By the time Ethan has Riley in her car seat, and they’re heading out to go home, she’s almost ready to go to sleep for the night, and I’m not all that far behind her. I never realized when I was entertaining my niece during my two visits back home, and then the week around Easter, what it would be like to constantly be responsible for a child for hours at a time, especially while I’m trying to work.
“Thank you, Lara,” Ethan says at the door. I shrug.
“I’m just doing what I need to do,” I say, giving him a tired smile. I think better of smiling at him, but I’m too exhausted to stop myself.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Ethan suggests.
“You will indeed,” I tell him.
He looks for a second like he’s going to say something else, but then he shakes his head and tells a drowsy Riley that they’re going for a ride.
They leave, and I put away the leftovers. Ethan actually ate more of the salad than I thought he would, and I have just enough of dinner left to have on Friday night, when I definitely won’t want to cook anything from scratch. I clean the kitchen a bit and make sure to spray down the tray from Riley’s high chair, leaving it to dry on the dish rack. It’s weird, it really is, how normal this has become, and I still don’t know how to feel about how much I now have to interact with the last man on the planet I want to even speak to.
After I have cleaned and had a second glass of wine I decide to take a shower as I need to relax. Looking after a child is no easy task and a shower is the perfect way to chill.
The apartment is quiet without Riley and Ethan and although I like the silence, I miss the company.
Once in the shower, I start going over the day I’ve had. It was nice chatting to someone and the fact it was Ethan was strangely all right. He is a caring and loving father and although he broke my heart, I have to accept that he will be a part of my life for the rest of my life.
Absently, I find myself no longer soaping and scrubbing my body but fondling myself. I haven’t had any kind of relief ever since I got the call about the car accident, and while I’m not exactly sexually voracious, I was used to getting myself off at least a few times a week. I let my mind drift as I tease my nipples and then reach down between my legs to stroke and rub myself, trying to think of an appropriate fantasy.
I imagine the shower curtain pulling aside, and then feeling the presence of someone stepping into the shower behind me, his hands replacing mine invisibly. I close my eyes and find my clit with my fingertips, pretending it’s a man’s fingertips instead, pretending it’s some phantom lover.
But all at once, instead of an imaginary, non-existent guy, I’m picturing Ethan, and I nearly stop myself, but I’m already too turned on, too wound up, to make myself give up on getting off. I try to replace the mental image of Ethan with someone — anyone — else, but my brain stubbornly insists on remembering him, and imagining him as the man in the shower with me.
I imagine him sliding one finger, and then two, inside of me slowly, and do it to myself, swaying on my feet as the hot water tickles me on its way down my body. I use my other hand to cup and tease my breast, rolling the nipple between my fingers, sending little tingling jolts of sensation straight to my already-soaking pussy. I moan as I think about Ethan fingering me, working my clit with my thumb while I push my two fingers deeper inside of myself, curling them to brush up against my inner walls.
I have to admit that of all the things I ever took issue with on Ethan’s end, there was never any problem between us in the sex department when we were together. From the first time we had sex onward, everything was so hot. He had a real, natural talent, something I didn’t realize until my first time with someone else. Ethan had seemed really, truly interested in finding out what I liked, and instinctively good at making it happen.
I remember one of the last times we had sex. It had been at the cabin by the beach right before we left, and Ethan had whispered to me about something he’d wanted to try for weeks, something that he had been scared to ask me for, but everything had seemed possible in that little cabin. He’d grabbed one of my scarves from my suitcase and tied my hands over my head, and then, starting at my lips, slowly made his way down my body with his mouth.
I imagine him kissing a path down from my lips to my chest, and then stopping there for a while, fingering me steadily as he worships my breasts with his mouth. The water makes it easier to imagine as I tease myself with my fingers, and I try to keep just enough of me under the showerhead to keep from getting cold or dry as my imagination takes over.
I can feel the tension building between my hips, and as I’m working myself with my fingers I think of Ethan sinking down onto his knees and spreading my legs, burying his face against my pussy, not even caring about the water pouring down over his head. I shiver at the thought of him devouring me, sucking and licking my pleasure center and dipping down to where my fingers slide in and out of me faster and faster.
Almost before I know it, I’m crying out, the tension
