Down and Back

Eric softly came in from the garage and set his keys on the counter.

"I'll make dinner," he said.

Helen was at the counter scrolling through her phone. She looked up. "You don't have to."

"I know." He was already at the refrigerator. "I want to."

She watched him work. He moved around the kitchen the way he did everything now -- carefully, checking himself, glancing over at her every so often like he was reading one of the dials at work. "Is pasta OK?"

"I don't care."

When he set the pot of water on the cooktop, he glanced over at her again.

"He tries so hard." She thought.

It was true and it was the whole problem. He'd always tried hard. That was one thing she'd admired about him at first. He had been energetic, laughed like he meant it, and could fill a room without noticing. He'd had shoulders back then from swimming and a swimmer's body under his shirt. His face was ordinary but lit somehow, and an engineer's salary meant a solid foundation under her feet that would never shift. He automated factories, working out what a line was doing wrong and fixing it. She always thought that suited him, a man who could look at something that was broken and make it work.

He paid attention to her, constantly, exhaustingly. Sometimes she'd catch him looking at her and think, "He doesn't really see me. He sees the me that he wants to see." Clearly, he admired her, more than she deserved. That was the part she had trouble explaining, because who didn't like being admired? But it made her uneasy because if he was wrong about her, sooner or later he'd find out.

So she said things. Small things. Nothing she remembered the next day. A criticism here, a correction there, the little face she made without meaning anything by it, and he'd taken every one of them as a verdict instead of a comment.

She'd watched him getting quieter. Tentative. He'd stopped filling the room and started checking it. The laugh had mostly gone. The shoulders were still there but they had softened.

And the more of him that went, the less Helen found to look at. And the less she looked, the more of him went. He seemed to diminish week by week.

He put a plate in front of her, sat down, and ate without speaking except to ask what was new.

"I thought I'd go swimming after dinner," he said, "if it's OK with you."

She didn't look up. "I don't care."

He said it with her under his breath. I don't care." The four words landed in the kitchen and settled like dust.

She didn't notice. She never noticed.

He let himself out. The door closed softly behind him.

Click.

SPLASH

The slap of arms on water and the sound of people diving filled the air. The natatorium was warm and echoing, the way pools always were, and at this hour almost empty. Eric dropped his bag in the locker room, changed, and walked out under the lights, finding the water blue and inviting.

He'd been a swimmer once -- Club team, state championships. He'd been good enough that people stopped to watch, back when anyone watched him at all. Now he did his mile, down and back. Down and back. And no one on earth knew or cared that he could.

Down and back. Dull. Predictable. Boring. Was he thinking about swimming or himself?

He turned and pushed off. He caught a glimpse of female legs in the next lane.

Eric stopped at the wall and stared. It was hard to size her up with her hair tucked under a swim cap and her face masked by goggles, but man, she had a body. Trim. Athletic. A drop-back Speedo clung to her curves like a second skin, and he couldn't help but gawk at her small rounded bottom and the nylon stretched tight over her crotch. She pushed off the wall beside him. Could he actually see the line of her?

His dick stirred.

Then, because that was the kind of man he'd become, he thought of his wife and felt guilty.

Down and back. His mind drifted, and he lost track of her, only to realize with a little regret that she was gone. Oh, well. A girl like that could have anyone. She didn't know he was alive. She'd swum in the next lane for half an hour and never once looked over.

The pool seemed emptier now. A few more laps and he would be done. Who cared?

He finished, climbed out in a spray of water, and dried himself in the silent natatorium, noting he was the last one there. He wished he'd seen her more. But girls like that never saw someone like him anyway. As he trudged toward the shower, a feminine arm shot out from the kickboard closet and grabbed his arm.

"Hey!"

He turned around. The closet door was half open, and in the dim light behind it, a woman pulled him inside. She shut the door, locked it, and then she was on him -- hands in his hair, mouth on his mouth, swim cap off, a cloud of black hair loose around her face. And she was kissing him like she'd been waiting all night.

She broke off, looked at him happily, and laughed, "Hi."

"Hi," he managed.

She pressed her lips to his again and, without breaking the kiss, dropped her hands to his crotch and rubbed him through his wet swimsuit. To his embarrassment, nothing happened. She rubbed harder, but his traitorous dick refused to respond.

She pulled away and looked down. "I see you're going to need a little help with that." She dropped to her knees, worked his drawstring loose, and yanked his suit down until he flopped free. She stared a moment.

"Ever since high school I've dreamed of this," she said. "I can't believe it's finally happening."

She laughed suddenly. "You don't recognize me, do you? I'm Robin! Robin Chandler! Well, back then I was Robin Wayne. You remember -- braces, mousy hair, clunky shoes?"

Eric frantically searched his mind for a memory of a Robin but came up blank. A girl had a crush on him? Girls didn't have crushes on him.

"I guess I've changed since then."

"Um, yeah!" Eric said. He did not have a clue.

Then a warm mouth swallowed him, a tongue swirling around his head, toying with his slit, lapping at the ridge beneath.

"Oh, God," Eric groaned. His wife was repulsed by even the suggestion of oral sex, and none of the girls he'd dated had been inclined either. He started to rise despite the shock.

The girl cupped his balls, warming them in her palm, her other hand stroking his shaft in time with her tongue. He put his palms on her head and guided that mouth. The heat had an effect. A tingling started somewhere inside, the first stirring of real lust. As if on cue, she pulled off, bent over the pile of kickboards, and pushed her bottom back at him.

"Hurry! My husband is coming to pick me up!"

When he didn't move, she reached between her legs and pulled the crotch of her suit aside. The closet light fell straight on her, wet and parted, and his erection jumped. She pushed back again.

"Hurry. God, I've wanted this."

He grabbed his dick and dragged the head up and down her folds until she gasped. She was slick, soaked, and he marveled at her -- the small, perfect bottom, the bare waxed lips, the little puckered hole twitching above. It felt so dirty to look at her there that he blushed. He suddenly couldn't wait any longer. With a grunt, he pushed in, deep and deeper, until his pelvis slapped her bottom and his head touched her cervix. She gripped him like roller bearings, squeezing on every thrust, hot and wet and drawing him in, her juices running down her thighs.

"Yes," she hissed. "Oh, God, yes." She reached back and cupped his swinging balls.

He stopped thinking and just thrust into her, hard and steady, the pleasure in his groin drowning everything else. She pushed back to meet him, taking him as deep as she could, squeezing on every withdrawal like she couldn't stand to let him go. The way her butthole clenched with each stroke mesmerized him.

She's good at this, he thought. That was the trouble. She was very good at this -- the noises, the timing, the way she pushed back, matching his thrusts perfectly. A man could start to wonder how much was real and how much was a woman running a well-worn script for his benefit. His wife ran scripts, too. He knew what it felt like to be performed for.

But a mouth could lie. That little hole didn't know it had an audience.

He couldn't stop staring. Finally, he pressed his thumb against it, half expecting her to tell him he'd gotten the wrong one. Instead, she groaned and pushed back against him hard, like he'd done something right. So he slid a finger, wet with her, into her bottom.

She went wild. Not script wild. He'd seen script wild before, and this was different. She bucked and gasped and grabbed at the kickboards.

Girls like her never noticed him, yet here she was, welcoming him into the most private place a woman had, and twitching for him. Not for the performance.

For him.

He pressed a second knuckle in, careful, waiting to be told he'd done it wrong. She pushed back harder and took him deeper.

Robin wasn't faking. She could tell she wasn't faking because faking had a pattern, and this didn't.

And something about it wasn't hers, either. That was the strangest part. Her orgasms, when they came at all, came on her schedule. She'd feel them circling, then decide, and she'd tilt her hips or hold her breath or do whatever small thing tipped it over the top, and then it was done. On time, under her control. Hers. She never lost the wheel.

The one that was coming wasn't going to ask.

She felt it rising and reached for the lever, but there was no lever. It just arrived, thick and slow and total, rising in waves through her like water lapping ever higher on a hill. Her whole body locked around him before she'd agreed to do anything. She tried to hold on and couldn't. She tried to slow it and couldn't. She was going to come, and there was no stopping it, no controlling it, no control whatsoever.

"Faster," she gasped, meaning it. She'd never meant it before.

"Yes," she hissed. "Oh, God, yes." She reached back and cupped his swinging balls. Suddenly, her body tensed.

"I'm coming," she announced.

And she did. Not the pretty kind, the real kind. She ground back at him, all rhythm gone and breath coming in ragged gasps, and her hand on his balls closed into a fist.

Eric felt her tighten around him and heard the change in her voice and knew, with a certainty that startled him, that she was coming. He'd made a beautiful woman come by being him, in a closet, with a finger in her rear. He felt a flush of pride.

Robin held it for a long second, hanging there, her whole body taut and trembling. Then it broke over her, and she came apart, a long, shuddering "Ohh!" that echoed off the tiled walls, her pussy squeezing him in waves, wet and helpless and loud.

That did it.

Eric grabbed her hips and drove in twice more, hard, and then his own body took over and he came like he hadn't come in years. Six hard spurts that shook loose something that had been stuck in him for a long time, spilling out around his hard dick and running down the inside of her thighs, mingling with the juices already there. He stayed buried to the hilt, hunched over her back, forehead on her shoulder, gasping.

They slumped together. He was still half-hard inside her, trembling as he held her up, afraid her legs would give way. She wasn't going anywhere, and neither was he, not yet. His finger was still in her bottom. She let it stay.

In his mind flashed Helen's little smile, the patient one, the one she gave him when he tried hard and landed near the mark. You did the best you could." She meant it kindly. She always meant it kindly. That made it worse.

Yes, he thought. I did my best. His shoulders straightened. And it was more than good enough.

Robin pulled off him with a plop.

Óh, Christopher! You were even more amazing than I imagined. I'm so glad I found you after all these years. She turned to kiss him, then scooped up her towel.

"I've got to hurry. My husband is probably already waiting."

She cracked open the door and peeked out.

Then something she said burned through his consciousness.

"Christopher? Who's Christopher?"

She paused and peered at him.

"Why, Christopher Gains, of course. Isn't your name Christopher?"

"My name is Eric. Eric Emerson."

She looked confused. "Didn't you go to Clear Creek High School?"

It was Eric's turn to be befuddled. "No. I grew up in Iowa. We just moved to Texas a couple of years ago."

Her hand covered her mouth. She held his eyes for a second as she flushed crimson, then said abruptly, "I've got to go."

And there it was. Of course. Of course it wasn't him. She hadn't wanted Eric Emerson. She'd wanted some other man with a better name and a better life, and Eric had been standing in the way when the universe ran off the rails. His erection collapsed, drooping like a punctured balloon, deflating to nothing between his legs. His pride fled as fast as his blood. He might have guessed. Life was a cruel joke, and he was the punchline.

Robin cracked the door again, then paused, as if considering. She coolly appraised Eric as he stood resignedly in the closet with his softening dick and his ruined dignity. Then she flashed a bright smile and, with her old sauciness, she said,

"Eric Emerson. Be back here on Tuesday at 7:30. Don't be late!"

Then she was gone.

Something stirred in his chest. And then, unmistakably, so did the thing between his legs. He felt it shift and rise, heavy and hard and hopeful, standing up straight as it had heard the news before his brain had time to process it.

By the time he reached the locker room, he was grinning like an idiot and doing his best to walk normally.

Eric burst through the door like he owned the house. He didn't set his bag down quietly, pull off his shoes, and try not to be heard. He whistled something tuneless and cheerful, the way he used to, back before the house got so quiet he learned to match it.

Helen looked up from the counter. "What's gotten into you?"

Eric just laughed. Not an answer, not an explanation, not an apology, just a laugh. The real one, the one with his whole chest behind it.

Then he dropped his bag and went to the refrigerator to see what they had to drink.

Helen watched him go. Then she went back to her phone, but slower than usual, still looking at the spot where he'd been.

Wednesday

He came home and didn't ask what she wanted. He just made something- hamburger steak, whatever was in the cupboard- put it on the table, and sat down.

Helen came to the table and ate. When he got up to clear the plates, she said, "Thank you."

Eric almost dropped his plate. He couldn't remember the last time she'd thanked him for anything. It was just two words. Nothing.

He stood at the sink with his back to her until he was sure his face was right.

Thursday

He sat next to her on the couch, closer than usual, but not close. He didn't say anything and neither did she. They watched whatever she'd put on.

After a while without looking up from her phone, she reached over and put her hand on his for a second. A second. Then she took it back.

Eric spent the rest of the evening with the warmth still on the back of his hand. He didn't move it. He didn't want to lose it.

Friday

He laughed at something on the TV. A loud, full laugh, the old one. The one that used to fill the room.

Helen glanced over.

"You've got a nice laugh," she said.

Not you're funny. Not I love your laugh. Just a fact she'd noticed and bothered to say it. Eric did not know what to do with it, so he turned back to the TV and tried not to look like a man who'd just been handed something.

Saturday

She reached for him in bed. No big production, just a hand on his chest, and he turned to her. And afterward she slept with her back to him like she used to.

He lay awake half the night trying to figure out what had changed.

Sunday

She asked him a question that required a real answer, not "Did you take out the trash?" Something real she had been thinking of. He answered. She listened. She didn't correct him.

Monday

She left his coffee where he could reach it, on the counter at his place, and he stood a moment, looking at it before he picked it up.

He was eating crumbs like they were a feast. He'd been starving so long he'd stopped calling it hunger.

Tuesday morning

At breakfast, Helen put down her coffee.

"Why don't we go out to dinner tonight?"

Eric's fork stopped. He looked at her. Robin flashed through his mind. Funny how little he'd thought of her. She was expecting him at 7:30, and here was Helen asking if he wanted to go to dinner.

"Okay," he said.

Helen nodded and went back to her coffee, and that was that. Such an ordinary thing. Such a huge thing.

Robin got to the pool at 7:15.

She didn't need to be there that early. She told herself it was just habit, that she liked having a lane to herself for a few laps before anyone else showed up. It was a lie, and she knew it, but she didn't examine it.

She'd come back for him. That was the thing she hadn't figured out and decided not to.

Robin didn't come back for men. There was always another one -- married, single, young, old, even a clergyman once -- and none of them had ever turned her down. Not one. And none of them had ever gotten a second time.

She'd blaze through them, leave them breathless and wanting, then leave with a flip of her hair and a saucy grin, never looking back, because the next one awaited and there was no reason for her to come back.

What stayed with her afterward wasn't the men. It was their wanting her. The faces blurred. Their desire didn't.

But she'd come back for Eric. She hadn't thought about why. Thinking wasn't Robin's strong point.

She pushed through the door into the warm, chlorinated air and scanned the pool. And there he was, at the far end, resting alone against the wall.

Good. She walked down the side of the pool to the edge of her lane, lingering so he'd have time to look up and watch her come.

"Eric," she said. Then she dropped her voice to something low and enticing, like she was whispering secrets only they knew. "7:30."

He looked up and smiled. Not nervous. Not caught. A happy, easy, unhurried smile like a man who'd had a really good day and was glad to see her. It was the kind of smile she'd never gotten from any of her men before. She noticed it and didn't like that she noticed it.

"I know," he said. "I can't. I have dinner with my wife."

Then, after a heartbeat.

"She asked me."

He pushed off the wall and glided into another lap.

Robin stood at the edge of the pool and watched him go. Her mouth gaped open. She closed it.

He can't. He couldn't. She'd come back for him -- she, Robin, who never came back for anyone. And he couldn't because he had dinner with his wife.

Because his wife had asked him.

She stood there another second, waiting for it to make sense. It didn't. She'd spent an hour on her hair for this!

She turned and walked to the showers, back straight, towel over her shoulder like a woman who had never been turned down and was not about to start processing it in front of an audience.

She reached the door. Pushed it open. Then just before she stepped in, she stopped, turned her head, and glanced back.

Eric was at the far wall, unhurried, toweling off, already half turned to leave. He wasn't watching her. He never thought to watch her. He had somewhere to be and a wife waiting, and he was going there, and that was all.

Something flickered across Robin's face. Just a little hint. Regret.

Then she was gone.