Undercooked

I was sat opposite the in-laws as they talked about their dead friends and my cock was rock hard. I looked from my trousers to my wife Mary, who was shaking her head and sucking on a bread stick. The restaurant was dark and overcrowded, I’d been on the road all day and I wanted to lie down and fuck and sleep.

I have a routine to my evenings involving takeaway food, television and sex. Recently Mary has been less a part of these rituals, choosing instead to go out with her friends to exotic restaurants and wine bars. This had been the first time we had been out together for months, what with her parents visiting from there coastal hideout. I hadn’t been too keen on the idea, until I realised the alternative would impede on my night time habits and that a neutral venue was the best solution. For the sake of a blow job I appeared enthusiastic and suggested an Italian restaurant someone had mentioned at work.

Once the main course had been taken away I followed Mary to the toilet, leaving her mum and dad arguing with the young waitress, her shirt see through from a greasy stain, revealing a lacy red bra. My wife didn’t notice me as I slipped through the door behind her.

‘Is the coast clear?’ I said, unzipping my flies.

‘What the hell?’

‘I’m bursting.’

Lips pressed together, I pushed her up against the marble basin and squeezed her arm.

‘This reminds me of when we dated,’ I panted.

‘We’re not anymore.’

Mary pushed me off, straightened her blouse and disappeared into a cubicle.

‘You’re only out tonight because they’re here,’ she said, as half a bottle of pinot left her bladder and trickled into the basin.

‘Fuck. I’m going to explode out there.’ I said, splashing some water over my face. ‘Especially if that waitress keeps going past.’

‘Go to the gents and sort yourself out.’

I stood there for awhile thinking about where our relationship had come to and how we had changed, until she told me to get out.

In the cubicle I thought about the blow job and the chocolate sauce Mary had licked off me, and the time we fucked in the toilets at Pizza Hut on our third date and the ice cream we shared afterwards. I tried to picture my wife’s pussy, but it could have been anyone’s. I saw her out with her friends, eating and chewing. Lamb chops, cherries, stir fry chicken, cucumber. I could hear her describing the gourmet meals, making her mouth wet.

Thinking back the same problem happens again. I’m on the cusp, but again it’s Mary stuffing her face, as she is right now. Sat on the edge of the bed my hand grips my penis. I close my eyes and try again to picture those sticky pink lips and her engorged clitoris, but what I see only makes me lose my erection. I lie back on the bed and think through our relationship, from lust to familiarity to routine to boredom and I can’t remember the last time I went down on her. It was must have been when we were dating. Was it during that weekend in Brighton? Why hasn’t she said anything?

I’m going to give her head when she gets home tonight. I regain my grip.

----------------------------------------

Mary had already left for Marco’s by the time I got home, but she had left the lights on for me and the house smelled of her favourite perfume and her favourite knickers were missing from her underwear drawer. Leaving the bedroom I go down to the kitchen and she’s left a note about chips and sausages for my dinner, even though I usually order out. I don’t feel particularly hungry, so I just grab a fork and go to the refrigerator.

The dim light comes on and I poke about, a mouthful of coleslaw, a couple of cherry tomatoes and some potato salad, but they leave a stale taste in my mouth. There’s a new juice in the door and I take a swig, but it’s so full of bits, it’s like orange diarrhoea. I grab a packet of wafer thin ham and push a slice into my mouth and roll my neck as I chew it slowly. Looking down at the packet, the slices remind me of my wife, something pink and soft and sticky and I pull out a slice and shape it into a hole and stick my tongue inside, working it around, flexing my muscles until the whole thing is in my mouth and I start chewing the sweet meat. I get a clearer image of Mary in my head, and I suck on another slice as I spot a cucumber in the salad drawer and remember how I pushed it inside her a fortnight ago and it is now wrinkled and dried out. I return to the bedroom as my stomach rumbles and my dick throbs.



‘I’m home.’

I turn the TV off in the bedroom and go downstairs. The video recorder is set and my daily fix can wait as I have adventures to pursue.

‘Did you see my note?’

‘Yes, wasn’t hungry,’ I say, bouncing from the bottom step.

‘You sure? I can do you something now,’ she says, flashing me a look and a smile.

She looks down at her fingers playing with the hem of her dress and slides the bag from her shoulder and hangs it on the end of the banister. From the colour of her teeth she has had four or five glasses of red wine and it’s adorable the way she tries to hide this from me and avoids eye contact.

I shake my head, wrap my arms around her and plant a kiss on her cheek.

‘Get off me you fool,’ she says, as she pulls her cheek away and her body sways in my grip.

‘Come upstairs,’ I whisper in her ear and take her hand.

‘I just want to collapse with the TV for a minute.’

Her eyes gaze in the direction of our beige sofa and I squeeze her hand.

‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re coming with me.’

I lift her chin and look into her eyes for a moment before I clench my lips around hers and get a strong taste of garlic. I try to ignore it, but she pulls away.

‘Sorry. Smelly breath.’

‘Brush your teeth and let’s go to bed.’

I lead her upstairs not waiting for her reaction, and I feel like a teenager again, taking a girl up to my room for the first time.

I watch Mary as she goes into the bathroom and fumbles for her toothbrush and I love it when she’s drunk. The guilty smile and those honest eyes remind me of when we first met. I had been out with a young crowd from work and got drunk and thrown myself at a couple of women. I left the club alone, angry and in search of food and jostled with the stream of people making their way to Zorbas. We queued up at the hatch, while others stumbled inside to scramble for an orange seat. Finally handed my chicken kebab I turned to be confronted by a girl who stumbled backwards, knocking the open polystyrene carton out of my hands. My anger was quickly replaced by drunken lust as the girl turned with an apologetic smile. We talked and she let me have some of her chips and I called her later in the week to share more take away. We were the same people with the same simple desires.

In the bedroom I straighten out the duvet and wait for her and sip from a glass of water. She steps into the doorway and her cheeks are damp and glisten in the lamp light, her make up withered and demure. She lies down beside me, eyes closed and I kiss her cheek to keep her awake. My fingers run down her neck, over her breast, across her stomach and pulling up the dress they tickle the inside of her thigh and she bites her lip. I look down at the lacy black knickers, rub my hand over them and delve inside. I feel a burn in my chest and the taste of the ham returns to my mouth. Through a tangle of hair I find warmth. I look up and Mary is staring at me.

‘Do you have to?’ she says. ‘I’m tired.’

‘Just lie there and enjoy it,’ I say, finding what I think is a clitoris, but there’s no reaction in her face. ‘I want to give you head.’

She snorts and looks away. My fingers lay still against her pussy.

‘What gave you that idea?’ she says, removing her jewellery.

I push one finger slowly into her.

‘I just want to. I want to taste you,’ I say.

She pulls a face and her hand goes to her stomach.

‘My tummy hurts. I think I ate too much. Another night.’

She closes her legs on me.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Can I get you something? Alka Seltzer, glass of water?’

‘No. I need sleep,’ and she turns her back to me.

‘What the hell,’ I say, pulling my hand out sharply. I stare at the back of her head for minutes, wondering what she’s thinking and if she still finds me attractive. I want her to turn back and kiss me, but she doesn’t so I slide off the bed and go downstairs.

I can hear the neighbour’s TV through the wall and it sounds like porn or a horror movie. I go to the fridge and tuck another slice of ham into my mouth. I’m hungry, but everything in the fridge looks dead and pathetic, so I return to the note on the counter. I could put some chips on, bit of ketchup, a beer, watch some TV. Then a scream comes from upstairs.

When I get to the bedroom Mary is still on the bed, but on her back, knees bent and legs spread, dress hitched up and I wonder if she’s changed her mind. She lifts the dress further and her stomach is bloated like she’s pregnant.

‘There’s something inside me,’ she says, red faced.

‘Do you need the toilet,’ is all I can think to say. ‘What did you eat?’

‘I feel pregnant,’ she says, and I wonder how she would know. ‘Something wants to get out.’

She gives out a low grunt, which turns into a scream and I cover my ears and look away. The room has changed and seems older and I wonder when it was last decorated and my bedroom isn’t my own anymore.

‘Help me,’ she says, trying to reach round her gut and pull down her knickers.

‘I thought you didn’t want me down there?’

‘Pull them off,’ she says, lifting her butt off the mattress.

I edge closer to the bed and on one knee I reach between her legs and pull off the knickers and throw them on the floor. Her stomach is stretched towards the ceiling, peaking at her bully button. At the bottom of the bump is the tuft of pubic hair and those pink lips and it’s just a bacon sandwich staring back at me.

Then something moves and I lean in and the smell of a chip shop hits me. The lips part and it edges out. Mary’s eyes are closed, her face bright red and dripping sweat and I bounce off the bed and go downstairs and return with a plate. It is nearly out and with a tug I pull it free. It’s hot and I drop it on the plate.

‘What is it?’ she says.

It’s chunkier than an average French fry, but pale, undercooked.

‘Which restaurant did you go to?’ I say, not knowing what to tell her.

She tries to say something, but the words are lost in moans and groans and it seems that more are on the way. I watch her lips tense and glisten and I wish we could go back to Zorbas when things were simpler. All that mattered was greasy food and drunken sex, we didn’t need anything else. Her expectations regarding food have gone beyond me, I’m no longer any use. Maybe I should stick to satisfying the lips of ham and leave Mary to get her kicks at expensive restaurants.

The lips move and another chip peeks out and I tease it free and drop it on the plate and it is perfectly cooked.

‘Have we got any ketchup?’ I say, but Mary is lost in concentration, her face strained, but with a smile and she seems to be embracing the situation.

I leap downstairs and shake the bottle as I bound back up, just in time to pull another fry loose, now coming in quick succession. I eat the golden brown chips, dunked generously in sauce and they taste good, just like those from Zorbas, but not as good as Hong Kong Garden’s. We used to share portions from there all the time, along with a battered sausage, lying in bed, watching TV, as she immersed herself in my evening tradition.

Mary gets louder and has a picture of pure ecstasy on her face. One of her hands grip the bed sheet, the other rubs from her pert breast over her slowly deflating stomach down to her tuft of hair and I put another chip in my mouth. Her screams remind me of our sex on the kitchen table last month. We had met down the pub after work and instead of getting takeaway we raided the fridge when we got home and fed each other cocktail sausages, celery, yoghurts and ice cream, and undressed each other.

Mary starts to climax and a flurry of chips come in quick succession and her pussy is stretched and sore. Her body convulses and shivers, then collapses back into the mattress, her face calm and smiling and one more chip, black and crisp, peeks out and her stomach is back to the soft bump.

The plate is piled up and just like Hong Kong Garden a portion is too much for one person.

‘You want a chip, Hun?’ I say, but she’s asleep.

I leave her and go downstairs to the fridge.