The Tuesday Between Thursdays

The Tuesday between Thursdays is the worst day. It's the day where you've got past the high of the last time and you're staring down the barrel of the next one and your body hasn't caught up with your brain and your brain hasn't caught up with your conscience and your conscience has apparently left the building entirely because you're standing in B&Q buying sealant for the bathroom and you've got a hard-on because you walked past the biscuit aisle and thought about M&S and thought about her mouth and there you are, in the plumbing section, adjusting yourself behind a trolley full of copper pipe.

Wednesday was worse. Wednesday I washed the pillowcase. The chocolate stain came out. I stood there looking at it — clean, white, ordinary — and I felt something I didn't have a word for. Loss, maybe. Or maybe just the realisation that I was tidying up evidence like a man in a crime drama, except the crime was eating biscuits in bed with my best friend's wife and the evidence was Cadbury's and the detective was going to be a man called Tom who calls me "mate" and pays me to work for him and has no idea that his wife knelt on my carpet and swallowed and said "your turn" like she was offering me a cup of tea.

Thursday arrived the way Thursdays do — slowly, then all at once, like something falling down stairs.

I'd bought the biscuits. M&S. The posh ones with the chocolate on the bottom and the crumbly bit on top. I'd put them on the coffee table next to the remote and the TV was already on — not Gardener's World yet, some property show where a couple was arguing about an extension — and I'd showered and changed and told myself I was changing because the DIY clothes had plaster dust on them and not because I wanted to look like a man who was worth cheating on your husband with.

Seven o'clock. No knock. Seven fifteen. No knock. Seven thirty and my phone buzzed and it wasn't Becky, it was Tom.

*Running late. B's coming round after she's picked up Jess from mine. Probably about 8. Make sure she eats something, she forgot lunch.*

I stared at that text for a long time. *Make sure she eats something.* Tom, trusting me with his wife's caloric intake. Tom, who I've known since we were nineteen and who gave me a job when nobody else would and who once drove forty miles to jump-start my car in the rain. Tom, asking me to feed his wife. Like I was a responsible adult. Like I was Uncle Luke.

I ate three biscuits out of nerves and then felt guilty about it because she'd told me to bring the posh ones and now the packet looked picked at.

At ten past eight the Subaru pulled in. I heard it through the window — the rattle, the engine, the silence after. Two knocks.

I opened the door and she was standing there in a sundress. Yellow. Thin straps. The kind of dress that looks like you threw it on because it was hot but actually you chose it because it comes off in about three seconds and you know that and you want the person opening the door to know that too.

"You're late," I said.

"Jess had a meltdown about a maths worksheet."

"Everything resolved?"

"She's twelve. Nothing's ever resolved. Can I come in or are you going to stand there looking like a disapproving lighthouse?"

I stepped aside. She walked past me and I caught the smell of her — not perfume, just her, soap and sun and something underneath that I'd had my face in six days ago — and my cock moved and I thought, *calm down, we haven't even closed the door yet.*

She went straight to the sofa. Sat down. Looked at the biscuit packet. Looked at me.

"You've been into these already."

"I had one."

"There are three missing."

"Maybe two."

She took a biscuit and bit into it and looked at the telly where the property couple were now screaming at each other about bi-fold doors. "This isn't Gardener's World."

"It's not nine o'clock yet."

"Turn it over. I need Monty."

I turned it over. Gardener's World was doing a thing about greenhouses. Becky ate her biscuit and I sat on the other end of the sofa and there was a gap between us the size of a reasonable decision and I was determined to sit in it.

"How was your week?" she said.

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

"I went to B&Q."

"Exciting."

"I bought sealant."

"Living the dream."

"I also washed the pillowcase."

She looked at me. That look. The one where the smile was forming but hadn't arrived yet, the one where you could see it building behind her eyes like weather coming in. "You washed it."

"The stain was —"

"You washed the pillowcase with my chocolate stain on it. The one from Tuesday. The one where I —"

"Yes."

"That's either very responsible or very sad."

"Both, probably."

She put the biscuit down. She turned to face me on the sofa, her legs folded under her, the sundress riding up her thighs, and the gap was getting smaller and I wasn't moving but she was and then her knee was touching mine and the heat was there again, through the cotton, through everything.

"I've been thinking about something," she said.

"What?"

"Your cock."

I blinked. "What about it?"

"I've been thinking about it for about an hour. Since I left Tom's, actually. Since Jess got in the car and started talking about algebra and I was sitting there nodding and going "uh-huh, that's great, sweetheart" and the whole time I was thinking about your cock in my mouth and the way you put your hand on my head and the way you came and the way I could feel you shaking and I had to sit through a twelve-year-old explaining fractions with that in my head."

"Becky —"

"An hour, Luke. I've been thinking about it for an hour. Do you know what that's like? Trying to help with homework when you can still taste someone?"

"I —"

"No, you don't know. Because you don't have to sit in a Subaru in a school car park thinking about swallowing while a child tells you about denominators."

She was closer now. Her hand was on my knee. Her face was close enough that I could see the freckles on her nose, the ones that came out in summer, the ones I'd been looking at for fifteen years from a safe distance and was now looking at from about six inches.

"I need you to do something about it," she said.

"Becky."

"Right now. I've been thinking about it for an hour and I can't —"

I kissed her. Not because she asked me to. Because if she said one more sentence with the word "cock" in it while sitting on my sofa in a yellow sundress I was going to lose the ability to form speech and kissing was faster than talking. Her mouth opened against mine and her tongue found mine and she made a sound — not the quiet controlled sound from last Thursday, something rawer, something that had been building since she left Tom's house — and her hand went from my knee to my thigh to my belt and I caught her wrist.

"Not the sofa," I said.

"Where then?"

"Kitchen."

She pulled back. Looked at me. The smile arrived. "The kitchen."

"The worktop."

"You want to bend me over your kitchen worktop."

"I've been thinking about it for about an hour, actually."

She laughed. That laugh. The bird in my chest. "Since when?"

"Since B&Q. Since the biscuit aisle. Since I stood in the plumbing section thinking about you and had to adjust myself behind a trolley."

"You're lying."

"I'm really not."

She stood up. Pulled me up by the hand — I'm six foot seven, she's not, and she pulled me like it was nothing, like the height difference was a technicality she'd already dealt with — and walked me to the kitchen. My kitchen, the one with the dripping tap and the worktop I'd installed myself, slightly crooked, the sealant gap on the left side that I was supposed to fix with the sealant I'd bought on Wednesday and hadn't because I'd been washing pillowcases.

She put her hands on the worktop and looked back at me over her shoulder. The sundress was barely there. The straps were falling off her shoulders. She looked like a woman who had thought about someone's cock for an hour and had arrived at the part where she wanted to do something about it.

"Well?" she said.

I stepped behind her. Put my hands on her hips. The cotton of the dress was thin and I could feel everything — the bones of her hips, the warmth, the shape of her — and I pushed her forward gently and she bent over the worktop and her palms went flat on the surface and her arse pressed back against me and I was hard, fully, painfully, had been since she said "denominators" if I was honest.

I pulled the dress up. Over her hips, up to her waist. White knickers again — simple, plain, the kind you buy in a pack of three — and I hooked my fingers in them and pulled them down and she stepped out of them and kicked them to the side and she was bent over my kitchen worktop bare from the waist down and the tap was dripping and Monty Don was in the living room talking about tomatoes.

I unzipped. Pushed my jeans down enough to free myself and I put my cock against her — not in her, just against her, sliding along the wetness — and she said "fuck" and pushed back and I held her hip with one hand and guided myself in.

Slowly. The way I'd said I would, all those Thursdays ago. Slowly, and she was wet — really wet, the kind of wet that comes from an hour of thinking and a car journey and algebra — and I watched myself disappear into her and she dropped her head between her arms and made a sound that was not controlled, not quiet, not anything she was keeping in.

"Jesus, Luke."

I started to move. My hands on her hips, pulling her back onto me, and the worktop was the wrong height — too low for me, everything was too low for me, I was six foot seven and the world was built for shorter men — but it worked because she was on her toes and I was bending my knees and the angle was deep and she was making sounds with every thrust, short punched sounds, and I could see her hands gripping the edge of the worktop and her knuckles were white.

"Harder," she said.

I fucked her harder. The worktop shook. The biscuit packet I'd left on the counter slid to the floor. The tap dripped. She was tight and wet and every time I pushed into her she made a sound and I was watching it — watching myself go into her, watching her take it, watching the way her body opened for me — and it was the most obscene and beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I'd seen her naked on my sofa six days ago.

"I'm close," she said.

"Not yet."

"Don't you dare do that to me again."

"Becky."

"I swear to God, Luke, if you stop —"

I didn't stop. I fucked her through it. She came with her face on the worktop and her hands flat and her body clenching around me and I kept going and she made the sound again — the one that was almost a sob, the one from the sofa — and I kept going and she came again, or the same one continued, I couldn't tell, and I pulled out because I wasn't done and I wasn't going to be done for a while.

She stayed bent over. Breathing. The tap dripped.

"Fuck," she said.

"Yeah."

"Where did you learn to —"

"B&Q."

She laughed into the worktop. Muffled, breathless, the kind of laugh that comes when your body is still shaking and someone says something stupid at the right moment.

I pulled her up. Turned her around. Lifted her — she weighed nothing, or everything weighed nothing because my arms were running on something other than muscle — and sat her on the worktop. The surface was cold, I could tell from the way she flinched, and then she didn't flinch because I was between her legs and my hands were on her thighs and I was looking at her.

"I want to watch you," I said.

"Watch me what?"

"Make yourself come."

She stared at me. Her cheeks were flushed. Her hair was messier than it had been when she arrived. The sundress was bunched around her waist and she was sitting on my kitchen worktop with her legs open and I was between them and I'd just fucked her and I was asking her to touch herself and she was looking at me like she was trying to decide if I was serious.

"You want me to —"

"While I watch. While I wank."

"Luke."

"You said you've been thinking about my cock for an hour. I've been thinking about watching you come for about fifteen years. Fair's fair."

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "You're serious."

"Dead serious. On this worktop. Right now. And I'm going to stand here and watch and I'm going to come on you when you're done."

She swallowed. I could see her throat move. Then she lay back on the worktop — the crooked one, the one with the bad sealant — and she brought her hand down between her legs and she started.

I stepped back. Took myself in my hand. Watched.

She was deliberate about it. Not shy, not performative — deliberate, like she knew what she wanted and how to get it and had decided that since I'd asked, I was going to get the full show. Her fingers moved in circles, the same rhythm I'd used with my mouth, and her other hand came up to her breast through the dress and she pulled the strap down and freed one breast and squeezed her nipple and I could see everything — her fingers, her pussy, the wetness, the way her hips moved — and I stroked myself slowly because if I went fast I'd be finished in thirty seconds.

"Tell me what you see," she said.

"I see you. On my worktop. With your fingers inside yourself. With your tit out. With your head back. With your mouth open."

"More."

"I see you getting close. I can tell because your hips are moving faster and your fingers are going deeper and you're biting your lip."

"Keep going."

"I'm going to come on you. On your tits. When you're done. I'm going to aim for them and you're going to wear it."

"Fuck."

She was close. I could see it — the tension in her thighs, the way her stomach was tightening, the way her fingers were moving faster and her head was pressing back against the worktop and she was lifting her hips off the surface — and I moved closer and stroked faster and she came with her fingers inside herself and her back arched off the worktop and I put my other hand on her thigh to feel it, to feel the shaking, and I came too.

On her. On her chest. On the breast she'd freed and the dress and the other breast I pulled the strap down to expose at the last second because I wanted it everywhere. It hit her skin and she opened her eyes and looked down at herself and looked at me and she was still shaking and I was still coming and it was on her, warm, white, on her tits and her collarbone and the yellow fabric.

I stood there. Breathing. Holding myself. She was lying on the worktop with my come on her chest and her hand still between her legs and she looked like something from a painting I'd never be allowed to hang on a wall.

Then she did something I wasn't expecting.

She brought her hand up — the one that had been between her legs, the wet one — and she put it on her chest and she rubbed. Mixed herself with me. Circled her nipples with it. Spread it across her skin like lotion, slow, deliberate, looking at me the whole time.

"That's —" I started.

"Incredible? Disgusting? Both?"

"Both."

"Good. That's how it should be."

She sat up. The worktop creaked. She looked down at herself — the mess, the dress, the come drying on her skin — and she looked at me and I was still hard. Still. I hadn't gone soft. I'd come and I was still hard and she noticed and her eyes went wide and the smile came back.

"Again?"

"Apparently."

"You're forty-three."

"I'm aware."

"That's not supposed to —"

"I'm aware, Becky."

She looked at my cock in my hand. Then at my face. Then at my cock again. Then she did something with her eyebrows that I didn't have a name for and she said, "There's something I've never done."

"Name it."

"I've never —" She stopped. The cheekiness flickered. Something else came through. Something vulnerable, something I'd seen hints of before but never this close, never this bare. "I've never let anyone fuck me up the arse."

I blinked.

"Ever," she said. "Tom's asked. Other boyfriends before Tom asked. I've always said no. It seemed like something that would hurt and be weird and I'd just lie there feeling like a medical procedure."

"But?"

"But I'm sitting on your kitchen worktop with your come on my tits and my fingers in myself and I've just had two orgasms and you're still hard and I —" She swallowed again. "I want you to. I want to know what it's like. With you. I trust you. I don't know why I trust you more than I trust my own husband but I do and I want —"

"Becky."

"Say you'll be careful."

"I'll be careful."

"Say you'll stop if I —"

"I'll stop if you say stop."

"And say it won't be weird after."

"It's already weird. We're in my kitchen. Monty Don is in the next room. Your husband texted me to make sure you ate something."

She laughed. Then she stopped laughing because I stepped closer and put my hands on her knees and pushed them wider and I could see everything — how wet she was, how swollen, how open — and I reached past her to the drawer next to the hob where I kept cooking oil because there was nothing else and this was not a flat that had been prepared for this moment.

"Olive oil?" she said, looking at the bottle.

"Extra virgin."

"Of course it is."

"I'm going to go slow."

"I know."

I poured some on my fingers. Warm — the kitchen was hot, the hob had been on earlier when I'd tried to make tea and forgotten about it. I put my finger against her — against the other place, the one she'd never let anyone near — and she tensed.

"Relax."

"I'm trying. You try relaxing when a man the size of a wardrobe is —"

I pushed my finger in. Slowly. She went quiet. Her breath caught and I stopped.

"Okay?" I said.

"It's — different."

"Good different or —"

"Just different. Keep going."

I moved my finger. Gently. In circles, the way I'd used my tongue on her. She was tight, impossibly tight, and she was gripping my finger and I could feel her body deciding whether to let me in or push me out and I kept going slowly and after a minute she exhaled and something released and I slid in further and she said "oh" in a voice I hadn't heard before.

Not the controlled voice. Not the raw voice from the worktop. Something new. Something small and surprised and honest.

"More," she said.

I added a second finger. She gasped. I stopped. She shook her head. "Don't stop. It's — I didn't know —"

"Didn't know what?"

"That it would feel like this."

I worked her slowly. Two fingers, then the movement, the stretch, the oil making everything slick and easy and she was making sounds I'd never heard from her — not the "fuck" from the sofa, not the laugh, not the controlled moans — these were quiet, almost private, like she was experiencing something she hadn't known was in her body and didn't know how to talk about it.

"I'm ready," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Luke. I've been thinking about your cock for an hour and it's been inside me once and I've just come twice and I have your come on my tits and I am lying on your worktop in olive oil and I have never been more sure of anything. Put it in. Slowly. But put it in."

I did. Slowly. The head first — just the head — and she grabbed the edge of the worktop and her eyes went wide and she said "fuck" but differently, not the playful fuck, not the aroused fuck, a fuck that was real and immediate and physical.

I stopped.

"Don't stop," she whispered. "Just — wait. Let me —"

Her body adjusted. I could feel it happening — the resistance softening, the tightness becoming something else, something that was holding me rather than fighting me — and I pushed in another inch and she made a sound that was almost a cry and I stopped again and she said "more" and I pushed in another inch and I was inside her, really inside her, in a place no one had ever been, and she was looking at me with tears in her eyes — not pain, something else, something I recognised because I'd felt it in my chest for fifteen years — and she said:

"Oh God. Oh God, Luke."

"Are you —"

"It feels incredible. It feels — I can feel you everywhere. I can feel you in my — why didn't anyone tell me it felt like this?"

I started to move. Slowly. Barely moving, just small shifts, and she responded to each one — her body rocking, her breath changing, her hands finding my arms and gripping them — and I could feel her opening up, literally and in every other way, and something was happening to her face that I'd never seen. The walls were down. The cheekiness was gone. The smile was gone. What was left was Becky, just Becky, the one underneath everything, and she was looking at me like I was the only thing in the world.

"Faster," she said. "Please. I need —"

I fucked her faster. Still careful, still controlled, but faster, and she was making sounds that were continuous now, a stream of noise that wasn't words, and her hand went back between her legs and she touched herself while I fucked her arse and the combination — my cock and her fingers — was driving her somewhere I could see her heading toward but couldn't quite believe.

"I'm going to come," she said. "I'm going to come with you in my arse. I didn't know that was — Luke — I didn't —"

She came. Differently than before. Deeper. Her whole body clenched — everywhere, including around me, and the tightness was almost unbearable and I had to stop moving because if I moved I'd come and I wanted to watch her.