I Can Taste Him on Your Lips

I drew in a ragged breath as I leaned my back against the inside my closed front door, the cold surface seeping through my thin shirt quickly. Pushing myself off, I headed up the stairs to my bedroom moving right past the bed which was calling to me, and into the bathroom.

Stripping slowly, as the water in the shower heated up, I took in the sight of my body in the mirror.

I didn’t look different, or like a cheater. The only things that stood out to me were the light bruises forming on my hips, which would darken and turn ugly in only a matter of days, and the tiny red crescents that lined across my shoulder from Alex’s teeth. That was what marked me as a cheater.

Condensation started to build up on the mirror, making me turn away and climb into the fiery hot water that pelted against my skin.

Slowly, and very slowly at that, the tension in my muscles decreased leaving me feeling only a bit better. I rubbed the slippery soap over myself, trying to erase any traces of the past few hours from my body.

After swaddling myself in a fluffy white towel, I moved back into the bedroom, moving quickly past my buzzing cell phone and over to the closet to pull a bra, panties, and a baggy shirt on.
I toweled my hair as I walked slowly to the bed, reaching down with my free hand to grab the device.

I’ll be home in twenty sweetie

The words made guilt bubble up inside of me, and as I sat heavily on the bed, my mind drifted back to earlier.

The touch, the thrill, the feelings I never knew existed.

What I did was beyond wrong, and yet thinking about it made a shiver of pleasure tickle down my spine.

I sat there for almost fifteen minutes just stewing in my thoughts, not noticing until then that the wetness from my hair dripping down on my shirt was making me cold.

Not even noticing what I was doing, I got up and went to the closet, pulling out something that I had forgotten about until right then. I stared down at the dark grey cardigan, with the tiny flying pig sewn on the left side, and decided to put it on, no matter what it symbolized.

I wouldn’t admit this to myself, but wearing it gave me a sense of security, and I think it was from the hints of Alex drifting off of it to surround me.

~~

Curled up under the covers of the bed, I was tapping lightly against the touch screen of my phone, once more retyping the message I had been trying to send to Alex for so long. Around my waist was the secure arm of Jason, who had molded himself right up against my back.

“What are you doing?” He asked, looking over my shoulder as I locked the screen at the last second making it go dark.

“Texting my mother about going over for another visit soon,” I quickly lied, regretting it as the words left my mouth because that meant that I had to go see her again.

“Oh that’s nice. It's good of you to move past your differences with her and try to have a healthy mother daughter relationship.”

I just made a sound of approval, scrunching up my face in frustration.

It was quiet between us, but Jason was placing small butterfly kisses along my neck.

“We haven’t had any us time lately,” He said quietly next to my ear. “It seems like all I ever do is work.”

One of his hands brushed against my hip and I had to suppress both a gasp and a wince from him bumping my bruise.

“I don’t feel very good honey,” I said moving away from his touch slightly. “Not tonight.”

“Alright, if that’s what you want,” He sighed, rolling over onto his other side so that his back was to me as it normally was when we slept.

In that moment, my mind flashed back once again to my time at Alex’s house.

The way he held my close against him, chests pressed together as our breathing moved in mirrored motions. My head was in the side of his neck, the sweat from my brow sticking to his own sweat.

Wrapped up like that, it was something that hadn’t happened with Jason in a long while.

I wanted it then. I wanted to be next to Alex more than my husband of three years.

And it scared me.