DITW 10-13: Cinch

She chanced a kiss on Josh’s shoulder, over his T-shirt, and was relieved when he didn’t recoil. His back was to her, the morning light coming through their apartment window and casting her shadow on his back. She retreated before she pressured him too much, but her hand remained, palm rubbing up-and-down lines between his shoulder blades.

“Time to get up,” she whispered. “You awake?”

“I’m awake,” he said.

“You want breakfast?”

She got the sense he nodded. He was still sullen, quiet, morose, and her lips sucked in between her teeth, dimpling as she onboarded this bad news. Would he ever wake up happy again? Hopeful? In love with her, turning around to kiss her, get playful, fool around? Of course, it was Tuesday, a workday. At least Devlin was gone until Friday. She wouldn’t see him for the next three days, which was a great relief. After last night, she’d hoped for a more buoyant morning, one where her Josh would show her his boyish charm, his happy expression.

When he turned, his expression was the opposite. She said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, voice gravel dry.

“You don’t look well,” she said, frowning with concern and putting the back of her hand to his forehead.

“I didn’t sleep,” he said, then covered his face with his hands, breathing into them in heavy scores.

She nodded, pursing her lips again. It was her. She’d done this. Just when he’d reconciled in his mind their past and their future, he’d lain sleepless last night, fretting what they both hoped they could forget.

“I have such a fucking headache.”

“Your voice sounds terrible, too. I think you’re coming down with something, Josh. Your immune system got wiped out traveling.”

He groaned and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. She told him to take it easy, and she’d get him an ibuprofen.

“Make it two,” he groaned as she got out of bed. “And can you bring me an ice pack, too, please?”

Just having him need her, even for a small and mundane task, made her feel so happy and welcome. She returned to the bedroom with both items and a bottle of water and found him in the same position, lying on his back under the covers with greater autumn light filling the room, his hands still on his face. She slipped back into bed. Josh took the pills and drank them down, and she arranged the ice pack on his forehead, protecting his skin with a clean kitchen towel.

“Do you want toast? Can I make you something?”

“This is good,” he sighed, just his mouth visible from under the ice pack. “How did you sleep?”

She said fine, but the truth was better than fine. She’d been so run down with guilt and worry and a hurting heart that when Josh released her from some of it last night, she’d passed out and slept through the whole night.

“Do you want to stay home? I can stay home, too.”

“No, no. I have to go in. I’ll be fine. I had a terrible night, is all. I’m not sick.”

“Have a hot bath. You want me to rub your back?” To tempt him, she squeezed his collar, thumb going in gentle circles. He rolled toward her and her heart soared. She put an arm over him. He said, “Maybe you could...”

He didn’t finish, only mumbled a nonsensical sound.

“What was that?”

Into her chest, he said, “This is going to sound— psh, never mind.”

“No, tell me, please. What do you need?”

His voice was quiet, timid. “What you did... What you did for me the other night...?”

“Really?” First thing in the morning before work?

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to, baby. I’d love to. You want me to do it in the bath for you?”

“No, I’m going to have a shower.”

“It’ll be nice and warm.”

He groaned and whimpered, annoyed with himself and his lecherous request. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I have to get ready for work.”

She kissed his ear, rubbed his back, then let him go, backing out of the bed, saying, “Let me get a towel and some lotion.”

He grunted an affirmative and shifted in the covers, pulling them up to his ear, eyes closed like he’d try to grab another minute of sleep while she went into the bathroom.

It would seem like he didn’t want to have sex with her. That’s what the request amounted to. He could have rolled her on her back and they could have made love before they ate, but her husband wanted an impersonal hand job. But it didn’t have to be impersonal. She would make it amazing for him. Make it an act of love. Though, did Josh not want to have sex with her because he thought she was dirty? Like she was damaged goods? Did he assume she’d had sex with Devlin or just fooled around? She didn’t even know what he really believed because he refused to talk about it. Which, as a fortunate benefit, worked in her favor. But nothing moving forward should be for her benefit. She should be punished. And she didn’t mind being punished as long as Josh stayed by her side. There was one thing she was sure of: she would do anything to atone for her sins.

She returned to bed with coconut lotion this time—the petroleum jelly had proved too messy—and a used bath towel, and slipped back into bed. As she prepared the stage for a hand job, she said, “I’d do anything else, too, Josh. It doesn’t have to be this.”

He opened one quivering eye, looking injured by the morning light. “I have a headache, I just... I just want some relief. I’m so fucking stressed.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, obedient and dutiful, getting right back to it. “I just want you to know that. Ask me for anything you want. You don’t have to be... You can just put it out there.”

Josh moved an arm under the covers, shoving his shorts down, making chuffing sounds of disgust. “I’m such an embarrassment,” he grumbled.

Her voice was airy and hopeful. “Don’t say that. Let me do this for you.”

His cock wasn’t even hard. She’d expected him to have woken with morning wood and that’s why he’d requested this release. But, no, he was shriveled. She managed to coat his penis with the lotion, then began to work her fingertips in a stroking motion on the head of his penis. It took a moment, but it began to grow. When she could grip his shaft, she did, stroking him nice and slow, and wishing now she’d opted for the petroleum jelly for a slower, slithering experience.

When he was erect, his whole demeanor changed: he sagged and relaxed, his breaths coming heavy—like he was relieved just to have achieved hardness. There was an added complication now, though. Her thighs flexed in time with her stroke. She imagined his hardness put to better use. Like rolling to her back as she’d imagined earlier and having Josh make love to her. Though her sexuality had been lashed to the weighty anchor of Devlin’s manipulations, plummeted to the frigid depths of betrayal’s ocean, it was still alive and wanting and needing. She hadn’t had sex in over two weeks. Hadn’t had it but wanted it. Stark emotions during that time made it easy to assuage, but having your husband’s erection in your hand made it impossible to quell passion. And this was the second time. Her own interior began to sweat and her breaths came heavier, matching Josh’s pace. The tightening and flexing of her thighs and pelvic floor increased. Soon she ached to have him. Her core demanded him. His head was tucked to her collar while she stroked his cock, coconut wafting from under the bedding, and it hurt to know she couldn’t ask him for sex. She wouldn’t put the pressure on him. It wasn’t just a noble gesture; she feared rejection. So she kissed his ear, and scratched nails on his scalp, pretending she was kissing him by mouthing her lips on his auricle. It only made her want him more.

The truth was that the best thing for him, the healthiest thing for his recovery, was to make love to her. She was sure he hid his face in her clavicle because he could close his eyes and think of all those strange darknesses that turned his crank—thoughts she’d helped nurture. She parted her thighs, lifted a leg over his, opening herself to his touch if he was bold enough. But he didn’t take it, just lay curled against her, his hips tucked rearward enough his penis was barely presented to her. She had to dig into the cave of his body to stroke it.

She humped her hips toward his, a rhythm of lovemaking, coaxing him into the mood, letting him know she was horny and aroused and wanting him. When he made no move, she whispered, “I want you so bad right now,” but he only grunted in response. She kissed his ear. “Please, give it to me, just a little, Josh. I need you.”

He rolled his head on her collar, and only frustrated grunts and groans followed.

“It’s okay,” she said, regret hurting her heart as she felt his hardness subside in her grip. “I just want you to come. No stress, no pressure, baby, I swear, just come.” She stroked and tightened her grip, aching for his hardness to return, cursing her own selfishness for chasing it away. But she’d only wanted sex to nourish her husband, to feed him healthy whole love.

Voice tight and bothered, he said into her neck, “My head is pounding, Kimmy.”

“Never mind, just come for me, Josh. I want to make you come. You can touch me if it helps. I’d like it. Touch me, baby.” She humped her hips toward him, her leg locked over his.

There were terrible words on her lips, words she would never say again, but words she knew would work for him right now. They were the words Josh craved. She could tease him about Devlin, say something nasty about how she saw the shape of his penis through his pant leg, or even worse. God, she could say so much worse. Some of the nastiest things imaginable. True things. Things that would release Josh in this moment but would lock him up even tighter in whatever masochistic chains he’d shrouded himself in. If she found the courage to say those words, he would even thank her, she was sure of it. She could tell him how Devlin doesn’t want hand jobs, he only wants to fuck. That men with big cocks want to use them like a man uses a cock. Boys wanted hand jobs, little boys with small penises who were ashamed of their endowment. Small men with small penises lay under the covers and got their little dickies jerked. Men like Devlin fucked and fucked hard and deep, and they touched parts inside a woman the woman never knew would ignite such—

Josh touched her thigh, and she cooed with pleasure, responded to his touch with honest but amplified enthusiasm. His palm caressed her haunch and hip, and she tilted her pelvis so he could get the easiest access to her pussy.

But he didn’t touch her there. When his hand swept between her parted thighs, he caressed the back of his hand against her inner thigh flesh. It brought his breaths quicker and heavier. His wiggly member began to stiffen and she couldn’t help a happy smile from appearing, her husband’s passion for her renewed. He got hard and her grip went slipperier with slick excitement. She wanted to say encouraging things, how she loved his touch, how she wanted him to be with her, to put his hardness in her, but she wouldn’t heap more pressure on him right now, wouldn’t want to bully his hardness into retreat. So she told him only with her breathing, with her labored and excited breaths, choked with passion; a woman who loved her husband’s touch, a woman who loved commanding her husband’s hardness.

He caressed her thigh, then ran his fingertips close to her pant edge, exploring the smooth flesh there. She slowed her stroke a second, distracted, convinced he would slip a hand beneath her panties and touch her pussy, touch her where she was hot and wet right now. But he didn’t. His touch concentrated on exploring a small section of real estate right next to her source of sexual frustration. God, she wanted him inside her so bad. Wanted to be impaled, wanted to be filled and to have her canal spread and reamed and battened by lust.

He groaned into her neck again, his breath dampened by his proximity to release, and she swore he’d murmured words. She quickened her stroke, just wanting him to be relieved of whatever sexual burden lay heavy on his shoulders this morning. He said it again.

“Hurt me.”

“What?”

“P-punish me,” he said, his body trembling.

“What— what do you want?” She frowned, eyes toward the ceiling, sure she’d misheard him.

“Please, Kimmy, hurt me, hit me, make me hurt.”

“No, Josh, no way.” She hugged her arm over him, held him close, wishing he would ejaculate.

“Hit my balls. Squeeze them.”

“No, baby, no,” she said, and now it was her whimpering and frustrated, hugging Josh harder, knowing it was she who should be punished.