Alissa Nutting

Jack’s concerns were a bit more out in the open, and they included Ford. I hadn’t told Jack that my husband was a cop, though I wouldn’t have lied if Jack had asked. What worried Jack most was my physical relationship with Ford. The Wednesday after Ford’s outburst, Jack and I were having an extended hangout at his house, which had proven a wonderful arrangement. In fact, since our first completed tryst in the car, Jack’s house was the only place we’d met. His single bed was deliciously narrow, forcing us to either be fucking or otherwise pressed together simply to both fit on top of it. On Wednesdays Jack ordered pizza—we always laughed as I’d hide in the hallway when the deliveryman came to the door—then for the second course we’d eat chocolate pudding cups without spoons, dipping our tongues down into their cool centers and watching one another’s pink flesh skate around the cups’ plastic rims.

Today we were naked in the pool, careful to stay submerged to our necks lest any passersby feel the need to peek over his fence in the twilight of fall’s dinner hour.

Facing each other with twined legs, Jack and I bobbed in the warm water with a circular foam tube pressed between us to help us float.

“It sucks how we won’t get to go do stuff together for like four more years,” he said. Jack had already adopted the illusion that we’d date through his entire high school career and beyond, a fantasy I didn’t attempt to ruin. In truth, our relationship’s shelf life was closer to that of an elderly Labrador. One more year seemed to be the most realistic to hope for; two was very unlikely. He’d grow, his voice would further deepen, defining muscle would thicken and broaden him. I couldn’t imagine remaining attracted to him beyond fifteen at the latest. “I mean even stupid stuff, you know? Like getting dinner or going to a basketball game.”

I tilted my pelvis up and wrapped my legs around his waist, rubbing myself against the smoothness of his stomach. “But you can do that stuff with friends. We get to have the very best part of a relationship be our whole relationship. With us it’s dessert for every meal.” I could feel his erection beginning to form beneath my ass cheeks, so his next question surprised me—I figured his mind was drifting somewhere more pleasant.

“What’s your husband like?” he asked.

I didn’t have to feign indifference. “He’s just a husband.” I shrugged. Worried

his interview might go in a direction that could derail the evening’s merriment, I decided to play upon Jack’s sympathy. “The other night he was drunk and swearing at me. It’s more of a living arrangement. He pays the bills, takes care of all the boring adult stuff.” I laced my fingers between Jack’s, looking at their pruneish tips. Despite the warmth of the evening, our time in the water had given Jack’s lips a blue hue and covered his body with goose bumps. I loved how timid it made him look, as though he had just been rescued from the bottom of a well.

“Do you guys still … you know?” Jack asked. I wanted him to say it—I loved to hear Jack use the vocabulary of lust in any context.

“Still what?”

He rolled his eyes. “Have sex and stuff.”

“Not often. But when we do, it’s nothing like you and me. There’s no passion like there is with us. When I have to have sex with him, I just think of you.” With that I swam to the pool wall, then motioned Jack toward me, grabbing his arm the moment he got close and pulling him in, pinning myself between him and a cold jet of water. “So give me some more to think about.” Obligingly, Jack began to kiss my neck, an activity that, guided by my moans, he’d quickly become rather good at. Reaching down I used my fingers to guide