[Source]: (Pixabay.com)
The fat, florid globes of his buttocks jiggled comically with every thrust.
Amy let the door latch slip from her fingers. The door hit the wall with a thud. The lovers were too busy to hear as they continued rocking her kitchen table with their movement.
Her chest tightened and her legs shook beneath her. Amy pressed her legs together and struggled to catch her breath. She blinked and glanced down at her hands. The welts on her hands from wielding the hoe on the farm all day stood out, red and angry.
Her ears buzzed with a rush of sound that left her whole body tingling. Amy shivered. Her head felt three times its size as she raised her head. When her eyes met the ongoing action on her table, she closed her eyes.
She’d always known her husband, Pete was cheating on her. Could she blame him? No. They hadn’t had sex for the past 'uncountable months' as they struggled to hold the farm together.
No, she struggled to hold the farm together, while he fucked his way through the young girls in their village.
She had been ready to take on the blame for the failure of their marriage. For five years, she'd blamed herself. She shouldn’t have married Pete. This was what marrying on the rebound brought you, your husband fucking the local market girl on your favorite kitchen table.
And he couldn’t even come.
Amy’s head snapped back in anger.
He was cheating on her with a woman he couldn’t make come, let alone himself.
Amy walked out and grabbed the hoe she’d left by the door. She stalked into the room with hard, clipped strides and stopped just behind her husband, Pete.
For a moment, she was sidetracked by the sight of his long sweaty back, and bouncing fat buttocks. The girl’s face was squished where Pete had her head pressed to the table as he raced towards a finish that looked to be nowhere in sight.
A nicer woman would let him finish.
Amy was too hungry to be nice.
She rested the blunt edge of the hoe against Pete’s neck.
He froze.
The air went heavy and his mouth gaped in shock like a fish thrown onto dry land. Amy tightened her hand on the hoe and inched it closer to his neck.
His mouth worked, and drool ran down the side of his jaw. “A-a-my?”
The girl gasped. Her face began to turn pink, and Amy realized she couldn’t breathe with her head slammed down to the table.
Jesus.
“You’re going to kill her Pete,” she said. “But not here. You will take this outside.”
He swallowed. “I-I-I--”
“Will go outside,” Amy said. She shoved the hoe hard into his skin and watched in satisfaction as he winced. “Outside Pete, and never come back, or I swear to God, I will hack you down.”
Pete shook his head. “You're crazy. You can’t be serious.”
Amy’s eyes smarted, and she looked away. Wasn’t that the truth? She wasn’t serious. It took a massive dose of 'unseriousness' to marry a man like Pete. A man who in five years of marriage had never lifted a finger to work or earned a wage was no man.
Amy trembled and her whole body went hot. She saw red. She raised the hoe with all her might and brought it down with all the force of her rage. Pete and the girl screamed and scrambled for the door.
“You’re mad,” Pete shouted from the safety of the doorway, uncaring of his nakedness as he raised his fist in anger.
Amy stalked to the door. The girl began to cry. Pete took to his heels. Her hands tightened on the hoe, her legs trembled, and Amy caught the door for balance. She pushed the door closed.
“Wait! Wait, Amy, dammit,” Pete called frantically as he ran back.
Like a fool, she paused.
“At least give us our clothes,” he gave her an ingratiating smile, “you can’t think to leave us like this? Imagine what people will say about us, about you,” he finished softly.
Amy stared at her husband. His small penis lay against his thighs, flaccid and weak like he was. Jesus, whatever had she seen in him? Even now, he was trying to push this on her shoulders.
She jutted her chin out. “Go to hell.”
Amy slammed the door closed.She took a shuddering breath as reaction set in. So this was the end? She let her head rest against the door and released a sigh.
Amy took another shuddering breath and pushed away from the door. She stared at the kitchen table for a second. He had done that girl on her favorite table she thought in renewed anger. Amy shook her head. She wasn’t throwing away the table for the idiot.
Her nostrils flared as the smell of sex and sweat hit her. She closed her eyes. On top of everything else, she had to clean the house from top to bottom, rid it off anything Pete and start over.
She squared her shoulders and went to work. For the next hour, Amy worked hard sweeping, cleaning, and scrubbing with a vengeance. When she was done, everything Pete owned was piled high in the middle of the room. Amy grabbed it all and took it outside.
She made two trips and threw it all into the dump before taking a deep breath. The air smelled fresh, clean and leafy. Amy could only imagine the absolute delight to the senses when her blossoming flowers added their scent to the atmosphere.
The farm might be failing, but it was hers. She might be hungry with no hope where the next meal would come from, but she no longer had two mouths to feed.
She smiled.
Amy straightened her shoulders and turned. She took two steps forward and stopped. She stared at the uprooted flowers on the ground, unable to believe her eyes. A growl of rage worked its way up her throat, and she ran around the house howling when she saw Pete had made sure to uproot every single one.
He’d killed her flowers.
Amy leaned down to pick one of her small, burgeoning but lifeless plant. Her heart ballooned out in pain, and she moaned. Tears fell down Amy’s cheeks. She’d dreamed of the smell and sight of her flowers edging the modest home she’d worked hard to keep. While her world fell apart around her, only the flowers continued growing, defiant, beautiful and young even in the heat.
They’d grown because she’d watered them faithfully twice a day.
You love those flowers more than me, Pete had accused just this morning.
You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Amy retorted.
If you spent the time watering the flowers watering our marriage, it wouldn’t be suffering!
Maybe.
Amy ran a hand over her cheeks and lowered herself to the ground. She should replant the flowers before it was too late, but she was so sick and tired. There was no food in the house, her flowers were dead, and she had no hope.
Not really, a voice answered. Pete’s gone.
The sound of footfalls reached her ears, and Amy jerked her head up. She squinted against the sun to see who it was.
Source: Pixabay
“Amy.”
She stiffened and struggled to rise. Jake was here?
“What are you doing here?”
Jake grabbed her by the arms and lifted her easily. Amy’s head swam and her vision blurred.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.
“Taking you inside before you fry out, dammit.”
She hated that he was here and could see her like this, at her worst. If she’d married Jake instead of Pete, would she be here, picking up the pieces of her dead marriage like her dead flowers?
Jesus, her flowers.
“My flowers,” she bit on his hard shoulders with her fists, “put me down.”
He didn’t slow down. Jake took his time, walking across her clean smelling house, thank God she’d scrubbed Pete’s life off every surface, up the stairs to her bedroom. Jake dropped her on the bed and stood over her with his legs spread apart.
Amy angled her chin upward to glare at him. “I don’t need your help.”
He shook his head even as his lips quirked in a small smile. “Only you would head off a cheating husband and still be ready to chew my head off.”
Amy let her eyes drop as the warmth underlying his words hit her. Jake had never hidden how much he wanted her, still.
“If you had stuck with me,” he began in a voice so soft she strained to hear him, “you wouldn’t be run down ragged providing for a man as well as yourself and picking up dead flowers under this hot sun.” He leaned down to grip her shoulders. “Dammit, Amy, we are at this point because of your stubbornness.”
Hot anger sidled its way into her heart and she jerked her head back to nail Jake with her eyes. “How dare you place that on my shoulders too?” She trembled with the force of her rage. “First it was Pete and now you--”
“Don’t mention my name in the same breath with that fool,” Jake snapped.
She poked her finger into his muscled thigh. “Then don’t blame me for what you caused.”
He glared at her in impotent fury. “The baby wasn’t mine.”
Amy’s lips curled in contempt. “I guess the condom on the ground wasn’t yours either.”
“No, dammit!” He stared her as his chest rose and fell with every harsh breath. Jake ran a hand down the side of his face. “I’m going to go plant your damn flowers. But this isn’t over. I let you run into the arms of that bastard; he’s gone.”
Amy leaned forward. “You have no--”
Jake placed a finger across her lips. “Shut up,” he ordered softly. “I’m not going anywhere. Get used to it.”
Amy stared into green eyes hard with resolve and knew he meant it.
She was too tired to run anyway. She closed her eyes.
Amy rose to her elbows and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. She moaned for her whole body ached. With a tired sigh, she let her head drop back to the bed.
"Amy."
Amy jerked, pressing her hand to her chest. She glared at Jake seated by the side of her bed with his legs crossed at the ankles. She met his eyes, and just like that the memories came rushing back.
Amy groaned. "You shouldn't be here."
Jake lunged from the chair so fast it toppled. "Oh no, you don't." He edged around the bed and made his way towards her. Amy watched him warily.
He held out the most beautiful rose she'd ever seen towards her.
"What?" Amy asked in an aching whisper.
"I know how much you love your flowers," he returned softly.
She reached for the single rose with a slightly trembling hand. This was the first gift she'd receive in five years. Before that, Jake had been the last man to give her flowers. Amy took a shuddering breath and brought the rose to her nose. She closed her eyes.
"I never slept with that woman," Jake said.
Her eyes plopped open. Amy swung her legs to the side of the bed. "I don't have to listen to--"
Jake caught her legs and threw it right back on the bed. "Oh, yes, you will." He leaned forward to catch her chin. "I didn't do it, Amy. I would never cheat on you. I loved you too much," he exhaled, "and I still do."
Amy stared.
"I would rather have my arm cut off than hurt you," Jake said gruffly.
She shook her head in shock. "Then what were you doing in Michelle's room that day with a used condom on the ground?"
He smoothed his finger down her cheek. "Think, who else was in the room?
Amy sucked in a breath. "Jeremy?"
Jake nodded solemnly.
Her chest tightened. The rose slipped from her hand. "It was Jeremy all this time? And nobody told me?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I've tried telling you for five years."
Amy's head dropped. "My stubbornness did keep us apart," she whispered.
"Yes," Jake said bluntly.
She jerked her head up. "I guess it's too much to ask that you let me off lightly?"
Jake picked the rose and handed it back to her. "I'm not Pete," he said simply.
Amy shook her head at her stupidity. She recalled the day well. Five years ago, she walked into Jake's room and found him naked and drunk on his bedside chair watching Michelle and his friend, Jeremy make love on his bed. She hadn't said a word, just turned around and left.
"I was drunk and--"
"I'm sorry," she said.
He gave her wry smile. "I should have tried talking some sense into you--"
"You did."
"I should have tried harder."
Amy nodded. "Yes. You should have."
His eyes narrowed. "You should be apologizing."
She raised an eyebrow. "I have, I'm only repeating what you just said."
A slow smile edged his lips and he drew her into his arms. "God, I've missed you."
Amy hugged him tight. She was home.