Noon Saturday, July 22nd, 2023
There was for Lyrou a day-to-day apart from men and their dicks, her marriage and its problems, her heart and its shattering. There was a now, for her, that needed attending to and keeping up. Like a cetacean surfacing for air after having battled with a giant squid in the cold, dark depths, she returned up to the fresh and depressurized light of women and their topics. Or so that was the idea.
Alan’s friend from class had a birthday party at home, and though it was to be the boy’s extended family there, classmates from school were invited. Lyrou took him, bringing Reine along so that after dropping him off, they would go for a few hours, maybe grab iced-coffees and stop to return-deliver a pair of neck and back massagers Reine had ordered for her husband, but which “have no power” according to him. Reine’s skin tone was of a well-freckled ginger, and when she blushed with laughter, she remained pink for a minute or two after, a strawberry ice cream cone of a woman, with sprinkles. “He asks for me to walk on his back, I can feel his spine pop under my feet.”
Alan’s friend lived in a nice place by even Edgewater standards, and Lyrou had made the mom’s acquaintance at school, but she wasn’t on terms to enter. Just as Alan rang the doorbell, a middle-aged blonde woman appeared around the side of the house, opening a tall white wooden gate, “Hey. Hi! Alan! We’re all in back.”
Lyrou and Reine followed Alan around the side, meeting the woman with lady-like hand squeezes, “Hello, I’m Tatiana... I’m Calvin’s mother.”
“Scoozle-boozle me.” Alan slipped through them and joined the gaggle of boys he found there in the backyard with a shout in some voice he did of “What are those?!”
Lyrou introduced herself, “I’m Lyrou, Alan’s mom. This is my friend Reine.”
Tatiana gently took Lyrou’s elbow and tugged her closer, “Come and sit for a half-second. I’ll serve tea, it’s time for tea.”
Lyrou and Reine looked to one another, “If you’re sure.”
Tatiana nodded enthusiastically. She led them across stone stepping-pads to a large, busy, grassy, mulchy, flowery backyard, a serious bird bath, a safety-netted trampoline, an in-ground pool with a diving board and winding slide, a small brown-black terrier leashed to a pole, yelping at the boys as they played some kind of ball game, tackling and falling onto each other. “Sit put, I’ll be back with tea and something to snack on. You needn’t stay for the whole big party if you would rather not, but I can only let you go after the least hospitality. Please, I’ll be right back.”
Lyrou and Reine sat and looked about at the people there; botulinum toxin and dermal fillers, porcelain-white tooth veneers, inflated lips, good hair transplants the tourist clinics don’t do in Istanbul, physiques methodically shaped and periodically banged by personal trainers, boisterous postures and poise, authentic Scottish golf attire, microbladed eyebrows, silicon gel-mesh breasts, false blondism, Swiss watches with rare meteorite, sapphire crystal, and diamond dials, top-tier Italian sunglasses and shoes, haughty French fragrances.
Tatiana returned, delicately balancing a cup of steaming tea in each hand, even as her son followed close and whined. Lyrou and Reine quickly reached to take their cups before Tatiana might be overwhelmed and spill them. Her hands free, she stood straight, hands on her hips, and struck a strict pose and voice, speaking through her teeth, “Calvin! Your tutor can’t move your lesson. You need to be flexible, it’s only 40 minutes with Ms. Fomenko and then you’re back. Nobody will leave.”
The boy stood defeated, “Fine.”
She pat him on the bottom, turning him by his shoulder and sending him back to the boys, “I’ll call you when it’s study time. Please now.”
Tatiana sat at the end of the table and turned her attention back to Lyrou and Reine, “The tea? Good?”
Lyrou and Reine nodded. Reine pried, “What is he studying?”
Tatiana threw he hands up, “Everything. So, I sympathize with him. I didn’t want to meet a music tutor, a language tutor, a test-skills tutor, a this and a that tutor… when I was a kid.” She humble-bragged.
Reine dug further, “Then why have him do it? Really. What’s the point of tiger momming?”
Tatiana pointed inward at herself, shaking her head, “It’s not me, I’m no tiger, I’m just stuck enforcing it. Calvin’s father grew up a certain way and now wants junior to follow in his footsteps, right up the crimson stairs.” She namedropped her husband’s alma mater.
Lyrou set her tea down; she didn’t have another sip. “Big shoes?”
With the invite to flaunt, Tatiana spilled with words, “Oh, not like that. But he has these standards and doesn’t give ear to excuses. It’s just what he comes from, to be a winner at all costs, to be at the top; it’s instilled in him. Who can relate with that, but I have to try.”
Lyrou interrupted, “I might relate.”
Tatiana, with a puzzled furrowed brow, “Oh?”
Lyrou smiled brazenly, “I stomped around the old yard myself.”
Reine feigning whispered scandal, "Come again? You say that you pomped around?"
"That too and it goes without saying." Lyrou shrugged to Reine's terse giggle.
Tatiana, with a cordial smile of surprise, “Oh? Then?”
Lyrou filled in the blank, “We might’ve had a class together, your husband and I. Who knows?”
Tatiana, pulling her feet out of her mouth, “You’ll have to meet him! Calvin Cushing.”
Reine looked to Lyrou, “Did you know a young Calvin Cushing Sr, Lyrou?”
Lyrou put her fingertip to her cheek, “It’s ringing a bell. Or maybe I had a class in Cushing Hall.”
Tatiana slathered on a compliment to cool the burn, “Well, if he knew you for a minute, he’d recognize you on sight, you have a face a man couldn’t forget. You’re stunning.”
Lyrou nodded, “So kind. He’s here at junior's party?”
Tatiana shook her head, hands placed flat on the table, “Noooo, he’s in Arlington, Virginia. But we’re neighbors, aren’t we, and I’d like to meet Alan’s father too.”
Reine sweetly officiated, “Then another day.”
Lyrou and Tatiana in odd unison, “Yes” and “Another day.”
The three of them turned at the sound and sight of the boys squawking with cheer, a dozen gathered round Calvin and Alan as they tried pushing one another into the swimming pool, “You’re about to get soggy! Yeah, you gone get soggy!” Alan pushed. “You first!” Calvin tugged, foam pool noodles were swung over them both in a slappy wet jump-in hazing.
⚜
Morning Saturday, July 29th, 2023
A week later, Lyrou and Garin sat on the couch over coffee and the ambience of the morning news talk show. They would disclose. A tentative trial disclosure. “Good morning, Lyrou.” Garin exhaled, "I feel like the famed Prussian innovator, the Glider King; sure, we'll catch the wind and make some distance, but equally sure the landing will be hard and bone-fracturing."
Lyrou mirrored his exhale, "I feel like we're impious Puritan colonists brought out to tell our misdeeds in cleansing and to take a bastinado foot whipping tied to a post. But I'm unsure who's holding the lash and who's holding the post."
The golden light of a fresh new day filtered through the blinds, casting a warm glow over the living room. Lyrou sat across from Garin, her legs crossed and a steaming cup of black in her hand. She took a sip, savoring the bitter taste. Her eyes were filled with trepidation as she set the cup down; it jittered briefly as it met the glass top of the table. “Is it that time, Garin?" she hesitated, her voice too cheerful. Her joints were locked, unsure what she’d hear in this next track of their marriage and if she could face the music.
Garin looked at her with empathy, “Can you do it? There’s nothing to it but to do it.”
Lyrou pat her hair down, interlaced her fingers over her lap, and averted her eyes from his, “I’m trying.”
“Pretend I’m not me. Pretend I’m whichever therapist you meant for us to consult. Pretend I’m a literal lemur. Pretend I’m a potted plant.” Garin suggested off-handedly.
“I don’t need to pretend anything.” She cleared her throat as she recounted, “I spent an afternoon with Paulo.”
Garin said nothing; he listened. Her knees became weak, patellar tendons failing as her legs crossed over the cushion’s edge, “Paulo and I have known one another, and he’s someone who fills in the gaps for me.”
Garin smiled at her turn of phrase but held his silence. She continued, “Paulo is a... well, he’s like... he’s unlimited and bottomless in his bag of tricks. And they’re the kind of good tricks that never get old. I know to expect the unexpected with him, and he delivers.”
She watched Garin’s expression, looking for anger or disgust, but instead, she saw a strange sort of fascination. His eyes were bright with desire, something stirring. She had in her chest a sense of power in thoroughly sharing her infidelity, a rush that she never expected, “And I was with him, same place, same time, in the same way as I would’ve been if you’d never been the wiser.”
Garin sat motionless and thought over her words, then asked the one question he would if there could be no follow-ups, “Risks?”
Her cheeks flushed at his question, the directness of it catching her off guard. She paused, considering her response. “No, Garin,” she said steadily. “I made sure to keep it safe,” though she thought how 'safe' was relative, and if he didn't ask about condoms specifically she would lie by omission.
She watched his expression, looking for anger or disappointment. Instead, she saw a flicker of relief in his eyes, quickly masked by curiosity, “OK.”
Now turning the tables, “But the thought of you with Jia... it’s... It’s something else.” Her hand was shaking slightly. “I want to know everything, just like you do.”
“Ask anything,” Garin said with a smile.
Her voice quivered as she leaned closer to Garin. “Tell me how she’s different from me.”
“She was different, she was nervous and stiff. She confided that she’d never cheated on her husband and that she was shy about her body... but I found that all a most proper match for me as I was in her same shoes. Undressing her felt like helping a woman to commit a crime for the first time; no hardened criminal myself, but just as new to the underworld. Though she was afraid, she wanted me badly too. And then she liked being under the blankets together, her words, so did I.” Garin’s posture relaxed with the personal completion of having done such a deed with such a woman.
Lyrou's heart squeezed at his composition, a growing concern that he'd have an extended relationship with Jia, and then arousal coursing through her veins. She tried to keep her expression neutral, but the way her eyes widened and her pupils dilated betrayed her feelings. “How was she?” she asked, her voice too eager. “Was she better than me?” She took a sip of her coffee, her hand shaking slightly. The thought of Garin with another woman, especially one who was shy and inexperienced in this order of sin, sent a physical pang through her insides. She couldn’t help but perceive that he was basking in the novelty of being with someone new, of tempting her, of being the seducer. She watched him closely, her eyes fixed on his face as she waited for his response.
“Jia wasn’t better than you, not worse... just Jia.” He wasn’t sparing Lyrou’s feelings; it was what he thought and sounded so.
Lyrou balked at the indefinite state he’d given this purgatory they were venturing out into, “Don’t stop.” Lyrou’s dark eyes narrowed slightly, the flecks of amber in them flashing in the morning rays with something that could be interpreted as either jealousy or arousal, or be neither but a lost, forgotten relative of both. She set her coffee cup down with a clink, the sound echoing through the tense silence of the room. “Tell me more about Jia,” she said low. “What did she do, actually do that was different from me?” Her hand strayed to her own thigh, her fingers tracing lazy circles.
“At onset, she closed her eyes when I undressed, and then she kept her legs together unconsciously; auto- and androgymnophobia. I had to pry her open while kissing her, and she kept checking her phone, she was terrified her husband might call. But that gave way to her very handsy, squeezy, phallo-scroto-trico-muscophilia.” Garin recollected, hand partly over his mouth, eyes smiling.
Lyrou’s hand slid down her thigh, her fingertips brushing against the dampness between her legs. She listened intently to Garin’s words, horniness building within her. She tried to imagine Jia, so different from her, so shy but turned on, but also like her, a foreign woman in this country, for Garin another import model. The thought of Garin taking control, showing her the ropes, was a strange aphrodisiac. She bit her bottom lip, her hand moving closer to her core. “And when you... when you were inside her,” her voice breathless, “... what was that like?”
“She kept her eyes shut and writhed while I took her in missionary. Do you want to know about that?” Garin asked as if he presumed she wouldn’t like to know.
Her breathing deepened and slowed as his words painted a vivid picture in her mind. The intimacy of his description of Jia’s reluctant inexperience was strangely arousing, and the wine overflowing the chalice; Jia’s ornamental display-only body to her own well-explored, oft-used body. Lyrou’s hand moved between her thighs. She nodded, unable to tear her gaze from his. “Yes, tell me.”
“Her B-cups were the finest form and mass for her lissome figure, and she’d a small c-section scar, and she looked to have rarely trimmed anything, coarse and black. She orgasmed, loudly. That’s when she became very guilty and cried. I wished to calm her down. She was lying naked, talking about how she was a bad woman. I told her I was the knave, and I kissed her. She fell back into arousal... hugging and wrapping her legs around me... she said thank you to me.” Garin shrugged his shoulders.
Lyrou’s hand moved in a slow, deliberate rhythm, her thumb circling as Garin’s words painted a vivid picture of Jia’s cheating-cherry popped, thinking back to when she too was new to it and first allowed a man not-Garin to have her. She closed her eyes, imagining herself in the role of the one being taken by Garin, not her stale husband-Garin, but Garin as a taboo lover, feeling the power shift in their marriage as he recounted. Her breathing quickened, “More, tell me everything.” The sound of her hand moving against her wetness joined the low murmur of the TV in the background. The thought of Garin bringing another woman to climax, one so unaccustomed to the monster of adultery, sent her body into its special functions. Pride and possessiveness, knowing that she’s the one he’s sharing this with now, that she’s the one who’s allowed him this freedom. Her other hand reached for the remote, turning the volume down so she could focus on his words.
Garin leaned in, in a deep voice, “She didn’t let me pull out and... at the last second I ejaculated inside her.”
Her breath caught in her throat as Garin’s words hung in the air. “Oh?!” The thought of him releasing inside another woman sent a bolt of electricity. “You let it go in her?”Lyrou’s eyes widened at the visual, a pinch of disgust and worry swirled within her raging libido. The idea of Garin’s white-cum running and dripping out of another woman, she could see it so clearly in her mind’s eye. Her hand moved faster against her clit as the image became more vivid in her mind. She tried to keep her voice steady, but the tremor in her tone betrayed her. “How could you do that?” She blamed him, but her hand moved in a blur between her legs, “Aow-aw-ow” her orgasm approaching, her mouth rounding into an O.
Garin gently shook his head in awe at recollecting Jia, “I did it. I took another man’s wife, and he’ll probably never know. But it’ll be kept in her memory forever, and she might think of our night at any time, like some years from now, when he is looking at her unaware, the sight, sound, feeling, scent, and taste of me still vivid, loud, and potent in her mind. Me sexing her on instant replay then and whenever just on the other side of her cranium where he can’t see or hear a thing. I felt like the worst kind of thief; not money, not a car, not things, but stealing a woman and ending a wife’s loyalty.”
Willfully forgetting how hypocritical it was to say, she objected, crushed under such hot disappointment in the Garin she thought she knew, “How could you do that!? How could you do that with her!?”
“And while she’ll return to her husband, him unaware that she’d so much as thought to stray free, he can never undo that she was ever taken from him. It’s done. That’s gone whether he comes to know it or not. She could weigh the fallout with him against the moment she had with me and regret it, but she can’t undo it for him. It’s done. It’ll be done forevermore. Gone.” Garin eulogized a monogamy he murdered.
Her eyes flashed with anger and arousal that he’d found such meaning in his act. Her hand moved fast, her breath shallower as she approached climax. “And what did she say, Garin?” she asked, a strained whimper. “Did she beg to see you again?” The mental image of Garin claiming another woman, leaving his mark on her, was almost too much to bear. Yet, the high of the forbidden, the power exchange in their marriage, was intoxicating. Her body tightened, her orgasm approached with force, “Oui-oui-ah-ah!”.
Garin closed his eyes as if unconcerned with Lyrou’s masturbatory display, “She asked to meet me again. I told her maybe in a month. But that might have just been talk, or not. We’ll see.” Garin opened his eyes, watched Lyrou, not touching.
Lyrou’s eyes squeezed shut, and her hand moved faster over her clit, the pressure building as she squeezed in her core. Her orgasm crashed over her “Ooooaammmm aaaw.” As the waves of pleasure receded into a stupor, she opened her eyes, pink and wet.
“Garin...” her post-orgasm clarity rushed to regain some sanity, “Please, don’t... don’t do it again with her. It’s just... it’s too much.” She was on the edge of tears; the intensity of her orgasm matched by the depth of her emotions. “I need you to be mine,” she said, cracking. “Just mine.” She reached out to him, her hand trembling. “Please, I’ll be everything you need.”
“You liked it?” Garin rested his chin in his hand, elbow on the armrest.
Lyrou tried to compose herself. She looked up at him with anger, hurt, and desire. “I... I don’t know what I liked,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “But I know that I need you to be my husband.” She reached out, her hand finding his, her grip tight. “This... this openness is so scary, I wanted to try it. I just... I just don’t want to lose you.” Trying to steady her voice. “I need to know that you still want me.”
Simply and straightforward, “I do.”
Her grip on his hand tightened, “But how can I trust you? How do I know that you won’t go beyond fun and out-of-control fall in love with someone else? I need to know that what we have is our special, indescribable connection. That it exists nowhere else, with no one else.” The living room was too quiet, the only sound the soft rustle of fabric as she shifted on the couch.
“Special? Ditto.” Garin countered. “Who was your favorite, why did you like him best? What did you have with him that was special?” Garin asked, hand over his mouth, not to ask more.
Her eyes turned up to meet Garin’s, embarrassment across her features. She took a moment to consider his question, “No one favorite. Some of them were... rare and unique in the best and worst ways, I guess,” she said low with the reminiscences of her past encounters. “Dissimilar from you, but not surpassing.”
Garin shook his head, “Spare me any further softening consolations.”
Lyrou refrained from doing what she wanted then, to scream, “The way you make me feel... like I’m the only one who matters in your whole world. What we have is perfect for me. You’re perfect for me.” She held herself back from pulling him into her chest and kissing his face all over in an indignity of over-attachment.
Unmoved, he pressed with a hint of disappointment and impatience, “You know what I’m asking. So, give me your answer. Which lover did it best? Don’t say it’s me. Who was your favorite?”
Lyrou shook her head, “But it’s you! You’re my favorite man.”
Garin scoffed, “That’s not what I asked. You heard me. Not your all-around man, not your top pick for husband, not your base, not your children’s great father, not your we-know-each-other, not your grow-old-together, your file-our-taxes-together, your know-what-he’s-allergic-to, your he-steals-the-blanket-I-warm-my-feet-on-his-legs, not any of that. Not any of that.”
To Lyrou, it seemed Garin was seeing red looking at her, “I think I understand…”
“... your favorite lover, only as a lover. Who?” Garin asked as if he wouldn’t ask again.
Her eyes darted in illogical fear he might read her mind if he saw into them, and she paused for a moment, her hand now gripping a cushion. Her cheeks flushed more. “If I must choose... then Tom.”
She watched as Garin’s fist balled at the mention of this name, his eyebrows raised from low to high, “Why?”
“Tom is another kind of man, that’s all. And, while I hate that kind of man he is, he does him… in his own way… and it’s…” she held her hands up in the wordlessness of her ideal, looking to Garin as if he might understand what it is to have this, well this thing for someone. “Do you see?”
Garin’s presence and stature beside her had shrunken, diminished, and they both felt it, “I might.”
Lyrou furrowed her brow, “What I wish,” she said, tight with emotion, “is that we didn’t need to have this conversation. That I didn’t give you this crippling injury. Garin, you are limping.” She let out a long, staggered, manic sigh, “But the truth is, I’ve never felt unsatisfied with you, Garin. Not in the tactile erogenous physical ways or in the much more central intangible ways.” Her voice was earnest. “Ma vie. Your personality, your purpose, your face, your body, your tumescence, your hair, your kiss, your scent, your voice, your laugh, your everything is perfect for me. It’s you that I want, always.”
Disallowing any deflection, “No. You have a full inventory of the unspeakable on the tip of your tongue. Don’t bite it. Say it.”
Her eyes filled with anger and sadness as she stood and paced there in front of the couch. She looked down at him, seated, her hand hovering in the air for a moment before she spoke. “Alright, Garin. Yes, there have been moments when I’ve... when I’ve wished for something different. For sensuality’s sake. It’s the unknown. It’s my feeling desired by someone else for a few hours, for a night. And while it was against your will and without your knowledge, it was not against you,” she added quickly. “It was for me, it was selfish. There was nothing you did or didn’t do, were or were not that caused or would’ve prevented me from being selfishly me. Please. Don’t think of yourself being inadequate or lesser. You’re not! Not because of me and the awful choices I’ve made.”
Garin, despite hearing every word, seemed deaf to it all. In a low monotone, “No one is fully adequate. Not me, not you, not anybody.”
Lyrou knelt, lay her head in Garin’s lap, and remained still, “Up to the bounds of what is human, you are without deficiency, and in ways important and unimportant, you exceed.”
Garin looked softly down on Lyrou’s coiled hair over her face, her cheek mashed upon his lap, and calmly stroked her hair, tucking it behind her ear and clearing her eyes and mouth of all strands. With his fingertip he traced the contours of her cheekbone, her orbital, her outer helix, and then her lips, chin, and neckline. “Do I impeach this Seraph?”
⚜
