Hitched

When we broke for air, I groaned and dropped my head back. "This is very bad. I can't do this."

"No one has to know. I want you, Lincoln." She licked her lips. "I'm horny."

"Fuck. I'll know. It's wrong."

Her hand snaked down my stomach and unzipped my jeans. "Let me make you feel good, Lincoln. I want to, so please let me." She turned the light out, but I could make out her body from the faint light filtering in through the window. Her magical body.

A more honorable man would have protested more, would have said absolutely not. Might have even left the room and asked for another, or even more wisely, would have hopped into his car and sped away leaving that devil in female form behind in the dust. I was not an honorable man.

I ripped her clothes off as she did the same to me. In minutes, we were naked and touching each other's bodies. I grew frustrated and rolled her over so that she was under me. We both heard a clap of thunder and jumped. We laughed into each other's mouths. Seconds later, I was driving hard inside her little body. All rational thought was gone. All fleeting thoughts of decency and rectitude vanished. All I felt was her body, her tightness fluttering on my hardness and the animalistic urge to come inside her. Flashing lights from the lightning illuminated the room in bursts as I moved on top of her, and the rolling thunder seemed to be egging me on.

I knew I needed to make her orgasm before I could let myself go. Luckily, it didn't take long. She squeezed my cock as she screamed and thrashed her head. I smoothed her hair down before clutching it hard in my fists, then rode her hard until I was ready. I pulled out and came with a slick glide against her soft stomach.

We remained still for a few minutes as my cock softened, then I sank onto the bed beside her, letting my hands rove over her body and her perfect tits.

"That was amazing," she panted.

I had to agree. Then, a scary thought entered my head. "I should have used a condom."

"I'm on the pill. It's okay."

"Still risky."

"Okay, Mr. Sagittarius. I promise I'm clean."

I rolled over so I could face her. "Risky for you. You need to be smarter, Kit."

She snorted. "You're seriously going to lecture me after fucking me? You're not my dad, and you're not my boyfriend. Relax."

I kissed the tip of her nose. "Sorry."

She moved closer to me and draped a leg over mine. "'Kay. It's time for sleep. Night-night."

I kissed her mouth, this time, before letting my fatigue take over. The storm had ended, and now only soft rain hit the window.

***** "You've never had a hot dog?"

She squealed with laugher. "No! I'm a picky eater. They just look weird."

Things were thankfully not awkward in the morning. We woke up around 5 AM and had sex again. Any guilt I had was assuaged by the mysterious feeling that this was all right somehow. She was perfect, funny, beautiful, and she was interested in me. It was exactly what I needed at that time. I knew it wouldn't last, that I would go back home to Dina and the exact memory of the touch of Kit's skin would drift away like sand in the wind, and I was okay with that. For now, it was amazing and I wouldn't waste the feeling worrying about reality.

Reality was that my work had been going well on paper, but I felt extremely uninspired and stagnant. I was nowhere near where I wanted to be by my age, and I walked around convinced I was a disappointment. Dina was trying to get pregnant and it zapped all the intimacy out of what were supposed to be intimate moments. I couldn't help but feel like I was letting her down. Did Dina look at me and think that I was a disappointment, too? It certainly felt that way sometimes.

None of this was justification for cheating on my wife. I was aware that I was the lowest scum, and that I was potentially taking advantage of a much younger sweet girl. That wasn't enough to stop me.

"How do hot dogs look weird?"

Kit sat up. She looked into the rearview mirror, and her entire demeanor changed. The smile faded, and her body tensed.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she answered quickly.

My eyes flicked up at the rearview mirror. The sun was glittering bright in the midday sky, so it was difficult to make out who was driving, but the car looked vaguely familiar. "Is that car following us?"

"No," she said, too quickly again. She started biting her nails. "Maybe you should drop me off at the next exit."

"Kit, what's going on?"

I could tell she was deliberating telling me. She let out a long sigh. "He's my ex. He's a total psychopath. He's been following us since we left. I thought we lost him when we got to the motel. I thought wrong."

"You've noticed him following us... and you didn't say anything?"

Tears appeared on her cheeks. "I'm sorry!"

I put my hand on her thigh to comfort her. "Don't worry. It's okay."

"No, it's not okay." She shook her head. "Shit! You have no idea. Burke is literally a psychopath. I'm not just throwing that term around."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Of course he hurt me. He hurts everybody. He's going to hurt you, too, unless you drop me off."

My eyes went back to the mirror. It couldn't be my imagination that he was getting too close to us. "Jesus Christ, I'm not going to leave you with him."

"Then he's going to drive you off the road, or worse. He's a cop, too. Fucking immune. No one is going to help us. Believe me, I've tried."

Clarity burst inside my brain. "You don't really have a sick mom, do you?"

"Sure, I do." Kit waited a minute. "Back home. She's no help with this. I have to get away."

"I understand."

She snickered. "No, you don't. That's not your fault, though. This is my fifth time doing something like this. He's gonna kill me."

"I'm not going to let him hurt you," I said fervently. "I'm driving us to the nearest police station and...."

"Damn it, Lincoln! You don't get it. The crazy prick has everyone on his side."

"Even in Pennsylvania? Or Jersey? We're going to be in Jersey soon."

Kit wiped tears away. "I'm begging you. Drop me off, for your own sake."

My car's low fuel alert dinged. "Shit."

"Yeah, you're definitely right about that. He'll follow us and beat the shit out of you. Drop me off!"

I ran a hand through my hair and tugged it until it hurt. "I said no. I'm not leaving you with your abusive boyfriend."

"I shouldn't have told you about that," she whispered. "He's never going to leave me alone."

A sign for a gas station appeared on the side of the highway. I took a deep breath and got off at the exit. Her boyfriend's pickup truck rode closely behind, following me down the exit ramp. We pulled into the gas station and it was the moment of truth.

Her boyfriend pulled into the island across from us. He stepped out of his car and immediately sprinted over to us. He latched onto Kit's arm and yanked her to him. "Not in the mood for this, Kit. Get in the damn car," he said.

Kit wouldn't even look at me. "Damn it, Burke! I don't want to do this anymore."

I found my voice. "Leave her alone."

Burke's black eyes found mine. He wasn't the slightest bit intimidated by me, that much I could tell. He punched me in one smooth movement, and I collapsed onto my knees.

"For God's sake!" I heard Kit shrieking. "You never fucking learn, Burke! I said I didn't want to see you anymore."

I ran into him, crashing into his gut. He must have been prepared for it, because he only stumbled back a step or two. Still, it got him away from Kit, who looked tremendously frail when she was in his arms. He pushed back at me and laughed when I landed on my ass.

"Got yourself another hero, huh, babe?"

"Leave him out of this," she ordered in a low voice. "He's no one."

"Just a no one you fucked?" he spat. "Dirty slut."

Before I could get up on my feet, she punched him. They scuffled back and forth in the dirt of the parking lot. Then I saw Kit pull something metallic that glinted in the sunlight out from her bag, and she used it to slash against the man's arm. He grunted and covered the spilling wound with his other hand.

"You fucking bitch!" he screamed.

"It's just a cut, you baby. You should be grateful I didn't cut something else."

I stared at her with shock.

The gas station attendant who'd dumbly been staring at us finally about-faced and ran back into the store. I saw him pick up the phone. Burke noticed this the same time I did and sprinted off to his car.

"This isn't over, Kit!"

"You bet your ass it is, Burke! Go home and leave me be."

Burke pointed at me before he got into his car. "You're going to be sorry, you dumb asshole. You have no idea who you're dealing with, and I don't just mean me." He got into his car and sped off.

Kit and I stood in silence. I couldn't bring myself to look at her, and she seemed to be avoiding glancing my way, too. I'm sure she was embarrassed. I was feeling a mess of emotions. I unknowingly picked up a girl in the center of a shit-storm, and someone else knew I cheated on my wife. I felt awful, deservedly so, and I had begun a volatile and possibly disastrous journey toward my likely destruction.

The cops came and took our names. They looked between Kit and me suspiciously, and I was certain they knew the true nature of our relationship, but they accepted our false statement that I was just being a nice guy, giving Kit a ride to New York. They asked for Burke's last name, and Kit said she couldn't remember it. The cops didn't buy that, either, and neither did I. Still, she couldn't be persuaded to give it to them, and she also left out that he was supposedly a cop, too.

I heard one cop ask Kit something about what Burke could have meant about me not knowing who I was dealing with, and if there was something darker in the bigger picture. Kit peeked at me and then tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

"I have no idea what he meant," she whispered.

The cop looked at me, then focused on Kit again. "You sure?"

"Positive."

The cops packed it away, warned us we should get a move on, and told us that if we noticed we were being followed again, to call the cops right away and drive to the nearest police station. We nodded and watched them speed off to their next emergency.

Part of me wanted to tell Kit we should part ways right there. I would call her a cab or something. Anything. Those alarms that were going off earlier the day before were back full blast, but now I recognized that the warning was about more than just the temptation of Kit's body. She had lied to me, and to the cops, and something frightening and black scraped its threatening claws against my spine. She was danger personified, and she was part of something much bigger than your average domestic dispute.

A bigger part of me wanted to be the nice guy. I couldn't just desert her, and it wasn't her fault she had a dick ex-boyfriend. Besides, she was too innocent to be involved in anything too bad. Burke's vague threat wasn't more than just that: a vague threat. He was trying to scare me, and I had to brush that off.

Kit looked at me, and I looked at her. There was so much going on in our stare. She was still the beautiful, magnetic young girl who had enticed me beyond reason. Her brunette hair shone almost red in the afternoon light. There were also many questions floating around in her sparkly eyes. I answered one question silently as I unlocked the car doors and waited for her to get inside. We didn't speak as we drove toward New York, and hopefully, far, far away from Burke.

*****

Kit didn't speak until we were in New Jersey. "Lincoln? Do you think we could stop for something to eat?"

I reflexively looked into the rearview mirror. No one was behind us, but that didn't comfort me. I had the feeling that Burke, or whoever Burke was affiliated with, wasn't done with me. "Let's go a little further."

She touched my arm. "I'm sorry I involved you in all this."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. It's not okay. I really am sorry."

I noticed a diner and turned my signal on. We pulled into a spot and I moved to look her in the eye. "I know you are."

Kit reached for me over the center console and gave me a sweet little kiss. When we parted, she was smiling. "Let's get something to eat. I'm starving."

Nothing of note happened during our meal, but I was constantly looking over my shoulder. Burke's face stayed at the front of my mind, and I was certain that everyone walking by us was him.

Finally, Kit sighed and took my hand. "He's gone. You don't have to worry about him anymore."

"Why did you lie to the cops?"

Kit ripped her hand from me. "I already told you, he's dangerous. He has connections everywhere. It just would have made it worse."

I looked down at my coffee and tried not to shout. "Yes, he's dangerous, but there is no way he has connections everywhere. And he said I had to worry about more than just him. You seemed to know what he was talking about. I want to know what that was."

Kit scoffed at first and sipped her vanilla shake. It was funny to me, in some sick way, that I had been so aroused by her drinking the shake only twenty-four hours before. Now, it was only annoying.

"Answer me, Kit. I have a right to know if you've endangered my wife's life, and my own."

She scoffed again. "Now you care about your wife?"

"You have no right...."

"Please. Spare me," Kit cut in. "You weren't worried about what you were involving yourself in last night, or this morning. I already apologized for not telling you everything, but you made your own bed, Lincoln. You're a grown-ass man."

"Excuse me? Again, you have no idea what you're talking about."

Kit's smile grew nasty. She leaned over the table. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. You let your dick do the thinking, and now you regret it. Too bad."

"I don't regret what we did. I just want to know what your ex was talking about."

"And I already told you it didn't concern you."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "You said you didn't know what he meant."

Kit licked her vanilla lips so that they looked damp and delicious beneath the light. She pursed them. "Is there a difference?"

"Don't play dumb."

She stood and tossed her napkin on the table. "I gotta go pee. I'll be right back."

I think I knew even then that she was about to disappear, but I played along. Later, I told myself it was because, deep down, I really did want her gone. I wanted her smirking cherry-colored mouth and her long brown hair out of my sight. I wanted to pretend none of this had happened. I wanted to return to my monotonous life and have this just be a pleasant dream.

Kit stood and tugged her skirt down. My eyes were drawn to the action, and the sight of her shapely legs. She laughed a little and my gaze drifted up.

"I'll be right back," she repeated, but we both knew she was lying.

"Sure," I said.

She walked across the diner and vanished through the swinging doors that lead to the bathrooms. I waited twenty minutes before I paid the bill, then I waited another thirty in the parking lot. I offered a little prayer for whichever sad schmuck agreed to give her a ride, and then I forced myself to put her out of my head.

*****

Six weeks later, I had successfully become re-accustomed to my life. Dina was once again my charming wife, even if she was still disappointed there was no baby yet, and work was too busy for me to feel any kind of displeasure.

At night, I thought back to Kit's body, to her laugh, to the way she made me come, but by morning, I put every single memory of her back into the dark chest in my brain that housed anything to do with that brief period in my life.

Sometimes I remembered Burke's threat with a small hint of foreboding, but I was sure that enough time had passed for me to consider myself safe.

I was wrong.

*****

Dina cursed under her breath as she tried to hang up the picture frame. She sighed louder every time she attempted to do it and failed. I had offered to help her, but she had insisted on doing it herself. I refused to offer again; besides, I was busy with work. Someone had messed up big time the day before and my boss said it was up to me to fix it.

The picture frame slipped from Dina's hand and the glass shattered everywhere. "Fuck!"

"I told you that you should have me do it," I muttered as I typed away. Dina rolled her eyes at me and went to get the broom.

"You could have just helped. You don't need my permission."

This time, it was my turn to sigh. "Damn it, Dina, why does everything have to be a game with you? You know I need to get this done by tomorrow morning, but you picked tonight to hang up the picture. Then, I volunteer to do it and you said no. I was supposed to just manhandle you out of the way and do it? Is that it? Jesus."

It was a blistering August night, and the heat was evidently getting to us.

"Are you finished with your 'I'm such a great guy' routine?" Dina asked, angrily sweeping up the glass.

"Dina, I just want to..." I began, but my words cut off when the power went out.

Dina let out a shriek and fumbled in the dark to get next to me on the couch. I reached for my phone and used the flashlight, then I asked Dina where her phone was so I could call somebody. Just as I was dialing the numbers, the house became illuminated again.

"Weird," Dina said. She took her phone from me and shrugged. "Maybe you should go check downstairs. Something could be up with the power."

"I'll go if it happens again. It's probably just this heat." Our dog, Samson, whined at the front door. "Let me go take Samson out. Keep your phone with you in case you need the light."

Samson barked at nothing once we got outside, or what looked like nothing, at least. He sniffed around aggressively and I shivered, in spite of the heat. Was Burke out there? Kit? Something or someone worse?

"Lincoln, what's taking so long?" Dina called from the front door.

Intuition told me that Samson and I weren't alone out there, but nothing manifested from the summer darkness.

"Lincoln!"

I slowly walked back to the door, still looking around, imagining something lurking in the distance. I made it back inside. Dina kissed me and apologized for earlier.

"I was being unfair," I heard her saying, but I was distracted. A part of me was envisioning Burke stalking me in the trees, waiting for me to sleep before he had his bizarre justice. Dina shook my arm. "You listening?"

"Definitely. I'm just in a weird mood." She didn't ask me why, thank God.

Dina was in a weird mood that night, too. She followed me up to bed instead of reading downstairs, and when I undressed, she came close so that her naked body touched my own. She whispered that she wanted me and moaned when I skimmed my hands down her belly and sides. She relaxed into my arms as I rubbed her, and gasped when I clutched her ass and tugged her closer.

"Please, Lincoln," she said. She reached for me and worked me with her hand until I was hard. She didn't need to beg me; I needed this, too. Memories of when I was bad were flooding back to me and it just wouldn't do. I refused to let the fear overwhelm me, or the seductive visions of Kit's soft body succumbing to me during a thunderstorm.

My mouth met Dina's and I worked her into a frenzy with my kisses. I waited until she was almost whimpering before I pushed her back toward the bed. I got on top of her and pushed inside, probably harder than I ever had before. I needed to fuck, to lose myself in the most primitive sensation possible. I wanted to punish myself, punish Dina, punish anyone I could for what I did. It was my fault, her fault, their fault.

When I came, which happened quickly, it was to the image of Kit's warm open mouth laughing, her cherry-red lips covered in vanilla shake, her hot tongue tangling with mine as she cameo.