Story: True Love’s Passion

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True Love's Passion

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

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  A young couple find that their life together is becoming predictable. Is that a bad thing?

True Love’s Passion

A Fergus Johnson story of gender relations

Fergus is annoyed. He and Suzette are approaching their fifth anniversary and things have changed. Suzette is taking him for granted. Spontaneity is being replaced with routine. Passion is giving way to familiar closeness. Everything that was special is becoming accustomed. It isn’t that things are bad, but if she were to give him half as much rubbing and stroking as her cat, he would damn sure be purring too, and a lot more besides. 

It is his job to put her favorite frumpy plaid flannel pajamas into the dryer for five minutes before they dress for bed. He enjoys watching her put them on, totally nude at the foot of the bed. She always bends over, peering down into the bottoms, searching for the label in the back, her full
breasts swaying in unpredictable excursions as she bends. With lithe precision, she always balances on first her left foot and then her right as she inserts her legs. Straightening, she draws them up to just below her navel and then smoothes them down with small strokes of her elfin hands across the slight curve of her belly, ending at the ticklish spots where her hips suddenly curve over bone to meet the triangle of her pubic hair. 

Next, she predictably reaches for her short-sleeve pull-over top and, loading both hands through the bottom and into the sleeves, stretches unbelievably high, extending up on her toes for no apparent reason. Her hands grasp each other while the top falls down. Her breasts are lifted by the stretching and tonight the bottom hem snags on her left nipple for a moment before falling toward the floor.

Suzanne’s routine ends as she shakes her head four times to tease her hair out from under the collar. It flies and dances for a few moments in fairy shimmers of shadow and light before settling to caress her neck and brush her shoulders.

Fergus sighs imperceptibly; he could have predicted every move of her routine. The show is over and that’s the end of it. In all of this, Fergus can tell that Suzette takes no notice that he is watching her. How special these times were several years ago when she would wear peek-a-boo intimates and tease him, flirting and undulating because it thrilled her too to drive him mad. 

Tonight, as always, she slips under the covers as he gets up to check the clock and turn off the lights. He has to check the clock because she will ask him to check the clock if he doesn’t and sometimes even if he does.

The routine doesn’t stop here. It is his job to put her to sleep. This involves finding the top sheet underneath and folding it up over the blanket so that she only feels the smooth cloth when he tucks the bedding over her shoulder and under her chin. Next he kisses her cheek from behind because she is already laying on her shoulder with her back turned to him. 

It is important that he says “I love you” right after the cheek kiss or she will fret. Why doesn’t she ever kiss him or tell him “I love you” at night? Fergus still nurses his feeling of being not only annoyed, but unfairly put upon.

His next duty is to settle into his pillow, with his back to her back with the meat of his butt nestled into the curve at the small of her back. As expected, she sighs, relaxes, and, half asleep already, utters, in something between a moan and a barely audible slurred whisper, “that’s nice.” 

Fergus anticipates that, barring any last-minute worries, she will soon begin to twitch in small spasms for several minutes before settling into slow, smooth, regular breathing. Life is just not fair. This is not what he bargained for. He feels tense and restless. 

Fergus considers rolling over, snaking his hand into her sleeve and cupping her breast. He knows that if he does, she will let him. He knows that if he squeezes just so, that before he can say, “Honey, would you…” that she will wake up, roll over with an impish grin, and start things off with an intense kiss. 

Fergus relaxes as the warm assurance of real and unreserved love surges through him, radiating from his heart outward. As he is overtaken by sleep, Fergus cherishes the wonder of how completely satisfying is his life.