- Unravel
Our first time together was on plush leather seating of Victor’s Jet. Parked at the end of a runway, surrounded by rain and thunder and chatter and transports and the sounds of night. We were desperate and wild, spurned on by our long denied feelings, white and hot. I crushed her to me, kissing her, and ate from her sweet mouth. Her saliva and her tears.
We tore each others clothing, impatient, her tongue in my mouth, her eyes locked with mine. I wanted her so badly it was painful. My hands huge on her spread thighs, my teeth strong as they bit her neck.
She filled my mouth with her white-salt breast, and I sucked until my cheeks ached. Grunting, slavering, growling in my throat. I couldn’t get enough.
I panted hot air in her face as I sank into her. Twitching, thick with a fog of pleasure, eyelids heavy and breath a wheeze. I was overcome with an urge to clutch her to me and just come and come and come.
Neck arched, back arched, clinging and wet inside. Her nails clawing into the flesh on my back and neck and shoulders, digging deeper and deeper as I pounded into her fiercely. The head of my cock dragging over every throbbing muscle deep inside her. Rubbing her walls, deep inside her.
My voice went out, loud over the raging storm while I came.
Breath wild in the aftermath, I looked down at the sweat on my chest, Marlena’s and mine, gleaming in the soft light. Light glinting off it, and below, the mix of our essence. The air musky, intoxicating me.
My tattoo, upon my right shoulder. Her wedding ring. Oh God.
The fun was over. She head sat up, dazed, and dropped forward and cried her eyes out into her shaking hands. Poor Roman. Oh Roman. I cried a little too, I think. I held her.
Her eyes were wild with guilt and pain, and she could barely get the words out. How we never should have let this happen. That this was a mistake. She began to dress, her fingers trembling so badly she could barely get her buttons done. Roman was expecting her.
Sometimes we looked at each other but that only served to heighten the guilt. The sting of tears never left her eyes, and I could barely swallow at all.
- Hunter
After that, Marlena avoided me as best she could, not trusting to be near me. Sometimes I didn’t trust myself either. But I wanted her. I couldn’t stop wanting her.
But this being Salem, our meeting was inevitable. Co-existing within the same social circles certainly helps. We’d take a drink together with other friends, lightly chatting, then she’d place a small hand on my knee or I’d brush up against her and we’d begin.
She was uncomfortable, always. I was in agony.
She thought people could see the blush of arousal upon her face, she thought perhaps my feelings were too transparent. If anyone noticed, they never spoke.
Sometimes when no one was looking, I’d pull her into a dark corner, holding her around the waist quite tightly, her back to me, and I’d tug gently on her hair and grind into her backside, dry humping. She liked that. It made her gasp, body stiff and stretched and tight. She was ashamed of how I made her feel. Ashamed that she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
But Doc always had a little more self control that most, and would pull away before things got out of hand. She would straighten her clothing, take a moment to control her breathing, and walk away, making sure to avoid glancing at me. She knew she would be lost.
And as she walked away, I would stare, and want her.
III. Hidden Place
I loved her madly. So much, I wept when I thought of how we made love, tears that weren’t all to do with guilt over Roman. In the end, I don’t think I was ever really guilty at all.
We had made love a second time, on the conference table at Titan. Afterwards I continually blushed at board meetings. No one understood why. That’s okay, I was content to keep the memory to myself. My beautiful little secret.
Marlena was frazzled and tense and fighting our attraction. She felt she owed it to Roman to be a good wife, a good mother. But the minute I saw her, beautiful in her shimmering gown, dark against the paleness of her lovely skin, I knew I would make love to her again. She knew it too, I think. She struggled anyway, out of a sense of obligation, because she was married and should be fighting harder to keep her vows. Probably marveling at how easy it was to throw it all away. Surprised at how much her needs surpassed her morals.
I knew how she felt, because I could feel it too.
The first time could perhaps be considered an accident, a one time incursion. But the second time we came together, it was then we knew that this was bigger than perhaps both of us ever imagined.
There was such urgency in us, and a sense of danger, because we were both acutely aware that someone could discover us at any moment. It excited me, made me hotter for it. I think she liked the feeling. Dangerous, forbidden.
We didn’t bother to remove our clothing, and there was something strangely intimate about it. I slid in shortly after, with a grunt and a sigh. I went all the way in and then held wonderfully still so I wouldn’t hurt her. Gripped her hands for control. Dug my fingers through her silky curls.
Me, nestled between her legs her, surrounded by a halo of tulle and taffeta. Marlena, grasping at the lapels of my shirt, urging me closer, trying to pull me in as far as she could, swallowing me whole. I couldn’t get enough.
The pressure was unbelievable, I could hardly stand it.
She spread her legs and pushed back against me, clenching rhythmically, her legs tight around my waist, encouraging our rhythm. Gasping and moaning her pleasure. Marlena always did like sex a lot.
Her skin smelled so good as I gasped in lungfuls from the crook of her neck. Rich and womanly, full of pheromones and sweat, mixed with her sweet perfume.
Such a long time since I remembered Marlena’s smell. So long since I had cried myself to sleep thinking about it. I felt awful. She was going from my memory. I couldn’t let that happen.
Marlena came just then, her tight walls clinging and pulsing. Holding off was impossible. I tried not to yell out, but I only sobbed out “Marlena,” against her plush golden hair.
I looked at into her sweet face, and saw she was fighting her own set of tears. She let one slip, and I bent to lick it with my tongue. I wanted to swallow her pain.
And so we cried, I held her tight.
As she lowered her skirts to the floor and smoothed out the wrinkles in the fabric, she told me it was over.
- Possibly Maybe
I had just put Brady to bed, and I was sitting in the quiet of my loft, watching the shadows jump and dance across the naturally light walls. I liked sitting in the dark, it was a cool balm to my open wound.
Imagine my surprise when I heard my door chime, and found Marlena on the other side, shaking and slightly crazed. I didn’t have to ask her why she was here. I knew it instinctively. I’ve always been good at reading her.
She reached her hand to my cheek, trembling, and spoke in breathy tones, “I can’t stay away… I need-” she gasped a little, and choked back a sob, snatching her hand back as if she’d been burned. Her hands were in fists, I could feel her fear, it washed over me in great waves.
I reached for her, and suddenly we were in my bed, falling back on the pillows and the sheets. Freeing each other’s naked skin from clothes, pressing it all together, over and over. Rubbing, sliding. Her name coming from my mouth, over and over. Marlena, Marlena … rhythmic and purposeful, just as she is.
When I moved above her to complete the act of joining, her belly felt beautiful against mine. I noticed that. I caressed her legs from her thighs to her knees as I sought inside her with my cock. My eyes weren’t clouded with pleasure but livened by it.
Her mouth fell open as I slid inside her body.
I held still in the dim light of my bedroom, hands tight on the pale sheets beside her body. Her fingers on my arms, up and down, over each tight muscle. Me inside her body. I hold her, completely still. I want to remember this. Burn it into my brain.
In that moment, we were perfect. A man created to be a lover, to hold a woman in his sweet embrace.
I tumbled in to kiss her mouth, and I was caught again. I barely noticed we were thrusting, rising and falling on each other, warmth and wetness spreading out across her thighs. She clung to me. My hands were in her hair.
Then suddenly she was on top, peaking and crying. So good, so strong. Riding me with all that she had. Leaning down, her mouth on mine, catching my lips, swallowing each of my cries, answering them with kisses. Nuzzling my chin as my head fell back helplessly. Breathing over my forehead as I came down panting. She wanted to take care of me. I wanted her to.
Helpless too, I came inside her, so vulnerable and powerful all at once in our pleasure. I held my lips against hers lips and brushed slowly as she gasped and moaned her release.
I rolled my fingers lazily in the slight sweat on her back, still moaning softly with my eyes closed. She sat up on me, sliding easily over my warm skin, and we smiled together, not saying anything. Still joined. What to say. What could we say?
Afterwards, we washed ourselves and dressed again. It was quite late, and I imagine Roman would wonder. I spoke softly to her, in serious and pleading. I wanted the truth. I asked her if we were free, if Roman weren’t a consideration, would I be with her?
The tears stung both our eyes again, and she couldn’t look at me. In the end, when she spoke, she told me yes. It was all I needed to hear.
“I love you, Marlena.” I said it simply.
She glanced at me, and her eyes were burning with my hope. She could sense my wanting.
She decided not to fight, “I love you.” Then, after a moment, “This has to stop.”
I knew it was coming, that all too familiar phrase. But I still hesitated.
Her voice was unsure and sad, “Please.”
- It’s Not Up To You
I had re-discovered her. Every freckle and hair and texture on her skin. All of them were temples where my mouth and hands had worshiped. My nose had spent hours burrowed in the hollows of her neck, watcing it arch and twist in pleasure. My fingers the fine curves of her shape, dipping into the soft folds of her womanhood, tracing the rosey peaks of her breasts. My tongue ached from tangling with hers time after time after time, but my belly whad yet to have its fill of her. I wanted more, I would always want more.
But now it was over. And I had to accept that.
It had just been the passion, I tried to tell myself. The loneliness, too. It had been about having someone to cling to, a reason to keep myself living after losing Isabella. The connection of sex. I had to think of these things. I couldn’t think otherwise.
But I couldn’t help it. The way I felt, I wanted to marry her. I wished Roman had never come back, and that I could spend the rest of my life in those soft arms, thrusting between those warm, delicious thighs. Her laughter in my ear, ringing like delicate church bells.
I couldn’t accept that it was over. I needed to see her, to speak to her, and make her see. Force her to stop denying the rightness of our joining. Force her to accept fate.
I proposed it one night, during a celebration at the Brady Pub. She had come with Roman, naturally, but I had managed to sneak her off into solitude for a stolen moment in the pantry. She stood in my arms, wide-eyed and scared, but I could sense the longing in her. She was close. In hindsight, I realized if I had just pushed a little further, she would have given herself to me.
Marlena looked up at me, her eyes big and deep, her swollen lips glittering in the dark.
“You don’t mean that,” she said. “You can’t…” she trailed off and gestured to the door, “We can’t.”
I kissed her then. Logically I knew she was right. I hated when she was right. But since when is love ever logical?
She sighed, her head in my chest. I held her for as long as I could.
- Venus
We had a child in the end, a child I originally did not think was mine. Our daughter was born deep into fall, in a cabin on Smith Island, where Marlena had gone for a small respite. I delivered her, then, not knowing that small perfect child was actually mine. I felt a connection to her, but I did not understand it then. I attributed it to the fact that I saved her life when she had stopped breathing. But months later I would come to know it had been much more than that. I was her father.
After the fallout, there was resentment. Some of them were happy for us. Most were not.
Roman had the idea to name the baby Isabella, as a tribute to me and to honor Isabella’s memory. I was touched. But when I found out I was the father, it seemed all the more appropriate. I lost a wife, but I gained a daughter. The child I always wished I’d had with Marlena.
And now, as I watch my toddler daughter squirm in my arms, and take wobbly steps to her pile of toys, I still can’t believe she is mine. Though Marlena and I are not together, I still love her, and I am content to have a piece of her in Belle. Sometimes I ache, because I wish for more, but for now, I will bask in the glow of fatherhood. Sometimes, though, we are a proper family, and we watch her grow together. Looking at the two of them, my little family, a small part of me still has hope, but I would never voice it aloud.
Alone sometimes, of course I still think about Roman. And Izzy B. I don’t think that I will stop. It had all been so cruel, so unfair, and the end result had been so wonderful. It was a hell of guilt, when I think about it.
Because I could never have had Belle had Isabella lived. Or maybe I would have. The heart is a strange force. I don’t know that I could have kept away from Marlena forever. It seems impossible sometimes.
I’m not sure how that made me feel, when I first realized that. Loving Marlena and Belle is the strongest thing I have ever felt in my life.
What should I want? I don’t know if I would give them up so that Roman could be happy and Izzy could be alive again. So I could have that other life. It seems so distant. I think in the end, I never really wanted it at all.
Of course, these are just hypotheticals, and I’d only think of them alone.
Finis
The Jarlena Journal 