Long Time

‘Long time,’ he says, smiling. 

‘Long time,’ she replies, breathless, attempting a shaky smile. Despite the cold weather, she is sweating, standing with hands shoved deep in her pockets as this long-awaited meeting starts in an empty car park at the head of a hiking trail. 

It has been 18 years since they last saw each other in person. A school project on The Remains of the Day progressed their friendship from a shared mockery of their eccentric English lit teacher Mr Fletcher with his monogrammed belt buckle to a more intimate shared appreciation for the unspoken love between Mr Stevens and Miss Kenton. They watched the movie in class, knees just touching as they sat side by side, acutely aware of the other 30 students in the room, and her boyfriend in a class down the hall. The project ended, and then so did school. They pretended not to be jealous at Prom when she was there with her boyfriend and he was there with a girl from his French class. He longed to run his hand up the thigh-high split in her gown and, if it weren’t for the boyfriend, she would have let him. They lost contact as friends with a spark that was never explored. Neither of them remembers how they lost touch - whose last message went unanswered by whom. 

‘Shall we walk?’ She says. She is on unsure footing. He seems a lot more at ease. Amused, even. 

She needs him to not look at her before her creeping embarrassment shows on her face. 

She has flashbacks to the messages sent between their phones. 

‘…between your legs…’

‘…take you in my mouth…’

‘…hard from behind…’

Each one read, enjoyed, used as furtive masturbation material and then deleted before they could be found by a spouse. 

Favourites she committed to memory and returned to again and again:

‘I want to lie you down on the bed and part your knees.’

‘Your wet pussy is ready for me.’

‘My cock is so hard for you right now.’

These were things her husband would never say but she is desperate to hear, and to feel again. 

Oh God, what am I doing?

She is scared but so excited, her feet moving forward, one in front of the other while her head is back in the car driving home to her husband. This head vs body double life has been the pattern since they reconnected over a Facebook message, a cliché that makes her shake her head and laugh. 

‘What is it? Why are we walking so fast?’ He asks. 

She realizes she has been frogmarching them towards a trail into the woods for this walk that has been months in the making—months of friendly messages that over time became familiar, then intimate, then led to feelings she hadn’t experienced since before becoming a mother. That frisson of excitement, the fire in the belly, the ache in the loins that had her masturbating in the shower again, in bed next to her sleeping husband, barely taking the edge off. She’s been thinking of him when falling asleep at night in the various scenarios they text about: an orgy at a masked ball, a hot tub under a clear sky of stars with mountains looming large in the background, taking him in her mouth in an alleyway. She is bolder in her messages than in person. She had demanded orgasm parity to which he had shot back ‘not even close. I will make you come and come and come.’ That night she had, playing his words over in her head. 

He senses her need to be in charge, to drive this meeting. He sees her nerves and feels confident he will soothe them, and then her. 

‘We can walk this way,’ she aims vaguely with a mittened hand. ‘What did you tell your wife?’ She asks, unable to hold back though asking it makes her cringe. 

‘That I’m Christmas shopping,’ he says. ‘What about you?’ 

‘Same. I almost ended up having to bring my daughter along as she wanted to come, too. Thank God my husband could see I needed some alone time and distracted her with making Christmas decorations.’ It is a stupid idea to bring up our families, she realizes. 

They cross the line of trees edging the wood and it’s immediately dusk. He puts his arm on her sleeve. ‘Are you OK?’ He asks, gently. She looks at his face for the first time properly. So familiar, more lines, grey hairs, glasses and stubble that awaken the butterflies in her stomach. 8 years of marriage, she loves her husband but God she missed those butterflies. 

She smiles and feels the weight of his hand on her arm. Not quite skin contact with all the layers of clothing but enough to send a throb rippling down from her belly. ‘I’m OK,’ she smiles, starting to relax. ‘What do you want from me?’ A question she has asked a thousand times by text, to which he responds with an evocative scenario where they enjoy each other’s bodies. He describes things she has not done in years and makes her feel like a horny, drunk teenager again. It’s a feeling she fucking loves. It’s a feeling that has driven her to be here, with him, instead of home with her husband and children. 

But this time he steps in front of her. Face to face. Eyes connected, he leans in and quietly says ‘What do you want from me?’

She struggles to breathe. She can smell him, so different from her husband. I want to touch you, she thinks. She holds his gaze, her heart pounding. ‘I want to touch you,’ she dares to say, finally. 

‘Where?’

She cannot understand how he is so relaxed. Isn’t he thinking about his wife, his boys? But his confidence is intoxicating. It makes her feel powerful, like she can be someone who puts herself first—fuck the consequences. She takes off her mitten and reaches up to the zip dangling under his chin. She wants to run her tongue along the sharp edge of his jaw. Instead, she pulls the zip down and exposes his sweater. She lifts it up and sees his belly button and flat stomach with a sprinkling of dark hair. She lays her palm flat on his warm belly. Between her legs, her body starts to respond. She hooks two fingers down the waistband of his jeans and pulls him towards her as she backs herself against a tree, maintaining eye contact all the while. 

Trapped between the tree and him, yet feeling in control, she moves her hand down the outside of his jeans to feel the effect she has on him. After years of reluctant hard-ons and perfunctory sex in her marriage (with an orgasm gap wider than the Grand Canyon), feeling his cock for the first time, hard, straight, bigger than she’d imagined, turned on with barely a look, makes her feel incredible. She is wet, her nipples are hard and she wants him. Her husband is forgotten, she exists only now, no longer in control of herself. 

He sees it in her dilated pupils, her swollen lips and hot breath. He leans in to kiss her but she turns away, wanting to savor every new sensation bit by bit. She opens his fly and lets his cock out. The cold air has no negative effect. She looks him in the eyes and sinks to her knees. He groans with anticipation. She knows how much he wants this. She takes him in her mouth, slowly, taking in his taste, his smell, his beautiful circumcised dick. It is all new to her and she loves it. 

He leans forward into her, breathing heavy clouds of steam into the cold air, needing to lean a hand against the tree to keep him from losing his balance. He wanted this 18 years ago and can’t believe it is finally happening. The warm, soft, wet mouth belonging to her sliding up and down his dick, he feels the familiar build up in the base of his cock and has to pull away from her. She looks hurt. ‘I’m gonna come,’ he says, breathlessly. ‘That’s the plan,’ she replies. ‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘Remember the deal.’ Come and come and come. 

Tucking himself back in and doing up his fly, she is shocked and disappointed. He helps her up and uses his body to push hers back against the tree. His face level with hers. ‘I’m going to kiss you now,’ he says. And where his cock was only moments before is now his tongue, soft and insistent. Hands in hair, down backs, pulling close, they are teenagers again but better—experienced and determined to make every second count. 

He breaks away from the kiss and before she even knows what is happening, he unbuttons her jeans and his hand is in her underwear. She cries out in pleasure and he is delighted to feel how wet and swollen she is. She feels how he hoped she would. Her clit is bulging and he swirls around it, his finger slippery and expert. She bites his neck to stop herself from screaming, she can feel her orgasm is close already but before she comes, he slips his finger into her and she groans into his shoulder, her fist pulling at his coat. He is smiling at the effect he knew he would have on her; he knew years ago how this could go and he loves being right. He presses on her G spot and she almost falls to the ground. He holds her up as she collapses into him and he rubs and presses as her cries get louder and faster and she comes with a force that nearly knocks her off her feet. She holds his hand still, not ready to release him yet as her waves of orgasm crash and die down and she breathes heavily into his chest, already replaying in her head what just happened. She looks him in the eyes, inebriated. She kisses him hard on the mouth as he pulls his hand out of her underwear, and pulls her towards him by her hips. She feels how hard he is still against her belly. She breaks the kiss and says: ‘I want more.’

‘Oh, you’ll get more,’ he replies and spins her around so she is facing the tree. He pulls down her jeans and her plain black underwear and quickly does the same on himself, her legs closed, he eases his cock between the top of her thighs, enjoying the warm dryness before the wetness to come. 

She breathes with frustrated desire, holding back from begging him to fuck her because she knows they will get there and she wants to commit every second, every touch and smell and taste and especially every orgasm to memory. 

He senses her desperation and enjoys knowing how much she wants it. ‘Now?’ He whispers in her ear. She immediately gets wetter in anticipation and before she can find the words to answer, he slowly pushes his cock into her for the first time. She arches her back to encourage him as deep as he can go and his hands on her hips pull her onto him. She makes a noise she has never made before, a culmination of years of mediocre early parenthood sex and months of erotic texting with her old friend who knew her before she had stretch marks and when her breasts were a couple of inches higher. He doesn’t seem to mind the changes as he pushes his hands up her top to find her breasts and pinch her hard nipples as his thrusts get harder but still slow. She makes a desperate noise of pleasure with every thrust as she wills him to get faster. His breath comes in short bursts in her ear, sending shivers down her spine. 

To her desperate relief, he starts thrusting harder and faster, a grunt of pleasure with each one as she pushes back against him. ‘Oh god fuck me,’ she says, sending a throb down his body and he knows he’s going to come. 

He pulls out and she protests immediately, he silences her with a deep kiss, over her shoulder, which she turns herself into. They break away and she starts to ask him to fuck her again but he puts two fingers in her mouth and she can taste herself. Now it is his turn to sink to his knees. Between her legs, constrained by her jeans bunched at her ankles, he runs his hands up her thighs, thighs he had been imagining for months, picturing touching them while bringing himself off in the shower, the car even, while waiting for his boys to come out of after school clubs. She has an octopus tattoo on her left thigh which he hadn’t imagined. It is surprising and he loves discovering her whole body. He looks up to see her pussy for the first time. Glistening and swollen, his tongue finds her clit and she gasps and struggles to keep her knees from giving way. Her hands in his wiry hair as his tongue moves faster around her clit, her cries grow louder and she comes so hard he has to steady himself at her feet but he doesn’t stop. He slows to gentle strokes as the shudders die away and her moans become sighs. ‘Fucking hell,’ she says, face flushed and feeling invincible. He looks up and smiles, wiping his face, kisses her deeply again and she holds his face, looking at him. This face she hasn’t seen for so long. And had never even kissed before. She smiles as he turns her slowly around again. 

There is no slow and gentle entry this time. He thrusts into her and she cries out in surprised pleasure. He goes hard and fast, his hands hooked under her arms and over her shoulders. He pulls her onto him and he pushes into her. 

‘I’m gonna come,’ he breathes into her ear and she wants him to. 

‘Come inside me,’ she manages to say between thrusts. ‘Fuck me until you come,’ and he does, with a grateful and relieved groan of pleasure. He hugs her close, catching his breath and kissing her ear. ‘I have waited so long...for you.’ 

Photo by Duané Viljoen