Arbitrary

It was the kiss we'd shared the night we put on the show for Joan; the lover's kiss. The one we had acted-- no, method acted, because it was pulling from something we both still felt. She broke the kiss first, but only to gasp, "My place is closer."

We were giddy on the way to her apartment, but it was with an edge of painful anxiety. Neither of us were sure where this was going to go, if it was a terrible mistake or the start of something wonderful. But we needed to know if it would destroy us or complete us; it would have to be one or the other.

We weren't even through the door before we started shedding clothes; I know that I tore a button off of her blouse, and she wasn't any gentler with my clothing. We didn't make it to her bed. Once we were both shirtless, I pushed her onto the couch. She fell backwards onto it and spread her legs wide for me. I knelt between them, pushed her skirt up, and almost tore off her panties; their fabric was soaked with her juices. Those bright green eyes were alive with delighted anticipation; she knew how much I enjoyed this part, and my enjoyment meant that I spent a lot of effort getting good at it.

On another night, I might have teased her, nibbled my way up her thighs, kissed gently at her mound. There was none of that tonight. I wanted to taste my friend-- girlfriend?-- for the first time in half a decade. Rachel's musky scent became my world as I dipped my face towards her beautiful, trimmed snatch. I was desperate for the taste of her, and she was desperate to be tasted.

Her fingers wound into my hair as I dipped my tongue between her engorged labia and deep inside her. My lover's soft sighs and excited gasps were the music angels make. I gripped her ass with my hands, holding her in place; even if she wanted to get away, she couldn't. I wasn't going to let her get away from me ever again. I feasted on this succulent blonde goddess, and her sweet juices dripped from my chin.

"Oh, fuck, Paul!" As my tongue moved to lash at her clit, I felt her begin to tremble. I redoubled my efforts, and they did not go unrewarded. Her moans reached a crescendo then were cut off suddenly, a strangled gasp mirroring the sudden paralysis of her body. She was an alabaster statue for just a moment, a work of art, before she sprang to life again, howling as her need was fulfilled. I chuckled, the vibration making her jump, and continued on. "Please! No, I--!" But we both knew I wouldn't stop. I loved this game; we both did, seeing how many times I could get her off before she went limp and insensate. We easily beat our record that night.

I carried her to bed and held her close as she recovered. We kissed gently, a resumption of a love affair that had ended when we were little more than children. There were tears in her eyes; gratitude and regret mixed on her face. Her voice was little more than a whisper. "Why did I give this up?"

I kissed her again and stroked her hair. "Because I wasn't strong enough to fight for you back then, to fight for us. And I wasn't a good enough friend to see how unhappy you were later, when you kept insisting you wanted to play the field." I moved over her, kneeling between her legs. "But I can see now. And I want us."

My cock was in my hand, the head nudging at her lips. "Tell me what you want."

She bit her lip and moaned, "You." I pushed in a little and she hissed, "Usss!" I drove my length into her, my earlier ministrations opening my lover up for my rough entry. "Fuck, Paul!! Us! I want us!"

"Look at me." Her eyes locked on mine. I slid out of and into her again once, quick and forceful. "This is mine. Only mine." She nodded, eyes clouded with lust. "You are mine." She nodded quickly again.

"Yours. Yours. Only yours. Always. Yours." She whisper-chanted, a profane canticle for the man she gave her body to. "You! M-- mine, love-- ah-- love you! Mine!" Her words became almost guttural sounds as our pace became more rapid, as she pulled me down onto her and locked her legs around me. "Mine! My love! Missed this! Need you!"

Between gritted teeth, I moaned, "Fuck! I love you, Rach! Always-- unf-- always be-- yours now!" I could feel the tremors in her once more, and I knew I couldn't last long. "Wh-- where?"

As her orgasm started to take her again, take temporary possession of what was mine, she choked out, "F-- fill me!" It was too much; this was too much. Too much time without each other, too much effort denying what we were to each other, too much longing compressed into this moment. I pinned my lover to the bed with my body, emptying myself into her, my seed splashing against her cervix as I moaned her name.

She bucked once then went rigid; even if she weren't pinned under my weight, she would be unable to move. A sob of joy and triumph erupted from her throat as her orgasm passed through and over her. I held her as she trembled and gasped, whispered words of love that I thought I'd never be able to tell her again.

Afterwards, we lay together, her body against my side and her head on my shoulder. She leaned up and nuzzled my neck. "Mmmm, you're so much more aggressive than you used to be."

I turned my head to her and kissed those luscious red lips. "I know what I want now. I know what I'm willing to do to get it."

A low throaty chuckle rumbled in her chest. "I like it. Maybe not every time, but... " She kissed my neck again. "I like that I'm what you want." She was quiet for a moment, pensive. "What... what do you really want, though? I know we said, 'us,' but what does that mean? Do you... do you just want to make another go at this? At us?"

I lay there for a moment. I didn't want to scare her off. But I'd just gotten done telling her that I knew what I wanted and knew what I was willing to do to get it.

"No. No, I want a commitment, Rachel. Not just us 'making another go.'"

She leaned up on an elbow and looked at me with concern. "What do you mean?"

"I want you. I want us to be together. I'm in love with you. All of this, that night together, us trying to fight this, everything just now, it's... I never wanted to not be with you. Never wanted us to break up in the first place."

I turned on my side to look at her. "What I want is... I want to finish up my divorce. While that's happening, I want us to be sure this is what you want, not just a blip, not looking at the past with rose colored glasses. And if it is what you want, then the day after I'm divorced, I'm going to..." I laughed.

She smiled, a pearly white flash of beauty. "What?!"

"You're mine, right?"

She nodded bashfully. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. It wasn't just..." I kissed her.

"Then I'm going to make that official. I'm going to take this hand-- " I grasped her left hand in mine. " -- and I'm going to put a ring on it." I kissed her hand. "And then, a little while later, when you're ready, I'm going to put another ring on it." I kissed it again.

Her eyes glistened with happy tears. She nodded, barely able to speak, her voice a tiny little croak. "Yes." Louder now. Sure. "Yes. Yes. That's what I want. I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. I AM yours, and I want everyone to know it."

She pushed me onto my back and straddled me, laughing with a delightful wickedness. Her heavy breasts were achingly close to my mouth. "And I'm going to make sure you never, ever forget it." Her labia slid back and forth along my shaft, bringing me fully back to life. Her eyes were wild and filled with an emerald flame. "Make sure you never forget you're mine, either."

We moved in together the next week. Too fast? Maybe. Rachel thought too slow. "This is what should have happened years ago, and it didn't. I'm not letting another day go by where I'm not sharing my life with you." What could I say to that?

We were very happy. I was concerned that we had changed too much since college, or that we had never been as compatible as we had thought. Those fears went completely out the window over the following six months. Our lives merged seamlessly; part of that was that we mostly had the same friends, and they had all thought we were idiots back in the day. Part of it was that we'd always been interested in a lot of the same things. And part of it was, I won't lie, the spectacular, incredible, mindblowing sex. We'd always been good there, and the years apart had made us both more skilled and hungrier for each other.

As the date of our final court appearance loomed, Joan reached out to me. She wanted to talk. I considered ignoring her request. But then I decided that in our last meeting, she didn't really talk at all, and I owed her that much. We met on neutral ground, a park near her house.

She looked tired. A little more jaded. That wonderful sweet earnestness had been worn away, and I'd had my part in it. That hurt, honestly. She stood as I approached. "Hey Paul. Thank you for coming." She hugged me, and I felt a little pang.

"Of course. I thought... well, I thought you should be able to say what you needed to." We sat on the bench, far enough apart to avoid accidentally touching each other.

Her eyes dropped. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry about all of it. You were right. And... and... I wasn't honest."

"I know."

She looked up suddenly. "What?"

"I figured it out the day before... well, before. I-- " I looked up at the clouds. "The rules. Amendments. Whatever. They were set up so that..." I pushed forward, expecting to find a little anger in my heart and instead only finding sadness. "All of the rules were designed to do one of two things. The first set was there to make it harder for me to pair off with someone. That's why the 'no one we know' rule was in there, because you knew that-- "

I chuckled. "You knew that I had plenty of previous, ah, contacts that could have helped me out. Not having people from our jobs or our close circle of friends, sure, that would have made sense. But no one we knew at all? That didn't. That, plus you had signed the contract ahead of time. You had someone lined up to go on a date ahead of time..." I shook my head. "You were stacking the deck."

She nodded, then quietly admitted. "I was. I couldn't stand... I didn't want to hurt you, but I knew it would. But I also... I also..." She stopped, tearing up a little. "I knew I couldn't take it either. That sharing you... it would be too much for me." She sounded all hollowed out, like her grief had eaten away everything inside. "It was too much for me."

I sucked air between my teeth. "So the plan was to find a couple of dates, get your adventure in, then beg me to close the marriage again before I could do the same? You'd have your fun, and it didn't really matter, because I'd already had mine in college? And you figured I'd just be grateful that it wasn't worse than it was?"

"... Yes." I appreciated her honesty in this, at least.

I nodded. "That's why I did what I did. Partly because I was mad, but partly because... because you needed to understand. Really understand what you'd planned to do to me. You needed to see, as fully as you could, what I would have been picturing in my head every night at home waiting for you. How cruel it was to do that to me."

"I know. I know that now. I didn't... I knew it would hurt you, but I thought..." She trailed off. There was no good way to end that sentence that didn't leave her looking like a complete asshole.

"That's why the other set was all about how to conduct the affairs as 'cleanly' as possible. So you'd feel less guilty." Now the anger was starting to come.

"No! They were meant to make it hurt less for you!" She looked shocked, as if I'd completely misunderstood.

Through gritted teeth I said, "No. They. Weren't. There was nothing you could have done to make me feel less pain. Doing it at all was going to hurt, and guessing at what was happening would only make it hurt even more. Those rules weren't there for me; like the first set, they were all about you."

She opened her mouth to object, but I pointed my finger at her and growled, "They were. You can keep lying to yourself if you want, but that's the only person you get to lie to. The rules weren't meant to make me feel less hurt, they were meant to make you feel less guilty. If you came home clean, and on time, and made sure they didn't call me a cuck, then you could feel better about the fact that you had let another man fuck you, and that you should have been home with me instead, and that you WERE making me a fucking cuck!"

Her frown said everything. It was a show of guilt, but a new and fresh guilt. Deep down, she knew what the rules were actually for. She just hadn't wanted to admit it to herself. She looked at the ground as the tears came, unable to meet my gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have-- " She sobbed. "I was so fucking stupid, Paul. I didn't mean to hurt you, didn't think it really would..." There was a hiss of breath from her as she raised her face to look at me, like it was taking all of her strength. "I'll always regret what I did."

I thought about telling her about me and Rachel. Thought about it but... no. I wasn't going to rub her face in it. She'd know soon enough through our shared friends. But I also wasn't going to lie to her. I wasn't going to tell her I regretted what she did; that might make me a heel, because I did love her when we were married, and I would have gladly spent the rest of my life with her. But what I had with Rachel now and what I knew we'd have in the future? There was no way I could honestly say that I regretted the end of my marriage.

I stood. "I loved you, Joan. A small part of me still does and always will. You hurt me so badly with all of this, and I don't ever want to see you again. But I hope you have a good life." My wife sobbed on a park bench in the bright noonday sun as I walked away.

I kept my promise to Rachel. The day after the divorce was final, I took her out for a romantic evening and proposed. She was not very surprised, I'm sad to say. We were married six months later. We wrote our own vows; yes, they were as arbitrary as any other set of oaths, but that's what made them special: they were ours. And we were each others', for the rest of our lives.