Tequila Americano

26. tomorrow

March, 2018

Ingrid wasn't home the Saturday after the exhibition. Edgar was both upset and relieved about it. He would have liked to see her, make sure she was okay. But at the same time, he didn't feel like facing her after what had just passed the other night.

Still, Michelle's razor-sharp words rang loud in his ears and he knew he'd have to make a decision he most probably wouldn't like.

He spent the day out on the town with his daughter, grabbing coffees and just chatting. It helped him ignore the looming confrontation. Helped him not even think about it.

He'd almost forgotten it when Ingrid showed up late, after they'd already had dinner and settled in for a movie. She declined to join them, claiming she needed a hot bath and a lot of sleep. Edgar noted, in passing, that she was wearing clothes which were obviously not her own. Men's clothes.

"All right," Caitlin replied good-naturedly and sat up to hug her friend. "Goodnight, lovely."

" 'Night, sunshine."

"Goodnight," Edgar barely mumbled, keeping his distance on purpose.

But he could only keep away for so long.

In the middle of the night, he snuck into her room and climbed into her bed. Ingrid sensed it and turned to face him, smiling in her sleep. He smiled, too, and moulded himself to her shape.

That seemed to chase away her sleep, though, because she craned her neck to kiss him. With her eyes closed, the kiss landed just below his chin. That simple touch made him tense up from head to toe, his strained nerves pulsing with arousal.

Ingrid snickered into his skin. Her clumsy fingers fiddled with his waistband and he didn't interfere. Instead, he dipped in for a proper kiss that made her wide awake. She sighed in his mouth, her fingers now better directed, and gripped him tight.

Edgar grunted, bringing down a hand of his own, which easily found its way between her legs. Ingrid arched her back into it just as he thrust his pelvis into her palm. His middle finger slid into her warmth and he felt her muscles clamp down on it.

Her hands left him, working instead to remove her pyjama top. He didn't help her. Preferred instead to watch her wiggle and swooped down on a breast as soon as it became visible. She exhaled a moan and he briefly withdrew his finger, licking it clean, just long enough to get rid of her pyjama bottoms.

Naked, she was now at his mercy and he made extensive use of that privilege.

The early hours of dawn caught them drifting off into a sated slumber, bodies mashed together, like gilt figures in a Klimt painting.

Hours later, as the sun rose higher and cast a golden glow over the bed, Edgar's eyes twitched from the light and he awakened to Ingrid sprawled on his chest, their legs tangled. He smiled and brought an arm from under his head down around her back.

It felt like utter domestic bliss he hadn't experienced in... years. Seventeen, if he were to be specific. And just as out of the blue, his heart hurt with the realisation that this was nothing more than a picture-perfect illusion he'd crafted for himself. Mist and mirrors. He got the sudden urge to take a hammer to it. Smash it to pieces and stand, bloodied, over its ruins.

Ingrid shuddered beside him and she flipped on her back, yawning. He spun on his side, watching her. Reached out to caress her abdomen. She rubbed at her eyes and mumbled a greeting.

"Ingrid?"

"Hmm?"

Her palm fell over his hand as his thumb stroked her skin.