Page 116 of Hushed

“It’s probably the galleys,” I say to spare him, because I don’t want him to make a big deal about this. Someone is playing country music in the next trailer. I’ve heard this song enough over the past few days that I know most of the words, except for the part the singer sort of slurs through in the bridge.

“What are galleys? Can we open it?” he asks, like it’s his birthday.

“The sample copies. Open it if you want,” I say.

He pulls a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and slices through the packaging with unbelievable efficiency, then picks up the packing slip and studies it like a logistics report. “These are books!”

“Yeah. They’re sample copies of my first book.” I look at the cover. Psychedelic Warriors: Ayahuasca’s Impact on PTSD Rehabilitation. I grunt, because it sounds even stupider now that it’s on a cover. “I hated that title. The publisher wanted it sexier. But it was my first book and I was more interested in getting it published than arguing about it.” My only book, actually.

“You wrote a book,” Levi says. He is not looking at the book. He is looking at me. “You wrote a whole book.”

“It was basically my dissertation, just kind of tweaked here and there. The print run is four hundred copies. Three hundred of them will sit in university libraries and get checked out once a decade by a graduate student who’s left his reading too late.”

“I don’t care. My husband wrote a book!” He picks it up and turns it over in his hands, and he runs his thumb across the raised letters of my name. “Who gets to say that?”

I watch him hold that galley like it’s the receipt for a bet he made and won. I don’t see a book. I see a headstone. The research is radioactive now. Whatever the committee here in Fairhaven decides about me, the study has my name on it and my name has scandal on it. No funder within a thousand kilometers will touch ayahuasca and veterans while I am the man holding the cup saying Please, sir, I want some more. I was the only one taking it seriously.

“You okay?” he asks. He has put the book down.

“Magnifique,” I say, because it is easier to lie to him in French and make it true in English. I have made a great many things true lately. “I am looking at my husband, who is very pretty, holding my book, which is very ugly, and I am trying to decide which of you I love more.”

“The book. Obviously. The book never tracks mud onto the kitchen floor.”

“The book has also never once made me forget my own name in bed, so let us not get carried away. Let me make you some tea and you can tell me about your day.”

“Oh, forget that,” he says. “My husband wrote a book.” He kisses me on the back of the neck.

“Oh, so that’s the standard for getting a little extra attention,” I joke. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of his hands on me.

“I want to fuck you right now. On this table.”

“That is not the correct use of a table.”

“Shit.”

“That’s not a no!”

“I’m grabbing lube. If you’re not fully undressed by the time I’m getting back I’ll take it in my own hands. Sit on the table.”

He abandons me and I hear his footsteps thundering into the bedroom. When he comes back, I’m still taking off my shirt. He pushes my pants down and discards my clothes in a frenzy, throwing them indiscriminately wherever he can. A sock winds up in the ceiling fan. Another one is in the sink. He lubes me with his fingers, pressing against the opening. “I want you so bad, baby boy,” he says. He pushes against me. I have to grip the edge of the table to keep from sliding off. He fits my legs against his shoulders. I moan as he starts to fuck me.

“There! There!” He’s found my prostate. “Yes. Okay. Putain. Oui. Vite!”

He takes the hint and speeds up to a pace that I like. “You’re beautiful like this,” he says.

“How are you still talking? Oh! Oh there! There!” I start to whimper. Levi has to hold my legs in place. I want him to kiss me. I want him to keep fucking me. I want every part of him. I want this goddamned orgasm so much I feel like I’ll die without it. I hate that he’s taking his time with me and I love it, too. He wants me addicted to him and I’m succumbing. I say things in French when words fail me.

“Je t’aime,” he says as he pushes into me. “Je t’aime.”

“Come for me, my love,” I tell him.

He collapses on top of me, moving one last time as he comes. I wrap my legs around him as he catches his breath.

“Well, we finally did it,” he says. “We barebacked in the kitchen.”

I kiss his temple. “Asshole,” I murmur.

“Give me a moment, and we’ll shower together.”