I.
Slowly biting the corner of her lower lip
Running her fingers through her long, brown hair
She walked across the darkened hotel room
Wearing nothing but the goosebumps and glistening beads of sweat covering every inch of her soft skin.
The film of last night runs through her mind as a constant loop.
Each touch.
Each kiss.
Each garment ripped to shreds.
The sweet stink of sex in the air is ripe with lust and sin.
She’s always wanted to feel this sexy because she’s felt ugly for way too long.
Her two unexpected kids and playing house with the wrong guy under the false facade of “ain’t life grand?”
Date night with her husband no longer meant wearing an adventurous, sexy black cocktail dress with no panties and a quickie in the parking lot before a night of drinks, dinner, and dancing with friends in the city.
The magic disappeared.
Date night turned into throwing her hair into a ponytail and quickly choosing to wear some old beat up concert shirt from her forgotten youth and Mom jeans that don’t quite fit well. A mediocre dinner at some shitty chain restaurant followed by some unrealistic rom-com at the local overpriced multi-screen cineplex and them home by 9 pm.
This is not what she was expecting out of life.
It’s not that she hated motherhood or the institution of marriage.
She loved her children and respected her husband.
Life just became banal and predictable. It was all of the long days wearing yoga pants as she cleaned up dribbled milk from the kids’ cartoon character plastic cereal bowls. It was all of the boring PTA meetings with the other Stepford wives drinking shitty boxed wine discussing cheaply made furniture at IKEA and getting excited over the latest plot twist in that shitty reality show about some rich douchebag choosing a mate like Doritos from a vending machine. But life wasn’t always like this.
She was that super hot chick in a small town.
Those supermodel good looks with a beautiful brain to match.
Everybody wanted her.
The boys in high school
The men who should have known better.
Even some girls on the opposing volleyball squads at the state championships.
Each inappropriate comment.
Every leering glance.
Felt like thousands of tiny daggers slicing up her fragile soul.
She was ready to leave that god-forsaken, one horse town.
Where time stood still and nothing ever changed.
She knew there was life outside the two John Deere tractors causing the 5-minute rush hour at the one stop light on Main Street.
Her bags were packed with her high school magna cum laude and her 4.0 GPA.
Her bus ticket was paid with her three high-school state volleyball championships her state scoring records.
She was ready to move on down the road and cash in her 4-year ride to that expensive, prestigious big city university.
She was finally going to break out the prison of her small-town America.
But in a blink of an eye
Everything changed.
One final drunken night with her former high-school sweetheart foiled her escape.
It wasn’t about drinking the warm Busch Light watching the sunset over the corn fields.
It wasn’t about the awkward making out and the mediocre fucking in the back of his beat-up ’74 Ford pickup.
It was about closure.
It was about burying her memories of her past.
It was about paving over her false paradise to build a parking lot.
It was about ending this chapter and then burning the fucking book.
But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Even the most noble of ideas have consequences.
Everything she’s worked so hard to attain was now instantly gone.
She became everything she feared and everything she hated.
She became her darkest nightmares.
She became the modern version June Cleaver from Leave It To Beaver.
She became her own hell.
Until tonight.
Tonight she felt different.
She felt wanted.
She felt as if she was young again.
No unruly little kids demanding juice boxes and shitty processed foods.
No long brown hair hastily wrapped in a pony tail.
No loose fitting Mom jeans.
She now feels the most alive she’s felt in many years.
She’s always wanted someone to want her the way he does.
That deep, primal desire she hasn’t felt in years.
It was him who brought out her true self.
Her beauty. Her confidence. Her sex.
He was the key to unlock the lost woman deep within her.
——————————————————————
II.
He slowly awakens.
Laying next to him
She slowly caresses his chest.
They kissed passionately.
Rolling around their bed of lust and sin
Like high schoolers alone together on their first experience together.
Unbridled, uncontrolled passion
Unable to control their urges and unwilling to hold back.
They shower together.
Holding each other.
Touching each other.
Kissing each other tenderly.
They get dressed, packed their things, and leave the room.
They embrace in the hallway for what seemed like an eternity
Kissing for one last time
Holding each other as if the world will end.
They’re both thinking it
They’re both feeling it
But none of them will dare to say it
“I truly lov…”
He walks left into his shitty, overstressed sales job.
She walks right into her shitty, underpaid administrative assistant position.
Their bratty kids, loveless relationships, and inadequate significant others are waiting a hundred miles away.
Business trips to out-of-town sales conventions only come twice a year.
If it was only just for tonight
They had each other.
She’s wanted to feel this sexy. She’s wanted to feel loved.
And at least for one night
Just for tonight
She felt herself again.
She became whole.
Photo Credit: @ Jordan Sanchez
You nailed the desire, longing, and raging crispness of lost dreams. Great work, Peter!