Mister Tuesday Night: An Erotic Short Story by Dee Valentine

Mister Tuesday Night
     
    An Erotic Short Story by Dee Valentine
     
     
    c. 2012 Dee Valentine
     
     
     
    Dinner is over, the dishwasher
loaded and set to run.  My husband lets the dog out while I wrap the leftover
meatloaf in foil and pop it in the massive stainless-steel refrigerator.  I
wipe down the granite countertop while he takes out the rubbish.  He returns
with the dog, pours kibble into her bowl, and sets the bag of dog food back in
the cupboard.  After quietly closing the cupboard door, he makes a minute adjustment
to the countertop canister set, turning the second-largest canister until the
word sugar is neatly squared, front and center. 
    “Tuesday night,” he says.
    “Tuesday night,” I echo.  “Book
club night.”
    “Have a nice time.”  He gives me a vague
peck on the cheek and shuffles off to the living room to sit in front of his
fifty-inch Sony flat screen and watch NCIS .  The house is silent, spotless,
our daily routine cemented in place.  Like a one-act play that’s performed
nightly, each movement is choreographed, each line of dialogue practiced until
we could speak them in our sleep.
    Except that tonight is Tuesday. 
Book club night.  The only ripple on the placid surface of our beige and
civilized life.
    I pick it up, the latest hardcover
bestseller that I left prominently displayed on the kitchen counter this
morning.  The book serves as a form of shorthand, a non-verbal reminder that it’s
Tuesday, that once the dinner dishes are done, the rest of the evening belongs
to me.  A shiny laminated bookmark, with frolicking kittens and a pretty blue knit
tassel, is deliberately inserted after page 179.  Every Tuesday, that bookmark marches
forward, discreetly yet inexorably, ten or twelve pages.  I like to vary the
number.  Once, when I was feeling obscenely rebellious, I moved it thirteen
pages.  But twelve is usually as far as I’m willing to go.  After all, there’s
no need to rock the boat.
    Outside, there’s a light, misting
rain.  I take my time walking to the car, enjoying the freshly-washed scent
that drifts on the air and the way the rain feels on my face.  I unlock my
little canary-yellow Mini Cooper and neatly place the book and my umbrella in
the back seat.  Did I mention that my husband hates yellow?  I sit in the car,
both hands gripping the wheel, and take a long, deep breath.  Slowly let it
back out.  And for the first time today, I smile.
    Tuesday.  Book club night.
    I’ve dressed carefully for tonight,
layers of soft silk beneath the conservative gray business suit, a quick spritz
of Obsession in that heated place between my thighs.  I drive across town, my
nipples hardening in anticipation as I think about what lies ahead.  Eager,
almost fearful that it will be over too soon, I remind myself that I'll have
two hours—two glorious hours—before the inevitable return to my own bland and colorless
life in the Real World.
    I park my car discreetly behind the
shabby old motel, take out my umbrella, my purse, my book, and climb creaky
wooden stairs to the second floor and Room 219, the place I've been coming to
every Tuesday night for the past eight months.
    I rap lightly on the door.  It
swings open, and there he is.  Mister Tuesday Night.  Sleek, muscled bare
chest, tight jeans, hair a little too long.  He stands with one hand on the
doorknob and one hip lowered, reminding me of that Eighties rock star whose
name I can never remember, the one who keeps getting arrested for drunken
driving.  Not the dissipated, graying guy whose mug shot was recently plastered
all over the Internet, but the sleek, young, shaggy-haired stud who could look
straight through the TV at you with those intense, hot eyes, and make you come
right there in your living room.
    I'm old enough to remember that
guy.  He isn't.  If I mentioned the name, if I could even remember it, he would
look at me blankly.  He's younger than me, probably by a good ten years,
although