Before you left for work this morning, you promised you’d make it home by dinner.

Dinner was six hours ago, and unfortunately having the foresight to predict an empty chair at the table, I’d set aside a plate of dinner— which had coincidentally been made up of all your favorites, hoping against hope that the buttery dinner rolls, and roasted chicken, and baby vegetables would entice you away from work in a timely manner. There was no such luck there, but our children were only happy to devour the meal in your stead, going so far as to proclaim in between messy bites that it was a shame you had missed out on all your favorites.

Call it a mother’s intuition, but I had an inkling they were talking about more than just the food. It was mother's intuition, as well as the beat of disappointed silence that had followed after my words when I said that you would be coming home much, much later.

Tonight notwithstanding, it had been months since you last ate dinner at home and it had been just as long since you last returned before the children were all put to bed. Your new promotion had eaten up much of your time, and while your success was celebrated, our children missed you, and so did I. For all the rewards you reaped, it meant just as many long nights spent away from home, ensuring the operation you ran was in tip-top shape.

I had fallen in love with that determination and dedication years ago, when we had been nothing more than struggling students slogging through college, and I could not fault you for having those qualities now.

Hovering over the race car bed of our youngest child, I press a kiss to his brow and send him off to dreamland with a hand gently rubbing circles into his back. I watch him pull his stuffed teddy bear close, and snuggle in deeper into his sheets, lost in his dreams I quietly bid him good night, and withdraw from his room. My next stop is down the hall, the second door on the left. I crack open the sticker-covered door, and in the dim light provided by the hall, see our two older children in their own beds, dead to the world asleep, surrounded by their princess dolls and plush animals with limbs akimbo as they snored softly.

Satisfied that their bedtimes had been enforced, I descend down to kitchen with only my thoughts for company.

I put the kettle on the stove and leave it to boil. In the meantime, I dip into the pantry, retrieving a tin of cocoa. I busy myself, stretching out a task that would have taken a few minutes at best, in hopes that it would keep the lonely thoughts away. I didn’t want to burden you any further by falling into that needy, indignant caricature of a housewife left alone.

My kettle has yet to come to a boil when I hear the sound of a familiar engine pull up into our driveway. I leave my cocoa unfinished on the kitchen counter, and make my way across the house. My feet take me to the front door, where I wait expectantly, my perch allowing me a view of our quiet little street. Our neighbors’ houses are all dark owing to the lateness of the hour, but the headlights of your car are near-blinding in their brightness as the engine slowly purrs to a stop.

I wrap my arms around myself with a melancholic smile. My evening robe is a poor match for the evening chill, but the warmth in my voice is unmistakable.

At the end of the day, I still loved you, and that hadn’t changed despite the loneliness and helplessness gnawing inside of me.

“Welcome home, baby. How was your day?”

///

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Kinks: Romance, Passion, Dirty Talk, Domesticity, Impregnation, Pregnancy, Lactation, Age Gaps, Semi-Public Sex, Rough Sex, Outdoor Sex, CMNF, Light Bondage, Messy Oral, Body Worship, Voyeurism, Cumplay

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