Tom started kissing her cheek and neck. He stepped back, toward the stairs, and Cherry stumbled forward—there wasn’t enough weightin her feet to walk. Tom loosened his grip and her heels hit the floor. He’d stopped at the bottom of the staircase. His expression was helpless.
Cherry stepped away from him, grabbed one of his hands, and pulled him up the stairs. She led him to their bedroom like he didn’t know the way. She was glad she couldn’t see his face when she pulled him over the threshold.
The bed wasn’t made. Cherry had left her nightshirt lying out. There was a pile of laundry by the door.
Tom started walking more quickly, pushing Cherry, grabbing at her waist. She turned to face him, and he pushed her onto the bed, crawling on top of her, kissing her again. Cherry put her arms around him. She wrapped her legs around him. She was still wearing shoes. His kisses were softer now—he wasn’t missing her mouth—but he still seemed desperate. Cherry’s hands scrabbled at the back of his sweater. She was holding the jewelry box—she dropped it on the bed. She tried to kick at her heels to take off her shoes, but Tom’s whole body was in the way. Tom’s heavy body. He was so much thicker than Russ. He was exactly the right size. His skin was exactly the right temperature. She pulled the back of his sweater up, and the back of his shirt. She touched the broad spread of his ribs.
Open. Cherry was wide open to him. He could take what he wanted, even if he never brought it back.
He was holding himself up with his knees and one hand. He was on her. He was kissing her. Cherry was dragging his sweater up over his head.
Tom moved away and pulled his head through the opening of the sweater. He sat up and took his T-shirt off, too. He really had lost weight. He looked different—slightly deflated. Cherry felt herself adjusting to it in real time. Like her eyes were refocusing. Tom was pale. The hair on his chest was darker than the hair on his head. His arms were still thick. His shoulders were still broad. This was still Tom, she still wanted him. He was reaching back to her right foot—he tried toslide the shoe off her heel, but it wouldn’t come. He picked the laces open with one hand and pulled it off. The left shoe came off easier.
He crawled onto the bed again, next to Cherry, facing her, pulling her into him. She’d missed her chance to get undressed. They were kissing frantically again, their knees bending between each other’s thighs. Tom’s hands were on her back. She loved them there. She touched his bare shoulders. She cradled his jaw. She moved her hand up into his hair and groaned. All of those curls. Thosefuckingcurls. He’d run away from her and grown out his hair. She fisted both hands in it. She kissed him like a wolf, devouring, a curl wound round every one of her fingers.
Tom shoved her onto her back. He wrenched his mouth away from hers and rubbed his face in her neck. “Cherry,” he said. She held on to his head. “Cherry,” he said again.
He kissed her neck. He kissed her throat. He hunched down to kiss her stomach. To push up her sweater and kiss her ribs. She squeezed her eyes closed. She scratched his scalp. He kept pushing up her sweater. Pulling at it. Pulling up her body so he could lift it over her head. She had to let go of his hair. And then he was yanking her jeans down over her hips, taking her lace underwear with them. Without ceremony. (They’d already had the ceremony. They’d exchanged rings.) He kissed her hip. His cheek in her belly.“Cherry.”
She was still wearing a red plaid bra.
She was still wearing pink fishnet knee-highs. One of them was sliding down her calf.
“Tom,” she said.
Tom reared up to take off his own pants. To take off his socks. She watched him. He’d lost some weight, but he moved the same. He loomed the same. He looked at her with that same dumbstruck hunger.
Maybe Tom looked that way no matter who he was mounting. Like he wanted it so bad, he couldn’t think. Like he wanted it so bad, he’d let go of all his insecurities and inhibitions.
She reached up to him, grasping at air, spreading her legs. Skipping ahead to the part she wanted.
Tom groaned and crawled over her again. Cherry closed her arms around him, kissing what she could reach—first his shoulder, then his neck. Feeling their skin come together, warm everywhere and mostly naked. Feasting her hands on him. (She’d looked at him once and decided to keep him. She’d been his first, and he’d been her only. If something happened to Cherry today, tomorrow, all her worldly possessions would automatically be his.)
Tom held her by the chin—by the throat, the way he liked to—a thumb in her cheek and finger at her jaw. He kissed her less frantically but with no less intent. His body was everywhere, as far as Cherry could stretch. As far as she could reach. She moaned and whimpered beneath him, in a state of constant assent.
Tom pulled away—just enough to reach for the drawer where they’d kept condoms.
Cherry caught his arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not...”
He looked back at her, confused—then hungry again. His mouth was hanging open. His bottom lip was wet. He kissed her. “You’re not...?”
“Ovulating,” she whispered. She pulled on his arm. “It’s okay.”
Tom was slow to give in. His hand was still reaching for the drawer. He was studying her face. Cherry arched her neck, baring it. Tom went for her throat. She hugged him. She did the math in her head. She wasvery probablynot ovulating. (She needed to feel his skin. She needed to feel his come. She needed every part of this. Was parched for it.) (Cherry wasn’t always strong.) (Or good.) She closed her eyes while he kissed her.
Tom pushed into her without any more discussion. They didn’t talk during sex. They didn’t talkenough, generally speaking—Cherry knew that. She knew it was a problem. Maybe even a red flag. (Probably their downfall.) But she didn’t think she couldchangeit. She certainly couldn’t change it now, in this moment, at this late hour in their marriage, this early hour in their divorce.
Whenever Cherry and Tom made love, she didn’t want to say anything that would slow them down or change the mood. She didn’t want him to feel bad about not talking. Or ashamed. Cherry never wanted Tom to haveeven a momentof shame when he was naked in bed with her. She wanted him to feel like he was gorgeous and good.
He was gorgeous and good.
He watched her, always. He was watching her now, as he pulled his hips back and pushed into her again, his eyelids heavy.
Cherry’s legs were spread, her knees were up. She felt a little faint from how right this was. How correct. Tom in her body, in her bed, in her house, in her city. Tom at the center of her world.
He lifted up to push deeper, to hold on to her hips. He watched her face. He watched his cock move in and out of her. (Cherry couldn’t see it, but she knew it was thick.) “Cherry,” he said. “Baby, baby. My baby.”
Cherry nodded. She reached for him, but her fingertips could only brush his chest. He leaned forward to kiss her fingers. To let her cup his cheek. He held her hand to his face and kissed her palm again and again. “Tom,” she said.
