End Game

She gave a little shriek.

"Jake, no, don't!" She tried laughing, an embarrassed little laugh. Then, "Jake, I can't breathe." She brought both her arms to my neck and I held her up with both my arms around her waist. She was flying, her legs in the air, and it was so good to kiss my little bird, sparrow-like in everything except her breasts, which were round and hard against me. She tried to push against me and whispered "Please, Jake, I can't...can't breathe." There was almost no air behind her words.

So I put her down and loosened my hold, and she leaned against me, breathing ragged gasps, my weak little sparrow. I loved her more then than before, and I hated myself. It was the first time I felt she might actually die -- the first time it seemed real to me.

* * * * *

It was always a different place. She couldn't go anywhere without running into someone from her church, so our rule was to never be seen in the same place twice. She'd be working at this or that charity effort, and it was always hard for her to get away on any kind of a schedule. It was harder to talk face-to-face than to fornicate.

One memory. She's in the new place, standing, waiting for me. It's the best place, closest by, the landscaped courtyard nestled between two wings of Old Main building, screened from the curious by a raised, enclosed walkway and a hedge of arbor vitae and some massive azaleas, a place no one ever goes. It's so protected the ferns haven't yet died. She's standing there while I duck in, under the walkway. For me she's just stopped crying.

"I showed Al my body last night."

She smiles fiercely, forcing an ironic grin, then drops the other shoe.

"He wasn't interested."

"What do you mean? You mean the dope was shocked because you shaved?"

"No. No. It wasn't like that at all. He was surprised, but I told him I shaved because of the hair problem. You know. So he accepted it."

"And?"

"And, well, it's been so long since we've made love. I said 'would you like to try it out?' I thought maybe he'd think it was sexy, but he just looked away from me and mumbled something about how he had some things he had to do."

Oh Jesus. The bastard.

"So he was shocked."

"No. You don't understand. It was more like he was afraid. Like he's afraid of my body or something."

A tear or two get loose. She can't stop them all, so I get to hold her again. It almost doesn't matter that she's miserable, because I can hold her and give her comfort. I'll get her naked body too, tomorrow or the next day, and she'll forget all about Al for a little while.

"Jake, you wouldn't do that to your wife, would you? You love her. You wouldn't deny her, would you?"

Oh no. Not that. That's not your place, darling. You're out of line. I want to shake her. You're the other woman, the one who causes the breach, or steps into it. You can't be her protector. What can I say? Shut the fuck up, my dearest? Butt out, my one, true love? Should I tell the truth? Finally I look her full in the face and say it as honestly as I can make it sound.

"Of course I wouldn't."

The only "of course" is that life serves up cheap irony and my wife wants sex tonight. How seldom does that happen? How much water under that bridge? Sometimes we grow so guilty we aren't doing it that we do it. I don't want to do it tonight. I really don't. But Miriam says I have to love her.

So I take a Viagra and futz in the bathroom forever, until I can feel it start to work. In the end it isn't so bad. It never is, really, once we get started. With candles I can imagine she's the smooth skinned girl I once adored. I can imagine she's Miriam. I can fantasize anything. My wife massages me with baby powder and plays with my penis, which gets nice and hard. She's a little surprised at first but then gets cocky at her power. It's Miriam sucking on my balls. It's Miriam licking the head of my cock while I masturbate her. We lie down to spoon, me coming in from behind, and use her vibrator. Fantasizing Miriam, I come easily and don't have to fake it.

Afterwards we touch each other affectionately, tickling and kissing, and we say we still have it after all these years.

* * * * *

Miriam's second round of chemotherapy was hard on her. I couldn't see her while she was getting it, and it laid her low. She couldn't eat. Everything came right back up. She was weak, and when she'd sit up or -- especially -- try to walk, the world would spin and she'd be sick again.

I knew this because she'd call me at my office, from her bed, and talk to me in her weakened little voice about it all and about nothing. I felt like a teenager. I hated having to hang up to get my work done. In the middle of one conversation she suddenly broke a sentence with "oh wait," and there was silence, and a distant retching sound. Then she came back on, and her voice was more breathless than before.

"I'm sorry, sweetie pie. My tummy caught me a little by surprise."

The next morning she called again.

"Jake," she said, "I'm so horny for you. Can you come over?"

"Are you feeling better?"

"No, but I'm going out of my mind being sexy. I can't move without getting dizzy, but I keep thinking of you and touching myself. Please, can you come over?"

"Are you alone?"

"Yes, silly. I told Mee-Maw I was feeling a lot better, and that I needed some time alone. I acted undizzy, but oh it was hard! I'm just finally getting it back under control."

She was telling the truth. She lay flat on her bed, arms and legs half spread, and even my moving on the bed made the world swirl and float for her. I undressed her carefully and slowly, unbuttoning her teddy and peeling it back but not removing it, then pulling off her panties. They were loose and came down easily.

She looked completely washed out. Dark bags circled her eyes, but the rest of her was all pallor. She'd grown still thinner, and her skin hadn't shrunk as much as the rest of her, so it was loose over her breasts. Her naked vagina, though, was pink, and I could see she'd been touching herself. She'd been doing more than that, she was so wet.

I had to be gentle at this.

"Okay, Miriam, nice and easy does it. You just lie here and let me play with you."

She tried to stay completely still. I reached between her legs and, yes, she was as slippery as she could be. There was almost no resistance when I stroked her, moving my fingers up almost from her anus, through her vulva all the way up over her little stub of a clitoris, to the top of her crease. Then down all the way. I was just softly strumming her. A truly wet woman is absolutely slick, and no one who has had the chance to touch her then will ever forget the sensation. I played with her vagina like this for several minutes, until her eyes would close during the stroke and half open afterwards. She wanted to control her breathing for fear she might get sick again, but she still made a little gasp of inhalation at every second or third stroke. I spread her fluid over her labia with my strokes, then began pulling on the labia themselves, letting the slippery things pass through my fingers.

Then I noticed her breast.

There were a few drops of an almost clear fluid coming from her nipple. I leaned closer and it was then I saw the lump for the first time. Wasn't it supposed to be getting smaller? Maybe it showed up better because she'd lost so much weight? My hand must have moved up from her vagina on its own, because I found myself caressing the breast as softly as possible. The lump was obvious to my fingers.

"Don't, Jake," she whispered.

"Shh, love."

"That's what's going to make them cut it off."

"It's not off yet, darling. It's still there for me to love on."

I bent my head to it and tasted the fluid. It was almost nothing, maybe the slightest bit sweet. I took her nipple between my lips and sucked, and a little fluid came out.

"Don't, Jake."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. But it's poison. The cancer makes it do that."

"I'll suck it all out."

"No, Jake." But I began to suck her harder and a little more fluid might have come out, and at the same time I began masturbating her again, faster, up and down through her vulva, two fingers up and down while I sucked. She crooked her arm up to hold my head to her breast and she began breathing harder. Her chest rose and fell now, and her gasps became moans and then words. One word. My name. She was moaning "Jake...Jake...oh, Jake" while I sucked on her diseased breast and masturbated her, and then she began to move rhythmically to the hand, the muscles of her abdomen and her arms and legs pulling together, and the moans grew louder and more ragged, and then she came.

And then she threw up.

In mid-orgasm she twisted toward the side of the bed and made an urping sound into a little plastic bowl, then lay there, on her side, panting. Of course I stopped masturbating her. I lay my hand on her hip, felt her, caressed her. Her skin was clammy and I became terrified of what was happening to her. Don't fall apart, I told myself. Be a comfort. Finally, slowly, her panting subsided, and I could tell she was crying. It was time to be strong for her, to pretend everything was fine.

"There, there, darling." I moved up to kiss her cheek, but she put a hand back against my face.

"I'm so disgusting! How can you stand me?"

For a minute I stroked her shoulder through the silk of the teddy, feeling her tremble with the crying, and tried to control my breathing. Finally I thought I could say it, but it was obvious from my voice.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Miriam. You're the easiest person to stand I've ever known."

She turned her head around to look at me and saw that I was crying too, and she seemed astounded.

I wiped my eyes and crept off the bed and took the plastic bowl into the bathroom. There was a tiny amount of greenish liquid in it that I washed away. I got her a glass of water so she could rinse her mouth out. When I came back I brought a fresh towel and dried away the clamminess.

"Jake, will you get me some crushed ice, please? I need ice chips. I can hold them down." So I got crushed ice from the kitchen, and Miriam took a few chips and let them melt in her mouth, and I massaged her arms and her legs, each leg and then each arm. By and by she became settled and managed a smile.

"You didn't get to come, Jake."

"I don't need to."

"But you're still a little hard. I want you to have the sweetness too."

"Well, anything we'd do would make you sick, love. When you're feeling better we can do things to our hearts' content."

"No, Jake. That would make me feel worse. Look, I know. You masturbated me. Now do yourself, and when you're almost there I'll take you in my mouth."

"No. I don't think so."

"Do it, sweetheart. Please. Do it for me."

I'd never masturbated in front of anyone in my life, but Miriam made it a test of my love and that was that. I would do it because she knew I loved her. So I stood beside her and grabbed my erection just behind the head and began. My foreskin moves back and forth over the head when I jerk myself off. Miriam watched it closely, like she was fascinated. I think she'd never seen anyone masturbate. Anyway, it was difficult with her right there, so I began slowly. After a minute she reached out a hand to touch the base of my penis, where it emerges from my balls, and she kept her hand there the whole time. It helped. I sped up. It was good with her touching me, and I began to get breathless like I do when I'm getting close. It was almost time. Almost time. It was time, and I gasped it out to her,

"Okay. Okay. I'm almost there. I'm going to come."

She opened her mouth and leaned the tiniest bit forward and pulled my penis into her mouth. She sucked on it and pulled it about twice and my orgasm rushed from my balls all up through my body and I came into her, feeling myself pump again and again. I half fell onto the bed and had to brace myself on my arms to keep from crushing her.

Afterwards she smiled at me while I lay still beside her, recovering. She took some ice chips and said,

"See, Jake? It didn't make me the least bit sick. You're my meal for today. You'll make me stronger. Maybe you can feed me every day."

But I never got to feed her again.

* * * * *

That night I had a dream. Miriam and I were fucking, and then suddenly her breast wasn't there, only a bloody gash, and it was shooting poison milk everywhere. I awoke terrified about what this might mean. I lay awake for hours, even after the fear had passed. I thought of what she would look like mutilated. Would the scar affect me? Would I be able to get hard for her? I was afraid I'd be like Al.

The next morning she called. They were taking her in. The cancer wasn't responding like it should, and they had to decide what to do right away. I think she was calling to say good-bye, because before she hung up she said, "Jake, you know I love you."

After she crashed there was a special prayer service at her church, but I couldn't make myself go to it. Instead I went to Towne Park by myself.

God, please don't let her die. Don't let her die. Please, God, please. I'll do anything. Let me die. I'll stay away from her. I'll join the church and be a good Christian. I know I haven't been a believer, but I'll change. I promise. Just don't let her die. Please! I'm begging you.

I would have kept my promise.

* * * * *

I think it helped Miriam to be a believer. I hope she prayed for forgiveness and got the peace that passeth all understanding, but I'm not sure she would pray for herself. I'm sure she prayed for me, and told God I'm a good person, and to please let the Holy Spirit work in me. That prayer is destined to go unanswered. Still, I'm trying to be a better person, for her, though she'll never know it.

I know I'm not the only one, that thousands are grief-stricken, and people recover, and with time the sun shines again. Maybe some day. Now I just don't know what to do. I've visited all the places we went together, but though people have told me they suddenly see their beloved everywhere they go, I don't see Miriam anywhere. I visited her grave and tried to talk to her, but it wasn't any good. She isn't there, either.

My wife has noticed I've been down a lot lately and I told her part of the truth, that it's because Miriam, whose daughter took strings with Patty, died. My wife is touched that I'm so affected by the death of someone we didn't know well. I've taken to snuggling her in bed before we fall asleep. I want solitude, but I need to touch someone too.

Other than that, I take long walks through the parks and in open fields, getting away from everyone I know, whenever I can. The days are longer now, and warmer, and the breeze pushes through the long spring grass, as though it's writing cryptic messages on the earth. Sometimes I try to read things into them, but when the breeze moves on, the messages disappear.

End.