She was panting and proud, and I knelt at her feet. She pulled me forward by my collar, brusquely, the way she did when I was little and had accidentally let the word “fuck” slither out of my mouth. A yank, and my face was an inch from hers. She kissed me on the forehead. “I didn’t know I could do that,” she said once she caught her breath. She took a shower, largely on her own, and I had never seen her so proud of her own body before. My spouse was right. I would never ask his permission to go home. It wasn’t his permission to give.
