The mat unrolled with a hollow slap against the rug, and Jim crouched to square its edges with the coffee table leg. Wanda's mat landed beside his a moment later, close enough that their elbows would bump through the first few sun salutations — the way she liked it, close enough to touch without looking like she needed to.

"You're stalling," she said.

"I'm aligning."

"You're stalling." She tugged the hem of her sports bra down over her ribs and looked at him the way she looked at a patient who'd been caught sneaking cigarettes. "We had a deal, Jim."

He knew the deal. He'd agreed to the deal three days ago in the kitchen, half-distracted by a sink that wouldn't drain, and he'd been thinking about it ever since — not the way she probably assumed. The way you think about a dentist appointment. Anticipatory, in the chest.

"The blinds," he said.

"Are closed."

"The neighbors—"

"Have a fence, a hedge, and their own problems." Wanda knelt on her mat and pressed her palms together in front of her chest, mock-prayerful, which was her way of saying I'm being patient but not infinitely. "Strip, Holloway. The stream starts in four minutes."

Jim stood. He peeled the t-shirt over his head first, folding it the way he folded everything — in half, then in half again — and set it on the arm of the leather recliner. The shorts went next. Then the boxers, which he stepped out of with a small hop that made Wanda snort.

"Graceful."

"It's a yoga move."

"It's not."

He stacked the boxers on top of the shorts on top of the shirt, a neat little cairn of his dignity on the armchair, and stood there in the cool blue light of the dead screen with his hands at his sides. Fifty-two years old. Barrel chest gone soft at the edges. Farmer's tan ending at the wrists and collar. His cock lay against his thigh, unbothered, unremarkable, and he was suddenly, acutely aware of the fact that he'd been married to the woman kneeling six feet away for thirty years and she had never once looked at him like this — head tilted, eyes bright, the way you look at a puzzle you've just decided to solve.

"Well," she said.

"Well what."

"Nothing." She smiled. "You look good. Turn around."

"I'm not turning around."

"Suit yourself." She picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. "You're the one who wanted the big screen."

The screen woke with a chime, and Lily's channel filled the living room — a sunlit apartment in Portland, three thousand miles away, where a woman in her early thirties sat cross-legged on a cork mat and smiled into the camera like she could see through it. Her hair was up in its usual messy bun, a few black strands loose at her temples. Her top was the color of pale sage and thin enough that the studio light moved through it. Her shorts were shorter than Jim remembered from last week. Tighter, too. They rode high on her hips and disappeared into the crease of her thighs when she shifted her weight.

"Welcome back, everyone," Lily said. Her voice came through the speakers warm and unhurried, like honey poured slow. "Find your seat. Take a breath. Let's check in with the body tonight."

Wanda settled onto her mat and rolled her shoulders. Jim lowered himself down beside her, knees cracking, and tried to arrange his legs into something that resembled cross-legged. His cock rested on the mat between his thighs, and he was very aware of it, the way you're aware of a word you've said too many times.

"She's dressed up," Wanda said.

"She's wearing the same thing she always—"

"No, she's not." Wanda nodded at the screen. "Look at her. That top's a size too small and those shorts are painted on. She's got a date after this."

"She's a yoga instructor."

"She's a yoga instructor who's getting laid tonight." Wanda reached over and patted his knee. "Good for her."

Lily unfolded into a seated forward bend, her chest folding over her legs, and the camera angle — Jim had never thought about the camera angle before, but he thought about it now — caught the line of her spine and the way the sage fabric pulled taut across her back. She breathed out, long and slow, and the sound of it filled the room.

"Inhale," she said. "Reach up. Exhale, fold."

They followed. Jim's hamstrings complained. Wanda's spine made a small series of sounds like bubble wrap. The room smelled of the leather recliner and the faint, clean salt of the workout they'd already done that afternoon — a walk, nothing more, but Jim ran hot and always had. Sweat gathered at his hairline before they'd finished the first round of cat-cow.

"Cat," Lily said. "Cow. Cat. Cow. Let the breath lead."

Wanda arched her back and looked sideways at him. "You're dripping already."

"I'm efficient."

"You're a furnace." She reached over and pressed two fingers to his shoulder blade, then pulled them back slick. "See? Furnace."

"It's the rug."

"It's not the rug."

On the screen, Lily rolled up to standing and shook out her arms, and the camera followed her up — a slow, almost lazy pan that started at her bare feet and ended at the loose strands of hair at her temples. Her nipples were visible through the sage fabric, small and defined, and Jim looked away out of habit and then looked back because Wanda was already looking, and there was no point pretending.

"Nice," Wanda said. "She's got the good ones."

"The good what."

"Nipples, Jim."

"Jesus, Wanda."

"What? It's a compliment." She stood and dusted off her knees. "Come on. Standing series."

They worked through warrior one, warrior two. Jim's thighs burned. Wanda kept her eyes on the screen and her mouth running — a low, steady commentary on Lily's form, her outfit, the way the light caught the inside of her thigh when she stepped wide. Jim grunted responses and tried to keep his breathing even. His cock had thickened a little from the movement, the blood moving, nothing more, and he was grateful the mat was dark.

"Now," Lily said, "let's come into downward facing dog. Hands and feet on the mat. Hips up and back. Long spine."

Jim planted his palms and stepped his feet back. His back lengthened. His heels reached for the rug and didn't quite find it, and he settled into the shape the way he'd settled into it a hundred times before — knees soft, chest open, breath steady. The blood moved to his head. The room tilted pleasantly.

And then something in his lower back went.

Not a pop, exactly. More like a small, wet click — the sound a knuckle makes when it's been waiting. A bright wire of pain shot from his sacrum up along his spine and stopped somewhere between his shoulder blades, and Jim's whole body locked. His arms stayed planted. His hips stayed high. His breath stopped mid-inhale and hung there.

"Jim?"

He tried to answer. The answer came out as a grunt.

"Jim, you okay?"

"Back," he managed. "My back."

On the screen, Lily was still talking, her voice serene. "Press the floor away. Lengthen through the crown of the head."

Wanda was already moving. She came around behind him, her bare feet quiet on the rug, and stood with her knees bent, hands hovering. "Which side?"

"Low. Right side. Don't—"

"I'm not going to touch it. I'm going to help you stand up. Slowly." She slid one hand onto his hip, the other flat against his lower back, and applied a careful upward pressure. "On three. One—"

"Don't count. Just—"

"Okay. Okay. Easy."

He rose in stages, his spine unfolding one vertebra at a time, the bright wire of pain loosening as he went. Sweat ran down his ribs and pooled in the small of his back. By the time he was halfway up, his ass was slick with it — he could feel the wetness under Wanda's hand as she shifted her grip, sliding from his hip to brace against his stomach instead, the other hand moving down to steady him at the base of his spine.

Her palm landed on his ass. Wet skin on wet skin. And then it kept going — her hand skated sideways through the sweat, lost its purchase entirely, and her index finger slid down the crease and into him, up to the second knuckle, before either of them understood what had happened.

Jim clenched.

Not a choice. A reflex, the same one that closes a fist around a hot pan. His ass clamped down on her finger like a vise, and the pain in his back vanished under a much louder, much stranger signal from somewhere south of it.

"Oh," Wanda said.

"Wanda—"

"That's my finger."

"I know it's your finger."

"It's inside you."

"I know."

She started to giggle. It came out of her low and delighted, the same laugh she'd made the time their cat fell off the back of the couch. She wiggled the finger — just a small, testing wiggle, trying to work it free — and Jim's whole body clenched tighter around her, a hard involuntary squeeze that pulled a sound out of him he hadn't made since he was a teenager.

"Jim."

"Stop wiggling."

"I'm trying to get it out."

"You're making it worse."

"I'm making it tighter." She was laughing now, really laughing, her forehead dropping against his shoulder blade. "Honey. Honey, you have to relax."

"I can't relax. There's a finger in my ass."

"There's a finger in your ass because you have a slippery ass."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Yours. You're a furnace." She straightened up, still giggling, and Jim could feel the shape of her smile against his back. "Okay. Okay. I'm going to try something."

"No."

"Yes."

She pulled her hand back a fraction — not out, just back, enough to gather a mouthful of spit, and Jim heard the wet sound of it behind him, the small intimate click of her tongue. Then her finger came back, slick now, and slid in easy, all the way to the knuckle, and Jim's breath left him in a rush.

"Oh," he said. Different oh than before.

"Yeah," Wanda said. "There it is."

She moved her finger slowly — in, out, in, a shallow, careful stroke, like she was testing a joint for range of motion. Nurse's hands. Thirty years of nurse's hands. She knew exactly how much pressure to apply and exactly where to stop. Jim's knuckles went white on the mat. His cock, which had been hanging soft and forgotten between his thighs, thickened against the rug in a slow, unmistakable swell.

"Jim Holloway," Wanda said, and her voice had gone sing-song, the voice she used when she'd found something out. "Are you getting hard?"

"No."

"You're getting hard."

"I'm not—"

She slid her finger in again, a little deeper, and curled it just slightly forward, and Jim's hips jerked against the mat on their own. His cock dragged through the sweat on the rug and left a wet smear. He heard himself make a sound that wasn't a word.

"That's what I thought," Wanda said. Her thumb found the spot behind his balls, the soft strip of skin between his ass and his sac, and pressed down — firm, steady, a nurse's pressure. "There you go."

On the screen, Lily's voice cooed out of the speakers. "Now let's open up those hips. Come onto your back. Happy baby."

Neither of them looked at the TV. Jim was staring at the rug six inches from his face, at the little fibers crushed flat under his palms, and Wanda was behind him, her finger still buried to the knuckle, her thumb pressing slow circles against his perineum, and the room had gone very quiet except for the wet sound of her moving inside him and the sound of his own breathing, which he did not recognize.

"Wanda," he said.

"Mm?"

"What are you doing."

"I'm helping." Another slow slide in, another slow slide out. "You said your back hurt."

"My back is fine."

"Is it?" She curled her finger again, and Jim's whole spine arched, and the arch had nothing to do with his back. "Because you're not frozen anymore."

He wasn't. He was kneeling on the rug with his ass in the air and his wife's finger inside him, and his cock was so hard it ached against his stomach, and he had absolutely no idea what to do with any of it. The TV flickered blue against the side of his face. Lily was on her back now, knees drawn up, ankles in her hands, rocking gently side to side — and the camera, the camera that Jim had never once thought about before tonight, had settled low and close, and the thin fabric of her shorts had pulled tight and dark across the seam of her, a clear and unmistakable line.

"Oh, look," Wanda said. "She's got the right idea."

Jim turned his head just enough to see the screen. Lily rocked in happy baby, serene, oblivious, her camel toe on full display on the eighty-inch panel, and Wanda laughed — a bright, gleeful, unashamed laugh — and pressed her thumb harder against his perineum.

"Don't move a muscle, honey," she said.

Her finger slid in again, slow and wet, and Jim's hands fisted on the mat, and on the TV Lily said, "Now let's really stretch."

Wanda's free hand came off his back and found the remote on the rug. She thumbed the pause button without looking, and the TV froze — Lily suspended mid-rock in happy baby, knees wide, ankles in her hands, and the camera still parked low and close where it had drifted, so that the eighty-inch panel was now nothing but the seam of Lily's shorts pulled dark and tight, the shape of her pressed into the fabric like a thumbprint in clay.

"There," Wanda said. "Hold that thought."

Jim's knees had gone numb against the rug. His palms were slick and sliding on the mat, and he could feel every one of his fifty-two years stacked up in his lower back — except the back wasn't the loudest thing anymore. The loudest thing was Wanda's finger, still buried to the knuckle, moving in him with that slow nurse's patience, in and out, in and out, and the wet sound it made was the only sound in the room besides his own breathing, which had gone ragged and stupid.

"You see her?" Wanda's mouth was at his ear now, her breath warm on the side of his neck. "Look at the screen, honey."

He looked. He didn't want to look and he looked anyway, and the image burned itself in — that dark seam, that soft give of fabric, three thousand miles away in a sunlit Portland apartment where a woman rocked on her back with no idea that a paused frame of her crotch was hanging over a leather recliner in Ohio.

"That's what you get to look at," Wanda said. "While I do this."

She slid her finger out slow, all the way to the tip, and pushed back in — one long stroke, no hurry in it at all — and Jim's hips rolled forward against the mat on their own, dragging his cock through the sweat and leaving a wet line in the fibers. He made a sound he didn't have a name for.

"There he is," she said. "You like that."

"Wanda—"

"Say it."

"I—"

"Say it, Jim."

Another stroke, deeper, and her finger curled forward at the top of it, and the sound that came out of him was barely a word at all. "Yes."

"Yes what."

"Yes, I like it."

"Good boy." She said it easy, the way she'd say it to a dog who'd finally sat, and Jim's face went hot all the way to his ears. "Now here's what's happening. You're on your hands and knees on our rug, and my finger's in your ass, and my husband's cock is so hard it's leaving marks on the mat. And on the TV is a thirty-two-year-old girl with her legs in the air showing us her pussy through her shorts. That's the whole picture. You want me to keep going?"

"Yes."

"Then don't move."

She withdrew her hand and he heard her spit again — that small wet click behind him — and then two fingers came back, both of them, slick and warm, and went in together. Jim's arms nearly gave. The stretch was a bright, blunt pressure that had no business feeling the way it felt, and his cock jumped against his stomach, hard enough to slap.

"Two," he said. It came out thin.

"Two," Wanda agreed. "Nurse's hands. You know how many of these I've done."

"That was—" He couldn't finish it. She was moving them now, scissoring slightly, slow, and every pass sent something up his spine that had nothing to do with the disc he'd tweaked in downward dog. "That was on patients."

"Mm. And you're my patient tonight." She leaned over his back and reached around him with her other hand — the left one, the one that had been braced on his hip — and her palm closed around his cock.

Jim's whole body flinched into it. He'd been hard so long it had stopped being a surprise and become a fact, like weather, but her hand on it was new weather entirely. She was slick with his own sweat, and she used it, a long slow stroke from root to tip, thumb dragging over the head and back down, and the sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a laugh because it was all so ridiculous and so good at once.

"Look at her," Wanda said. Her hand worked him slow and even. Her fingers in his ass kept their own rhythm, a half-beat off, so that he never got used to either one. "Look at that. She's got a date tonight, I bet. She's got somebody coming over after this, and she's doing her little stretch routine with her pussy showing on the internet, and she doesn't know my husband's about to come all over our rug looking at it."

"Wanda—"

"I'm serious. Look at it." She pressed her thumb into the spot behind his balls again, that soft strip of skin, and held it there while her other hand kept stroking. "You've been staring at that girl's crotch for a month, Jim. Don't tell me you haven't. I've watched you watch her."

He wanted to deny it. His mouth opened to deny it, and her fingers curled inside him at exactly that moment, and what came out was a low, honest sound that was as good as a confession.

"That's what I thought," Wanda said, pleased. "It's okay. I've been watching her too. Look at those shorts. Look how tight. You can see the whole shape of it — that's a camel toe, honey, that's the actual thing, right there on our big TV. And you get to look at it while your wife's got two fingers in your ass and her hand on your cock. How's that for a Tuesday."

Jim's breath was coming in short pulls now. His hips had started moving on their own, a small helpless rock into her fist, and she let him — let him fuck her hand while her fingers stayed buried in him, steady, patient, working the spot she'd found with the flat of them. Sweat ran off his forehead and hit the mat in dark dots. His thighs were shaking. Somewhere behind the wall of the living room the refrigerator hummed, and the paused TV held Lily frozen in her bright sunlit apartment, and Jim Holloway knelt on his own rug with his wife behind him and understood, dimly, that he was about to come harder than he had in years.

"I'm close," he said. It came out like an apology.

"I know." Wanda's voice had gone low and warm, the teasing put away for a second. "Don't hold it. Let me feel it. Come on, honey — come for me."

She pulled her fingers out slow and pushed them back in, deep, and curled them forward, and at the same time her other hand tightened and stroked him root to tip one last long stroke, and that was the end of it. Jim's whole spine bowed. His hands slid out from under him and he went down onto his forearms, cheek to the mat, and he came — hard, in long pulses, cock jerking in Wanda's grip, spilling across the dark mat in ropes that caught the blue TV light and lay there gleaming. A sound came out of him that was mostly her name, stretched and broken, and his ass clenched down around her fingers so tight she couldn't have pulled them out if she'd wanted to.

Wanda held on. She rode it out with him, her hand working him through every pulse until he was empty and twitching, and somewhere in the middle of it her own breath caught — she felt it happen, a hot bright squeeze low in her belly, a small tight thing that rolled through her and left her thighs pressed together and her mouth open against his shoulder. Not the big one. The little one. The one that comes from watching your husband come apart in your hands.

"Oh," she said, quiet, surprised at herself.

Jim was flat on the mat, breathing like he'd run a mile. His back, which had started all of this, had gone quiet — no wire, no click, just the long loose ache of a body that had been wrung out. He turned his head and looked at her sideways, one cheek on the rug, and his eyes were wide and boyish and completely undone.

"Well," he said.

Wanda eased her fingers out of him, slow, and he winced and then laughed, a weak huff into the mat. She wiped her hand on her yoga pants without ceremony, sat back on her heels, and looked at the mess he'd made — the long wet streaks across the dark mat, the shine of it in the TV light.

"You ruined the mat," she said.

"You ruined me."

"Fair." She reached over and unpaused the video. On the screen Lily rocked gently side to side, serene, oblivious, and said, "Now let's really stretch," and Wanda snorted and hit pause again, freezing her right back where she'd been.

Jim rolled onto his side, careful of his back, and looked up at his wife. Fifty years old, silver at the temples, ponytail coming loose, a wet handprint of his own sweat drying on her yoga pants, and she was smiling at him the way she'd smiled at him in a kitchen thirty years ago.

"So," she said. "Same time tomorrow?"

"Same time tomorrow," Jim said, from the rug. "You'll have to carry me up the stairs first."

Wanda stood and held both hands down to him. He took them, and she hauled — nurse's legs, nurse's back, thirty years of dead weight on gurneys and one husband on a yoga mat — and he came up slow, one hand going to his low back out of habit, finding nothing there that hurt. The tweak had packed its bags and left without saying goodbye.

"Bathroom," she said. "Go. I'll deal with the mat."

He went, and when he came back with a warm washcloth and his boxers on, she'd already rolled the mat up and stuffed it in the corner behind the recliner, wet side in, like evidence. The TV was dark. Lily was gone for the night.

"It'll mildew," Jim said.

"Then it'll mildew." Wanda was on the couch with her feet up, sports bra, yoga pants, a glass of water sweating on the end table. She patted the cushion beside her. "Sit down before your back changes its mind."

He sat. She handed him the water and he drank half of it in one go, and they watched the dark TV for a while like there was something on it.

"You okay?" she asked, finally, and it wasn't a joke.

Jim thought about it. He was fifty-two years old, a shop teacher with oil under his nails, and forty minutes ago his wife had put two fingers inside him while a stranger's crotch hung over the recliner, and he had come so hard his arms gave out. He waited for the shame to show up. It was late.

"I'm okay," he said. "I'm better than okay. I don't know what I am, but it's not bad."

"Good." She took the glass back and drank from it herself, then set it down and leaned into his shoulder. "Because I've been thinking about that girl's shorts all month, Jim. I didn't just stumble into this."

"I know you didn't."

"You know how I know you knew?"

"How."

"You never once told me to change the channel."

He laughed, and the laugh turned into a groan because his stomach muscles had opinions, and she laughed with him, that loud one that had carried across ER hallways for twenty-five years. Outside, a car went by and threw a stripe of headlight across the ceiling, and was gone.

"So what's tomorrow," Jim said. "Really."

Wanda reached for the remote, and instead of turning the TV off, she turned it on — the paused frame came back, Lily frozen with her knees wide and her ankles in her hands, that dark seam filling eighty inches of glass. She let it sit there and watched his face while he looked at it, and he let her watch.

"Tomorrow," she said, "you do the whole routine naked again. And when she gets to happy baby, I want you to tell me out loud what you're looking at."

"Wanda."

"Out loud. That's the deal."

Jim looked at the screen. He looked at his wife. He took the remote out of her hand and turned the TV off himself, and set the remote down on the end table, and put his arm around her, and pulled her in against his side where she fit like she'd been machined for it.

"Deal," he said.