Marry Me
Giselle Renarde
After each encounter, I was left with the question: Was it worth it? Was the tremendous pleasure of sex worth the intense pain of Lawrence’s departure?
“I hate it when you leave,” I fished as he tilted toward the blue light of the bedside clock. Saying nothing, he set his bald head back down on the pillow of my breasts.
Torso by Mick Payton
Staring at his scalp, I realized that in our two years and seven months together, I’d never seen the top of my lover’s head. How could a head be so sun-soaked in the middle of April? From the golden scalp, a few black hairs sprouted. Were they black or brown? Or very dark gray? I’d never been able to determine his hair color, even upon close inspection of the short wisps around his ears and at the back of his head. Staring at his glowing crown, I ran my fingers through the downy-soft wisps, awaiting a response from a mouth I couldn’t see at that angle.
When we first met, Lawrence still visited a barber when those few baby hairs grew too long. “Why are you throwing your money away?” I’d asked. “All you need is one of those razor-shaver things –what’s the word? Then I could cut your hair for you. I used to cut my brother’s hair when he was little. They’re fool-proof. You could do it yourself, even.”
Lawrence took my advice. Half of it, at least. He’d bought electric hair clippers, but when it came to the trim it wasn’t me he asked.
“What happened to you?” I’d giggled when he arrived at my apartment one Sunday morning, hair cut to the quick.
“Well, I took your advice. I bought electric shears and asked Ruth for a trim…”
Each of those five words – “asked Ruth for a trim” – hacked at my heart like a rusty axe-head. Asked Ruth for a trim? How dare he ask his wife to do something as intimate as cut his hair? And then actually admit to it! Lawrence was supposed to reserve every intimate act for me!
“…but she thought the whole idea was pretty gross, so she said no,” Lawrence continued. “Classic Ruth. She won’t come near me.”
Merci a Dieu! A wave of relief washed over my throbbing temples as I waded shoulder-deep into the schadenfreude Ruth’s rejection always generated. Poor Lawrence! His own wife wouldn’t touch him, not even to cut his hair. I couldn’t help but smirk. Every time, he came running to me.
“But why are you balder than usual?” I’d asked, rubbing the prickly sprouts on the back of his head.
“Because you said hair trimmers were fool-proof.”
“Oh no!” I laughed, covering my mouth. “You cut your hair yourself!”
“Well, it would have been smooth sailing, except I didn’t read the instructions. I just turned on the trimmers and away I went.”
“Oh, mon chou,” I sighed, massaging his earlobes. “You’re supposed to put one of the guards on the trimmers, depending on how short you want your hair. If you don’t, it’s just like taking a razor to your head.”
“Yes, I know that now.”
“My poor bald Lawrence! Why didn’t you bring the trimmers over here? I offered to cut your hair.” I’d licked Lawrence behind the ear like a mommy dog licks her pup. “I could have taken you into the shower and washed you down after.” I’d kissed his shoulder.
Lawrence had said nothing then, just like he was saying nothing now as I stared down at his golden scalp. “I said I hate it when you leave,” I repeated. His heart pounded against my abdomen, his torso a weight upon my hips. “You’re supposed to say, I hate leaving…”
“Well,” Lawrence interrupted, his voice popping with exasperation. “That would beg the question, Why leave at all? It all just gets too…”
Lawrence mumbled something into my breasts. My heart was nearly frozen by my lover’s somewhat explosive remark, but I just couldn’t bear the suspense. This maudlin man took me by surprise, going so quickly from relaxed to despairing. “It gets too what?”
“Too difficult.”
My heart sat like a boulder in my chest, my eyes filling with tears. How did it become one of these encounters? I hadn’t anticipated being sad today. Calisse! All I wanted was a good fuck. We used to do other things together. Lawrence and I “dated” in some sense, had dinners and lunches, meandered through parks and kissed on the benches. Now it was sex all the time. Just sex. And, for me, that was fine, but there was no such thing as “just sex,” according to Lawrence. For him, it was always a commune in the physical with the very soul of the lover. And maybe he was right. Because if it was “just sex” we’d just had, why was Lawrence so upset? Why was I so upset? Hard to tell if the moisture between my breasts was the sweat my lover had poured onto me as we fucked earlier, or if he was now crying.
Running my fingertips across Lawrence’s shoulders, I closed my eyes until my own tears subsided. When I opened them again, he was looking up at me, eyes red and wet. By day a mild-mannered librarian, by night a tortured soul torn between the hegemony of home and the sexcitement of a nymphatic mistress.
In that moment, looking into those tear-filled eyes, I knew I wanted to marry Lawrence Galloway. The thought had crept up on me before, but I’d always managed to force it out of my mind. After all, I was a career-mistress, or at least it would be a career if I took any money for my tenderness. Audrey the mistress, not just what I was, but who. My whole identity was wrapped up in this one dominating aspect of my personality. I was a woman who consorted exclusively with older men, married men. Those sad sorts, raised in a bygone era, trapped in loveless, sexless relationships. My body, my admiration, helped them, made them feel good again, feel attractive and virile. What I gave them was a therapy, a rejuvenation. Of course, when Lawrence came along, I was smitten. There’d been no one else since.
But ringing in my ears were these words: “I’ll never ask you for anything…” I’d assured my bald Adonis of this two years and four months ago. “…as long as you keep no other mistresses. I’ll do anything you want, more than you’ve ever dreamed of, but I want to be the only other woman in your life.”
As I gazed into Lawrence’s sad eyes that April morning, I knew I was about to go back on my word. “Be my husband.” My tone was utterly flat. It wasn’t a question, wasn’t a plea, it was a plan. “Leave Ruth and marry me. Be my husband.”
The words I’d promised never to utter, years ago, had now been spoken. Lawrence stared at me, seemingly awestruck. Maybe he would marry me. Maybe he loved me enough now. Reaching out, Lawrence held my cheek, and his touch was the touch of God. It rang through my body like cathedral bells, alerting my cunt it was time for worship. He squinted and the teardrops fell like lava upon my chest as he leaned his head toward mine.
Without a word, Lawrence laid an impassioned kiss on my mouth. My eager tongue groped for his. It was hot, wet, forceful but yielding. Both hands upon his crown, I dragged his energy down through every center along his spine. I dragged it to the very base of his being and squeezed his tight ass when I got there. Mirroring my pose, he scooped my cheeks into his hands, digging firm fingers into compliant flesh. We kissed and we kissed and we kissed. Hot, wet, yielding. That’s when his hard cock found me like a lonely traveler taking refuge from the storm. Hot, wet. Never releasing me from the communion of his kiss, Lawrence wrapped me, his mistress Audrey, in his arms and thrust metronomically into the frightening depths of my cunt. Le Bolero de Ravel played on a scratchy record in my mind, its downbeats firm and frequent. He was everywhere, all around me and within me. I brought my legs together and Lawrence did too, thrusting through the silk of my thighs to get to the heat between them.
That Ravel, he must have been a magnificent lover. Lawrence propped himself up, hands flat on mattress, to thrust more firmly, more deeply. When I opened my eyes, mourning the sweet flitting of his tongue, I was stunned by the face hovering overhead. Gleaming against the blue morning light, Lawrence emanated all the colors of the universe. Like light shining through a crystal chandelier, he refracted some ephemeral glow emanating from God-knows-where. My eyes were playing tricks on me, no doubt. How could a mere man glisten with such Godly light? Awestruck, I lay motionless in inverse-prostration, staring at the glittering luminescence, until my lover asked, Audrey? Audrey, what’s wrong? Bolero played on, and the lights intensified. Indigo, red, orange, green, yellow, all scintillating like confetti from a wedding that never was. I squeezed my eyes shut, fearful of what I’d seen, afraid of my strong emotions. When I opened them again, that beautiful light had disappeared.
“I love you, Lawrence,” I whispered, pulling his head close and wrapping my arms round his neck like a child. Speaking into his ear, I admitted, “I’ve never loved anyone like this before. I never thought I could. I never wanted to. But you’ve made me see, you’ve made me realize, that I could be happy fucking just one man for the rest of my life. I could spend eternity in your arms.”
Hot tears warmed my cheeks, wetting my tangled hair. Lawrence kissed my neck with wet smacks of his lips. I couldn’t tell if it was just my lover crying, or if I was too. What was at first a whimper soon became a sob as the poor, darling man wrapped his arms around my waist. He was saying something, speaking into my hair, but the words were blubbered and lost.
Striking me to the core, Lawrence ran his cock feverishly into my cunt. Hot, wet, fast. I wanted to hold him there forever, never release the tight grip my pussy muscles exerted on the man. The more firmly my cunt clamped down on the frantic cock, the larger Lawrence felt within me. The larger he felt, the greater my affinity. He was larger than life, more than man. I crossed my legs to hold my lover in place. His balls brushing my thighs, his shaft rubbing my engorged pussy lips, he plunged his hips forward. Moaning with delight at being massaged inside and out, I sank my nails into Lawrence’s shoulder. He was so close, I could nearly see the hot cum churning away in his balls. Reaching between our legs, I grabbed hold of those fuzzy spheres.
“Oh, Audrey!” Lawrence sobbed. “Audrey, my love!”
Those words, Audrey, my love, sent my pussy muscles into spasm. They leapt and grasped at the vestiges of Lawrence’s erection, causing me to shriek, to bear down, to launch my body into his and grit my teeth and puncture his flesh. Grunting desperately, I swung my hips in circles, milking every last drop of cum form my lover’s spent cock. Lawrence whimpered into my salty hair, his breath warming my neck. From somewhere deep within came a sentiment composed of words I didn’t recognize. Even when they came out in a whisper, they didn’t sound familiar: “With my body, I thee worship.”
And then I was asleep.
Awoken by Lawrence glancing at the blue light of the bedside alarm clock, my foggy mind couldn’t determine what had just happened. “Did I ask you to marry me?”
Setting his beautiful bald head between my breasts, Lawrence exhaled deeply before speaking. “I can’t imagine what you see in me, Audrey. A gorgeous, intelligent young woman like you? You should have a gorgeous, intelligent young boyfriend, and I definitely don’t qualify there.”
Tears filled my eyes again, constricting my throat. “I think you’re gorgeous.”
Lawrence giggled, kissing my breasts. “But I’m not. I’m decrepit.”
“No…”
“And you deserve so much better. You deserve a young stud who can give you a family, not some old guy who’s shooting blanks.”
“I don’t want a family,” I argued, voice quivering. “I only want you. I want to be your wife. I want to live together and eat together and watch TV together and have sex every day. I can’t stand to think of you doing those things with another woman.”
Lawrence shifted up in the bed, cuddling me against his chest. “You know, there’s a sense in which Ruth and I haven’t been man and wife in years. She’s only my wife because I’m married to her. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, you and I are closer than Ruth and I have ever been.”
I waited to see if Lawrence would say anything more. He didn’t. “That’s why it makes sense, don’t you think? I mean for us to be together permanently…”
“We can still be together, keep seeing each other the way we are now…”
“That’s not what I mean!” I shouted. “I saw a light around you today. I saw this stunningly beautiful aura glowing all around you when we were having sex. That’s how I know you and I are meant to be together. I bring out this light in you, Lawrence. It wasn’t there before. When I met you, everything was gloom. Your life was gloom. It was black and sorrowful. And now we’re together and you’re happy and there’s this wonderful glittering light…”
“Audrey,” he began in a tone gruffer than before. Lawrence inhaled through his nose. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “Audrey, we already are together. We don’t have to live together, we don’t have to get married. You’re my inamorata. I may have a marriage license that says I’m Ruth’s husband, but I share my body and my soul only with you.”
Seduced by his lofty sentiments, my heart was satiated. I felt warm and full in my bed while Lawrence got up and showered. My heart nearly burst when he said goodbye, kissing me tenderly and whispering into my ear, “With my body I thee worship.”
It wasn’t until after he’d left that I started feeling like I’d been duped, somehow. No, this arrangement wasn’t enough. It had been, for a time, but not anymore. I wanted to be together in a real-world sense, not just in the ephemeral space of my lover’s soul. Audrey LeBreton was destined to marry Lawrence Galloway, and the next time he came to visit, I wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Originally published December 2009