Radish Man

'He knew I loved him, and quite frankly, I can't believe you're standing up for him. This was the same man who'd say he'd bath our daughter, and then refuse to add hot water when she told him it was too cold. How fucking hard is it to add hot water? Why do I have to stand in the kitchen, cooking dinner, and listen to her throwing a tantrum and him yelling back at her to just get in the water?'

Luke didn't respond.

'Do you understand?' I asked.

'No. I'm flabbergasted. You took on the role of cop, and your husband played the angry toddler throwing a tantrum.'

'That's what you think this boils down to?'

'Pretty much,' he said. He reached over and took my hand. 'If you're going to try and reconcile, you need to accept not everything is going to be done your way, and he needs to neck up, leave the Mistress, and show you he's sincere.'

'Well that's something,' I huffed. 'For a second I thought you were siding with him.'

'No, not all. Maybe it's just easier for me to understand him. He's a male, I'm a male.'

I bit my bottom lip.

'You don't want a relationship with me, do you?' I asked.

Again, Luke didn't respond. I did. To my intense annoyance and embarrassment, I began to cry. Luke immediately pulled me into his arms and hugged me, kissing the top of my head and rocking me as I wept into his chest.

'What sort of fucking bullshit is this?' I sobbed. 'He has a back-up woman. I get the choice between taking back a cheater, or hoping you'll change your mind? Why can't anyone love me?'

'Oh, I love you,' he remarked ruefully. 'Not that it'll do either of us any good.'

'God, fuck you,' I half-laughed, half wailed.

Luke chuckled under his breath and held me tight. 'Jackie.'

'I hate him for putting me in this position.'

'As it stands, it's very unfair,' he agreed. 'If he really wants to reconcile, he needs to leave Zoe.'

'He won't.'

'He might,' Luke said. 'He might.'

~~~~~~~~~

Luke woke me the next morning by pulling my knickers down.

'Morning,' he said.

'Good morning,' I replied. I sat up, confused. 'What are you doing?'

'Waking you,' he said, as if his actions were self explanatory. 'I had a very sexy dream last night about eating your pussy.'

'And now you want to do it?' I asked doubtfully. 'How about I have a shower first?'

'You might wake the little miss,' he pointed out.

I crossed my legs and wiggled away. 'I'm not sure you know what you're about to do.'

'I'm a fifty-eight year old man. I've been eating pussy for over forty years. I've eaten yours before, if I remember correctly.' He paused and grinned evilly. 'Let me at it.'

It wasn't his technique I was worried about, but it seemed as if nothing would deter him.

'Can I have a kiss first?' I asked.

'You may.' He pinned me to the bed and nuzzled my neck. 'You smell divine.'

I burst into giggles as he breath tickled my neck. Luke was certainly the kind of man who when he wanted something, he went for it. He didn't want excuses. He just wanted to enjoy himself, and for me to enjoy myself at the same time.

His bristly face moved from my neck to my breasts, then down to my stomach and thighs. Vaughn had a habit of jumping straight into oral. One second he mentioned he wants to go down on me, the next his tongue was on my clit. The sudden stimulation was awful, and for the first minute or two I would struggle to not pull away, but I hadn't given him any guidance in our early years together and it reached a point where asking for more of a lead-up would have seemed awkward and made him wonder why I hadn't asked earlier.

Luke had the opposite problem. He spent so long warming me up that I would start wondering if something is wrong. Did something smell/taste/look weird? Was he bored? Had he forgotten why he's between my legs?

As Luke nuzzled my labia, it occurred to me that it was rather odd to compare his style of oral sex with Vaughn's. Why would it matter how my ex-husband serviced me? It was all in the past, wasn't it? All in the past.

Luke ran his tongue along each lip. His hot breath teased my clit but there was no direct contact. I laid back and stared at the ceiling. Please Luke. Please. Get to it. You got me horny, now take care of me.

His tongue darted out and made contact with my little button. He moved in a circular motion, clockwise then anti-clockwise then clockwise again, until I was writhing beneath him. I wanted to moan but I equally didn't want Melody to overhear, so I grabbed a pillow and held it over my face.

My feet rested on his back, my thighs taut as he played me like an instrument. I began to fuck his face, sliding my clitoris up and down in order to get more stimulation. With each gyration, my cunt moved more smoothly over his face. I was lubricating him, leaving him covered in my natural essence.

Luke inserted a few fingers into my pussy as he continued to service me. The pillow muffled a groan and I reached down to grab his head. I gave little consideration to his comfort as I focussed on my pleasure. A few more thrusts and I was coming, my arse raised off the bed as I forced myself against his mouth.

Luke continued to lick and lap at my juices long after my climax had subsided. He ate at me hungrily, as if starved of cunt, before reaching to the bedside table for a condom. I offered him fellatio but he demurred, pulling the condom on with a level of concentration and determination I hadn't seen in him before.

I was on my back just seconds later, his slim hips moving over mine, his prick jabbing around for my pussy. I reached down and gave him a helping hand, and he sank into me with a grunt. I ran my hands over his body; down his arms, over his back, and onto his arse. I held his rear as he thrust in and out of me, growing ever more quick and desperate.

'Jackie,' he muttered.

'C'mon Luke,' I urged. 'Do it. Come for me.'

With a guttural moan he climaxed, burying himself deep inside me, before falling limp. Then he clutched at me, holding me close.

'I love you,' he whispered hoarsely. 'Don't ever think that I don't. But this won't work, Jackie. And the longer you and I pretend it will, the more it's going to hurt us.'

I stared past him, at the ceiling and blinked back tears.

'So end it,' I whispered. 'End it.'

He shook his head. 'I can't. I want to. I need to. But I can't.'

~~~~~~~~~~~

Vaughn arrived on my doorstep at ten o'clock on Wednesday night. He had an overnight bag and he looked tired. There were dark shadows under his eyes and he seemed defeated.

'I'm sorry,' he muttered. 'I woke you, didn't I?'

'Did you leave her?' I asked, tugging at my shirt. I wasn't wearing a bra and it seemed almost indecent for him to see my unrestrained breasts pushing against the thin fabric.

Vaughn nodded. 'I want to try again.'

'Come in. I made up the spare bed for you the morning after you came around to tell me you wanted to give it another go. Just in case you followed through and left her.'

I led him to the spare room. Once we were inside, Vaughn grabbed my arm. He stared at me pleadingly.

It killed me to see him so lost and desperate, but at the same time, my heart had been hardened against him. He'd been the one who'd forced that to happen. If he thought our marital issues somehow caused him to cheat, he was wrong. They explained why he'd been tempted, but nobody forced a gun to his head and told him to seduce another woman.

'I guess we'll talk sometime,' I said, pulling away.

~~~~~~~~

Thursday night was spaghetti night. I cooked. He took Melody and bathed her. I listened to them, waiting for her to complain about the temperate of the water, but all I heard was him reading her a story while she splashed about.

'You know how to bathe her,' I said, as we sat down to eat.

'Yeah,' Vaughn agreed. 'Having to look after her without you around helped me a lot.'

I didn't know if it was a dig or merely a comment.

We ate our dinner. Melody was happy, joyous. She was so glad her father was back home. She kept asking us both if it was going to be 'forever' but all either of us could say was 'maybe' (me) and 'hopefully' (Vaughn).

I wasn't yet ready to talk about our relationship, so we simply went our separate ways, so much as we could, after dinner. When Melody went to bed, Vaughn went outside and smoked. Before we started trying to conceive, we'd always have a drink and a cigarette together after dinner. We'd sit out the back and talk and laugh.

During my lunch on Friday I went for a walk. I passed a butcher. I went inside and bought two disgustingly expensive pieces of eye fillet and a minute steak. The butcher wrapped my purchases in brown paper, and I carried it back to the office, feeling the heavy weight of animal flesh in my hand.

There is a bizarre branch of thought that smokers can't taste food. Granted smoking dulls your tastebuds, but Vaughn and I had eaten well - very well - before Melody came along. We had cooked up extravagant meals. We'd made our own hollandaise, bread, and we even attempted a Peking duck. The duck we did only once. It turned out beautifully, but when it came to carving the meat, we both realised all too late that ducks are not chickens. We hacked at it and laughed, making up pancakes with sticky fingers as juice spilled over the benchtops and ran down the cupboards.

God. Fuck.

I cooked steak and chips and veggies for dinner. Vaughn went out and bought Bundy and Coke when he saw what I was doing. Melody, unbathed, complained, but she quit her whining when she saw the bag of Maltesers her father had also bought home.

'I thought we could watch a movie together after dinner,' Vaughn suggested. 'I'll give Mel a bath tomorrow.'

I glanced at my daughter.

'She's not that dirty,' I said. 'One night without a bath won't kill her.'

An hour into the movie, Vaughn got a call from his mother. One of his brothers had been arrested on numerous charges; possession with intent to distribute, weapons offences, assault of a police officer.

Vaughn comes from a long line of criminals. The men are always in and out of jail. The women 'support' them; they do menial jobs to pay the rent while their husbands and sons are incarcerated, and when the men are free, the women do everything - everything - for them.

Vaughn's the odd man out, the one who went to university at night while working in a factory during the day, the one who wears a suit and tie, the one who has always steered clear of trouble. He's also the only one who can keep his cool when the cops arrive, so it was no surprise his mother had called him.

I went out the back, where he was smoking and pacing angrily, telling his family that he couldn't come, not this time. Vaughn caught my eye and stared at me helplessly.

I took the phone from his hand and pressed 'end call'. Then I kissed him.

'Go and sort this shit out,' I told him. 'Tomorrow afternoon, you come and take Melody. I was supposed to see Luke this weekend. I still want to see him.'

'Do you want me to move out?'

'No. I want some space. I want to figure things out. But to figure things out, I need to see Luke.' I wasn't lying to him. I wasn't being cruel. Things were starting to become clear to me, but I didn't want to make a rash decision. I handed him his phone. 'You need to call your family.'

Vaughn called his mother and apologised for 'accidentally' hanging up. Ten minutes later he was in the car. I tried to stay up for him, because he generally wanted to have a drink and vent when he came back home from my family dramas, but I ended up falling asleep. It had been a long week.

Vaughn was home the next morning. Tired. Exhausted, both mentally and physically. His family sucked the life out of him. They were always pressuring him, always trying to make him feel bad. Mister Bigshot, they called him, when they were being polite. The arse kisser, the brown noser when they weren't.

I was disgusted by the way they treated him, but I'd long stopped trying to get Vaughn to break off contact. He felt duty bound, and my urging him to cut ties only made him feel more trapped, more conflicted, and more unhappy. I'd learned it was easier just to keep my mouth shut. At least this way, when I raised concerns about the way they spoke to Melody, or the behaviours they tried to ingrain in her, he listened.

'You want a greasy breakfast?' I asked him.

'I'd love one. I'll make it. I need something to do.'

'You'll crash and burn early,' I warned him. 'I'm going out this afternoon. You don't want to use up your energy.'

'I'll be fine.' He kissed my forehead. 'I love you, Jackie.'

I sat at the table with Melody and drank a coffee while he cooked up sausages, eggs and toast. His brother's house - purchased with a payout after a couple of cops were caught on camera roughing him up without reason, if you're curious as to how a petty criminal can afford an investment property - was small and had little air flow, and even though it was now autumn, sweat began to drip down Vaughn's face. He took his shirt off and threw it over a kitchen chair.

I knew his body almost as well as I knew my own. I wondered what Zoe thought of it. I thought it was comforting; his hobby was rock climbing and he had a mesomorph's muscle development. Bulky. He was overweight, and was probably carrying a good ten or fifteen kilos extra which is a decent amount when you're five nine, but he had great arms and when he was leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head you could see fantastic definition.

More than once he'd been sitting in that position and I'd been so turned on I'd knelt in front of him and sucked his cock until he was shuddering his way through an orgasm. He rarely came in my mouth, preferring instead to splash it all over my face. He said the guilt of hearing me gag ruined the pleasure of climax. Luke didn't follow that line of thinking. My lover said the retching was oddly sexy.

Vaughn put a plate in front of me. 'Breakfast.'

'Thanks.'

Melody humphed loudly.

'Yours is coming,' Vaughn said mildly.

'I don't want it.'

'Then you can be hungry,' he said. 'I'm not cooking two breakfasts.'

Melody turned to me, expecting me to go in to bat for her. Instead, I picked up my fork.

'Give it a try,' I suggested. 'What did you do when you were over at your father and Zoe's house?'

Melody glowered at me but picked up her fork. I counted it as a small success.

~~~~~~~~~~

I met Luke at the farmers markets. He was packing the last of his stuff away but there wasn't much left. There normally wasn't; he traded with other vendors and he would bring back eggs and honey and bread, but as little fruit and veg as possible.

'Jackie,' he said, scooping me into his arms and kissing me. 'I hope you're prepared to run away with me. We're going to Straddie for the night. I've booked a spot on the ferry for my ute and we'll eat steak and posh bread and get drunk.'

'I...'

Luke stepped back and let go of me. Understanding crept over his craggy face. I caught sight of disappointment, before the emotion disappeared within the lines of his face.

'Ah, I see,' he said. 'You've come to your senses.'

'No.' I shook my head. 'No, I repeated, more firmly this time. 'It's just that Vaughn moved back in this week. I thought you should know.'

'So both of you have come to your senses,' he replied in a bright, light, forced tone.

He was trying to hide his hurt, but I knew him well enough to see it. See it? No, I didn't just see it. I felt it. My soul moved with his.

'Go home, Jackie,' he offered. 'You don't need to worry about letting me down. We both knew this would have to end eventually.'

'No. Not yet. I'm not ready to walk away, not now. Not here.'

'Really?' He inquired archly. 'Or are you hoping to kill a few hours with me, so Vaughn could spend them worrying about what you might be doing with me?'

'That's not it,' I said.

He was staring at me, and I couldn't bear the inspection. I couldn't bear to think that he saw me as shallow and petty and cruel. I turned away. Luke reached out and took my hand, but still I didn't turn my face.

'I'm going to end this,' he said. 'You and me. I'm going to end it, the way I should have ended it weeks ago.'

'No. Not yet.'

He hesitated.

'Tonight,' I bargained. 'I'll go home tonight.'

'Jackie...'

'Please,' I requested quietly. 'I know you don't understand. I can't explain why I'm doing this. But I'm asking you, please, give me this.'

Luke caved in.

'Come to Straddie with me,' he offered tiredly. 'We'll talk. But you're getting on the last ferry home. No buts, no maybes, no excuses. I'm not getting in between a wife and husband, Jackie. Not when there's a child involved.'

We drove to Cleveland in our own cars. I parked mine, paid for a ferry and waited while Luke drove his ute on board.

It was a cold Saturday afternoon and the ferry was almost empty. We found a quiet spot inside and sat together, our bodies pressed grimly together. It was a funeral march. Our beautiful, wonderful time together was drawing to a close.

Luke wasn't Vaughn. He hadn't been there for the ups and downs. He hadn't comforted me, yelled at me, held me, and cried with me. What I'd had with Luke was whimsical and fun, and buffered from the cold, harsh realities of life and parenthood, but it had been invaluable to me. His easy charm and unabashed desire for me had made me feel human. I'd wanted to be sexy for him, eager, to try new things. When I was in his presence I felt less a scorned wife and more a woman.

'This sucks,' I muttered.

'It does,' he agreed. 'Life would be significantly easier if you were fifty-eight.'

I laughed under my breath. 'I'm being dumped because of my age.'

Luke chuckled and kissed the top of my head. 'You have your whole life ahead of you.'

'I really hate that shit. It's right up there with 'enjoy your kids, their adults before you know it' and 'live every day like it's your last'.'

'You cynic,' he teased.

'I'm from that generation. Did I ever tell you I was a goth as a teenager? Only, my parents disapproved of makeup and they're strictly religious so wearing black was viewed as aligning myself with the devil.'

'Good grief. Was Vaughn the same? I never did ask how you met him. I don't think I wanted to know. Now I do. Tell me. Tell me about your husband.'

'We grew up in the same, poor, broke-arse suburb. He's from a family of career criminals. I'm from a family of working, religious, poor. My father earned not much more than minimum wage, but he still paid ten percent of his income to the church each week. We met at a house party on the other side of town. Neither of us knew anyone but the hosts.'

I stared at the marine carpet on the floor of the ferry. It was starting to peel.

'We were drunk,' I said, staring at the grey and black pattern. 'He was drunker. I had my period. He said he wanted to go home with me, but I told him not to, that I couldn't have sex with him. He said he had no problems swimming in the red Nile. I figured 'what harm could it do?. I didn't know what a mess it was going to make having period sex with a man who had more desire than ability, if you know what I mean. He can't perform when he's drunk, but he always tries. He can come, sometimes, but it takes forever. My sheets were a mess, and he vomited all through my bathroom. I was sharing a flat with another girl. She woke me at five in the morning to clean up his spew.'

Luke laughed at my honesty. 'Jesus.'

'The foundation of love,' I agreed ruefully. 'I don't know. I loved him. He tried so hard. He was working days in a factory and studying at night. It's not like how they do online courses now. There was no YouTube. No online presentations. The university just gave him a study guide and a resource list. He'd have to mail off his assignments, and go into the city, to their testing centre, to take exams.'