A Family Woman

by T. B. Markinson

  With this in mind, I continued my migration to the tip of her toes, sucking each one into my mouth. Sarah writhed underneath me, each twitch connected directly with my heart and soul. Both of us were in blissful agony, keen for the release while savoring the buildup to a mind-blowing explosion.

  “Please,” she begged.

  That was the trigger I’d been waiting for. Repositioning my body so my head was between her legs, I peered into her eyes before embarking on the final act of stage two. Her expectant smile and nod commanded me to continue.

  I eased my tongue inside her, making way for two fingers to increase my efforts. Sarah gasped, arching her back. My mouth found her bud, throbbing and waiting to be plucked. I circled it with my tongue, sucked it into my mouth. Fuck, she tasted good. The wait was well worth it.

  Her gyrating hips compelled me to go deeper. More force. Another finger. I doubled my efforts on her clit. Her eager gasps and moans helped me kick it up even further. Soon, our bodies melded into one. Every touch burned for both of us. Every flick of the tongue elicited an electrical current, and I was willing to bet each beat of our hearts was perfectly in tune.

  Sarah’s fingers clawed the back of my head. She shuddered, her back arched so far I was amazed she hadn’t snapped in two.

  “Jesus, don’t stop,” she commanded.

  No way in hell I would. My only wish was to make Sarah happy, to give her the orgasm to outdo all orgasms. My fingers hammered inside her, thrusting with as much force as I could muster. My tongue went into overtime, lapping as if it would never tire or cease.

  I wanted Sarah to explode like she’d never done before.

  “Oh my God, how are you doing this?”

  I didn’t care about the how; I focused on achieving my goal.

  Her scream was the first proof that I’d succeeded. The second clue was the juice flooding my mouth and chin. The climax was upon us.

  “Holy fucking shit,” she hollered, her body convulsing.

  I held my fingers and tongue in place as the waves continued, rocking every muscle in her body. I didn’t move until every ounce of sexual frenzy had worked its way through, leaving her motionless on the bed, gasping for breath.

  Then, I cradled her in my arms, nuzzling my face into the warmth of her neck. She leaned into me, unable to speak. I loved that we no longer had to say I love you—or as Sarah liked to say in the beginning of our relationship, I heart you—to be heard loud and clear. In the stillness of the moonlit room, I’d never felt more alive, more secure. I’d never been so happy in my personal life.

  Chapter Four

  “Why did we invite Peter and Tiffany to dinner?” I sprayed lemon Pledge onto a rag and wiped down the deep-cherry coffee table that sat between matching leather sofas in the library, the de facto room for drinks before and after dinner.

  “We? I don’t remember you being involved.”

  “I know! So why did you invite Peter and Tiffany to dinner?” I shook the yellow can at her. “Not to be horrible, but after Mom passed, I thought my interactions with my family would subside or stop altogether.”

  “Subside? You have no relationship with them. How can that subside? You didn’t even see them at all the first year we were together.” She perched on the arm of a wingback chair and caressed her five-month baby bump. “Is it cold in here? Shall I light the fire?” Without waiting for an answer, she flipped the switch to ignite the fireplace on the far wall. “I seem to remember you mentioning that not having a relationship with your family would be a bad example for our children.”

  She was right about that, but actually forming a relationship with them seemed more daunting than the German army successfully invading Russia.

  “This conversation is moot. This is all Tiffany’s doing. She pretty much wrangled the invite out of me. She wasn’t kidding before her wedding when she said she wanted to fix your relationship with Peter. Besides, I think she likes stirring the pot, and one surefire way to accomplish that is getting more than one Petrie in the room.”

  I groaned. “Don’t answer the phone when she calls. I don’t.”

  “Lizzie! She’s your sister-in-law. How can I ignore her?” Sarah’s face flushed a lovely shade of rose. Sometimes it was worth getting her riled up. She grinned as if in tune with my thoughts.

  “Simple. Follow my example.” I yanked my cell out of my pocket and chucked it into a drawer of my desk near the bay windows that overlooked our quiet street.

  Sarah staggered back onto her feet and continued straightening the room, ignoring my histrionics. Fluffing pillows. Organizing the crystal decanters on the bar. “I can’t remember. Is Peter a bourbon or a scotch man?”

  “Bourbon, I think.” I’d moved on to polishing the small crimson end tables.

  “What’s the difference between bourbon and scotch anyway?” Sarah didn’t bother waiting for me to answer, knowing I didn’t have an inkling. She brandished her cell. “See, this is why I can’t lock mine in a drawer. Most normal humans can’t live without the convenience of a phone.”

  “For centuries, great minds in history managed.” I gestured to a row of novels by Dickens. “Charles didn’t need a cell phone, and look what he accomplished.” I tsked. “Heaven forbid my brother doesn’t get the drink of his choice. This is our house, not a bar—even though you’ve been stocking up lately. Odd, since neither of us is drinking these days.”

  Sarah pantomimed for me to zip it. “My mother raised me to be a good host. Your mom—”

  “Raised animals. I know, I know.” I held my hands up, one still grappling with the canister, the other a wet dust rag. “But I have a pretty good argument that my mom didn’t rear me at all. Luckily, I had a nanny.”

  Sarah’s tight-lipped smile wasn’t comforting. “Not sure you want to go around telling people that, my dear. Okay…” She waved her cell to and fro to get me back on track. “According to the Internet, scotch comes from Scotland—that should have been obvious—and it’s made from malted barley. Bourbon is distilled from corn in the US.’”

  “I feel a hundred times smarter now.” I feigned a curtsy.

  She snatched up a bottle. “Scotch whiskey—not bourbon.” Sarah scrunched her face and looked to the ceiling before settling her gorgeous eyes on mine. “Would you mind?”

  I nearly discarded the cleaning supplies onto the sofa, but Sarah’s pinched face said Don’t you dare. Carefully placing them in the cleaning bucket, I asked, “Do we need anything else?”

  “For such a neat freak, it amazes me how much you hate cleaning.” Her narrowed eyes were more condemning than her words.

  “That’s why we have Miranda—to do the cleaning. Maybe we need to find someone who’s on call 24/7 for when you make the mistake of answering the phone. Or maybe we should hire live-in help, instead of Miranda coming in twice a week.”

  Her eye roll put me in my place, but she couldn’t restrict her impulse to pound the final nail in. “You’re unbelievable. You know that?”

  “Kidding, of course.” I wasn’t, and we both knew it. “Do we need anything else?” I repeated, retrieving my phone from the drawer.

  She shook her head.

  On my way out of the library, I stopped to kiss her cheek and place a hand on her belly. “Bye, little twinkies.”

  “Wait!”

  I veered about in the doorway. “Tiffany has a sweet tooth. Get some chocolates. Nice ones, Lizzie, and don’t skimp on Peter’s bourbon, either. He’s your only sibling.” Her stare bored into the center of my forehead.

  I leaned against the doorjamb. “You might want to start pronouncing her name the way she likes: Tie-Fannie.”

  “I only pronounce it that way when she’s around. Like you do, I might add.”

  It was true. I found Tiffany’s insistence of being called Tie-Fannie completely absurd.

  Before I had a chance to make my exit, Sarah added, “Don’t forget the chocolate or bourbon.” She stabbed two fingers i
n the air, making a determined victory symbol.

  “How could I forget two items?” I counted them on my own splayed fingers. “I don’t even need a list.”

  Sarah’s withering look said she’d feel better if I jotted them down. “That’s another thing that amazes me about you. How much you hate shopping and how you can mess up buying a gallon of milk.” She smiled sweetly to take the sting out of her honesty.

  During her pregnancy, I’d been going to the store regularly and botching each trip almost every time. If she wanted creamy peanut butter, I for some reason purchased extra crunchy. Strawberry jam morphed into orange marmalade in my mind. Last week, she’d had a hankering for beans and franks, but I’d purchased Vienna sausages instead of hot dogs. Sarah chalked it up to sabotage since shopping resided in my only if I absolutely have to category, but I didn’t like to contemplate I was subconsciously selecting the wrong items. I preferred to think I simply sucked at shopping, not to mention I usually wouldn’t take the time to ask someone to direct me to the proper aisle or item.

  Sarah waved for me to go, dismissing me like I was one of her minions. And I was the rude one for wanting a cleaner available seven days a week!

  ***

  Less than ten minutes later, I wandered through the aisle of the fancy liquor store on the outskirts of Old Town. Aisle upon aisle promised one thing: I’d flub the operation. I excelled when there weren’t so many options. Maybe I should have lived in East Germany during the cold war; one option for everything, if there was an option at all. I could practically hear Sarah saying, “Oh, you’d find a way to screw up no matter what, just to make a point.”

  I rooted in my jeans pocket for my cell and hit speed dial for Maddie.

  “Ha! Sarah texted that I’d probably hear from you.” Maddie laughed.

  “Did she tell you my mission?”

  “Nope. She said it was a surprise.”

  “What type of bourbon does Peter like?” I asked as I carefully maneuvered past a craft beer display that resembled a house of cards—one wrong move and it’d all come tumbling down.

  “Why in the hell are you asking me about that no-good asshole?” Her tone didn’t contain an ounce of wrath.

  I sighed. “I’m sorry. But you’re the only person I know who knows him.”

  “He’s your brother, not mine.” She laughed again.

  “I think I remember that. I have vague recollections of him growing up under the same roof. But you almost married him. That makes you the Peter expert in this situation.”

  A clerk, who was straightening a disheveled shelf, hiked up an eyebrow at me.

  I covered the phone and whispered, “I’m okay.” She gave me the once-over that most sales clerks give, making it clear she knew I couldn’t shop my way out of a wet paper bag.

  “Peter’s a Blanton’s man.”

  “Blanton’s,” I parroted, nodding. I squinted at the items in front of me, realizing I was in the vodka section. Rising myself on tippy-toes, I tried to see whether the next aisle over had brown or clear liquids. “Is it expensive?”

  “What do you think?” I could picture the derision on Maddie’s face.

  “Right.” I moved to the end of the vodka and gin aisle and found the correct one. “Okay, I see Maker’s Mark, Rowan’s Creek, Knob Creek, Fighting Cock.” I turned my face upward and continued to scan the top rows. “Rebel Yell, Very Old Barton, Wild Turkey, Basil Hayden’s, Booker’s, Elijah Craig, Ancient Age—hey, that’s kinda historical and not in a Confederate way.”

  “Don’t you dare. I told you. Blanton’s.”

  “I don’t see Blanton’s.”

  The woman who had been straightening up seconds ago appeared, snatched a bottle from right in front of me, and placed it in my hands. It was a round bottle featuring a man riding a horse on the top. I read the label aloud, “Blanton’s Original Single Barrel.”

  “That’s it. Anything else?” Maddie chirped, clearly enjoying rescuing me, Lizzie the Bungling Idiot Shopper.

  I pawed the phone’s speaker, whispered thank you to the lady, and then muttered into the phone, “Chocolates. Sarah said Tiffany has a sweet tooth.” I marched to the register to pay for Peter’s bourbon. Not minding my manners, I kept Maddie on the phone as a rail-thin man with a wispy goatee rang up the purchase. My eyes boggled at the ninety-dollar total. Gritting my teeth, I handed over my Amex. After signing the screen, I thanked the clerk and stepped outside, clutching a bottle that Peter would probably only have one drink from—two tops. This was the first time Peter had been invited to my home, and I prayed it’d be the last. At least booze didn’t ever go bad.

  “Can you talk yet?” Maddie asked. “Some of us have things to do today.”

  “Like what?”

  “Laundry.” She tried to make it sound exciting, but no one can make laundry sound exciting.

  “Trade you. I’d rather clean my knickers than have Peter sit down at my table.”

  She laughed. “Be glad you aren’t cleaning Peter’s knickers. Two words: skid marks.”

  I nearly dropped the ninety-dollar Blanton’s onto the pavement. “Jesus, Maddie. That’s one fact about my brother I never needed to know. Skid marks in his tighty-whities.” I cringed and shook my arms and head to cleanse my soul.

  “Ask him about it at dinner.”

  “I can just picture it. ‘Peter, can you pass the salt? By the way, Maddie says you have skid marks in your underpants. Is that true?’”

  “Underpants!” Maddie chortled. “I love it.”

  “Focus, Maddie.” I stood on the sidewalk of the shopping center. “Chocolates. I need chocolates.”

  “Yep, that’s the color of Peter’s—”

  I wrenched the phone away from my ear and counted to five before placing it back.

  “Peter’s skid marks,” she continued.

  How did the woman do it?

  As if in tune with my thoughts, Maddie responded. “You’re so predictable.”

  “Quick question, if Peter was so disgusting, why’d you almost marry him?”

  “I fell for him. It’s amazing what you can live with when you’re in love.” She said it with a sincerity that shocked the hell out of me. How anyone could love my brother was unfathomable.

  Unsure how to manage this can of worms, I stayed quiet.

  She cleared her throat. “Now, you need chocolates. Where are you?”

  “On a sidewalk outside the liquor store, trying to erase the image of Peter and his…” I left the rest unsaid so I wouldn’t puke all over my new Keens Sarah bought me last week.

  “Which shopping center?”

  I looked around and saw a King Soopers across the way. A gas station. Wells Fargo. Domino’s. “I don’t know. The one that’s ten minutes from my house.”

  “Huh.” I could practically see her scratch her head, lost in thought. “Not much there. Head to Old Town and go to Filene’s.”

  “Old Town?” I consulted my Timex. “They’ll be at the house in thirty minutes. Can’t I just buy her a Snicker’s or something? Doesn’t every woman love Hershey’s kisses? I do, and King Soopers will have them.”

  “No, you cannot!” she screeched like a howler monkey being separated from its mom. “Sarah will skin you alive. She’s all about family these days, including yours for some insane reason. You really need—”

  Once again I extracted the phone from my ear until the tirade ended. By the time I reached my SUV, I figured Maddie’s rant was over. “Okay, okay. I’m getting in the car now. Settle down.”

  “Good girl. Maybe you are trainable after all. God knows Sarah’s been trying her best with you.”

  “I’m not a puppy or something.”

  “True. I hear they’re fast learners. Even Hank has learned to play fetch with a balled-up piece of paper, and he’s a cat.”

  “There aren’t many cats like my boy.” I smiled. “He takes after me.”

  “Did you teach him how to l
ick his ass in front of the television?”

  I groaned. “You need serious help.”

  “Says the woman who’s so competitive she thinks her cat is the smartest cat in human history.”

  I sucked in too much air through my nostrils. “Always a pleasure. I’ll call if I need more help,” I said.

  “Which you will. Talk in a few.”

  The phone went dead. I hated that she was 99.97 percent right.

  ***

  “Welcome.” Sarah waved Peter and Tiffany into our home.

  Right behind them stood a man I didn’t recognize. Had Peter hired a driver like Dad?

  “Hope you don’t mind, but we brought my baby brother. His fiancée has a business obligation, and he’s completely lost.” Tiffany looped her arm through her brother’s. I’d never met him—not even at Peter and Tiffany’s wedding. Of course, that day was one big nerve-wracking blur since Tiffany had insisted I give a speech. I could have met the Pope that day, and I still wouldn’t remember.

  “The more the merrier,” Sarah chirped.

  I gulped. Tiffany and her brother were in my home, meaning they knew where I lived. I loved our house, but at the moment I wanted to pack up all of our shit and move far far away—maybe to Alaska or Canada. Tiffany wasn’t the easiest person for me to relate to, and now I was faced with two of them.

  Of course, there weren’t many people I got along with. Theories as to why I was so socially inept ranged from being a book nerd (Sarah’s go-to theory) to being an alien child trapped in a human body (Maddie’s theory). My reasoning was that most people sucked, so why bother? Whenever I spouted this reason, Sarah claimed that unless I got to really know people, I wouldn’t be able to get past that stumbling block. She followed that up by suggesting I was highly judgmental, which was code for too much like my mother and Peter. Most intelligent people were, but I kept that thought to myself. Did Einstein have tons of friends? I mentally added that question to my need to google list.