Excerpt #2 from The Runner
She waited until she heard the rumble of Jeremy's Jeep fade down the street before she got out of bed. By noon, after she had done four loads of wash, cleaned the kitchen floor, and baked a batch of muffins, she almost regretted not going to the cottage. She didn't know how she was going to keep her mind occupied until Monday night. As it was, Ethan infused every turn of her mind; while sorting the laundry, she wondered if he wore boxers or briefs, and how easily she would slip them off his hips. When baking, she wondered how his lips would feel against her fingers when she fed him chocolate. While brushing her teeth, she imagined him spreading her legs and sliding her up onto the bathroom counter.
Believing food would calm her agitation; she made a quick lunch of tomato and lettuce on rye and then ignored it. She had no taste for food. She wanted only to feel Ethan in her mouth, to run her tongue over his pale skin, to taste him down the back of her throat.
She decided to exercise even though she hadn't in months. She had gone to a health club for a while, but had grown quickly tired of the leering men with their tight shorts and obscenely inflated muscles. She wanted lean. She wanted thin. She wanted the body forged by the long distance run. She wanted Ethan.
After her workout, dinner came and went, and still the time stretched before her. She called Patty as the sun began to set.
"Want to do something?" Nicole asked.
"I wish you'd called earlier. Dave invited his parents over."
"Sneak out."
Patty laughed. "Nicole!"
"Let's go dancing."
"Dancing? We haven't done that in ages."
"Let's do it now. I've got so much energy, I feel like I could fuck a football team."
Silence hung between the two friends. "Are you okay, Nicole?"
Nicole caught her reflection in the window above the sink. Her eyes looked like pits in her skull. Two bright red patches colored her cheeks. She ran a hand through her hair and turned away.
"I'm bored I guess."
"I'm sorry, Nicky. I can't get away. Maybe tomorrow?"
"Sure."
But Nicole had to get through tonight. She drove to Blockbuster and came home with a movie she had heard of, but had steered clear of in the past because of its depressing nature. Tonight, she gambled that the plight of refugees on the Cambodian border would squash her lust.
It worked for a while, but by the end of the three and half hour film, she had her head in her hands, weeping. The main characters had suffered through loss of loved ones, their homes, and their dignity. They knew need in its rawest form. And here I am, living a lie, she thought as she looked around her living room in the house she shared with her fiancé, the man who she had chosen to share her life with.
She had no reason, no right to desire Ethan, a man she did not know. She was embarrassed, ashamed. But this desire for him felt like a switch to the back; while she prayed for the pain to end, she could not help looking over her shoulder at her flogger and smiling.