Jeff and Linda desperately needed a new armchair. The current chair, a supplementary wedding present from Linda’s mom three years ago, was old and ratty even then. So on Saturday they went shopping at a furniture shop one of Jeff’s friends, Bill, from work, had recommended. “Everything is custom made,” Bill had said. “Very expensive, but sometimes you can get good deals on items that for some reason or other the customer didn’t like.”

Jeff and Linda worked their way through the showroom, a maze of chests and beds and dining room sets, desks and dressers and bookcases, simple credenzas and elegant armoires, couches and settees and even a few clocks. The secondhand merchandise was in an out of the way corner at the back of the store. Linda wasn’t sure about getting “used” furniture, and she wasn’t immediately taken by the old-fashioned, overstuffed armchair, about the only chair in this section of the shop. “If nothing else, it goes with our carpet,” she said.

The fabric did look very much like Jeff and Linda’s carpet. Jeff wasn’t sure he liked that. “We can try somewhere else,” Jeff said, taking Linda’s hand.

“As long as we’re here, I should at least try it out, see if it’s comfy.” Linda released Jeff’s hand and sat on the chair. “Mmmm,” she said, settling in, and a moment later, she bit her bottom lip.

“So it feels ... good?” Jeff said.

Linda smiled at Jeff and then glanced around the store. “You know what, honey? I’m glad I wore a dress today.”

“Why is that?” Jeff couldn’t help but notice the tight points of Linda’s nipples poking her blouse. Jeff knew that, beneath Linda’s blouse, her areolas were fattening and darkening with desire, even as beneath his boxers, his erection bloomed. Jeff turned away to surreptitiously adjust himself, and when he faced Linda again, she said, “Here. Hold these,” and she handed him her panties.

“You better not be leaving a wet spot,” Jeff said. Indeed, in the center of the cream-colored panty fabric was a small dark circle of moisture.

When sexually aroused, Linda was always so quick to wet. Now her eyes flickered. “Oh, God, Jeff, we’ve got to get this chair. It’s perfect.”

They were both surprised by the proprietor, an elderly gentleman with soft white hair and a mild voice. “Is everything all right?” he asked, his pale blue eyes focused on Linda’s breasts.

Linda blushed.

“We’ll take this chair,” Jeff said, attempting to deflect the clerk’s attention from Linda’s nipples with a vague hand gesture, blackbirds drifting upwards.

With a sigh, Linda managed to spring up out of the chair. “Can we have it delivered right away?” she asked. Jeff dared not look to see if Linda had actually left a stain. With the hand that wasn’t blackbirds, he managed to stuff Linda’s panties into a back pocket of his jeans.

“Let’s consult the schedule,” the clerk said, and Jeff and Linda followed him across the cluttered showroom to an antique secretary. There, the elderly clerk opened a heavy ledger while Jeff marveled at the artful arrangement of nooks and crannies in the desk and wondered if there were secret compartments.

It turned out that the earliest the store could schedule delivery was a week from the following Tuesday. Linda frowned. During the drive home, she was unusually quiet. At a stoplight, Jeff said to her, “It’s lucky you were wearing a long dress. Otherwise that old clerk would have seen your pussy.” Linda smiled. One of those slightly mysterious, slightly cat that ate the canary smiles that Jeff found endearing. The light changed. A car behind them honked. As Jeff brought his car up to speed, he said, “But aren’t you cold without your panties?”

Linda shook her head absently. “In fact, I’m warm. Very warm. Want to feel?” Without waiting for an answer, she tugged the slippery silver skirt of her dress up her legs and guided Jeff’s hand between her slender thighs.

“Mmmm, yes,” Jeff said. “Very warm. Very warm and very wet.”

“Okay, that’s enough now,” Linda said, pushing Jeff’s hand away.

“How come?” Jeff said. “You know I can drive and you-know-what at the same time.”

“You’re a great driver,” Linda agreed. “But I’m saving myself for the chair.”

“Huh?” Jeff’s face crinkled.

Linda smiled again. “You’ll see. It’ll be perfect.”

That evening in bed, Jeff found out Linda was not joking. She allowed him several kisses, but as his passion rose, she turned away. “Sleep well, honey. I love you,” she said into her pillow.

“This is silly,” Jeff said to himself. He nestled himself close to Linda, hoping the press and heat of his erection against her bottom might change her mind, but she didn’t stir. “Couldn’t I be your chair?” he whispered in her ear. No answer. Apparently she was asleep.

Traditionally, Sunday morning was a day of wake-up sex. Rare was the Sabbath Jeff and Linda didn’t celebrate themselves before going to church. But when Jeff awoke, he was surprised to find himself alone in bed. Thinking Linda was in the bathroom, he decided to join her there. Maybe he’d be in time for a mutual shower, the one they typically enjoyed after their pre-breakfast merriment. But the bathroom was empty. After allowing his thickened penis time to abate, Jeff emptied himself, washed his hands and brushed his teeth, and then set off to find Linda.

She was in the living room sitting naked on the silver gray carpet, her arms around her knees. “What are you doing?” Jeff asked.

“The new chair should go along that wall, don’t you think?” she said to Jeff without looking at him. “That way you get the light and view from the big windows. But we’ll have to move the lamp and the coffee table.”

“No problem,” Jeff said. “Whatever you say. But where’s the old chair?”

“Out on the lawn for the garbage men.”

“You dragged it out yourself? Naked?”

“It was dark. I couldn’t sleep. I kept having dreams about the new chair. Only the fabric was red, not silver gray. Rich red swirls like wombs or sperms or Van Gogh’s Starry Night. And the carpet matched. Do you think we should have ordered red? Anyway, I had to get rid of that old chair.”

“I would have been glad to do it,” Jeff said. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

With the grace of a dancer, Linda lifted her body. Her lips touched Jeff’s while her forefinger touched the tip of his penis through his boxers. “Could you start coffee while I take a shower?”

Jeff made breakfast. While he waited for the toast to pop up, he pictured Linda in the shower soaping herself. That was a job Jeff liked to do on Sunday mornings after sex. He could almost feel her flesh, all slippery from the soap, her skin flushed from sex and hot water, her apple-round breasts filling his hands, her back smooth and long and snug against his chest, her bottom soft and firm and ... And sometimes Linda allowed Jeff to clean her back there, suds raining down her crack, her dark hole welcoming his finger, almost sucking it in, so hot and tight, the closest they came to that kind of sex. Jeff wondered if she was sticking her own finger in, and his erection bowed his boxers.

“Your turn,” Linda said, a big white towel wrapped around her. “Don’t take too long—we don’t want to be late for church.”

On the pew way in the back they sat closely together as always, while Pastor Philbeck delivered his sermon, this week another version of “do unto others...” Neither Jeff nor Linda was particularly religious, but Linda felt she couldn’t disappoint Pastor Philbeck, who’d been her pastor since she was a little girl. The man had married them. He’d said he’d never seen a more loving couple, a pair of lovebirds more suited to one another. “Do you think he says that to everyone?” Jeff had asked. “Pastor Phil wouldn’t lie,” Linda had replied, a twinkle in her eye.

As always Jeff and Linda held hands during the sermon. Jeff couldn’t help but notice that Linda was squirming. On other Sundays, as much as anything they’d use church as an interlude between sexual acts—letting the good feelings of their morning coupling soak through, letting their desire for more of each other gradually rekindle, until by the end of the service the anticipation of getting back to bed would turn into dire urgency, and more than once they’d unzipped each other on the drive home.

“Ants in your pants?” Jeff whispered now, for he’d noticed Linda was squirming. Maybe she’d missed their morning congress as much as he. “These pews are so hard,” Linda whispered back. “Not half as hard as I am,” Jeff replied, shifting their joined hands towards his groin. “Be good,” Linda said, and she reclaimed her hand and placed it demurely in her own lap.

The rest of Sunday dragged by. Jeff couldn’t concentrate on anything. All he could think about was sex. “Be a grown up,” he chided himself. “You’re not fourteen for crying out loud. You’ve gone more than a day without it and not freaked out or gone off the deep end.” But his insides were churning with desire. A dozen times he was on the verge of slipping into the bathroom to jerk off, but he always stopped himself. It would be cheating. Oh, he’d masturbated many times in the three years he’d been married to Linda, but on those occasions, she was there, encouraging him, helping him, or if not, she was aware, like that time she was at a work conference for a long week, and they’d discovered phone sex. Put the phone next to your pussy while you touch yourself, Jeff had urged. Oh, yes, come for me, baby. Make yourself come.

Afterwards, they’d laughed. It was silly, sure, Jeff supposed, but joyful. Right now Jeff was not joyful. He was aching with desire. But right now, Linda was unapproachable. She’d gone shopping by herself. “Just for things,” she’d said. “Should I go with you?” Jeff had asked.

Linda had the last word. “No, honey, you’d be bored. I just need to look at some girl stuff.”

“I wouldn’t be bored,” Jeff had protested.