Miriam first met her future husband, Will, when she was in fourth grade. They were both enrolled by their parents at a summer theatre day camp, and became fast friends, partnering for every skit, writing stories together, and making each other laugh. She remembered him being shorter than her and having semi-permanent fruit punch mouth, ruffled hair, and kind eyes. He remembered her fimo bead earrings and the way she had touched his arm when he made her laugh.

Years later, they met again in high school. In the theatre of all places. He played Vince Fontaine and she played Principal McGee in their high schools production of Grease. He was taller now. Still a bit skinny for her taste, but with strong shoulders, kind blue eyes, and a nervous sweetness that made her heart flutter. His hair was still ruffled and wavy. His smile was still sincere and charming. They flirted shamelessly with each other backstage, spending hours talking about movies and books, imagining their futures, laughing at each others jokes…

They dated briefly, and then fizzled out. She knew this could be something more than a high school thing. It felt…deeper. It felt permanent. And that scared her. She broke it off after just a few dates and promised herself that they would just be friends. And they were…for a while.

As one of the only “out” bisexual girls in her small town high school, there weren’t a lot of girls for Miriam to choose from in the dating pool. Her dating life was pretty sporadic, and mostly filled with sweet nerdy guys who always required her to make the first move. All she had experienced with another girl was one hurried but passionate make out session with the only out lesbian in their school. Their hands had roamed each other’s bodies wildly, rolling around on the creaking futon bed of her childhood bedroom. Kelly’s short brown hair had felt unbelievably soft in Miri’s hands. Her body was curvy and strong, with wide hips and small breasts. Her eyes were grey and stormy. As they kissed, Kelly had pulled Miriam back by her hair, separating them momentarily, and looked her straight in the eyes before turning her head to the side to expose the long line of her neck. She had kissed a soft line down the tender skin of Miriam’s neck, pausing just above her carotid artery, where the rapid beat of her heart fluttered like a moth trapped under the surface. She laid a gentle kiss on that quivering heartbeat, and then sunk her canine teeth into it, holding Miri’s flesh firmly in her mouth and sending a thrill through her entire body. In that moment Miriam knew she wanted to experience more. She wanted to be bitten. She wanted to be marked. She wanted to be desired. She wanted women, she wanted men, she wanted touch, she wanted excitement, she wanted danger and adventure.

While she and Will were separated, hanging out as “just friends” in a frequent trio with Will’s best friend Harrison, Miriam dated a guy who worked at the movie theatre with her.

Matt treated her horribly, forgetting their dates, pushing her to go farther than she was ready for, and generally disrespecting her…but he also slammed her back against the carpeted movie theatre wall and kissed her deeply while she blinked away stars. He teased her. He whispered filthy things in her ears that made her blush a deep crimson. He held her arms above her head as he kissed and bit her neck and breasts through her work shirt. He ran his fingers over her thighs and then back up to pull her hair, and in return she wrapped her hands in his long dark hair and yanked back, biting his lower lip and smiling at the surprise on his face. Again, she wanted more. She wanted him to take her up to the projection booth and make love to her on a flat of popcorn bags. She wanted him to bend her over and fuck her while she looked out the window of the booth on an audience full of people and knew that they had no idea what was happening just above their heads. She wanted him to put his hands on her mouth and stifle her screams so that their secret would stay safe. But at eighteen, part of her still felt like she wasn’t ready, and something held her back from giving that part of herself to a guy who generally treated her like shit.

But alas, he ghosted her one too many times, and her intense desire to be touched by him failed to beat out her sense of self-respect.

Now single, she found herself spending more and more time with Will and Harrison. They would go for long drives together, visit the coffee shop or the frozen yogurt shop in town, watch movies, light fireworks, and stay up late talking and laughing at Harrison’s house, where there was the least amount of parental supervision. Will emailed her screenplays he was writing, and told her which characters were based on her. Those characters always happened to have a tender romance with the male lead, for some reason…

Over time they became inseparable. She and Will traded movie recommendations and took turns watching each others suggestions. They spent long nights at the local pizza place with their friends, talking and laughing, picking songs on the jukebox, and trading meaningful glances.

She wanted to be with him. She felt connected to him in a way she couldn’t explain. But bridging that gap scared her. There was still so much left to experience, and Will felt permanent. He felt like home. She resisted as long as she could, determined that she would have adventure and excitement before love and commitment, but her senior year, after a long night at the pizza shop, on their way to a friends house out in the country, Will lost control taking a corner too fast on the slick winding road, and put when Will’s car crashed into a ditch.

The sound of crunching metal and squealing brakes rang out in the quiet, reaching Miriam’s ears as she and her date chatted happily in the car just ahead. She could resist no longer. She leapt from the car and ran to him, and from that moment on he was hers and she was his. And things were as they should be. There was love, there was passion, there was comfort, there was friendship. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a damn good match, and they brought each other so much joy.

But this story isn’t about Miriam and Will.

It’s about Miriam and Harrison.

——————

Life is short, and marriage is long. But in Miriam’s case it was a happy marriage. Will was loving, kind, patient, and even after 18 years together, with 2 beautiful daughters, 50 or so extra pounds, and a few gray hairs, he still found her breathtakingly beautiful. When they made love at night he would whisper in her ear “I never want to stop fucking you. You have no idea how beautiful you are. How much I think about you.” She would breathe an “I love you” into his ear and pull him closer.

His passion and his desire for her made their sex life more satisfying and exciting than she would have imagined, and even after all these years she still thrilled at the moment their bodies joined and still loved the weight of his chest above hers. He was a good man. A good husband. Her best friend. And he was sexy as hell. She never wanted to leave him. She never wanted to love anyone else the way that she loved him.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t still want things. Things that couldn’t be found and that shouldn’t exist in her sweet, loving, tender marriage.

She wanted variety. She wanted excitement. She wanted danger. She wanted an adventure. Over the years she had had crushes and subtle flirtations, but had always stayed firmly behind the line that the boundaries of their relationship demanded. There had been the tattooed bearded baker who would linger at her desk while his son took toddler yoga at the rec center where she worked. He had shown her his tattoos and brands, inviting her to run her fingers along the ridges of his burn scars on his stomach, which she did, fleetingly, and then felt guilty for days afterward and began avoiding him so as not to make the same mistake, or a worse one.

There had been the queer shop owner that she had made excuses to spend time with, just to enjoy the sight of her supple waist and straining shoulder muscles as she stood on tiptoes to reach an item from the top shelf.

The married coworker who she became fast friends with, who had bluntly asked her for more, and even though she had felt the pull of temptation, and the thrill of transgression, she held firm. “Thank you for the compliment, and if I were single I would certainly feel different,” she had admitted, “but I’m happily married and we’re faithful to each other.”

And they were.

But there was something there, simmering just under the surface. A source of fuel just waiting for ignition. A longing for something more.

The spark came late one night, as she lay back in the hammock on their back patio, staring up at the stars. She had taken a thc gummy and was feeling pleasantly faded. Her girls had long since fallen asleep, and she, Will, and Harrison were enjoying some hard ciders together on the patio and reminiscing about old times. The clink of a beer bottle chimed in the comfortable silence that stretched between the three old friends as a question formed on her lips.

“What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done in the bedroom?”

A slightly steamy question for a group of friends, yes, but not completely outside the norm for their group. They were close. 18 years of friendship for her and Harrison. Close to 30 years of friendship for Harrison and Will. They had swapped embarrassing sex stories, listened to Harrison’s breakup stories, and even shared humiliating tales like the time Will shit himself in art class and had to hurriedly hide the evidence. Everything was on the table for this group.

Harrison took a long sip of his cider, his ginger hair was close-cropped on the sides and slightly longer at the crown, allowing it to flop down slightly over his dark eyes. He ran his hands absently through his beard and thought for a moment, before replying.

“It’s probably not the kinkiest thing I’ve ever done, but one time Marina and I were doing breath play—“

Miriam knew what breath play was, but saw the confused look on her husband’s face.

“Choking, babe.” He nodded and smiled a thank you at her.

“And she was riding me, and put both her hands around my neck, and it was so good—“ Miriam leaned closer, her fingers dancing across the skin of her chest as she listened closely, “but she got a little carried away choking me, and I fully passed out.” He went on to tell a funny anecdote about his ex girlfriend panicking and trying to revive him, worried she had gone too far.

Miriam was listening, but she was only half there. The weed was creating that sensation where she felt like she was in two places at once, her body and her thoughts, and both felt equally real. Her body was lying in a hammock under the stars, on a warm night, with the light from the oil lanterns’ flames turning her skin golden and illuminating the red undertones in her strawberry blonde hair. The only sounds that night in her suburban midwestern neighborhood were the chirping of crickets and cicadas, the clinking of bottles, the occasional bark of a neighbors dog in the distance, and Harrison’s calm, even voice. Her body was listening to her dear old friend tell sexy stories from his life as a still-single thirty-something. But her mind was in a vast bed somewhere, with dark silk sheets, her pale skin a stark contrast as she writhed with anticipated pleasure. Harrison towered above her, his face inches from hers, his voice a low growl.

 “Are you sure?” He purred in her ear, his weight pressing against her, her hips rising eagerly to meet him. His dark eyes were filled with the promise of even darker deeds. 

 “Yes,” she whispered back hesitantly, her eyelashes fluttering closed as she put her arms around him and pulled his body closer to hers. He didn’t move. A wicked smile crossed his face, as he continued to hold his hips just above hers. Gently he removed her arms from his back and pinned them firmly above her head, as her eyes widened he became less gentle, pressing down until she winced from a near-bruising pain in her wrists. Heat flushed her cheeks. She bucked against him, at once trying to free herself from his grip and bring her body closer to his, close that painful distance, those mere centimeters that felt like endless unbearable miles. But he redoubled his grip, shifting his weight to hold her down more firmly and keep that agonizing stretch of empty air between them. 

“Yes what?” he demanded.

She bit her lip, resisting instinctually. She didn’t want to give him what he wanted, but she did want to get what she desired, and that was his body slamming into hers, deeper and deeper until she screamed with pain and pleasure. She wriggled against him, tempting him with the press of her breasts against his chest, she tried to raise her mouth to meet his, but he kept it just out of reach. 

“Yes what?” he demanded again. She arched her eyebrow, trying to think of a smartass thing to say, but she wasn’t fast enough. He knew what that look meant. 

They had known each other far too long. He stole the breath from her lungs with a deep and surprising kiss. A kiss filled with years of longing, desire, and curiosity. He explored her, tasting her like she was a fine liqueur. The kiss told her what she had always wondered. Was the attraction mutual? Had it always been mutual? The answer was an unmistakable yes. And yet he was making her wait, making himself wait. Prolonging their pleasure and giving her something she had always wanted but never known how to express: a lover who was completely in control.

As they broke from the kiss she looked into his eyes. She loved him, in a way. Not romantically. She didn’t want to run away with him or build a life with him. She didn’t want to raise her children with him or do Sunday morning chores together. But she did want him. They shared an intimacy, an understanding, that the darkest parts of themselves matched, in a way. She wanted to revel in the darkness with him. She wanted to take his hand and let him lead her to pains and pleasures she had only imagined. She relented. Happily. Willingly. Letting herself fall further into the abyss. Letting the dark wrap her in its warmth. 

“Yes…please,” she breathed out, “Please,” and in that instant he plunged himself into her. Deep and hard. She gasped, bucking against him, as he slowly pulled back and poised for another stroke, she—-

“Babe?” She blinked, turning in the hammock to follow the voice. Will stood above her, his blue eyes warm in the firelight. “Want another hard cider babe?”

She tried to speak but her voice caught in her throat. She shook her head weakly. Will walked away, the sliding glass door swooshing as he slid it closed behind him.

“Thanks for having me over,” Harrison said into the silence, his voice sincere. “I’ve missed you guys lately.”

Miriam peered over the edge of the hammock, at the man who had just ravaged and teased her in her mind, the man who now consumed her thoughts and pulled at something deep in her body. She looked at him in that moment and knew two things for certain.

She had to fuck Harrison. She had to.

And she could never cheat on her husband.

“Fuck…” she whispered under her breath, turning to stare up at the stars. “I am so screwed.”