Eli
It happened on a Friday night in 1999, when Annette was pregnant and miserable, right after they’d moved back to New York. They’d had a horrible fight. Annette had accused him of sabotaging her birth-control pills in an attempt to force her to have a baby that he knew she never wanted, to live a life she would hate. Eli had looked at her as she’d yelled at him, wondering where the shrieking harpy with matted hair and dark circles under her eyes had come from, and what she’d done with his competent, curious, up-for-anything wife.
“I’m leaving,” Annette had screamed. She’d thrown handfuls of clothes into a duffel bag, ignoring Eli’s attempts to comfort her. “I’m going to my sister’s. Don’t call me,” she’d said, and slammed the door behind her.
Eli had gone to a bar, with nothing more in mind than having a few beers, watching a ball game, trying to calm down and come up with a plan, even though he was starting to realize he was in an unwinnable situation. All he could do was hope that Annette would look at her baby and fall instantly in love, and just as instantly into happily contented motherhood… and that was feeling increasingly unlikely. Eli had been on his second lager when he’d seen the woman, standing in a corner, in a black leather jacket and a top so tight he could make out the edge of her lacy bra beneath it. She was gorgeous, lushly curvy, with dark hair falling in waves down her back and dark-red lipstick on her mouth. Eli could see her in profile, lit by the glow of the jukebox, and he’d stared at her, helplessly enthralled. Eventually, the woman turned, as if she’d felt his gaze like a weight on her hair and her body. She’d spun slowly and had given him a saucy smile. Then she came sauntering toward him, hips swinging, until she was close enough that he could smell her perfume, musky and sweet. Annette never wore perfume. Or lipstick. Eli could barely breathe. He loved Annette, he had promised to spend his life with Annette, Annette was having his baby, but, oh, God, this woman. He wanted to devour her, to rip off her clothes and throw her down on the bar.
She looked at him, and he saw, in her eyes, that she knew everything he was feeling. She’d touched his arm, then his knee. “Hi,” she’d said, and had run her tongue slowly across her glossy red lips, flashing her white teeth in a smile.
Five minutes later they’d been wrapped around each other in a dark corner by the restrooms. When the woman had slipped her tongue into his mouth, sucking at his lower lip, then biting it lightly, Eli felt like he’d been swept away by a wave of warm honey, slow-moving and sweet and irresistible. He cupped the woman’s chin and touched her face. Her skin was so soft, and the smell of her perfume was all around him, and he stopped thinking about his wife, or the baby on the way. Maybe she’s a prostitute, his mind said, but his thoughts felt foggy and dim, his sensible instincts very far away.
Somehow he’d paid their tabs and gotten the woman out of the bar, down the block, into the lobby of his apartment building. As soon as they were in the elevator, they’d fallen on each other like desperate, starving animals. Eli backed her into a corner and pressed her mouth against his, kissing and kissing her, like her mouth held the last bit of oxygen on earth. He breathed her in, and her mouth held his last breath. He licked at her, tasting her lipstick, and, oh, God, he could feel her body, her breasts pressing against his chest, the soft pressure of her belly and thighs against him. He thought he would die if he couldn’t get inside her.
He pulled his mouth free long enough to suck in a breath as the woman gasped, “Don’t stop,” and wrapped one hand behind his neck, pulling his mouth back down to hers.
When they finally got to his apartment, he’d yanked off her jacket and ripped—literally ripped—the woman’s shirt off her body, a thing he’d never done before. Buttons clattered on the floor. Her breasts were warm in his hands, her nipples already hard, as firm and sweet as berries. She tugged his pants open and Eli pushed her back against a wall, and she was wrapping her legs around him, gasping, almost sobbing, one word, over and over. Yes, yes, yes, she panted into his open mouth. When he’d tried to pull away, realizing that he didn’t have condoms, she’d pulled him right back to her. “Don’t worry. I’m safe.”
That was when he’d had the briefest instant of clarity, a few seconds when it seemed like he was outside of his own body, looking down at himself, his briefs around his knees and some woman who was not his wife in his arms. “Wait,” he’d tried to say. But the woman had taken his hand and pressed his fingers between her legs, against that slick, welcoming channel, and Eli had been lost. He’d gripped her shoulders and slid inside her in one delirious push, surrounding himself in her warmth, thrusting hard and fast, like the world was ending, like this was the last thing he’d ever get to do.