The couple sat on either end of the down-filled loveseat, their legs turned away from one another, their heads looking straight ahead at the Michael Fassbender-lookalike who was their marriage counselor.

“So Alice, last week you expressed frustration that Sam refuses to sleep with you. Do you want to talk more about that?” Michael asked, looking deeply into Alice’s eyes in an extremely distracting manner. Alice felt herself grow warm, then wet, and she crossed her legs as if to contain her desire, and then she winced, realizing she had only made her desire more obvious.

“Well, it all started when Tommy, our son, was born,” Alice began. “Sam was working two jobs, and it didn’t make much sense for us both to wake up every two hours to feed the baby, so I slept in the master with Tommy, and Sam slept in the guest room by himself.”

Michael nodded and licked his lips, and Alice imagined what those lips would feel like on her lips, in the hollow of her neck, down the softness of her belly.

“And how did that make you feel?” Michael asked in his husky, gentle voice.

“How did it feel?” Alice thought to herself. “It felt like ecstasy.”

But Michael wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Sam.

Sam moved his weight from one butt cheek to another and cleared his throat. Sam didn’t like to talk about his feelings. That was the problem. That was why they were here.

“It was OK, I guess,” Sam mumbled. “I mean, like Alice said, I was working two jobs and the kid was up all night, and I didn’t mind being in the guest room. At least not for the first couple months.”

“Did you and Alice still have regular sex despite sleeping in separate rooms?” Michael inquired.

Alice felt a rush of pleasure at these words, as she imagined Michael imagining her having incredible, passionate sex. Alice could see practically see the thought bubble above Michael’s head. Of course, in that filmy, opalescent bubble, Alice was having sex with Michael, not Sam.

“Regular sex,” Sam repeated slowly, seemingly discomfited by the question. “You mean regular as in missionary or regular as in a lot?”

“Regular as in more than occasionally,” Michael answered.

“No,” Sam replied, “it ain’t been regular for over 25 years.”

And in that instant, Alice saw herself, naked and untamed astride Michael Fassbender, promptly deflate and float away.

 

—

Prompt:

“To turn emptiness into ecstasy” — Edwin Romond, from One Good Thing