Pillow Talk

Word Count: 1909

Julia talks in her sleep and in those dim hours between waking consciousness and fitful slumber, she mumbles her secrets. I lie next to her and eavesdrop. That is how I found out about you. When she breathed your name in the dark, I knew. My chest grew tight, so tight that my every heartbeat hurt. I closed my eyes and squeezed out silent tears. Julia had spoken the name of a friend but her voice was a soft, yearning moan. My world came crashing down around me and I came to pieces in the neon glow of the alarm clock. After the despair, a rage pure and complete settled upon me and with it came a blessed clarity. I knew what I had to do to make it right again. I threaded my hand through hers in the dark, kissed her bare shoulder and began to plan how I would kill you. The plan came together seamlessly in my mind.

I would wait for you outside our office and I would ask you to come for a drink. We often did that after a long day. I would tell you that I needed to talk.

“I think Julia is having an affair.” I would confess, and I would watch your eyes.

Your mouth would twitch and your eyes would close for a second, your features captured by guilt. You would catch yourself, compose yourself.

“Are you sure?” You would ask, and I would somehow magically control the urge to hit you with my chair.

I would nod slowly. You would adopt that supportive, solemn expression and drape one comforting arm around my shoulders. You would beckon the bartender for another round and assure me everything would be okay, just two life long friends comforting each other.

We would leave that bar a few rounds later and you would hug me close with one burly arm and tell me it would be alright. I would walk you to your car and say goodbye as you fumbled for your keys. You would never see it coming. The gun would be at your ear before you could draw another breath. I would stare menacingly into your eyes before I pulled the trigger, never even giving you a chance to tell me you were sorry for fucking my wife. I would leave you in the parking lot and drive home with your blood on my clothes, the acrid smell of gunpowder in my nose. I would shower while Julia slept soundly and then toss my clothes into the furnace. It would be done. I would grieve along with Julia at your loss, though for different reasons, and try to put my life and my trust back together with her.

Two years ago, my plan had been executed. Jim Reed, my friend and my wife’s lover was buried on Satler’s Hill in Greenwich Cemetery. His death had been ruled an armed robbery and was still unsolved, just one more senseless crime in a violent world. I lived on quite contently, convinced now that the obstacle to the success of my happy marriage had been disposed of neatly. My revenge had been sated. I even felt that Jim had redeemed himself somehow by not leaving any embarrassing traces behind for someone to find, like photos or receipts for motels. The matter was really, finally behind me. For months after, I was afraid someone would figure it out. I was terrorized by the idea that Julia might confess the affair to me in her grief and that it would suddenly occur to everyone that given my position, I had possessed the motive to murder. Mercilessly, and I can only assume, rightfully, nothing of that sort happened.

I forgave Julia’s straying; after all, Jim had always been a charmer. I had convinced myself that I accepted her betrayal and had come to an understanding about what might have inspired her infidelity. After a miscarriage during the holidays, Julia had fallen into a state of depression. My projects had kept me in long hours and I know now that she must have suffered in silence. She would have been an easy target for our fast talking, sharp dressed friend.

After Julia had processed the loss of Jim, the light returned to her eyes. She no longer fell into dark moods that would last for days. With Jim dead and buried, Julia focused more on our marriage, on being a good and adoring wife. She lavished me with the attention, planned elaborate little getaways and found a renewed vigor in her lovemaking. In a bizarre way I felt grateful toward Jim, it was as if her brief affair had opened her up to the new possibilities of physical love and I now reaped the benefits of that awakening.

It was her idea, this trip to Mexico. Julia had wanted to go somewhere new and exotic for our ten year anniversary celebration. She had spent hours looking for just the right place and finally decided on Tulum, a remote tropical paradise that boasted few amenities but glorious ruins and wide, remote white sand beaches. We arrived last night and had fumbled around in the dark until we found our lodgings, little more than a beach shack with a thatched roof and tiny kitchen. At first I had baulked at the idea of staying on the ocean, a city rat at heart, I have never learned to swim. Julia had been enchanted with the place though and I can not deny her anything. Sitting here, on the porch of our bungalow, staring out at perfect turquoise waters, I can see the wisdom of her selection. She looks amazing this morning, her red suit hugging every curve as she walks the beach. I watch her, and marvel that this beautiful creature belongs to me.

Julia looks up and catches me staring. She tosses her mane of dark curls and flashes me a smile that stops my heart. She wades out into the water and calls out to me.

“Harold, come on. You have to at least put your feet in. It is so wonderful!”

I shake my head. “I’ll just watch you, Baby.”

“Are you sure you just want to watch me?’ She asks, pouting sexily. Julia slides the straps of her red suit off her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” I ask, sitting up in my lounge chair, feeling the familiar tightening in my loins.

“Come one Harold, I won’t let you get too deep.” Julia continues to ease the suit down, exposing more and more of her perfect breasts, teasing and coaxing me down from my perch.

I cross the sand, already hot in the early morning sun. I scan the beach but we are totally alone. I stop about five feet from the edge of the surf.

“What if someone sees us?” I ask, already conscious of my erection straining inside my khaki shorts.

In answer, Julia pushes her suit all the way down to her waist. She runs her hands over her breasts, squeezing them, tugging on her nipples. She twists her body in the sunlight, her creamy skin shimmers. She smiles and reaches for me.

Julia pulls me against her in water that is ankle deep and cool. She slips her hands down the back of my shorts, cupping my buttocks and grinding her body against mine. We began to kiss and caress each other, moving together. My hands find her breasts, her nipples rock hard in my palms. I lower my mouth to suckle her, tasting salt and the faint sweetness of lime and coconut. I work her suit down over her hips as she backs further out into the surf. Waist deep now, I am losing myself in her heated kisses. Julia’s teeth gnash my neck and her hands move to the fly of my shorts. My fingers find her under the water and she is so warm and wet inside. Julia's moans grown louder, rising above the sounds of the gulls and the surf. She works her suit down her legs, kicks it off in the water. She tugs my swollen cock free and wraps her arms around my neck.

Aching to be inside her, oblivious to the rising water rushing past us, I lift her up by the back of her thighs and bring her down onto me. She begins to move, writhing up and down on my cock, clutching me with her legs, arching her back so I can bite and suck her bouncing tits as we fuck. The sensation of being partially submerged in the cool water and enveloped in the heat of her sex is overwhelming. I feel her convulse around me, the tightening of her first, and then the warm rush of her juices as she comes on my dick. I feel myself getting closer and unable to hold on, I pump into her with an animal intensity, losing myself and howling into the air above our heads.

My climax comes in a powerful rush and I feel as if I am slipping. My euphoria gives way to terror as I realize I am slipping, slipping out of Julia and farther into the deep blue. My feet flail wildly, seeking purchase with the ocean floor and I drive myself even deeper out in my growing panic. Julia’s thighs slide off me. I reach for her, catching only the side of her slick hip as she retreats from me. I look up to see her standing firmly, the water lapping just below her sex, her body shaking, her breasts heaving… with fear for me? No, wait. She is laughing. I am slowing drowning and my wife is standing there and laughing. The incredulity of the situation hits me with a force as great as a tidal wave.

“Julia? What is this? Help me, Goddammit!”

The water climbs up my chest, the sea throttles me, pulls me out farther. I take in great gulps of air that quickly turn to swallows of bitter salt water. I taste brine and filth and death. I go under, and then fight to the surface again, my lungs beginning to burn.

“You said you would take care of me!” I scream, frantic now.

Julia has gotten smaller, faded back from where I struggle in the waves. I go under again and again, each time finding the surface with more and more effort. This time when I get my head above the waves, Julia is speaking to me in a cold voice I would never have recognized as my wife’s.

“I am taking care of you Harold, just like you took care of Jim.”

My heart stops and there is a moment suspended between us. My beautiful wife backs away toward the beach, slowly, her eyes on me and a strange, serene smile on her cruel mouth. My body is growing weaker and I can feel the insistent pull of the tide on my failing limbs. Julia fades into the landscape.

I muster one last feat of strength and surge up from the depths, screaming, “You planned this you bitch! How did you know?”

Before I can finish, the question is torn from my throat as a wave crashes down over me.

Just as I slip under for the final time, I hear Julia, calling back an answer to me from the safety of the shore, “You talk in your sleep Harold.”