Stella's best friend Kelly came from money. You knew it because Kelly's clothes were really nice: they looked so simple they had to cost ten times whatever you had on. And Kelly's family had a second home, a summer place on Mackinac Island.
They went up every summer for two weeks, plus weekends in the offseason, Thanksgiving sometimes. Kelly and her folks took Stell once, when she was thirteen. She came back tanned, with little braided anklets. They were really sexy. Made me want to run my fingers underneath.
After we got engaged, but before we got married, Stella finagled the keys to Kelly's parents' summer place. We went out for a long weekend. She was on spring break; I talked my Lieu into giving me a Monday off.
It wasn't "winterized," but there was a fireplace, and there were a ton of blankets in the closets. They smelled like cedar. The lake was icy, still, but I could see the rope swing, the dock for jumping in from. I could see why she'd liked it so much, as a kid.
We didn't do much. Slept late, drank a lot, wrapped ourselves in throw blankets to cook and light the fire, watched rented movies we'd brought from Chicago. Had a lot of sex: on the creaky bed, on the couch, on a blanket in front of the fire.
Every time I started to peel her pyjamas off Stella would bitch, laughing, slapping my hands away. "Ray! It's too cold in here!" Coy, but I knew she didn't mean it: it was part of the game. When I touched my mouth to her neck she'd melt. She liked her body less in the wintertime—she said she looked pasty—but I thought she was sexy like that. Her nipples looked even deeper pink against her white skin.
I loved her little tells when the sex was good. Not just her little breathy moans, but the flush that started at her face and spread down across her shoulders and breasts. There was nothing in the world sexier than Stella lying on a rough wool blanket, blushing all over because I was gliding in and out of her slow as I could go. God, holding back from coming was like torture, because she was so hot, it was so good.
The very best was when I'd lose it and her eyes would widen and I'd feel her convulsing around me, like feeling me come had done it for her, too. And then I'd pull out, not wanting to but not having a choice, and rest my head on her breasts and pull another blanket up over us, and we'd talk about our future. Sappy, but it's what we did, then.
We got to talking, that weekend, about getting a place like that ourselves. A summer cabin, how much could it cost? We could save up. I bragged about promotions and raises I had no idea whether I'd get. Lying there, in the afterglow, it all seemed possible.
We'd vacation there in the summers, first with friends, someday piling the kids in the car: escape from the heat of Chicago, right? We'd furnish it with our chipped first set of dishes, our faded first sets of sheets, once we graduated to nicer ones.
We kept that plan for a long time. Somewhere in Stella's attic—unless she threw it out when we split—there's a cardboard box labeled "For Summer House," holding all the stuff we saved when the wedding gifts came in. I guess the fact of a "summer home" was high-class enough to cancel out the fact that our old stuff was too crappy for Stella to use everyday.
I liked the idea of an escape. I liked imagining going there by ourselves in the off-season, with a car full of groceries and maybe some soft porn, and fucking like crazy. I liked picturing our kids there someday: little blond terrors running around the yard, leaping into the lake, looking at fireflies, all that sweet shit middle-class kids are supposed to do.
But in the end, I should have figured that once Stella felt like she was too high-class for our mismatched drinking glasses, it wasn't long before she'd feel too high-class for me, too.
It was one of the stupid things I said when she was packing up to move out. "I guess this means no cabin." She just looked at me, sad, and for a second I could tell this was hard for her, too.
"We can't, Ray," she said, and I knew she was right, and I knew it was over.
For a long time, cabins were on the gigantic list of things I couldn't think about without wanting to cry. It was a bad list. Long, too. Everything we'd ever done, everything we'd ever planned to do, everything we ever wanted. I'd see another woman wearing her coat, across a park, and have to duck my head in case the tears came.
The pain doesn't go away, but things get better. You start to let go. One day you wake up and realize you went a whole day without wanting to rip your heart out, without even thinking about her. Life throws you curveballs.
Life threw me Fraser. Which, let me tell you, I never saw coming. It wasn't like I saw him walk into the bullpen and knew we'd be swapping spit within six months. Wanted to, sure, but I never thought it would happen. Just goes to show, sometimes good shit happens even if you don't deserve it.
Last night he asked if I wanted to come North, someday. See his cabin, up in the Northwest Whatsits. We were watching the Bruins/Leafs game when he popped the question. I almost winced, expecting the word to reopen the ache, but it...didn't. I remembered the way Stell and I used to talk about our cabin, I remembered how bad I wanted it, how much I wanted to be there with her, and the sadness was still there, but it wasn't crippling.
When I shook off the memories, he was talking about the seasons. "To be sure, autumn there consists more of foreshortened daylight than of foliage changes per se, though the mosses and lichens and dwarf birch do briefly flame before going dormant."
I smiled a little.
"What's funny?" He could tell I wasn't actually laughing at his description of the northwoods. He could probably tell I hadn't even been listening.
"Stella and I used to talk about getting a cabin," I said.
"Ah." He can put a world of meaning into that one syllable. This time, it meant "I respect your ex-wife, Ray, but I can't imagine why she passed up the chance at spending her lifetime with you." At least, I hoped that's what it meant.
"I'd love to see yours."
I meant the cabin, but he's learned a few tricks, and maybe he wanted to make sure my mind wasn't on my ex anymore. "You would, would you?"
I love it when he slings innuendo. Nothing turns my crank like Benton Fraser being suggestive. Unless it's Benton Fraser struggling to keep from coming too soon in my mouth...
"Haven't you seen enough?" His voice lowered. I love that, too.
"I don't think I'll ever see enough." And that was the end of watching hockey. Early bedtime for Ray and Fraser, thank-you-kindly. Didn't take a fortune-teller to see some sex in my future.
Suddenly I wanted to do him so bad I could taste it. Wanted to spread him out on my bed, peel his clothes away, run my thumbs along his spine and watch him arch. Reach under him to palm his balls, soft and heavy and vulnerable. Slick a finger to glide into him, just hold it there until he started to squirm around my hand, get him hot and bothered and wanting as bad as I did, as I always do.
When we got into the bedroom, he stripped and climbed onto the bed, kneeling. I was pulling my shirt off when he asked, "May I fuck you?"
That was it: instant fire. So goddamned polite, and so proper (he'd teased me enough with the difference between "may" and "can"), and so horny underneath.
"God, yes." I was on my stomach in two seconds flat. I felt him reach over me to get the lube from the bedside table, and saw him shiver.
Suddenly the desire was a lot more...urgent.
I pushed up on elbows and knees, showing off a little. I knew how sexy he looked like that. The curve of back and hip and ass, his cock hanging shadowed and full underneath. Maybe he thought that way about me. My mouth was dry.
He slid a thumb inside me and I almost bucked him off. "Oh," I said, surprised, like always. Like I didn't know it was going to feel so good.
He steadied me with one hand and pushed his cock in, so slow I bit my lip to try to hold back the moan. The slowness was agonizing, but in the good way, and Fraser made it worth the strain: he sighed like he was coming already. I felt it in my bones.
Every time, I told myself I was going to be stoic, take it however he wanted to do me. Every time it took about thirty seconds before I was gasping, writhing, begging him for harder, for more. I whimpered when he pulled out and moaned when he slid in and pretty soon he gave me what I wanted, what we both wanted. Next thing I knew we were both breathing hard, both too far gone to be embarrassed by the sounds we were making, and then he inhaled hard, the stream of groaning gone silent, and the feeling of him coming inside me was...beyond words. I choked off a sob and came all over the sheets.
My body was jelly. I collapsed. Somehow he pulled out, stroked my back, got us both with our heads on the pillows and tugged the comforter over us. How did I get so lucky?
It'll be cool to see Fraser's cabin. And who knows...maybe it's a fixer-upper. Maybe we could spend a week or two there next summer working on it. Not close enough for weekends, but we could make the most of what we've got.
I'll bet it's clean and kind of spartan. All Boy-Scout-y. I'll bet Dief loves it up there. I'll bet the bed's a twin and we'll wind up sleeping on the floor.
Bet the kitchen's stocked with a single tin cup and plate. Romantic as it sounds to share the one bowl or whatever, I kind of like the idea of seeing my old stuff there. I wonder whether it's too remote for UPS: I could get that box of stuff from Stella, put my old dishes to use. Wonder if he'd mind.
I could take a few things I'm not using here. The orange flashlight from when I was a kid, the blanket my grandma crocheted. Wouldn't exceed my baggage allowance if I squeezed some of my old clothes in, to leave there. I mean, if he wanted me to.
I'll bet it's got a fireplace. Or a woodstove, probably more practical. And I'll bet there's plenty of rough wool blankets to lay Fraser down on and fuck him silly. Slow and sweet. In the woods where there's no neighbors to hear him moan. Just the way we like it.
The End