His New

 

"What?" my wife asked, seeing me staring at her.

"N...nothing," I mumbled, hardly able to look her in the eyes.

"What?" she asked again. "We promised honesty with one another, didn't we?"

"Y...yes," I said softly.

"So tell me what, then."

I looked up, met her eyes, looked down again. "I...I forgot how pretty you looked on our wedding night," you said. It had been ten years since I'd seen her in her wedding lingerie; until an hour ago I didn't even know she still had it.

She smiled. "You had that same look in your eyes," she said.

"When you took your dress off and stood there wearing that, I...I couldn't believe you were mine, that you were my wife." I said.

"Sweetie..."

"And...and ten years later, I...I don't know how but you're prettier now than then."

"I'm still yours," she said.

"Not...not like then," I said.

"I mean...I'm still your wife."

"How did he...why...I didn't even know you...you had that."

She shrugged. "He asked," she said. "Do you still have your wedding night lingerie."

"I...I remember asking once," I said. "You said you didn't remember.

She looked at me, glanced away. "That...that's different," she said. "He...he's...you know."

"I know," I said, feeling the familiar angst in my stomach. "I just...I mean..."

"I know," she said. "It's symbolic, that...that's why he asked."

I knew without her saying. Of course wearing her wedding lingerie for him was symbolic. How could it not be. She was wearing what she wore the night she became mine, just now for him. Of course it was symbolic. "Last time you wore that was the night you became mine," I said, needing to verbalize it, needing to hear her response.

She knew what I wanted to hear and was willing to say it because it was the truth. "And now I wear it to become his," she said.

My eyes fluttered closed, and a soft moan, a release of held breath, escaped my lips.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Give me a second," I said. It dawned on me what must have intended, why the wedding lingerie, what it signified. "When...when you say his...you...you mean..."

She nodded. "He was clear when we met him," she said.

I remembered. Of course I remembered. He's told us the first time we met him for drinks. If she becomes mine, he said, she'll be exclusively mine.

"I didn't think...I mean...you're my wife," I said.

"Yes," she agreed, "and I aways will be. You'll always have my heart, I'll always love you. I...I just..." She looked at herself. "This part of me is his now."