Getting Even at the 19th Hole by Mikki Aronoff

Your eyes welcome the dark, the soap suds that cling to the backs of the bartender’s hairy hands, their slow wipes of the glasses as his brown eyes flirt with you for tips. He slides your beer across the bar, his gaze never leaving your parted lips. Soon that muscled buck curves around the bar, glides his hunk towards you, hungry as that sonofabitch roving husband of yours. He perches on the edge of the barstool next to you. His knees brush yours as you drink him up from boot tips to hips. Your tongue lathers as a low chuckle bubbles up from your throat. Your eyes fix on his, his on yours. Yours signal right, his left, both to where the His and Hers doors are, a dimly lit hallway with framed, glossy black & whites of swingers of the golf variety. You move there linked like conjoined twins. A long whiff of musk sends you stumbling back and up against the wall. He presses into your ready acceptance. You teach music, play country on your Gibson. Rhythms are second nature to you. You tilt and grind to his desire, and he to yours, not a word between you and two minutes tops. But worth a repeat, you suspect. Then act. You hoof it over to the bar two nights a week, then three, then four. At five, your husband blanches at the tally. When you’ve advanced from lag to level to eclipse, he grumbles to you at the imbalance, at unpressed work shirts and the uncooked chicken-fried steak limp on the linoleum kitchen counter. You reach for the cast iron skillet, squeeze out a sorry tear. This won’t last, you pinky swear, knowing it will.

Mikki Aronoff’s work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, The Disappointed Housewife, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, and elsewhere. She has received Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction nominations.