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The gate and garage door take an eternity to open in cooler weather. I’m sure the speed is the same in spring and summer too, only my impatience to get home has me all kinds of frustrated. I burst through the mudroom and into the kitchen. It’s empty, with the waft of freshly prepared food and a warm glow bouncing off the wall linking the dining and living spaces. The house is quiet, save for the hissing pops of shifting logs, until I enter the living room and find Aspen sitting on the end of the couch, waiting.
“Hello, Professor,” she purrs, and the blood ices in my veins. Wait, is she mad at me? I should give her what for; she’s the irresponsible, immature, stubborn fool who took off into the woods, yet somehow anger wafts from her like sewer fetor.
“Aspen,” I nod, stepping around the furniture and searching for the others. She follows my gaze.
“They’re upstairs; I requested privacy for this.”
The last time she and I were alone to talk, she ran off. Not long after, one of her boyfriends rearranged my face. “Privacy might ensure I’m not punched or headbutted again.”
“Don’t be too confident. I’m pretty angry.”
“I noticed,” I add, continuing in front of the fire tools. “I can’t imagine why. That rescue helicopter cost thousands of dollars.”
“Ah, that,” she adds, uncrossing her legs. “I need to thank you for that. I want to say I’ll pay you back, but as I’m certain you can appreciate, I don’t have thousands of dollars to my name.”
That’s not entirely true but now might not be the wisest time to bring that up, either.
“Care to sit, Professor?”
“I’d rather stand.”
“Ironic, isn’t it,” she giggles. “That’s the line I said to you when you first summoned me into your office, before you spanked me and gagged me with a pinecone.”
“I remember also making you come, Aspen. What I don’t recall is any complaints from you.”
“Hard to complain with a mouth full of cone,” she fires back, and my cock thickens. The ache in my palms to punish this impudent brashness right out of her is alarming.
“Tell me about your wife. The one you got the tattoo on your chest for?”
Fuck, way to ease into this conversation. Every man anticipates discussing the topic of a bitter ex-wife with a new lover. I gulp down a harried swallow. “What can I assist you with?”
“Her name. When and where you met her. How long you were married for? You know, the usual chitchat.”
“Her name is Marcia. We met in Europe, married in the south of France, and it lasted less than six years. No children, the property split was handled by our lawyers.”
Aspen shifts, eyeing me up and down. “Where is she now?”
“How the fuck should I know? Did you miss the part about the ex in front of the word, wife?”
“No, no,” she laughs, “I got that. I’m surprised you found anyone willing to marry you in the first place. If you aren’t sure where she is now, you don’t keep in touch then?”
“She ran screaming from me! Is that what you want to hear? We should never have married. It was a mistake, we both realized after we made it. Thankfully, we could unmake it, although we should have done it sooner. She put it off for too long, hoping I might fall in love with her.”
“You married someone you didn’t love, Professor? That’s ballsy, even for you. Tell me, did she love you?”
“You’d have to ask her that,” I snap back, growing bored with her accusatory line of questions.
“I’d love to, but no one knows where she is. Shame.”
“She told me she was going to put herself far, far away from me. That’s all I remember; it wasn’t open for detailed discussion, Aspen.”
“So the flower on your chest, that wasn’t for her then, was it?”
Fuck! No one in their right mind would keep a tattoo on their body for an ex-spouse, especially one from a relationship so toxically bitter.
“Not entirely for her. I had it before we met...”
“Ah,” she exclaims, eyes bright. “This is where you are honest with me. Fabulous. Should I grab paper and a pen, start taking notes?”
