by Lauren Rico
I don’t pick it up all at once. Instead, I carefully lift the edge of it, tipping it back little by little until I see a tiny bit of color. Blue. A little more and I see part of a dash. And a little more, a line crossing it. A dash with a line crossing it. It’s a plus sign. A beautiful, bright blue plus sign.
I rush to the door and throw it open, ready to propel myself through the bedroom, but I stop short. He’s already there, standing right outside the threshold, waiting …almost fearfully. I hold up the blue plus sign for him to see. He looks from it and to me, and then back to it again.
“Is that … a plus?” he asks, as if he doesn’t trust his eyes.
I nod.
In an instant, he’s twirling me around, and we’re both laughing. When we stop spinning, he puts me down, but doesn’t let me go. His lips find their way to mine in a kiss that is as light and soft as feathers.
“Are you happy?” I ask him when he finally pulls his mouth from mine.
I see tears start to well in his eyes. He can’t speak; he only nods.
“You’re going to be a daddy,” I whisper.
Now comes his smile, making the skin around his eyes crinkle.
“I’m already a daddy, Julia,” he reminds me.
“Yes,” I say, putting a hand to the side of his face.
As if on cue, a high-pitched shriek comes over the baby monitor. Matthew sets me back down on the floor and delivers a kiss to the top of my head.
“That would be our firstborn, in need of a diaper change, judging by the sound of it,” he says. “I’ll get him, you relax. It’s time to start taking better care of yourself, Mrs. Ayers.”
“Matthew,” I protest with a laugh, “we’ve still got a long way to go. Please don’t start treating me like I’m made of glass already.”
“Oh, so the idea of a nice long bubble bath before bed isn’t appealing to you then? Would you rather put on the hazmat suit and get David into a clean diaper yourself?”
Well, since he put it like that … The corners of my lips twitch with the threat of a smile.
“Uh-huh,” he says, pointing to my face. “I saw that. Go! Soak until you’re a shriveled little prune!”
He doesn’t have to tell me again. I start to head back to ground zero so I can immerse myself in lavender bubbles, but I stop in the doorway and turn back to him again.
“I think it’ll be a girl this time,” I say.
“You think?”
I nod.
“Well, I think we should pick a boy’s name too, just incase,” he smiles.
“I want a musical name this time,” I blurt.
“What? You mean like Johann Sebastian or Wolfgang Amadeus?”
“No, silly!” I giggle. “Maybe Coda or Symphony.”
He’s looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
“Coda Ayers?”
“Or … Symphony Ayers,” I counter.
He shakes his head. “I don’t even know what to say to that, Julia,” he groans as he turns around and walks out of our bedroom, still shaking his head.
“Your mommy is crazy!” I hear him say to David through the baby monitor. “Crazy, crazy, crazy!”
Our son’s deep laugh tells me there’s some tickling going on a few doors down the hall. I rub my belly gently and smile. These are good minutes, I think. That’s the way I used to measure time as a child. But I had good reason; my entire life was lived minute by minute. One minute my father was fine. The next minute, he was beating me with his belt.
On this particular evening, the good minutes turn into a good hour. By the time I put on my robe and head back into the bedroom, I find Matthew and David both in our big bed, sound asleep. I stand in the doorway and watch my husband, on his side, with David snuggled into the crook of his arm. Their chests rise and fall, almost in unison.
Over the last two years, I have marveled at his capacity to love a child who isn’t his. A child who, with every passing day, grows to look more and more like his biological father. It seems as if so much of my life has been one disappointment after another, so to find myself in a happy marriage with a beautiful child and a flourishing career, well, it’s just that I never dared to think we could be this happy. Even now, I reach over and rap the wood doorframe, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn’t want to tempt fate.
But, then again, even I know that fate doesn’t always need a reason.
Julia 27
I’m feeling considerably better about the CD release party when we’re back in the city the night before. Matthew is busy getting David down for the night while I unpack the suitcase I made him haul here from Long Island. I love having the best of both worlds, the country and the city, but it can be a real juggling act, getting three people packed and organized to move from one location to the next every other week.
I unzip the roller bag and start the inventory process. I have less than twenty-four hours to go and this would be a good time to find out if I need to pick up hairspray or lipstick or something. One by one, I pull the items out of the jam-packed case … Stockings. Extra pair of stockings. Extra extra pair of stockings. Favorite nail polish. Incredibly uncomfortable, incredibly expensive, incredibly gorgeous shoes. Velvet wrap. Sparkly hair clips. Extra sparkly hair clips … and so on, and so on, and so on. When I get to the bottom of the bag, I notice something unusual … something wrapped in delicate tissue paper.
“What on earth?” I mumble as I pull the sheets apart to find my ‘special’ nighty. The one I keep wrapped in tissue so its gossamer-thin fabric won’t pull. I take it from its paper nest and hold it up by its delicate, lace straps. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is. What I haven’t forgotten is how insanely expensive it was. I bought it for the honeymoon we never took, though it did make a very brief appearance on our wedding night. But how did it get in here? I didn’t pack it. Which means that...
“Oh, you naughty, naughty man,” I gasp to myself, shaking my head and grinning at the same time. “Hoping to get lucky, I see!”
I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s nearly nine o’clock. David should be out cold before Matthew even finished reading him ‘Goodnight Moon.’ That doesn’t leave me much time!
I quickly toss everything back into the rollerbag and push it around to the other side of the dresser out of sight. After that, I run around the bed, quickly turning down the sheets and fluffing the pillows. Then, I head into the shower for a quick hosing-off and leg shave.
When I finally slip the whisper-soft negligée over my head, it falls in all the right places. Next comes the matching thong. I hate the matching thong. It’s like butt floss. But he loves them and I suppose I should be grateful he’s not into garters or corsets. Finally, I pull the ponytail holder from my hair so that it falls into soft, auburn waves around my shoulders. A quick check in the full-length mirror, and I know I’m good to go. And not a moment too soon, as I hear Matthew checking the locks and turning off the lights … the last thing he does before settling down to read in bed. The bed upon which I’m lying when he opens the door.
He stops dead in his tracks.
“Wow …” he whispers appreciatively, eyebrows arched. “Julia, you look … incredible. Is that what you wore on our wedding night?” he asks quietly. As if he doesn’t know exactly what it is!
I nod, pretending not to know that he put it in the suitcase and allow a sultry little smile to play on my lips. I’m not usually the instigator when it comes to sex, so this is a nice treat for us both. His willingness to participate is, shall we say, suddenly very pronounced as he comes into the room and shuts the door behind him quietly. By the time he gets to the bed, he is minus one sweatshirt, two socks and he’s already got one leg out of his jeans. I get up and help him to dispense with the other leg and his briefs. And since I’m in the neighborhood …
“Oh, Julia …” he moans, when I take him in my mouth. His hands stroke my hair from above where I’m kneeling on the floor. I’m gentle, but firm with him, alternating sucking and li
cking and nibbling. Once upon a time, this wasn’t on the top of my to-do list, but my Matthew seems to cherish and adore everything that I do for him. To him, and me, this isn’t just an act of physical pleasure, it’s a gesture of my love for him. This is the love of my life and that is what makes this so hot for both of us.
“Gahhh!” he gurgles in surprise when my hands come up from under to massage his testicles. “Oh, oh, Jesus, Julia …” he murmurs. This man is mine, I think, as I take him deeper into my mouth, my eyes peeking upward to catch a glimpse of him with his own eyes closed, head lolling back on this neck, as if praying to the heavens.
“Julia,” he gasps down at me after a few more seconds of this. “Julia, let’s go to bed …”
Uh-uh. Not this time. This time I get to be turned on by his mewling and moaning and begging. I get the vicarious thrill of his pleasure and the high of controlling it. I redouble my efforts, using more inward pressure as I wrap my mouth around his shaft.
“Oh … oh … Julia … please …”
I’d smile if I could. I know that tone in his voice intimately, and I put him out of his misery with some fast in and out across my slick lips. Suddenly, his hands are balled in my hair and I can feel the tremors wracking his body at the same moment that I taste him. When, at last, he is able to open his eyes, he finds me, still on my knees, watching him with complete adoration. His pleasure is my pleasure.
Before I can get a word out, he bends down, scoops me up and takes me to our bed. Oh, he can’t possibly be ready to go another round! But, as it turns out, that’s not exactly what he has in mind. At least, not yet, anyway. I’m on my back, lying across the bed as he climbs up with me. He is lying on his side next to me when he takes my face in his hands and kisses me. It’s a long, deep, kiss that makes me feel as if he’s trying to inhale me, to drink in my essence, my soul.
I feel his fingers exploring me through the thin fabric of my soaking thong. When he nudges his index finger past the elastic at the crotch and makes contact with me, I gasp into his mouth and arch off the bed. But he is relentless. His mouth will not leave mine, desperate as I am to moan out loud, to call out his name. His tongue continues its soft caressing of my cheeks and teeth and all around my tongue as his fingers pull me apart, wantonly rubbing and pinching and thumbing, as if my body were his to play with as he pleases. Turns out, it is, actually.
I think I’m going to lose my mind when he stops suddenly, both the touching and the kissing. But it only takes him a second to pull my right nipple from the cup of the nightie and attach his mouth to it. At the same time, his arm makes itself at home as it lays between my breasts, all the way down to my abdomen so he can lodge his entire hand into the front waistband of my panties now, with full, unrestricted access to every part of me. My mouth is free once again, but I can’t even moan, I’m too busy taking in one surprised gasp after the next as he manipulates me with expert precision. He runs his hand languidly up and down, up and down, from one end of my slickness to the other, ever so slightly brushing against my clit, as if by accident, but just to tease. The torture is exquisite, and then, with no warning, his mouth finds mine again with even more hunger and passion, and he concentrates his efforts on rubbing just the right spot while dipping into me again and again.
He was right to cover my mouth with his, because I’d be screaming at this point if I were free to do so. Instead, I moan and plead and groan against his lips as if they’re a gag. All the while, he pushes me further and further over the edge with his relentless rubbing and thrusting until my body is writhing left and right and up and down, unable to control itself.
When the wave comes, it takes my breath away, wracking my limbs with shuddering intensity until I’m reduced to a few residual twitches of ecstatic electricity. I’m panting and practically in tears when he takes his mouth away from mine. My eyes are closed as he kisses my forehead, then my eyelids and my cheeks and lips. I’m unable to speak when he adjusts himself on his back and pulls me into his strong arms so I can feel his heart beating through the wall of his chest.
Oh, yeah. This nighty was worth every penny.
Julia 28
When I was fourteen years old, I became entranced by the winter Olympics. At the North Fork Children’s Home, I’d beg our housemother to let me stay up late to watch the figure skating. I didn’t see pretty costumes or romantic stories. I didn’t care about the athleticism or the difficulty of the programs. Watching the skaters was like seeing music in a physical manifestation. I could see the music. And I was enraptured by what I saw.
Now, from next to me, my accompanist starts the rippling undercurrent of Bach’s Prelude No.1 in C Major. The composer wrote it for piano. And then, nearly a century and a half later, a composer named Charles Gounod superimposed his own melody on top of Bach’s … his setting of the Ave Maria. It became known as the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria and it is the last piece that I will play tonight. It’s the encore that the audience has demanded of me and, with the heavy lifting of Vivaldi and Brahms behind me, I allow myself to be lost within this sublime music. I allow myself to skate.
In my mind, I glide effortlessly across the smooth, unmarred ice, stretching my arms and delicately turning my body so that it faces in the opposite direction even as it continues its forward trajectory. And then I slip into a spin. Not a blinding, blurring spiral, but the most delicate of circular motion before I fall back effortlessly to where I began. Up down. High low. My body flexes with the music, which flexes with my body.
As the piece starts to its climax, I see myself as a skater in the ‘spread eagle’ position, both feet on the ice, toes pointed outward in opposite directions, heels facing one another. My arms are outstretched, my chest laid open as if awaiting embrace. As the music builds, so does my speed, carrying me into a series of intricate jumps strung together. A toe loop, an axel, a camel spin. I can practically feel the gentle swoosh of air blowing through my hair as I sail effortlessly through the boundaries of gravity.
After much too short a time, I feel the Ave Maria coming to its inevitable conclusion. Even as I pull bow across strings, I am like a gold-medalist at the end of an emotionally powerful routine. I come out of one final, languid twist, sinking down and down and down, until my knees hit the glassy surface and I simply slide across the ice with eyes upturned toward heaven and arms open in welcoming adoration.
When I come back to myself once more, to this tiny room built around a concrete floor, I am breathing hard from the effort and spent from the satisfaction. The audience jumps up in rapturous applause for a performance that they don’t even know they have seen.
****
My sublime experience is quickly forgotten as I step out into the main exhibit hall of the Beau-Radcliffe Gallery and into a swarm. It’s clear that the Kreisler Competition has really gone all out with its huge PR and marketing departments.
Every horizontal surface is littered with my new CD. There’s a banner outside the gallery, over the front door, and then, there’s the cardboard cutout. Right now, I’m standing in front of it, tilting my head from side to side, trying to decide what to make of my super-sized doppelganger. It’s me, but it’s not me. I’m considerably more statuesque in the image in front of me, easily six-feet tall compared to my more diminutive five-foot-one. And a half. My teeth are the size of subway tiles and my God, you could literally drive a truck through those pores!
“Wow, has anyone ever told you that you look like her?”
Matthew has sidled up next to me. Both of me.
“You read my mind!” I say with a delighted smile.
He leans down and gives me a long, slow, soft kiss.
“Again! You read my mind!”
He wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
“You did the skating thing again, didn’t you?” he guesses with a knowing smile. I give a little shrug, amazed by his ability to see through me every time. “Well, you were spectacular,” he murmurs in my ear.
“If you thi
nk that was good, wait till we get home. I’ve got quite an encore planned,” I say with a suggestive raise of a single eyebrow.
“I’ll look forward to multiple curtain calls,” he counters with his own bit of naughty thrown in.
I put my head on his chest and lean into him as I survey all of the people swirling around us. It almost feels as if we are standing still while they continue to move in fast forward. They’re taking signed copies of my CD from a big display table and chattering animatedly to one another as they survey the beautiful paintings and sculpture around them.
“They’re all here for you,” Matthew says, following my eyes around the room.
He’s right. I recognize most of the people here. Some are from the Kreisler International Music Competition, including Lester Morgan, the Director. Several friends from McInnes Conservatory are here as well. I spot Mila Strassman with her boyfriend, they’re sneaking kisses in the corner and it makes me smile. Brett and Maggie are here somewhere, too. I debated about whether or not to bring David, but it would be way past his bedtime and my little firecracker of a son gets very testy when he doesn’t get enough sleep.
My eyes are drawn to an abstract painting by a hot new artist, Vanessa Shogreen. I suspect by the time this event is over, half of her paintings will have ‘sold’ stickers on them. I’ve been eyeballing one called ‘Still Life in French Toast,’ though I’m sure Matthew will just tell me my breakfast food obsession is out of control. I’m just wondering if I can sneak the four-figure price past him in the checkbook when I hear a familiar, squeal.
“Noooooo, Nata, nooooo!”
I cringe as I watch David squirming to get out of Natalie’s iron embrace, surrounded by several extremely expensive pieces of sculpture. Maybe bringing him wasn’t the best idea.