“Are you being sarcastic?”Usually he could tell, but her voice was faintly muffled by the pillow.
“No.I’m serious.Itisnice of you to say it.You don’t usually say things like that.”
He took a long drag of his cigarette and let the smoke linger in his lungs before sending it out in a leisurely stream.“Does it bother you?”
“When you say it?Of course not.”
“When I don’t say it.Does it bother you that I’m not a big one for sweet words?”
“No.It bothers me when you don’t call me for weeks and weeks, then expect me to think that you haven’t been with other women in between.I’m not stupid.I know the score, and it’s fine, John.Really it is.You have a right to do what you want.I have my own life, too.I’m not climbing the walls waiting around for you.”
He didn’t like the sound of that.“You see other men?”
“All the time.”
“I mean socially.Sexually.Are you sleeping with other men?”
She lifted one bare shoulder in a negligent shrug.“I have.”
He breathed in another lungful of smoke, exhaled it.“Are you now?”
“I’m with you now.”
“How many?When you’re not with me, how many are you with?”
“At a time?Only one.”
“You know what I mean, Hillary.How many other men are there?”
Again she shrugged.“Two, maybe three in the last year.”
He was annoyed to feel so bothered.“Are they as good as I am?”
She turned her head away again, but not fast enough to keep him from seeing the small, smug twitch of her lips.Snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the night stand, he kicked aside the tangled sheet and came over ontop of her.Grabbing her wrists from under her breasts, he pinned them high to the sides.
“Are they?”
“You’re crushing me, John.”
“I’m not crushing you.You’re used to my weight.Are you used to the other guys’ weights, too?Do they do it to you like I do?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said primly.
“No?”Releasing one of her hands, he slid his own beneath her.It cupped her breast, rolled over her nipple, slid down her belly and between her legs.“Do they light a fire down here?”he murmured in her ear.His voice was deeper.He felt himself growing hard against her bottom.
“A fire?They’d have to do that, now wouldn’t they, if they wanted me wet.”
His stroking fingers told him that she was plenty wet for him then, but she always was.“Do you come?”
She was a minute in answering.Her voice was a little higher.“I try.”
He increased his penetration.“Once?Twice?More?”He bit on her earlobe, then sucked it hard into his mouth.
“John,” she whispered, “what are you doing?”
“I want to know what it’s like with them.Do you cry out the way you do with me?Do you ask them to do it harder?”Spreading his hand over her belly, he drew her to her knees.
“John, no,” she began, but his fingers continued to stroke her and her next breath was a helpless moan.
