Robert Tine - The Astronaut's Wife

“What?” Jillian asked feeling self conscious under the intensity of his gaze. “What is it?”

He did not answer with words. Instead he leaned in and kissed her forehead softly, brushing his lips across her skin. It was the sort of gesture a parent might make if taking a child’s temperature. Jillian did not notice the oddness of the gesture.

“Mmmm,” she said, closing her eyes. “That’s nice.”

“Yes it is,” Spencer replied. Still looking into her eyes, Spencer let his fingertips brush across the skin of her neck, touching her lightly, as if taking her pulse. Jillian swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, her head whirling.

Spencer leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Maybe we should get you some air.”

There was a dark corner of the vast room, a niche some distance from the bulk of the crowd. The noise of the party echoed in the space like a far-off fair and no words could be clearly heard there. There was an occasional burst of laughter, nothing more. It felt very strange to be alone and yet so close to such a large throng of people.

Jillian and Spencer faced each other, very close together. Spencer put his hard, powerful hands up, resting them lightly on the soft bare skin on her shoulders.

“Feel better?” he asked.

Jillian took a deep breath. The air seemed cooler in this dark corner of the room and it cleared her head a little. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “A little better…”

Spencer held her gaze with his eyes, then allowed his hands to slide down her arms until his fingertips were touching her slim wrists. She did not notice that his index fingers touched her pulse for a moment or two before entwining his fingers with hers.

“Spencer…” Jillian whispered.

Her husband silenced her by putting his lips to hers and kissing her lightly. Then he moved his mouth close to his ear and whispered softly to her.

“There’s something I need to tell you. Jill,” he said quietly. “I have to tell you something about what happened back then. Something about those two minutes…”

Jillian was surprised and her eyes widened. “But… you never talk about it.”

“I want to now,” he replied. He smiled softly. “I guess I’ve had enough champagne to loosen my tongue.”

He unclasped his hands and held her palms in his. Their bodies were very close, but they were not touching. Jillian wondered what he would say next.

Spencer’s voice never raised above the level of a Whisper. “After the explosions, our suits began to shut down. The lights went off. The radio went out. It was black. Silent.” He sighed heavily and seemed to shiver. “All there was…, was the cold, Jill. A cold like you have never experienced. No one has, no one had before as far as I know and has lived to tell about it. Alex and me are the only two.”

His hands moved from her palms to her hips, as if looking for warmth.

“But I know. what that cold was, Jill,” he whispered. “It was death. Death had taken hold of me.”

Suddenly Jill had tears in her eyes. The thought of her husband actually dying was too horrible for her to contemplate. Dying out there, as Natalie Streck had said, alone…

“And then,” Spencer said, “it must have been after the first minute or so, the cold began to fade and I began to feel… warmth.” His hands slid down the hem of her dress, his fingers stroking the inside of her thighs. She put out her hands to stop him, grabbing him by the wrists and looking around worriedly as if someone might see them. But they were in the shadows and far from the crowd.

“I knew what that warmth was, Jillian,” Spencer whispered. “It was the warmth of you.” He slid one hand higher, working his way up her thigh. This time she let him do it. His other hand held hers, tight and intense, as if trying to telegraph something to her through their interlaced fingers.

“I felt the warmth of your body. I felt the warmth of your hands, Jillian…” His hand inched higher. “I felt the warmth of the inside of your mouth.” He leaned forward and kissed her. But it was not a paternal kiss on the forehead; this time he opened his mouth and thrust his tongue up against hers.

He moved his hand further up her leg, his fingers brushed the edge of her panties.

“I felt the warmth inside of you,” he said. He pushed aside the silky material and slipped his fingers into her, feeling the slick warmth between her legs. Jillian gasped and her mouth opened, her head tilted back, leaning against the cool marble.

“Oh, Spencer,” she said breathlessly.

Beneath her dress, Spencer’s hand moved slowly, working in and out of her. “Your warmth. Jill, I felt it all around me.” They kissed again and she found herself giving in to the hot sensations that were washing through her. She let herself go in the moment and her legs opened and she pushed back against his hand. In rhythm with the thrusts of his fingers her hips swayed and rolled and she could feel the passion growing from somewhere deep inside her…

“Oh, Jillian,” Spencer whispered.

It was as if Spencer’s finally breaking down and talking about his brush with death had worked on him like an aphrodisiac. Their lovemaking that night in their big new bed started intensely and then gained in fervor.

Spencer lay between his wife’s legs, thrusting into her with a wild passion, grinding, penetrating her, his buttocks working hard like a machine, pumping into her without thought or tenderness. Jillian’s eyes were hazy and filmy as if she had been drugged. Her lips were dry, her mouth parched. She tried to raise her head but it fell back on the pillow, as if her neck was not strong enough to support it. As she slumped backward, Spencer’s thrusts increased, redoubling his efforts, as if the sex had taken over his brain and he was working on pure animal instinct, as if taking her as deeply as possible was the only thing on his mind, something he was driven to do.

Through her foggy brain, Jillian suddenly realized that this was the first time they had made love since the incident in space. And it was not the way they had done it before. Spencer had always been a tender, considerate lover and she had worshipped him for it.

“Spencer,” she said weakly, trying to slow him down. “Spencer, what…”

But Spencer bore down harder on her and put his lips to her ear. “Jillian,” he whispered even as he thrust into her even harder, “Jillian… Jillian…”

Jillian tried to speak through haze, but her throat was dry and the words were hard to form on her lips. “Spencer,” she managed to gasp, “I can’t…”

Spencer was whispering her name over and over but as he spoke the words in her ear became garbled and then changed to a meaningless gibberish. Jillian raised her arm—it felt like it was attached to lead weights—and put her hand to the side of his face. “Spencer,” she said, her voice even weaker now, “Please…”

Without halting his powerful thrusts into her, Spencer covered her eyes with his hand. Somehow Jillian felt that the blackness was impenetrable, the darkness shooting through her and overwhelming all of her senses.

In the darkness the sounds of their lovemaking seemed to fade away, but the sound of Spencer’s garbled, unintelligible chatter continued to susurration in her ear.

“Spencer?” Jillian moaned.

And now, Spencer’s garbled speech changed. It sounded like the screaming, chattering of a hoard of insects, very far off but certainly audible. The instant she heard it, Jillian felt a bolt of fear shoot through her like a hot bullet.

“Spencer?” she said, her voice full of dread. The distorted insect-like screaming seemed to be getting closer. Spencer did not answer, but kept his hand over her eyes and thrust into her with even greater vigor, pounding away at her without cease.