Another Time, Another Place

She dropped the water gun and finished the orgasm with a finger. She was exhausted. Her weakened knees collapsed into the tub. It sent water over the sides of the tub like a tidal wave caused by an underground earthquake. Her heart pounded violently, its vibrations echoed in her ears and her sensitive cherry stung like it had been whipped.

Ariel remained on her knees until normal breathing had returned, until her jewel felt less fiery, until she could lay back in the tub with her head resting against the top rim. With her eyes closed, she used the remaining heat from the bath to send her down a road of tranquility. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but when she awoke, the chilled water was overshadowed by her pruned skin.

EIGHTEEN

It had been a few days since April ended the sexual affair with the personal trainer. She believed she had succeeded in concealing the separation anxiety from Virgil. However, her spouse’s overabundance of pampering made her wonder if he suspected he’d done something wrong. His latest treat included the couples shower they were in. He was washing her back with soapy hands that felt more like caressing to April. His fingertips pressed the muscles in her back with just the right amount of force. This had April eagerly awaiting what he had in store. He had strategically placed aromatic freshly cut lilies throughout the bathroom. A faint whisper of Jazz played on the bedroom stereo, but Virgil’s attentiveness was what made the evening enchanting. He undressed her, pinned her hair up and had administered a perfect manicure and pedicure. His pampering relaxed her; she was very much in need of the attention.

In a short time, Virgil had washed every inch of her body. Her head fell backward when he dropped to his knees in front of her. The overly hot water massaging her face felt slightly less than how acid might on her face. But the discomfort was easily dampened by Virgil’s mouth collapsing around her jewel. She arched her back for a greater effect and pulled her lower lips apart and then upward. This allowed her jewel to become a lonely stone on a desolate beach. At first, Virgil tantalized her with his soft tongue. He made wide deliberate strokes followed by a narrow, piercing tip that caressed her ever so gently.

After a couple of minutes of Virgil’s precision-like tongue movements, April felt as though she was losing her mind. He continued until her legs wobbled like jelly.

“I can’t let you have that big ‘O’ just yet,” Virgil said. “Let’s see just how long we can prolong it.”

April didn’t know what to think. The erotic state clouded her judgment.

“Whatever…you…want,” she spoke barely legible to Virgil.

He caught the excess water falling from her womanhood in his mouth until the natural chamber overflowed. He replaced her fingers with his, spread her lower lips with a “V” formation of his fingers, pressed against her and pushed upward. Her man-in-the-boat stood at attention ready for commands. Virgil sprayed a pinpointed stream of water between his teeth onto her exposed clit.

At first she was startled, but the next time was twice as pleasing. April’s head slowly fell forward; she watched the timed liquid bullets strike her jewel like a lawn sprinkler, intermittent, yet constant. When his mouth emptied, he refilled the chamber and repeated the process until his tongue became too sensitive from pressing against his two front teeth.

April’s legs began to shake. She believed if a faint breeze traveled through the bathroom, she’d climax. Instead the telephone rang. Virgil wasn’t bothered by the distraction and April was skilled at staying tuned through tremendous thunderstorms. Therefore, when the machine’s greeting filled the air, she was far from fazed. Virgil began darting his tongue in and out of her wetness at a supersonic pace. Her control had all but vanished. She merely held the release to make the climax more explosive. Virgil knew that she was an instant away from erupting when her fingernails scratched his shoulder with a rhythm that increased after each movement.

“Steven, your wife ended our affair,” the personal trainer spoke. His voice floated through the answering machine’s speaker like a sour note played on a violin. “I just thought you should know.” There was a small moment of silence, followed by a panicked, louder tone. “Oh fuck,” the trainer said, “I thought I’d dialed your cell.”

The personal trainer hung up the phone without another word. April’s sensual mood vanished quicker than the Titanic sinking into the black depths of the sea. She hastily backed away from his hungry mouth, under the shower’s stream until her back hit the shower control knob. She managed to ignore the pain traveling down her leg caused by the octagon-shaped object. She gazed at her spouse disillusioned. Virgil’s sad-eyed expression was identical to hers. Even the shower’s stream that caused his eyes to bat a mile a minute couldn’t conceal his new turbulent emotions.

April carefully stepped out of the tub. She neglected the drying towel and laid her wet body onto the bed. Moments later, Virgil entered the bedroom with a towel around his waist. He sat on the side of the bed unsure of what to say. April was dealing with an internal struggle. Part of her raged while another part of her had guilt for her actions. She turned to her stomach, eyes open in a dead stare, and attempted to make sense of what she was feeli

ng. She got up, returned from the bathroom wearing a robe, and then paced in front of him for a moment. The time Virgil spent watching his wife walk battling her confusion felt like eternity to him.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Virgil said with his head hung low.

“You paid him?” April responded. She easily ignored his comment. Virgil’s head lifted, his eyes met her anger. “You paid him to fucking have sex with me!” she yelled.

All sense of sensibility had left April. The guilt of her participation was squashed like a bug under a shoe. Knowing that her husband set her up to fail was bewildering.

“I did,” Virgil responded shamefully. His spirits ran low. “But still you…” Virgil stopped his sentence. The old saying about leading a horse to water flashed through his mind. Drank the water, he thought. “I did it because of my…” Virgil paused again. This time he simply stared at her.

“You paid someone to fuck me. Sure, it took care of a need,” she said as she paced back and forth again. “But, at the same time, the guilt I’ve had to live with outweighed most of the pleasure I gained.”

“I just wanted you to feel like a real woman,” Virgil responded.

“Virgil, I felt like a real woman just having a man like you. I’ll admit, often I grew tired of not being fulfilled, but I knew what I was getting into before I married you. It’s not like after we said, ‘I do,’ your dick suddenly shrank. So you see, I was willing to deal with our love life.”

April’s hands approached her head; she grabbed two fistfuls of hair and felt a need to snatch out chunks of it.

“I understand now,” she spoke as her eyes filled with water, “why your efforts ceased. As I look back on things, your attentiveness to please me changed about the same time the personal trainer came along. You hired him to give me what you couldn’t, yet, you couldn’t handle the reality of your action. Am I right?”

Virgil acknowledged his wife’s assessment with a nod. Indeed, it was a shameful bounce of his head.

“I also understand,” April continued, “why you once stated you wouldn’t mind if I slept with another man. You already knew I had because the trainer had told you. Didn’t he?”

Virgil’s head lowered again. He was embarrassed. He suppressed speaking the horse–and-water thought again, but at the same time understood the leading part of the phrase.

“I was wrong in surrendering to the flesh,” April confessed. “You were wrong for putting me in a position to surrender.”

Virgil gazed at his wife with a passion she’d never seen before. She felt a certain sympathy for him. She tried desperately to understand his motive, to find an appreciation in his action, but nothing surfaced. Both personalities within her tried to rationalize the angry feeling inside.