He had offered to massage her shoulders … a parting gesture. She had let him, knowing better, knowing where it would lead. Now she lay on her bed, on her belly, stripped to her panties as his hands roamed, not randomly, but deliberately over her shoulders, then down, thumbs pressing deeply but gently along her spine until the heels of his palms pillowed up against her tailbone.

His hands began their return track up her back, trailing a wake of friction … heat that saturated her flesh and sought out every knot, every muscle made tight by frustration, stress or anxiety. She felt herself dissolve under his hands and enter a state of total relaxation.

His hands pressed over her hips and up her sides. His fingers subtly ploughed the valleys between her ribs. Then farther up to where he kneaded the soft flesh just beneath her arm before sharply turning, pressing over her shoulder blade, a thumb and pinky finger gauging its width.

His cock grazed her right thigh like a velvet wand, dabbing and streaking precum that had already cooled at the tip. She wondered when he had shed his trousers, but in the state he had put her in, she hadn’t noticed much.

He could take her now. She would not, could not resist. Warm syrup flowed out of her pussy that would coat his cock and slicken its way to her pulsing center. He could also toss her over on her back as if she were a rag doll. Either way made no difference … she was open, unguarded, utterly pliant.

Her mind darted to the day they met. They had been tossed together, the only two responsible for an impossible task. They had cursed their lot with humor and teasing and shared the camaraderie of the “screwed over.” Somehow they had completed the project on deadline. Their superiors made them a permanent team.

They were the best of friends. Their bond was that of two people who had endured against the odds and met a challenge arm-in-arm. Friendship became something deeper and marriage seemed like a good idea at the time.

They had carried their teasing and humor into their married life. She believed in soul mates, and flatly pronounced that he wasn’t hers. They had laughed about it then, even though she said if she found her true soul mate she would be torn to leave him. He said he could accept it if it meant her happiness. They decided then that the odds were that they were stuck together in this lifetime, best friends, lovers and companions.

That was ten years ago. Today she had called him home from the apartment he had taken recently. The divorce papers were ready to be signed. In defiance of the odds, her soul mate had stepped into their lives. She knew immediately, and explained to her husband.

… “I feel complete with this man, I won’t be complete without him,” she said.

She told him even as the aroma of the sex she had shared with her lover lingered about her. He drew deep breaths of it and replied, “Looks like I’m yesterday.” He said it as a statement of fact, no bitterness, no anger. He was like that. He would not fight the facts.

He insisted on a no-contest divorce, one lawyer for both. He didn’t want to take anything out of the marriage. It was all hers. He would shed himself of her entirely, except the memories. He had already lined up a new job more than a thousand miles away. …

He had sensed her anxiety as she greeted him at the door. Before she even had a chance to make small talk, he said, “You’re a bundle of nerves. You don’t have to be that way.”

“I guess I can’t help it,” she replied.

“Let me massage your shoulders … one last time.”

She knew she should have said no. His hands were magic. He called running his hands over her naked body “worship” and approached her not so much as a lover, but a supplicant. It was as if he entered a zone of spirituality, while she absorbed his total attention. She felt venerated. It was a heady, erotic elixir that his hands served.

The heat from his touch had opened her pores. Her skin became moist. Now he just lightly grazed his palms over her back, then ever more lightly still. Her body was a feather, inanimate on the bed.

She awoke just two hours into the new day. She lay on the bed for a long moment before she tested her muscles’ ability to lift herself into a sit. Her panties were still on. He hadn’t fucked her.

She stood and pulled on a robe that she let hang open. Her skin tingled and felt new. It seemed like ten years had been filtered out of her. As she started downstairs she looked at herself in the mirror on the landing. She nearly glowed and had to say to herself, “I’m beautiful.”

Stepping off the stairs she sensed at once that she was alone in the house, but more than that she sensed his absence.

She found the divorce papers signed on the kitchen table. Beneath his signature he had written, “Goodbye.”

A single tear fell from her cheek and smudged the ink. She knew she would never see him again.

© 2001 by R.E. Buckley. Not to be reproduced without permission of the author.