I have a torrid affair next to a can of kidney beans...

I pick up the phone

"Hey Mango, Its me."

"Oh wow, Hi. Long time no chat." I know he is already thinking about how sexy my voice sounds, and wondering what I am wearing. He always called me Mango when he wanted to fuck me.

"Well, I've been trying to be respectful. You know, of you, and James." He sounds coy. He sounds bad, in an oh so good way.

"As if you ever cared about any other person I've been with." I laugh. A thing I love about Braddock, he is like calories. So absolutely tempting, almost irresistible. So good, and so capable of unleashing every last shameful desire I have ever had.

I love that he does not give a shit about James' feelings. He just wants me and doesn't care who is in the way of that.

"True." He says like he is actually contemplating what I am saying, though we both know he already knew this fact.

I already picture him pressing down on my body, skin to skin, warm and comforting just like a sunny, sandy beach in summer time.

"Bings and Weer, 3 o'clock?" He says sounding silly. Wings and beer is what he means. It was our 'thing' when we were dating. No. Not dating. Fucking.

I smile and let out a single, happy, drawn out breath. It sounds sexy in a way I know he would appreciate deeply.

I hang up the phone...

...I can smell his delicious breath and I imagine what we look like as he kisses my lips, down my jaw and forcefully along my neck. Honey garlic. Not in the way that old garlic breath smells, but the smell of something that had just been on his lips and could make anyone who had not partaken in the indulgence, suffer instant cravings.

I can smell his hair and his shampoo. I know the smell like you know and old memory. I remember years ago sitting on his bed, when we used to be a thing, asking him what his biggest insecurity was. I was intent on an answer because to know Brad was to know someone who you would think was without insecurities at all. It was part of what made him fun. That someone who thought so much of himself, thought you a worthy sexual partner. Like tennis, the chemistry was always back and forth, his balls always somehow ending up in my court.

His answer was the fear of his hair thinning some day. This came as a surprise to me, as his hair, though every so slightly receded in a completely perfect way, was, in itself perfect.
The smell of his 'basil infused' shampoo, some strange remedy he bought at a hole-in-the-wall health food store, was sharp and herbal, masculine, good, and completely his.

There was never any question as to what he wanted. "Can I go down on you?" he would always ask, right at the one moment that I thought I would die if he wasn't inside of me instantly. He would say it all in one aroused, breathy pant, in such a way that really left no doubt about the answer he commanded.

Brad was always a forceful lover. Not in the rough-sex kind of way, but in the passionate, hold you tightly, thrust into you like its the last thrust he may ever commit into something that he seemed to hold in such high esteem. When he was on you, he was on you. When he was in you, he was in you as much as a man could possibly be. Despite the fact that I knew Brad would never love me, or any woman for many years to come, he could evoke more emotion in me than I thought I would ever feel.

And after the last thrust, we would collapse, for it was all we could do, and stay that way for hours and hours, his skin never too warm for me to be uncomfortable next to him, because that too, was perfect about Brad.

I already begin to feel anticipatory with all my reminiscing.

And the smell of his shampoo - enough to start all of these memories building something desperate within me. My heart races just a little...

I pull my nose away from jar of mixed herbs I keep hidden in the pantry and my fantasy slips away, my physical fidelity still intact. I look over at an accusatory can of kidney beans. The kind I buy just for James', who makes a great chili. I knock it over and watch it tumble off the can of sauerkraut it sat on. There. Take that. Hmph.

I decide tonight that I don't want to make love to James, but just cuddle up with several pillows and fall asleep in my silly makeshift Braddock's arms.