Lucy was putting Wyatt to bed. He had a pretty elaborate bedtime ritual at this point, stuffed animals in a long row down the side of the bed, each in its proper place, various sound machines plugged in and humming at just the right frequencies, and a special weighted blanket that provided proprioceptive input to help him calm down.
“Remembering people’s birthdays is an excellent way to make friends,” said Wyatt.
“That’s true,” Lucy said.
“You can give them a phone call,” said Wyatt. “You can give people a phone call on their birthdays and it’s an excellent way to make friends.”
“Do you want to call someone on their birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you want to call?”
Wyatt’s face went completely blank. He looked up at the ceiling, like he was stumped by the question.
“Remembering people’s birthdays is an excellent way to make friends,” he finally said. “And you can say something nice about their clothes. Saying something nice about people’s clothes is an excellent way to make new friends.”
“Do you want back scratches tonight?”
“Of course I do.”
Wyatt rolled over, and Lucy started to scratch his back.
I have a crush on Ben, Lucy thought for the first time.
It was weird, how the Arrangement had made all of this happen backwards. For the first few times, the sex with Ben was just what it was supposed to be: Meaningless sex. Surprising, satisfying, a bit educational, delicious—all of those things too—but essentially meaningless.
But lately, things had changed. She was walking around with a goofy smile on her face all the time, not because of the sex, but because of Ben. She thought about him constantly. She dreamed about him, happy dreams, dreams where the rest of her life didn’t exist. They’d started texting each other, not a lot, just a bit, but they’d gotten into the habit of saying good night every night. Good night. Kiss. Sleep tight. Kisses back. And her heart jumped every time.
This is why people have affairs, Lucy thought. This feeling, this one right here.
No wonder. No fucking wonder.
Fourteen
Lust is energetically expensive. It consumes time and resources. It impairs judgment. From an evolutionary point of view, once the desired number of children are born, there is no advantage in feeling lust for your spouse.
—Constance Waverly
Choke me.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want you to choke me,” said Izzy.
Owen was, at that moment, in his favorite sexual position, the one that most closely resembled taking a nap. He was on his back, with Izzy straddling him and doing the lion’s share of the work. Izzy occasionally used Owen almost like a prop, just like one of the countless dusty sex toys she pulled out from under her bed (“One sec, gotta go wash this bad boy off”).
“Put your hands around my neck and sorta strangle me.”
“Izzy—”
“Please?”
“I don’t want to do that.”
“Just enough to cut the air off for a little bit. It’ll make me come hard.”
“Are you serious?” Owen had stopped moving altogether, but Izzy continued to move her hips in a tantalizing way, like an ocean swell slapping against the hull of a boat.
“You’ve never heard of this?”
“I’ve heard of it,” said Owen. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me,” said Izzy. “I’ve done it a thousand times.”
A thousand times? Owen thought. That can’t be true. That simply cannot be true.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this, Izzy.”
“Just do it.”
Izzy was in a weird mood this afternoon, that was for sure. She’d greeted him at the door already semi-drunk, although it was not even one o’clock. Apparently, she’d just received an unexpected property-tax bill from five years back. Apparently, it was Christopher’s fault, but getting him to pay it was going to involve lawyers, and Izzy didn’t know if she could go through that again. Apparently, this was never going to end. She wasn’t a poster child for divorce, Izzy wasn’t, that’s for sure.
When else am I going to get the chance to choke a woman while I fuck her? Owen thought. Probably never. And, on some level—he knew this sounded weird but it felt, at the time, nonetheless true—it seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do.
Owen put his hands around Izzy’s neck and squeezed a little and then paused.
“Shouldn’t we have a signal or a safe word or something so I know when to stop?”
“Be quiet. You’re making this not sexy.”
“Okay.”
He tightened his hands around her neck again and squeezed.
“Harder.”
Owen squeezed harder.
“Better. Now do it even harder, and fuck me hard at the same time,” said Izzy.
Owen obeyed. He felt a surge of energy at the base of his back, like a ball of molten lava, and it seemed to radiate up his spine and out through all of his limbs. Izzy’s neck was small, birdlike even, and he enjoyed the feeling of having his hands encircling it. I’m choking her, he thought. I’m cutting off her air supply. This is weird. Weird, but cool.
Izzy started to come—he could feel it, he could always feel it, but he could tell this was a big one, not one of her run-of-the-mill, six-times-asession orgasms—and so he kept going, choking her and fucking her and feeling her body shiver and shake and throb. Finally, he took his hands from her throat. She flopped down on his chest with a thwack, her face in the pillow next to his head.
She was completely still. She did not appear to be breathing. It felt like she weighed two hundred pounds. Two hundred pounds of deadweight. Oh my God, Owen thought. I’ve killed her. Bits of his life flashed past his eyes—Lucy, Wyatt, happiness, this stupid experiment—as he carefully rolled her off of him. He slapped her cheek. Nothing. He slapped her harder and yelled her name. How soon do I dial 911? Do I give her mouth-to-mouth? Should I stabilize her neck?
Finally he remembered the sternum rub, an old fraternity trick they used to do when someone passed out in college. He knelt on the bed next to her and rubbed his knuckles up and down Izzy’s sternum, hard and fast.
“Ow!” Izzy yelled. She sat up and shook her head, pissed off and a bit stunned. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“That was amazing,” Izzy said. “Amazing, amazing. I’m still shaking. Look, my knees are shaking. I can barely walk.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” said Owen. “But I can promise you one thing. I’m never, ever doing that again.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I thought I killed you!” said Owen. “I thought you were dead! I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison!”
“I passed out. That’s what happens when you do that the right way. I thought you knew that.”
“You didn’t pass out, Izzy. You flatlined. You stopped breathing.”
“I did not stop breathing.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I passed out. You still breathe when you pass out.”
“You. Stopped. Breathing.”