Flicker and Feed

It started with a power outage.

Not the romantic kind where you light candles and slow-dance in the living room. The kind where the whole grid drops at 9:47 PM on a Wednesday in October, and suddenly you're standing in the kitchen with a half-assembled lunch for tomorrow, and your fifteen-year-old is yelling from the basement that he lost his Fortnite match, and your ten-year-old is crying because the nightlight went out, and your seventeen-year-old is filming it all for her Instagram story because apparently "aesthetic power outage content" is a thing.

Paul was in the living room reading the physical newspaper—he still gets the Hartford Courant delivered, still spreads it out on the coffee table like it's 1997, still gets ink on his fingers that he transfers to every light switch in the house. When the power died, he looked up from the paper with that calm expression he gets during minor crises, the one that used to annoy me and now I find inexplicably hot.

"Candles are in the hall closet," he said. "Top shelf."

"I know where the candles are, Paul. I've lived here for sixteen years."

"I'm just saying."

"You're always just saying."

The kids cycled through their various stages of panic and acceptance within about twenty minutes. Maddie, our seventeen-year-old, emerged from her room with a ring light and a portable charger and announced she was going to her friend Ashley's house because "they have power and also a hot tub." I told her to be home by eleven. She rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might see her own brain. The older boy, Lucas, accepted the outage as a personal affront from the universe but eventually settled into the basement with his phone and a flashlight, probably watching other people play Fortnite, which is somehow a thing. The little one, Sam, calmed down once Paul set up a battery-powered lantern in his room and told him a story about a pirate ship that I could hear through the floor—the pirate captain had a bald head and blue eyes and a scar on his chest, and Sam fell asleep before the captain found the treasure, same as every time.

By ten-fifteen, the house was quiet. Dark. The kind of quiet that only happens when the refrigerator stops humming and the furnace stops clicking and every electronic device in the house is dead. I could hear wind against the windows, and somewhere down the street a generator was rattling like a lawnmower.

I found Paul in the kitchen, lighting candles on the counter. Not the emergency candles from the closet—the good ones, the vanilla ones I buy at that shop in Westport that I pretend are reasonable to spend twenty-two dollars on. He'd set out two of them on either side of the cutting board, and he was slicing brie.

"You're making a cheese board," I said. "During a power outage."

"We have to eat the brie before it gets warm. It's already at room temperature, which is technically the correct serving temperature, so really this is optimal brie conditions."

"You're insane."

"I'm a man who appreciates cheese at its peak." He arranged the brie slices on the board with that careful precision I've always loved—edges aligned, spacing even, the kind of attention he brings to everything he does with his hands. He added some grapes from the fridge, a handful of almonds, and found a box of crackers in the pantry. Then he stepped back and looked at it, and I could see the satisfaction on his face in the candlelight.

"It's beautiful," I said, and I meant it, and I also meant something else.

He looked at me. That look. The one that starts at my eyes and moves down and takes its time, the one that makes me feel like I'm being studied, memorized. Eighteen years and he still looks at me like he's trying to figure out how he got lucky.

"You're wearing my flannel again," he said.

"I'm always wearing your flannel. You have three and I've stolen all of them."

"I have four."

"The fourth one is in my car. I use it as a blanket for Maddie's soccer games."

He laughed, and the sound filled the dark kitchen, and I felt that familiar pull in my chest—the one that's been there since I was twenty and he was thirty-two and I walked into a bar in New Haven and he was sitting there reading a newspaper, an actual physical newspaper, and I thought *who does that* and then I thought *I want to sit next to that person for the rest of my life.*

"Come here," he said.

"I'm getting the cheese board."

"Bring the cheese board."

I picked it up and carried it to the living room, and he followed with a candle and a bottle of wine—already opened, from dinner—and two glasses. We sat on the floor in front of the couch because the couch felt weird without the TV on, like a piece of furniture that had forgotten its purpose. The candle threw shadows on the walls, and the wine was a Malbec that he'd opened two days ago and I'd told him was too expensive for a Tuesday and he'd opened it anyway.

We ate the cheese board. We drank the wine. We talked about nothing—Maddie's college applications, Lucas's sudden obsession with weightlifting, Sam's teacher who apparently cried during a read-aloud of Charlotte's Web. Paul had brie on his thumb and I licked it off and his eyes changed, that subtle shift from comfortable to hungry that I've learned to read like weather.

"You're looking at me," I said.

"I'm always looking at you."

"You're looking at me differently."

"Because you just licked my thumb."

"It had brie on it."

"Carrie. You licked my thumb. In the dark. During a power outage. With candles. While wearing my flannel with nothing under it."

"How do you know there's nothing under it?"

He raised an eyebrow. I looked down at myself. The flannel was unbuttoned to my sternum, and in the process of sitting on the floor, it had gaped open, and he could clearly see that there was nothing underneath. The candlelight was catching my skin, and I could see my own breasts, small and pale, the shadows between them.

"Lucky guess," he said.

I should have buttoned up. That would have been the practical thing. But the wine was warm in my stomach and the house was dark and quiet and Paul was looking at me with that look, and I felt the same thing I always feel—the initial resistance, the part of me that says *not now, the kids might wake up, it's late, we should just go to bed*—and then the other part, the part that Paul has spent eighteen years coaxing out, the part that says *but what if you just let go.*

I unbuttoned the flannel one more button. Then another. Until it was open to my waist.

"Is the camera charged?" I asked.

He set down his wine glass. "The small one? Yes."

"Go get it."

He went upstairs. I stayed on the floor and drank wine and looked at the candle and thought about what I was about to do. The camera we'd used before connected to the TV, but the TV was dead. But my phone—I could use my phone as a monitor. I pulled it from the flannel pocket and opened the camera app. When Paul came back with the small digital camera, I had him connect it to my phone through the app, and suddenly there I was on the screen, sitting on the living room floor in candlelight, the flannel open, my legs folded under me.

The image was different from last time. The candlelight gave everything a golden quality, soft and flickering, and I looked like someone in a painting—except paintings don't usually show a thirty-eight-year-old woman with her husband's flannel open and her small breasts exposed and a look on her face that says she's about to do something she'll think about for days.

"Put it on the coffee table," I said. "Aimed at me."

He positioned it carefully, the way he positions brie slices, and then sat back against the couch. I looked at my phone screen and saw the full shot—me on the floor, the candlelight, the flannel pooling around my hips. I uncrossed my legs and let them fall open, and on the screen I watched the flannel shift, watched the shadow between my legs appear, watched myself lean back against the base of the couch.

"Can you see?" I asked.

"I can see."

"On the phone too?"

He leaned over and looked at my screen. "On the phone too."

I pulled the flannel open completely and held it to the sides, so I was fully exposed—breasts, stomach, the dark hair between my legs, everything. The candlelight caught the wetness that had already started, and I could see it on the phone screen, a faint shine between my thighs. I drew my knees up and spread wider, and I watched myself do it, and the double-vision hit again—me in my body, me on the screen, both of them the same woman, both of them doing something filthy in a dark house during a power outage.

I started with my breasts, the way I did last time, but tonight I wanted more. I wanted him closer. I wanted his mouth.

"Come here," I said, and he moved toward me on his knees. "Not like that. Down there."

He understood. He always understands. He settled between my legs, his bald head catching the candlelight, and I looked at the phone screen and saw the image—my legs spread, Paul's head between them, his blue eyes looking up at me. I reached down and parted myself with my fingers, opening my pussy so he could see everything, so the camera could see everything, and the sight on the screen was so explicit that I felt a rush of heat flood through me.

"Lick me," I said. "And don't stop. I don't care what happens. Don't stop."

He started slow, which is both infuriating and perfect. His tongue traced the outside first, long and flat, tasting me, and I watched on the phone as his mouth moved against me. Then he found my clit and circled it, and my hips jerked, and I heard myself make a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a word that didn't exist.

"Keep going."

He did. He found a rhythm—slow circles, then faster, then slow again, building and retreating, and I watched it all on the phone screen. I could see his tongue when he pulled back slightly, could see it glistening with my wetness, could see my pussy swollen and pink and open under his mouth. I held myself apart with my fingers so he had full access, and he took it, his tongue dipping inside me, then back to my clit, then sucking gently, and the suction made my back arch.

"Fuck, Paul. Right there. Don't move."

He didn't move. He stayed exactly where he was, his mouth on my clit, sucking in a steady rhythm, and I watched myself on the screen—my stomach muscles tensing, my free hand gripping the carpet, my mouth open, my eyes half-closed. I looked like a woman being taken apart piece by piece, and I was, and I wanted more.

"I want more," I said, and my voice was ragged.

He paused just long enough to say, "Tell me."

"I want to feel full. I want something inside me while you keep doing that."

He reached up to the couch cushion behind me and found the dildo we'd stashed there after last time—don't ask why it's in the living room, we have three kids and limited hiding spots, and the couch cushion seemed less discoverable than the nightstand. He pressed it against my entrance without lifting his mouth from my clit, and I watched on the screen as my pussy opened around it, the stretch immediate and deep, and I moaned loud enough that Paul pressed his hand over my mouth for a second, a reminder that the boys were sleeping upstairs.

He pushed the toy all the way in and started fucking me with it slowly, his mouth still working my clit, and I watched the screen and saw everything—the toy sliding in and out, his lips wrapped around my clit, my body writhing on the floor. The fullness was exactly what I needed, that deep stretch, and combined with his tongue it was building something enormous inside me.

"I want two," I said, the words coming out before I could think about them.

He looked up. "Two what?"

"Two cocks. I want to feel two inside me. I want to be that full."

He didn't miss a beat. He pulled the toy out and reached for the smaller one—the slim one we'd bought as a joke and never really used—and pressed it against my ass. I felt the pressure, the new sensation, and I looked at the phone screen and watched him work it in slowly, carefully, while his tongue found my clit again.

"Is that okay?" he asked against me.

"It's so okay. Keep going."

He pushed the smaller toy deeper, and I felt the stretch in a completely different place, and then he started with the larger toy again in my pussy, and I was full—so full—both holes stretched around silicone while his mouth worked my clit, and I watched myself on the phone screen and the image was so filthy and so perfect that I almost came just from seeing it.

"Fuck me with both of them," I said, and he did, alternating, one in while the other pulled out, and his tongue kept circling my clit, and I could feel everything building toward something massive. I watched the screen—my pussy gripping the thick toy, my ass stretched around the slim one, Paul's mouth on me, my body shaking—and I felt like I was outside myself, watching a woman get absolutely wrecked, and the woman was me, and I was going to come harder than I ever had.

"Don't stop," I said. "Paul. Don't stop. Don't—"

The orgasm started somewhere deep, somewhere behind where the toys were stretching me, and it rolled forward like a wave and hit my clit where his tongue was working and I came so hard that my whole body locked up—the toys clenched inside me, my thighs slammed against Paul's head, and I heard myself making sounds that I couldn't control, muffled by my own hand over my mouth, and Paul kept going, his tongue still on my clit, his hands still working the toys, and the orgasm didn't stop it just kept cresting and cresting and I thought *I'm going to die, I'm going to die on this floor during a power outage with toys in both holes and my husband's face between my legs and what a way to go.*

When it finally broke, I was shaking. Paul pulled the toys out gently, one at a time, and I watched on the screen as my body released them, my holes gaping slightly before closing, and then he kissed the inside of my thigh and sat back on his heels.

I looked at him. His face was wet with me, his blue eyes bright in the candlelight, and he looked so goddamn pleased with himself that I started laughing.

"What?" he said.

"You have—your face is—" I gestured at him. "You look like you just finished a marathon. A very specific kind of marathon."

"I'm quite proud of myself."

"You should be. That was—" I looked at the phone screen, which showed us both, flushed and disheveled on the living room floor. "I can't believe we just did that on the living room floor."

"The couch was unavailable."

"The couch was six inches away."

"The couch is for sitting, Carrie. The floor is for—" he waved his hand vaguely at the scene— "this."

I pulled his flannel closed and crawled into his lap, and he wrapped his arms around me, and I could feel his cock hard against my thigh, but he didn't push, he never pushes, he just held me there while my heartbeat slowed down.

"You didn't—" I started.

"I'm fine."

"Paul. You're literally digging into my leg."

He shifted. "I'm patient."

"You've been patient for eighteen years."

"And it's worked out well for both of us, I think."

I reached down and unzipped his jeans, because patience is a virtue but eighteen years is a long time, and I took his cock out and stroked him slow while he breathed against my neck. It didn't take long—he'd been hard since I unbuttoned the flannel, probably hard since I licked the brie off his thumb—and when he came, he came into my hand, quietly, his face buried in my shoulder, his body shuddering against mine.

We sat there on the floor, in the dark, with candlelight and wine and the last of the cheese board, and I looked at my phone screen one more time. It showed two people on a living room floor, tangled together, satisfied, still in love after eighteen years and three kids and a power outage and two sex toys and a twenty-two-dollar candle that was totally worth it.

The power came back at 11:43. The fridge hummed. The furnace clicked. Every device in the house lit up like a casino.

Maddie texted from Ashley's house: *power back? also why is the cheese board on the living room floor?*

I looked at Paul. Paul looked at me.

"How does she know the cheese board is on the floor?" I asked.

"She doesn't. She's guessing. She's been guessing our whole lives."

"Paul, that's a terrible sentence."

"You married me anyway."

I kissed him, because he was right, and because his mouth still tasted like me, and because the power was back and the fridge was humming and somewhere upstairs our children were sleeping and everything was exactly as it should be. Then I wiped my hand on his flannel, which he didn't notice until later, and which he absolutely deserved.