Free Cycles by Deborah Boyer

 
     
     
Friday
     
     
          I feel suspiciously like a beefsteak tomato. Huge, fleshy, on the verge of rotten—about to burst through a too-thin skin. Yep, it's the time of the month when a woman whose period is no longer useful—I've had my kids, thank you very much—gets to rue its continued existence. Today is my third day in the trenches and I'm swollen from scalp to toes, bleeding like a stuck pig, irritable, bitchy—and horny as hell. Such a great combination. I can see it now: Cole comes home and I say “Do me, baby, but don't touch”.
     
          I got the boys off to school and figured now was as good a time as any to clean out the crawlspace. A little solitude, you know? Keep my moody self to myself and accomplish something while I do. But procrastination goes with my sluggish, over-ripeness and I'm sitting here, poking through old pictures: baby pictures, wedding pictures and now, near the bottom of the box, dating pictures. Young love. Taken when we believed nothing would cool our passion. We were going to be the old couple who still holds hands. But here we are, going on twenty years and we're in a rut. A truck-stopping, crater-sized, frozen-slush-filled rut.
     
          Things aren't bad, generally speaking, because we're still best friends. And we've had rocky years—everybody does—that's not the problem. Simply seems the last ten months or so, when it comes to sex, we can't get it right. Time is one problem; between the kids and housework and skiing and the vet practice, we're rarely both in the mood. Even when we eke out an evening alone, sex isn't very good. Like having your mouth all ready for prime rib and ending up at McDonald's—it fills the space, but it's flat and tasteless. Simply put, sex has gotten boring. Dull enough to be a chore. And lately, I think we both take any excuse to avoid it, even when we want it.
     
          I say we because I'm not the only one who lacks enthusiasm. Take this morning, when Cole found out Bryce and Joel were going to a sleep over. He waggled his brows with obvious intent until I shook my head, motioned at the calendar and held up two fingers—two days until my period's done. He shrugged like it was no big deal and that was that.
     
          But you know, looking at these pictures, I remember when it wouldn't have mattered. It didn't matter who was tired, who was indisposed, who had to get up early—sex was still exciting and delicious, and we'd come so hard we could barely breathe.
     
          And once we caught our breath, we'd start over.
     
          What's so different now? We don't get as creative as we did in the beginning. It used to be we were always looking for new ways to light the fire. But after so many years, there's not much left that's new, I guess...
     
          Well, nothing I'd do anyway. I mean no extra people and no farm animals, thank you very much.
     
          I snort at my own sarcasm and the dust gives me sneezes.
     
          Wiping my nose, I laugh. At least I've cheered myself up a little. But seriously, I don't think there's something Cole wants that we haven't done, either. If there is, I wish he'd ask, or tell, or write it down because I would be on it like snow on the slopes! Maybe we're both out of ideas. Maybe we've reached some secret matrimonial stage where everybody discovers that, from this moment on, it's touch-by-numbers—and I'm really praying that's not the case.
     
          Because I love him. I like him. All of him. Even as we get older, I still like the way he looks. So it's not a physical dissatisfaction I've heard other women complain about. I mean, sure, he's not the hardbody he once was—but I'm certainly not defying any gravitational barriers. And since he's still interested enough to watch me get undressed, I don't think he's bothered by that either.
     
          We also talk less. Only because we don't need to. I used to get a charge from trying to figure