Of course, there was another motivation developing for his courtesy to her, one which he was only dimly aware of at first. He could smell her pussy again, even under the thick robe. He found himself thinking what a perfect morning it was for lovemaking, that the kids would be sure to be asleep for hours yet, that it was cold just about everywhere in the house except in bed, that they could go nowhere and were expected nowhere anyway. And that for all their recent troubles, for all his reasons for resenting her, his wife was somehow exuding a raw, tangible sexuality that made him hunger for her. Long before he was aware he was doing it, he was fantasizing about her familiar and well-traveled curves and crevices, and remembering fondly just how good her pussy tasted, and picturing her breasts bared and splayed beneath him while he fucked her.
What was especially disheartening, even humiliating, was that he knew that she knew what he was thinking. That she had lived with him for so long, was so fluent in his expressions and mannerisms, she knew what questions he was asking before he even began to approach them. He also knew what her answers would be.
“I don’t even know why we’re doing this,” Sherry said, before her husband could say anything else.
“Doing what? We’re just drinking coffee.”
“No, any of this. Why you’re here, why you came back. You don’t want to be here, with me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You wouldn’t rather be with Melanie? Are you honestly telling me that?”
As always when she mentioned the girl’s name, Neal’s face hardened and his eyes dropped. It was a stabbing tactic she had developed early on, a reminder that his infidelity was the sole cause for their problems. Sherry hated herself for using it now, when he was obviously trying to be nice. But she had read his meandering thoughts in his face — had detected his lustful sniffing, and knew what he intended before he did.
Sniffing. Yes that was it, all right. He could smell her. She deliberately opened her legs beneath the table and hitched up her robe a little, hoping to infuse the room.
“No,” he told her. “I wouldn’t rather be with Melanie.”
“No?”
“No. I told you, I’m through with her.”
She squinted at him. “You’re through with her or she’s through with you?”
Again his face hardened. God damn the man! Had he been in touch with her recently? Yesterday, perhaps? Last night? There was definitely something kicking up his lusts, of that she was sure. It wasn’t just the scent of morning pussy.
“I am through with her,” he said, emphatically tapping the table. “Sherry, this is never going to work until you believe something — anything! — that I say.”
“I’m not sure you want it to work.”
“Yes, I do.”
She wrapped her hands around the warm cup and said nothing for awhile.
It was miserable, but it was at least a different kind of misery. Her happy little toy had scratched some itch in her, that was certain, and had drained the bile and the nervous fuss out of her argument. She could come at him coldly, almost impartially, while he was clearly in some sort of emotional straits.
Sherry knew she couldn’t do without a lover indefinitely. She couldn’t make do with just a dildo for her pleasure, anymore than her deviant daughter could. But it had steadied her nerves some. Whereas Neal looked a nervous wreck.
“Over well, please” she said.
He stared at her uncomprehendingly.
“With toast?”
“Oh,” he said, sighing.
While he was warming up the pan, she snuck a finger between her clammy pussy lips and sniffed it. Christ, she did have a smell — she reeked! Knowing Neal, it was driving him nuts.
“You know what you need?” he asked, sitting down again, his face serious.
“Ho, what do I need, Neal?” she laughed.
“I’m going to tell you.”
“Yes? Tell me.”
“You need help.”
Now it was her turn to stare.
“I need help. I do?”
“Well, yeah, I need help too, but it’s probably too late for me. I’m a dirty, rotten bastard who should have his nuts chopped off — we both know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that you need help. And I do want to help you, Sherry.”
She shook her head, as though in a fog.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“You’re hurt. And you have needs, and you have drives. And I don’t want to see you that way –”
“Oh my God,” she interrupted, setting her cup down. “Well, I’d like to say nice try, Neal, but it wasn’t. It’s pathetic. Honestly, was that supposed to –”
“It’s not supposed to do anything. Quit second-guessing every fucking thing I say!”
Sherry stopped. His eyes were a little crazy, and the finger he pointed at her was trembling — actually trembling. Whatever he was saying, she knew he was sincere.
“Now . . . it’s all . . . all turning to shit between us,” he continued erratically, “and it’s my fault. Okay? It’s my fault, all of it. And I’m unbelievably, just unbelievably sorry for that. But you — you’re not yourself, Sherry! You’re in some kind of trouble and you need help. And I’m just . . . I’m trying to say . . . ”
“What?” she asked, as his voice trailed off. “What are you trying to say?”
What happened next was a total surprise. There was a noise at the kitchen door, and he nearly fell on the floor, he was so surprised. It was Vanessa, sleepy-eyed and bedraggled, but smiling. Hi, Mom — Hi, Daddy she chirruped, like she had a thousand times before. But when their little girl passed by them, kissing her father’s forehead on the way to the stove, there passed such a look of confusion and shame and desperation over Neal’s face that for a moment, a few seconds only, Sherry thought he was going to burst into tears.
***
The day passed surreally: unthinkably quiet, deadly slow. All the normal signs of their life were mysteriously absent, replaced by unfamiliar impressions and sounds. No sunshine, only charcoal skies and white lawns. No birds singing, only whistling wind. No television sounds, only the weather report on Josh’s portable stereo.
They passed much of the day inside the kitchen, mere inches and feet apart, only rarely acknowledging each other. Vanessa read a book about pregnancy. Josh either smoked or ate constantly; Sherry just smoked and drank pots of coffee. Neal stared out the window. It was like they were strangers, all waiting for the same bus to arrive.
By three o’clock, Sherry actually went to find some board games in the hall closet — monuments to “family nights” that hadn’t happened in years. When she returned, Neal had snuck away, and she set up to playClue with Vanessa.
“Daddy went for a walk outside,” Vanessa said.
“Oh. He all right?”
“Yeah. He just seems a little . . . preoccupied. Ooh, can I be Miss Scarlet?”
***
Neal spent the better part of the colorless day trying not to think — about Sherry, about Melanie, about Nessa, about his own frantic state of mind. Naturally his uneasiness made him uncommunicative, so he could do nothing but think.
His half-selfish, half-well meant seduction attempt that morning had been ruthlessly shot down by Sherry’s quick wit and penetrating stare. If he could have walked away from it mad at her, he might have been okay. But instead he found himself wanting her all day long. Not since they were kids had he wanted her so badly, thought about her so much.
As for Nessa, Neal had expected a wide variety of reactions from her, but not the one he got. Far from seeming hurt, or scared, or unsure, she positively fawned on him. Jumping up to fill his coffee cup, rubbing his shoulders, giving him little kisses. Did she always treat him like that? Given his enormously guilty conscience, he couldn’t be sure — everything she did seemed so suggestive, like a big tease. Once he thought he caught her and Josh grinning at each other, as though they were sharing some private joke.
Her stance, her smiles, even her very proximity to him now seemed suspicious, questionable. He spent the entire wretched day torn between a desire to fuck his wife and a desire to feel his daughter. Since both were (for different reasons) out of bounds, Neal was beside himself with frustrated tension by nightfall, and wasn’t even sure he could rely on conventional methods of relieving it.
Without actually asking, he let Sherry know with a look how much he wanted to sleep together that night. She didn’t say no at first, but when he followed her upstairs with his guttering candle she was waiting in the doorway with a troubled expression.
“I don’t think we’d better, Neal,” she told him. “There’s still . . . too much we need to talk about.”
He wanted to scream at her, to vent his rage for the whole terrible day in her direction. But he only nodded, and slouched back down the stairs. His bed on the floor was already made up for him.
By Sherry or by Nessa, he wondered, as he crawled in.
***
“Oh Jesus, you have got some kind of balls, Ness,” her brother said, laughing.
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically, pulling her bra strap over her shoulder. “That’s a great thing to say to a girl who just let you fuck her.”
He was shaking his head, still laughing, and grinning inanely.