9.
~ It was almost too perfect. All perfect things must end.
Alex wasn't used to coming home to a house smelling of good food and a happy, smiling wife. If almost felt like a life that didn't belong to him. A life he'd stolen maybe.
A part of him raised an alarm that warned that this was doomed to end soon. That no happiness for him could last forever. That all good things must end.
He found Norma at the kitchen sink when he came home. The entire house smelled of something wonderful. She was wearing a dark blue dress but that wasn't what he noticed about her. He noticed the brightly colored apron elegantly tied around her wait with a neatly arranged bow. It was the type of thing that was begging for him to pull at.
"We're having a roast tonight." she said washing up a cutting board. She hadn't turned around and most likely had seen him come home on the security cameras. Her focus was only on cleaning her kitchen.
"Smells good." he said touching on the fabric of her apron. How did she get it into that perfect fluffy bow behind her back like that? It was a purely female secret. Something he could never master. The fabric was bright and complimented her dark dress perfectly. He didn't know women wore aprons anymore, but it was lovely and old fashioned the way Norma put them on. Like they were an accessory. Like here heels and pearls.
"What are you doing?" she asked with a hint of laughter. He was pulling out that careful bow that had so enraptured him. Allowing her apron to fall away.
"I'm not sure, Mrs. Romero." he said lazily. "We've got some time before the roast is ready."
"Oh?" she snorted and finally turned around. He'd lost interest in her apron now that it was off her waist. The thing most appealing about it had been that it had been so neatly synched about her waist and now, it was just a piece of colorful fabric.
But now her smile was out in full force and his hands were around her waist and he could feel how warm and inviting her body was. Maybe more than it ever had been before.
"It's supposed to snow tonight." she reminded him.
"I'll turn on the new heater before we go to bed." he assured her.
"I like our new heater." she told him matter of factly as his hands moved around her well toned hips and down to her bottom.
"Better than the security system?" he teased her when she tried to kiss him.
"Well…" she mused. "I like not freezing to death in my own bed. I suppose we could always go down to the motel again if we didn't have the new heater."
"That Marsh guy is still down there." Alex reminded her. "We'd have to be quite."
"If we were really loud, he might get the idea that we'd really married." she told him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and he pulled her hips closer to his. "That we're happy." she added.
"Are you happy?" he asked. He honestly wanted to know. He never knew with her sometimes. It was always a mystery with Norma.
She looked sad for a moment. Like she was trying to remember something.
"It's getting easier to be happy." she said at last.
That was good enough. Her main concerns had been Norman for so long, her worries about her business and all the stress this town had put on her. Her own happiness had taken a back seat.
Her hips were moving against his in that way that would soon make things uncomfortable for him. Why did she have that magical ability over him? Her face looked so sweet and innocent. The perfect sweetheart of a wife. The kind of woman who you could take out in public and would be a lady in front of all the right people. Who would make you look better just to be seen with her. But privately, when his hands moved down her hips, she was capable of grinding against him as if she couldn't behave.
Alex loved it though. Loved that she knew when to be defiant for him. When she knew he didn't want a lady.
"Let's go to bed." he said in a voice he wasn't sure was his own. Her nimble hands were unhooking his belt and he could feel that uncomfortable strain press against his pants already.
"What's wrong, Sheriff?" she asked sweetly. Her eyes flashing a wide eyed innocence and her voice had taken on a very breathy, helplessness.
There she was, playing her games. And bad girls, who played games didn't get what they wanted.
There would have to be retaliation. A punishment.
~ Norma almost lost her balance with the shiver of pleasure that rippled through her. She never thought she'd be the type to enjoy a spanking, but Alex was good at it.
He swatted he behind with a single, neat, sharpness that left a delightful sting and a smile on her face that she couldn't hide.
"Get upstairs." he ordered. When she grinned wickedly at him. His face cold and serious while her hips rebelled and ground against him. She could feel he was already aroused. He was always so easily aroused when she decided he would be. She loved having that control over him. That power over his body.
"Are you mad at me, Sheriff?" she asked pulling at his shirt. She made sure to keep her voice falsely innocent of what she knew she was doing. Her hips moving hungrily in time with his even as his hands gripped her bottom with unusual fierceness.
Maybe it was a mistake to make eye contact with him. To see that serious look of a man who suddenly wasn't her husband at all, but that angry looking Sheriff Romero she'd first met and had been a little afraid of.
Her husband smiled a lot. He sent her flowers, danced with her, made her laugh and feel safe. This man… made her legs tremble and her body feel weak.
He lightly spanked her bottom again. Enough to make her stand on tip toe and she felt relief and seeing a spark of her Alex come back to her. Just for a moment.
"I told you, to get upstairs…" he breathed softly. His voice was trembling and his breath was hot. "Mrs. Romero."
She didn't have time to argue before he pulled her roughly into his arms and was carrying her. She didn't mount a protest. She wasn't sure her legs would work anyway. Besides, she loved it the first time he carried her up the stairs to their soon to be martial bed.
She'd had been so shocked at how strong and well toned his body was, how slow he'd taken things. Almost to the point of madness the way he pulled off her clothes.
But tonight, she sensed he was far more eager and unwilling to wait. His breathing already labored and rushed whiled climbing the stairs.
He promptly placed her back on her feet as though she were a ballerina. His hands going to her waist again and guiding her to their bedroom.
"You know, I was thinking, we could just talk tonight-" she giggled as he smothered her lips with a kiss and backed her onto the bed.
She fell backwards and Alex neatly caught her and slowed her fall enough to allow her rest comfortably on the mattress. Her shoes becoming lost in the scuffle as her husband's body rested comfortably on top of her.
Alex, her Alex, was back. That angry mood of his having passed as soon as he had her in bed with the promise that she would be his. His face softening pleasantly and that smile that was just for her came out.
"I love you." he whispered in her ear as his hands pulled up her skirt. "I've waited my whole life for you."
She could feel his need pressing insistently between her legs and her panties, already damp with desire, being stripped away.
When he entered her, she gasped only slightly at the sheer force. It always surprised her how strong he was. How much he had to hold back so as not to hurt her. How his hands cradled her head and face while her rocked inside her. How he never wanted to break eye contact. How much he wanted to kiss her and reassure her they were together. They were real.
"It was always real." he moaned softly. His tempo increasing rapidly. "I married you… it was always real."
She wan't sure what he meant. The fake marriage. Their being in love. When it had happened exactly.
His climax was almost violent. More forceful than she had ever known it to be with him. His movement seemed to have more purpose when he finished inside her and refused to move away.
"It wouldn't be the worst thing." he said softly. His breathing still labored and his voice defeated. "A baby."
"What?" Norma panicked pushing him off her. His body becoming heavy and claustrophobic on top of her.
He looked winded and out of breath. His face slightly guilty but still the Alex she knew and loved.
"Alex, what are you talking about?" she demanded harshly. "A baby?"
"I just meant…" he said slowly adjusting his clothes to cover himself up again. "If it… happened… if we got pregnant-"
"We're not going to." she interrupted.
The look he gave her was sad. Almost mournful. Like he'd been reject. Which, in a way he had been.
"I just mean, it wouldn't be the worst thing if it did." he told her finally.
"I thought you didn't want children." she argued. Alex Romero. Sheriff Alex Romero didn't seem the type to want a family. She couldn't picture him chasing a screaming toddler. But her Alex was different. She could easily picture a screaming toddler chasing him. She never pictured Sheriff Romero planting trees for her or sending her flowers. Let alone marrying her. Yet, here they were.
"Alex, I don't want to be a mom again." she said plainly. "I thought you were okay with that."
"I am." he said quickly. "I am."
She could tell by his expression that he was lying.
"Maybe it would be different this time." he admitted.
~ Dinner was a quite affair. They didn't have a lot to say now that Alex had let his true feelings be known, and Norma had rejected the idea.
He wasn't sure why he had admitted this vague plan to her. Why the thought had stuck into his head and refused to budge. If he would ever have children with anyone, he would want them to be with Norma.
She was still young and healthy enough; they both were. She was caring and she'd never neglect their child. Norman had been a fluke. A rarity. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her genes that caused his instability and Alex didn't believe it was her mothering that caused him to kill people.
"Is it because of Norman?" Alex asked after what felt like a lifetime of silence between them.
"Is what because of Norman?" Norma asked defensively. She shied away from him and for a moment, he saw the woman she used to be before they were married. Someone who kept secrets. Someone who was always so guarded and protective.
"Are you worried… that it's genetic?" he asked. "What's wrong with him?"
The sound of her fork hitting her plate made a defining clatter. An ominous signal not to overstep his bounds on this one.
"I'd leave it alone if I were you." she said darkly.
"Because it's not." he said eagerly. "Dylan is fine."
"Alex."
"If we had children-"
"We're not." she interrupted.
Alex didn't want to fight. Didn't want to spend their first Christmas fighting about this, or anything else. He'd made his decision a long time ago anyway about having a family. If he'd wanted to have children, he would have done so by now. Still, that was before he'd met Norma. Before she doctored a cut on his head and done his laundry. Before she told him how he made her feel safe and he could see through her curtained windows at night. Before he put his mother's wedding ring on her finger and carried her upstairs to bed. Before she told him she loved him and he admitted he loved her to. Before he'd seen the way she tied a perfect bow with her apron strings.
It had always been her. She'd always been the one he was supposed to be with. Why did the love of your life always come at such a cost?
"I love you." he told her simply.
"I love you to." she said and refused to look at him.
~ "What do you want to know about Sheriff Romero?" Rebecca asked. "We're really not that close. I don't know him that well all in fact."
"So this isn't you two?" Marsh asked showing her a grainy black and white security camera stills.
Rebecca looked in mild horror and remembered dully where and when it had happened. It was at the bank's own ATM and Alex was getting cash. They were together, smiling and she was hanging on his side. They were both wearing coats so it must have been cold out. Both looked hammered. She was wearing the scarf she had lost last year, but that didn't matter. The picture was pretty clear she and Alex were cozy enough.
It was almost obscene the way they were pressed so close together. She couldn't say they didn't know each other or they were just friends.
"It's been over-" she started to say.
"Well, I have others." Marsh said quickly. "A security camera from the hardware store near Sheriff Romero's house has your car there just a few days after he moved back in. He must have given you a key because you let yourself in."
Rebecca was silent. There was no denying her car was there on Alex's driveway. What was she supposed to say? She was watering his plants? How was she supposed to admit that he used her? That he used her while seeing Norma Bates on the side.
"Must be frustrating." Marsh said as if reading her mind. "To think he cared for you. Only to go off and marry someone else."
"We weren't like that." Rebecca assured him. "We were never like that."
"What were you like? I'm all ears." Marsh asked.