This Was The First Time He Ever Did It - John Fetto

The first time he ever did it was at a cabin in a state he had never been before. It took nine hours and two transfers before he stepped off the jet, rented the car and pulled into the cabin. He took his suitcase, and carried it to the door where he set it down to find the key under the mat. Inside, the air filtered through large floor to ceiling windows, looking out on the woods. The fall leaves had faded from green to rust. The sky was overcast and woods stood without shadow. But the cabin had two stories, a hot tub and three bedrooms all for one couple.

She arrived a half hour later, carrying a bag of groceries, smiling, like a wife home from work. She went straight to the kitchen, efficient, skilled, enjoying the fresh, whole food like his wife had before she died. When the sauce was finished, and the room filled with the smell of sweet tomato, she lifted a ladle to taste, smiled and winked, and savored the taste in a way that made him think of what they would savor soon. But he sat and ate, and didn’t do anything more proactive than chat about the film he brought and tinker with the video and the tv then return to the feast they had made. He talked, he must have, he talked all the time, sometimes talking about what he was thinking but usually not. In his mind he’d convinced himself he deserved this, as if it had been given him. He ate the food she made, drank the wine he brought, and looked at her, looked at how young and beautiful she was, and let himself forget she was someone else’s wife.