A Morning in October

I was lying in that comfortable, muffled place between sleep and wakefulness when my husband rolled over in his sleep. He turned and swept his leg up in an arc, touching his bent knee to my thigh.

He stopped moving when he touched me, subconsciously preventing himself from bumping me too hard. I smiled blearily.

Our window glowed with the first hints of dawn; although it was already nearly seven, Mystic wouldn't see the October sun until half past seven. The brilliant reds and oranges of the leaves, at this time of year some of them still clinging to their branches while others had already succumbed and fallen to the grass or the sidewalks, were still invisible in the darkness.

A lazy Saturday for us. Exactly what we both needed.

Dean had been stressed recently, substantially so. Work, family, more work, delays by the contractor working on our kitchen, more family. His mother, ever antithetical to a peaceful state of mind, was particularly culpable for his recent hardships. I'd bitten my tongue so far, but I wasn't far from speaking up.

I wished I could suck the stress away from him. Siphon it out like corruption from an infected wound.

When his knee touched me, my hand fell instinctively atop it. I grazed his skin with my nails, watching the pale rose light gleam on his nose. His pulse beat, visibly, in his neck. His chest rose and fell; for the moment, his breaths were slow and deep.

Bringing my hand up to extricate it from the sheets, I inadvertently brushed against him. I paused. What do we have here?

"Hello, there," I said quietly, squeezing him through his boxer briefs. Although I couldn't remove his stress and box it away somewhere unseen, I could make him forget it for a time. Maybe many times in a row.

Dean groaned and shifted. His eyes cracked the barest bit and landed on me. They were still heavy with sleep.

"Whatcha doin'?" he mumbled.

"Oh, nothing," I said, teasing my fingernail over him. "I found something I like, that's all."

"Mm," he grunted. His lips turned up at the corner even as his eyes closed again. "It's the morning, y'know. Y'know the... expression." The last word came out like espreshun.

"I know the expression," I whispered. "I'll take care of it for you so you can sleep again, baby. No, don't get up. Just lift your hips for me."

Doing my best to minimize the amount of energy Dean had to expend, I burrowed under the blankets and managed to pull his boxer briefs down to his ankles. I untangled them from his feet and then wormed back up to him. My arm snaked from the covers like a periscope, wrist curling as I flung the underwear to the floor. He wouldn't be needing those again for the rest of the day, I thought, rather ambitiously.

"Close your eyes," I told him. I kissed him on the lips and then moved to his neck. I knew he was actively fighting, at my urging, the instinct to wake up more fully, to take control. He wanted to be an active participant in whatever was about to happen. It was against his nature to lie there, knowing that I was working, for his benefit solely, while he was doing nothing.

But that's exactly what I wanted him to do—nothing. This was not meant to be a reciprocal exchange.

I put my palm on his chest. Felt his heart beating beneath his ribs. My husband's pecs were muscular from the pushups and dips I found him doing in the basement at least twice a week. I liked pinching his hair between my index and ring fingers, pulling at it gently.

His coarser chest hair gave way to the soft hair running vertically along his belly. Fine and smooth, it was an alluring contrast to the hard musculature of his abs.

As I passed his navel, my pinky touched the tip of his cock. Dean groaned again. I skipped the teasing I'd normally force him to endure. Instead, I gripped him firmly and started to move my hand back and forth.

"God, you're so hard," I whispered, quietly enough that it was more to myself than him.

If someone asked me— even in a private conversation like the sort that might happen between two friends over a glass of wine— to pick my favorite part of my husband, I imagine I'd pick something intangible and romantic: his generosity; his quiet confidence; or his empathy, which I didn't truly appreciate until the time we found a fawn stuck in our fence and he spent 20 painstaking minutes untangling the poor creature.

But if it was Stephanie, my best friend whom I met nearly 10 years ago in college, asking the question, and if I'd had enough wine by that point in the evening, I'd probably simply say, "His cock."

After all, it's big and he knows how to use it. Can you blame a girl?

Dean pushed his hips up, so I moved faster, the way he liked it: gripping firmly, bringing the top of my fist to the head of his cock and then dropping it enough to pull the skin taut, but not too taut.

I learned this when we were dating; we'd been watching a movie, some straight-to-streaming thriller or another, when he turned my chin and kissed me. We made love there on his couch while the movie's denouement played, forgotten, its volume low but not muted. I wanted to see him finish, so when he warned me he was close, I dismounted him and folded his own fingers around his shaft. Told him to take care of himself so I could learn the way he liked it.

"Shh," I said now. "Rest, Dean. Let me take care of you." The room brightened almost imperceptibly as sunrise crept closer. I flung the covers back, exposing him to the light.

It only took another couple minutes. Dean bucked his hips again, and when his mouth opened, a nearly inaudible "Uh" escaped.

"Come for me, baby," I said quietly. "Let it out."

And he did.

Dean's orgasms were always weaker in the morning, for some reason. But today, after weeks of abstinence, my enthusiastic handjob resulted in a gleaming pool of semen that stretched across his belly. I propped myself up on one elbow to watch.

He discovered this about me all those years ago, while that thriller was playing in the background; there aren't many things as hot to me as making him come all over himself.

I'm equitable about it. I give him free rein to finish on me wherever he wants. I am, after all, his, and there are few ways that make that more evident. Plus, there's something I just like about the warmth and cloying odor— Dean's has always smelled like a sweetened batch of herbal tea— of semen pattering across my body.

Even so, it's fun to turn the tables on him every once in a while.

As Dean orgasmed, his come pulsing across his belly and my fingers, I told him, "It's been so long. I think you should come every day, no exceptions." I slowed but didn't stop until his cock softened in my grip and his breath grew heavy with sleep. The fact that I'd managed to lull him back into unconsciousness was not something I'd soon let him forget.

Careful not to rouse him, I rolled from the bed and crept into the bathroom. I ripped off a few squares of toilet paper and turned back to the door. Then, thinking about the size of the mess we'd created, I swiped a spare roll of paper from the cabinet.

I left his belly dry and threw the wad of paper in the trash. "Sleep, baby," I said to deaf ears.

It was only 7:13 at this point. I'd be back for more once he woke up. Until then, the next best parts of a lazy Saturday morning were still to come: fresh coffee, sunshine, and an engrossing book.

I donned my bathrobe and slippers. One last look at Dean revealed him to be sleeping on his side, legs curled up toward his chest. A patch of sun, small and square, warmed the bedspread next to him.

The smile hadn't faded from my face when I reached the kitchen. I opened the drawer near the sink, where we stored our assorted coffees, teas, and related accoutrements, and pulled out the manual burr grinder.

An essential part of any morning, that ritual. The click of metal on granite, the pop of the coffee bin's lid, the rainfall of beans showering into the grinder, the engine-like growl of the burrs grinding them into powder as I twisted the crank.

And the aroma, of course.

I plopped onto the chaise in the living room, mug steaming from atop the metal end table. When I cracked open my hardcover edition of The Great Alone, the atomic clock on the wall indicated 7:36.

After 10 minutes or so— time always seems evasive behind a good book— the contents of my still-steaming mug were depleted by a third. Something creaked in the house's woodwork above me; I'd heard that enough times to know Dean had just gotten out of bed, alighting upon that pesky floorboard with his left foot.

I managed to finish the chapter before his slippered feet materialized on the staircase. Then emerged the hem of his bathrobe, a plush, maroon thing, lavish enough that he'd protested after tearing away my meticulously taped wrapping paper last Christmas; it was only at my behest that he kept it, though I rather suspected he enjoyed it quite a bit more than he let on.

"Morning, darling," I said playfully, closing The Great Alone and placing it next to my coffee. "Have a good sleep?"

He bent to kiss me and stretched. "Utterly fantastic. I had a splendid dream, or so I thought when I woke up."

"Oh?" I said, feigning surprise. "But then you decided it wasn't as splendid as you first thought?"

"But then I realized it wasn't, in fact, a dream."

I widened my eyes. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Dean laughed and kicked his slippers off. They sailed onto the carpet, landing with twin thumps. "My boxers seem to have vanished while I slept. And I never—"

"You never sleep naked," I interjected. "Much to my consternation. I am utterly deprived."

"Well," Dean said, kneeling before the chaise, "I'm here to rectify that." He grasped one of my ankles and pulled it toward himself.

I let my leg reach full extension, which caused the hem of my robe to fall to the side, exposing a few inches of thigh above my knee. "What exactly are you here to rectify?"

"My beautiful wife's deprivation."

"And what is she deprived of?"

"Carnal pleasures, of course."

"I can't say I'm suffering from that particular affliction, though I won't object to the cure. I think the treatment would be most effective if you removed your overcoat before administering it, my dearest sir."

Dean caught my eye, and his stoic expression gave way to a smirk, which quickly became a laugh. Within seconds, we were both giggling, then guffawing. My ribs ached.

"Just get naked," I told him, once I'd recovered enough breath to speak.

Still laughing, he stood and shed the robe so it crumpled around his feet like a magistrate's cape.

"Now that's what a girl likes to see." I licked my lips, admiring his physique. He was hard again, but only partially; his cock protruded from his body at a downward angle. As I watched, it stiffened and continued its upward journey.

Dean knelt again, and his arousal disappeared from view. "Boo," I told him. "I was looking at that."

"We won't be needing it for the next few minutes." He dragged me toward him until I slid down the chaise and my head lay flat against the cushion. I grabbed one of the pillows to prop it under myself.

"What's going to happen for the next few minutes?"

He pushed my legs apart. "I'm going to give my beautiful wife the attention she deserves."

"Eat your fill. I've been working on something for you," I said.

"I can see that. And I love it."

"Thanks, babe. I grew it myself, you know."

Dean snorted, and we nearly plunged back into uncontrollable laughter, but we both managed to rein it in. He was staring, enraptured, at my pussy. If I hadn't been wet before, I certainly was now, seeing the expression on his face.

He'd made a passing comment some weeks ago that, while he loved me shaved smooth, it would be incredibly sexy if I grew a landing strip. I don't think he expected me to act on that comment, but I had, trimming myself every day for a couple of weeks. I allowed a half-inch stripe to grow until I sported a clean-edged column of hair down my middle.

"I like seeing you like this."

"Yeah?" I asked. "Tell me more."

He squeezed my hamstrings and pushed my legs back. "Like this. On your back, robe hitched up around your hips. Legs wide open."

"Do you have a favorite part of me?" I asked. "I have a favorite part of you. I think we should each say what our favorite part is at the same time."

Dean dipped his head and inhaled. I heard the air whistling into his nose as he smelled me. "Count of three?"

"Count of three. Three, two, one..."

He said, "This sopping pussy," at the same time I said, "Your hard cock."

I laughed. "Just like us, to use adjectives."

"Those are pretty important adjectives, don't you think?"

Before I could answer, Dean's tongue was on me. He lapped at me for a minute or two before coming up for air. "I love the way you taste first thing in the morning."

"What about the afternoon?"

He dipped his head again, this time breaching me with the tip of his tongue. "Let me rephrase. I love tasting you first thing in the morning. But you taste fantastic at all times of day."

"What about after a 10-hour hike, in 80-degree weather, on the third day of a backpacking trip?"

"Especially then. The taste, the smell. Magnifico."

"You're sweet. Gross, but sweet. It's a good day if my husband's face smells like my pussy."

"In that case, may all your days be good days."

We didn't speak again for the next few minutes, and the only sounds were Dean's grunts of appreciation commingled with my moans of pleasure. His nose pressed into my groin as he ate me out. Dimly, I wondered how long I could keep him distracted before the worry descended upon him again, stole the wind from his sails.

Right as I was about to ask him to use his hand, he slipped his middle and ring fingers into me. They hooked up and back, massaging me while his tongue continued swirling across my clit. Soon, an orgasm was building in my loins.

"Oh, baby," I said. "I'm going to come."

"You want to turn around?"

"Yes." I'd always orgasmed the hardest when I was being fingered. Specifically, when I was on my belly with my ass propped in the air. Dean knew this and, with the fingers of his right hand still hooked inside me, helped me flip over atop the chaise.

"Don't stop," I told him. "Please, don't stop."

He sat on the chaise next to me for better leverage. My head was now hanging over the arm of the couch, my hands pressed beneath my chest, my hips thrust into the air.

His touch turned rough, knuckles punching into me with each stroke. I didn't mind; those fingers were making my eyes roll and my toes flex. I cried out, voice muffled by the couch, that I was coming, that he shouldn't stop, that what he was doing felt amazing.

I came like a ship cresting a wave. A sensation that I was about to pee— which I'd learned to embrace, not resist— surged. Dean didn't slow until I touched his knee and squeezed.

"Oh, fuck," I gasped. I rolled over and pulled him to me, kissing him. "That was fabulous."

He sat back and watched my sex twitch, hands planted on my thighs so I couldn't close them earlier than he wanted. "I bet I enjoyed it more than you did," he challenged.

"Bet you didn't."

"Bet we could argue about this all day."

"Bet you're right."

He picked up my mug and took a sip of coffee. "I'll have to go down on you again. Increase our sample size."

"Seems fair to me. I'm not sure I've had enough time to really savor the experience, yet."

"Me neither."

"I need to adjust. Let me sit up."

"Aw," Dean whined. "I'm not done looking."

"Yes, you are. Now stand up. Nuh-uh," I chided when he reached for his fallen robe. "You can leave that where it is."

"Whatever you say." Obediently, he stood.

"Come 'round the side of the couch." I pushed myself into a sitting position and tucked my hair behind my ears.

"This was supposed to be about you," he said, stopping a couple feet away.

I looked from his swaying erection to his face. "This is about me. I want to suck my husband's cock. Tell me you don't want me to."

"No," he conceded, "I won't."

I opened my mouth expectantly, and Dean eased forward; he found his way into my mouth without any manual intervention.

"Mm," I said, flattening my tongue underneath him.

"I do like watching you do your wifely duty."

I pulled his cock from my mouth. "Is that what this is? My wifely duty?"

"It's part of it."

I fondled his balls. "It does seem fair for a husband to expect his wife to make all his erection go away whenever he's sporting one."

"That seems like an unfairly tall order, no?"

I placed a hand on his belly. "You have permission to expect your wife to take care of you whenever you're hard. Better?"

Dean took another sip of my coffee. "Only if you agree to the reverse. Oh... that feels good."

I shook my head from side to side, ballooning one cheek and then the other. I gave him a wide-eyed look and shrugged.

"I'll agree as long as you make me lick your pussy whenever you're wet," he clarified.

I pushed him hard enough that he had to take a step back. "That seems fair."

He grinned. "Good. Get on your back again. I'm ready for my second helping."

"No. I want you to fuck me instead." I put a knee on the couch and levered myself up, shrugging my arms out of the bathrobe's sleeves so it fell to the couch. I turned my back on Dean, clambering on my hands and knees, feet protruding past the side of the chaise. Being this exposed to him— in a bright room, both holes gaping— would never stop making my pulse quicken with what felt like a virgin's thrill.

His hands found my waist and squeezed. The head of his cock rested against my entrance. He thrust himself forward and I parted around him, feeling him sink into me inch by glorious inch.

"Yes," I said. "Oh, Dean, harder. Yes, like that."

After a mere two dozen strokes, he started to slow down. "I'm sorry, babe, I'm getting close." He sounded sheepish. "I'm not sure why it's so quick, especially after you—."

"Don't stop," I demanded. "Don't slow down."

"But I'm g—."

"Then do it. I want you to finish inside me. Fuck me harder."

He didn't protest again. Instead, he slammed himself into me a few more times, and after the final stroke, held himself against me while he moaned with pleasure. I reached up to massage his balls as he came.

"Lisa," he moaned. "Lisa, fuck, I'm there."

"Good. You made me finish already, baby."

"This was just so quick..." Even as he said it, he continued to pulse inside me.

"I like making you come fast, Dean. It makes me feel so absurdly sexy."

"Let me get something for this," he said, referring to the load that would start dripping out of me the moment he pulled out. "Are you ready?"

"Don't worry. Just lie with me on the couch."

"But what about—."

"It's fine, baby. Just lie with me."

He slid out of me, and then he gently folded me into the shape he wanted, making room on the chaise for both of us. We cuddled, naked bodies molded together. The cool wetness of his cock touched my thighs.

The coffee dregs grew cold next to us, the warm October sunlight falling across our legs. A wet spot slowly grew beneath me, but I didn't care. Within a few minutes, we were both dozing in the sunlight once more.