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Chapter Twenty
Charlotte
Michael grips my waist, digging his fingers in as he moves me back and forth, back and forth. I think of the swings on the old play set in the backyard. The way you can move and move without going anywhere.
We may be fucking, but we certainly aren’t speaking. In the midst of our worst fight in years, we’re communicating our displeasure with heavy hands and long sighs, sweaty sheets and short tempers.
The argument, at the basketball game, which was not about just one thing but about every thing, left a sour taste in my mouth. But not enough of one to turn down sex.
It’s all I can think of. And it had better help. This is shaping up to be one of those long and drawn out disagreements, the kind that could take years to resolve, and very well might— the kind you can only truly understand if you’ve been married long enough to wonder just how in the hell you could possibly have ended up in a relationship with a person you don’t even know.
Slamming my hips into his pelvis, I realize he’s right. It’s infuriating how someone can be so familiar and yet so foreign at the same time. That’s what he said when he saw the suitcase come out. I leave for a trip tomorrow, despite the fact that I’d promised to take the week off.
I hadn’t lied. I did plan to take some time off. But that was before Henry passed on a lead on Dunsmore, from a very credible source. Besides, it’s not like my husband is completely innocent either when it comes to work.
Just this morning he informed me that he invited a client to our home this afternoon, which he never does. Given the circumstances, especially with the reporters still camped on the lawn, I don’t blame him. It proves a point. It gives me leverage. Work will continue to encroach, business does not stop. No matter the tragedy, the world still spins, life goes on.
Michael halts my movement abruptly, which would be annoying under any circumstance, but now that I’ve fallen into a comfortable rhythm? Really? This is the time he chooses to speak to me? He repeats his question a second time. “Why did you marry me?”
“Because you asked,” I tell him earnestly, grinding my hips. Perhaps I should elaborate more, tell him what he wants to hear, but I can’t bring myself to do it. He has to focus. He has to let me focus. I need this.
Ever since the shooting, each day has been a carbon copy of the one before. Nothing ever happens. And when something does happen, like the argument we’re in, it seems like the only thing that has ever happened.
This isn’t what I signed up for. I need space. I need room to breathe. I need to come. “Fuck me,” I say, thinking of the knife tucked in the mattress, about how far I might be willing to take this if he refuses. “We can chit-chat later.”
He backs away and then plops down on his back. Using my hands to press against his chest, I climb on top. His eyes close, and when they open, he looks up at me like he’s never seen me before. “I don’t understand you.”
I roll my hips, shifting into a more comfortable position. “There’s not much to understand.”
“You’re not like other women. I’ve always known this,” he says with a sigh. “But it’s suddenly become more apparent—and I don’t know…”
I don’t say anything in response; I simply raise up and lower myself onto him, the two of us falling into an easy cadence. Eventually I let my head fall back, but I am not altogether unaffected by his words. Were they meant to be a compliment? “Most women,” he continues, “they want to talk about things. They want to fix them.”
He’s right. I’ve never understood women who rattle on incessantly, insistent on discussing every single bit of the minutiae life has to offer. They’ve always seemed strange to me—women who lunch with girlfriends, volunteer at school, women who spend their time running back and forth to endless appointments. But now, I’m starting to get it. I’m starting to understand what it feels like to fill a whole day up with nothing. “Is this good?”
When he sighs heavily, I know I have him.
“Goddamn it,” he says, gripping my hips, reminding me not to take score too soon. He holds me into position.
“What?”
“That’s all you have to say—you married me because I asked?”
This is what true cruelty feels like. “What do you want me to say?”
“Oh—I don’t know—how about that you were in love with me? How about that you’re still in love with me—that you can’t imagine your life without me?”
I smile down at him. Something’s up. Michael has always been a bit needy. But not like this.
“You swept me off my feet,” I say, taking his hands from my hips. “Now, if you’ll let me finish what you started.”
“Do you still want to be married?” he whispers softly, after I’ve come. It was an incredible orgasm, earth shattering, the kind that’s meant to solve things, and sometimes does. “To me?” It’s a strange question, but also a perfect one.
Searching his eyes, taking him in, I lay my head on his chest. As I count his heartbeats, it occurs to me what I have to do. I realize that the only way to get what I want, to get on that plane, to do my job, to kill Dunsmore, is to hurt Michael in the process. So I say the only thing I can say, the only thing that makes sense. I tell him, “I’m not sure.”
Chapter Twenty-One
JC
