Dec 14, 2013. Gilcrease Hills, Tulsa, OK.
Taylor
We had just gotten back to the states, and I knew the jet lag and time difference weren’t the only reasons why everything felt so wrong. I tried to spend a lot of time with my kids on my first full day back, hoping it would help me ignore the way Natalie was… well, ignoring me. It was hard to pretend that I couldn’t see how she only spoke to me when she had to. I couldn’t blame her for it, either.
And yet… I couldn’t stay away from Scott. I needed to hear him, see him, get as close to him as I possibly could from a thousand miles away. So, once the kids were in bed and Natalie had settled in with a book and a cup of tea, I headed to my office and set up my laptop.
I had texted him when I got home, but the conversation was brief. I didn’t even know for sure if he would be home. My anxiety grew as the Skype call rang… and rang… and rang…
Finally, just when I was about to give up and end the call, Scott appeared. He popped in and out of frame for a moment as he positioned his laptop screen. Once he had it adjusted, he grinned. “Hey, you.”
“Hey,” I replied, feeling all of my anxiety drain out of my body. “I’m so glad you answered. I know we didn’t plan to Skype tonight.”
“Do I look like I’m complaining?” His grin grew. He picked up a bottle of rum that had been just off screen and took a swing straight from it. “So, how you feeling? Glad to be home?”
“No, I just… I’m really glad to see your face, that’s all.” I ran a hand through my hair and sighed as I contemplated how much to say in response to his second question. “Home has been–umm, quiet. Which is really weird, considering.”
Scott visibly winced. His voice lower, he said, “I’m sorry, babe. How bad was it?”
“I think I’m in the eye of the storm right now?” I offered him a weak smile. It was the truth; this fight hadn’t blown over. It would come back, no doubt worse than before. It was only a matter of when.
“Wish I could say it’ll get easier.” He frowned. “I’m glad to see you, though. Miss you already.”
“I miss you, too. More than I have words to say.”
He took another swig of his rum. With a smirk, he remarked, “Too bad I can’t share this with you.”
I gave him a smirk of my own. I kept most of my alcohol in my office, and there was a bottle on the desk that I’d received as a thank you gift from a musician who’d used our studio a few months ago. I stretched to grab it and hold it where Scott could see. “Will this do?”
“Didn’t peg you as a Cuervo kinda guy. But hey, whatever gets the job done, right?” He gave me a wink, although I could see he was still a bit surprised. He tipped his bottle up as if to say cheers, then took another drink.
“It’s not my favorite, but you know I’m pretty easy to please.” I gave him a quick grin, then twisted off the cap and took a big swig.
“Lucky me, eh?” From the corner of my eye, I could see Scott lick his lips.
I smirked. “Yeah, I guess you are.”
“Yeah, I am,” he said softly. He cleared his throat and added, “So, did you just wanna talk, or…”
I rolled my eyes and took another sip, letting him wait for a moment. “One track mind, I swear.”
He laughed. “Don’t act like you don’t love it.”
“You know I do,” I replied seriously, ready to drop the teasing and flirting. I didn’t just love his body or the things it could do for me. I loved every bit of him, everything he made me feel–not just the physical.
Scott gave me a soft smile, then sat back against his headboard. He pulled off his t-shirt and cocked an eyebrow. “There, first move made. Now whatcha gonna do?”
I feigned an innocent look as I casually popped the first few buttons on my shirt. It was old and wrinkled, but a button down still made for a decent strip tease, I supposed.
“Cocktease,” Scott remarked, taking another sip of his rum.
I didn’t answer. I just undid the rest of the buttons, leaving the shirt hanging loose, one pierced nipple exposed. I inched my chair back from my desk, then angled the laptop screen until it gave Scott a good view of the chair rather than the door behind it. I took the bottle with me as I sat back down.
“Damn, babe.” He let out a breath and reached a hand down to adjust himself. “Making me really wish you were here.”
“Me too. If I could just hop a plane tonight…” I faked a smile and took another drink. If only it were so simple. If only I could just leave again, at a moment’s notice.
“Don’t tease me, babe,” Scott replied, absent-mindedly running a hand up and down his chest. He took another sip. “How about you tell me what you’d do if you were?”
“Not trying to tease.” I took another sip of my own, then sat the bottle down next to my chair. My hand went to my boxers, adjusting the half-hard on I already had just from looking at him. “I’d be happy just to be near you, but if I was there… I swear, I’d probably drop to my knees as soon as I walked in the door.”
Scott gave a low growl, his hand wrapping around the erection that was visible even through his jeans. “Shit, why wait? Maybe I’ll shove you down in the car on the ride home.”
“If that’s what you’d prefer.” My dick sprang to full attention at that idea, and I rubbed it through the light cotton covering it.
“I dunno, might be tough to drive, as good with that mouth as you are.” Scott popped the button on his jeans, and my eyes followed his movements like they were drawn by a magnet.
“Yeah?” I felt myself blushing, my grip on my dick tightening almost instinctively. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment, so… thank you.”
Scott chuckled. “Damn right. Better not be all you wanna do, though.”
“Of course not. But I want to do that first. Show you how much I… appreciate you.” I reached into my boxers and pulled my cock free, stroking it shamelessly.
“Mmm, babe.” Scott licked his lips and unbuttoned his jeans. “You can appreciate me as long as you want. You know I love watching you use that pretty mouth of yours.”
“I know,” I breathed out. “And I love using it. Letting you fuck it.”
“Fuck,” Scott said, pulling his dick out of his jeans–no underwear, I realized–and stroking it. “You want me to fuck your mouth? Use you like the little slut you are?”
“Mhm,” I replied, my head falling back against my chair. I didn’t have anything to add to that. There were only so many ways I could tell him that I wanted everything he was willing to give me.
“Whose are you? Who does that mouth belong to?”
“Yours Scott,” I whimpered. “It’s yours. I’m yours.”
“Damn right,” Scott growled, his hand speeding up. “Of course, it goes both ways. Gotta keep my slave happy, too.”
“Yeah? How do you plan on doing that?” I asked, feeling myself smirk. He might have been in charge, but I couldn’t resist teasing a bit at times.
“Show you you’re not the only one that knows how to take it.” He licked his lips. “You know you got all of me.”
“That’s… wow, Scott,” I replied. We had switched roles once when I visited him, but knowing it wasn’t necessarily a one time turned me on more than I expected it to. “Really hot.”
He paused to take another swig of his drink. “You know I’m all yours, babe. I just need your body however, wherever, whenever.”
“I know, Scott,” I replied. It was a strangely emotional moment in the middle of something that should have been so, so dirty. “I feel the same way. I just need to… feel you, taste you… all of it.”
“Me too, babe.” He wiggled out of his jeans, which I noticed where almost as tight as the ones I usually wore. His hand went back to his dick once his jeans were gone, setting an almost breakneck pace. “Tell me more. Tell me how you want it.”
“I don’t think I can even pick,” I breathed out, the words trailing off into a soft laugh. “Can I be greedy? Get it hard and fast, and then nice and slow, too?”
“You got it,” he replied. “How about a compromise? Slow and deep, taking my time, making you feel every inch of me?”
I moaned, letting my head fall back against the back of my chair. “Yes… fuck, that’s just what I want. Make me feel you the next day.”
“Oh, I’ll make you feel it the next week. I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll never forget it. I want you to be fucking hooked on it, ‘cause I sure as fuck am.”
“You know I am. Can’t enough of the way you fuck me.” My hand was moving nearly as fast as his, my vision blurring so that I could barely even focus enough to watch him on the screen.
“God, I wanna be inside you, Tay. Fucking need you here.” His words were blunt and dirty, but again I could hear the deep emotion underneath them.
I moaned almost in spite of myself. “I wish I was there. Bent over your bed right now.”
“Nah, babe,” Scott replied. “On your back. You’re so fucking beautiful when you get off.”
I felt myself blushing. I glanced at him through my eyelashes. “Yeah? You think so?”
“You know how I feel,” he said, his tone softer, almost vulnerable.
“Maybe I wanna hear it.” I tried my best to look innocent; he didn’t necessarily need to know how much I liked this gentler side of him. “Maybe that’s what gets me off.”
He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Needy little bitch.”
“Yeah, and?” I smirked.
Scott rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh. “You know I love you, Taylor. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. You make me whole, in ways I thought I never would be again. You make me feel… so fucking good. You get me off like no one else, take me higher than any drug. I said I was hooked on you, and I am, to the core. I love you.”
“Scott…” I breathed out, my hand almost slowing to a stop, although it remained wrapped tightly around my dick. “You know I love you too, so much. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever had.”
“Same here,” Scott replied, and I could see his grip tightening as well. “It’s never been as good with anyone else. No one’s ever let me really be me before, rough edges and all.”
“I love it all–love you–just the way you are.” I let myself move my hand again, letting out a soft moan as soon as I did. This was such a strange mixture of sweet and dirty, and I supposed that suited us well. Our sexual chemistry had been immediate and obvious, but it only served to reveal how, through and through, Scott and I were like perfect mirror images complementing each other.
“You’re so fucking good to me, babe. Perfect little sub.” And just like that, he snapped me back to the present, back to how fucking close I was to coming right there at my computer desk.
I let out a soft moan, my breath hitching as I continued to stroke myself closer and closer to my orgasm. “Th-thanks, Scott. S’only because you’re so good to me, too.”
“Gotta be,” he replied. “Wouldn’t be a good Dom if I didn’t keep you satisfied.”
“And you do. So fucking satisfied.” To prove my point, I allowed my hand to move just as fast as it desperately wanted to. “About to show you how satisfied.”
“Yeah?” Scott growled, his own pace matching mine. “You gonna come for me, babe?”
“Yeah… all for you.” I didn’t even try to hide my moan, although a voice in the back of my head told me that I was being too loud and the walls were too thin. I was too far gone to truly care, though.
“Fuck, Tay. I’m gonna come, too. Where d’you want it, babe?”
“Mmm, well,” I moaned, “you know I love the way you taste…”
“Yeah, you want me to shoot down that pretty little throat of yours?” Scott asked.
I nodded eagerly. “I’ll swallow every drop, I promise.”
Scott growled. “Fuck, babe. You ready for it?”
“Mhm… so ready.” I didn’t even care that my words came out in a whimper. It was refreshing to be with someone who didn’t mind–loved, even–the side of me I used to think of as weak.
“Fuck… Tay…” Scott let out a growl that trailed off into a soft moan–a hint of that softer side of him that I knew was just for me–as he came.
I stared intently as the screen, wishing I was there, and not just seeing the pixelated evidence of his orgasm. I needed to taste it, to feel him pulsing and shaking, to feel every inch of him inside me. The thought of it wasn’t the same as the real thing, but it was close enough right then. I moaned out his name as I felt myself getting closer and closer to the edge.
“That’s it, babe. Let go for me.”
I let out an almost primal sound, one I couldn’t rightfully describe as a moan or a groan. My hips bucked up off the chair, and I came–white hot heat spreading through my body and come covering my own hand and chest.
“Fuck, Tay,” Scott said. “So fucking beautiful.”
“Th-thanks, Scott,” I panted, collapsing back against the chair.
He partially disappeared from view for a moment, then re-appeared with tissues in hand. “Told you I gotta take care of you.”
“You do. So well,” I replied, idly licking my own hand clean.
“For real, though,” Scott said. “I meant every word I said. I love you, and I can’t fucking wait to have you all to myself. I need you to come home.”
“I will,” I replied, ignoring the fact that he had described Los Angeles as my home. It was, in so many ways, even though it seemed strange to admit it. “Soon, I promise. I love you–I need you.”
Now that I had come back down to earth, I was aware of the silence all around me. But no, that wasn’t entirely right. Though my back was to the door, I could still hear two distinct sounds that could be nothing else–first, a muffled sob, and second, the door creaking open.
The look on Scott’s face confirmed my fears.
“Fuck,” he breathed out, eyes wide.
I felt as though all the blood had been drained out of my body. I couldn’t move. My voice barely above a whisper, I asked, “I didn’t imagine that, did I?”
“No,” came the sound of my wife’s voice, unmistakable even when it cracked around another sob, “you didn’t.”
I mouthed I’m sorry, then quickly ended the call and closed my laptop. There was a box of tissues on the desk, and I wrapped my fist around a handful of them, fumbling to clean up the rest of the evidence of what I had done. As though it mattered. As though there was anything I could do to hide what was now laid completely bare in front of her.
“Nat, I–I don’t… I can’t…” I finally mumbled, tossing the soiled tissues onto the desk. What could I say, even if my mouth would cooperate? Nothing would explain this away.
“No. You do not get to speak. Not anymore.”
Trembling, I spun my chair around and stood. I did as I was told. No words came from my mouth as I let Natalie stare me down, as though she could find the answers she wanted hidden somewhere on my traitorous body.
“Did you mean what you said to him?” She asked, and I finally met her eyes. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“Do you want me to lie, Nat?” I asked. Maybe it wasn’t a fair question to ask, but I needed her to know there was no coming back from this; no good would come of this conversation no matter what she chose. “Because in the end, that’s not going to be any better than the truth.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “The truth.”
“Scott was–he was who I went to see in LA,” I admitted. “We met on tour and it just… it just happened. I didn’t mean to fall for him, Nat, but it’s not like you get a choice with–with love. So yeah… I meant it.”
“So you love him, this… Scott?” She asked. “More than me?”
I winced. Saying his name had perhaps not been the smartest thing to do, but I couldn’t close this box now that it had been opened. I wasn’t so sure that I could even minimize the damage, but I felt that I had to try. “Can you not… make it sound like a competition? It’s not like that. It’s just–what I feel.”
“And what about what I feel, Taylor? Doesn’t that count for anything? Did it ever?”
“I wouldn’t have stayed and tried to make this work for so long if it didn’t, Nat. But it’s not… I mean, can you honestly say this is the marriage you wanted? That it ever has been?” This was a conversation we had been skirting around for years, and it seemed like exactly the right and the wrong time all at once to finally have it.
“I was seventeen.” Natalie gave a sad laugh and threw her head back. Eyes toward the ceiling, she continued, “I was seventeen years old. I had posters of you on my wall. And then suddenly, there you were, saying everything I’d ever dreamed you’d say and more.”
With her words, I was thrown right back to that night. We had met the day before, and Isaac had not shut up about how pretty her friend was. Natalie was cute, too, and there was something in her mischievous smile that drew me in. I took her hand and showed her how to sneak into a concert, all the while trying to forget about the boy I’d blown in the bathroom three days before in Texas. She was the perfect distraction.
“I was a child,” she said, her voice snapping me back to the present. Her eyes were on me again. “I didn’t know what I was agreeing to, not really. I was living a fangirl’s dream. So is this what I wanted? Of course not. But that does not mean I want to throw it away.”
“I wasn’t much older, Nat!” I practically cried. Didn’t she remember? She had been the shoulder I cried on when I didn’t know who or what I wanted, when I was torn between expectations and reality, and desperately scared of the world knowing who I really was. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and exhaled shakily. “But I already knew that I couldn’t be who I really was. And you were–you were everything I knew I was supposed to want, and I swear I did. It wasn’t a lie. But it was never right, for either of us. You know that.”
“You need to end it.”
“I… I can’t do that.” I replied weakly. I didn’t know what I had expected, but somehow, I had not anticipated that. It wasn’t as though I had expected her to be understanding of the fact that I was–still–cheating on her, but somehow I had thought she would at least understand that none of this was easy for me.
“Why?” Natalie asked, her stare turning defiant. “You have before. What makes this one any different?”
“You heard me, Nat.” I was practically pleading, and I didn’t care. I knew she wouldn’t give in, but it didn’t matter. “It’s different–he’s different. I… I love him. I’m sorry.”
“So… what do you expect me to do, then? Just sit at home with our children while you go off gallivanting with this… this…”
I could see clearly now how this conversation was going to end, but I couldn’t seem to find my way to that end. It was right there, within reach, yet we seemed to just keep circling it.
I shook my head. “Haven’t I made you do that enough? It’s not… none of this is fair to either of us, Nat.”
“Oh, now you care about being fair?” She snorted. “That’s rich. Tell me, what’s the fair thing do, then? Since you’re suddenly an expert.”
“I don’t know, okay?” I threw my hands up. “I just can’t–I can’t leave him. I can’t.”
“Well, if you can’t leave him, then…” Natalie’s eyes widened, as she finally saw the full picture. A few heavy tears fell from her eyes, and her shaking hand went to her mouth. Her voice muffled, she said, “Taylor… are you…”
“I wasn’t,” I replied, shaking my head. I let it fall; I couldn’t meet her eyes, even though I knew that made me a coward. “Not like this. But I don’t know how to… I can’t do this. I can’t be torn between the two of you like this, and not give either one of you all that you deserve. And you–you deserve so much better than me.”
She closed her eyes and turned away from me. “That’s such… can we just talk about this in the morning?”
“It’s not going to be any different then,” I replied. Maybe it was unfair to continue to ignore her wishes, but now that we had come this far, I couldn’t see what good it would do to postpone the inevitable. “I’m not going to be any different then.”
“I’m going to bed. We will talk about this in the morning.”
I knew that firm tone, had heard it during countless other arguments. Right then, I could only hear it as a poor imitation of a certain someone else giving me orders. The difference was that he would only push me as far as I could take. And this–pretending as though anything could be done to save this marriage–was more than I could take.
I shook my head. “I’ll stay tonight. But tomorrow, I’m booking the first flight I can get. I’ll come back for Christmas, but I can’t… I can’t stay. I can’t stay and pretend I’m the dutiful husband right now.”
“This isn’t happening,” Natalie replied, choking back a sob.
“It’s been happening,” I said softly. “It’s been happening for a long time.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, looking so small, so much like the girl I truly had fallen in love with, even if it wasn’t the kind of love either of us needed. She shook her head, not even trying to hide her sobs now. “Why? Why couldn’t I be enough for you?”
“Natalie…” I took a hesitant step closer to her. “It was never about that. It was never about what you were or weren’t. It’s me. I’ve always been the problem. I’m the one who’s fucked up, and no matter how perfect you were, it wasn’t going to change me. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Not yet.” She spun back to face me, and the fire in her eyes surprised me. “You haven’t even begun to be sorry.”
Before I could even begin to process what she had meant by that, she had turned and stormed out of the room. I knew I wasn’t being fair, expecting her to understand all of this all at once, and to accept that it was over. I didn’t know how to help her, and in any case, it didn’t seem she wanted my help. If what she needed to do to feel okay with this was to try to destroy me somehow, then so be it. I had spent over a decade trying to destroy myself. I was done. I was going to do what I knew was right, even if Natalie couldn’t see it that way yet.
But first… I was going to be a little more selfish, and run off to Los Angeles again.