“Kissed who?” Theodore asked.
“Who do you think?” he said. “My wife.”
Both friends looked at one another again, neither appearing particularly shocked by this admission. The shock they wore was that Christopher thought it was something worth worrying about in the first place.
“And might I ask, why that is an issue?” Theodore asked slowly. “I mean, if it was another woman you had kissed –”
“Of course it was not,” Christopher snapped.
“Then what is the matter?” He laughed and looked at Alistair. “Am I losing my mind here, or is this the exact opposite of a problem?”
“I agree,” Alistair said. “I don’t understand what the concern is?”
“The concern,” Christopher spoke carefully. “Is my marriage to Rose not supposed to be one where we kiss each other. It is not supposed to be one where we want to. It is a marriage of convenience only, which you are both aware of.”
“So, it has grown into something more,” Theodore shrugged. “This is good news.”
“It is not.”
“Christopher…” Alistair approached him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It is not such a bad thing to care for one’s own wife. That is sort of the point of marriage, is it not?”
“Be grateful she is so attractive,” Theodore concurred. “I know many a man who kisses his wife, even if she has a face like an old boot.”
“Theodore,” Alistair sighed. “Is that necessary?”
“What? It’s true.”
“It is still not polite.”
“Polite, he says,” Theodore snorts. “I’d rather be impolite than one who mistakes trees for flocks of birds.”
“I did not mistake anything!”
“So, you are just that lousy of a shot then? Good to know.”
The two men began to argue, which gave Christopher a chance to descend back into madness as his world and everything he knew crumbled around him.
On the surface, they were correct, and this was not nearly the problem that Christopher believed it to be. So what if he kissed his wife? So what if she kissed him back? And so what if he enjoyed it?
I did enjoy it too. Dammit, how wonderful those few seconds were. Giving in to temptation, accepting who I am and what I want, tasting my wife and feeling her melt in my arms in ways that have haunted me since we first met…
As good as it was, it was just as dangerous.
Christopher did not mean to become irate at her when she returned home. While he was indeed worried about her safety – a problem in itself – he had planned on simply asking that the next time she was running late, she send ahead.
A calm conversation was what he expected, and then she walked inside.
He had lost control. For reasons that he could not fully explain, his temper had flared, and his anger had risen, and before he knew what was happening, he was shouting his worry at her. It was brought on from a place of concern, but it created heat between them; it shattered the walls that he had spent so long building around himself, and the next thing he knew, they were kissing.
Christopher knew what would happen next if he allowed it. If he continued down this path, he would slowly forget who he had spent his entire life trying to become. Rose would see his true side. She would ask questions that he did not have answers to. And Christopher…the truth will come out. After which, I cannot say what might happen.
“Christopher?” Theodore was saying as he clicked his fingers at him. “Are you there?”
Christopher shook his head and snapped himself out of his funk. “Yes? What?”
“We were just saying that it might be a good idea to embrace this side of yourself. You know, one that possesses a heart and even a soul.”
Christopher narrowed his eyes. “Funny.”
