Chapter 10 - Rick

“Michonne, what is this?”

“That’s Judith’s swimsuit.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“Huh? Let me see.” Michonne answers, taking the two glittery, multicolored scraps of cloth from my hand. “Here’s the top, and this is the bottom. It’s a bikini, Rick. It’s cute right? Your mother got it for Judith.”

“Nah.”

Laughing and shaking her head, swishing her bare shoulders, Michonne tosses the multi-colored, unicorn themed pieces into Judith’s Wonder Woman suitcase. “What do you mean ‘nah’?”

Pressing my lips together, and crinkling my nose at my wife’s dismissal of my concerns regarding the offending garment, I offer in rebuttal, “There’s barely anything to it. Look how small that thing is!”

“Rick, bikinis are a summer tradition. She wears them to the beach and the pool at my house in LA all the time. I wear bikinis in the summer. Remember?” She reminds me, with a short ruffle of my hair, and a kiss to my cheek. A futile attempt to soothe my agitation. I remember her and those tiny bikinis she has tortured me with since we were kids. I remember her laying out on the sand in LA, the skin bronzing her velvety skin with only a few triangles of cloth between her and its kiss. And I remember the lewd looks other men used to give her. Yeah I remember bikinis. I remember LA. And I remember that in a few short days she will be back there, without me.

This is the first time since Michonne and the kids arrived in the spring, since I’ve had my family all back together, all to myself, that I would be without them. The kids to Orlando and Disney with my parents and hers. My wife back to the west coast for work. Even Granddad has decided to abandon me, taking the opportunity to visit one of his old war buddies over in Alabama for a few days. 

But out of all of those things, most importantly, the thing that gives me the most pause, is my wife going to California. Without me.

It’s not that I don’t understand why she’s going. Or that I don’t fully support her doing her job. It’s that… well I guess her being there, and me being here represents a time in our lives where we lived separately. Where she had begun to build a bond with another man. And even though she mentioned that the other man is out of the country, and he’s not in California waiting to take her back from me, there is a general discomfort. Things have been so good with us that I can’t help but wonder if the other shoe isn’t just waiting to drop. To bring my heart back down to earth. One crumbled, tattered chunk at a time. 

Not to mention that I simply don’t know where I stand with Michonne. A day hasn’t gone by in the last three months where she hasn’t told me she loves me. Only a few rare evenings have passed without her in my arms at night. Her ass nestled against my cock most mornings. But…she’s still not wearing her ring on her finger, and we haven’t discussed those divorce papers she served me with. They’re still buried at the bottom of my underwear drawer, an ominous specter of what could happen, taunting me every time I reach for clean boxer shorts. It’s bothering me. Eating me up in little bites. So much so that in frustration I even chatted a little about it with the least likely person to get relationship advice from. Shane. It was just general talk, and of course his advice to just tell her to put her ring back on, tear up the divorce papers, and announce that we are back together for good, isn’t going to work with Michonne. She’s not the kind of woman that takes too well to heavy handedness…bedroom antics aside. 

Regardless, I do think we have gotten to re-acquainted with each other as husband and wife, just like I wanted. Our lives have settled into a domestic pattern of taking care of the kids, cooking at the farm, eating our meals together, sharing the peaks and valleys of our work lives together. Michonne even allowed me to accompany her and the kids to her parents’ Juneteenth party at their house, happily re-introducing me to her family, reminding her mother’s elderly uncle with a patient smile that yes she is still married to that white boy from next door. 

On the surface, everything looks like we are back together again. But, I’m not sure that we have come full circle just yet. We’re living in the in-between, but we haven’t talked about what comes next. When her show wraps up for the season in October and it takes her and the kids back to California. About the plans I have put in place should she decide to put my ring back on her finger. If she doesn’t, the honest truth is that as tough as I may seem on the outside, internally I’m not sure I could survive a reality again where Michonne is only real to me in pictures, memories…dreams.

Pulled back into the conversation by the sing song twinkle of Judith’s little voice calling to me, informing me in her tiny sweet voice that I’m yanking her hair too tightly, I grimace, then loosen my grip on the thick puff of coily locks I’m trying to detangle. Leaning to the side to check on my baby girl, I make contact with a pair of wide blue eyes, large as saucers, that resemble my own, and give her a small smile in apology. “I’m sorry, Judy Bear, your hair got very tangled today. Daddy will try to be more gentle.” I promise, on a peck to her chubby cheek, then turn back to Michonne to answer her question. “Yeah I remember bikinis. Doesn’t mean I want my baby girl running around like that. Swimsuits with everything just…out there.” I scoff, frowning I drop the large, wide-toothed comb that Michonne requires me to use on the kids’ hair, onto my lap for a second. “Bikinis on you make me insane enough as it is, Chonne.”

Sitting on Michonne’s lap as she sorts through the mound of clean clothes, folds and sorts them into each of the children’s suitcases, and drawers, Andre sleepily snuggles into his mother, then rubs his hand over her increasingly swollen tummy. “Mama’s tummy is getting too fat for swimsuits wif’ everything out there, Daddy.” 

Michonne and I both stop for a moment, our eyes locking in shock. While her stomach is getting bigger as she gets closer to the end of her first trimester, I suppose we never gave much thought to whether or not anyone outside of us and the OBGYN in her parents’ practice knew anything about it. Her shirts and dresses are flowy enough that unless you’re looking for a bump, you probably wouldn’t notice it. 

Andre though, he’s very perceptive, and always has his eyes on his mama. Not really what some would consider a ‘mama’s boy’ or anything, he just pays attention to details. Especially when it comes to Michonne. Carl is perceptive as well, maybe in a more subdued way, but if nothing else he is fiercely protective of his mother, and had no problem coming to her rescue one evening as a family movie night turned into a tickling frenzy, with Michonne laughing so hard she was nearly in tears. Tears that a five-year-old Carl didn’t understand. A playfulness between his parents that though the children are getting used to it, they still don’t fully appreciate the joviality behind it. And now this.

After a pregnancy test, and ultrasound confirmed the existence of another little Grimes a few weeks ago, we decided to keep it to ourselves for a little longer. There was no real discussion as to why. No clear rationale behind it that I could vocalize, and Michonne offered none of her own. The baby isn’t in danger. Michonne is healthy. Even taking more precautions at work with not overheating on the set, getting rest in her trailer as her body calls for it. Allowing me to spend the majority of our evenings taking care of her. I guess it just seemed like it was too soon to tell anyone, to let everyone in. Because we would have to let everyone in. Neither of our families understand the concepts of giving people space, or minding their own business, which has been made very clear as we are all living under the same roof. I have lost count of the number of comments Michonne and I have suffered through about the noise level from our bedroom. And an announcement that my wife and I are expecting again would certainly lead to questions about Michonne’s and my relationship that I don’t know if she’s ready to answer. 

On the other hand, I get the urge to tell anyone who would listen, to scream from the rooftops that once again my wife was pregnant with another of my babies. It’s something that I no longer fear, I embrace it. If anything positive ever came out of Michonne’s and my separation, it was that I have gained the confidence that I am a good father. I can change diapers, fix bottles, and wash, detangle, and braid Judith’s hair into a decent approximation of a hairstyle worthy of a princess. Michonne and I tackling this parenting thing together simply amplifies how much we have both shouldered alone, and how welcome a change it is to have the other there to share the load. To laugh at the little things like a successful night where no one’s bed was wet. And the big things like having her with me when my body is sore from working on the farm, my mind exhausted from managing the businesses, and all I need in this world is my wife’s touch. A single kiss. 

Then there’s the fact that I love when Michonne’s pregnant. She’s already so beautiful to me, but there is something about the soft roundness of her and her features when she’s with child that literally steals my breath. Every single time I’m inside of her, the welcoming heat of her body while she’s pregnant almost immediately steals my cool from me. I can’t help it. When she’s pregnant her breasts are so mouthwateringly full, plump, enticing. Her pink jewel is always so wet, so ready, so tight, so hot. So everything.

That first night we were together, as soon as I entered her, every subsequent stroke, every thrust, was with the goal of planting my seed inside of her. Leaving a piece of myself to take root. To grow into a life that would further strengthen my bond with my soulmate. It’s an unspoken thing with us. Even as the doctor printed out the ultrasound pictures, handing over the little black and white images, grainy representations of our little baby, we shared a sheepish grin as she asked if this was our first baby. Perhaps it was the anxious way we watched the screen for the tell tale little fetus, and listened with baited breaths for the much anticipated heart beat, that made it seem that we were overly excited newbies to the pregnancy club. Of course it’s the contrary. We are seasoned veterans at this point. But the awesomeness of what our love accomplishes whenever we are together, never seems to wear off. 

Looking down at where Andre is lovingly laid on her lap, brow furrowed in confusion, Michonne finally finds her voice. “Dre, what do you mean by that, sweetie?”

Looking up from his iPad, finally finding something more interesting than the Roblox game that he’s always so fascinated with, Carl peeks his eyes over the top of the screen from where he’s propped against the headboard of his bed. “Granddad said to Pop Pop that he thinks Daddy has fattened you up again.” With a twist of his mouth, and a few short nods as though his statement fully clarifies his brother’s comment, “And your tummy is getting fat.” He shrugged, then gives his attention back to his iPad, already weary of having to interact with non-animated computer beings. 

Frozen, my gaze fixed on Michonne, I’m not even sure what to say. I can only shrug. Again, we haven’t really said anything to anyone, possibly because of what comes after. At least that’s my thinking, but then Michonne, my wife, she surprises me and pulls Andre up into her arms, and drops a kiss to his cheek and says, “That’s because Daddy did.”

As soon as the words leave Michonne’s lips, I hear my mother through the open door, in her bedroom down the hall laughing, followed by a yelp from my father. “You hear that Richard. I knew she was pregnant again. Now pay up!”

XXXX

“Rick! What’s up, man?”

“Hey, Daryl.” I mumble, shaking out my umbrella and inching out of my wet jacket. Hanging my jacket up, and sliding the umbrella to the side of the entryway, I make my way over to the bar, nodding at a few familiar faces on the way.

Downing a shot of what appears to be whisky first, Daryl nods my way in greeting, “Haven’t seen you in here in awhile.” 

“Yeah, you know when I have the kids, it’s mostly about them. Hanging out in a bar isn’t exactly kid-friendly.” I answer, dropping onto a stool in front of him, then arching my back into a deep stretch, my tired body giving in to the demands of the long day.

Waving his hand in a dismissive slant, Daryl lifts his chin, “I get that. But we serve food here too. It’s tame before 8. You could bring the family in to see Uncle Daryl sometime. Something tells me it’s more of a Chonne thing than a kids thing.”

“It’s both.”

“That’s what I thought. Well you know she’s at that bachelorette party in the back. She’s looking good too. Chonne has always been a pretty woman, Rick.” He offers on a low whistle, then mumbles out the last bit. “Lucky son of a bitch.” 

“Thanks, man. I know she’s here. I came to take her home. I don’t want her out by herself in the rain at night.”

“You driving her back to the farm?”

“Nah, to her apartment across the way.”

“You came into town to walk your wife across the street cause it’s dark and raining?”

“I did.”

“Cause she can’t walk herself across the street at night in the rain?” he asks, pouring a shot of whiskey for me, then another for himself.

Tossing it back, I savor the warm burn of the brown liquid flowing through me before I answer on a gruff snort. “She could.”

Daryl gives me a long, assessing look through the shag of his brown hair that hangs into his eyes. “She must be pregnant again.”

“I-”

“Figures. You always get even more protective when she’s pregnant. Should have known that was coming.”

“What?”

“That’s how you two are. Let me pour you another shot, man. With four kids you’re gonna need it.”

He’s right. Four kids are more than I could have ever asked for. It’s the fulfillment of a dream that I never knew I had. This life is the dream I never knew I could have. It’s for that reason I’m glad that Daryl doesn’t seem to pick up on the eager energy I can feel ebbing through me tonight. It’s the other reason I decided to pick Michonne up here instead of waiting to meet her later. 

Tonight is the first time since she’s been back that I’ve had her all to myself. No family around to try and manage their expectations, no little children’s ears soaking up every word to repeat at a later time. Just me and my wife. 

Without any further discussion on the topic, Daryl and I drink a few more shots together, and settle into stillness as we listen to the singer who’s standing by the end of the bar, crooning a tune I’ve heard before from one of my favorite bands, The Alabama Shakes. In a visceral growl that is a good match of Brittany Howard’s smooth bluesy delivery, the singer belts out the words against a heavy guitar and drum accompaniment.

‘So much is going on
but you can always come around
why don't you sit with me for just a little while
tell me, what's wrong

And you just give me all your love
give me all you got baby

Give me all your love
that I know…’

I don’t recognize the singer, but her words have captured my attention. Drive my thoughts away from me wanting to chat with Daryl about a hunting trip we both wanted to take in the fall. Instead I sink into thoughts of my wife. Of what comes next. Pulling my feelings out of the dank basement, a dark, doubtful place, overflowing with all of the things, moments, thoughts, bits and pieces of myself that I simply cannot allow to flourish. Whose thick tentacles would keep me from looking forward to settle things. Determine how to add some finality to our reunion, speak the words that my heart guards away from the light of day in fear…fear of the thing that haunts my dreams sometimes. The quiet moments when I don’t have her or my kids near me. Rejection. Fear that what I can offer her is not enough to surmount the separation that I allowed to wedge itself between us for years. Not moments, hours, days, weeks, months…years. 

And I don’t know if my reasons, if circumstance is enough for her to forgive that. To forgive me. To allow me the opportunity to seal my fate with hers again. I have a plan, but…is it enough to pay for my sins? Is a sincere offering of me enough to buy back in full, Michonne’s permanent indulgence? Why would it be? How could it? She doesn’t need me. She’s proven that. The space between us doesn’t seem to have injured her the same as it has to me. And that’s what gets me. I may have spent time with Lori and a few other women, but Michonne found one man, one guy to fill my void. To rebuild her life with. To move on from the havoc our relationship caused. That worries me. That worries me a lot. 

Just as the singer’s words fall away to give it up to the guitar’s upbeat solo, a mean riff and lick that hypnotizes everyone within ear shot. Sways bodies, nods heads, taps feet. Relaxes me, subdues me. Closing my eyes, I can feel the thrum of the music waft through me, mixing with the current of whisky dampening my anxiousness, numbing my nerves. In my mind’s eye, this interplay of prescient lyrics, and soul stealing music, its vibration heightening my awareness, I can almost see my wife’s body moving, gyrating, guided by the rhythm. Michonne loves good music. Loves to dance. Says it livens her spirit. Watching her does the same for me.

With nearly perfect timing I can barely make out the laughter and chattering of female voices coming towards the front of the bar. Leading the pack of well dressed women is my wife in a tangerine colored, sun dress, somewhat loose around the midsection, that stops mid-thigh, and sandals that cause the curve of her calves to be more pronounced. 

I just saw her this morning, though I didn’t get to have her like I usually do. Judith had an accident last night, wetting the bed, and it was a big deal because she had been doing so good. All it took was one night of sipping sweet tea with her grandfather and great-grandfather on the porch, to break the dam. Literally. So I missed her this morning as she struggled with her own morning sickness, then dashed from our bed to tend to Judith, while I took care of the boys. Both of us working to get them, along with their grandparents out of the house and on their way to the airport to fly to Orlando. 

I can’t help but smile, grin, as I watch her walk towards me. Snapping her fingers, bobbing her head to the music as well. She sees me, and offers me a smile of her own, then tilts her head to the right as she’s listening to the woman next to her tell her something, and point towards the contents of a pink gift bag Michonne is holding. 

Approaching me, the other ladies continue towards the front door, sighing and grousing as they realize it’s raining outside. Michonne stops at the bar, standing in front of me as I turn on my stool to face her. 

“Hello, beautiful.”

“Hello, handsome. What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at my apartment?”

“It’s dark and it’s raining. Figured I’d come walk with you. Maybe spend a little time out together?”

Inching closer, pushing her body into mine, Michonne lights up my day with a tilt of her heart shaped lips, gifting me with that little smile that belongs to me. “You didn’t have to, Rick. I would have been ok.”

“I know.” 

“Y’all sounded like you were having a hell of a party back there. What was all the whooping and laughing about?” Daryl asks as he fixes Michonne a Shirley Temple, heavy on the maraschino cherries, the same way she has always preferred the drink. He does this so skillfully and quietly, never bothering to even ask her if she wants one, or making any mention that a non-alcoholic drink is the only thing he will serve her. Which is good because any further discussion would probably lead to him giving away that he knows she’s pregnant. Again, since we aren’t exactly telling people on purpose right now, I appreciate him keeping his mouth shut. Which I can always count on Daryl for anyway. Shane on the other hand would never be able to keep such a thing to himself. 

Taking her drink from Daryl, again without any acknowledgment on either of their part that we have fallen into a pattern of knowing each other, tapping into a history of familiarity, even between Michonne and my friends, she takes a quick sip and rolls her eyes at him. “It was a bachelorette party, what do you think we were laughing about?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I asked.”

Leaning towards him over the bar, Michonne smirks. “Well if you don’t know then it’s none of your business.” She shrugs, inching her shoulders up towards her ears. “What were you guys out here talking about while you were out here drinking?”

Deadpanning her before he answers, Daryl raises his voice a little, giving what I assume is his best impersonation of her voice then answers, “If you don’t know then it’s none of your business.”

Slapping jovially at him, Michonne laughs at him using her own words against her. “Touche’, Dixon, touche’.”

I’ve had enough of her giving too much of her attention to Daryl though, I want her smiles and her eyes focused back on me. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pull her even closer to me, situating her in between my legs. Pushing my face underneath her chin, I kiss her neck, sucked in by the seductive scent of her perfume lingering on her skin. Just a peck, even though the shots of whiskey urge me to also give her a bite, sink my teeth into her sweet smelling flesh. I don’t though, tamping down the urge with a promise that I will accomplish that goal later. Remembering that I also want to talk to her some, lay out my plan for our future, I give her a little squeeze on her hip. “Wanna dance?”

Giggling, with my name uttered in a soft, airy breath, Michonne grabs a handful of my hair in her fist, and pulls my head back enough for us to make eye contact. “You been drinking, Mr. Grimes?”

Nodding my head, then lowering it once more against the pulse of her neck, I can hear Daryl answer the question for me. 

“Yeah, he’s had a few.”

Briefly I cut my eyes at Daryl, then raise them to Michonne’s again. “I’ve had a few.”

“Have you eaten?”

Licking at my lips, I immediately feel my blood running hot in my veins. With steady eye contact, I inch my body further off the stool and widen my legs to welcome Michonne even closer to my groin. “Are you offering?”

Playfully slapping at my arm, dodging her wide eyes quickly from Daryl to me, probably checking to see if he caught what I said, she smirks at me. “You’re so nasty!”

“I am. Let’s dance first, then I’ll take you home and show you.” I offer, giving her one last kiss underneath her ear, before I turn back to Daryl. “How much I owe you?”

“On the house, man. Your money’s no good here.” He mumbles, slapping at the bar top to punctuate his answer and dismiss my question before he heads further down the bar to chat with a woman he’s had his eye on since Michonne and her friends exited the back room. She’s a medium, brown skinned woman, lots of dark curly hair. I’ve seen her before when I visited Michonne on the set. I think her name is Connie, but I’m not sure, and right now the only woman I care about is Michonne. 

Daryl has moved on, and while Michonne and I give him a brief glance while he’s settling in, attempting to communicate with the pretty, deaf actress, through his own mumbles and her writing out her feedback on her iPhone, we don’t linger on them long. While it’s interesting to see Daryl doing his thing, allowing his interests to roam further than the shallow predilections of the backwoods Dixons, I’m eager to get my wife all to myself. She’s going to be leaving me in the morning, and there’s already a hollow feeling settling in my chest at the simple thought of that. It’s why I don’t waste another moment, and take her hand, dropping her purse and gift bag on the bar top, then lead her to the small square dance floor situated off to the side, in front of the singer. 

Michonne’s hands are flat against my chest, while my own are resting easily over the rounded curve of her bottom. On a deep inhale and sigh, she nuzzles into my chest, her nose resting at the opening of my button up shirt. Her lips playfully kiss at the hair there, raising my temperature at the gesture. 

Softly, on a moan Michonne sighs in a heated puff against the skin at my collar, “You smell amazing. It’s new?”

“Thank you. Yeah you said the cologne I had on the other day was making you sick.”

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice was it?”

“It’s ok.”

“You take such good care of me. No one could ever do that better than you, Rick.”

“I try.”

“You succeed.” She nods, and if I’m not mistaken a reddish color darkens her already radiant, plum cheeks. “And you look good sin this blue shirt too, Mr. Grimes. Matches your eyes.”

“Well I clean up every once in awhile, Mrs. Grimes.” I chuckle, pleased that she noticed everything I’ve done to prepare for tonight. For the majority of the spring and summer that my wife and I have been back together, we’ve both been in work mode, or parent mode. It’s kind of nice to be just Rick and Michonne right now. Out on the town. Dancing. Dressed up. I adore my babies, but it doesn’t hurt to have a moment where I can just be a guy who got lucky, and fell in love with his best friend, the most beautiful, amazing woman he’s ever known. There is something to be said about the freedom of existing in this space with Michonne. Who knew we would make it this far? Who knows how much farther we can go?

We dance through a few more songs, mostly slow tempo blues, which is right up my alley. Michonne may be a great dancer, but I’m not, so my modest two step allows me to keep up with my love without embarrassing myself, or hopefully leading anyone around us to wonder what that beautiful woman is doing with that rhythm-less fool. 

“Rick? Hey, you’re awful quiet.” With her delicate fingers, Michonne pinches my chin, directing my face down towards hers. “You ok?”

With my head tilted down, the first thing I catch is a brilliant flash of Michonne’s modest gold ring hanging from her necklace. Internally, I grimace at the fact that it’s not back on her finger. Still dangling in purgatory. Not quite heaven. Not quite hell. A state of being that is wholly symbolic of where we are. Where she seems content with us remaining. For a brief second I want to question her about it, get to the bottom of why it’s still there. Why shehasn’t made a gesture to signal permanence between us. I can feel myself growing angry, hurt, insecure about my place in her world. Isn’t she leaving tomorrow for a week without me? Did she even think to ask me to accompany her? Is it because I don’t belong with her, in that world, by her side? How do I approach these questions swirling around my head without her becoming defensive, pushing me away? Or better yet, confirming my worst fears? A fear that everything I’m thinking about how Michonne feels about us is right. That while we may be together now, now is not forever, and that’s an eventuality I cannot survive. 

Closing my eyes briefly, I thickly swallow down my fears, doubts coursing through me, firing off in my brain, and instead I push those emotions down where they can’t hurt me. At least not now while she’s smiling up at me with so much love and trust, and happiness. There’s contentment in the twist of those red colored lips, the seductive shade catching my attention. There’s peace in the soft mocha of my wife’s eyes. Instead of following my worst impulses in the moment, I offer the woman I adore a smile in return. “I’m great. Just enjoying a night with my wife is all.”

“Me too. I love our babies, but this is nice. Just Michonne and Rick. Kind of how we used to be.” She answers, echoing my own thoughts.

“Yeah, it is.” 

For this moment, it is how it used to be. That summer we first got together, hitting up parties as a couple. Our years in Los Angeles, exploring small clubs, and venues, seeking out new experiences. Wandering the coast, and discovering ourselves, who we are as a couple in the process. These memories are the ones that kept my love for her warm while my form grew cold at our separation. These memories are the only thing that kept me sane, prevented my obsession with what she was doing, and who she was doing it with from turning me murderous. Freeing my rage to destroy even the thinnest of ties that still bound us together. 

No one but those closest to me, Daryl, Shane, know how much anger lived inside of me during that time. Nearly killing me with grief so many times. How many fights I got into at bars with faceless guys, my fuse so easily enlivened by even a scant few wayward words from a stupid drunk. A person who looked at me wrong. Some drunk asshole who didn’t realize that I was a powder keg waiting to explode. To transfer all of this sadness, this love sick energy into something more dangerous. Something that couldn’t be abated by the few visits with my children. With the couple of brief updates from Glenn, Sasha, or my father in law. My few allied sources who understood my predicament, and empathized enough to give me some news about my wife. A speck of information, the methadone for my addiction. Something to take the edge off of the sharpened tip of my anger. And my sorrow.

I had done this to myself. To her. An unforgiveable sin that created the in-between state my love for Michonne lived in. Holding her in my arms now, I know with certain clarity that I do not want to go back to that place. To being angry, sad, depressed Rick. A forlorn shell of who I really am, who her love allows me to be. I would sacrifice anything. Pay any price to not have to be that man again. And so I’m making another choice right now. I won’t push her. I won’t ask the questions that my heart pushes to my lips. Instead I will wait for her to close this gap in our lives. Hope that she can see with her own eyes that everything I am doing, have done, is to rededicate my life to her and our children. Does she see me? Will she ever?

“Rick, baby, let’s go to my place now,” Michonne murmurs in a low, husky voice, her lips next to my ear, seductively tugging gently at the lobe. Biting at my bottom lip I know exactly what that means. She’s horny. A beautiful side effect of her being pregnant. She wants to have sex all the time. And well, who am I to complain, I think to myself as I guide her with my hand to the small of her back, out the front door of the bar.

With Michonne safely under my arm, the rain has ceased, so we stroll leisurely through the streets of King County, chatting to ourselves, and pointing out the different things that have changed or are the same from when Michonne and I were kids. 

“Remember when you got in that fight with Daryl’s brother Merle in front of the diner?” Michonne reminds me, stopping for a second in front of the large plate glass window of the old-time diner. “That guy was so awful! You taught him a lesson, didn’t you?” She knowingly asks, quirking an eyebrow and throwing a few fake punches into my chest. I don’t block them, but I know Michonne, she can throw a hell of a punch for real if she wants to. 

“I remember. He had a big mouth. Didn’t know when to shut up.”

“You shut him. He didn’t bother Glenn and me anymore. No more calling him Chinese instead of Korean, or calling me a nig-”

“I would have killed him if he dared.”

“You’ve always been my protector, haven’t you? Stepping in to make decisions. Checking up on me.” That last bit is said with a tiny raised pitch to her voice, making it definitely more of a question than a statement, and I think I know what she means by that, but I refuse to take her bait and give myself up on anything. 

Pausing for a moment, I think over what Michonne is charging me with and she’s right. Internally I agree that yes, I used to ask her father, Glenn, and Sasha about her and the kids. I did it all the time. What else was I supposed to do when my wife had locked me out of her life? It’s not in me to just give up. Even if it looked like I had. I would never. I’m just not built that way. And yes, I have always tried to protect her, shoulder any burden she might carry. As long as I’ve known her it has simply felt like my place to take care of her. “I suppose I’ve just always felt like I should. Maybe you’re a little stubborn sometimes? Don’t realize that it’s ok to let me? That you don’t have to run away from me.”

“Maybe you have a little bit of a savior complex sometimes? Don’t realize when you have over-stepped?” Michonne throws back at me, her tone absent of malice or anger. Instead I sense a hint of concern in her question, an altruistic desire to better understand our dynamic over the years. “I appreciate you, Rick, but sometimes you assume you know what’s best. Sometimes you do know what’s best, sometimes I know. But…we both need to figure out when that is.” With a little thump and then a kiss for me on the cheek, Michonne enlivens her playful mood and dashes into the diner, where I can hear her calling out to Patricia, a waitress who has worked there since we were kids and asks for one peach and one chocolate shake. Her favorite flavor and mine. 

After chatting it up a bit with Patricia, sampling some of her peach cobbler that is no match for my mother’s but a fair substitute for the evening, we head back out into the night. Taking the scenic route to get to her apartment, I recall a time when we first started dating that we would spend many a summer night just like this. Simply existing together, fingers intertwined, wandering around the quiet sanctuary of King County, talking about our future. Planning for a life together.  

Finally circling back to her street, I lead her across the quiet thoroughfare, and down one block to her apartment. When my granddad was a kid, this building used to be a school house, and when you enter what is now a trendy loft apartment, you can still see the vestiges of an early 1900s classroom. Refinished hardwood floors are carried throughout the wide open space, edged by floor to ceiling windows topped by elegant archways and molding. 

Abandoning the umbrella at the front door, I follow my wife into her apartment. Technically it’s a very nice space. Wide open, freshly painted, new furniture, fancy stainless-steel kitchen. The studio went all out in making sure that Michonne had anything she might need while she is here. But it is devoid of presence, of a trace of any of the things that make a place a home. No shoes or toys everywhere. No secret drawings in crayon of dinosaurs, and unicorns. No snoring wafting in from the lounge chair in the corner of the living room, accompanied by the constant smell of cooking food. It’s stale, too quiet. And even though it’s none of the things that I would attribute to my wife, cozy, welcoming, it is her space. This apartment represents the very things that send my heart racing, in a bad way. It’s separate from me. From us. This is where she intended to live out her time here in King County, not even ten minutes from where I live, without me. Probably hoping I would never even become aware of her proximity. And based on the pair of men’s boots resting on a mat next to the front door, and a men’s jacket hanging on a peg above them, she meant to spend her time here with him.

That hurts in a very specific way. 

Standing still, my feet remain rooted to the hardwood floor only one step away from the entry foyer. 

Michonne drops her purse and gift bag onto the couch. “Are you coming in, Rick?”

“Uh yeah. Hey, come here. I wanna show you something.” Wiggling my fingers towards her I reach for Michonne. My feet still won’t lead me further into her apartment though. Instead my arm remains outstretched for her to join me. 

Approaching me, Michonne gives me a confused look, but ultimately, she seems to trust my invitation as she accepts my hand then follows me back out to the hallway of the building. With her hand snugly grasped in mine, I lead her up a back stairwell two flights that land us at a door that takes us to the rooftop terrace. 

With the rain having died off, the night air is still somewhat damp and humid on this late Georgia evening, but the clouds have taken off, leaving only stardust in its wake. 

“Rick, do I want to know why you know about this?” Michonne asks, weaving her way around the patio furniture, and deciding to lean against the high walls around the terrace. Leaning back, arms outstretched on the wall, her eyes leave my face, not waiting for an answer to her question. Instead they focus heavenward, her gaze seemingly lost in the vastness of the galaxy. 

“The guy who owns this building now, bought some furniture from me. He had his wedding reception up here last year, which he invited me to.”

“And you attended. With a date I assume? We know how big of a hit you have always been with the ladies.” She smirks, her lips curled in a nearly cruel twist. I know where her mind is. Mine wanders there whenever I think of her in LA without me. It’s a dark place. An unhappy place.

“I did have a date. My mother.”

“Really?”

“Yep. You can ask her if you don’t trust me. She had a good time.”

“I trust you. We’ve never had trust issues, have we?”

“No, I don’t think so. I trust you with my life. My heart.”

“But, I know how women respond to you. How you are.”

“How am I, Michonne? Say it.”

“You’re like your father in a lot of ways. You’ve never been alone for real, Rick. You’ve never had to. A large part of me knows that’s why it was easier for you to separate from me than to keep fighting for us. Me leaving for good was…I don’t know. A test maybe?”

“A test?”

“I wanted to know if you would leave King County and come home to me. If I was ever your first choice. You confirmed that I wasn’t. Maybe…maybe that’s why I want to follow you into the vastness of the unknown, Rick, but how do I know that doesn’t end up exactly the same way it did last time?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. It was unfair of me to expect the impossible of you. For me, I have always wanted to be that light in your eyes, Rick. Sometimes I am. I feel the warmth of that full-on Rick Grimes glare on my skin, and man, it burns me alive. Sets me on fire. There’s only so much of you though. And everyone will always want a piece of you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The envious stares I had to withstand from other women when I was with you. How Lori reacted at the farm, coming to see her boyfriend.” Raising her manicured eyebrows to nearly meet her hairline, Michonne gives off a hollow laugh devoid of happiness and glares at me, her eyes keeping me in their focus. “Remember when you graduated from college? When I came up for the ceremony, I knew you had been with other women. With Lori. But it was never so painfully obvious as it was then that she wasn’t the only one. And even now…”

“Not now. Not anymore. I’m married.”

“This summer is me doing what you asked me to do, Rick, to get to know you again. To give us a shot to be who we were before. And I’ve loved every minute of it. Then I remember that us being married didn’t seem to stop either of us from nearly destroying the other. Did it?” Running her finger down my face, from where her fingers dance lightly in my scalp, and down my forehead, nose, and to my lips. “How do I protect myself from the one thing, the one person, I want more than anything in this world? I’m pregnant again, Rick. It’s obvious that nothing I do can keep Rick and Michonne from the inevitable. Do we end up in the same place where we were after Judith? Haven’t we done this whole thing before?” 

That stings. It does. She’s doing that thing, claws out, giving me a little sweet, and a little sour. Michonne is trying to get at me right now. She’s feeling vulnerable. I get it. I’m there with her. How crazy is it to be addicted to the one person who can hurt you the most?

“Are you with me right now… was the summer because you’re pregnant again? Is that all this is? Falling back into a pattern with me? Or-”

“What? Rick, no! That’s not what I’m saying at all!”

“What are you saying, Chonne? Because it certainly sounds like you’re saying this has all been about circumstance, and proximity. Not love. Because I do remember you coming back here with ice around your heart, and divorce papers in your hand. That’s what I remember. So tell me, Michonne, what exactly are you saying right now?” Folding my arms, I move my body away from hers, steeling myself against whatever harshness I might find in her answer.

Pacing away from me, her legs carrying her to the side, striding a frustrated step back and forth along the wall, Michonne finally comes to a halt in front of me again. Biting her lips between her teeth she pushes out whatever is swimming around in her head. “I’m saying that I’ve been on birth control since right after Judith was born.” Words cease for a moment. Michonne is watching me, studying my reaction to what she’s already said, seemingly collecting her own thoughts, maybe worrying on how to frame her next few words. Before she proceeds, she hides her face behind her palms for a moment. Blowing out a long breath, she inches out the next few words, “And…it worked for…others.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I’m sure I heard what she said, but the concept is inconceivable to my ears. “What?” 

“The pill prevented pregnancy with…Ezekiel.”

“Ezekiel? What do you mean? What are you talking about, Michonne?” I ask, trying to control the bass in my voice as she startles a little at the alarm blasting my words from my mouth. I don’t want to scare her, but... Everything just keeps firing out of my mouth. I can’t stop myself. I understand but I don’t. Is she trying to say...? 

“About…moving on. Ezekiel wants…ahem… this is hard, Rick.”

“Spit it out!” I thunder, the anticipation pounding like a drum in my head. Tension and pressure mounting. Hands now riding my hips while my fingers flit together restlessly, anxiety enlivening their dance.

Closing her eyes, Michonne continues, her voice shaky and uncertain, “He wants to get married. Ezekiel does. And, have children together. A – a family.”

“Is that right?”

“But, I wasn’t ready,” she sniffs, rubbing at her nose and the tears in her eyes. “I kept taking the pill. It never failed me, until you.”

“I see.” I don’t see. And I’m mad as hell. I want to fight, scream, punch something. I want to find that motherfucker and end him. I knew it! I knew it! He wants my life. To put his babies in my wife? To raise my children. All of that bullshit he was spewing that night he and Michonne came out to the farm. My grandfather warned me. I should have killed him then. I should have killed him then. I should…kill him now. Rubbing at my eyes with my thumb, I’m trying to wipe away visions of blood, or vengeance and murder. Then I feel her fingers on me, skimming across the raised hairs on my arms. And I hear the tiny melody of her soft voice. 

“Rick, baby, please understand. After Judith I didn’t feel like you had left me any other choice but to move on. When you decided to stay, I had to go. For me, and for the kids. I had to. And Ezekiel was there, and it felt like he was the only way I could get over you. But, I never did. I never could. That’s why I had to shut you out. That’s why I had to send those divorce papers. I – I had to save myself from drowning, Rick. I was so in love with you, and I missed you so much, baby, that I was no good to myself or the kids. Everything was so wrong and upside down. And he was just…there. Saying the right things. Doing the right-”

“That’s enough! That’s…alright! I get it.”

Frantic, her words rush in a flurry from her lips, “And then I found out you were with Lori and whoever, and it felt like we were both trying to get away from each other. But – but... We fucked it up didn’t we?” Michonne asks, anguish coloring every one of her words spoken into the damp skin on my cheeks. 

I hold her close, tight, tighter even still. As close as possible, until I can feel a semblance of calm and reason returning to me. Silencing the sirens and the bloodthirst gathering in my head. “We fucked up. We both did. What have we been doing this summer if not moving past that?” Allowing my hands to guide me, they reach for every part of her body. First her hips, then up her waist, to her breasts. Followed by a caress with my thumbs of the silky skin at her collarbone, her neck, and her cheeks. With her head cradled in my hand I lean her back, arching her over so that her face is upturned to the sky. “You see the endless possibility in the universe? Stars. Innumerable. Vast. There’s some fear in what’s out there, in the unknown. I get that. It’s like us. There are some unknowns in our future. We didn’t do everything right before and that’s all we have to cling to. How we messed up. But when I see you, I see the perfection of the heavens. My universe of endless possibility. I see the majesty of the stars in you. In us. Not the fear of the unknown. The possibility of all of the amazing things we will do together. What we can make of our lives, our family, if you take another chance on us.”

Lifting her head back to me, she presses into my soul with the fiery warmth in her eyes, “That’s what I’m trying to do, Rick, but you have to admit, it’s hard. We didn’t just mess up, baby, we fucked it all the way up!” Michonne retorts on a sardonic chuckle, no true mirth in her proclamation at all. 

“Yeah, yeah we did that. But we got a lot of it right too.” I answer, emotion, a slight tinge of fear that I’m losing my mind breaking the stillness in my voice. Lowering my left hand to her belly, I rub at the bump that houses our baby. “There’s no one I want to be in this with other than you, Michonne. No one, babe.”

“Aren’t you afraid, Rick? Ever? Of loving me again? Don’t you ever think about what life has been like for us over the last few years, and just don’t want to hurt like that ever? I do. I love you, but I get afraid of ever feeling that low again. Of ever hurting you again.”

“I do. I’m scared all the time. I’m afraid that – that the kids are one day going to ask why their parents don’t live together and I’m going to have to answer for that. I get nervous thinking of that tenuous, breakable string called remission. How damaging it could be. Again.” Angling my head down towards her, I place my forehead against hers, my resolve growing weak, as my words falter. “Ya know… I’ve been walking around with this boulder on my chest. Tightness. Just, holding me down cause…Cause I’m afraid of so many things, Michonne.” Throwing my hands back in a frantic graze through the strands of my hair, I can sense myself ready to boil over. The top ready to blow my pressure cooker of fear sky high. As my curls fall back over my forehead, I permit my shoulders to sink. “I’m afraid that underneath who I claim to be, who I want to be, I’m just a copy of my father. I’m just a pathetic substitution for what you and the kids deserve. That when I broke my promise to help my family the first time, that Karma gave me exactly what I deserved.”

“That’s not true, Rick. That’s not true at all.” 

From the side of my eye I stare at my wife’s pretty features, enraptured by the play of emotion over her velvety skin. How I love this woman. Adore her. How I want to be more than a series of unfortunate events, constantly sending her into a tumultuous tailspin. If only...

“Michonne, after I got those divorce papers, do you know why I asked you to give me some time? Why I needed you at the farm and not... not here?”

“Yeah... I think I do. The farm is whimsy. It’s nostalgia, and memories of your grandfather cursing at the television while watching baseball, and us holding in our laughter as he bribed us not to tell your grandmother he’d been drinking or cursing in front of us. It’s me skinning my knee trying to run up the gravel path, and you...always you carrying me back to the house and gently covering my wound with bandages that you colored with a brown marker to make them match my skin. The secrets of your heart, your desires, I know them, Rick. They aren’t foreign to me. Not at all.”

“But why else, Chonne. Hm?”

“I don’t know, Rick. Why else?”

“I wanted you at the farm this summer instead of your apartment because it’s a part of your new life. The new Michonne. I’m afraid of you leaving me in the morning to go back to California because, that’s new Michonne living her new life. And well, that new life includes a new man. A man that isn’t me. Who doesn’t have the stench of a history of pain and sadness attached to him. And how? How do I compete with that?” I admit. And again, murderous thoughts invade on my brain. Muddy the sweet feel of my wife, of this moment that should be about releasing whatever holds us back into the wind. Instead I have to admit to her the faults in me. The jealousy, rage, anger, and fear that has driven me so far from her heart. 

“Oh Rick…”

“How could I ever expect you to tear up those divorce papers, and put your ring back on when I know you look at me and you see me choosing my mother over you. Choosing another life over you and our family. But I swear to you that’s not what I did, and yes, everyday I was alone. I was without the only woman in the world that makes me whole. So… yeah. I get scared. I’m scared now.” Taking a step away from her, feeling the cleansing drip of the skies opening up again, washing my skin anew with possibility and hope. Rain falls in fat drops against my face, falling into my eyes, nearly blinding me with the heaviness of their droplets on my eyelashes. Inching down to my knee, I remove the ring that has been burning a hole in my pocket all night. It’s bigger than the one I gave her so many years ago. A previous promise backed by desperation of losing her. But I already know how that feels. I’m not operating from that place anymore. This ring was purchased with money that buys me the freedom to be whoever she needs me to be for her. Gives us the chance to be exactly who we always hoped we could be when we first fused our lives together, so many years ago on another night like this. Under a sky full of stars. But this time, things are new, different. We have been through the death of us, and like a baptism, this rainy night can give new birth to the Rick and Michonne story. 

Pushing down fear, nerves, vulnerability…all of the negative feelings and emotions that would lead me to doubt myself and ask for what I want, I decide...fuck it. 

Pulling the diamond ring that has been resting in a small velvet box in my night stand drawer since my wife returned, I offer it and a few words to Michonne. “Be my wife again.”

Before I can barely get the words out, Michonne blurts her answer, “Yes!”

“I know things aren’t perfect, but-”

A stream of tears trickle over her round cheeks, and full lips, “Yes, Rick, yes!” 

“Yes?”

“I love you.” Michonne declares, her voice strong. Firm. Decisive as she carefully accepts the ring from my fingers, and slides it onto her own. 

With my eyes cast downward, witnessing what she’s done, I simply stare at her finger. Unsure if what I’m seeing is real.

“I love you too.” Michonne pronounces, pulling me into her embrace. It’s so strong, she holds on to me as though I am the very thing that would save her life. Doesn’t she realize that it’s the opposite? That she saved mine. 

Something magical has happened on this roof. We can both feel it, sense it in the new weightlessness that springs our souls back to life. It’s a release of toxic emotion from our bones, our hearts that has washed away with the rain’s blessing of rebirth. 

Even though her old ring still hangs precariously between her breasts on a delicate gold strand, a new ring, signifying a renewed commitment sits prettily on her left hand. The same hand she uses to lead me away from the roof, and down the steps to her apartment.  

It doesn’t take much for us to find the comfort of each other’s bodies as soon as I close the door behind us. Instantly I reach for her, my hands carefully removing the wet clothes from her body, as hers work to do the same for me. Darkness cloaks our nudity, but I know my wife. Every part of her. So much so that it’s effortless for me to wrap her up in my arms, and lead her to the bed that’s easy to access in this open floor plan. Just off to the right of the living room, I seat myself onto the edge of her platform bed, my wife’s softly curved form straddling my lap. 

I want to kiss her lips, suck her tongue into my mouth. Taste her. Claim her. Take my time. Talk to her. Tell her how I love her some more. But Michonne has other plans, inching her tongue out to lick, kiss, and bite my ear, a move that she knows will get to me. While the press of her full breasts against my chest, and the feeling of her fat ass in my squeezing palms soothes me, her attention to my sensitive ears enlivens my senses at the same time. And well, I’m not ashamed to say that her mastery of my body…overwhelms me a little. Maybe overwhelm isn’t the right word. I don’t know. There is something about the way she’s looking at me right now, with more love than lust brimming in her dark eyes, that almost bursts my heart. 

“Wait here a second.” Michonne whispers against my lips, in between pecks. 

“What? Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back.” She answers, gently removing my clutched palms from her bottom. Swiftly, her slender legs, and swaying hips carry her away from me, back towards the front of her apartment. My eyes focus on the movement of her full bottom until she closes herself into the bathroom, and I wipe my hand in a drag down my face, then drop to my back as I attempt to calm myself and wait for her return. 

My cock is rock hard. Unfastening my jeans, I push them down and way, while gripping my girth in my fist. I give myself a couple of pulls. Just enough. Not to pleasure myself. No I need to find that inside of my wife. Relief is what I need, a reprieve from the ache that’s building for her. Wallowing in lust with each tug, the effort is having the opposite effect as its just building my anticipation for when my wife returns. Waiting, growing impatient, I blow out a frustrated breath just as I’m about to march into the bathroom and retrieve her. Sitting up, I see her quietly standing in front of me. Watching me.

Have mercy!

That’s all I’m thinking as my eyes frantically scan her frame, my heart racing in my chest, my cock growing harder by the second. In a stark white lace bodysuit that dips in a V to her navel, barely covering her blackberry areolas and nipples, and held up by thin satin straps, Michonne balances herself on delicate red painted toes as she twirls in front of me. As she spins, I can see that only a very thin string caresses the back of her decadent skin, disappearing between the cleft of her ass. 

My wife is beautiful. No she’s more than beautiful. I don’t know the word to describe it, but right now I don’t need the words. I can see it in front of me. The personification of the word. Her dark skin a heavenly drape over her frame, glistening under the dim lighting bathing her shapely hips and thighs from the other room. Ash blonde tips from her locs skim over her shoulders and collarbone, and fall to her breasts. Her full, round breasts, now the shape of ripe cantaloupes, cause my mouth to water, my tongue to inch from my mouth in a subconscious maneuver to somehow taste their luscious heft from here. 

“Do you like it, Rick?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“I got it when I was buying a bridal gift for my colleague. I just thought… ya know… I feel like a newlywed again too when I’m with you. New. Fresh. I feel so beautiful and desired in your eyes, baby, and I want that. I want you.” Walking towards me, Michonne’s voice carries the sweetness of her words from her lips to my heart. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me, and you’ve given me so much happiness and love. More than I ever thought I could have again.” Positioning herself on my lap, her thighs on either side of my hips, digging into the firmness of the mattress, the alluring scent of her, a dizzying mix of sandalwood, jasmine, and sex. The damp sticky perfume of her pussy is clouding my thoughts as I can feel its thick wetness on my finger that plays against the lace covering her fat lips. On a whisper of a moan, light and airy, the gloss of her lips catches my attention as she continues, “I’m sorry, baby. That so much time has passed between us where we weren’t together like this. I missed you and needed you so bad, and I know you did what you had to do then. Rick, I hurt you for that… I’m so sorry for being stubborn, and- and-” choking up, her words die on her lips. I don’t let her finish her conciliatory speech. It’s not necessary. And I can’t bear to hear the sadness in that apology. The weight of her admission clogging her throat, stifling her passion in cathartic tears that spring from her pretty brown eyes.

Immediately my lips are on hers, a swift theft of her cries. My fingers at her cheeks, dashing away the evidence of her emotions making themselves evident in the liquid easing from her eyes. Michonne returns my kiss, her tongue invading my mouth. Communicating more than words. 

Before I’m even able to fully savor the taste of her lips, Michonne eases from my lap, and to her knees, where her fingers immediately find my turgid length. Wrapping my cock in her fist, she circles the sexy plushness of her lips with the crown, inching her tongue out in languid brushes against the sensitive head. Exquisite torture is the best word for it I think as I raise my hips, encouraging her to take me fully into her mouth. Extinguish the flames of desire licking painfully at my groin. Michonne giggles, the seductress in my wife taking over, dominating me by not taking the bait, and continuing to tease me with her mouth, and massage my balls in careful waves followed by slight pressure behind the sack. 

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Michonne, babe...”

Michonne is being unfair, torturing me past my own tolerance, and she knows it. The naughty glint in her eyes, and the cruel smirk of her sexy lips suctioning at the tip of my dick, let me know that she’s in charge. And while it’s killing me, I don’t mind. It’s sexy. The thrill of not knowing what she’ll do next is electrifying my limbs, every nerve in my body taught, muscles tense, all of my senses on high alert. 

Putting me out of my misery she closes her eyes, her long lashes sweep down demurely against the rise of her rounded cheeks, and she enfolds my cock in her mouth. Immediately my head drops back, relaxing my limbs, as only a few shallow breaths ease from slightly parted lips. The up and down of her mouth, the wet suction of her lips pulling on my shaft...it’s all electrifying, and only heightened by the humming vibration caused by the moans Michonne emits with each pull. Sweetly my wife uses her lips to caress my cock, while also rolling my balls gently between her fingers, the wetness leaking from her mouth to ease her actions. 

I’m watching her now, enjoying the view of Michonne pleasing me. It’s an arousing sight, and feel, hardening my shaft impossibly, even as I sense the tingle in my groin signifying the impending release of my cum. I don’t want that though, to cum in her mouth. Though I do enjoy watching her attempting to swallow my load, trying to gulp it all down, and seeing the streams of what escapes her easing from the corner of her mouth and over her lips. That’s not what I want today. Today I want to cum inside of my beautiful wife. I want to watch her face twist and contort in its own theater of emotions, pleasure and pain, and ecstasy driving the interplay. 

Leaning forward I take a gentle hold to the back of Michonne’s head, stilling her ministrations. With the other hand I flatten my palm against the warm roundness of her ass, jiggling the flesh with a tight squeeze. Michonne releases something between a moan and a yelp with each clutch, and subsequent slap, causing her to tighten the grip of her lips around my dick, then loosen them and drop her tongue to rest against the vein running underneath my shaft. God that feels amazing!  Michonne keeps trying to go back to sucking my dick down her throat, but I don’t let her, I hold her in this pose, subject to my whims now. And just that little dash of something unexpected allows me to refocus, to draw back the claw of my orgasm’s impending release. To put my wife’s pleasure in my sights while I collect myself. 

Angling my lips down to Michonne’s face, and lifting it to my own, I whisper against her cheek, “You trying to make me cum too soon? You want my cum in your mouth?” 

“Hu...mmm...Rick...” Michonne whines in response. 

Even as I ask the question, my lips are pecking and nipping at her cheeks, biting softly at her cheeks. As I do so I can feel her body tightening against mine in pleasure, especially now that my fingers have found their way between the cheeks of her ass. Rolling my fingers between her tightened nub and her leaking pussy lips, there is so much wetness, a silky fountain of my wife’s essence and...something else?

“What’s this, babe? A surprise for me? Hm?”

Biting at the corner of her sexy lips, Michonne nods a bit, then answers, her voice a husky, weakened version of its normally steady timber, “Ye-yes...for us.” Gazing unflinchingly at me as she answers, her coffee brown eyes communicating so much, a titillating chill blazes through me. How did I ever get so lucky, finding this woman? This woman who knows me so well. Loves me so thoroughly. Appeals to the basest of my desires, delighting in them just as much as I do?

A grin immediately tugs at the corners of my mouth, as I plunge my two middle fingers between her petals, and my thumb into her asshole. The lubrication that she has applied, makes the glide into her tight hole so easy, effortless, and clearly pleasurable for my lover if the gasping moan escaping from her slightly parted lips is any indication. 

Yeah, this is a treat for both of us. It’s a little something naughty that we haven’t done since before the boys were born, and well, it’s been way too long. This is one of the many things that Michonne and I discovered that we both enjoyed, with her being the first woman I’ve ever taken this way, and hopefully me being the only man who has ever breached that part of her. I don’t want to consider the alternative, but the way my wife’s enjoying the plunge of my fingers in both of her holes at the same time, her eyes closed, face slack in erotic repose...the bastard in me can’t help but wonder, and for the briefest moment I want to ask her. To punish myself by allowing my brain to wander into the forbidden territory of our lives apart. But then I look down at where her left hand grips and pulls at my cock, her newly donned wedding ring catching my attention, and I remember that once again she is mine and I am hers. And nothing else matters. Not what was before, or in between, but what is now, and will be. 

So I kiss her, softly at first, my lips content with the easy play of our lips against the others. But my desire for her grows more intense, feral almost at the sensation of her lips on mine, my cock in her fist, and her pussy and ass clenching and bathing my fingers with desire. It’s all too much, and still not enough. Our kiss becomes more demanding, my tongue invading her mouth, her mouth welcoming me with a sloppy tangle against it, ending on her pulling at my bottom lip between her teeth, the pressure and pain just enough to jolt me with a surge of electricity so strong I begin to push Michonne upright with her womanhood still firmly seated on my palm. 

“Come here!” I growl, a brief command that comes out harsher than I intended, but one that clearly evidences how heady and urgent my need for her has become. 

Guiding her rise, I never release her from my hold, only withdrawing my fingers from her. Delicately I place her in my lap, instantly loving the blessing of her heated womanhood, damp and sticky fitting tight as a glove around my cock, her thighs resting against the wiry hairs on my groin. A tiny gasp comes from my wife’s lips, soft and warm, enticing me to swallow it on a groan of my own, my lips fastening to hers. 

With our bodies pressed together, her ass in the palms of my hands, I guide the wicked, circling grind of Michonne’s hips, a fruitless attempt to control her from ending this coupling too soon. I would never admit it out loud, but she is often too much for me, her handling of me sexually evidencing that over the years, the student has become the master. It’s not just in the way she moves, or things she does, it’s simply in her being. Sexy confidence exudes from this woman, whose virginity was once the root of her inexperience in bed, but now? Now Michonne commands me with the seductive flirt of her curled eyelashes, a lick of her full lips, the press or bounce of her rounded breasts into my chest from the curve of her back arching her form forward. Her lithe fingers, the tips dancing through my hair, tiptoeing across my face and chest, toying with my nipples in a stinging pinch. And finally, palms resting flatly behind her on my thighs, as she lifts and drops herself on my dick, twirling and winding, leaning backwards to allow me to watch myself disappear between her swollen pussy lips. 

“You like that, Rick? Huh, baby?” Michonne asks, a flirty smirk skewing her lips as she tilts her head in question. 

Skipping my eyes from the wet juncture where we are connected, fixated on the smacking sound, to the syncopated bounce of Michonne’s beautiful round breasts, then further up to her pretty face, I grin. How can I not? As overwhelming and erotic as this moment is, I have my wits about me just enough to express how good she feels. Encourage her maneuvers. “You know I do, Chonne.” I rumble, squeezing her ass tighter with one hand, eliciting a squeal from her as I’m circling two fingers in her ass, and curling my toes against the wood floor, an attempt to hang on to my own sanity and steal a little bit of hers. 

“Yes, yes, yes! Oh my goooooooodddddd... Yes, Rick! Yesssss...”

Panting, muscles tightening, the electric thrill of orgasmic bliss is creeping up on me again, preparing my cock to spill into her womb, a sure response to how thoroughly my wife is fucking me. I want to cum, god knows I do. Michonne knows I do. I can tell by the way she’s working me over. Riding my dick with purpose, my sexy little wife, in her pretty lace lingerie that I’ve torn and loosened from her body, is the embodiment of every love sick dream I had while we were apart. Every silly, sweet, romantic moment we’ve had this summer. And each and every hope for our future. 

Dragging me away from my thoughts, moaning my name at the tail end of her heavenly pleas, the pleasing sound becoming lost on a long, husky toned series of groans and high-pitched squeals, Michonne falls into an orgasm. One that I watch play itself out in the beautiful contortions of her face, transitioning from a teasing stare, taunting me to keep up with her erotic gyrations, to a slackened repose of her alluring features, face and body, slicked in sweat. Head rolled back on her shoulders, her throat bobbing as she swallows thickly, appearing to try and suck down what air she can snatch from the atmosphere. 

My own body responds to the view. To seeing her so satisfied. It’s not enough though. I want her buried under pleasure that only I can give her. Her body in a pliant puddle beneath me. 

Michonne has slowed her movements, halted them in the weakened state her orgasm has left her in. With my left hand, I pull her into me, guiding her to rest against my chest, even as my cock remains buried in her drenched womanhood that’s still pulsing and constricting around me. My cum temporarily halted.

“You ok?”

“Mm hmph.” She mumbles out on a deep breath, the sounds nearly incoherent in their honeyed drawl against my shoulder. 

Pushing her hair away from her face, over her shoulder, I kiss her eyes. Her cheeks. Her nose. Her lips. Michonne responds in kind, puckering her lips in offering. Gentle pecks turn to sucks and bites, journeying from her lips in a wet trail to her neck, where I declare against the perfumed silk of her warm, sensitive skin, “I’m not done with you.”

Those are my last words as I lift my wife in my arms, never separating my cock from where I remain immersed in her honey, then turn to place her on her back on the edge of the bed. Proceeding to finally ease myself from the warmth of Michonne’s body, I wince at the cool air skimming over my cock, causing me to briefly question the sanity in my choice to temporarily withdraw from her. But I have a plan, a strategy motivated by the ultimate satisfaction for my lady and I. Something we both will enjoy. 

Dropping to my knees in front of her, similar to how she did for me earlier, I take a second to bless my eyes with the sight before me. Michonne’s legs spread wide, one of my palms firmly holding her thigh down. Her pink jewel is so very wet. Her chocolate pussy lips slick, sticky, the plump surrounding for the sweetest confection I’ve ever tasted. 

My mind is swimming, senses in a daze, hypnotized by the tasty meal in front of me. Seduced by the addictive scent of my wife’s pussy, her arousal clouding my thoughts, laid bare for my mouth’s plundering. 

Michonne’s eyes never leave mine, even as I’m angling my full face into the juncture between her thighs, not bothering to waste time with even the naughty bites to her thighs that I know will cause her to delightedly squeal my name. I’m past that. I need more than that. Lapping and sucking at her pussy, savoring the smell of her in my nostrils, and the flavor of her on my tongue, amidst the sound of her moans in my ears, her fingers flitting through my hair, I make sure to leave her wetter than I found her. 

“Babe, you taste so fucking sweet.” I compliment into the tightened pulsing of her clit, stopping to suck the nerve dense button until my wife’s hips leave the mattress. Jutting into the air until I use one hand to place it flat to her rounded tummy, encouraging her back down. 

Moving further south, I dip my tongue directly into her tight little puckered hole as my eyes roll into the back of my head, just as my eyelids drop, the taste of her candy on my tongue an overload to my senses. 

“Oh! Oh! Rick!” Michonne exclaims, her grip tightening on my hair with every word, and every jut of her hips pushing her closer to me, seeking my mouth’s attention.

My tongue covers all of her, neither hole is spared, leaving both glistening, sopping wet. As a test, I place my two middle fingers in her pussy, and my thumb in her ass again. Both slide in with more ease than the last time, now aided by Michonne’s earlier orgasm, as well as whatever lubrication she must have applied on her own, and of course the attention I’ve paid to her with my mouth. A few in and out thrusts with my hand, as I languidly suck on her clit, not too hard, just a steady application of pressure. Michonne is moaning again, words no longer formed, only satisfied groans and as I remove myself from between her thighs, I look down at the most beautiful woman in the world, with her head back, eyes closed, legs wide, and a rush of excitement pulses through me. Now she’s ready. 

Standing to my feet, I’m thankful for the taller than usual height of her bed, as it places my lady right where I want her. 

“Lift your legs higher, babe.” Michonne follows my command, inching her legs high and wide until the soles of her feet rest precariously on the edge of the bed, the apex at her thighs open perfectly just for me. “Yeah, babe, that’s perfect.” Bending over her, I kiss her again, needing to share her sugar still dancing on my lips with her. Michonne accepts my kiss, her fingers in my hair, holding me to her as she hungrily partakes of my offering. 

Inching from her hold, my lips and hands make a final stop at her soft breasts, careful of how sensitive I know they are due to the pregnancy. A few licks and kisses, a gentle suckle of her tight dark cherry nipples, and I can sense myself on the precipice, the very edge, ready to blow.

Standing, then bending slightly at the knee, my cock in my right hand, other caressing her clit and moving to spread her petals, I nudge the head against the tightness of her bottom hole. Chest heaving, expectation has me swallowing thickly as I prod, pushing just enough for her ass to loosen around me, and enfold me, taking in the first few inches. 

Gasping pants emit from my wife, lustful delight dancing in her half-lidded eyes, as she encourages me, “More, Rick... oh god...more...” How could I deny her? Even as the constriction of her is choking me, welcoming me further into her heat with every gentle thrust. Michonne’s pleasure heightens as she’s pushing against me, seeking more and more of my cock inside of her. I’m at first hesitant, and my eyes skip hurriedly from where I’ve breached her hole, my hips taking on a steady thrusting cadence, to her eyes, seeking confirmation that I should give her more. But the ecstatic flush of her features tells me everything that I need to know, even if her pleas for more, or the naughty acknowledgement that my dick feels so good in her ass, weren’t enough to prod me further. 

Finding a groove, I’m giving my lover everything I’ve got. My hips waving, driving my dick in and out. My thumb conducting its own musical thrum against her clit, while my two middle fingers create an even tighter fit as they groove in and out of her pussy, matching the dance of my dick in her ass. 

Visually, this moment is almost too stimulating as Michonne twists and pinches at her nipples. The auditory praise my wife delivers with her filthy commands, unhinges my brain, delivers me to a plane of consciousness that allows me to wallow in the erotic pleasure swimming in my veins. My balls tighten. My cum wants to bless her body so badly. To watch as the viscose fluid eases from the tightness of her, evidence of our naughty coupling sticky and white on her darkened blackberry flesh. 

My hips take on a life of their own, pounding away, banging up against the ripple of Michonne’s ass, my ego becoming carried away by the pleasurable sighs from my wife. She’s coming again, an orgasm enlivening her limbs, reminding me that I’m the one who did that to her. Gave her sweat slickened body that glowing cast. Caused her head to swivel back and forth, as pleasure ripped through her, traveling the highway of nerves from her groin, to every part of her form, now tingling from my cock thickening and grinding inside of her.

“Michonne, you’re so fucking tight. That ass is so fucking tight! My god! Mmmm...Fuck!” I grunt, air sucking in through my nose and out of my mouth, the last thread of my sanity, my dignity, my control snapping under the pressure of her body squeezing, taut and tense around me. There’s nothing left but the heightened peak of my orgasm that erupts with just a few winds of Michonne’s hips, circling her hole around my cock, the friction more than a mortal like myself can withstand from this goddess. 

“Fuuuuccckkkk!!!” that’s the only word I can offer her as my body stiffens with the burst of cum splashing from my cock into her. Withdrawing on the very last spurt, I leave a thick, haphazard trail of semen on both holes, painting just a bit on her thick thighs. On weakened legs, I simply hold myself still for a moment, my cock still pulsing and throbbing in my fist. Panting, I drop my head to hers, careful at least in my sex-drunken stupor, to not place any weight on her tummy. 

Gulping down a few breaths, my chest sinking and rising with the effort against the plush pillows of Michonne’s breasts, I’m ready to pass out. There’s no reserve of energy for me. I’m spent. Tonight I have offered every word, every apology, every promise...simply everything to my wife. And I pray that it’s enough. That I’m enough for her to forgive me for good. For us to move ahead, and have the future that we promised each other we would have so many years ago on that fateful night when my best friend became my lover. 

XXXXX

God my head hurts, I think to myself as I squint at the intrusion of the sun blasting its rays through the windows. Who the fuck would have floor to ceiling windows without curtains, I wonder to myself, grousing at the intense pounding the light is setting off in my head? Or perhaps it’s the remnant of the shots of whiskey I had last night? Or the multiple rounds of sex with my wife? Traveling from the bed, to the wall, to the floor, and finally with her bent over the hard granite countertops as we both attempted to replenish our depleted energy reserves with fruit and water from the kitchen. 

Roaming over the memory of last night, I allow my eyes to scan the bed and the bedroom, a tiny panic erupting in my chest as I realize that my wife is nowhere to be seen. Her scent, our combined sexual fragrance, colors the room in a thick haze, enlivening my memories with every pull of air through my nose. Blinking slowly, multiple scenes replay themselves behind my lids, even as the remains of our coupling is sticky on my thighs, plastering my cock and balls in a squish to one side. 

Swiveling to the left, I let my legs hang until they reach the floor. Dropping my head into my upturned hands, I try to calm the banging to no avail, and for a moment as I peek at the early hour on the clock, I wonder if I shouldn’t just try to sleep off what is probably a mix of a sex/whiskey/Michonne hangover. That is until I remember that she’s leaving today, and like any good husband I need to make sure that she gets off safely, and promise to get myself together enough to escort her to the airport. 

With that promise in mind, I raise myself unsteadily from the bed, my walk the slowest zombie like stalk I’ve ever seen. One so realistic I laugh to myself that I should audition for a part on my wife’s TV show. Dragging into the bathroom I open the medicine cabinet, finding only toothpaste and floss. Scanning the sparse vanity, I decide that the only place that might house some acetaminophen to help this headache is the opened makeup and toiletry bag that’s overflowing with a variety of brushes and lipsticks. Carefully digging my hand around in the bag, not wanting to disturb the tubes and powders, I don’t find a bottle of acetaminophen, but I do find something else. 

A small velvet box. A jewelry box. A box small enough for only two things. Earrings, or a ring. My heart speeds up, racing and banging against my chest in a fruitless hope that this is a pair of diamond earrings that Michonne purchased for herself. Or maybe even a charm for a bracelet I’ve never seen her wear. Maybe even a gift for her mother? I’m scared to find out. Unnerved by the prospect of this box not housing any of those things, but instead being a harbinger of something more ominous. 

With trembling fingers, I open the little box, pushing the top open with my thumb. Instantly I’m blinded by the brilliance of the large solitaire, one so much larger than the modest one I gave Michonne so many years ago. Larger still than the one I gave her last night. No, this is an audacious gift, one that is meant to communicate the largesse of the giver’s intentions. And just as I can feel anger jockeying for position in my head, pushing aside the weak thrum of my headache for the thunder of my rage, I hear her voice offering a hushed plea in response to a louder male voice. 

At first I can’t move a muscle. Statue still, the only movement is my fist closing around the now closed jewelry box, an almost crushing amount of pressure seeking to pulverize the offending item inside. Other than that, I don’t move, I just listen, even attempting to lower or stop my breathing so I can hear the quiet back and forth of their conversation from the other room. 

“I-I didn’t even know you were going to be here.”

“I wanted to surprise you, my love. How pleased am I to find you in such a state of undress? I have always been fond of these slight kimono robes you favor.”

Clearing her throat, I can just make out a small female groan in response, obviously coming from Michonne. 

“With that said, I am here to escort you to your Comic Con functions. I have some business to attend to with the studios in LA, and thought it would be a good time for my fiancée and I to catch up.” Did he say fiancée? God I hate the sound of the smug bastard’s overly dramatic voice, I think to myself, as I creep closer to the side wall where the open floor plan will allow me to remain concealed enough to listen in to their conversation. 

“Zeke, maybe we should sit for a moment. I need to discuss some things with you.”

“Would you prefer to sit here or in the bedroom? I have missed you, you know. I may have traveled the world to sample its rarest of beasts, but you my dear are the most exotic and exquisite of earth’s creations.”

“That’s...that’s really sweet of you to say.” Michonne offers in response, her voice taking on a somewhat shaky cadence that even I can hear from here. 

“Would I say it if it were not true, my dear? Of course not. I could barely contain my excitement to return to you. I’m sure by now you have retrieved your divorce?”

“Uh, that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“We will have time to discuss the settling of your affairs. For now, allow us to embrace as lovers, Michonne. My body has yearned many a night, unsatisfied without your touch.” 

“Here’s the thing, Zeke, we need to talk now. Um, my divorce isn’t finalized.”

“What say you? Are your fingers not adorned with a sign of my affection?” There is a pause, and then a disgruntled scoff before he continues, obviously seeing that the ring on my wife’s finger does not belong to him. “What is this about, my love?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Zeke. I’m not ready to move on from Rick. I still love him. I still want to be with him. That’s whose ring this is. I accepted it from him.”

“What foolishness is this? Has proximity clouded your mind past reason? Come here, allow me to release you from the delusion that Rick can be the man that you need, beloved. He has proven himself unworthy time and again.” There is movement that I can hear, hard soled shoes clicking against the wood floors. “Michonne, do not forget the state in which I have found you over and over again, licking your wounds from his harsh treatment of you. His abandonment of you and the children. Remember the many nights it was I who lulled you to sleep in my arms, dried your tears, bandaged the skinned knees of rambunctious boys. You all belong to me despite the biological contribution of that brute. It is with me that you all belong. I cannot accept a fate outside of that.”

“I remember...but-”

“But how could I allow you to devolve into such a state again, simply due to my absence? I hate that my work has carried me away from you, released you from the cover of my love. But that is no longer, beloved. I am here to protect and to love you. The same way I always have.”

For a moment there are no words. Then through the silence there is the slightest sound of sniffles. A tiny whimper. From my wife. It breaks my heart, sickens my stomach to hear his confession of his love for her. His persuasive use of my own transgressions against me. A stone of emotion clogs my throat at recognition of the part I have played in allowing another man to step into my life. It’s what I always feared. What kept me awake many nights that we were apart. Even with my children as a constant reminder of my place in her life, a long life full of happy memories, the painful ones overshadowed them enough to replace me in her heart. How can I discount that? 

“You have done a lot for me and the kids, Ezekiel. You have. I just-”

“I know, he confuses you with nostalgia. Overpowering your protest with emotional manipulation. I have never resorted to such scurrilous tricks. Logic is what bonds us, beloved. You are my destiny. Admit that and let us together once and for all, relinquish his hold on you. Let us rekindle our love.” 

From what I can make out, there is some movement, and despite my shame at Ezekiel correctly elucidating my sins, I cannot lose Michonne. My skin crawls, blood boils as my brain conjures an image of him with his hands on my wife. His lips on hers... and I can no longer withhold my presence. I find my boxers on the floor and stroll as calmly as my anger will allow into the living room, where I find Michonne in an embrace with Ezekiel, his lips lowering to hers. 

“Get your hands off my wife! Don’t you fucking touch her!” I growl, the intensity of my hate for this man who wants to steal what I have, replace me, crests past reason. Holding back the red anger that nearly blinds me I stop myself in my tracks and simply attempt to breathe past what’s consuming me. “Michonne! Babe...please. Don’t do this.” I beg, shaking my head as if I could shake away the image of them together.

As though falling out of a trance, Michonne turns to where I stand, her arms falling limply to her side, out of Ezekiel’s embrace. “Rick, I-”

“I don’t blame you, sweetheart. Because he’s right. I have done the unimaginable to you.”

Gesturing to me, lifting his hand my way, Ezekiel grins in triumph. “See! Even he must admit what he has done.”

Staring at him, my eyes narrow and focus on his face, hate and anger boiling just under the surface as I recognize him for what he is. Not some fool. No. Ezekiel is a worthy foe. An antagonist to me, but a savior to some. His casting changed only by a subtle change in perspective. Which role had he been hired to play?

The doting step-father figure? I know for a fact my kids like him. Many times over the summer they have commented on something that Zeke taught them or let them do, or somewhere he took them. Each time my heart was scalded by the painful truth in their recollections. The truth that he had been there for him when I had not. That despite my efforts to be with them, to remain a constant, he was there to fill in the gaps my foolishness created. 

Was he the romantic boyfriend, who cared for and loved a heartbroken woman, battered by the choices of a man who thought he was doing what was best for everyone?

Or was he the villain in a long piece of romantic fiction, starring yours truly as the love sick man who sacrificed his family, his wife and children, and ultimately himself when charged with an impossible choice? To me he is. Ezekiel is the snake in the Garden of Eden that entices my lovely wife away with a poisonous apple that represents nothing as deeply meaningful as the knowledge that with me, she already has everything she could ever need. But how can I compete with him? Michonne’s and my path is littered with the detritus of good intentions. On the other hand, Ezekiel offers her only thoughts of a time spent on a cloud of happiness, elevating her past the drama I wrought on her. How can I compete? Perhaps I cannot. Perhaps I am the villain in this play? While the thought has never crossed my mind, my heart so focused on having my wife and children back, I have to consider it now.

Hands on my hips, my fingers dance anxiously against each other as I watch my wife’s beautiful brown eyes flood with tears, confusion, indecision. Her body slumps under the weight of the vise of tension Ezekiel and I have placed her in. “Don’t cry, babe, please. Please...I love you too much to see you cry like this.”

Scoffing at my declaration of love, Ezekiel rolls his eyes. “This is what he does to you, Michonne, he makes you cry.” Ezekiel prods, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Look at me, Michonne.” Using his index finger he tilts her chin up, forcing eye contact. Despite me not wanting to further Michonne’s emotional distress, it’s taking everything in me not to go over there and rip his hands off of her. Rolling my head on my neck, I’m fighting the impulse that’s growing stronger by the minute. “What you and Rick have is toxic, and crazy! It’s not some epic romance. This is no Shakespearean play. If anything, this is a tragedy, and if you allow this to continue it might end in the same fatal way that Romeo and Juliet ended. Do not continue to throw your life away on him. Allow me to save you from this wretched existence.”

“She doesn’t need saving. Do you, babe? You hate the idea of that...a man who thinks he needs to save you.”

Sniffling and rubbing at her nose, Michonne gifts me with a weak smile. “I do hate that. It’s so stupid.” 

“I don’t mean save-save, I mean I can spare you the injury to your life that this man has caused you. I can take you and the children away with me, we can see the world together.”

“What about Michonne’s career? You want her to pick up and follow you?”

“Well...” he sputters, seemingly caught off guard by my question

“Well? She’s spent her life preparing and working for this. For what she has earned. Why should she drop all of that to follow you around while you pretend to talk to animals?”

“You would twist this to sound like something awful. Michonne, you can write your little comic stories from anywhere. I cannot be King Ezekiel if I’m not out there in the world. You know this. There has to be some compromise here. I have waited for too long to have you. I can’t lose you to him again.”

“My little comics?” Tilting her head, backing away from him, I can hear the lift in her tone that signals trouble ahead for Ezekiel. “Did you say my little comics? The little comics that have purchased a ten-million-dollar beach house in Los Angeles? The little comics that have seen me on the stage at Comic Cons all over the world where thousands of people paid just to see me and ask me a question? The same comics that I’m being paid millions to turn into a television show?” Pushing and swatting away at his frantic grasp of her arms, his pointless attempt I assume to try and pull her back in, Michonne’s ire is raised now. Stepping away from him to cross the room, she crosses her arms, and narrows her focus on him, “I would never demean your work in the way you tried to just insult me, Ezekiel.”

“Beloved, I’m sorry, I did not intend to offend you. Only to plead my case here. This is an impossible situation, how could you ask me to choose?”

Ambling to inch my form closer to Michonne’s, I answer with confidence, “The same way I did. You’re so focused on having her for your own, that you’re blind to what Michonne needs. I know her. I know what she needs. I chose her. I choose her everyday. I was given an impossible choice, and I made the one that benefitted her, because I love her. Her happiness is more important than my own, and I would make that choice every time. Even if it kills me. And it did.”

At my last words, Michonne turns toward me, her eyes soft, discerning, they roam over my face as though she is seeking to spot the lie in my confession. Sweat is beading on my forehead, anxiety welling in my belly at the transparency with which I lay myself bare. But the words are out there now, I can’t pull them back, and so I continue to let them fall. To once and for all make it plain even in front of this outsider.

“You don’t love her, Ezekiel, though I don’t blame you for trying. Look at her! How could anyone not want her? She’s beautiful.” 

“Rick...” Michonne blushes, her voice a demure whine as though I’m embarrassing her with my praise.

“It’s true. And you’re smart, and funny, bossy, and sometimes mean. But you love hard, and when you care about someone you are soft, and mushy. You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met. You’re a great mother. You’re everything I could ever hope to be, because when you say you’re going to do something, you just do it. Like it’s nothing. But I know it’s something. I know the work you put into being you. I remember your first comic. Hell I remember when you were 18 and you wrote your first version of Zombie Slayer.”

“That night in the tree house...”

“That night in the tree house that changed everything.” Walking the rest of the way to her, Michonne meets me halfway, allowing me to enfold her in my arms and hug her tightly against my chest. 

Sputtering in anger, Ezekiel charges, “Michonne! This is crazy!”

“It is crazy, Zeke, it is. But I love him, and I don’t want to have to pretend with you any longer. I write fiction, make believe, I don’t want to live it. I want to be where my heart is. With Rick.” 

Kissing the top of her head, I can feel my heart rate lowering, bringing me back down just at the feeling of her close to me. Her words a reciprocal confirmation of what I’m feeling. 

“Listen, man, you’re crazy if you thought I was going to let you screw my wife, and have my children call you daddy. I was never going to let my family go for good. I still love her and she still loves me, why would you want that for yourself? Why would you want to try and act the part in another man’s life? Or is that all you can do? Act...”

“Michonne, beloved, I simply cannot accept this.”

“Zeke,” Michonne softens her voice, and releases her hold on me, taking a few tentative steps toward Ezekiel. “You have been the most wonderful friend to me. I love you for that. But...it’s not the same as the love I have for Rick. I’m sorry, it’s just not. When he says he knows me he’s right.”

“I know you!” Shouting now, his eyes wide with rage, Ezekiel protests, his hands raised in the air. 

“No, not really, you don’t.” Stepping to him, she places her hands on his chest, and man it raises my hackles, starts that thundering in my head again, but I have to trust her. I have to believe in what we are rebuilding together. It’s hard though, and the asshole in me wants to kick this guy’s ass and drag Michonne back to the bedroom. I can’t live in that impulse though, I have to respect her enough to allow her to handle this her way. Not mine. With her palm flat to his cheek, Michonne asks him, “Why do I hate thunderstorms, Zeke?”

I know the answer to this, but I can tell that he doesn’t. Ezekiel is too mesmerized by Michonne’s touch, by the closeness of her to him. I’ve been there, man, I live there. I am familiar with the magnetism in her touch. It’s powerful. So powerful that he doesn’t even answer, he just stares at her, opening and closing his mouth as though his memorized lines should simply appear on his tongue. 

“Rick, why do I hate thunderstorms?”

“Because of Glenn’s parents.”

“Yeah, because of how my little brother’s birth parents died.” She nods, filling in the blanks for him. “Zeke, why do I carry a pen in my pocket all the time? Why do I hate hot dogs?”

“Ah- I don’t know, because you’re a writer. That’s easy! And you don’t like hot dogs because they are cast off bits and pieces of an animal. They are disgusting, and you are very conscious about what you put in your body. See I know that.” A smug smile creeps across his lips as though he has gotten the answer right. 

“Rick?”

“The pen is from a piece of advice your grandmother, who was a writer, gave you. You click it when you’re nervous and use it as a reminder that you should be writing. Also, you think hot dogs are just rolled up bologna, and you hate bologna. Ever since that week we spent fishing with Shane and his dad, and all he brought were bologna sandwiches, you have hated them. You pretty much starved yourself all week once he told you that bologna is also called ‘hobo meat’ and you thought it smelled like a boiled hot dog. It was pretty funny actually.”

“It was funny.” She laughs, tossing me a wink over her shoulder, though the tail end of that laughter is trailed by a sad smile, one that dies and transforms into a frown. “Zeke, maybe, maybe it’s not love between us? Maybe we were good friends who had a good time, but- but it’s time to be honest with each other and ourselves. Do you really love me, or the idea of me?”

“I love you, Michonne. I deserve you. Every time he has disappointed you, I’ve been there for you.”

“Because that’s what friends do. And he might disappoint me again-”

Whipping my head to the side, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Hey!”

Turning towards me, Michonne rolls her eyes, “You will, and so will I. For people who have been friends all of our lives, that’s going to happen. I make peace with that because I know that despite that, you are my person, Rick. I’m sorry, Zeke. He is.”

“You’re my person, babe.”

“I know.”

“This is ridiculous!” Ezekiel mutters, seemingly coming alive from the trance that Michonne had him in. “How stupid can you be? I – I thought you were a smart woman, Michonne, but if you go back to him you are not the woman I thought you were. I suppose that Carol was right. I deserve better than to be the understudy to this- this country bumpkin. If this is what you want for yourself, then I am left no choice but to leave you to your ruin!”

“Why don’t you go ahead and do that. And take this shit with you!” Throwing the velvet box that contains the ring he gave to Michonne at him, he snatches it in the air. Approaching him, I stand toe to toe with him. Eying him, giving him the same stare down that he’s leveling at me. Puffing his chest out, nostrils flaring, this man’s posturing will do him no good. And even as I can see the anger in his eyes, I can also see the sadness. Witness that defeat in the form of truth is intruding on the theatrical life he had planned for him and my wife. Reality has wrecked that bit of fiction he cast himself in and for only the briefest of minutes, I feel sorry for this clown. He’s been relegated to a bit player in Michonne’s life. The realization that he was only a stand in is fueling the disgust for me that I see hovering over his face, twisting and distorting his features. I get it. I do. He loved a woman he couldn’t have. He reached for a life he can’t have. I’ve been there. I love that same woman. I’ve lived an existence without that life. It hurts. As much as I can relate and sympathize with his plight, I cannot forgive or forget what this man tried to take from me. That he has touched my wife. And for that reason alone, I need him gone. For good. 

“It’s time for you to leave.” 

Looking over my shoulder at my wife who stands behind me, her hands resting on my shoulders as though she is trying to keep me from punching this idiot in the mouth, he finds his voice and levies a final few words. “You will regret this, Michonne. But I won’t be there to pick you up after he’s knocked you down again.”

“I know. He won’t though.”

“I won’t.” I promise, not just to her, but to him as well. It’s a promise that’s more than a declaration to my wife that I will not hurt her again, it’s also a notice to let this guy know that my spot in her life will never be available again.

Turning on his heels, Ezekiel hurriedly makes his way to the door, and with one final look back at Michonne, he nods, then exits stage left for good.