Fallen Ch. 1 Pt. 3

3.

That night I had a dream. In my dream I was standing in the hallway leading to John's office. I was standing there alone, but I knew that they were in there. I was by the door. It was a heavy wooden door, I knew that from when I worked there, and I stood there, listening. I couldn't hear anything. The handle on the door was steel. I was expecting, I think, an electric shock when I touched it. Instead, I had the sensation like I was falling. I touched it, and it began to turn. I watched it turning, and then the door slid silently open, slowly. I saw her there. She was wearing nothing but a pair of stockings – slutty, black, fishnet-style – and a corset that ended below her breasts. Her head was down. She was sucking him. In my dream, his cock was huge. It could not possibly have fit inside her mouth. But it did. Then she lay on his desk, on her back, legs spread, pleading for him. As he entered her, she turned her face to me, her lips smeared with cum. "Oh, yes!" she moaned, "Oh God, yes! Please!"

Around three am, I woke up. I was sweating; panting. I looked over at my wife. She was sleeping on her back, her face turned to the side, breathing lightly. She was wearing a thin cotton nightie, one she knew I liked. I watched the material shift along with the rise and fall of her chest. She looked beautiful, her lips parted slightly; I've known Maria to talk sometimes, in her sleep. She'd thrown off the comforter; the sheet was twisted around her hips. I touched her lightly, tugging at the sheet. She turned her head. I watched her wet her lips. But her expression didn't change. I pulled it back, exposing her thin legs to the summer air. She closed her mouth; the breeze tousled her hair.

She didn't move when I separated her legs; nor when I crept between them.

When I entered her, her eyes flew wide; I covered her open mouth. I shoved myself into her. Hard. I felt her bite my hand; and didn't care.

I released her mouth, just before I came.

"You didn't fuck him, did you?" Her eyes glittered in the dark.

She stared, and then she shook her head. "Only you, Michael" she cried, "You're the only one." I came, for the second time inside of her, inside her cunt, moaning into her mouth.

I slept much better after that.

She left a row of little scratches on my back.

In the morning I drank coffee and juice in the kitchen, and watched my wife preparing breakfast. She was wearing a thin cotton sundress; I could see her figure clearly when she stood, stirring at the window. When she reached up into the cupboard, to get a box of sugar, her hem rose well up on her hips; I saw the floral pattern of her underwear.

"Did you talk to the mechanic?" she asked, turning around.

I nodded. The Camry's transmission was going out; I could not afford to get it fixed.

She started talking about her new doctor. She was excited that she didn't have to go to the clinic anymore. We'd finally re-qualified for health insurance with her new promotion down at work; though it was not as good as the insurance we had lost when I had left there. She was going to have a sonogram.

I pushed back my cup. I stood up. "I'm going," I said. Even with the insurance, I wasn't sure how we'd make the co-pay.

"Wait. You haven't eaten." She held French toast with powdered sugar in her hand.

I stared at it, and then up at her face. "I'll grab something on the way," I told her.

She pouted, but when I started to turn away, she put down the plate and put her arms around me. She rose on tippy toe and kissed my neck. "I love you."

I grimaced. "You better," I said. That old joke again.

I waved at the neighbor on the way to the car, hoping it would start. On the way to work, I thought about the last thing she'd said: "I liked," she'd whispered in my ear, after she had kissed me, "What you did to me last night." I drove to work with my cock straining at my pants.

By early afternoon, I'd done everything I could. I'd had three projects at the time: the first two I awaited payment on; the third still needed client go-ahead. I balanced the checkbook twice, looking for mistakes, and went through our stack of bills again. And then I put them back into my briefcase. There was only one that I could pay. I called the bank, and then sat there, staring at the phone.

Around three I called my sister, in Arizona. She told me all about her latest girlfriend, and complained about wanting children again. She was afraid she'd never have them. She was thirty-one, the same age as my wife. I told her the same things I always did.

"If anyone would make a perfect parent," I told her, "It's you." We'd had this same conversation several times before. She was a social worker in New Mexico, and she couldn't afford to quit her job, and didn't want to raise her kid in daycare.

Then I found myself telling her about the situation with Maria.

There was a long silence at the other end. "Michael," she finally said. She sounded worried. "I don't know what to tell you."

"I know," I said.

"I know how you feel about Maria."

"Yes."

"You remember what I said." She laughed. "She's too beautiful for you."

"You never told me THAT."

"Well," she said, "I've always thought it."

I snorted, shaking my head.

She sighed. "I'm worried about you, Michael. Women like Maria are always trouble for men like you." She laughed again. "I should know."

"Don't," I said, smiling. "Besides, you're not a man."

She laughed, and then we listened to each other in silence for a moment. It was painfully obvious to me she thought I loved Maria more than I should. "Michael," she said at last, "They're calling me. I have to go."

"Ok."

"I love you."

"I love you too," I said.

"Michael," she said, before she got off the line. "Always remember, sex is not the same as love." I nodded, not smiling, and put down the phone.

After that I grabbed my stuff and headed home.

The Camry didn't make it. I had to spend the last twenties in my wallet to tow it home.

Maria wasn't there. It was a little after four. She hadn't said anything about going anywhere. I watched a game on TV, with the sound on mute. I couldn't really concentrate.

When she came in, she was holding a couple bags of groceries.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"I went shopping," she said, holding up the groceries. She put them down. "Michael, what's wrong?"

I looked at my watch. "You were gone for hours."

She motioned toward the car. "I bought some clothes."

I sat down, staring back at the TV. I had half a beer in my hand; we were out of wine.

"Michael, you believe me, don't you?" She knelt down on the floor, across from me. I stared down into her ocean – colored eyes. It didn't take long, I admit. I discovered when she pulled up her skirt and climbed onto my lap she wasn't wearing any panties. We made love on the chair while ice cream melted onto the floor.

On Thursday, I drove Maria's Celica, and dropped her off at work. Its inspection was overdue. I borrowed ten bucks from her so I could get it done.

She'd left her purse behind, and I picked through it, one-handed, while I waited in traffic for the cars ahead to start to move. At the bottom, I felt a crinkly, plastic package, with a squishy slimy ring inside.

It was a condom. The cheap kind, like we'd used to use, when we'd first got married. I swallowed, staring, until the asshole behind me leaned into his horn. I took my foot up off the brake. "Exp. 2002," it had said. I wondered what that meant.

I never even saw the light at the end of the next block. The front grill of the BMW passed within inches of the side of Maria's car. I saw it like a movie on TV, slowed down. Afterward, I pulled over to the side, breathing hard. I still had that condom in my hand. I slipped it into my shirt pocket. After a while I put Maria's car back in gear, and pulled back out again.

We'd made an appointment for lunch, and I sat there outside the office tower, in the street, and waited. I was fingering the slippery condom package in my hand again. When she approached, I noticed the dress that she was wearing. It looked two sizes small for her. Not her normal style, I thought.

"Michael," she asked, when she got in, "What's wrong?"

I'd put the car in drive, but held my foot down on the brake. She looked over at the condom package I was holding in my hand. I took my foot off of the brake, and eased the car into the lane.

"Michael?" she asked.

There was a UPS truck stopped ahead of me. I shifted to the next lane out. "What's this?" I asked. I glanced over. She was staring straight ahead.

"I don't know," she said, "-anything about it."

I sped through a yellow light. I realized I had no idea where we were going.

"Don't lie," I said, "It was in your purse."

"Michael, slow down." I took my foot off of the gas.

"What is it?"

She has on too much makeup, I thought. She put her hands up on the dash.

"It's one of yours," she said, at last.

I pulled into the next lane over, but couldn't merge. We were about to pass under the freeway, into the "bad" part of town, and I still did not know where we were going. "What do you mean by that?'

"I got it out of your drawer."

She was right of course. I had a handful of them left over, from the first year of our marriage.

"Why was it in your purse?" I slowed down. We'd left the business district. There was a man in a wheelchair trying to cross the street ahead.

"Michael," she said, "I told you, I'm not fucking him."

I gritted my teeth. The guy behind me honked his horn. I resisted the urge to get out of the car and kill him. Barely.

"What it was doing there?"

"Michael," she said, softly, "Pull over." There was a parking lot across the street, next to a sleazy run down motel. "There," she said. She pointed.

I pulled in and stopped. I put the car in park. "What was it doing there?"

"Michael," she said, "I put it there, because I thought we'd use them. But we don't." Images filled my mind I didn't want. "No one does," she said, "Not -not for that."

I stared out across the parking lot. "Vacancy," the sign said. The windows were boarded up.

"Michael," she said, "This will all be over soon." She reached out and touched my hand.

"What do you mean by that?" I watched her eyes drop to my lap.

"Soon," she said. She rested her hand on my thigh, leaning toward me. Her blouse fell forward, away from her chest. She was naked under it.

"I promise." She squeezed my thigh. "Michael," she asked, "Will you let me make it up to you?"

I looked away. I could feel her eyes on me; I felt naked already.

"Maria-"

"It's only at the office," she said, "You have me all the rest."

"Maria!"

She was touching me now, rubbing me through her pants. "Please," she said. "Right here. Right now."

I inhaled again. A homeless looking black man and his dog were wondering along the sidewalk on our left. I felt her fingers begin to undo my pants.

"Maria!"

"Shh," she said. "Let me do this." She unzipped me, and pulled me out. Her fingers felt cool against my hot, hot skin.

"Maria-"

"You haven't come yet in my mouth." She smiled and lowered her head.

The inside of her mouth felt warm, compared to the outside of her skin. I knew I was already leaking, but she didn't seem to mind.

I watched her cheeks hollow out. I held back her hair. I stroked her throat as she swallowed, sucked, and swallowed. I felt her Adam's apple move. She stroked my cock with her fingertips, and gently cupped my balls. When I came, I saw the a little bit of come bubble out from the corner of her lips, and seep slowly down my cock onto her hand. She continued swallowing until I was done.

She touched her fingers to her lips, and then sucked them in her mouth, looking eye to eye at me. "I liked that," she said. She found a tissue and wiped her chin.

I pulled out and we drove in silence after that.

I didn't ask: "Is that what you do for him?" I didn't ask is she liked it too.

As we approached the office tower, she said she had to hurry, because she was had a meeting she had to go to, and she had to brush her teeth.

"Maria," I asked, as I stopped the car, "Does he know?"

She looked at me and smiled. "No," she said. "I would never do that." She kissed my cheek and left me there.

It was two days later I went to Maria's office, at a little after one.