It had been a good day.

I had just that morning successfully concluded negotiations on a new manufacturing deal that would bring in millions for the business in one or two years, providing the commercial property market held for just a few months after the election. By sheer luck, the pharmaceutical giant I had been investing in for seemingly eons had finally developed a drug so marketable it made winning the lottery look like finding spare change down the back of the sofa. Being the only group capable of manufacturing their chemo alternative at that volume in the time frame they’d need, my own factories would have to evolve almost overnight. Now the only problem was to expand gracefully, making sure that Nora and I were positioned perfectly to take advantage of the new exciting directions the company was going.

Though it had taken me more than a year, I had successfully extricated myself and my partners from anything remotely connected to Portal, and could begin building up again, without him. After some scary flops and near-misses right around the time of the trial, I was finally beginning to feel that life was good again, and that I was on top once more. Where I belonged.

I slid a finger into the knot of my tie, yanked it a little looser and took a deep breath as I walked out the boardroom. Ginny came in with a stack of folders and had on the exact face she always does when she has a whole long story to tell me.

“Mr. Cane!” she said and raced over in her heels.

“Ginny, I have a seriously important meeting coming up, can it wait?” I grabbed my briefcase and set off for the elevators. She followed.

“A meeting? I didn’t schedule you anything for this afternoon,” she said, hugging the folders.

“Department of home affairs,” I said with a cheesy smile. “An evening at home with a certain Mrs. Cane, who’s quite particular about being on time.”

She nodded and smiled.

“Ah, I see. Good old Netflix and chill.”

“Something like that,” I said, and inwardly cringed at why my PA was hiring them so young these days. Or maybe it was just me getting old.

I raced into the elevator before someone else wanted to grab me.

She’d have seen the lingerie I bought her by now, and the flowers. Now I only had to pick up her favorite Vietnamese takeout on the way home, maybe some wine, and let nature take its course.

Life was good.

Fucking good.

I was killing it at work, I had a hot wife at home with a beautiful baby who was getting bigger every day, and dinner was going to be amazing.

I bounced out and into the parking lot, got inside the car and turned on the radio for an earful of Spirit in the Sky, like a musical omen sent out on the airwaves just for me. I turned it up really loud, buckled in and pulled off, loudly singing what lyrics I knew.

Before Nora, life had seemed pointless. Filled with stuff in all directions, but lacking a certain depth, and height, like I had expanded out only on two dimensions, but was empty above and below. Nora had broken me wide open, and I had been on a high since our dusty red wedding day where I said my vows before god and the clucking chickens and told her that she was it. Life had begun now, and there was nothing we couldn’t do together.

We communicated so well. I knew she was feeling overwhelmed with the little one, and a little out of her depth with the new moms in the area and the house and the new routine… But there was nothing I wouldn’t give her. I loved her, and she loved me. So what could hurt us now?

An hour later I was pushing open the front door with my hip, paper bags of takeout in my hand.

“Nora! Guess what I brought?” I yelled into the quiet house.

I looked up to see her on the staircase, Matilda wriggling in her arms. With the tiniest smidge of disappointment, I realized she wasn’t wearing what I’d bought for her.

“Hello beautiful. Ask me if I’ve brought our favorite junk food for dinner this evening,” I said, and went to lay it on the counter and then open my arms to give her a hug.

She handed the baby to me.

“Oh shit, really? I was feeling really bloated today actually, I wish you’d stop trying to fatten me up already,” she said, and went to pick at the package a little.

I kissed Matilda and swivelled her round to balance on my hip.

“Come on with that, you’re gorgeous, and this is your favorite. I thought you deserved a little spoiling.”

She didn’t seem to be in the greatest mood.

“Hey, let me take that from you. Why don’t you just relax? I’ve got this,” I said, and handed Matilda to her then went to dish up the food.

But she didn’t relax. She watched me fuss with the food with Matilda in her arms, but winced when I dished her up a plate.

“Dean, wait, that’s way too much food.”

I smiled and shrugged.

“I’m serious, I’m stuffed already. And especially if you wanted to…” here her eyes shot up to mine and she suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Wanted to…?” I teased.

“Nothing. Just… I’m tired, let’s just eat.”

I frowned and carried the food to the sitting room. This was exactly why we needed these little moments of quality time – the poor woman was clearly frazzled.

“We should have just gone to a restaurant,” she said and watched as I started eating.

“I’m at client meetings all day, at these business lunches all the time. I’m sick of restaurants. And we’ve just dropped a fortune getting the sitting room done up, so let’s enjoy it. Besides, if we went out, then little miss couldn’t join us, now could she?” I said and squeezed Matilda’s chin, making her laugh up at me.

Nora was at least smiling now, but it was a worn-out smile. She nibbled listlessly at her food and we sat in silence for a moment, Matilda in her lap and clutching at Nora’s chest in tiny fists.

Nora’s body had certainly changed with pregnancy and birth. She was softer. She was breastfeeding now, and where each of her breasts had once been firm and a little …snobbish, they now seemed sleepier somehow, fuller and swollen and heavy and delicious in a completely different way. She got uncomfortable whenever I reached over and tried to slip a hand into her shirt, but holy hell, it didn’t stop me from admiring them every chance I got.

“It was such a good day today. Put the finishing touches on those last few niggly contracts I told you about.”

“Great.”

“And the new contractors are optimistic. I was speaking to Richard Buick this morning and he’s resolved that little licensing glitch we had.”

“Nice.”

“I’m feeling really good about it actually. If things go to plan on that front I was thinking we should start looking again at a bigger place for when Matilda starts running around.”

“Remember when we got thrown out of that movie theatre one time? When you were trying to kiss me in the back row and they kicked us out like a couple of horny kids?”

I put down my fork.

“Yeah, of course remember.”

“That was so hilarious,” she said, a distant look in her eyes.

“You and Matilda should go to the cinema… I hear they have these mom and baby things where they show kids films…”

She shot me a poisonous look.

“Ok, Nora, spit it out. What’s up with you? You’ve been sulking all afternoon.”

“Sulking? Just because I was remembering something awesome we did in the past?”

“You’re doing it a lot lately. You’d swear all the best things were in the past the way you talk sometimes.”

She pushed her plate away.

“I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m just …I get bored here you know? Days are long. Matilda’s great, but Jesus, I miss adults, you know? I miss having stuff to do.”

“We’ll go on a holiday then. Let’s go somewhere nice, just you and I.”

“We’ve just been on a holiday.”

“Ok, fine. Take up a hobby. You always say you wanna try pottery, so let’s get you a wheel and you can go for lessons, that’ll be fun.”

“I don’t want to do pottery,” she said, saying it like it was a swearword.

“Then what? Just say it and I’m on it.”

“You can’t just buy solutions to everything, you know.”

And there it was.

I could feel an argument coming on.

“Dean, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, it’s just…”

“Then don’t be ungrateful then,” I snapped.

Shit. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

“I want another job,” she said, voice cold.

“Great,” I said. “That’s great. Matilda’s old enough, she’ll go to daycare in a few months, that’s a great idea.”

Nora had despaired finding work before, so it was great to see a little defiance, a little energy in her voice again. I had hidden from her just how many strings I had had to pull to get her set up as the art teacher at Rainbow House, but whatever. We could try something else. People wouldn’t remember the epic Mistress Morgan saga forever.

“Maybe I should go back to domming.”

I cleared my throat.

“You’re not serious.”

“Aren’t I? It’s an option.”

“Nora, for god’s sake, how in hell is it an option?”

“I’m good at it. I know what I’m doing. Plus, I can make money. A lot of money.”

“What do you need money for?” I said before I could stop myself.

She shifted Matilda on her lap and looked somewhere off to the distance, avoiding eye contact.

“The same reason you need money, Dean. Because it sucks having to depend on someone else.”

“You’re not dependent on me. Jesus. We’re a team. Baby, I’m not going to stop you doing what you want, ever. But why that? There are millions of other jobs you could do…”

“I know, but I’d hate them. The job at the school is fine, but I’m going stir crazy in there.”

“Then don’t work then. Quit tomorrow. You don’t need to work at all.”

“God, Dean, that would make things worse, not better.”

I didn’t know what to do other than greedily swallow a few mouthfuls of soup and try to make sense of why Nora was unhappy. As usual.

“You’re making me feel like shit for talking to you about this,” she said quietly.

I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly hating how badly this night was going when only an hour ago I felt on top of the world, sure that my beautiful wife would wear something silly, just because I wanted her to, and lay back and just let me fucking love her for a change. But I took a deep breath and tried to keep it together. She had been through a lot. Much of it my fault. She had just had a baby. She needed my support, I knew that.

“I don’t mean to make you feel like shit. But come on, Nora. You want to go back to doing that when …you’re a mother. You’re my wife. And on top of it we’re not even…” I gestured to the sad, empty air between us.

“Not what? Just say it.”

I scowled at her.

I didn’t want to think that Nora could be fulfilled some way that had nothing to do with me. That there was some form of her happiness out there in the world that I couldn’t understand or be a part of. Worse than that, I didn’t want to imagine that she still wanted to do that grisly job while at the same time turning me down night after night. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

“You know what, you’re right. I guess I’ll just have to pay you then for an appointment, huh? Since you won’t give me any of your time here at home, just because you want to?”

Her eyes grew wide.

“Ugh, Nora, forget I said that,” I said and stood, yanked my tie off and paced the room. Before I could think of what to say though, she had taken Matilda and stomped out of the room. It took everything I had in me not to kick the damn table over.

“Nora, this isn’t fair!” I yelled after her, but I knew she wasn’t listening. I slumped down into the seat and took another few mouthfuls.

How the fuck did any of this happen? We weren’t supposed to be this couple. Nora was my little firecracker, the unbreakable girl with a voracious libido and killer wardrobe and a stare that could drop a man at twenty paces. We had spoken about everything. We adored one another. We had had the kind of sex I had to believe very few people in this world are lucky enough to experience. And yet here we were, squabbling over takeout, our arguing about sex and money, making our new baby cry.

God. I tried to think but I could literally not imagine a more stereotypical situation. I tried to gather myself and pinpoint the source of my anger.

I hope you’re ready, because I’m about to tell you something that’ll make the situation look even worse.

Nora… faked it.

The last time we had sex, it was plain as day, and she closed her eyes and did this little thing and pretended, right there in my arms, that she was coming when I knew that she wasn’t. I hadn’t said anything at the time. I was embarrassed for her. And for me. I didn’t know whether the insult was because I was that bad in bed or that she thought I was stupid enough to buy it.

Didn’t I know her body better than anyone? Wasn’t I a seasoned expert concerning all those little shivers, those little changes in tone and temperature, the quality of her breath, the feel and taste and even the smell of her coming? Did she think so little of us that she didn’t believe I could spot a faked orgasm in a heartbeat? Did she think that I was some kind of douche who would get mad at her if she was just honest with me? I had never given her reason to think that. In fact, I had given my life to Nora on a platter. I was one of the wealthiest men in the country, I was fit and damn if I say so myself, good looking enough. I was a good guy. I didn’t deserve a fucking faked orgasm.

I got to my feet and began clearing away the dishes, already over the evening I had planned for us. I smirked to myself at the thought that there was once a time when I was proud that I had been the only man to ever make Nora come. How stupid that all looked, in hindsight. Fine. I was a man of my word, and I took my commitments seriously. If Nora needed to be difficult and distant, then she could do it. I was a big boy, I could handle a tantrum or two.

I rolled up my shirt sleeves, piled the dishes into the dishwasher, and head upstairs to our bedroom. I couldn’t hear Matilda crying anymore, so I assumed she had been put to bed for now. I took the stairs two at a time, and tried to think. I’m good at thinking. Good at problem solving. By the time I reached our bedroom I caught her standing completely naked, right in the middle of taking her clothing off to shower. She stopped, lowered her arms and stood before me like that, as if to say, “so?”

She was beautiful.

I couldn’t find a way to look at her and not see that she was beautiful. I knew she was self-conscious about the silvery scars that encased her belly like fingers, and that she was unhappy about her breasts, and that she thought her skin was different now. I had never been able to show her what I saw when I looked at her like this …which wasn’t often anymore.

“You’re right, Nora.”

She lifted her eyebrow at me.

“It doesn’t suit you, this whole motherhood spiel.”

She looked surprised. Good. I was glad she was listening to me at least. I sat down on the bed, not taking my eyes off her beautiful, bare body.

“I think I just expected that you’d take everything in your stride. I mean, you take on all these roles so easily, I just took for granted that you could do this one, too. But I think I underestimated how big a change this would be for us. For you.”

She said nothing. But the lines on her face softened.

“You’re bigger than that, Nora. I’ve been wanting to …protect you. To make you happy. But you’re right to push. You’re not meant to be an ordinary housewife, I know that.”

I rolled around the idea of whether to tell her that I knew about her little performance the last time we made love, that I didn’t care, that I just wanted her to never do that again. But I didn’t want to embarrass her.

She sat down on the bed beside me.

“Can I be honest with you?” she said quietly. I loved the soft, wide fold that appeared between her thigh and torso as she sat. “Sometimes I think that this isn’t where we’re supposed to be, Dean. That this isn’t what we were meant to be doing. This is not the endpoint for us, you know?”

I didn’t know.

“Well, what do you want, then? What’s missing?”

She gave me a long, slow, strange look.

“I’m not sure yet, but something has to change, and soon.”

I stared at her naked thighs. I wanted to touch her more than anything. To just grab her and sink into that beautiful body of hers, and never fight again.

“I don’t care if you get another job, Nora. And the domming thing, fuck, I don’t know. If you really want to, then do it, I guess…”

“I’m thinking something bigger.”

“Bigger?”

“Yeah. We deserve a more exciting story, don’t you think?”

I wasn’t sure what she meant. I was familiar with that naughty sparkle in her eyes. I had seen it before, many times. But I also had no idea what she was getting at. We had a three-month-old baby now. What possible excitement was she imagining?

“Just forget I said anything,” she said quickly. “I’m working on it. Something special is supposed to happen here, I know it, I’m just not sure what it is yet.”

I kissed her head and gave her a crooked smile. She wasn’t making much sense, but I just was glad we weren’t yelling anymore. She turned to me and kissed me in return, and instantly I wanted her. There were little buttons, all along my tongue, that only the touch of her tongue could press, and when pressed the rest of me just kicked right into gear, just woke up ready for her.

“I love you, Nora.”

“I love you too…”

“Why don’t you put on that pretty lacy thing I bought you…?”