Together Apart: Change is Never Easy (6 page)

“For what?”
 

“For this. I don’t know what it is.”
 

“Hormones. Like you said.”
 

“I guess.”
 

“The hormones picked a bad time,” Zach added.
 

Sam laughed, then sniffed.
 

She lay against him for a moment. He fought the feeling in his gut, a bit disgusted with how male he felt. Sam had never looked better. Her light-brown hair had a shine even in their shitty apartment’s winking overhead lights. Her neck was smooth and long and tan. From above, he could look down and see how it peeked below her green dress, going on forever in long expanses of flesh that he longed to run his fingers across. She was canted just so, allowing him a view down into her cleavage. Sam’s breasts weren’t large, but they were the most perfect set he’d ever touched. He wondered if they’d change with a baby. He supposed they would. He was cool with that. The rest of Sam would change, too. And he was cool with all of it. Her face was elegant and would remain so; her manner could be playful and would stay that way; her heart was pure, and Zach could imagine it no other way. Even through their past few rough months, he’d never stopped admiring her for who and what she was.
 

“I’m totally cockblocking you,” she said.
 

“Without question. But it’s okay.”
 

“I’m sorry.”
 

“No worries. And on a completely separate topic, do you mind if I go into the bathroom for a few minutes? Don’t be alarmed if you hear some light rattling. I’m thinking about cleaning the air ducts.”
 

Sam laughed. But again, Zach was serious. Women didn’t understand that for men, sex and love weren’t always separate and
were
usually connected, just not in the same way as they were for women. Women complained that men had sex on one hand and love on another, but it was never that way for Zach. Sure, he could screw a girl without loving her, but loving a girl made him horny.
 

Truth was, they hadn’t held one another like this for months — and instead of settling him down, it was revving him up. Like back in the days of their casual touching … which, more often than not, led to less casual touching. It wasn’t just the sex, it was the intimacy. Sam used to lay her head on his chest or lap when they were watching TV or reading. They’d engage in spontaneous, long hugs — when one intuited that the other needed it or just because. But since the move, that had mostly stopped. It had nothing to do with a lack of affection … not in Zach’s mind, anyway. He was simply tired. Not physically, but a sinister species of soul-tired. He’d felt recently drained and filled with malaise, and that left him with nothing — for art in his studio, himself with a good book, or Sam. There was a time when he’d been so full of bliss that everything around him was touched. But that time was in the past.
 

The warm, smooth, beautiful woman lying across him, close in a way she hadn’t been since their brighter days together, was only making his situation worse.
 

“You didn’t want to move here,” she said.
 

He laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Of course he hadn’t wanted to move. They’d fought about it for weeks. Portland was vibrant and alive. All of his friends were there. So were his creative peers. Guys like Walter, who had already made three careers with two phone calls. And she wanted to move to
Memphis?
Worse: She wanted to move for a
journalism
job? Sam was a talented writer; Zach was actually jealous of the emotion, spirit, and soul she could imbue in a piece of writing. He’d met her as a journalism major, but had always hoped it was only a fallback, that Sam would try her hand at expressing pure talent first. The job offer burned that bridge. It was a good offer at a good salary, and that was the problem. Good was often the enemy of great, and if Sam took the
good
job with the online newspaper, that would be the end of her chance to be a
great
artist. Sam didn’t see it as a conceit. For her, it was a victory. So, she’d wanted to move, and that desire was strong enough to trump even the guilt she’d seemed to feel at pulling him from Portland. He could have stayed, of course, and she’d halfheartedly suggested that he do so, but they had both felt the damned-if-you-do nature of their reality. The best thing for Zach — just Zach, by himself — would be to stay in Portland. Memphis was best for Sam. Their marriage needed them in the same place at the same time, so there was no way to win.
 

“I didn’t want to make you move,” she said.
 

“It’s okay.”
 

“It’s not, though. You’re suffocating.”
 

“I’ll be okay. Honest. I just haven’t found my roots yet.”
 

“Are
there roots for an artist in Memphis?”
 

“Of course.”
 

“An artist like you?”
 

He sighed. “I don’t know, baby.”
 

“It sucks,” she said.
 

“It doesn’t suck.”
 

“I know how miserable you are. You were happier in Portland.” Sam looked up at Zach, her big, blue eyes moist. “Do you think we made a mistake?”
 

“If we’d stayed, you’d have felt like I feel now.”
 

Shit.
He wasn’t supposed to say that.
 

“So you aren’t happy.”
 

“I’m happy being with you. I want to be where you are.”
 

She shook her head. “That’s not an answer, Zach. This can’t be all about me.”
 

“I’m all yours.” He tried on a smile, found it ill-fitting.

“You should have stayed in Portland.”
 

“It wasn’t an option. We weren’t going to get a divorce.” The word felt like a knife, so he tried to dull it with,
“Never.”
 

She sighed, gripping him tighter.
 

It
had
been an option, though. That was the most horrible part of it all. They hadn’t tried to figure the logistics of a long-distance relationship, as doomed an effort as that would’ve been. The options were to stay married and together, or go their separate ways and get a divorce. Because in truth, distance had grown even before Sam’s offer. The move was easy to blame for their recent awkwardness, but the move was merely an accelerant. If they were honest, both had to admit they were changing. Growing up. It was no one’s fault, and that made it so insidious. Couple’s counseling couldn’t prevent you or your spouse from growing up.

He pulled them apart, gently, allowing Sam to keep her hands around him, moving to meet her eyes. He said, “This is a happy time.”

She nodded.
 

“I’m serious.”
 

“I know.”
 

“Not to be a guy about this, but I think this is pregnancy stuff. I’m not dismissing it, or calling you an overly emotional woman or anything like that. I’m just saying the reason you’re on about this stuff, now, with good news between us, might be chemistry.”

Sam swallowed. “I know.”
 

“I won’t tell you to get over it. But don’t get worked up, OK?”
 

“You’re so cute when you’re trying to backpedal.” Sam smiled, blinking tears from her eyes.
 

“Hey, I have to protect myself. Men get in trouble for these things. Say … you’re not on your period, are you? I hear periods make broads all bitchy and sobby.”
 

“Again, you display a stunning knowledge of female biology.”
 

Zach made his eyes hard, earnest. “I’d never have stayed behind without you. I’d rather adjust here, even if it takes time, than leave you. And I
am
adjusting. Carl at work paints. We were talking about it a few days ago, actually.”
 

“You have an art buddy.”
 

“Right on.”
 

“What does Carl paint?”
 

Carl painted horrible still-lifes. He sold his paintings at craft fairs for 10 bucks each.

“One thing at a time,” said Zach. Sam laughed. She could read him and his sarcasm enough to know what it meant, but seemed pleased by the spark. And it was true. Where there was one Carl, there would be many, and maybe some would take their work seriously. Memphis was a creative city. Zach just had to find a hub where he could fit.
 

Sam brushed her hand down the front of his shirt, straightening its wrinkles as if they were yet to go out to dinner rather than returning. She reached his crotch, and laughed again, this time with genuine humor.
 

“You consoled a weepy woman with your pants open.”

“Duty called. I answered.”
 

She flipped at his open belt, then at his fly. Her finger trailed into the opening, running across the ridge in his shorts.
 

“You’re still hard.”
 

“Some amazingly beautiful woman was about to give me a blowjob,” Zach explained.
 

“Sounds hot.”
 

“Then we had a frank discussion about our relationship.”
 

Still looking down, still running her finger along his shorts, Sam said, “Now that’s sexy.”
 

“It was beautiful in its own way.”
 

“I smell bullshit.”
 

“No. It was a talk we needed to have. See, this girl and I? We have a baby on the way.”
 

Sam’s finger continued to move, idly, stirring.
 

“I still smell bullshit.”
 

“No bullshit at all.”
 

She looked up at him. “When I was lying on your chest, did you look down my top?”
 

“No.”
 

“Liar.” She turned. “Unzip me.”
 

“I want to keep talking about our relationship.”
 

She wiggled her shoulders insistently. He ran the zipper down her back, exposing a smooth expanse of tanned skin. She pulled her shoulders from the dress and let it fall, pooling at her waist. She stood, slid it to the floor, then sat beside him, now wearing only a pair of white panties.
 

“Emotional women are easy,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt.
 

“Talk to me more about emotional suffocation.”
 

“That isn’t funny.”
 

“You’re right. Let me tell you about Carl’s paintings, then.”
 

For the second time that night, Sam’s cheeks pursed out, and she lost a laugh. Her breasts shook with the force. Zach responded as her hand crept lower.
 

“I’m feeling better,” she said.
 

He cupped one of her breasts, found it perfectly sized. “Yes,” he said. “You feel great.”
 

“The hormones are going away.”
 

“Hey,” he said, “how do you make a hormone?”
 

“I don’t know. How?”
 

“Don’t pay her.”
 

“Holy shit.” Sam rolled her eyes and groaned. “Do you want to get laid or not?”
 

“Is that still on the table?”
 

“I’d figured on the bed.”
 

He sighed. “So conventional.”
 

“You’re complaining?”
 

It was OK. She had said it playfully, as he had. Memories hit him in force: first the sincere, close emotional connection he felt when Sam first wrapped her arms around him, now the banter. Despite her supposed irritation, his juvenile humor
had
gotten him laid many times throughout their marriage. It was nearly impossible to get most girls to go down on you behind a stack of firewood with a straight face. But make a joke about “getting wood” as he’d done at his parents cabin … while his parents were inside? Well, sky was the limit.
 

“I’m not complaining.”
 

She poked at him. “You are so
hard!”
 

“Well, that’s how these things work.” Zach slipped a hand into Sam’s panties and made her suddenly quiet. She wasn’t so high and mighty, either. She was wet like a sponge, and judging by its warmth, it hadn’t stopped for long. Zach wondered if it was possible for a woman to be emotionally distraught and horny at once. Hard to say. Girls were complicated.
 

“Oh,” she said.
 

He leaned in and kissed her, softly. His palm flat on her small patch of hair, he curled a finger to her clit and rolled over it. Sam closed her eyes.
 

“I guess it’s still on the table.”
 

“Keep doing that,” she said, eyes still closed.
 

Zach increased his pressure, adding another finger. She sighed. He moved slowly, rubbing in a large, moist circle. Her head fell to his neck, her breath hot on his skin. Sam’s hand moved to his cock, but was distracted and not skin-on-skin. The more distracted Sam was by his ministrations, the more turned on she got. Sex for Sam was the same pressure valve as it was for Zach; she was just harder to ply into motion. She’d have a rough day, and claim she didn’t have the energy to fuck … but if Zach persisted, those stressful days were the ones when she’d scream out loud enough to shake the windows in their sills. It seemed that whatever had been bothering her now sat behind her abdomen in a tight ball. He had only to uncork her and let it out.
 

Sam shifted, letting her hand fall from his cock. Zach knelt on the floor and slipped her panties down her legs. He looked up at her, trying to appreciate her as he had when they’d been new. It was easy. Sam was stunning. She looked down at him with half-lidded blue eyes, a trace of red still around them. Her gaze was nothing but lust. His eyes wandered to her perfect tits, to her flat belly, to the tan-line-bound triangle below from where she still, to this day, found time to tan topless. A small patch of pubic hair greeted him. Zach put his nose against it, his mouth on her pussy. She exhaled, head drooping back.