“The doctor said everything looked fine, so far, and we should be alright. He’s done some tests, but everything is good to go.” I turned to my wife, my beautiful, adorable wife, and kissed her nose. We’d made it through dinner and were now on our way to a lazy night of Netflix and chill.

We stretched out on the couch together and June scrolled through the list until she found a Viking comedy we’d decided to give a try.

“So, it’s either me, even though the doctors say I’m fine, or we’re just doing it wrong?” I heard her say as the first episode ended.

“Pardon?” I knew what she meant but didn’t want her to think I’d had it on my mind still.

We communicated well, when it came to most things, but there were areas of our lives we kept to ourselves, things we didn’t say. It was good the way it was, comfortable, and I didn’t want to mess that up.

She paused the program and I breathed in quietly through my mouth. I didn’t like how tense she was.

“Am I the problem or are we doing it wrong? Do I need to stand on my head or something after we’re done?” She turned to me on the sofa and I sat up.

I didn’t want to talk about this. I wanted to watch the television, with her and have a peaceful night.

“I don’t know, June. Let’s talk about it later.” I tried to take the remote from her to turn the show back on, but she pulled it away.

“I’d like to talk about this now, Tiago. I feel the pressure, you know, even if you don’t. We only have a few months left to keep trying to get pregnant.” Her eyes told me how hurt she was, how worried.

“We have well over a year left, June, what’s the rush? Most couples would be glad they hadn’t messed up in the first year anyway.”

Ahh, shit. I knew that was the wrong thing to say the second the words left my mouth.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Our child wouldn’t be a mistake,” she muttered. She glared at me, the first time I’d seen her so angry with me. It was kind of cute. Well, it’d be cute if I didn’t feel like an asshole for having just said what I said. Or if I wasn’t on edge after saying it.

“You’re right, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, honey. I swear.” I breathed a sigh of relief as she turned back around.

I leaned back when she suddenly turned back to face me. “Can we talk about IVF?”

I frowned. “Why should we? That’s just…” I shook my head, my eyes pulling away. “I’ve never liked that. Test tube babies and all that stuff. It’s too… clinical.” I dismissed it out of hand and didn’t give her time to make an argument for it.

“So, it was alright when you thought I wouldn’t want to have sex with you, but now it’s not?”

“If it was the only way to get you pregnant, yeah, it would be fine. But it’s not. We’ll keep trying and it will be fine.”

I shot a side-glance at her and tried to think of how to calm her down. Right now, she was just miffed a little. Another wrong word and she might explode. Then her shoulders sank down, and I felt something inside of me crack as I felt her hitch against me, like she was holding back tears. Now, I really did feel like a dick.

“I feel so isolated sometimes.” Her words came out a soft whisper that broke my heart. “I have no friends to talk about this stuff with, and you don’t want to talk about it at all except to say, ‘it will happen.’ The doctor and advice forums online say to relax, it will happen. I’m not tense when we make love, I’m so relaxed it’s laughable, so what do they mean, relax? I’m just so… frustrated and alone!”

She stood up and left the living room. I heard her race up the stairs and stared around the room, stunned at how upset she was. Shit, did I made her feel isolated?

I got up and went up the stairs to follow her. I heard the water running in the tub, and headed that way, knocking on the closed door.

“June?”

No answer. Fuck.

“June, baby, I’m sorry.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, pissed at myself for letting it get to this. “Can we talk?”

She didn’t open the door and there was no response.

I tried twice more before I heard the little Bluetooth speaker she had stuck to the side of the bathtub start to play some old Ella James.

Yeah, that would be not-so-subtle code for “No, we can’t talk right now.”

I turned, pissed at myself for the way I’d handled the conversation, and headed back downstairs. I turned the TV off and went into the office and stared at the computer. There was no answer there.

I eventually opened a book on my phone, and then went up to our room after I heard her go in. For the first time, she turned away from me when I reached for her

I couldn’t get to sleep, although I heard the light snores she sometimes made, and knew she was.

Goddamnit. I couldn’t explain why I didn’t want to do IVF, but maybe it was because I’d already given in to my father’s demands so much. I knew, deep down, I felt as though it must be my fault.

Everything worked on her, and the doctor said everything worked on me, but maybe the fates had decided I wasn’t going to have a child? Deep down, maybe I held back because I didn’t feel like I deserved one? Could that be it?

I fell asleep with the question in my mind.

<><>

The weeks went by and nothing improved. We didn’t talk about IVF, but there was a wall there now, I felt it as if it was a real thing that kept us separated. I passed a customer their drink order and stared around. All of my extra staff had been laid up with some kind of flu and I was the only healthy one, so I had to stay late that night.

I watched the couples dance, drink, and laugh together. June and I did very little of that now. She brought home files now, for the kids, for programs she wanted to look into, and spent a lot of time away from me. She’d started to stay late at work, and when she came home on the nights it was her turn to cook, she’d go straight into our home office.

We still had sex, we were still friendly, but she’d turned something off, and I didn’t know how to turn it back on again. I had taken this timid, quiet lady into my life, turned her into my wife and made her a sex fiend.

And now, something was different. There was something between us now, and I knew it’d started when we’d started to really “try” for the baby. Or really, it’d started when we’d started to try and hadn’t been successful.

My feelings for her hadn’t changed, not at all, but it was like she’d become someone else again. Or like somehow, I’d hurt her. I didn’t know how to fix it, and I wasn’t about to give in to the IVF idea yet.

I passed a customer a beer and wiped at a drop of water on the bar. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t really want to go home. It was just so… cold there.

I felt as if I wasn’t wanted. Oh, she’d touch me, have sex with me, sometimes she’d still even talk to me. That open relationship we’d been building was gone though. In its place was a space that might as well have been as wide as the universe because neither one of us would cross it.

“You look glum, baby, what’s wrong?” A dark-haired girl sat on the stool in front of me, her eyes dark and seductive. Pretty, but not June.

“Nothing time won’t heal. What can I get ya?” I gave her my bartender smile but didn’t turn it up to full charmer mode. I—very obviously—wasn’t interested, even if her eyes roamed over me like I was a prime rib buffet and she was starved. Yeah, pass. Whatever coldness was at home, June still had my heart, wholly and completely.

“Mm, I know what I’d ask for at any other time, but the way you keep flashing that wedding ring at me tells me not to bother. Thanks for being an honest guy. Whatever’s on draft please.” Blood red lips quirked in a smile and she sat back, relaxed now that she was no longer on the prowl.

“Thanks. Enjoy.” I left her there to attend to another customer but glanced back. She was already in a conversation with her neighbor. I smiled and shook my head.

Yeah, maybe a while back, I would have gone there. But then I’d met June and found something I’d never known. Fuck, now the idea of even looking at another woman anywhere close to the way I looked at my wife just sat funny with me. The thought of it soured in my head.

June had changed my world. It wasn’t hard to be faithful when you had what you knew deep down was your damn soul-mate to go home to. And even with the wall up between us, she still made sex one of the most wonderful things on the planet, and more than that, she was the only woman I wanted to get that close to now. It was her purr I wanted to hear, it was her body I wanted to touch. Not anybody else.

I spent the rest of the night in a funk, but my customers all went home happy. I wished that was all it took to make June happy and for us to go back to the way things were before conceiving a baby took over. We might not have said the words, but we both knew it was there between us.

I drove home knowing that I wouldn’t be able to reach her, that she was probably already asleep, but a guy could hope, right? I wanted her smile back, her love back, and knew I’d have to compromise somehow. I just didn’t know how.

We were both damaged people, it was hard to trust, and we’d given it freely when we started this relationship. Now, it was obvious that trust was easily taken away. June didn’t trust me to do what I needed to do for her, and she’d started to distance herself from me. I can’t say I felt that was exactly fair, or right, but it was her way to protect herself. I totally got that.

At home, I found June had waited up for me. She brought me a plate of food, but only asked me a few questions about how the night went. I knew her mind wasn’t really on the conversation but answered her anyway. She looked hot, she always did, with a green silk nightgown on that clung to every inch of her beautiful body.

She removed the plate when I finished even though I told her I could get it.

“Come on,” she said quietly, leading me up to our bedroom. She disappeared to the bathroom but promised she wouldn’t be long.

“You’ve been quiet, Tiago. Tell me what’s wrong.” June came back into the bedroom, dressed only in a towel now, and slid beneath the covers with me. Her body was warm, and I reached for her happily. At least when we were like this—naked and in bed together—we were alright again.

“Just tired,” I murmured, pulling her close. “Not too tired for you, though,” I growled softly. “Fuck, I just can’t stop thinking about you. I need to be inside of you.” I breathed the words against her ear, her hair tickled at my lips and somehow made me even harder for her.

She purred quietly, and her hand went beneath the cover and down my body until she found me hard and ready for her.

“Fuck, Tiago,” she moaned, her breath catching.

My lips found her neck as she spoke, and she whimpered softly. She turned towards me, her green eyes turned dark and went round, as she began to stroke me softly, then harder with each stroke.

“You’re ready for me, aren’t you baby?” I could hear the lust in her voice and knew she was just as ready for me as I was for her. I didn’t even have to touch her to know that.

She straddled me without another word, pushed the covers away, and let her body sink onto my hard cock with a slow tease that was as consuming as it was torturous. It felt so damn good, but it was so hard not to just thrust up into her to sheath my dick inside of her, where I wanted to be most.

“Oh, Tiago.” She hissed my name as she finally took all of me in her depths. I couldn’t get any further inside of her. “That is so fucking good.”

Her words made me shudder and she began to move, my hands on her hips to keep her secure. She stole my ability to think as she rode me, and all I could do was hang on for the ride.

“You’re so fucking amazing, June. Fuck, so tight, so perfect.” I had to grit my teeth together to hold myself back. I’d thought about her so much tonight it was hard not to just come right then.

I pulled her face down to me, my lips stroked over hers, and I pushed my hand between us to find her most sensitive spot. The one that would make her sing.

I wanted to blow her mind, and I knew that she loved it when I talked. This was the only time that wall came down, when I could tear it down, even if she built it right back up a moment after we were done.

“Do you remember that day on the beach, June? How fucking wet you got when I teased this pussy, knowing anyone might walk by and see you when you came so good and hard for me?”

I felt her entire body tense for a moment before she gasped and started to pant.

“I wanted to fuck you, June, right there. Let anyone walk by and see that you were mine. I wanted to pull you up onto your hands and knees and plunge my cock deep inside this gorgeous, perfect pussy over and over until you screamed so loud the whole damn beach knew you were coming for my cock.”

I felt her pussy twitch deep inside and kept my finger on her clit. She moaned deep and long, but she hadn’t pulsed, not yet.

I kept up the dirty flow of words and let the heat of just how hot it had made me come through. I talked to my wife as she fucked me, her body flexed hard and fast, sensually. She was like an erotic dancer sat on my cock as she fucked herself with me.

“Fuck, angel. I wanted you riding my cock right there like you are now. Letting go and fucking my big cock up and down as you came for me over and over. I wanted to claim you right in front of everyone, to make sure anyone knew that you were all mine.”

June was hooked on my voice, on the scenario, and her body was more hooked than her mind. She moaned until it turned into a garbled wail of pleasure. Her body shook as she pulsed around me at last, unable to hold back. She twisted above me, her body a live wire that slithered over me as her orgasm raced through her.

I held onto her and waited for that moment of collapse, that moment when my cock going off would set her off again. She moaned and cried out, and I let myself go at last. The first throb of my cock made her gasp, and she ground into me, riding me up and down until we both collapsed and tangled together.

There was a huge problem in our marriage, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fix it. Surely that meant my wife still loved me? I hadn’t lost it all yet? I sighed and held her more tightly against my chest. I couldn’t lose her, not now that I knew what she tasted like. I’d never be able to get the taste of her out of my mouth, out of my mind if she left me. I had to find an answer.