media blogs
photo blogs
Rose & Olive
Houston neighbors pull back the curtains and expose each other’s lives.
Scanner
Your daily cup of WTF?
The Modern Materialist
Almost everything you want.
Autumn Sonnichsen
A fashionable L.A. photo editor exploring all manner of hyper-sexual
girls down south.
ScreenGrab
The Nerve Film Blog
Chase
The creator of Supercult.com poses his pretty posse.
The Remote Island
Nerve's TV blog.
61 Frames Per Second
Smarter gaming.
ScreenGrab
The Nerve Film Blog
Slice
Each month a new artist; each image a new angle.
Paper Airplane Crush
A San Francisco photographer on the eternal search for the girls of summer.
|
 |
"You know, when we were on our honeymoon, you remember we went to Africa?" asked Mark.
"Yeah." She had relented and reached for the glass of vodka. He held it away from her for a minute, teasing, knowing he was testing the limits of her anger. The corners of her mouth curving like a cat's, she bent to sink her teeth into the flesh at his hip. Hard. He winced and gave up the glass, then turned on his side toward her. He trailed the fingers that had been holding the glass, still cool and wet, down her stomach, then down between her legs, opening her with their insistent pressure. She made a half-hearted attempt to push his hand away.
"Well, we were in this camp where we were staying in a tent, and the bathroom was built out back, but it was open to the savannah. You'd be sitting there taking a crap and all of a sudden there would be this parade of elephants going from the watering hole back into the bush. It really was like a parade, too. The little ones actually wrap their trunks around their mother's tails. Anyway, so there was a shower too, and one day I snap a photo of Maria taking a shower. She's looking out at me over her shoulder, and that long black hair is just cascading down her back, and she was smiling at me in that way, you know?"
"Not really, no." He inserted several fingers inside her. She was still wet with the residue of their earlier lovemaking. She arched her pelvis toward him, not moaning, eyes open, the glass still in her hand. He used his thumb to stimulate her clitoris and still she kept looking at him with her glittering eyes, daring him.
"The way she used to smile at me, easy. In the picture, she's a little shy, embarrassed but proud, you know? She looked at me like we had a secret between us, like she loved me."
"And she doesn't smile at you that way anymore?"
"God, no."
She had laid her head back on the bed, accepting his ministrations, no longer focused on her anger, on the telephone, no longer concerned about him, just focused on her own sensation.
"Anyway, she thought that she had hid that picture away in the office at home, but I found it one day when I was looking for some old college photos, and I have it in a drawer at work. Every now and again I take out this ridiculous old picture of my wife taking a shower, and it's all I can do not to start bawling like a fucking baby."
"You're going to make yourself crazy, Mark. I'm sure she's out getting lit up with her girlfriends."
"That's another thing, you know? She likes to drink."
"Who doesn't?" asked Steve.
"No, I mean more than she used to."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I think she's set the dial to 'slow self-destruct,' but other times I just think she has this
She could do this, he knew, have an orgasm without her face looking any different than when she was sitting there sipping a martini.
|
whole life now that's separate from mine. We see each other at home, we interact, we take care of our kids, but you know, I feel like she's only half there. Jesus, what a fucking dink that was, fucking Johnson."
The woman was starting to contract around his fingers, her breathing still slow and deep. She could do this, he knew, have an orgasm without her face looking any different than when she was sitting there sipping a martini, a tiny bit flushed at the very edge of her forehead, but that was it. She controlled her breathing like she was doing yoga, slowly in and out through her nose, the contractions rolling through her body on the inside. He remembered the first time she had come when he was inside her — he could feel it, but he couldn't see or hear a thing.
"Look, Mark, I better get going."
"Sure, Steve. Sorry I've been talking your ear off. Hey, are you going to Mom and Dad's on Saturday for the birthday party?"
Steve swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up and arching his back, stretching the knots in his muscles. He grimaced slightly. "I don't think so. Think I'm tied up at work."
"Well, the boys would love to see Crazy Uncle Stevie."
He laughed."I'd like to see them too. I'll try to make it, but don't tell Mom, she'll take that as a yes. You going to watch the rest of the game?"
"Probably. I may as well wait up for my lovely wife."
"Don't get too crazy, it's not worth it."
"So speaks my bachelor brother."
Steve shook his head. "You never know. I could be on to something."
"Take it easy."
Steve threw the phone on the bedside table and turned toward the woman, but she had left the bed and was heading into the bathroom, her hips swaying slightly, the two dimples above her ass like eyes, watching him. A few moments later he heard the shower running. He refilled his glass from the ice bucket the bellboy had thoughtfully provided and the half-liter of Grey Goose he had brought in his briefcase. It was nearly gone, and he shrugged and emptied the last of it into the glass. The woman came out of the bathroom wrapped in a large white towel from which she unwound herself, letting it drop on the bed. She started to retrieve her clothes, starting with the white lace bra that had been the last thing he had removed.
"I take it you're leaving."
"Mmmm. Thought I better get home in case Mark has a nervous breakdown when the Yankees lose."
"How do you know they're going to lose?"
She laughed as she shimmied her skirt up over her hips, a brittle sound that he thought might crack and shatter into a million little laughs, sprinkled on the carpet. "I've willed it to be so."
"He knows something's up."
"Obviously."
"Aren't you concerned?"
"No."
When she walked away, he could see the undersides of the shoes flashing red at him. |
"Why not?"
"Why should I be?"
"Don't you worry he might eventually want a divorce?"
"Of course not. Mark would rather cut off his right arm than get a divorce."
"So you don't mind making him unhappy because you know he'll take it?"
"Something like that. It all fits."
"And me? Where do I fit?"
She sat down to fasten the straps of her heels. They were impossibly high, but she knew how to walk like a lady in them: not too much sway, not too much thrust. They looked expensive, and he figured they were. Everything about her was expensive. When she walked away, he could see the undersides of the shoes flashing red at him; they were always enough to make him hard again.
She shrugged on her jacket and picked up her purse, one hand sweeping her dark curls out from under the jacket's collar. She walked up to him and stopped very close, almost touching. They stood nearly nose to nose, she in her high high heels and he still naked. She snaked one hand behind his neck and brought her face close to his, at the last minute turning slightly to give the edge of his jaw a tiny nip with her teeth, then a small kiss on top of it to soothe him. "You're my sons' Crazy Uncle Stevie." Her smile was a mixture of sweet and smirk, as inscrutable as everything else she did. "See you soon." She trailed the hand from behind his neck and down his body as she turned and walked away, the red undersides of her shoes flashing at him as she went through the hotel room door.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees, hands together, holding his drink. His let his head hang down between his shoulders, exposing each vertebra to the empty room behind him. When he looked up, the silent television continued to flicker at him. Each time, he said he wouldn't see her again. Each time, she called and he answered. How did he imagine this was going to end? What was the best-case scenario? They all sucked and he knew it. He grabbed the remote from the tangle of sheets and clicked on the sound. The roar of the game filled the empty room, keeping him company. When A-Rod grounded into the double play he knew she had been right — the game was over. He snapped off the television, set his sweating glass on top and headed to the shower to wash off defeat.
n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
 |
Wendy Flanagan is an MFA candidate in the writing division at Columbia University. She is currently working on her first novel. |
©2006 Wendy Flanagan and Nerve.com. |
|
|
|
