hurl the ball across the room. I try to write again and still the words don’t come easy. I see Mari in my mind’s eye. She’s in her nightshirt, teasing me. I close my eyes and play it out all over again.
Hell, no.
That’s not going to help. Determined to push on, I scribble down more words, any words, even words that don’t make sense.
She’s on my lap. Gyrating. Teasing. Playing with me. My fist slams onto the desk. This is not good.
I can’t get the vision out of my head. She’s sitting on me. My cock in her hand. What would it be like to have her naked beneath me?
No.
I strike a line through the almost empty sheet of paper.
I try again.
Close my eyes.
Breathe deeply.
Try to conjure my characters in my head. Try to see what they do and why, and what it was I had figured out for them. I try to write again. A noise in the hallway catches my attention. I hold my breath and wait. For her.
Mari usually walks around, cleaning, decluttering, polishing as she goes about her daily tasks, but now every noise has me looking at the door, wondering if she will come in.
Waiting for her next move. Hoping she will come in, because we need to talk about what happened.
I wait and suck in another breath but her footsteps peter away.
I hiss out a breath.
I can’t focus because my mind is consumed by her. I never know when she might come in and tempt me again. I spend my days and nights wondering what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, and what she wants from me. Because I know exactly what I’m thinking and feeling and what I want from her.
Fuck.
I smack my pen down. Try some positive self-talk. Tell myself that I’m making progress.
Not when it comes to your writing.
I’m making progress of a different sort. With Mari.
So where is she now? Now that’s she’s set my blood on fire.
I have another boner I don’t need.
This can’t go on.
Her.
Me.
Us.
Whatever this hidden, secret, lustful thing between us is.
The angry buzz of the vacuum cleaner kills the quiet, and now I can’t work at all. It’s not the noise, because that hasn’t bothered me before.
It’s her.
The thought of her in that other room, getting on with her work. Why is she able to get on with her tasks, and I can’t?
I need to block her out.
An angry groan escapes my mouth. Anger and frustration puffing up like a souffle. I walk around the room, needing to expel the energy that’s been building up inside me like a pressure cooker waiting to explode.
Three hours later, I haven’t written a thing. I can’t focus. I can’t think. I can’t make progress. That’s what counts. That’s what matters. A finished book. Not how much stamina or muscle definition I have. Or the number of push ups I can do. Or Mari, swanning around the house and keeping her distance, then turning into a vixen when I least expect it.
This can’t go on.
I’ve turned into a frustrated, horny saddo.
I throw my pen down and stand up with such force that the chair is knocked back. I’m going to put an end to this, and now. I walk out, towards the source of the vacuum cleaner’s noise. She’s in the TV room and looks up as soon as I walk in. For a long drawn out moment, I find myself falling into those dark irises, rekindling the fires of last night. They burn bright. A shiver rolls through me as I recall her breast on my lips, her sated sigh as she came, clinging to me as if she would never let go.
She switches the vacuum off. “Yes?” It’s a cold, hard, clinical ‘Yes’. Almost headmistressy in its authority. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to revisit last night. It’s off topic.
It propels me to say what I need to. “This can’t go on. This—whatever it is we’re doing.”
Her eyes widen. I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve dared to bring up the unspoken, or because of what I’ve said. “You distract me, and I can’t have that.”
She’s silent, as if the force of my words has knocked the life out of her. I need her to say something. I need her to tell me I’m wrong. I need her to say we can continue. She helped me last night. She helped me make new memories. She listened and was there for me.
Each time I look