Converted
A tale of suppressed desires
They needed the space.
Maybe they’d concentrated on the wrong projects back then. The pool was a frivolity but she loved stretching out beside it in the heat of the day, huge sunglasses, pretending she was a rock chick or a film star. She liked to pretend, to escape into her head. Pre-marriage she’d been the wild one. Unsuitable boys … then unsuitable men … hot summer days led to wild nights that rolled into the next day. Huge shades to hide the bags, occasionally the bruises.
But she’s settled now. Life is steady. A good man. A home builder who would make a great father. He’d started talking about it a year or two back but she’d found ways to distract him, to move the conversation on. But now? Now might be the time. She had to be straight in her head. No pretending. No more wild thoughts. No all-nighters, for sure, well not that kind.
So she’d agreed. They would try but not until they had the space. The house would need an extension. Nothing too fancy. A bedroom over a playroom, a decent sized double for them so theirs could be turned into the nursery. A symbol of adulthood. She was going to have to get serious.
But here she is, draped across the lounger, glistening in coconut oil, pretending to read but gazing across at the lean, tanned, tattooed physique hanging off the scaffolding, and she is relishing the way that toolbelt is hanging off his hips.
Shit, this was just the first day.
Day Two. He started early. She watched from the kitchen window as he lifted the heavy beams. The sun was barely over the cottonwood tree that marked the boundary of their modest homestead but he was stripped to the waist and the longer she stared, the more distracted she became.
Muscles rippled across his broad shoulders, catching the golden glow as shafts of sunlight sneaked through the dense foliage. She hadn’t looked at his forearms before, not really looked. Powerful, veins bulging, sinews straining as they take the weight.
Her thoughts drifted. Imagining. Powerful arms lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Throwing her down. Reaching for her flimsy dress …
“Any chance of a cold drink out here?”. His voice was deep, seductive.
She looked up guiltily, illicit thoughts scurried away. “Be right there. I’ll leave it on the tool bench”.
By the fourth day - a sultry one, even by the standards of that crazy hot summer - she was beside herself, not knowing what to think anymore. She showered slowly, lingeringly, serenaded by the sound of a power tool rhythmically going about its business. The language of construction overlapping with the language of her misspent youth … nailed, drilled, screwed … words conjuring images, memories flickering like an old movie.
Whatever the reasons, she had craved the attention, needing to feel the connection. From 9th grade, she’d stopped being plain old Belinda-Jane, always known just by her initials. She flushed, even now, when she remembered the way the other girls stopped talking as she walked by, giggles and whispered rumours following her down the corridor. She was there for anyone who asked, and a few who didn’t. If it was a human connection she was looking for, she rarely found it, so when she dropped out in the month of her 17th birthday she didn’t hang around in that small town in Iowa.
Take the Greyhound, she told herself. Three changes and see where you land, Belinda-Jane, start afresh. Live quietly, keep your head down - not like that - and make a new life. Keep all those rememberings deep inside, suppress those needs.
When she stepped off that final bus, the dusty bible belt town in Arkansas couldn’t have been further from her past. The handwritten advert had barely been taped up in the window of the diner before she was lying about her age and serving filter coffee to a steady stream of customers who worried about their day-to-day, not hers. She worked hard, lived above the diner in an immaculate one-bedroom apartment, and limited her social life to the occasional cold beer after work with Jolene the owner. If she hadn’t volunteered, at the last moment, to help out at the church picnic, she never would have met him. He was steady in a way that suited her new life. Quiet, respectful, and patient. They married in a small ceremony in the Baptist church his family had attended for four generations. He was devout but he didn’t force it on her. Occasionally she would hear him murmuring the Lord’s Prayer and the words mocked her …
“… lead us not into temptation …”
In the background, the power tools throbbed, drowning out the sounds of her imaginings as the shower stung her skin.
The sixth day was the start of a new week. The storm at the weekend had sucked some of the humidity out of the Arkansas air, but the heat was unbearable. She knew she shouldn’t but the flimsy dress buttoned at the front had been in her dreams for the past 3 nights.
She knew he was looking. She caught him twice, the second time after she had hitched up the hem. Watching him from behind the oversized sunglasses, she smiled to herself as he redoubled his efforts, hammering away at the wooden pins that secured the beams. His biceps flexed as he worked in the blazing heat.
Her slim fingers brushed his calloused hands as she handed him the iced water. Even as her wedding band glinted in the sun he couldn’t help but look at the freedom she had gifted her body by loosening those two buttons. As his gaze lingered, he self-consciously adjusted his toolbelt as she brazenly stared right back at him.
“Lead us not into temptation”.
His voice caught in his throat. “Better get on, need to get this job finished”.
Staring out of the kitchen window a few moments later, her breathing slowed, a soft moan audible only to her as she weighed his words alongside her imagining.
It was to be finished today. He’d told her yesterday evening. “Just about there, ma’am. You’ll be trying out that bedroom in no time”.
That night, lying by her husband in their tiny bed, she’d reached for him but he was already breathing deeply, already fast asleep. Her dreams came quickly, wild, unfettered, memories intertwined with unspoken desires.
By the morning she had decided. It was now, or never.
“Give us this day our daily …”.
Decision made, she relaxed into the day. She swam lengths of the pool, long languid strokes drawing her slim tanned body first one way, then another. On a whim she hovered in the deep end, watching as the two parts of her bikini spiralled to the bottom of the pool. Another length, exaggerating the splashing, drawing his eye away from the finishing touches. As she turned and swam away from him, she felt the cool breeze - and his eyes - on her upturned behind.
Today is the day.
“Give us this day …”
Temptation.
Her bare skin dried in the warmth of the late afternoon sun before she wrapped the silk kimono around her. She thought of the mattress they had wrestled upstairs last night, the fresh sheet she had placed on it this morning.
If not today, when? Too long suppressing the temptation. Simmering.
She looked over at the lithe, tattooed body. He was standing back admiring his work as she stood admiring him. He was everything she desired. She recognised now what she wanted, what she needed.
There were no words as their eyes met, as she reached for his hand and led him inside. He followed her and she felt his eyes on the over-emphasised sway of her body. “Give us this day”.
She unbuttoned his shirt, sliding it off his powerful shoulders, reaching for the buckle of his thick leather belt. He stood there, naked, eyes on hers as the robe pooled at her feet.
Temptation.
She stood on her tiptoes, brushing against him, eyes widening. She murmured, “slowly”.
As her husband moved against her, she knew she had never loved him more deeply.
I'm so glad he was her husband..... (well mostly anyway!!)
Love the vibe of this Barrie!