Thou Shalt Not(79)

“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?”