“So what is wrong with your husband?”
I was surprised, “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t be doing this with me if there wasn’t something wrong with him.”
“There’s nothing wrong with him,” I said. “I’m the problem.”
“Does he know anything is going on?”
“No.”
Jake picked up my hand and tickled the back of it. “How can he not know that something isn’t right?”
“I’m turning into a good liar these days.”
“Would you lie to me?” He looked in my eyes that were about 3 inches from his.
“Probably.”
“I don’t like that.” He frowned and looked at the back of my hand he was still tickling.
“Well I didn’t lie just then did I?” He sat up and looked down at my face as I rested my head on his pillow. I smirked at him.
“You are a piece of work,” he said.
I sat up and looked around for my shirt. He pulled it from under the covers and handed it to me. I held on to it and looked at him and smiled. “Tell me something about you, something I don’t know. I know you like movies I have never heard of and you don’t fuck girls who don’t have books.”
“What?! Oh, that picture-thing on my Facebook page.”
“You like bands I have never heard of and books I have never read. The only thing I think we have in common is that based on your Darth Vader Alarm clock, I think we both really like Star Wars.”
“I have pretty specific tastes,” he said. “I’m a pretty complicated guy.”
“How so?” I was fascinated.
“Well I like my beer cold and my girls hot.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my shirt on over my head. “Just tell me something, anything about you, you as a person.”
“I don’t know. I used to skateboard as a kid until I got into football. I was the quarterback in my high school. We won State Champs my senior year. It was a pretty big fuckin deal.” He laughed, almost cynically.
“Do you play football here?”
“No,” he pushed the covers away from his leg and showed me a scarred up knee. My knee injury finished me.”
“Can you still skateboard?”
“I don’t know,” he smiled. “I haven’t tried in a while.”
I sat there feeling odd. I was in bed with a quarterback. A lot of girls probably liked that, or at least used to like that. “I always dated artsy guys,” I said.
“A bunch of pussies,” he said, then laughed. Actually, look at this. Maybe it will help me fit in with your requirements.”
He hopped off the bed onto the floor then reached under it and took out a piece of paper. He handed it to me and I said, “She’s naked.”
“She was the model in my art class yesterday.”
I looked at his stunningly fluid lines. The neatness and perfection of each stroke of the pencil. “This is amazing.” I said, feeling a pang of jealousy in my gut, and an awe at what some lucky girl was going to have someday with Jake.
“You can have it if you want.”
I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, I’m going to take home to my husband, a picture of a naked girl, that was drawn by the kid I am sleeping with.’
“I don’t know,” I said, looking at the picture. He shrugged, looking oddly dejected.
“Ok,” I said. “Thank you.” I kissed him sweetly as I could and when I drew away he still had his eyes closed. It made my heart flutter and I warned myself to try and not feel that. I got my stuff together, including my picture of the naked stranger, and headed out. As I walked out in to the bright sunlight and home down the middle of our quiet road, I concocted stories in my head about where the heck I could say this picture came from.
Ungrateful Bliss 