The Wife of Reilly by Jennifer Coburn

rolled, um, what the hell is in a hot dog anyway? We walked to the empty concession stand, and Matt ordered two hot dogs for us. He leaned in toward me to tell me a secret. As his hand brushed the hair away from my ear, I think my scalp may have actually had an orgasm.
    His ice cream and beer breath delivered the following words: “Malone, if I could do things over, I’d’ve stayed with you that summer,” Matt said. “Europe sucked without you.”
    Sweat. Panic. Exhilaration. Nausea. Euphoria.
    Yeah, well the past is the past, I contemplated saying.
    Oh well, it all worked out for the best, I rehearsed.
    Before I could respond, Matt asked if I wanted mustard on my hot dog.
    “No thanks.”
    He squinted and smiled. “It’s so good to see you again. Relish?”
    “Absolutely.”
    We closed the restaurant that night. Then we closed a piano bar where a young music student played songs from The Big Chill as geezers like us happily crooned along. Since the movie is about Michigan alumni, one of the unofficial admissions requirements is that every incoming freshman must be able to sing at least two songs from The Big Chill.
    As Matt and I walked back to my hotel room, he said there was something he still owed me from years ago. “What’s that?” I asked, hoping to hell it was some sort of physical contact.
    “This,” he said, mischievously pushing me into a doorway of the Chemistry Building and unbuttoning my pants. He tore my underwear with his teeth and began to rip them off my body, gripping my hips with his hands. This was the first time I’d been with a guy when the first kiss was on my stomach. Definitely different. Definitely unreal. Definitely worth remembering, so I closed my eyes and began frenetically taking mental notes, urging parts of my body to savor each sensation so I could later recall the experience.
    “You’ve never forgiven me for ruining your briefs that night, have you?” I teased.
    “No I haven’t,” he smiled clutching a torn strip of my red panties in his teeth like a matador holds a rose. “And tonight is my revenge,” he said, flinging the silk scrap over his shoulder.
    Whoever said revenge was sweet knew what she was talking about.
    I have never had sex like this before, not even with him. I felt physical sensation everywhere, including my elbows. The feeling of his unshaven face scratching my breast, and the cold night air that instantly snapped onto his residual saliva, was the height of erotic pleasure. I think I may have momentarily fainted at the feeling of his flat palms against the bare small of my back.
    The leaves crunched beneath our running feet and we exhaled clouds of cold night air as we hurried back to my room at the Campus Inn. The elevator ride was painfully long despite a wonderful and urgent seven-flight kiss. When he grabbed a fistful of my hair, I knew, most definitely, that I was there. Like some sort of erotic existential affirmation. I stopped myself from thanking him only because it would seem too needy. Something about a woman weeping with gratitude as she’s about to get pounded into a hotel headboard seemed just a smidge pathetic, even to me.
    I woke up to a sword of light peeking through a crack in the curtain. For a moment I’d forgotten where I was until the familiar arm draped over my stomach led a trail to Matt’s sleeping face. Though I had no regrets about my night with Matt, I immediately regretted the circumstances. I can usually contain my tears, and decided that I would need to for fear Matt would wake up and press for answers I was not ready to give him. My eyes remained dry and my breathing completely normal, but as I lay beside Matt watching him sleep, I sobbed. Partly because I felt horrible that I was simultaneously lying to the two men I loved most. Partly because I was just plain exhausted. But mostly because I thought that the following morning, this would all be over. I assumed I’d wake up next to Reilly Monday morning and life