Mason
The interior of the farmhouse, luckily, wasn’t as neglected as the exterior. Although the furniture would all need replacing, and the bathroom a complete overhaul, there was running water and electricity, powered by a generator. Purchasing it had been a spur of the moment decision, but with nothing to fill the days, I was glad of the distraction renovating the place would give us.
Boredom was an invitation for my mind to process thoughts at a hundred miles an hour. I wouldn’t – couldn’t - allow them to drown me. Not yet anyway.
Ava quirked an eyebrow at me when I hit play on the Spotify playlist. “Seriously? The Bee Gees, Staying Alive?”
I grinned at her and waggled my eyebrows as I turned the volume up. “Ironic, eh?”
Her beautiful laugh echoed around the barren room when I started to dance to the seventies hit, moving around the room and performing the renowned swagger. “Still have it, baby!”
Rolling her eyes at me, she couldn’t help but rock her hips to the beat. “You’ll need some Deep Heat for those old joints if you’re not careful.”
She squealed when I slapped her arse and dragged her into my embrace. Her delicate greens stared straight into my soul as she moved against me.
“Less of the old. They say you’re as old as the woman you feel.”
“Still makes you forty-five, babe.”
“Forty-five with the body of a twenty-year-old, Ava.”
Her eyes twinkled. “When I told you earlier that I hated you, you know I didn’t mean it, don’t you?”
I laughed. She had always been so easy to please. “Is that your way of telling me you still love me?”
Beaming at me, she nodded firmly. “As much as Harry the hog out there seems to love his own shit.”
“Who said that romance was dead?”
“Well, at least we’re not.”
My heart twisted, and the familiar pang of anxiety grew heavy in my gut. It was becoming worse lately, and I prayed I would make it through the upcoming months. Ava was my life. She was the rhythm in my heart and the dance in my soul. Without her, there would be no me. And I knew it was the same for her.
The question was, could we keep each other alive? Could her heart beat for mine, and my soul slow dance with hers?
Whether we had made the right decision, three days ago, remained to be seen.
“We have to prove it to ourselves, no one else, Mason,” she said, staring up at me and reading the many questions in my mind. “We no longer have to take each day as it comes. We have all the time in the world. We can afford to take each minute as it comes. You have to stop overwhelming yourself. There’s only us now. You don’t have to censor your emotions. I’ve witnessed all of them, and I still adore every single one.”
Running my thumbs over her eyebrows, I continued my soft trek over every contour of her pretty face. She stayed still and allowed me to touch her beauty. She had always been beautiful to me, my Ava, even in the days that cancer had ravaged her body and taken her breasts and hair.
“You’ll always be beautiful to me, baby. Even at your worst, you’re simply stunning. Because you allow me to embrace your feelings with you. You share with me every single emotion that assaults you. I just hope that, soon, I can grant you that much as well.”
The softest smile curved her lips, and she reached up to kiss me. “Sharing your heart has and always will be enough for me, Mason Fox. Now you just need to allow me to carry each of your breaths too. Lean on me. Use me, in any way you need me.”
Swallowing at the ache in my chest, I nodded. “I wish so very much that I could make love to you…”
Halting my words, she pressed a finger to my lips. “You make love to me every time you smile, every time you touch me. Your laughter, your words, and how you hold me at night is how you give me intimacy. I don’t need your dick inside me to feel you, baby.”
I kissed her with all the passion that still lived inside me. Even if I couldn’t fuck my gorgeous wife, didn’t mean she didn’t turn me on. It was so difficult. On the one hand, I wanted to bend her over the rickety kitchen table and slam all the way home, but on the other hand, all I could visualise was George’s sneer as three men raped me. The image never left me, and the thought of taking Ava now repulsed me as much as it aroused me.
“One minute at a time,” she reiterated, giving me a wink. “The tortoise always wins the race.”
“What the hell did I do to deserve you?”
Laughing, she placed a tender kiss on my cheek. “Killed a few robins.”
“Walked under a few ladders,” I chuckled, joining her sarcasm.
“Broke a mirror.”
Smirking, I gave her a wink. “Rolled in pig shit.”
“Bastard!”