The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Three

"You looked very beautiful tonight, wife," he says smiling.

I slide my pearl drop earrings back in the top drawer of my porcelain jewellery box. A second-anniversary gift from Oliver.

"Past tense?" I smile.

He grins and shakes his head, moving toward me. "Always."

"Good save... Thank you, husband. You looked very handsome."

He drapes his red tie over the chair and comes to stand behind me placing his hands on my shoulders. Squeezing them softly, he massages them a moment before bending his head to touch his lips to my neck. He kisses a hot trail across my shoulder as he slides his hands softly down my arms and lower, across my stomach and down. As he meets my eye in the mirror he begins to slowly slide my dress up my thighs.

"I need you tonight, El baby..." He whispers in my ear. "I need this.'

I close my eyes and let out a slow breath I didn't know I was holding as he places another kiss to the side of my neck, higher, behind my ear. My nipples harden in response.

Sex. Sex with Oliver had been rare since... Our sex life these days was a rarity. A problem since before we'd had a very active one. Things were different now though. We were different. At least I certainly was.

I felt guilty about neglecting him, of course, I did. I thought about it a lot. I felt guilty about it often. But I felt guilty about lots of things. He didn't understand that part. The guilt. He just thought I was grieving. Like him. But there was more. Oliver didn't know the half of it. But then, Oliver didn't really know me.

Thankfully, he hadn't pushed our having sex. He told me he understood. But I knew men worked differently. Sex and emotion could be separated by men. Oliver could make love to me and not think about anything else except making love to me. And god how I wished I could do that. How I wished I could separate sex and Oliver from every other emotion I had gnawing at me inside.

I turn around to face him and take his face in both my hands.

"I need it too," I whisper. What I really mean is that I will give him what he needs. Tonight I'd be his wife.

He moves quick and lifts me up onto the dressing table which thankfully doesn't wobble under my weight, though I hear a few bottles topple as I knock against them.

Oliver's hands slide under my dress and he hooks his fingers into my knickers and pulls them quickly down my legs. Sliding me forward to the edge of the table, he kisses me hard, ferocious almost, biting at my lips through rough heavy breaths.

So I guess we weren't doing foreplay tonight. Maybe that was a good thing. I begin to unbutton his shirt and kiss my way down his stubbled jaw to his neck as he slides two fingers deep inside me, making me gasp loud. My body resists him at first, dry and dormant for so long, but soon I feel the heat of his fingers spread, softening, demanding.

"Fuck, I've missed you so much, you have no idea..." he breathes. "I need you... I need my wife..." he fumbles with the zip at the back of my dress, pulling it down enough so he can expose my shoulders and breasts to him. He lowers his head and takes my nipple in his mouth, sucking it hard and desperately, before biting it softly. I push his shirt off his shoulders and drag my hands down his hard body to the buckle of his belt, fumbling clumsily.

At this point, Oliver loses patience. He removes his mouth from my breast and pulls his fingers from inside me to unbuckle and unzip his own trousers. As his trousers drop to his ankles, he pushes down his boxers to free himself, stroking his hand over the head of his generously sized cock for a moment. He's hard. Needy. Another pang of guilt hits me. Yes, I'd definitely neglected him. My husband. I'd been a terrible wife.