“Oh, Sophie…” His face crumpled, his eyes filling with tears.
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “If you said five percent, I would still be here with you. Because I would still love that five percent enough to stay.”
He put his arms around me, and I held him, too.
* * * *
My first few days in Reykjavik were eye opening. It was far different living in the country than it had been just visiting it. With the baby at home, Neil and I couldn’t go out to run simple errands as a pair without a lot of hassle. My total non-grasp of the language was reason enough for me to stay home with Olivia while Neil did all the running around, but staying inside constantly would drive me up a wall. I was not a creature who could tolerate isolation, especially after experiencing it for so long. There were many opportunities to humiliate myself in public, even when I was speaking English to people. I felt like I had “stupid American” emblazoned across my forehead.
Though I questioned my abilities at human interaction outside of the house, I was pretty proud of my tiny human skills in the home, and learned even more with Neil there to guide me. I’d gotten my on-the-job-training while he’d been in the hospital, but I was more at ease, and that seemed to put Olivia at ease, which made a huge difference. Now that she trusted me to fulfill her needs competently, she was a much more pleasant baby to be around.
Sometimes.
“I think she’s finally down for the night,” I said, dropping the baby monitor on the counter.
Neil leaned on the sink, his head drooping on his shoulders. “Oh, thank god.”
The day had been particularly rough. Olivia’s stupid, indecisive molars had been refusing to erupt all week. She was exhausted, we were exhausted, and the seven consecutive seconds of quiet we’d had since I’d entered the kitchen were like seven thousand years in paradise.
“I don’t remember this being so exhausting with Emma.” He rubbed one hand over his face.
I froze. He’d mentioned Emma by name, without crying or staring off into space. He picked up Olivia’s bottle from the sink and turned on the water.
“I don’t remember ever being so exhausted,” I said, apprehensively steering us away from the statement he’d made. I wasn’t sure it hadn’t just been a slip of the tongue, and I didn’t want to call attention to it, just in case. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to mourn for Emma, but we were suddenly standing in our first conversation since her death that it wasn’t haunting us, and I clung to it desperately.
Spaghetti-O’s had been on the menu for Olivia this evening, and I collected up her sticky little spork and bowl and carried them to the sink. I myself hadn’t eaten any dinner, yet, because feeding her required every ounce of concentration and physical dexterity I had. I ran two fingers around the inside of the bowl and brought them to my mouth to suck off the sauce. “And I forgot how good these are when you’re starving.”
Neil put down the brush and dropped the bottle into the strainer at the side of the sink. And he smiled.
A real smile, not one he forced.
My chest ached.
And the expression didn’t falter. It actually grew as he said, “You must be dying of malnutrition, if you’re desperate enough for those.”
Though I wanted the moment to last, I couldn’t find the words to play along. Grief had become normalcy, and now, anything less than heartache felt like thinking you’re missing the bottom step when your feet are already on the ground. I couldn’t bluff my way past the shock, so I just stared at him, and I knew he saw straight through me, to the reason for my paralysis.
Before I could react, his arm was around my waist, jerking me up against his body so forcefully I dropped the dishes. They clattered on the floor as his mouth covered mine. My hands flew up in surprise then fell to his shoulders, rhythmically tugging and crumpling his sweater.
It had been so long since he’d touched me like this. Some part of me that had gone dormant out of self-preservation, the part of me that required intimacy with Neil to be fully alive, reluctantly woke. I opened my mouth under his. I didn’t want to give over to the electrifying rush of hormones that coursed through my veins, just in case the mood changed, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Neil lifted his head, his eyes searching mine.
He didn’t have to ask. I said “Yes,” as I pulled my t-shirt over my head. I was braless underneath, and his hands fell to my breasts, kneading them almost too roughly as his mouth ravaged mine again. I reached for the fly of his jeans, popping the button with a hard jerk of his waistband.
“Do you need to stop and take a pill?” I gasped against his cheek. With all the sex we hadn’t been having lately, I wondered if he’d even bothered to bring any with him.
“No,” he mumbled between the kisses he nibbled down my throat. “Let’s just…see what happens…”
If seeing what happened included not having intercourse, I would have still been okay with that. All I needed were his hands on me, the sexual desire between us. While my logical brain knew that Neil’s prior abstinence had nothing to do with me but with his fragile emotional state, there was still a little voice that whispered doubt in my mind. Every time he’d slid beneath the covers, giving me a quick peck and a “good night”, my thoughts had turned to taunts. You’re not enough. He’s not attracted to you, anymore. The fact that he was touching me, now, needing me physically, soothed me so effectively that, if we stopped at that very second, I would have still felt high and satisfied.
He grabbed the baby monitor off the counter as we stumbled from the kitchen. We stole awkward kisses and struggled out of our clothes along the way, until we reached the stairs and sprinted up, into the living room. We would have to be more quiet, as Olivia’s room wasn’t as far away, but there was no slowing our frantic breathing. After he tossed the baby monitor onto the end table, Neil pushed my panties down my legs—of course we’d do this the day I wore cotton Hanes with the hole under the waistband—and me to the couch. I writhed on the leather as he stepped out of his jeans and kicked them aside. In a blink, he was on top of me, naked skin against naked skin. Then, he was inside of me, joining us in strong thrusts. I arched up to meet every one.
I wrapped my legs around his back, my arms around his shoulders. “I love you. And I love your cock, too.”
He laughed breathlessly, moving harder against me. “I love you,” he gasped against my ear, then sucked my earlobe into his mouth. I love you.
I hadn’t come since my date with Gena, and I’d lost track of how long ago that had been. It was just too exhausting, and most of the time, I’d rather sleep than masturbate. Now, though, I felt how badly I needed it. The thick base of his penis pushed with delicious pressure against my pelvis, and his coarse pubic hair rasped my straining clit. I wriggled my hand between us, and Neil rose up on his knees, grasping my hips in his big hands to move me back and forth with his thrusts. I rubbed my fingers over my clit, and I couldn’t stay quiet. Shouts of ascending volume and pitch wrenched from my throat as I came closer and closer to my peak. My cunt clenched and released in violent tremors around his cock, and I sobbed with relief.