My Dead Wife's Ex Will Do Bonus Prequel

The weather should be miserable when I bury my wife. It should be raining all the tears that I can't seem to cry myself. Lightning should be cracking across the sky, the way my heart keeps breaking when I think about how I'm going to live without her. Thunder should be booming, the way I want to rage at God for taking her from me so soon. Instead, it's a gorgeous spring morning in late May, without a cloud in the sky, with soft breezes caressing my cheeks and ruffling through my hair, the way Leah's hands did only a few days ago. It's the height of spring migration and I wish that I were in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery for birding with my binoculars, instead of for a burial.

My stepdaughter, Kelsey, clings to my hand. She's between me and her biological father, Victor Hendricks, in the front row of the fifty or so people who have come for Leah's burial service. I don't even know half of them. They're friends of Leah's, colleagues, some extended family that I maybe last saw at our wedding, if I ever met them at all.

When it comes time to toss handfuls of earth onto my wife's polished coffin, Kelsey resists.

"Why are we throwing dirt on Mama? She wouldn't like that."

Leah was the executive director of a nonprofit that connects farmers to restaurants that buy directly from them and spent summers touring farms and learning about their products, so she's used to being covered in dirt. Still, I understand Kelsey's point. I've been to many a Catholic burial service and I know why we throw earth on a coffin while it's being lowered—dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and all that—but I don't have to like it, either.

Before I can say anything, Victor sweeps her up in his arms, even though at nearly twelve, she's getting too big for that. He's strong enough to do it, though, this fitness instructor who cut back on his in-person classes when Leah's cancer got serious and moved into the ground floor apartment in our brownstone to help out.

He whispers something in her ear and she nods. After I take a handful of earth from the shovel Father Gabriel holds out and scatter it over Leah's casket, Victor approaches with Kelsey still in his arms. Instead of throwing dirt, the two of them throw kisses to her. It makes my throat tighten and my eyes well up.

Victor has spent the past year with us while Leah was dying and, every single day, he found the exact right thing to say or do for one of us.

"Thank you," I mouth when they return to where I'm standing. He touches my arm and smiles sadly at me.

The rest of the mourners file along and say their goodbyes, while Victor holds Kelsey in his arms with her back to the gravesite so that she doesn't have to see dirt raining down on her mother. A handful of people also elect to throw kisses instead of dirt and I make a mental note to tell Kelsey that later.

Father Gabriel says the last prayers and the mourners start filing past Victor and me now. I accept condolences and hugs and the awkward things people say to the bereaved and gradually, thankfully, the crowd starts to thin. The funeral parlor's black car will take us back to the brownstone, other mourners will trickle in by subway or Uber, we'll have a proper Catholic wake that Victor has managed the arrangements for, and in about—I sneak a look at my watch in between condolences from one of Leah's colleagues and some cousin whose name I've already forgotten—eight hours, the house will be empty except for Kelsey, Victor, and me.

I don't know how I'll stand it.

"What a day, huh?" I wind my way from the kitchen to the living room, navigating around the baby grand piano that takes up what would otherwise be the dining room in Jason and Leah's house. Jason is sitting on the sofa, his head resting against the back, his hands resting on his thighs. His suit jacket is draped over the banister. His tie is loosened, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, his dark hair mussed like he's been running his fingers through it.

And there's never been a more horrible person on the planet than me right now.

I'm looking at the widower of my best friend—who I've known since high school, who spent the last year dying before my eyes, whose fucking funeral we attended today—and all I can focus on are his hands. On his thighs. On his long fingers that stretch to play that baby grand piano in this house and the organ in the church where Leah's funeral was held.

I am going to Hell. If I believed in such a place, that is. I'm not the devout Catholic that Jason is, but I went to eight years of Catholic school and I know about sin. I've long since rejected the notion that it's a sin to fall in love with another man. Or to kiss a man, suck his dick, fuck him, take pleasure from him and give him pleasure in return. These things are not sinful, or bad, or wrong. But it's definitely wrong to want to do those things with my best friend's husband. Widower. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Leah is still very much present in this house.

We moved the hospital bed out of the living room the day after she died and restored the sofa, coffee table, and armchairs that Jason had moved downstairs into the apartment I've been living in while Leah's been sick. There's still a bed in that apartment and I'll sleep there tonight, but I don't want to leave Jason alone with his grief just yet.

"Here." I set a cut-glass tumbler of whisky on the coffee table in front of him. It's the good shit, a nice, smoky scotch over a large square ice cube and with just a splash of soda water. I've been watching Jason drink his fear and grief away every night these last several months and I know how he likes his whisky.

"Thanks," he says without opening his eyes or reaching for the glass.

I settle onto the sofa next to him. Leah's favorite sweater hangs on one of the pegs near the front door. Her shoes are still lined up in the little entryway between the outside front door and the door to the parlor level of the house. Her clothes are still upstairs in the bedroom she and Jason shared, and her daughter—our daughter—is asleep in the second bedroom on the same floor. I know that last part because I just checked on her. Kelsey had resisted going to bed as long as possible, but she'd finally fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the sofa and I'd carried her upstairs to bed. I tucked her in with the stuffed octopus Leah gave her right before she started chemo.

"She's out," I say. "Didn't even stir when I put her down."

Jason nods, still without opening his eyes. "Good. That's good."

I take a sip of my own scotch and the silence stretches between us. Outside, a dog barks down the street. At some point, it started raining and now there's the swish of a car driving along the wet street. The sounds carry through the windows someone cracked open to air out the smell of too many casseroles and too many people. Now it smells like rain. Wet earth and growing things.

At least it didn't rain during the burial service. And now I'm thinking about the wet earth surrounding Leah's casket. And, absurdly, that old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode when Buffy dies and her friends use magic to bring her back to life and she has to dig herself out of her own grave.

I take a big swallow of scotch and my hand shakes when I lift the glass, the ice cube rattling against the sides. Jesus. It's just a television show. Leah and I rewatched the whole thing shortly after I moved into the downstairs apartment when she was diagnosed. At the time, it didn't occur to either of us to skip the episodes when someone died. On the other hand, that would have significantly shortened our re-watch.

Leah's dead and there's no such thing as vampires or magic to bring her back to life. She's not suffocating in her coffin. I might suffocate, though, from the weight of losing her.

Jason leans forward, picks up his glass, and takes a sip. Rather than watch him swallow and risk him noticing, I jump up and cross to the front windows.

"Rain's coming in," I toss over my shoulder. "I'll just close these, okay?"

He doesn't reply. I pull the three sashes down and tug the curtains closed over the windows. Jason had them installed when we moved Leah's bed down to the living room in her last few weeks, so that she could have some privacy from the street outside, though she never wanted us to close them at night.

"I'm going to change," Jason says. "Don't lea—" He clears his throat. "Um, will you stay a little longer?"

"Of course," I say. I'll stay as long as he needs me.

While he trudges upstairs, I start gathering the last of the glasses and small plates left scattered around from the wake. I fill the dishwasher and start it, then start hand-washing the items that don't fit. It's easy to do by feel—running the soapy sponge over plates and glasses, then rinsing them off—because I can't see a goddamn thing through the tears filling my eyes. I let the tears fall into the soapy water filling the sink until I feel a hand on my back.

"You don't need to do that, Vic—" Jason starts. "Oh, hey…"

He gets his other hand on my shoulder and turns me to face him. I note vaguely that he's put on a gray T-shirt and then he's holding me tight against him, one arm around my waist, his other hand cupping the back of my neck.

Victor's shoulders shake in my embrace and his chest heaves against mine. I hold him tight and tuck my face into his shoulder and, for the first time since Leah died while holding my hand, I'm able to cry. We're both crying. Harsh, racking sobs that may never end.

They do, of course. Everything ends eventually. Victor stops first and strokes his hands up and down my back to soothe me. When I finally lift my head and look at him, his eyes are still wet, his dark blond eyelashes glistening.

"I'm—"

"Don't apologize," I say. "I know how much you love—loved her."

The past tense sticks in my throat. Victor's lips part like he's about to say something. They're pink and well-shaped and his tongue passes over his bottom lip, now as wet and glistening as his eyes.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, why am I staring at Victor's lips? Or his eyes, for that matter?

I let go of him and step back. I retrieve our glasses from the coffee table and pour a healthy amount in each glass. I should go to bed. It's been a long day on top of an even longer week, and an interminable year that still went by too fast. But I can't bear the thought of getting into the bed upstairs that I shared with Leah. I should let Victor go to bed in the downstairs apartment. But I get the feeling that he doesn't want to be alone with his grief, either.

There's half a chocolate torte on the kitchen island and I fetch two forks from the silverware drawer. No sense dirtying up another plate after Victor's done the dishes. I hand a fork to Victor and point mine at the torte.

"Want some?"

He loves chocolate. He and Leah both. They fight—fought—each other for the last bite of any chocolate dessert. Like children—forks clanking against each other like swords, trash-talking good-natured insults at each other.

Victor accepts the fork, like I knew he would, and stabs it into the torte. We take down the rest of the torte, I refill our whisky glasses again, and we don't talk much. We exchange glances now and then. There's something in his gaze. Something that I don't think he knows he's revealing. He doesn't normally look this much at me. I don't normally look this much at him.

There's a bit of chocolate smeared on his lip. I reach out and wipe it away with my thumb. His lips part and I slide my thumb along his lips until it reaches the center of his mouth. Victor's tongue darts out between his lips and licks the chocolate from my thumb.

He draws back like he's been burned. "Jay, I—"

"Stop talking."

He stops. He avoids looking directly at me and I realize that he's never looked this much at me. He's lived in the downstairs apartment for the past year, has been a Godsend during the most difficult time of my life, and I don't think our eyes have met the entire time. I reach out and grasp his chin in my hand. I tilt his face up so that he can't avoid looking at me. His eyes are a vivid blue and while I look at him—while I actually see him—something happens between us.

I look at a man who has supported my family—taking care of Leah, picking up Kelsey from school, helping her with homework, taking on household duties while I'm at work—and I see a man who has never once asked for anything for himself.

I see the shape of something I've never admitted I might want.

I don't lunge at him. I lean forward deliberately, telegraphing my intent as clearly as I can, and I see his eyes widen before I close mine when our lips meet. He tastes like chocolate and whisky. He doesn't react, at first. I've shocked him even more than I've shocked myself, I suppose. But when he responds, it's with abandon.

I'm dreaming. Within the nightmare of losing my best friend that I've been living in, I'm dreaming. I must be, because in no waking world would Jason Perez be kissing me. And yet he is. And oh god, kissing him is better than any of the fantasies I absolutely, positively have not been having about my best friend's husband. His lips are firm and his tongue is slick and he's taking charge of my mouth in the best way possible and, if I am dreaming, I never want to wake up again.

He pulls back and we both gasp for air, and I brace myself. This is it, the awkward apology, the justification of too much whisky, the I don't know what came over me, the I can't do this. Maybe the what the fuck do you think you're doing?

Instead, Jason pours us each another two fingers of scotch, takes a swig of his, gestures with the glass in his hand at mine, then heads for the living room like nothing has happened between us.

I gulp half of mine down before I follow him.

By the time I reach the living room, Jason has pushed the coffee table off to the side, drunk most of the whisky in his glass, and is standing in the middle of the room, waiting for me. Waiting. For me.

He takes my glass from my unresisting hand, sets it on the coffee table, and kisses me again. He makes short work of the buttons of my dress shirt, pushes it open, and pulls my undershirt from where it's tucked into the waistband of my pants. The moment I feel his hands on my bare stomach is the moment I stop giving a fuck about whether this is a dream or not and give in to whatever he wants to do to me.

We stand there kissing for what feels like hours, Jason's hands exploring under my shirts. I cup his face in my hands and caress his jaw with my thumbs and twine my fingers in his hair and stroke the back and sides of his neck, all while kissing him and kissing him and kissing him. Like there's no tomorrow, because a small voice in the back of my mind is repeating over and over that this will never happen again so I better make the most of it.

Jason undoes the buttons at the cuffs of my sleeves—while still kissing me—and shoves my dress shirt off my shoulders and down my arms until it's off and tossed somewhere over his shoulder. We have to stop kissing briefly while he wrestles my undershirt over my head but then we're back at it immediately, tongues tangling, teeth occasionally clashing. Another brief separation of our lips when I pull his T-shirt off and now I'm running my hands all over his chest and back.

His hand closes over my left pec and squeezes, then he plucks at and pinches my nipple and my knees go weak.

When he pulls back this time, he looks me straight in the eyes and says, "On your knees."

I don't argue, or ask Are you sure? or do anything but obey. I sink to my knees. He pulls his dick out of his lounge pants and grabs me by the hair. This manhandling is totally working for me and I open my mouth to receive him. I bring my considerable cock-sucking talents to bear—I've had a lot of practice—and within seconds he's fully hard and panting half-mumbled curses above my bobbing head. One hand grips my shoulder and the other pulls my hair and I can't remember when giving a blowjob wound me up so much that I might come before he does.

It's glorious.

His dick batters at my throat and there's spit sliding down my chin and I'm clutching his hips to keep myself upright when he finally pulls himself out of my grasp with a desperate moan. He grips the base of his dick, his head hanging down, chest heaving in panting breaths.

Then he drops to his knees beside me, opens the button and zip of my suit pants, and peels me out of pants and underwear in one easy move. He still hasn't said anything and I don't say anything either. I'm afraid to break whatever spell we're under. When I'm naked, he shoves his own pants off and kicks them away. He kisses me hungrily and I know he must taste himself on my tongue and he doesn't seem to mind. Then he grasps my shoulder and turns me so that I fall onto my hands and knees with him behind me.

I don't lie to myself that this would be easier if Victor isn't looking at me. It's just that I'll come in seconds if he keeps sucking me like that and I don't want this to end so soon.

Victor's back is a marble sculptor's wet dream. The muscles of a man who does yoga every day, who's been carrying my dying wife up and down stairs for a year. It's been ages since I've had sex. Obviously, that wasn't a priority while my wife was sick. I've missed it, of course, but in an abstract way that I haven't thought much about. But Victor's warm body beneath me, the way his back arches when I run my hands down his spine, his panting breaths falling from his mouth—I want it, him, anything, everything. Christ, I want.

I kneel up behind him, sandwiching his legs between mine, and drape myself over him. I've never fucked a man before and I don't even know if Victor would be into that. Rather than initiate an awkward conversation about that—and risk either of us coming to our senses—I slide my cock along the line where his thighs are pressed together. It slips in between them and I lean more of my weight onto Victor's back. The muscles in his arms flex and stand out, but he keeps himself upright and pushes back against me, so I take that as an invitation to keep going.

I thrust in between his thighs while sucking hard kisses into the side of his neck.

"Jay, please," Victor pants and I reach around to grasp his cock. It's hot and stiff and leaking steadily from the tip. When I stroke him in time with my thrusts, Victor groans. "Fuck, yes, just like that. Please don't stop."

I should stop. I should never have started this. But I don't stop. I don't stop until Victor shudders underneath me and coats my hand with his release. I stroke him through the aftershocks and when his cock stops pulsing in my hand, I pull back.

He drops down onto his elbows, breathing like a bellows, then rolls onto his side. Before he can say anything, I shove at his shoulder until he turns onto his back. Then I straddle his hips and wrap my hand around my cock. Victor looks up at me with a dazed expression while I jerk myself roughly. Half a dozen strokes is all it takes and I unload onto his chest in long stripes.

The force of my orgasm makes me light-headed and I slump over Victor. My forehead drops onto his chest and I rest there for a minute, breathing heavy, waiting for the stars to clear behind my closed eyes. Victor's hand curls around the back of my neck.

Tears prickle behind my eyelids. Just the day before yesterday, Leah curled her smaller fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck, just like this.

Blessed Virgin and all the saints, what have I done here?

Jason pushes himself upright and away from me. I don't try to keep him. He's not looking at me now. I don't really know what to say to him. Are you okay? Doesn't really seem like he is. Are we okay? How could we be? I just had sex with my best friend's husband. Who was just widowed three fucking days ago. Not to mention, there is no we between me and my best friend's widower.

Jason grabs his clothes and stalks to the powder room tucked between the living room and the kitchen. I lie on the floor and stare up at the elaborate plaster medallion surrounding the light fixture on the ceiling, one of the historical touches in the house that Leah and Jason carefully restored when they bought it.

Well done, Hendricks. Leah would be so proud of you.

Last week, when Leah knew the end was getting close, she insisted I sit next to her hospital bed and listen to what she called her final wishes.

"Take care of Jason for me, okay?" she'd said. "It's going to be rough on him, especially with Kelsey to take care of. I know I don't have to ask you to be there for Kelsey, but can you also try to be there for him, too?"

I'm pretty fucking sure this is not what she meant.

I hear the toilet flush and water running in the powder room. I sit up and search for my clothes. My suit pants are under the coffee table, my boxer briefs still tucked inside them. My undershirt is draped along the edge of an armchair and my dress shirt somehow ended up near the front door. I scrub Jason's jizz from my skin with a handful of tissues and pull these clothes on. Then I track down my suit jacket and tie, both of which I'd hung on a peg near the front door at some point during the wake. I stuff the tie in a pocket and shrug into the jacket.

It's still raining outside and an ungodly hour in the middle of the night. Still, I can't bear to just go downstairs to my apartment after what happened. I'll go for a walk and fuck the rain. And my suit.

You're stalling, I tell my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

I've cleaned myself up as best I could. Pissed out a gallon of the whisky I drank. Swiped a washcloth wet with cold water over my now-soft, unrepentant cock. Splashed more cold water on my flushed face and ran wet hands through my sweat-dampened hair. Washed my hands with soap and water. Dressed in the same lounge pants and T-shirt I'd stripped myself of before removing Victor's clothes.

Time to face the music. Face Victor and what I've done to him. Not just what I've done to the memory of my wife. What I've done to his memory of his best friend. I have no idea what to say to him. I'm sorry seems so inadequate. Inaccurate? a small voice whispers in the back of my mind.

I stamp hard on that thought. Of course I'm sorry. Sorry that I initiated a sexual encounter with my wife's best friend. A man, the voice adds.

I've known that I've been attracted to men for most of my life, but I've never acted on these feelings. I've never needed to face these feelings, as I've also always been attracted to women and exclusively dated women. And there's been no one else for me—male or female—after I met and fell in love with Leah. When I married her, I vowed to her and before God that I would love, honor, and be faithful to her for the rest of our lives. I have never been tempted to break that vow before now.

Also not entirely accurate, and for the love of all the saints, that little voice in my head can shut the hell up now.

Except that something between Victor and me has changed over these last few months. I've ignored it. Suppressed it. Pretended it was nothing while tending to my dying wife. I'm not at all sure I can face it now.

Still, I need to face Victor tonight. I square my shoulders and turn the knob on the bathroom door.

Victor is dressed, as well, in the pants and shirt I stripped off him, with his suit jacket on. He's putting his shoes on at the door and I open my mouth, even though I have no idea what to say to him.

"I'm going for a walk before bed," he says quietly. "You should try to get some sleep. Kiss Kelsey for me when she wakes up in the morning."

He slips out the front door without giving me a chance to speak. The latch closes with a soft click behind him.

I stand in the middle of my living room, where I just fucked my dead wife's best friend, while rain beats against the windows, and tell myself that letting him go without talking about it is for the best.

It is for the best.

Right?