The Cabin Page 3

  So this has to be carefully timed.

  I just need a little help showing her how I feel. The emotions, the need, the drive, is all there. It’s real, more powerful than ever. I just need a little help forcing my body to match my mind, my heart. My body is the weak thing, the failing thing. And I’ll be damned and double damned if I’ll let it slow me down, if I’ll let it stop me from showing my beloved, beautiful wife how much I love her, how much I missed her, how much I need her and want her.

  Nope, nope, nope.

  So, I take a little blue pill, since I’m only a few minutes from home, and they take a few minutes to kick in.

  I’m on our street when I call her. It rings exactly once.

  “Hi,” she breathes. “Where are you?”

  “Passing the Johnstone’s house.”

  She inhales sharply, and there’s a smile in the sound. Not a grin, not a smirk, but that secret smile only I know. A half-curve of the right side of her mouth, eyes narrowing, jade-green eyes luminous and hot. It’s a secret smile just for me that says you have no idea what you’re in for, buddy.

  “I just got home from work,” she says.

  “Have you showered yet?”

  “Getting in right now.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I smell like—”

  “Nadia.” I wait, and she’s quiet; I’m pulling into our driveway. “Just stay where you are, like you are.”

  “I have to get work off of me.”

  “I’ll do it for you.”

  “I don’t want work on you.”

  The smell of sickness, she means. The indefinable scent of possible, potentially imminent death. The scent of sorrow, the tang of fear. It’s palpable to her, and it’s why she’s such a fierce zealot about showering the moment she gets home. Protecting me, and our home, from all of it.

  “Nadia.”

  A sigh. “Okay.”

  I feel a desperation right now. I haven’t seen her, or touched her in over a week, and for us, it’s an eternity.

  But it’s a desperation borne of…something more. Something else.

  Something I dare not, cannot even give name to in the deepest, hidden sanctum of my own mind.

  I leave my bags in the car. Bring only one thing: a small velvet box, in my hip pocket. I pinch my cheeks and slap them on the way up the stairs, to put color in them.

  I feel the little blue pill working. It’s me, too, though. It’s not that I can’t get hard, it’s that it can be difficult to stay that way, to keep from blowing too soon. The pill just restores some of my former stamina.

  Our bedroom door is closed. I smell her: she’s put on perfume. Chanel. A gift for our fifth anniversary.

  She’s in the process of taking her hair out of the braid—that’s part of her ritual, in the morning and when she gets home, like a warrior putting on his armor. She puts on her scrubs, bottoms first, then the top. Brushes her hair and puts it in a tight, severe braid, and then knots the braid into a bun at the top of her head. Some thick black eyeliner under her eyes. Moisturizing lip gloss—something I have bought for her in the past. Then she wraps her stethoscope around her neck, and she’s armored against the day.

  When she comes home, the stethoscope goes in her purse. She begins with the braid, unknots it. Slips the tie off the end, and slowly eases the locks out of the binding of the braid. She then shakes it out, the kinked tresses sticking to each other at first. Brushes it out. Then, and only then, does she begin removing her scrubs, top first, then bottoms. The shower is usually going, warming up. She’ll brush her teeth.

  When she gets out of the shower, she’s a different woman. Softer, sweeter, warmer. Nurse Bell is harder, sharper, colder. Not unkind, not at all. Nurse Bell is the human definition of understanding and compassion and kindness. But it’s a kindness that has seen pretty much the worst the medical field can offer.

  Nadia feels me, hears me.

  Pauses, hands up behind her head, about to free the last inch of braid. I slide up behind her. Capture her hands in mine. Bring her knuckles to my lips, kiss each one, pinky to thumb of her left hand, thumb to pinky of her right. Then I kiss each palm.

  She holds her breath.

  Her eyes are closed—I don’t have to see her reflection in the mirror to know this. She always closes her eyes when I kiss her hands like this.

  I love her hands. They are strong, efficient, capable, but they can also be soft and loving and clever.

  Oh, the things she can do with these hands. I treasure the way these hands make me feel, and so I always begin our lovemaking by kissing them.

  I finish unbraiding her hair; she’s got her brush on the counter, waiting. I know how she brushes her hair. I slide the brush through her black locks, beginning on the left side and working my way around to the right. Then underneath, right back around to the left. And then in sections, until the kinks are gone and the wispy flyaways are smoothed down into place and her long, wickedly thick, raven-wing hair shimmers almost blue-purple and it’s glossy again and perfect.

  She just breathes, and lets me brush.

  The shower is still running. I let it run.

  She’s antsy. Eager. Reaching behind herself, for me.

  I let her.

  Let her find my shirt hem, and let her help me shrug out of it. I match her, tugging the pale green scrub top off, tossing it into her hamper. Her turn. She fiddles blindly with my belt buckle, her body angled away from mine to make room for her hands, while her shoulders rest against my chest and her head leans on my shoulder, face turned to my neck, lips nipping and kissing at my throat.

  While she fumbles with my belt buckle, freeing it and then working on the fly of my jeans, I caress her torso. Her taut flat belly, her sides, her ribcage and diaphragm. The elastic of her sports bra. I lift that up, off it goes I know not where. Cup her breasts, whisper murmurs of relief as I fill my hands with her flesh, then moan with need as she shoves at my jeans, my underwear. I help her, I kick out of them. I untie her scrub bottom, and she makes quick work of shucking out of them and her underwear.

  We’re naked together.

  This is only part one. She wants everything. The shower, the bed, handcuffs, kisses, bitten shoulders, our walls echoing with screams.

  But first.

  Oh, first.

  This.

  I dip at the knees. She grasps me. Feeds me into her, and I stand up, fill her. She whimpers my name—Adrian, oh god, Adrian—and I cup her breasts in one hand, fondling each slight, small, round peak. With my other, I touch her, the way she loves and needs to be touched. She’s tense. She needs this. She’ll never take it for herself while I’m gone.

  I move slowly, dipping at the knees and rising again, to fill her, to plunge. Her kisses rake along my jaw, her hand clutching at my cheek, her other hand awkwardly and clumsily scrabbling at my buttocks, helping and encouraging my movements.

  We haven’t said a word of greeting.

  None is needed.

  Just this. Hands reacquainting with beloved flesh, with the curves in which I delight, the hard angles of mine which she treasures.

  I groan as I glory in the way she squeezes around me, in the way she gasps, in the way her knees forget to stay locked as I bring her to climax. Her eyes are open, as are mine. Watching us.

  We can see where we’re joined. She’s leaning backward, into me, and I’m lifting. Circling her softness as she rises to the moment, moans becoming ragged, moans becoming my name chanted.

  She comes.

  I lift her in my arms—she’s limp and boneless, for the moment.

  “The water,” she whispers.

  “I’ve got it.”

  I settle her on the bed. Go back to the bathroom, shut off the shower; we won’t be needing that for a while.

  When I turn back to our bed, she’s recovered. Posed. Sprawled out on the bed, spread-eagle. Touching herself. Massaging her breast, her sex. In one hand, she has two pairs of handcuffs, lined with some soft plush black material
. She latches one set to her wrist and the bedpost. The key is in the hole, so I can twist it and release her, when she’s ready.

  She hands me the other.

  I oblige. Cuff her other wrist to the bed, and now she’s at my mercy. And I’m not going to be ready to be done for…oh, for hours.

  We’ll sleep, when we’re finally done. Eat. I’ll sneak another pill while she’s not looking, and that’s how we’ll spend the next two days.

  God, I’m such a lucky man.

  She’s a goddess, lying there, naked, flush with a fresh orgasm, writhing with need for me, begging me with her eyes to come closer. To take her. To use her. To show her how fully mine she is.

  She doesn’t need to say a word.

  Doesn’t need to hear anything from me.

  This is our dance, and we’ve perfected the steps.

  I take my time. Because thanks to the miracle of chemistry, I now have the time to lavish upon her. Used to be, I could do this with her naturally. Take hours to make her come a dozen times before I let her bring me to my own completion.

  Maybe that’s the storyteller in me; maybe it wasn’t hours and hours. I’m no superhuman. But we would be in bed for hours. Again and again and again, and while we were waiting for my less-than-superhuman body to be ready again, we’d talk and confide and kiss, and when I felt myself stirring I’d crawl down her body and worship at the pink, lush altar of her womanhood until she begged me to stop, until she demanded I come up her and love her properly.

  “Come fuck me, husband,” is what she’d say.

  I have her handcuffed and helpless, and it’s her favorite thing, this. Helpless under my mouth. Because no matter how she begs, I won’t stop. No matter how many times she topples into frantic delirium, I push her more, more.

  Until she says those words.

  It’s a game.

  How long can she go before she says it?

  Now, with me gone for a week, it’s either going to be mere seconds, or it could be hours. You never know with my Nadia.

  I worship at her altar, and she screams and weeps and thrashes, locks her thighs around my neck and squeezes my face with those silky, powerful, pinioning limbs and takes all I can give her until she can take no more.

  Momentarily limp, caught between orgasms, she shifts her thighs, hooks them around my waist. Her eyes meet mine.

  Searches me.

  I wonder if she can tell?

  I worry that, sometimes. That she’ll look into my eyes in a moment like this, and just know.

  The moment passes, and her eyes see nothing but me, her husband, giving her all the pleasure and release and relief she can handle, and then some.

  Her lips part.

  Her tongue slides over her lips.

  Drawing it out.

  Reunion; Observations

  “Come fuck me, husband.” I whisper the words, too shattered by his attention to speak any louder.

  He prowls up my body. Kisses my belly. My diaphragm. Between my breasts.

  I need to touch him. Hold him. It needs to be his turn.

  But I’m still at his mercy.

  He settles himself above me. Over me. Between my thighs. Buries himself in me. Face in my neck, then between my breasts as he moves.

  “Let me loose, Adrian,” I whisper, the words ragged and harsh.

  He kisses my nipple and unlocks my left hand without looking. I lock my legs around his waist and free my other hand myself. Clutch him to me. I’m wrapped around him. Surging against him. Rolling with him.

  How long was he between my thighs? I lost track of time, but it was not a short while. He’s sweaty. Something about the way his body feels under my hand, his muscles and flesh—something nudges at the back of my head. But I have no time for thoughts, no time for nonsense. I just need his pleasure.

  I roll into him, and he lets me take him to his back. I manage it without losing him, without shedding our union. His hands cup at my backside, my shoulders, and I lean over him. Press my breasts to his face and clutch his head and despite my words a moment ago, I fuck him. Take no prisoners, unrelenting, all my pent-up need, all my stress and frustration of the week at work, the nights alone. I exorcise it all, on him. He knows my demons and he is the holy words and prayer which banishes them.

  I feel him rising. It’s unmistakable. His groans go softer, quieter. He’s not a bellower, a roaring and shouting and punishing thrusts kind of man. He goes soft and sweet, quiet and intense. His fingers clutch hard into my curves and he hisses and whispers my name as I ride him, roll on him. Press my palms to his hips and sink down and push up and feel him throb and watch his face go through the beautiful, wild, fraught, shifting expressions of release, his eyes on mine, trying to keep his eyes open and failing, his teeth baring and clenching, brows drawn down, and then, god, oh god, oh god, and then I feel him give me his release.

  “I love you, Nadia,” he gasps, as he comes. “I love you—so—so fucking much.”

  “More,” I demand. “More, Adrian.”

  He gives me more. Keeps going. Doesn’t stop, and I take it all. Even when he’s done, I don’t stop. Not until he goes slack and falls out of me.

  And then I collapse on his frame and his hands slide into my hair and his breath huffs on my temple and mine on his chest, and we’re tangled in the blankets and sweaty and the handcuffs dangle from the bedposts.

  And I know what’s off, what’s niggling in my side like a thorn.

  He’s thinner. Not significantly. But I know every centimeter of his body better than I know my own, and I know for a fact he’s dropped weight.

  But then, so have I, in his absence. Maybe, like me, he stays busy so he doesn’t have to miss me. He’d forget to eat entirely when he’s writing, if not for me.

  The Band-Aid is gone, and there’s no sign of a scratch. More of a poke. A small round hole, scabbed over. Days old.

  It niggles at me. But he’s my husband and he would never lie to me.

  * * *

  Despite it being noon-ish on a Thursday, we sleep. I don’t sleep well without him, nor he without me. So we make up for the week by crashing hard, after our vigorous reunion.

  When I wake up, it’s late afternoon. Sunshine is more orange-gold than yellow. His side of the bed is empty. He comes out of the bathroom, naked. Lean, hard, beautiful. Soft brown hair, usually neatly parted, now messy and scraped back. Stubble on his jaw. Patches of silver streak the stubble near his temple, over the back of his jaw, near his earlobe. He’s only forty-one, but his father was almost totally silver by thirty-five so it’s not unusual. I love it.

  His abs stand out more starkly, even though he hates working out and rarely does more than an occasional jog—to fight the sedentary nature of the job of being a writer, he says.

  Abs, ribs.

  I notice for the first time that there’s a tray on the foot of the bed. Two bowls of thick Greek yogurt sprinkled with granola, blueberries, cut strawberry quarters. A bagel each, liberally slathered with thick cream cheese. Two mugs, our special mugs, bought at a gift shop in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on our honeymoon. The mugs are hand thrown ceramic, each inscribed with “My beloved is mine” on one side, the inscribed words painted deep scarlet. On his, on the opposite side: “And I am hers.” And on mine, “And I am his.”

  He’s made us lattes. My mother gave us an espresso machine for our last anniversary, and he has become very serious about his latte making. And I’m not going to argue—he makes a great latte, and god knows I love me a nice sugar-free hazelnut almond milk latte.

  He knows exactly how I like it. Milk steamed extra hot. Just a dab of foam at the top. Very sweet.

  The centerpiece of the tray arrangement is a small box, white velvet. He sits on the edge of the bed next to me. Grins at me. Juts his chin at the box. “Open it.”

  I hold the box in my palm, lift the lid. Within, a round bezel-cut sapphire pendant. Brilliant, stunning blue, almost the size of my two thumbnails together.

  �
��Oh…my god, Adrian.”

  He’s proud of it. “It’s an heirloom Ceylon sapphire, almost two and a half carats.” He lets me lift it out of the box, and the chain is delicate and filigreed, but substantial. Heavy. “The chain is platinum.”

  I unclasp the chain, hand it to him. He slides behind me, fixes it on me. The pendant rests about an inch and a half below the hollow of my throat, a little more than that above the cleft of my breasts.

  “It’s incredible, Adrian.”

  “I know I’ve been traveling a lot, lately,” he says. His voice is heavy, serious. “I just…I want to thank you.”

  “Thank me?” I’m puzzled.

  “For putting up with me leaving.”

  “Oh.” I lift the pendant in my palm, gaze at it; it sparkles in the late afternoon sun, glitters luminous. “Whatever you need to do to write the best story possible, Adrian. You know I support you a thousand percent.”

  He cups my cheek. “I know.” He seems deeply emotional, right now. I’ll take it. “That’s what I’m saying thank you for.”

  “Always, baby,” I whisper. “No matter what.”

  “Promise. Promise me, no matter what.”

  “I already did promise you that, dork,” I tease, reaching for him. “When I married you.”

  He responds readily, hardening in my hand. “Nadia.”

  I kiss him, leaning into him. Fondling him. “I promise, Adrian. Always, forever, no matter what. Anything, everything, always.”

  He huffs, growls. “Nadia…”

  I smirk at the edge in his voice. “Yes, Adrian?”

  “The way you touch me…”

  I laugh. “I know.”

  “Stop,” he whispers, “stop a minute. Let me—”

  “Ah-ah,” I whisper, push him to his back. “My turn.”

  “I’m not gonna last—” he starts.

  I know what he’s going to say before he does. “Good.” I don’t straddle him. I just sit beside him. Hold him, stroke him, touch him. “I don’t want you to.”