Bedding Down, A Collection of Winter Erotica (20 page)

and over again. When her clit became so sensitive, so saturated with pleasure that even the lightest touch hurt, she collapsed in his arms. They fell asleep where they lay, on a deserted Italian beach, until a police officer woke them in the morning.

In Paris, two years later, they stood on a rooftop watching the City of Light alive and mysterious below. The air was warm and

still. It was a perfect spring evening. Alana leaned back against Gideon’s chest, enjoying his embrace. He whispered
Vous êtes
l’amour de ma vie,
before nibbling on her earlobe
.

“I don’t know what you just said,” Alana told him. “But it

was lovely.”

Gideon smiled in the darkness, pulled at her neck with his

teeth. Alana reached for his hand, pulling it under her skirt, and beneath the waistband of her panties.

He chuckled softly. “Here?”

Alana motioned to the city below. “Is there a better place?”

Gideon sank to his knees, rolling Alana’s tank top up over

her navel, pressing his lips against the small of her back. Alana lifted her skirt around her waist and slowly, Gideon pulled her panties down around her ankles, kissing the backs of her thighs, the sensitive spots behind her knees, her inner ankles.

Gripping the low brick wall in front of her, Alana whispered,

“Please, don’t tease. Not tonight.”

Gideon stood, and in one motion, he pulled his cock out

and slid inside Alana where she was wet and waiting for him.

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She reached back, holding his thigh with one hand, letting her

fingernails dig into his skin. Gideon groaned, loudly, pressing his weight against her body. He slid his hand, fingers splayed

widely, up her back and into her hair, slowly curling his fingers into a tight fist. He pulled her head back the way she liked it, the muscles of her neck straining. A sheen of sweat broke out

across his forehead, and, clenching his ass muscles, he thrust

hard, hard enough to push Alana forward. She braced herself

with her free hand, her breathing rapid and shallow.

“Open your eyes,” he told her.

Alana spread her legs wider, dug her nails deeper into his

thigh. When she opened her eyes, she stared at Gideon, a hard

expression in her eyes.
“Noubliez jamais ce moment,”
he told her.

He thrust again, his cock reaching for the deepest parts of her.

“That,” she gasped. “I understand.”

The year before everything changed, they went to Hong Kong

and stayed in a gorgeous hotel on Victoria Harbor. The chaos,

the lights, the millions and millions of people—Gideon and

Alana couldn’t help but marvel at a place so different from the world they knew. The next year, they decided, they would return to Hong Kong and the skyline and the mountains in the

distance.

But there will be no trip this year, and there’s no real reason to exchange gifts. Nonetheless, Gideon buys a small tree, which Alana decorates on Christmas Eve, draping it with silver and red strands of fabric. She does this to pass the time, she tells him, and for old time’s sake. Outside, it is snowing, fat ornate flakes piling up and covering every visible surface. It has been snow-

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ing every day for two weeks, and there is no end in sight. Each morning, Alana goes outside with a measuring stick to see how

much of the stuff has fallen overnight. She wants a record, for posterity. As she makes coffee, she gives Gideon the daily report, liberally peppered with profanities about godforsaken places.

Sometimes it’s three inches, other times it’s thirteen or more.

Her displeasure is palpable and mutual. To cope, she spends her days online, instant messaging her New York friends, reading

Broadway gossip sites—carefully measuring how much sanity

she will need to endure this final winter, hoping she has enough.

Gideon spends his days staying out of her way, clearing snow

from the driveway, checking in on the hardware store his father owns, and making sure his father is as comfortable as can be

expected. They know their lonely routines well now. They both

have their roles to play.

On Christmas morning, Gideon awakes early and watches

Alana sleeping. They still share a bed because the nights are

cold and bitter. Sleeping alone in a chilly room is one indignity his wife is unwilling to suffer. Her breathing is shallow, her

back turned to him. The pale shafts of light breaking through

the clouds cast shadows across the expanse of her back. She

shifts and he quickly turns away. He hopes that his memory

can hold enough of these images to sustain him when she’s

gone. That night, after a dinner of glazed ham, roasted red

potatoes, and a spinach salad, Gideon quietly hands Alana a

small package, wrapped with a single red bow. Inside are old

Playbills from the shows she wanted to star in had she been

alive fifty years ago. The last Playbill is custom made with a

picture of Alana on the cover.
For when you’re a star,
Gideon wrote
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inside the cover. She fingers the edges of each booklet, carefully turning each page.

“Oh, Gideon.”

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly and leaves the

room. He finds her in bed. She is naked, leaning against a stack of pillows, one hand resting across her stomach. Gideon kneels

at the edge of the bed and takes his shirt off, throwing it on a nearby chair. He starts to say something, but she presses one

finger to his lips. “I’m not staying,” she says. “But I do want to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

Alana pulls Gideon toward her and gnaws his lower lip with

her teeth while sliding her fingernails down his back. He is instantly hard. She shifts and turns onto her stomach. He closes

his eyes, kissing the backs of her thighs, dragging his tongue

alongside the curves of her ass. For now, they’re not in a small, drafty cabin on his father’s property. They’re in their Manhattan loft, sweaty and tangled in sheets and one another. Instead of the silence of snow, they can hear the city beneath them, the low wail of an ambulance in the distance. Gideon massages his

way up Alana’s body, placing moist kisses along her spine. She

raises her ass slightly and his cock jumps. He nudges her thighs apart and Alana pulls her knees toward her breasts. She is open and wet, so wet he can smell her. Holding his cock, Gideon

traces the edges of her pussy lips, teasing her by pressing just the tip inside her. She hisses, pulling the loose sheets into her hands.

He penetrates deeper, presses two fingers against her clit, stroking hard. When she tries to move toward him, he stops her. He

wants this moment to last.

Tossing her hair to one side, Alana looks back at Gideon, her

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eyes hazy with desire. “Please, fuck me,” she asks. Her voice is raw and low. She knows he likes it when he brings her to this place where she wants nothing more than to ask for what she knows he

will eventually give. Gideon bites her shoulders softly, strokes her clit a little harder. He can feel bone just behind that slick flesh.

Her legs twitch. He lightly smacks her ass and she buries her

head in the pillows. He smacks her ass again, harder this time, leaving a light red blush that he traces with his fingertips. When she moans, “Please,” again, he lets her have a little more of his cock, gives her ass another tap. Alana’s thighs tremble.

“You may not be staying,” he says. “But I want you to admit

that there’s no place you’d rather be right now.”

Alana stills, and moans loudly.

Gideon pulls back, his cock hovering against her pussy lips.

“Fine,” she mutters. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Gideon slaps her ass. “Say it like you mean it.”

Alana looks at her husband over her shoulder, her hair cover-

ing her face. She turns away and softly, ever so softly, ever so slowly she says, “There is no place I would rather be.”

It is a small victory, but for now it is enough. Gideon takes

hold of her ass, and inches his entire cock into her cunt, quickly settling into a steady rhythm. Their moans are punctuated by

the damp sound of their bodies coming together and falling

apart. He tells himself that he doesn’t need her to stay, that

these moments are enough. She tells herself she doesn’t want to stay, that these moments are not enough. But with each stroke,

she rears to meet him, clenches the sheets in her fists until her knuckles are white. Alana comes before Gideon, feels the overwhelming sharpness that starts just below her clit and quickly

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spreads throughout her body until she is shaking uncontrolla-

bly and a gush of wetness explodes from her cunt. As her body

spasms around him, Gideon comes and falls on top of his wife,

his sweat mingling with hers. When he tries to roll away, Alana shakes her head and starts crying softly.

“Don’t move, not yet,” she says.

Gideon kisses her shoulder, sliding his hands along her arms

until his hands are covering hers. “I’m staying,” he says.

New Year’s Day is not a good day. Gideon’s father is disori-

ented, and angry that his body and now his mind are failing

him. Alana and Gideon sit with him, trying to pass a few hours

away. She has more patience for this kind of vigil than Gideon

because she lost her parents at a young age and wishes she

could have had this time to say good-bye. She sings her father-

in-law old show tunes and he smiles at the songs he recognizes, barks profanities at other times, thinks she’s his wife, eyeing her with a toothless grin. When Gideon can no longer stand

witness to his father’s frailty, he steps onto the back porch and lights a cigarette. He had quit years ago, at Alana’s insistence, but since moving back to Minnesota, he had been sneaking a

few smokes a week, huddled behind the cabin like a common

criminal. It is a dark afternoon, and all he can see are trees and huge bluffs of snow. In the distance, he hears the nasally whir of snowmobilers shredding snow. When he hears the metal

screen door creak behind him, Gideon flicks his cigarette into

a nearby mound of snow, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Alana leans against his back, her chin resting just below his

shoulder.

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“You’ve been smoking,” she says with a small laugh, sliding

her hands into his coat pockets.

“I needed to relax, get my mind off things.”

Alana intertwines her fingers with Gideon’s. He can feel the

cool metal of her wedding ring against his skin. The realization is bittersweet.

“Come inside,” she says.

Gideon breathes deeply and follows her back into the house.

They stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living

room. The television in his father’s room blares loudly, and occasionally, Gideon hears his father’s laughter. Alana looks up at Gideon and smiles.

“Things will get better.”

“You can’t promise that,” he says.

Alana leans against the doorjamb, hooking one foot around

Gideon’s calf, pulling him closer.

“I can help you relax,” she tells him. “And I won’t kill you.”

He arches an eyebrow. “That remains to be seen.”

Alana smirks. “Funny.”

Gideon shrugs out of his coat and leans against the opposite

doorjamb, tapping the toes of her boots with his. “You can go

back to the cabin, if you want.”

“I’m not leaving you alone today. Don’t get all maudlin on

me.”

He smiles. “Maudlin?”

Alana winks at him the way she used to at curtain call,

searching the dark audience for where he was seated—a private

moment they could share in plain view.

Alana gently brushes her lips across Gideon’s. Wordlessly, she

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unties her boots, sets them neatly just inside the kitchen. Bare-foot, she steps onto his boots, places her right hand against his back, her left hand on his shoulder.

“Dance with me?”

Gideon leads her in a lazy waltz as she hums a random tune.

She rests her head against his chest, idly fingering a hole in his sweater. “I don’t remember the last time we danced.”

“Birdland. We were at a concert at Birdland. When the band

started playing ‘Moody’s Mood for Love’ . . .”

“I pulled you onto the dance floor, despite your protests, and

made you dance with me,” Alana finishes.

Gideon holds Alana tighter. “
Protest
is a strong word.”

Their lips meet again, in a tender, almost shy, kiss. Alana

slips her tongue between her husband’s lips, finding the hard

edges of his teeth. Her fingertips tingle as she clasps the back of his neck with one hand. Gideon responds eagerly, swaying from

side to side with Alana in his arms. Every so often they pause, pull apart just far enough that their lips are barely touching.

“What are we doing?” Gideon asks.

Alana silences him with another kiss, memorizing every

groove of his lips, the lower one slightly fuller, the subtle ridge at the center from a skateboarding accident. Their tongues wrestle until they are grinding their bodies against one another. She

can feel his cock, erect, straining against the seams of his jeans.

When she pulls away again, Alana tries to catch her breath and