Sex and the Stranger

When he’s just at that point of mindlessness, bucking and moaning and covering his eyes, I stalk up the bed and cover his body with mine.

It isn’t difficult to take him inside me. I think he tries to stop me about halfway through, just as I ease myself down, hands on his shoulders, body thrumming with that new sort of heat. But when I lean over and kiss him he can’t seem to hold onto that note of protest. His eyes stay open and on me, so blue and startling it seems insane that I had forgotten.

I’d forgotten what it was like to be gazed at. To be filled and fucked by him, slow at first but then faster, hotter. I twist above him, leaning back until I get that sweet pressure I crave, and when it comes it’s like nothing else in the world.

‘Oh God, Rebecca, don’t,’ he says, and I suppose he does because I’m really taking it now. I’m working myself on his cock, hips jerking, that pleasure cresting so swift and sharp I know I should be ashamed.

But I can’t be,

and he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be full of don’ts, I shouldn’t be full of don’ts: we’ve had too many already and they’ve taken us to pieces. Don’t be happy, don’t carry on, don’t live your lives the way you did before.

‘I’m going to,’ I tell him. ‘I will.’

And then he puts his head back again for me, back arching, and I know he’s doing the thing he couldn’t before. He’s coming inside me, hard and almost vicious, fingers digging into my sides as the pleasure pours out of him and into me.

Because that’s what it feels like. It’s like he’s releasing something through me, and the moment he does I shake with that same blissful sensation. Cunt clenching hard around his cock, my orgasm like a tight fist unfurling in my belly.

It’s unbelievable. I’m sobbing with it, again – only this time it’s the good sort of sob. It feels like a relief, when I spread myself over him. And when he wraps his arms around me, I can feel his relief too.

‘I didn’t know if it was okay to love you like this any more,’ he says, and his voice is so raw. It wasn’t even like this on the day she died, which I suppose should make me feel worse somehow. But it doesn’t.

I feel light, suddenly, as though a wound has been lanced and everything heavy in it flowed out of me the moment he spoke.

‘It’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘It’s OK now. We still have each other.’

And we do. We do. I remember his name. I remember his face. He’s not a stranger to me any more, just another ghost floating through the life we thought we’d have with our daughter.

He’s real again to me. He’s mine. My husband.

‘We still have each other,’ he echoes, and as he does he cups my face in his hands. Lifts me from the crook of his shoulder so that he can see me. I think he sees me. I don’t think it’s just her hair and her eyes, any more – I think I’m me again.

‘You don’t have to be afraid, you know,’ I say. ‘If we had another it’s –’

He shakes his head. Cuts me off.

‘I’m not afraid,’ he tells me. ‘I have you.’