Chapter 20: The Morning Ritual
The water ran cold by the time Marnie stepped out of the shower, and she stood there a moment letting it drip off her, the way it always did after a night that had gone right. She wrapped her hair in a towel, wiped a clear patch in the steamed mirror, and looked at herself. Same face. Same freckles. The woman who baked pies and ran the HOA and had two people tied up in a shed past the treeline.
She dressed in yesterday's sweatpants and a tank top, no bra, and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Coffee. She measured beans, ground them, set the machine going. Normal. Everything about the morning was normal: the light across the polished island, the church bells somewhere two streets over, the smell of fresh grounds.
The doorbell rang at quarter past nine. Marnie wiped her hands on a dish towel and opened the door to Carol Hendricks from three houses down, who had her youngest in a stroller and a zucchini bread in a Tupperware.
"Morning, Marnie. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask, and forgive me if it's forward, is Hugh's company really buying that Marsh place? My Roy heard something at the golf course and I said no, Marnie would know."
Marnie smiled, the full neighborly smile with teeth. "Oh, they're still ironing out the details. You know how these things go. Hugh says it's a formality at this point."
"Well, isn't that something." Carol shifted the stroller. "Is he home? I was going to ask if he wanted to look at Roy's boat, but I can catch him another time."
Marnie's thumb pressed the inside of the doorframe. Hugh's Escalade sat in the driveway where he'd left it. His running shoes by the mat. His phone, dead, on the nightstand. But he wasn't here, and hadn't been in hours, and Carol's question was the first thing all morning that had reminded her of that.
"He had an early call," Marnie said. "You know how he is. I'll tell him about the boat."
Carol didn't seem to notice anything. She waved, wheeled the stroller around, and crunched down the walk. Marnie watched her go, hand still on the door, and when Carol's car pulled out of the cul-de-sac she lifted her gaze over the rooftops to the line of pines beyond the back fence. The shed stood in shadow there, boards nailed over the windows, padlock on the hasp. Two people inside. Breathing. Waiting on her.
She closed the door, leaned against it, and pulled out her phone. Typed: Need to borrow a couple eggs. Then her thumb hovered, and she added: Door's unlocked.
Joaquin's reply came in under a minute. Come through the back. Don't bother knocking.
Marnie set the phone down, took the coffee off the heat, and looked at herself one more time in the hallway mirror. Sweatpants. Tank top. Nothing else. The same route she had taken before, two weeks ago, in the dark, with a needle in her pocket and murder in her head. Now the sun was up and her hands were empty and she went anyway.
She crossed her lawn, pushed through the hedge gap they'd worn down between the properties, and reached Joaquin's back door. It was unlocked. She turned the knob and stepped through into his kitchen.
The house smelled of last night's dinner and something floral, Vera's perfume still layered into the curtains. Marnie went to the cabinet above the sink, found the bottle of red Vera kept half-drunk, and poured herself a glass. She was bringing it to her lips when she heard the floorboard creak behind her.
"This is a bit forward, don't you think?"
Marnie didn't turn. "I hope you don't mind. Your wife has terrible taste in wine."
A dish rag sailed past her shoulder. She caught it without looking, one-handed, and took a sip of the wine. It was thin and overly sweet.
"I know," Joaquin said from the doorway. "But she's always had terrible taste. Especially in men."
"Wine, sure. But men?" Marnie finally turned, glass in hand. He stood there in loose boxer shorts and nothing else, the fresh M-scar on his chest still pink at the edges. She let her eyes run down him. "I would beg to differ."
"I love when you beg, baby girl."
"Unfortunate for you, I don't beg."
"Are you sure about that?"
Marnie set the glass on the counter and took a step toward him. "I'm so sure I'm willing to bet you'll be begging instead."
A corner of Joaquin's mouth lifted. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, casual, except for the way his pupils had gone dark. "I'll take that bet."
She closed the distance between them, stopped a foot short, and slid her hand up his chest, over the scar, to the hinge of his jaw. She held his gaze.
"How long do we have?"
"Vera's not coming home," he said. His voice had gone low. "Not ever."
"That's not what I asked."
Joaquin reached down and took her hand off his jaw, then lifted it to his mouth and pressed her knuckles to his lips. "Long enough," he said, "for you to make good on that bet."
"I always make good on my bets."
Joaquin's breath caught. "Then show me something, baby girl."
Marnie dragged her hand down his chest, over the ridge of the scar, past his stomach, until her fingers slipped under the waistband of his boxers. His cock was already hard, already leaking, and she wrapped her hand around it and squeezed.
A sound came out of Joaquin, low and broken at the edges. Marnie smirked.
"Gonna beg already?"
"Not in your wildest dreams."
"We'll see about that."
She stroked him slow at first, a long pull from root to tip, thumb pressing over the head. Then faster. Tighter. She watched his jaw go slack and his hips push into her grip, and when she felt the pulse under her palm, the way his whole body tightened toward it, she stopped. Took her hand away.
He made a noise like he'd been slapped.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
She started again, and his eyes rolled half shut. She worked him until he was close again, until his hand found the counter behind him and gripped it, and then she took her hand away.
"Baby. Come on."
"Ask me nicely."
He swallowed. She waited. He didn't say it, so she started again, and this time the sound he made was close to a whimper, not quite, held in his teeth. She nearly let him finish. Nearly. At the last second she released him and stepped back, and his whole body slumped against the doorframe.
"Third time," she said. "You're doing real well."
"Baby, you've edged me three times. Just let me cum."
"Not until you beg for it."
"Oh yeah? Two can play this game."
He grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand away, and slid his other hand down the front of her sweatpants. His fingers found her bare, wet, her clit already throbbing against the seam of her thigh.
"No panties? Now that's a good girl."
He worked her clit with two fingers, firm circles that made her knees try to buckle. Marnie moaned. She heard herself, and he heard her, and the smirk migrated to his face.
"That's not fair."
"All's fair in love and war, baby girl." His fingers sped up. "What's the matter? Can't focus with me rubbing your clit?"
"I can focus just fine." She reached down and took hold of his cock again. He let her. "I'm doing great."
"Good. Let's see who begs first now. I'm not letting you cum unless you beg properly."
"Neither will you."
So they stood there in his kitchen, mid-morning sun through the windows, Vera's perfume still in the curtains. Marnie stroked him, tight and purposeful, her thumb circling the head until he started to shake. Joaquin worked her clit hard enough to make her gasp. She matched him. She wanted to win this, wanted to watch him break, but his fingers were unhurried and knowing, and her thighs were starting to tremble.
She pulled away first. Just a step. Just a breath.
"That's one for me," he said.
"You didn't make me beg."
"You pulled off, didn't you? That's a point."
"I was recalibrating."
"Sure you were."
He stepped forward and slid his hand back into her sweatpants, and this time he used his thumb on her clit, broad and fast, and a different hand, his other hand, came up to cup her breast through the tank top. She arched into him. He pinched her nipple through the fabric and she bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.
She kept stroking him. Slower now, teasing, pressure and release. His breathing went ragged. She could feel the pulse in his cock, the way his hips had started a helpless rhythm against her fist.
"I can do this all day," she said.
"So can I."
His thumb circled her clit and she nearly said something. Nearly begged. The word was in her throat, and she swallowed it.
"Then we're at a stalemate."
"Not for long."
He dropped his hand from her breast and went for the hem of her tank top. He pulled it over her head and tossed it, and the sweatpants followed, and he had her bare against his kitchen counter, the granite cold on her back. He didn't touch her. He just looked.
"My turn," he said.
He dropped to his knees and put his mouth on her. His tongue was flat and hot, and he licked her slow, from the bottom of her slit to the top, and then he closed his lips over her clit and sucked. Marnie's hands flew to his hair. She wanted to buckle, wanted to shove his face harder into her, but she held herself up, heels braced, breath through her teeth.
He worked her like he had all night. He knew her now. Knew exactly when to stop, and he did. He pulled back and looked up at her, mouth wet.
"Nothing to say?"
"Fuck you."
"See, I think that qualifies. That's real close to begging."
"It isn't."
He lowered his head and did it again, and this time it was too much. She cried out, a real one, not a staged one, and her hips bucked against his mouth. He held her thighs and ate her like a man starving. She couldn't stop it. The pressure built and built and she knew he was going to take it away, knew it, and she couldn't bear the thought of him stopping.
"Please," she heard herself say. "Don't stop. Please."
He looked up, mouth shining, pupils blown.
"There she is."
He slid his shoulders between her thighs and worked his tongue over her clit, slow and merciless. Her orgasm broke over her and she bit down on her own wrist to keep from screaming. He didn't stop. He made her ride it out until her knees gave and he caught her.
Then he stood and took her hand, still shaking, and pressed it back around his cock.
"Your turn to make good," he said. "I want to feel you squeeze every last drop out of me."
Marnie dropped to her knees, looked up at him, and took the whole length of him into her mouth.
She took him all the way to the back of her throat, her nose pressed against the coarse hair at his base, and held him there until his knees buckled. His fingers dug into her scalp, not shoving, just gripping, the way a man grips something he's afraid to lose.
"Oh, fuck," he breathed. "Baby. Fuck."
She worked him slow, letting her tongue drag along the underside before pulling up to the head, then taking him deep again, over and over, until his hips started moving in time with her. She looked up at him while she did it, met his eyes, and watched his mouth fall open.
"That's it," he said. "Just like that."
She kept him on the edge, let him think she'd let him finish, and at the last second she pulled off and stood. His cock jumped in the empty air, wet and swollen, and he made a sound like he'd been gutted.
I want you to fuck me.
She said it flat, no pleading, just a fact. The words landed in the kitchen between them, and for a second he just stared at her, chest heaving.
He slid a hand behind her knee and hiked her leg up over his hip. The move was effortless. She gripped the edge of the counter behind her for support as he stepped into her, found her wet and open, and pressed the head of his cock against her entrance.
Ask for it.
She almost laughed. She didn't. She held his gaze, and she said, quietly, with her teeth together, I just told you what I want.
Then he pushed inside her. One long, slow stroke, all the way, until his hips were flush against hers and their bodies were sealed at the base.
They both stopped breathing. It was Vera's kitchen, Vera's counter against her back, Vera's half-drunk wine sitting open on the island. And he was inside her, buried to the root, his scarred chest against her bare skin, his breath hot in her ear.
Say it again.
She said it. He fucked her against the counter, one hand on her hip, the other sliding up her ribs to cup her breast. The granite was cold on her shoulder blades and his grip was bruising, and she clawed at his back and pulled him closer.
"Is that everything?" he said, mouth at her throat.
"The shed's still full," she said, through a gasp. "We've got time."
The thought of it made something in his rhythm change. He drove into her harder, steadier, and she wrapped both legs around his waist. He carried her like that, one arm around her hips, the other braced on the counter, and she let him. She watched his face twist with the effort and the pleasure, watched the scar on his chest flex.
He dropped her onto the kitchen table. Ornaments scattered, Vera's vase went over and shattered on the tile, and Joaquin didn't even look at it. He climbed over her, pushed her thighs apart, and drove into her again. The table groaned under them.
"You're going to have to clean this up," she said.
"Fuck the cleanup."
He fucked her harder. The table scooted an inch toward the wall, then another, its legs squealing on the tile. Marnie let her head fall back and took it, her hands fisted around the edges of the table. The sun was brighter now, full mid-morning, and it caught the sweat on his chest and turned it to gold.
He slowed.
"Look at me."
She did.
"You tell me what you want," he said. "Right now. Or I stop."
She bit her lip. He pulled out, just enough to tease her, and she hissed.
"Screw you."
"I'll screw you right after you say it."
She reached down between them and wrapped her hand around his cock, slick with her, and guided him back in herself. He let her. He sank into her to the hilt and held there, waiting.
"I want you to fuck me," she said. "Like you mean it. Like we've got all morning."
He did. He fucked her like it was the last thing he'd ever do, like the two of them in the shed didn't exist and the sun was never going to set. The table hit the wall hard enough to dent it. Marnie's back arched off the wood and she didn't hide it, didn't temper it. She cried out and he swallowed the sound, or tried to, and they came apart together in Vera's kitchen with the broken vase at their feet and the wine going warm on the counter.
They came apart on the table and then did not stop. The wreckage spread behind them like a tide line. A chair went over in the living room. The dining table tilted and crashed onto its side, placemats scattering across the carpet. Joaquin bent her over the arm of the couch and fucked her until her knees buckled, then carried her up the stairs by the hips.
The bedroom smelled of Vera. Her perfume on the pillows. Her robe on the hook. Joaquin shoved the robe off and pinned Marnie over the dresser, her palms flat on the polished wood, his chest against her back. The mirror showed them both, sweat-slicked, her nipples hard against the glass, his hand fisted in her hair.
They were wrecked. Oversensitive. Sore in ways that would bruise by evening. Neither of them could stop.
"Again," she said into the mirror.
He was already inside her. He had been for a while, grinding slow and deep, his breath ragged at her ear. She felt him swell, felt the pulse of him, and she pushed back against it and took him deeper.
"Last one," he said.
"Promise?"
"Swear to God."
The bell rang.
They both froze. Joaquin's cock twitched inside her and she clenched around him and a sound came out of him, muffled into her shoulder. The clock on the nightstand said one oh two.
"Don't you dare," she said.
"I have to."
He pulled out of her slow, and the absence of him made her whole body ache. She slumped over the dresser, breathing in shallow pulls, and watched him in the mirror pick a pair of discarded sweatpants off the floor and haul them up. His chest was striped with scratches. Bite marks ringed his collarbone. She had left a hickey on his throat the size of a thumbprint.
"If it's Carol," she said, "I'll kill her myself."
Joaquin padded down the hall barefoot. He glanced through the sidelight and stopped. Then he opened the door.
The neighbor from two houses over, Mrs. Delgado, stood on the porch in her gardening clothes. Next to her a cop in a pressed uniform had a hand on his belt and an expression that shifted the moment he caught the air coming out of the house.
"Joaquin, I'm sorry to disturb you," Mrs. Delgado said, craning to see past his shoulder. "But I heard screaming, and I was concerned."
The cop took a step forward. The smell hit him like a wall: sweat, sex, the heavy musk of two people going at it for hours. He looked at Joaquin. Shirtless. Slick. Hickeys up his throat, bite marks on his chest, scratches raked down his back in parallel lines. The officer's face went red.
"Mr. Marsh. Your neighbor was worried about your safety, but I can see you're, uh, busy." He cleared his throat. "I trust Mrs. Marsh is occupied as well?"
Joaquin smiled. "Yes. I promise we're both fine. Just a little preoccupied at the moment."
"Good. Good. I do have to ask, because your neighbor indicated this was a domestic violence issue." The cop wouldn't meet his eye. "Do you feel safe at home?"
Joaquin's smile widened. He looked directly at Mrs. Delgado and held her gaze.
"Yes. I am safe. And I am exactly where I want to be." He stepped back, hand on the door. "If that's all, I'll be getting back to my wife. She's waiting."
The door closed before either of them could speak.
Joaquin stood there a moment with his hand on the knob. Mrs. Delgado. Four houses down. Rose garden. She'd called the cops on Vera twice already for screaming, and Vera had laughed both times.
He made a note of her address and killed her at a time when it would look like an accident.
Then he walked back up the stairs. Marnie lay on the floor by the dresser, on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes. She was smiling.
"Cops?"
"Nosy neighbor. Worried about my safety."
"Mhmm."
He dropped to his knees beside her and she pulled him down on top of her without opening her eyes.
"I believe you," he said against her mouth. "I can feel how empty I am. Like you drained me dry."
"Good. Then lay still. Let me keep you."
They lay on the bedroom floor for a long time. The carpet smelled of dust and Vera's cleaning spray. Marnie's heartbeat slowed against his chest. The clock on the nightstand ticked past one twenty, and neither of them moved to acknowledge it.
It was Joaquin who spoke first, voice gritty with spent effort. "Baby. I don't have anything left. You have drained me completely."
"I know," she said. "I fear if you make me cum again my legs will refuse to work and I'll be no fun for tonight."
"Nights. We have more than tonight."
"We do."
He kissed her temple and rolled off her with a groan. She watched him get to his feet, the way his thighs shook when he took his weight. He held out a hand and she took it, and he hauled her up like she weighed nothing.
"Shower," he said.
They fit together under the water. Her back against his chest, his arms around her waist, the spray running down between them. He worked soap into her hair with his fingers and she tipped her head back into it, eyes closed.
"Them," she said. "They'll be waking up in a few hours."
"I know. I've been thinking."
"Tell me."
He rinsed her hair and then turned her so her back was to the tile, water catching on her shoulders. He looked at her the way he looked at a loaded table. "We can stage a runway affair."
"Interesting."
"After we have our fun with them, we dress up like them. You in Vera's clothes, me in Hugh's. We take Hugh's car and drive it slow through the neighborhood. Past Mrs. Delgado's. Past Carol's. Give them something to talk about at the golf course."
Marnie ran her thumb along his jaw. "Keep talking."
"Then next morning, you make a scene on my doorstep. Screaming that my husband ran off with your slut of a wife. I shout back that he stole her. We fight. You cry. The whole neighborhood comes out to watch and feels sorry for us both."
"And no one suspects us of a thing."
"Exactly."
"I like the way you think."
"You're my inspiration," he said. "All of it came from watching you work."
He kissed her again, both hands in her wet hair, and for a moment the water went cold on their backs and neither of them noticed. His body stirred against her hip and she let him, let it build, and then she broke the kiss.
"Later," she said. "When we're covered in their blood, will you be able to taste me again?"
"Don't threaten me with a good time."
"You're insatiable." She laughed and swatted his chest. "Come on. Let's get ready. Those two should be waking up any minute now."
He shut off the water. Steam hung thick in the bathroom, over Vera's pink towels and the rows of her products on the counter. Joaquin reached past Marnie and grabbed a towel, and she watched him dry himself, the hickeys and scratches standing out red against his skin.
"What are you going to wear?" she asked.
"Hugh's stuff. You'll fit Vera's, maybe. She was taller than you but the shoulders are about right."
"Good enough for a drive-by."
"And a doorstep scene." Her eyes met his in the mirror. He grinned, slow. "You're going to cry real pretty for me."
"Always."
They dressed in the master bedroom. Marnie pulled on one of Vera's blouses, cream silk that hung loose on her shoulders, and Joaquin helped her with the buttons. The cologne on Hugh's collar came up strong when she leaned in close to straighten it on him. She and Joaquin laughed at the smell of it and then kept dressing.
The padlock on the shed door had a key in Joaquin's pocket. He patted it through the trousers now, a small sound of metal.
"Ready?" he said.
Marnie looked out the window between the blinds. The sun had gone behind a cloud. The treeline was dark and still, and somewhere past the pines the shed waited with its two kinds of breath.
"Almost. One more thing."
She went to the kitchen and poured the rest of Vera's wine down the sink, then put the empty bottle in the recycling. She wiped the counter clean with the dish rag he had thrown at her. Then she turned.
The door to the shed sat at the edge of the yard, a small square of shadow between the trees. Marnie Boyd touched the locket at her throat, unlocked the back door, and stepped out into the midday heat with her partner at her side, both of them dressed in clothes that did not belong to them.