Tony ran his hand down Monika’s back.
She was stretched out on a lounger and he knew that she pretended not to be affected by his touch. Her back always drove him crazy. The softness of the skin there. The muscles underneath the tanned smooth surface. He grabbed the bottle of tanning oil and poured some into his palms, rubbing in circular motions, ignoring the black viper that stared back at him, daring him to go further.
He undid her bikini top and pushed into her skin with his hands, deeper and more purposefully. They moved under her body and found the softness of her belly. A warm need spread through his groin and he gasped as his wife adjusted herself and raised her hands above her head. It was an invitation to carry on and he opened his legs wider to give his need space to grow underneath his swim shorts. Her skin was like the finest silk and nothing he could buy her would come near its perfection.
The snake sat guard over her but Tony imagined it not there as the touch of her skin pulled him closer to her. The scent of the oil drowned his senses in the softness of her body. His body. They’d fought, but it was time to make up, and he’d apologised for calling her his possession. He’d been suitably contrite when he promised he didn’t mean it when he’d said he owned her.
She stiffened and Tony’s hands stopped moving.
He was irritated. What more could she want when he’d already apologised?
‘What? Not ready?’ he asked.
She slid her hands behind her back and tied up her bikini top and Tony looked down at what was pulsating beneath his pants. How the hell was he going to get rid of it now?
‘For fuck’s sake,’ he chuntered under his breath. Monika tutted and faced away from him.
He got up and kicked the bottle of massage oil.
Monika turned her head and he caught a glimpse of the look on her face. It was a gaze of pure condescension. Not hatred, or even disgust, just pity. He knew then that she didn’t love him anymore.
‘What’s really changed, Monika?’ he asked her.
‘What do you mean?’ She twisted around and the snake disappeared.
‘You know what I fucking mean. Who are you shagging?’
‘Tony… I—’
‘Don’t Tony me. You’re taking me for a fool, Monika.’
‘Because I don’t want sex with you, I must be getting it somewhere else? Has it ever crossed your mind that I just don’t want it with you?’
It cut him through his middle and he caught sight of himself in the bi-fold doors as he walked away. His wrinkled skin and sun-marked face could never be reversed. The tightness and smoothness of her back was something that couldn’t be purchased or traded. He’d never be young again.
He walked away with rage rising in his gut, but, he realised, at least one of his problems had gone away. Underneath his shorts, he’d gone flaccid once more, but that only made him resent her even more.
He’d tried to buy her. Then he’d tried to enslave her. Then he’d tried to keep her.
But he wasn’t going to lose her.