The Second Tuesday in November

October 28th He’s here again, the man the landlord sent to fix the shelving in the back where the damp from the Savannah river finally rotted through the pine, and I can’t even focus on the inventory because every time he hammers a nail I feel it right at the base of my spine. His name is Silas and he’s got these hands that are thick and calloused and stained with wood glue and grease, and when he looked up at me today through that mess of dark hair I felt my face get hot like I was sixteen again and not a forty-nine-year-old woman with a divorce decree and a mortgage. He didn’t say much, just asked if I had a preference for the finish, but I was too busy staring at the way his jeans hung low on his hips, showing the pale, hard skin of his iliac crest every time he reached for a tool, and I think I just nodded like a fool while my mind was already writing a scene I’d never show my editor. November 1st It’s still too warm for November, the humidity clinging to the windows of the shop like a damp sheet and Silas is sweating, just a fine sheen of it over his shoulders as he works the sander and the sound of it is vibrating through the floorboards into the soles of my feet. I brought him a glass of iced tea and when our fingers brushed—just for a second, just the briefest contact of skin—it felt like a physical shock, like the static you get from a wool rug but deeper, heavier, settling right in my lower belly. He didn't pull away immediately and he looked at me with these eyes that are the color of swamp water in the best way, deep and dark and full of things he isn't saying, and I realized then that he’s been watching me just as much as I’ve been watching him, tracking me as I move through the stacks, and the air between us was so thick I could’ve cut it with one of his chisels. November 5th I closed the shop early but stayed in the back with him while he was packing up his gear and the silence was so loud it was ringing in my ears, just the sound of the cicadas outside and the heavy thrum of the ceiling fan overhead. I asked him if he liked his work and he stepped closer, so close I could smell the cedar dust and the salt on him and the faint, sharp scent of tobacco, and he said he liked making things that were meant to last which felt like a pointed jab at the ten years I spent in a marriage that crumbled like dry biscuit. I reached out and touched the sleeve of his shirt, just to see if he’d move, but he stayed still as a statue, his breath hitching just enough for me to know I had him, and I felt this rush of power that I haven't felt in years, a sudden, desperate hunger to be handled by someone who knows exactly how much pressure it takes to break something. November 11th He didn't come by yesterday and I spent the whole afternoon pacing the aisles like a caged cat, touching the spines of the books but not seeing them, my heart doing this erratic little dance every time the bell over the door chimed. I’m a romance novelist, I know the tropes, I know the build-up, but this isn't a plot point and it isn't a slow burn, it’s a brushfire, and I’m terrified of how much I want him to just push me up against the history section and find out if his mouth is as hard as his hands look. I wrote three thousand words today of the filthiest prose of my career and then I deleted it all because none of it was as hot as the way he looked at my ankles when I was on the ladder reaching for a copy of O'Connor. November 13th Everything broke tonight. He was finishing the molding around the baseboards and I was shutting down the register, the streetlights outside casting these long, amber shadows through the front window, and when I walked back to tell him I was locking up he was standing there waiting for me. He didn’t wait for a greeting, he just took two long strides and had me by the waist, his hands so big they nearly met around my middle, and he hoisted me up onto the new counter he’d just finished, the wood still smelling of oil and effort. I wrapped my legs around him instantly, my skirt bunching up around my hips, and I didn't care about the dust or the propriety or the fact that I’m old enough to know better because when his mouth hit mine it was like a collision, all teeth and tongue and a desperate, starving sort of need. He tasted like coffee and something wild, and his hands were everywhere at once, pulling at my hair and then diving under my blouse to find my breasts, his palms rough and hot against my skin, and I was moaning into his throat, a sound I didn't recognize as my own. I reached for his belt, my fingers shaking as I fought with the buckle, and when I finally got his pants open and my hand slid inside to find him, he was already thick and heavy and pulsing, his cock a hot weight that I squeezed until he groaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated against my chest. He pulled my lace panties aside, not even bothering to take them off, just tearing them a little in his haste to get to me, and when he found my clit with his thumb, rubbing in hard, fast circles, I thought my knees were going to give out even though I was sitting down. I was so wet I was slicking his fingers, my body opening up for him like it had been waiting through a long, dry season, and when he finally hoisted himself up and pushed into me, it wasn't the polite, measured entrance of my ex-husband, it was a claim. He filled me completely, stretching me out until I felt every inch of him, and I let out a sharp, jagged cry that echoed through the empty store, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back as he began to move. He was relentless, slamming into me with a rhythm that was all instinct, his hips hitting mine with a wet, heavy thud that made the stacks of books on the counter tremble, and I was seeing stars, my head thrown back against a shelf of Southern Gothic poetry. I wanted him deeper, I wanted him to hurt me just a little, and I hooked my heels into the small of his back and pulled him in, meeting every thrust with a desperate heave of my own hips, the friction building until I was a live wire, everything narrowed down to the place where we were joined. He reached down and gripped my thighs, bruising the skin, and he whispered something filthy about how long he’d wanted to do this, how he’d watched the way I moved and dreamed about the sound I’d make when he finally got inside me, and that was it, that was the spark that set the whole thing off. My orgasm hit me like a physical blow, a long, rolling wave of heat that started in my toes and crashed through my chest, and I felt his body go rigid, his cock jumping inside me as he spilled himself, his face buried in the crook of my neck as he shook with the force of it. We stayed like that for a long time, the only sound the ticking of the clock and our own ragged breathing, and the smell of us—sex and wood and old paper—was the most honest thing I’ve smelled in a decade. November 14th I woke up with a bruise on my hip in the shape of his thumb and I’ve never felt more beautiful. He’s coming back today to finish the trim, and I’m sitting here at my desk with a cup of coffee, watching the sun hit the dust motes in the air, thinking about how I’m going to have to rewrite every single chapter I’ve finished this year. You can’t write about heat until you’ve been burned, and I’ve still got the marks to prove it. I don't know if this is a beginning or just a very spectacular middle, but for the first time in my life, I’m not worried about the ending.

The Second Tuesday in November

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