“You’re here?” she shouted, surprised, as she dropped her bag and removed her own shoes and coat hurriedly.
“Heeeeey!” came the return call from the kitchen.
This was unexpected and welcome. He’d been away on a rare freelance job and she’d not expected him back until the late hours. She walked barefoot and eagerly across the hard floor hallway, past the living room and into the kitchen where Morgan clanged a tray back into the oven and let the door slam shut. He’d obviously been home a while because the kitchen was spotless with all of Jeanie’s things tidied away, dinner on the stove and he was showered with his hair slicked back and dressed smart in a shirt and tie, dark skinny jeans and his nicest shoes.
“Hey! How are you d…”
Lisa said nothing and instead rushed up to him as he straightened and planted her lips directly on his, cutting him off, closing her eyes and throwing her arms around his neck as she kissed him deeply. He took a deep breath at the pleasure of her passion and returned the grasp by placing his arms around her waist. The kiss held for well over a minute. There was a need for comfort in her kiss. She seemed to give up on breathing and her eyes didn’t open for even a glance as the kiss continued.
When eventually the kiss ended she placed her arms around his torso and snuggled her head in under his chin and against his chest, taking more comfort in the proximity of his heart beat.
“Bad day?”
“The worst,” she said, still pressed to his chest, his hand stroking her hair now. “But it’s over now,” she said, turning straight to face him and a smile washing over her face. “And you’re here. And we’ve got a Friday night all to ourselves!” She punctuated this delight with a quick sharp kiss to his lips that rang out percussively. “What are we having?” On the stove sat a wide shallow pan with a tomatoey meat sauce simmering in red wine, so the answer would be no great shock.
“Spaghetti. And… other things, presuming I don’t screw it up.” He was being modest as it was widely accepted between them that he was very skilled in the kitchen.
“Can’t wait!” she said with a tired smile. “I’m gonna go shower this horrible day outta my hair. We got time for a drink before dinner?”
“Sure. I’ll pour you one to take up with you.”
“No. Let’s go out. I wanna be on your arm. Just a quick one. I wanna get dressed up and look as good as you. I wanna stare in your eyes over a cocktail. And then I wanna come back here and eat your beautiful food. And then I wanna take each other’s clothes off and fuck. I need you to fuck me tonight. Sound good?”
Morgan took a second and grinned.
“If the answer to that question is ever no… well then it’s time to be euthanised.”
She smiled as she walked away, leaving him to his work. As she ascended the stairs she removed her earrings and bracelet, undoing the blouse as she cornered the top of the stairs. By the time she was in the bedroom she needed only to let the clothes fall to the floor. She threw them in a laundry hamper as and then u-turned for the bathroom where she climbed straight into the shower and soaked in the steamy water, thinking about her sexy demand all the while. She exited a full 15 minutes later wrapping a towel around her body and falling on the bed with a deep breath.
It had a been a fucking shit day at work; the company was now a few employees lighter and one contract shorter than it had been at the start of the week. No one had been to blame, but the consequences were the same; especially when certain people only worked at the company to service certain clients. She lay there for a time and allowed herself to feel bad for a few minutes. She was not a natural at firing people. She was a creative, and that was the work she excelled at. Everything else was admin and the more it encroached on her workday the happier she was not.
She turned to the side and saw the small framed picture of her and Morgan on his bedside table and smiled slightly. Music started from downstairs. Something light and soulful.
She stood and walked to the mirrored wardrobe where she let the towel fall to the floor. Lisa was 37, average height; her hair white blonde and cropped around her chin. Her skin was pale to match with a number of small moles that speckled her slender body. Her eyes, an almost denim blue, were large and sparkled even when serious. She looked at her naked self in the mirror and felt no resentment. She did the usual routine of inspecting her moles and marks, concentrating only briefly on the small stretches that carrying Jeanie had left her with 5 years ago. She felt no resentment about this; if anything it was a wonderful memento. Almost the same as a tattoo.
She leafed through the wardrobe and assessed her options for the evening. It was June. Dry and fresh. She wasn’t the kind of woman to display a lot of flesh. True, she had little in the way of a bosom to show off; but more because she just didn’t enjoy that kind of attention. Looking like she did; it was a constant effort of conservatism to not encourage leering. But tonight she would indulge. She wanted to be stared at by one man in particular. And she wanted him to be envied by anyone else whose eyes wandered. If she was in any way a prize then tonight he would be seen as the champion.
Though he didn’t know it, this would not be the first time in recent history that he would be the target of such ire. It was over a year ago now, and in the early days of three particular circumstances which all came into being at the same time: her separation from her now ex-husband, John; her new relationship with Morgan and the beginning of their co-habitation.
Though she did nothing to invite attention, she had begun to receive increasingly blatant flirtatious behaviour from a young executive at work named Mark. He was a few years younger, undeniably handsome and well kept. Despite the full details of the full drama of her life in recent months, Mark seemed only to see a recently single woman and allowed the other facts to fade into the background. At first it was almost imperceptible things such as him inching closer to her than normal so that he was just inside her personal space. Then slightly more personal remarks that indicated a closer personal connection than any that existed. Soon she found that he was always placing himself beside her at meetings and even shadowing her to make them almost appear as a couple.
Lisa reacted calmly and without comment. She made no complaint but did not respond affirmatively in any sense. She closed off her body language, made obvious attempts to step back from any physical advance and made any verbal response to anything he said to her short, monosyllabic and as un engaging as possible. But he seemed not to take the hint and continued to pursue this line of behaviour. Eventually he succeeded in being alone in a room with her, something she had managed to avoid for a while but could escape for only so long. In no time he was beside her and within her bubble, this time egged on by her being alone and without the last vestibule of social propriety to restrain him. She couldn’t remember the exact words which spurred her to respond, but it was something about dropping their work to go and get dinner somewhere and some mention of his flat in some supposedly swanky area of town.
She’d begun with a deep but calm breath of finality. “Look Mark, let me be very clear about something. And I apologise if I seem callous or insensitive, but as you’ve ignored all of my attempts to distance myself from you both physically and professionally, I’m afraid you leave me with very little choice other than to be aggressively blunt. I have absolutely zero interest in socialising with you outside of work. I’d like to think it would be obvious at this point but your behaviour forces me to say out loud that I harbour no emotions towards you as a person nor feel even the slightest physical attraction towards you.”
At this point, Mark started to hold his hands up and began some plea about her getting the wrong idea. Something about the way he’d jumped into it told her he was well rehearsed at immediately backtracking.
“No, no,” she went on, “let me finish for the sake of being clear and removing any unambiguity so that we can put this to rest once and for all.” The volume of her voice was raised (a rare occurrence) but the pace remained steady, the tone resolute. Mark put his hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes like a teenager caught coming home late by his parents. “I find your behaviour towards me to be completely inappropriate. You are aware that I am recently married. I do not hide this ring on my finger and I speak regularly office wide about my husband and our domestic life. I can only presume then, that you take the failure of my previous marriage to mean that I hold no value over the commitment that my marriage to Morgan represents; a presumption I find to be both deeply offensive and remarkably creepy.” She turned to face him and stared him in the eyes properly as she made her next point. “Morgan is my husband. He is the man I love and my physical attraction to him is whole and consuming. He is the only man who satisfies me both physically and emotionally and there is nothing a person like you could ever give me that would compare with even his flaws, which are few. So please refrain from standing behind me in that vulgar way that you do. In fact, don’t ever fucking stand near me ever again as it makes my skin crawl. Have I made my point?”
Mark left the room muttering something about her overreacting all the way. It took all of sixty seconds for him to leave with what she presumed he felt was his dignity intact.
Later that night she arrived home to find Jeanie asleep beside Morgan on the sofa in front of a quiet TV.
“Hey,” he whispered, followed by a shushing signal as his eyes gestured the sleeping child beside him.
Lisa responded by leaning up against the doorway that she stood in and unbuttoning the top she was wearing as she held his gaze with her eyes until a streak of pale skin was exposed all the way from her neck down to her belly button. Without saying a word she held his gaze a few moments longer and then left the room, making her way upstairs. Morgan manoeuvred himself off the sofa without disturbing the child and followed a trail of discarded clothes all the way upstairs. When he’d arrived in the bedroom he’d been greeted by the sight of Lisa kneeling on the bed facing away from him, naked but for her panties which she pulled down as she fell forward, landing on her palms so that she was on all fours. She lowered her head to push her ass outwards and expose the pink peach of her pussy lips.