The Last Death of Ron and Melanie

"So you did give a damn about us. Then why ever weren't you there when I really needed you? I needed you just to hold me some days but you just weren't there. And then you go off and give it to some bitch you haven't even seen in twenty years. And I'm supposed to forgive you for that, am I?"

Ron let out a long sigh, lowering his head and closing his eyes pensively. For a moment there was an awkward silence between them and then he finally looked at her. "You don't get it, Mel, you just don't get it, do you? Do you think I didn't care?"

"Then why were you always coming home every night looking like you didn't want to be there?," Melanie interjected. "Every night you'd come in that door and I'd look at your face and it just made me so angry inside."

"For Chrisssake, Mel, don't you get it? My God, you're so wrong. You made me feel like you didn't want me around. I was always there Mel, ready to listen, and talk it out, and hold you when you needed me to but you made me feel like you just didn't fucking want me there, or to touch you or even be near you. I wanted to hold you and comfort you and touch you and ravage you. God you don't know how much. You're callipygian, Mel. That luscious ass of yours made me hard every time I saw it, especially in black panties. But Christ, Mel, you gave the goddamn cat more attention and affection."

"Thanks,"she cut in, "I really needed that one."

He ignored her sarcastic remark. "I know you needed me, Mel, but I needed you too. Don't you understand that? I was grieving too but you just couldn't see that, could you? You just bottle everything up and shut down. And you don't even see it."

"Want to know the truth, Mel?," he went on, "I needed some companionship. Someone to touch me. Someone to talk to. Here's the truth, Mel — I never went off and fucked Debbie Hasker that day at the reunion. I kissed her, Mel, and she hugged me and by God did it feel good to be touched that way. And we talked, like old friends do. I told her all about us and everything we were going through and how you were the only woman I've ever loved and I didn't know what to do anymore, and she listened. She was just there for me Mel, when I needed somebody."

"Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't get all hot and bothered and want to fuck her," Melanie demanded.

Ron cast his eyes down and slowly pushed a baby carrot across his plate, the tines of his fork screeching for an instant on the porcelain. He let out a long sigh and then faced her.

"Debbie is still a sexy, beautiful woman with a great ass and yes, when she touched my arm it made my whole body tingle and my cock hard. And . . . yes for a moment I wondered what it would be like to undress her slowly — to have her want me to do that — and spend a few hours making love with another woman and whether she was adventurous in bed and whether she liked it from behind or whether she liked to have her clit eaten out and be fingered at the same time and what it would be like to feel her lips around my cock and come together in a sixty-nine, and whether we'd spasm and quiver uncontrollably or whether she moans or comes quietly."

Melanie felt her breathing start to grower shorter and her pulse quickening and a wave of jealousy surge through her. Damn him. He'd been deliberately graphic. He had no right to inflame her like this.

She could feel the tingling sensation in the triangle between her thighs and dampness making her Lycra panties stick to the shaven hairs down there. Damn him. Those were all the things she so desperately had . . . had wanted him to with her and to her for so long . . . but the thought of actually talking that way to him repulsed her. But how could he even want to think of wanting someone else? She felt a rush of blood surge through her breasts, and her nipples harden. The storm of repulsion at his sexual candor clashed with the sudden feeling of just wanting to reach across the table and grab him and make love then and there. "Bastard," Melanie cursed and stabbed at her meal.

"You asked me to be honest, Mel, and I am." He suddenly noticed the luscious thirty-something businesswoman at the next table, cell phone half raised to her ear, staring at him and Ron realized he'd raised his voice just loud enough for his confession to be overheard, and felt his face flush and that he was hard. Ron half-smiled at her, and shrugged. The woman quickly looked away and returned to her conversation. He couldn't help noticing the way she had her ankles and legs pressed tightly together under the table. Her pussy was probably sopping wet.

"You know I hate it when you talk to me that way," Melanie said. "I think it's disgusting and degrading."

"No . . . you don't. Deep down, I know you don't. But I know you'll never admit that to yourself. There's nothing wrong with intimate talk between two consenting adults. So don't try to make me feel ashamed of saying how I feel and telling you what I want — wanted — between us. You're the writer, Mel. You should know how things need to be said sometimes."

"Prick."

Ron closed his eyes and let out a long, sad sigh. "That's the difference between us, Mel. I'm not afraid to tell you just how passionate I am, and have always been, about you. But you treated me like I was some kind of fucking pervert. We died, Mel, because you can't bring all that passion I know is in there, to life. We used to do so many things spontaneously, Mel. Remember, when we used to rendezvous at Cindy's condo when she was away flying to wherever? But when we needed to bond the most, you drove me away. And I can't go on living like that. So maybe we should just get this over with before the waiter comes back with coffee."

He tossed his napkin over his plate and reached inside his jacket, pulling out a folded manilla envelope. "Here are the papers," Ron said in a defeated tone. "You'll see where I've already signed them, at the back." He meticulously unfurled the envelope, cutlery clinking under the paper as he pressed back and forth with the heel of his palm. Then he clicked the Parker pen she'd given him for Valentine's Day two years ago, and held it out.

Melanie met his stare. And so this was the moment at last. It all came down to this. She started to reach for the pen. She'd thought she was ready for this moment, and then hesitated when his fingertip brushed her knuckle. "Ronnie, I —" she started to say softly, her voice trembling. She glanced around the room. Tables were starting to fill up with a late lunch crowd. She didn't want to be overhead. This was not the place to have this conversation, after all. Not for all that she so suddenly and desperately wanted to tell him.

"Ronnie, I want to . . . " and her voice died away. She wiped at a teardrop trickling down her cheek. Her hand reached for the top button of her dress and she hesitated for a moment. What am I doing, we're in public, she thought, and then pulled open the denim enough for him to see the black bra.

"Can we . . . go somewhere?" She felt a wave of anxiety sweeping through her again. "Ronnie, I need you. I need you to . . . I want you to make love to me. I . . . want to feel you inside of me again."

Her heart rate was up and she was breathing too quickly again and a wave of anxiety was trying to overwhelm her. Ride it out, she thought. She knew he knew she was struggling to get the words out.

"God Ronnie, I miss you being in the house and in my bed. I — I was getting dressed this morning, Ronnie and I started thinking about the day you called . . . and . . . this confusing wave of emotions swept through me . . .and just thinking about you for a millisecond made . . . my nipples hard. And . . . oh Christ, Ron, I'm all wet just sitting here. My . . . my messed-up head's racing and thinking about how much I've hated you and how much I love you and I want you all at the same time and . . . what your . . . come will taste like if I don't let go of your cock when you climax and how hard you'll feel inside my . . . lower heart . . . " She hesitated. "My pussy," she finally said. Ron was staring at her with his mouth half open, still holding the pen in his hand. She reached out and gently removed it from between his trembling fingers and then their fingers intertwined across the table, just like when they were first in love.

"Is there anything left for us, Ronnie? God, please tell me there is. Please tell me we're not dead." Then she cast embarrassed glances over both her shoulders, catching glimpses of people carrying on their own conversations at tables nearby. "Oh God Ronnie, I hope nobody was listening. I feel so . . ."

"I know, Mel," he said tenderly. "And I don't know. I don't know what to tell you except that I still love you and lust for you every day. You had it in that messed-up head of yours that I was having an affair. Well I wasn't, Mel. I still have so much passion for you it fucking hurts. Just reaching out in the night to touch your skin used to make me hard. And God how I've missed burying my face between your thighs and eating you out. I miss the taste and smell of you."

He half-smiled as her cheeks turned red at the way he talked about it between them. "Still the same Melanie, deep inside — so to speak," he said. She blushed again. "Yes . . . I guess I am," she conceded. "But this disorder that I have is starting to teach me things about myself," she said. "They told me to keep a journal to put my thoughts down because it'd help get my head sorted out. So I'm blogging now . . . and it's . . .well I'm learning about me . . . I'm a different person now . . . I think. I hope. I have to be or I'll never get through this . . . thing. I know it's going to take time." She wiped her index finger at a teardrop forming in the corner of her eye. "But I'm . . . not that bitch you were talking about a few minutes ago." She shook her head slowly. "I'm not. Still kind of mad at you . . . but not that bitch . . . fuck I want you so bad right now, Ronnie," she said, and then put her hand over her mouth like a schoolgirl.

He reached out to run his fingers through her hair — the gentle way he used to, and glanced at his watch. Then Ron pulled her head close and whispered in her ear. She involuntarily quivered and moaned.

"Now's . . . not the time," Ron said. "It's almost three. The afternoon train's due in soon. I'll walk you to the station."

She felt something sticking and realized her elbow was pressed into the page of the separation agreement that she'd started to grab the pen to sign. The area of paper where her skin was stuck was moist and crinkled. Ron's signature was smudged and almost illegible from the perspiration that had seeped into the paper. "I forgot all about this in my . . . moment of passion," Melanie said.

She sighed. "Ronnie, I . . . I'm . . . sorry, Ronnie. You're right, you were there — at least until you walked out — and I was being a bitch, I guess. I guess I was mad at the world about . . . everything."

He didn't say anything but she knew what he was thinking. At least he had the decency not to say anything. Melanie rattled the sheaf of papers. "Ronnie, I . . . don't want to sign this. I . . . maybe we wouldn't even be here like this if we'd just . . . talked more, like we used to. And . . . maybe you're right . . . we needed to just . . ." " . . . spend more quality time together," he finished. "Now look who's being the stoic prude," she said. "What you really mean is making lo — " "What I really mean is fucking like the big pink stuffed bunnies I saw on display in the store window of Lustful Lovers the other day, more often."

"And . . . going down on each other and coming together in a sweaty tangle of wanton, unmitigated, lo — pussy- melting and thumping sex," Melanie added, feeling herself blush, and an almost-soothing wave of anxiety. They both laughed.

"You've . . . finally found your way with words," Ron said.

He gently pulled the stapled papers from her grasp and slowly, methodically tore them into pieces and sealed them in the manilla envelope in which he'd brought the documents. "The last death of Ron and Melanie," he said. "Now Ron and Melanie can start to live again."

"And make mad, passionate love whenever they need each other desperately," Melanie felt the need to whisper in his ear as they headed out into the chilly October afternoon with their hands locked together and fingers intertwined, just like when they first were lovers.

She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked. Talking . . . and acting . . . like lovers . . . felt . . . good . . . and so did the tingling and sweaty dampness that was making his favourite black Lycra panties stick to her pussy.

- The End -