4. Recriminations

Recriminations

M ara

When Zale got home I served up our meal and he raved over it. It wasn’t until I gave him a giant heart-shaped cookie after dinner that he remembered it was Valentine’s Day. He slapped his hand around the back of his neck, peering up at me from under his brow.

“I forgot.”

I pasted on a smile. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.”

“Sorry, baby.” He looked sorry, and I felt ashamed for wanting to be romanced. Ashamed that I wanted something that was obviously not for the likes of me.

The sting of threatening tears hit my eyes and I stood quickly, grabbing my glass off the table to put in the dishwasher. I blinked them back. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t need all the romantic trappings. I quickly changed the subject and sat back down, breaking off a piece of his cookie and popping it in my mouth.

After finishing his cookie together, he and I puttered around the kitchen, chatting quietly, getting a cup of tea for me and a glass of wine for him, and I made his lunch for the next day. He walked back and forth across the kitchen, touching me often as he always did, a hand to my hip, a brief touch of my hand, a kiss on the back of my neck. That was my favorite, when he moved my hair to the side and pressed his firm mouth and his scruffy five o’clock shadow against the back of my neck.

We slipped into bed, and he flicked on the tv.

“Zale?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I need you.”

He looked surprised. “I’m here, gorgeous.”

“No, baby, I need you. Between-my-thighs, need you.”

His face closed a tiny bit, and the blade of his rejection cut me deeply. I sucked in a slow breath, fearfully anticipating his coming words .

He looked at me with a small smile, then sighed. “I’m tired, Mara, that’s all. We’ll get back on track.”

“I don’t understand why we’re even off track. Sex is good, isn’t it?”

“Of course.” He squeezed my hand. “I love being with you.”

I did not understand. If sex is good, and he ‘loved’ being with me, why wasn’t he?

I tried again. “For me, sex with you is the highlight of my day. It makes the day better, it’s not something that is a chore.”

His eyebrows snapped together in the middle.

“Mara, let’s not go back to that space. We’ve got to be past this by now. I can’t be on all the time. I’m worried about Olivia, I thought we’d have made more progress with her by this point, and I’m honestly worried that I’ll never be able to make enough money to look after her after I’m gone.” He took a breath. “Work is a mess. I’ve got staffing problems that I can’t solve because there’s a hiring freeze, which indicates a restructuring is coming. I’m a bit more concerned with keeping my job so you and Olivia are okay than keeping up with your sex drive at the moment.”

I sucked in a breath.

My face burned.

Still, I took in his words, all of them, not just the ones that made me wince, the ones that pinballed through my brain, setting off lights and buzzers, increasing my panic. I did not miss his dismissal of my needs, but the part of me that was logical registered the possibility that it wasn’t me that was the problem. Even so, my breath stuck in my lungs, and my stomach solidified into a knot.

I whispered, “Zale, I need it.”

His voice softened. “I know it hasn’t been ideal. It’s temporary. I promise you, it’s not about you. I love you, with all my heart.”

He lifted my hand that he was still holding and pressed his lips to my wrist, then tucked my hand back inside his.

“I need your support, baby, to get through these next few months. We’ll get back on track.”

I swallowed hard, tried to silence the alarm wailing inside me, and beat back the swell of panic. I could not survive without his touch. I’d split my skin. I'd come undone.

I looked at him, his melting brown eyes locked onto mine hopefully. His beautiful lips pressed tightly together making the lines around his mouth more pronounced. He looked tired. He had needs, too. I had to do better, be better. I nodded. His expression relaxed and he lay back on our bed, opening his arm to invite me closer. I tucked my head in the indent between his bicep and his pec and closed my eyes. I breathed in and out slowly, counting backwards from one hundred.

I woke two hours later, our room pitch black, pressed up against his warm back, his hand over mine slung across his chest. My body was buzzing and the angst in my belly had climbed to wrap around my throat, choking me.

Our sex life had slowed over the past year as pressure at his work increased. I’d tried to initiate, several times, only to be gently, and sometimes not so gently, rebuffed. The cumulative effect of so many rejections had left my heart battered, bloody and bruised.

Up until a year ago, everything was great. I’d roll toward him in the bed and he’d side-eye me, crinkling his pleasure, lifting his arm to invite me closer. I’d throw my leg over his and he’d drop his hand that was around my back down to my hip, pull up my nightie and tuck his fingers in the back of my panties. I would slide my hand along the wall of his chest, lightly brushing over his nipple.

He’d dip his fingers further into my panties, and in his deep, mellow voice he’d murmur, “What do you want, baby? Do you want to play, do you want to fuck, or do you want to make love?”

Making love was languid, easy, marked by long caresses, slow, deep kisses, a leisurely mutual rediscovery, skin to skin, holding tightly, coming together wrapped around each other. Gentle hugs, sweet affection, I love yous whispered softly in the dark.

Fucking was hard, demanding, sometimes fast, with deeper, harder kisses, hands grasping, squeezing, pulling my hips into position, changing position, a taking, a claiming, limbs shaking, breath gasping, the climb so ferocious it made me light-headed, finally combusting, me first, then he’d take his. I loved the claiming, the taking, the ownership touch .

Playing was by far my favorite. By turns it combined the best of making love and fucking, with the delicious addition of teasing out the climb to orgasm, testing limits of control, mine as well as his, driving me to oblivion, hazy, boneless, compliant, willing, free. He could play forever, reduce me to begging, often giving me two, sometimes even three orgasms on a few occasions. By the time he took his, I would be incoherent. No word or thought could survive. My mind at rest, my body replete, I loved playing.

He hadn’t asked in a long time, but if he had, I’d have been happy to take anything. A crust of bread from a Thanksgiving table, anything that would take the edge off my hunger, anything to quiet the panic inside, anything to still the storm.

For two more hours I tossed and turned, unable to reclaim sleep. Seeing I had only two hours left before I had to get up, and knowing I needed sleep to parent the way Olivia needed me to parent, I stopped resisting, moved as far away from him as I could, and slipped my hand into my underwear. I came quietly a few minutes later and drifted off to sleep with thoughts of what a loser I was to have to masturbate myself to sleep when my husband was not two feet away from me.

I needed to lose weight to be more attractive, I needed to be happier so I could set a better tone at home, be more organized to make our home a more relaxing space and make more progress with Olivia so Zale could stop worrying so much .

My intentions were good but the next morning I was in a worse state than the night before, because my touch, while quieting my body and allowing me to sleep, did nothing to quiet the storm inside, and everything to stir up the recriminations.

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