by Ian Dalton
Jillian noticed the look on her son’s face. "That’s probably enough tennis chat for the night. Brian do you have a job lined up after graduation?"
"I do, actually. It’s with America Bank at their headquarters in Delaware. I interned there last summer, and they offered me a position in their management program. It’s not my dream job, but the job market stinks right now."
"That’s fantastic!" she said.
"Rob tells me you’re a writer."
"Mostly romance novels. Somehow they sell really well. Thankfully, I have a large group of loyal readers."
Rob looked proudly at his mother. "Women love her books. I tried reading one once and couldn’t make it through. No offense, Mom."
She waved him off as if she agreed.
Jillian looked at Brian. "Rob told me he’ll be with Laura for part of the week. So even when Rob’s not here, feel free to use the pool and the workout room, and eat whatever food you want. Make yourself at home."
"I appreciate that."
Rob said, "I spoke to Laura—I think the three of us are going out tomorrow night."
"I usually wake up early, Brian," Jillian said. "So, I’ll try to keep it down in the morning, if you’re a light sleeper."
Rob scoffed. "He’s not a light sleeper at all. He’s the heaviest sleeper on the planet."
Brian looked at her, a little embarrassed. "Noise doesn’t bother me at all. I have to set my alarm to the loudest volume for it to wake me."
"His alarm wakes up the entire building," Rob said with a grin.
"I turn it off quickly, so it’s not that bad. Besides I only have an early class one day a week, so most days I wake up before it goes off anyway. But I never get up before eleven otherwise. My eyes just don’t open."
"Once he was dating this girl—" Rob started.
"She doesn’t—" Brian interrupted, shaking his head.
Rob continued anyway, "She was trying to wake him up and tried all the normal stuff, you know, but nothing would work. So she finally sat on top of him and bounced up and down. We all watched. It was hilarious. And he still didn’t get up. Wait... I have a picture."
Pulling out his phone, Rob began searching. Brian said, "She doesn’t want to see that."
"I do," Jillian said, smiling.
Rob handed Jillian the phone. She looked at the picture and laughed.
"Wow, that didn’t wake you up? She’s a big girl. How tall is she?" she asked as she handed back the phone.
"She’s five-eleven and on the volleyball team," Brian said. "I remember, that night I couldn’t sleep so I took Tylenol PM. When I do that, I’m out cold."
"I have trouble falling asleep, too, but sometimes an Ambien helps. But no matter what time I go to bed, I get up about six hours later. I wish I could sleep late. You still dating the volleyball girl?" Jillian asked.
"No, I’m kind of dating this girl, Natalie, sort of…" Brian said.
Sighing, Rob glared at him.
"What?"
"I thought we weren’t going to talk about her."
"She asked," Brian said defensively.
"She really didn’t. She only asked about the tall girl," Rob shot back.
Brian exhaled. "Would you rather we talk about tennis?"
"God, no! Tell her the whole story, then. Continue torturing yourself," Rob added as he sat back in his chair and took a sip of beer.
Jillian looked at one and then the other. "Relationships can be hard work."
Sitting up once more, Rob frowned. "Some are way more than others. This girl is messing with his head. He fell in love with her simply because she can do this ballet move where she keeps one leg on the ground and points the other toward the ceiling. She can hold it there for, like, an hour."
"She’s really talented," Brian announced proudly.
Shaking his head, Rob scoffed.
Jillian smiled. "A ballet dancer, huh? I used to take gymnastics back in middle school. It’s similar, with the balancing and all. That sounds like a very advanced position."
"You see," Brian said, looking pointedly at Rob.
Rob nodded, unconvinced. "He’s obsessed with her, and she’s telling him to wait for her, while she’s running around with other guys."
"I just want to give her a little more time because she asked me to wait, so—"
"Wait? Wait for what?"
Brian looked down at his plate for a moment, then back to Rob as he opened his mouth to speak, but he had nothing.
After looking around uncomfortably, Jillian's eyes brightened. "Let’s have dessert."
She got up, went into the house, and returned a few minutes later with a small birthday cake with twenty-one lit candles. She placed it on the table in front of Rob as he frowned at her in embarrassment.
"I know your birthday isn’t until tomorrow, and you didn’t want me making a big deal, but I figured you’d be with Laura, so..."
"Just no singing, okay?" Rob said before he blew out the candles.
"Happy birthday," Jillian said with a proud smile.
"Happy birthday, dude. No more fake ID for you," Brian said.
Jillian gave Brian a mock-angry look and then smiled. "Yeah, Brian, weren’t you the one corrupting my young son? You got him that ID when he was only a sophomore."
"Mom, knock it off."
Brian looked at her, confused. "He said I got it? He got me mine. He’s the one with the connections."
Raising her eyebrows, Jillian looked at Rob.
"So, I lied. I didn’t want you to think I was going crazy at college," Rob explained sheepishly.
She said, "I’m scared to ask what other connections you had back then."
"My connections? What about your connection—Victoria?"
Jillian shook her head like she didn’t want to go there, as Brian sat on the edge of his seat. This definitely wasn’t like a typical dinner with his family.
Rob chimed in, "Victoria is my mother’s crazy friend. If you need anything, see her."
Jillian scoffed, "She’s not that crazy. She’s just..." She caught Rob making a face and added, "Okay, she's a little fun—yeah fun is the word." Jillian looked at the table and said, "We need plates." She left the table and headed back into the house.
While she was gone, Rob shared a few quick stories about how much "fun" Victoria really was.
14
The next morning in the kitchen, Jillian prepared scrambled eggs while wearing a bikini under a beach cover-up. Rob entered the room, grabbed a banana from the bowl on the table and took a bottle of water from the counter.
"Happy birthday," Jillian said, smiling.
"Morning," Rob replied.
"You want some eggs?"
"I can’t. I’ve got to meet Laura."
"Is Brian coming down?"
"I doubt it. We were up 'til three. This Natalie thing is not going away anytime soon. I don’t think he could sleep."
"Would you check for me? The eggs are getting cold."
"I’ve got to go. He can heat them up if he wants," Rob said as he left the room.
Jillian made her way to the guest room, carrying a fresh set of towels. She knocked and called Brian’s name but heard nothing. Pushing open the partially-closed door, she found Brian sleeping shirtless and lying on his side with a sheet draped low across his abdomen. She walked past him into the bathroom and dropped off the towels. Spotting an empty water bottle on the windowsill, she walked over to retrieve it. Next to it, she noticed an empty medicine foil packet and picked it up; it was for Tylenol PM. Jillian turned to look at Brian’s face as he peacefully slept and gave him a friendly smile. As her eyes traveled down his muscular shoulders and chiseled chest, her lips parted slightly.
Brian rolled onto his back, and as he did, his erection tented the sheets quite unmistakably. Jillian’s eyes shot to the protruding area, and she gasped. She looked away from him and rushed from the room with the water bottle. Once she stepped outside the guest room, she paused, placed the water bottle on a t
able in the hall, and stood, her heart racing.
She said softly, "You’re not Katrina, and he’s not Dallas."
Turning back to the door, she leaned against the doorframe so she could peer in. She looked at Brian once again; his condition had not changed. She whispered softly to herself, "He sure looks like Dallas, and you sure feel like Katrina." Then she pulled back into the hall and glanced down at the Tylenol PM wrapper in her hand. She paused to think and placed the foil packet in her pocket.
Returning to his bedside, she stood looking at his defined chest and abs. He must work out, she thought. She hadn’t seen a guy with a good body up close since about the second year of her marriage. That was about when George let himself go, but even in his prime, George had never looked this good. As her eyes followed the trail of hair that began around his belly button and led down to his groin, her lips parted with anticipation. With her eyes locked on the spot where the trail of hair disappeared under the sheet, she shivered, pondering the wonders beneath the covers.
Thinking how much this was like her unfinished novel, Lover’s Slumber, Jillian realized she was in the midst of the perfect life-imitating-art moment. How could she possibly pass it up? She owed it to her readers to see if a woman really could slowly pull the sheet off a sleeping man without waking him. That’s all she would do, she promised herself. She wouldn’t take it any further than that. Call it a literary experiment or a moment of temporary insanity, but whatever it was, she felt she just had to do it.
Looking at Brian’s face, she called his name softly. There was no movement from him, but she did notice that his breathing now seemed more labored. She knelt beside the bed. Jillian pushed down on the mattress, the motion causing him to move a little. Otherwise, he remained completely still. The sheets continued to tent either from a random boner or possibly a sex dream featuring Natalie performing that ballet move. Feeling like it was much more literarily interesting, she sided with the latter.
Pinching the sheet between her thumb and forefinger with one eye closed, she carefully lifted it off his groin. Slowly, she folded it back to his knees, never tearing her eyes from his face, deathly worried at the prospect of waking him. After remembering to breathe, her gaze ran down his body, stopping at his perfectly-clean, white boxer shorts. She noticed that part of the tip of his erection was actually visible through the flap, as if it were trying to break free.
Her mind raced. She searched Brian’s face for any reaction to her presence, but there was none. Returning to his boxers, she watched, not moving at all as his penis suddenly throbbed, the head popping through the slit. Tilting her head, she stared at it, mesmerized. Now free of its cotton confines, it expanded even more, the fabric slipping down his shaft and exposing nearly all of his impressive length. Her mouth shot open with a soft gasp as she looked at it, first in shock, then in awe. She froze with her eyes locked on it and unable to breathe for a moment until she blinked and slowly exhaled. After glancing at his face, she returned her eyes to it, but only for a moment longer before rising to her feet, suddenly struck with guilt-ridden awkwardness.
Taking a step back while still eyeing it closely, she thought she'd never seen one this stunning. She never imagined she’d be so drawn to one, either. She fought her way back to reality, turned, and headed for the door. Once she reached the hall, she slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. They shot open when she realized she’d left him uncovered and completely exposed. If he woke in that state, he would surely know.
Poking her head back through the doorway, she checked his face and noticed that his breathing seemed to be heavier still, but there was no evidence that he was coming out of his deep REM. Her gaze returned to his most private of areas, which still hovered proudly over his boxers. After closing her eyes and quickly summoning the courage, she tiptoed toward the bed in the absolute silence of the room.
At the bedside, she held her breath as she slowly reached down to grab the sheet. The moment her fingers touched it, the cell phone in her pocket rang heart-stoppingly loudly, scaring the hell out of her.
Leaping backward and almost out of her skin, she quickly pulled the phone from her pocket. She hit the button to answer the call, but the phone slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor. Falling to her knees, she scrambled after the phone. She picked it up and put it to her ear as she crawled to the safety of the hallway.
"Hello," she whispered.
"What the hell is going on there?" Victoria asked.
"Oh, nothing," Jillian continued to whisper as she peered through the doorway to look at Brian’s face. There was no movement from him, but the rest of him was still standing at attention. "I just dropped the phone." Sighing in relief, she moved a few steps down the hallway. "This really isn't a good time; there's something I need to take care of right now."
"Is there a man with a gun in the house?"
"What are you taking about?" Jillian asked.
"I just saw the movie, Taken, and this so reminded me of that. Why are you whispering?"
"Whispering?"
"Yes, why are you whispering?"
"I wasn’t whispering," Jillian said a little louder but still not at a normal volume.
"Right," Victoria said. "I know when something’s not right with you. Now, what is it?"
"Rob’s friend, Brian, is here."
"Oh, so that's it. What’s he like? Is he a nice kid?"
"He’s nice, all right."
"What’s he look like?"
"Look like?"
"It’s a simple question. What does he look like? Is he tall or short or fat?"
Returning to the doorway, Jillian studied Brian’s body with an odd look on her face before breaking into a slight giggle. "He’s not fat."
Brian suddenly rolled toward the door and let out a sleepy groan. Surprised, she dropped the phone again. This time it skipped across the hardwood floor and bounced off a wall as she moved back out of sight grimacing in response to the loud racket.
Poking her head back around the doorway, she checked to make sure he was still asleep. Upon discovering that he was, she picked up the phone and rushed twenty feet down the hall with her heart beating out of her chest.
"Jillian, I want to know what the hell is going on there," Victoria demanded with growing concern.
"Okay, he’s sleeping, and I’m... right outside his door," Jillian admitted.
"Who’s sleeping?"
"Rob’s friend, Brian."
"You're right there?"
"Yes."
"He slept through you dropping the phone and giggling and all that?"
"He’s a really, really sound sleeper."
"Did you drug him, or something?" Victoria asked.
"No!"
"Why are you watching him sleep?" Victoria asked, incredulously.
"I came in to offer him breakfast."
"Sounds like he doesn’t want any."
Closing her eyes to recall the vivid memory, Jillian took a deep breath. "I, uh, forgot what a young man’s body looked like. You know, one that’s really in great shape."
"I know exactly what you mean. I was with one last night." Victoria made a creepy purring sound on the other end of the line. "I’ll tell you about it later."
"Please, don’t," Jillian said.
"So, does he have great abs?" Victoria asked.
"Abs?" Dazed, Jillian made her way to a location across the hall from the guest room, where she could see from his chest up to his sleeping face.
"Yes, his abs. Are they amazing?"
"Look, I really need to go."
"Why?"
"Just tell me about his abs and then you can go. Is it a four-pack with a pouch or does he have the full six?"
"Really?"
"Yes, really." Victoria said in a tired voice, "I'm a little bored over here and I'm on the fence about pulling out my vibrator. I could use some inspiration to push me over. It's a lot of work you know."
"I know." Jillian sighed. "So if I tell you if he has
a six-pack, you'll let me go?"
"I will."
Taking a few steps closer, Jillian tilted her head to get a look at Brian's abs, which were a full, spectacular six-pack. "He happens to be topless, and wow, he does have a six-pack." Craning her neck even more, Jillian could now see his erection. Staring at it, mesmerized, she giggled. "But he also has something else."
"What?"
"Um."
"Is he bottomless?" Victoria asked with a loud squeal.
"Sort of."
"I’m coming over there."
"No, don’t."
"I want to know exactly what you’re doing right now."
Jillian started, "I write about..." Then she paused with a smile on her face as she took a step closer to the door in order to drink in more of his supine body. "I mean, I used to write about gorgeous penises every day, but until now, I’ve never actually seen a real one."
"The gorgeous ones are wonderful," Victoria said.
"Yeah."
"You shouldn’t have gotten knocked up at prom. You might have seen a couple."
"Uh-huh," Jillian added, barely listening and unable to look away.
"Are you looking at his dick right now?" Victoria asked.
Jillian giggled again just a little. "Yeah, but from out in the hall."
"Are you drunk?"
"No, and it’s completely... incredibly... super-hard."
"Seriously? Have you been smoking that pot I left with you?"
"No."
"Send me a picture of it," Victoria demanded.
"I’m not taking a picture of it," Jillian said, horrified.
"Why not?"
"That’s totally creepy."