Thou Shalt Not (29 page)

I left her alone the rest of Monday afternoon and the school day dragged like a motherfucker.
You’re a motherfucker,
I told myself. And then I had to pull out my box of toothpicks.

Holly texted near the end of the afternoon to ask what my plans were for the night, and I made the right excuses to keep her away. I didn’t want to be around her while my mind was completely on April. That wasn’t fair to her.

The TV was on in the background as I made dinner. The Rays were beginning their final series of the season, and no mention was made of Marco to start the telecast. The situation was no doubt being swept under the rug, and the prospect of the team bringing Marco back the following year seemed to be remote. So, more than likely, by the start of the next season, Marco would be playing somewhere far away from the Tampa Bay area. The question remained whether April would be with him. Or with me.

God, I’m thinking way too far ahead
, I thought as I cut up mangos for a salsa. I had chicken cooking in a skillet on the stove. The mango salsa was a recipe from my mother, one of the few things of hers I still had with me.

Once dinner was prepared, I plated it and sat on the couch to watch the game. My life during the school year really was pretty routine. Work all day, come home and make dinner, and then watch baseball or some other sport while papers were read or graded. Such an exciting life we teachers lead.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen, my phone rang. It was April. My heart began to race. This would stop eventually, right?

“Hello?” I answered, the racing of my heart not translating to my voice, thankfully.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”

So nonchalant. God, she drove me crazy.

“Just finishing up the dishes. What about you?”

“I’m sitting at the bar in my kitchen, listening to a silent house.”

“I guess if the house started talking, you’d have big problems on your hands.”

“God, you’re dumb, you know that?” She laughed.

“I know.” I smiled.

There was a silence for a moment or two.

“Do you feel like getting out of your silent house for a while?”

“What are you proposing, sir?”

“You’ll see. Be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Am I dressing up?”

“No, just casual.”

“Okay.”

“See you soon.”

“Bye.”

I threw off my work clothes from the day and put on shorts and a t-shirt. I made sure it wasn’t a Rays’ shirt this time.

I drove to her house, remembering every turn as if I had been there a million times. I really had no idea where I was planning on taking her, but the idea of being spontaneous appealed to me. God, I just wanted to see her.

I pulled into her massive driveway, the gate open and beckoning me to enter.

She was standing by the front door, holding a duffle bag, waiting for me as I pulled up.

Her hair was loose and flew behind her in the breeze as she walked toward my car. She was wearing white shorts and an orange tank top, her style very much Florida. Any man would have been forgiven for taking an extra long look at her extra long legs, but seeing as how she was getting into my car, I figured I could look as much as I liked.

“Hey!” she said, markedly more jovial than the last time I saw her. “Where are we going?”

She threw her bag in the back seat.

“Just be patient, ma’am. You’ll see.”

She fidgeted in her seat for a moment, and then bounced up in realization.

“You got a new car!” She smiled as she said it and my heart did somersaults.

“Yep. I finally said
adiós
to the Roller Skate.”

“And hola to air conditioning.”

I couldn’t stop the smile.

“You have the sexiest, crooked smile,” she said, reaching out and touching the corner of my mouth.

I left her neighborhood and headed toward the boardwalk. There were a bunch of shops there and they always had live music. Not necessarily good live music—but live music nevertheless. Tonight it was a mariachi band composed of five, chubby, grey haired men. We stopped to listen to them. April smiled and tapped her foot through two songs before I grabbed her around the waist and started dancing. She squealed and clung to me as I spun her around. I danced her through three songs just to have her body pressed that tightly against mine. When we were both breathless we headed over to an ice cream shop and grabbed two cones.

“Have you heard if they made it there safely?” I asked. I didn’t really want to talk about him, but I knew I couldn’t just act like they hadn’t left.

“Yeah,” she said. “He called before you got to the house. I made him call. It wasn’t a long flight.”

“Did he not want to call?”

“We haven’t really spoken the last few days.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”

She reached out a pinkie and linked it with mine as we walked.

“What does your gut tell you?”

“My gut says leave him.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. But then I start thinking about everything else and my gut seems less sure.”

“Like the kids?”

“Yeah. They love their dad. They are too young to realize what an asshole he is and how miserable he makes me. He buys them toys and takes them places so he is a god to them.”

The last sentence was spoken with particular disgust. I wanted to change the subject, but this was clearly what she needed.

“Plus, he leaves for weeks at a time, so every time they see him, it’s like a novelty. Like Cuban Santa Claus returning with presents.”

“He brings them back something every time?”

“Every time. At least now they still love me because I feed them and take care of them. But I am already the bad guy. It’ll only get worse the older they get. And then at the end of the day, he’s kind of a crazy person. I knew it when we got married. My dad thought he just needed a woman in his life to ‘tame’ him. But there’s no taming Marco. The older he gets, the more I realize there’s no end in sight. I convince myself that staying is best for the kids.”

“But how is it good for them? Sure, they have their dad in the house who spoils them when he is home, but they are around you more than anyone. And how is it good for them to see their mom miserable, wanting out? You said you guys don’t talk much and that there’s nothing between the two of you. Kids pick up on stuff like that. They need to see you happy if they are going to grow up to be healthy adults with normal relationships.”

“Plus, I feel like if I even started to think seriously about leaving him, he would blow up worse than I have probably ever seen. He is unpredictable already. And he’s aggressive. God only knows what he would do.”

We simultaneously took off our shoes and started walking in the sand toward the water.

This was the one lingering question I had about all of this: What will Marco do? If he found out his wife was making out with another man, I couldn’t assume he would just say, “Oh well, that’s cool.” And I couldn’t picture him crying and asking why. He would flip the fuck out, and if he found out where I lived, I could be sure that he would pay me a very loud visit. That’s just what he would do to me. It was April I was worried about.

“Well, if you decide to go through with it,
when
you decide to go through with it, I’ll be there and I won’t let him hurt you.”

“How can you promise me that?”

“Because it’s true. If he lays another finger on you, he will pay.”

I’m not an aggressive person, but every time I thought about him, I wanted to hit something very hard. Mostly his face. And since I am not a small, skinny twerp, I liked my chances if push ever did come to shove.

“My fingers are sticky,” she said, holding them up near my face.

“Well, if you weren’t such a messy eater you wouldn’t have that problem.”

She laughed as I grabbed her hand and put her fingers in my mouth. I tasted blackberry.

“That just really turned me on,” she said.

She jumped to her feet and started backing away from me.

“Where are you going?” I asked, still sitting on the sand.

“Away from you!” she laughed. “My mom always warned me about men who randomly sucked on your body parts.”

“What did she say about them?” I asked.

“That they’d get you pregnant and ruin your life.”

“Let’s test that theory.”

I jumped up quickly, and she let out a startled scream. If someone had been watching from a distance, they probably would have thought something awful was going down.

She took off running down the beach, her long legs propelling her smoothly through the sand. My initial impression of her having probably been an avid lifelong runner was being proven true.

Thankfully, I was taller and had spent years running for baseball training. I began to make ground on her.

She glanced behind herself as she ran and let out another startled scream when she realized I was much closer than she expected me to be. She tried turning on the jets, but I was still gaining on her. I reached my arms out and grabbed hold of her shoulders.

“Help,” she yelled to no one in particular.

We were both breathing heavily, and when she turned around to face me I pushed her down onto the sand.  

I knelt down between her legs and put a hand on each one.

“These things sure do move quickly.”

“That’s not all they do.”

She leaned up and grabbed the neck of my shirt, pulling me down toward her.

I hadn’t kissed a girl on the beach like this since I was in high school. There was something sexy about it: lying in the sand, waves crashing at the shore, not a soul in sight.

We rolled around in the sand for a while, kissing, touching, breathing heavily. A couple of people even walked by, but we took no notice.

Finally, we stopped after I rolled her onto her back and sand fell off of my arms and onto her face.

She playfully made spitting noises trying to get the sand out of her mouth, acting like she was drowning under a pile of it.

I stood up, and then reached out my arm to help her up.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

We walked back hand in hand, without a word, and shook off most of the sand that covered our bodies before we got back into my car. But anyone who has ever visited a beach knows that no matter how hard you try to get rid of any and all sand from your person, you will somehow miss a significant amount. And it always ended up on the floor of your vehicle. This proved to be true once again.

I began to drive back in the direction of both our houses.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

I wanted to take her to my house. I wanted her in my bed tonight. And tomorrow. And next week, next month. I wanted her.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” she said.

She placed her left hand over my right one, which had been resting alone on the center console. Then, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the headrest. It looked like she wanted to take a nap.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, eyes still closed. “Don’t drive me home tonight.”

There may have been stop signs and red lights on the way back to my house, but I don’t remember ever seeing any of them. All I remember was the warmth of her hand against mine.

I parked the car in the driveway, and when we got out, we both instinctively brushed any remaining sand off of our bodies. She walked around to the front of the car, and I took her hand and led her to the door.

When we got inside, I walked her into my bedroom and closed the door. I’m not sure why I closed it—it wasn’t like we needed privacy. But I did anyway.

She stood in front of me, looking up at my eyes. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. Her arms went around my waist and we stood there, holding each other.

The clock on the dresser flashed from 11:10 to 11:11.

“It’s 11:11,” I said into her ear. “Make a wish.”

She looked toward the clock, and then back to me.

“I did,” she said.

“What was it?”

“Please, like I’d tell you and risk it not coming true.”

I lowered my hands and grabbed under her arms, lifting her up off the ground. Her long legs wrapped around my waist as our mouths opened. The moment our lips touched, it was as if I had been struck by lightning; the jolt of electricity was so potent. It was wet and frantic and sexy.

Her arms were now around my neck and my hands were holding her around the waist, her body still straddling mine as we stood in the middle of my bedroom. Her lower half was slowly grinding into mine as we kissed. I was throbbing. She could feel it.

She hopped down, and her hands immediately were at my belt. She had the belt off and my jeans at my feet in seconds. She grabbed me hard through my boxers.

“
Damn,
” she said.

I grabbed hold of her tank top and pulled it over her head, forcing her to at least briefly let go of my cock. She wore a white bra underneath.

I bet myself that she was wearing matching panties.

I kicked my jeans aside and grabbed the hem of her shorts. I kneeled to the floor and took her shorts with me, sliding them down her perfect legs.