19Jeez, I really needed to update this! So sorry it took so long, and sorry to starchild8790, who requested this one. I started it more than nine months ago, and I guess I just never got around to finishing it. But I finally did, and I really like it! Hope you do too :) Listen to:
Love Is Not Enough - Nine Inch Nails
Enjoy :)
~ Love Is Not Enough ~
"...For you to go and take this, to smash it apart.
I've gone all this fucking way
To wind up back at
Back at the start..."
It was obvious. The tension in the room.
One could feel it in the air...in our posture and our stance...in the sound of the water boiling on the stove.
And it was even more painfully obvious that our marriage was on its last legs.
I glanced at her, standing silently in my peripheral vision, cutting vegetables. She had her hair tied up in that same bun she'd been wearing for years-the one I used to see in all my fantasies. All my dreams.
They were just memories, now...gathering dust.
Biting the inside of my lip and inhaling deeply, I tore open the box of pasta and unceremoniously dumped it into the pot, watching it fester and pop in the scalding water.
I felt like the pasta...slowly burning to death in my marriage, only to be devoured by guilt later.
We'd both been thinking about divorce. That much was obvious as well. But neither one of us had had the courage to bring it up. Because that meant accepting that we were failing at the one thing we'd promised to succeed at.
...until death do us part.
I felt suddenly sick, my hands shaking as I braced them on the counter, stomach lurching with some kind of foreign emotion...
I whispered her name. Saw her glance up, a strange hope in her eyes. Asked for the strainer. Watched the hope die.
She handed it to me limply, turning her back on me this time and dragging the cutting board out of my sight, most likely so that she didn't have to see my face.
Fighting to get a hold of myself, I drained the pasta over the sink, wondering vaguely if I could burn myself and leave the room. Hell, I'd do anything to get away for a little bit.
Because our love was not enough anymore.
Not for either of us.
Sex had become painstaking and a burden. I couldn't even maintain an erection anymore. And I wasn't nearly old enough to claim age as an excuse.
Even mere kisses had lost their flare. French kissing became chaste little suckles...and those turned into pecks not long after.
We'd gotten to the point where we only kissed in front of her mother, now, to make it look like we were okay.
I remember a time when I used to walk into the room and sweep my arm around her waist. Used to drag her back against me and brush her hair to the side and lick my way up her neck. Used to revel in the sound of her short little gasp that morphed into a moan.
My wife had a gorgeous moan.
Who am I kidding? My wife was gorgeous.
Is gorgeous.
It's us that's no longer attractive.
You're probably wondering if there was some sort of a falling out. Wondering if one of us is an alcoholic or a domestic abuser. But nothing like that ever happened.
Our flame was just snuffed one day, like a candle on a birthday cake, sitting in the wind for too long.
She wanted kids. I'm sterile. I wanted a dog. She's allergic. It was things like that. Little pieces of our lives that we couldn't control.
It's strange to think about...but we've never actually wronged one another.
Which is what leaves the sinking guilt in my gut every time I so much as think the word divorce.
I love my wife. But love is not enough.
I'd been staring at the pasta for about five minutes, and I could sense her looking at my back-wondering what the hell was wrong with me...
Why isn't it enough?
Why isn't it enough?
I love her. I love her. I fucking love her, dammit.
I dropped the strainer. The pasta started sinking into the garbage disposal.
No, maybe love wasn't enough...but divorce was just pitiful. And I was not one to just up and quit.
There was still something between us.
And I would prove it. Fuck all.
She called something out to me half-heartedly about the ruined portion of our dinner, but I'd already whirled around.
I will make it be enough.
Our eyes locked, and I stared at her for a long while, hoping the heat and the anger and the defiance that was coursing through my body shone in my gaze. I said her name again, but this time there was power to it.
She echoed with my own name. Her voice made it sound like a question.
She was confused.
I told her dinner was over.
Hurt flickered across her face, and no, that wasn't what I was going for, and she opened her mouth to say something...
But I was already moving. Marching toward the dining room table with purpose and determination and, for once, a little bit of fire.
She followed me, calling out my name. Demanded to know what was the matter with me.
The table was set.
So be it.
I leant over the polished wood and swept my arm across the surface, knocking all of our fine china and silverware to the floor. Plates and glasses shattered. Metal clanged. My wife screamed.
But the anger and the resistance inside me was finally having some affect. Just thinking about what I was going to do had me sporting a raging hard-on within seconds.
I whirled around again, facing her. Tears were streaming down her face and she was yelling at me.
So I seized her by front of her apron, bearing her cry of fright with a grimace, and silenced her with a kiss.
She fought me at first, beating her petite little fists on my chest and shaking her head, but I was a man on a mission and I would not be stopped. Drawing away from her resistant lips, I turned her chin to the side and found that spot beneath her jaw that made her toes curl.
I kissed it. Nibbled it. Teased it with my tongue.
And finally, she gave a little gasp. A gasp similar to the one I used to know, but not quite the same.
She managed again to ask me what I was doing, but her tone was less angry-more distracted. Her tears started to dry.
And I traced the expanse of her throat with my mouth open until I reached her ear, and proceeded to whisper to her. To ask her what was so wrong with a man wanting to make love to his wife on their dinner table...
Her sharp intake of breath was just right that time-just how I remembered it-and my erection pulsed, straining hard against my slacks. Begging to finally get back into the game.
I decided my wife was too covered up.
Without separating my lips from her soft, vanilla-scented skin, I reached around to yank at the apron's knot at the back of her neck. It felt like it took an hour to get it free.
It felt like it used to when I undressed my wife.
I practically ripped the offending article off of her and tossed it somewhere in the direction of the pile of broken china, twisting my arms about her waist just like old times.
Her hips were still curvy. Still beautiful. Still felt perfect beneath the muscles of my forearms.
And when I leaned in to capture her lips again, she actually kissed me back.
Calling her my love again felt like Heaven as I tugged her hair free of the bun and let it tumble down around her shoulders. A dark, chocolate-brown curtain of silk. Speaking to her at all was wonderful when it didn't feel strained.
So I whispered as often as I could around my kisses, saying her name, telling her how much I loved her, telling her what I wanted to do to her.
Making love to her with words, just like I used to.
And I knew it was the fear of losing her that spurred me on. I was awake again. Finally.
When my hands crept under the hem of her knit sweater, she let me hear the moan I'd been severely missing, arching her back slightly in my hold.
I sank to my knees-a place I deserved to be for this woman-and slid it up to her ribcage, revealing the long lost, creamy expanse of her stomach. Pressing a kiss to her navel, I massaged her ribs with my thumbs and then slipped them around to her back, unhooking the clasp of her brassiere.
She gasped, keening for me when I at last wrapped my lips around the rosy peak of her nipple, loving the way it strained for me. Needed me like I needed her.
And she said my name. Moaned it in ecstasy. A sound I hadn't heard in years.
I told her she was my world as I rid her of the last of her clothes. I told her she was as beautiful - no...more beautiful - as the day I'd met her as I hoisted her up into my arms. I asked her why the hell we'd wasted so much time as I splayed her out on top of the finely polished cherrywood.
I apologized...
Jesus, I begged for forgiveness as I struggled with my zipper, so shaken by the passion I was no longer used to.
And my wife...
Oh, my beautiful, lovely, perfect wife...
She smiled at me.
God, I had missed her gorgeous smile. Missed the way her rose petal lips would spread effortlessly, revealing snow white teeth just begging to be trespassed.
I released what might've been a growl as her pretty little hands took to the buttons of my shirt, freeing me one by one from its confines. For the first time in so long, her soft palms caressed the naked skin of my chest, gliding over the smooth pectorals like they used to.
I missed the way she'd treated my body...
Like I was some sort of warrior. It'd always made those years of football practice seem worthwhile.
God - so suddenly, so swiftly...our marriage seemed salvageable. Our connection seemed repairable. We seemed alive.
And needless to say, this was the first time I ever appreciated not needing the birth control.
I entered her gently, and with a cock harder than steel, humbled by the glorious sensation of my wife that I'd very nearly forgotten. She made this little mewling sound - like a kitten rested beneath me - and it drove me wild as she raked her blunt fingernails down my back.
I started to rock into her, falling easily into that natural rhythm like my fingers always did with the piano after not playing for a while. Something I'd never forget how to do. Never forget the pace my wife loved - the techniques that were special to her. Only for her.
We were making love on the dining room table...
A quiet, bemused chuckle tumbled out of my throat, wrapped in a gasp as her walls clenched around me. She echoed my laugh with a charming, tinkling giggle, her eyes rolling back into her when I rubbed up against that perfect spot.
All at once, she started to writhe beneath me, the volume of her little cries increasing and intensifying as we both rocketed towards completion...praying for it, fighting for it, knowing that it was the only proof we needed to know that we'd be okay.
Her shriek was one that I'd never forget.
It was high and delicate and animal all at once, rippling through her body as she convulsed beneath me on the table. My hands faltered upon the wood as my own release electrocuted me, making my joints spasm and my body threaten to collapse.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
It was there.
It was alive.
That candle hadn't gone out all those months ago.
I still needed my wife...she still needed me.
Our love was enough.
As I slowly lowered myself, panting in time with her soft, gasping breaths, I gathered my wife in my arms, curling her against me as we turned to human jelly on the tabletop. In her ear, I whispered sweet nothings, asking her to never leave me.
Telling her I loved her.
Begging her to always love me.
Love was enough.
Love was plenty.
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