frame, with years of hiking gear and concert posters shoved and forgotten underneath. Our own sex smelled of all this dust, the pieces of skin that used to be a part of us and now just floated and drifted in the slanted sunlight. 

The tears came real now. I furiously backhanded them from my cheeks. 

Where had you gone? 

Chicago, Chicago, you’d say. Or Dallas, Dallas, or Seattle.

No, farther. I insisted. 

My lips throbbed. The heat left my toes, surged desperately to my pelvis, to my groin, where it tightened and compacted into its own nucleus, then burst into a thousand shards of pleasure, compounded by years of outrage and indecision. 

I crumpled in on my middle-aged heart, breath ragged and finally, finally bereft of all insistence. 

When I opened my eyes, he lay there, still and silently watching me cry. I peeled your shirt from his mouth and used it to dab his brow and dry my face. He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear—dammit, the move that always gets me in the movies. 

So once more I snickered and sniffed. And he shrugged sweetly. But by now the take felt different. 

I waited until his car disappeared from view before I yanked up the blinds and slid open the window. The neighbor was outside washing his car. Somewhere nearby a dog barked. I lowered myself onto the couch and lifted a cushion to my nose. The Febreze was there and nothing else. I fell asleep. 

When I woke, the light had shifted again, settled lower on the walls. The dog had quit. The only noise was the exhale of leaves near the open window. I smoothed my fuzzy bathrobe and reached for my phone. I was due to pick you up at the airport in 45 minutes.

As I scrolled a few notifications, from the corner of my eye, something moved. I bolted upright. There on the coffee table was an upturned Tupperware bowl, and inside the patient spider. 

You and I would have never thought to let her free.