44 Chapters About 4 Men (14 page)

Dear Journal,

I had an epiphany this afternoon.

After waiting all goddamn day for my kids to take a nap so that I could pounce on Ken, two o’clock was finally upon me. I literally threw my son into bed and raced through a shamefully condensed version of
The Cat in the Hat
before rushing over to Baby Girl’s room where I speed-nursed her to sleep. In twenty minutes flat, I was bouncing back down the stairs and onto Ken’s unsuspecting lap. He was clearly absorbed in a riveting episode of
Politically Incorrect
with Bill Maher, so I knew I would have my work cut out for me.

As I straddled him, I pried the remote from his hand and turned off the TV. Before he could protest, I had his glasses off, my fingers in his hair, and my tongue in his mouth. He tasted like orange Gatorade, which is what my dad always used to make me drink when I got the flu as a kid and couldn’t hold down solids. To this day, the smell of orange Gatorade is permanently married to the smell of vomit in my brain. Needless to say, it took a few minutes to get things going, but I was determined to hump him out of his political satire–induced coma and me out of my unwanted childhood olfactory memories.

When Ken’s breath finally became ragged and our clothes finally started coming off, I unsnapped the cups of my nursing bra and folded the soft cotton over, exposing my swollen breasts, while leaving them sexily trussed up by the underwire. As Ken pulled one straining pink nipple into his mouth and massaged the other, I held my breath and crossed my fingers, praying silently that he wouldn’t get a shot of milk to the eye. Then, it occurred to me that not ten minutes ago, that exact same nipple had been in the baby’s mouth. And a few years ago, it had been in my son’s mouth.

So, this is what a family is
, I thought.
Just a houseful of people who’ve all sucked on your tits.

And have also been inside your vagina
.

Dear Journal,

I fucking love it when Ken has a cold. I know it sounds sadistic to take pleasure in someone else’s misery, but Ken is so incredibly cute when he’s sick. He never complains. He just cocoons himself into the softest, warmest, comfiest hoodie he can find, flips up the hood, and quietly watches TV with his arms crossed over his chest. So, basically, sick Ken is just regular Ken with a comfy hoodie on. And it drives me wild.

Fucking hoodies and stocking caps get me every time. Some girls like men in uniforms. I like men who look like they were just dismissed from a police lineup, preferably the young, hard-bodied B-and-E suspects who cleared the six-foot mark painted on the cinder-block wall and were only let go because their tattoos didn’t match the victim’s description. You’ll notice I didn’t say, “armed robbery suspects,” because those are ski masks, not stocking caps, Journal. Turn-
off.

So, last night, when I got done putting the kids to bed, I came downstairs to find my husband curled up on the couch, totally working the sexy sick Ken combo. The image of that masculine square jaw covered in stubble and those usually sparkling blue eyes shrouded by an inky-black hood screamed danger and mystery while the aged softness of his cotton sweatshirt and vulnerability of his posture whispered,
Hold me. Love me.

Unable to help myself, I climbed onto the couch next to him and slid my hands around his torso under the warmth of his sweatshirt. What I really wanted to do was straddle him and shove my tits in his face, but knowing that he didn’t feel well, I simply rested my cheek on his shoulder instead, settling for some serious unreciprocated cuddling. I purred into his ear and murmured something about him being adorable when he’s sick, content to just be near this paradox of hotness for a little while.

It was a sweet moment, but like every other instance of intimacy I’ve had with this man, I eventually realized, lamented, and then bitterly accepted the fact that the feeling was not mutual. Ken was probably on Ken Island somewhere, a place with a population of one where the white noise of baseball stats and stock-market tickers filled the air. He probably didn’t even realize I was there. Or worse, he was gritting his teeth and tolerating my touch while passive-aggressively trying to bore me out of the room with
Fantasy Football Live
.

So, I was nuzzling and kneading and trying to siphon every ounce of tenderness I could get when Ken turned his adorable hooded face to mine, leaned over, and began planting soft kisses on my neck just below my ear.

He then whispered, “I don’t want to give you what I’ve got…but I want to give you what I’ve got.” He gyrated his hips a little for emphasis.

I looked down and—

Holy shit!

Ken hadn’t been off on Ken Island at all. He was here, with me, soaking up my affection and responding with a huge vulneraboner.

Aw!

Needless to say, I wasn’t about to let a little cold come between me and this breakthrough. I dragged Ken by his hoodie strings into our master bathroom and deftly maneuvered the childproof latch on the nose-hair trimmer/fiber supplement/facial wax/suppository/glue stick/spare change/sex-toy drawer and feverishly began rummaging through the assorted bullshit before locating the finger-sized vibrating bullet we kept stashed in there. If we couldn’t make out to get things going, what with his cold and all, I was going to need backup.

Not wasting any time, Ken began disrobing on the spot, so I followed suit immediately. As I shimmied out of my jeans, his delicious hoodie hit the floor beside me. The pang of loss I felt over seeing that sexy garment in a heap at my feet was quickly replaced by a throbbing need between my legs as my eyes trailed back up to its source. They slid over Ken’s muscular calves and thighs, danced up and around the head of his impressive erection, crawled up the ridges of his firm abdomen, slid over his toned chest, licked across the rough stubble of his square jaw, and landed softly on chiseled lips that were parted ever so slightly (probably because he was too stuffed up to breathe through his nose, but whatever.) Ken looked like he’d just stepped off the set of an Old Spice commercial, probably after being fired for not being able to contain that nine-inch trouser snake under his towel.

Before I could tackle him, Ken reached for my hips and turned my naked body so that I was facing the giant mirror hanging above the sink. Shifting to stand behind me, he let his hands move to my swollen breasts, heavy with milk, and buried his face into my neck. I stared with abandon.

I’d never watched myself making love before. Sure, I’d stolen a few glances during the dozens of times I’d had sex in a bathroom or a cheap beach hotel with mirrored closet doors, but standing there, watching Ken fondle and lick and suckle my body, made me feel empowered and adored.

At only six months postpartum, I don’t make a habit of looking at myself in full-length mirrors. I’m not back to my pre-pregnancy weight yet, and as someone who spent more of her adult life living with an eating disorder (or three) than without, I’ve learned that mirrors and scales lie. They whisper things to your soul that are untrue—about your beauty, about your worth. Typically, the fewer mirrors and scales I encounter, the better.

But last night, in that mirror, the body I saw before me was…surprisingly hot.

Still nursing, my breasts are a full cup size, maybe two, larger now, and with my arms resting on the top of my head, my stomach at least had the illusion of being taut. My hips, slightly wider than before, balanced out the added fullness in my chest and gave me a gentle hourglass silhouette that I’d never in a million years thought my boyish figure was capable of. There was nothing boyish about the wanton sex goddess gazing back at me. She was curvy. She was fertile. And she had a tall sandy brown–haired drink of water wrapped around her like a mink shawl.

Ken rotated me slightly to the side, granting his mouth access to my right nipple, the one that had been pierced three times in as many years when I was a teenager.

(My body had rejected the piercing on that side, twice, and I’d kept saying, “Fuck you, body! You will have TWO pierced nipples, not just ONE. You don’t tell me what to do!” So, I’d kept getting it re-pierced because when you were the only girl on the planet without boobs, you really, really needed pierced nipples to make taking your shirt off in front of a boy feel okay. It’s a miracle I can breastfeed at all out of that nipple, given all the scar tissue left behind in the wake of my self-mutilating youth.)

Ken caressed it with his tongue only momentarily before capturing it at the base and slowly dragging his teeth down its length. The sensation made my toes curl, as did the sting of chilly air when it eventually slipped free from the buttery warmth of his mouth.

The master bathroom in our house is a dark, high-ceilinged cavern of a place. Encrusted in wall-to-wall stone tiles, I half-expect to see stalactites hanging overhead whenever I go in there. Obviously designed by a man, the entire expanse is hard and cold.

The room had every inch of my body craving the warmth of Ken’s mouth. And I could think of at least one place on his body that was craving the warmth of mine.

I reached out and snatched the bullet-shaped vibrator off the counter. Twisting around, I grabbed Ken by his strong shoulders and rotated our bodies so that he had his back to the counter. Beginning with his clenched jaw, I trailed open-mouthed kisses down his neck and chest while suggestively slipping the vibrator into his left hand. Bending at the waist, I took Ken’s straining cock in my hand, licking from base to tip in slow wavy patterns while shifting my hips to the side so that my ass was within his reach.

I heard the hum of the vibrator and moaned into Ken’s manhood as his hand traveled down my back, the vibrator between his index and middle finger, leaving trails of gooseflesh over my eager skin. Taking his length deep into my throat, I sucked hard, swirling my tongue around the ridge of his slick head, before plunging him back in. I heard Ken groan in appreciation as he sent the vibrator sliding down the base of my spine, through the parting of my ample ass, and into my slick folds, coming to rest firmly at the base of my clit.

Yes!

I bobbed my head faster, alternating between sucking and swirling, while stroking and cupping the rest of him. Ken responded by buzzing my swollen clit with the vibrator faster and faster, occasionally dipping his ring finger into the achingly empty spot just below. Just as I began to feel my core tighten, Ken’s cock jerked in my mouth. He pulled me off him before either of us could come, and then pressed me against one of the few bathroom walls not plastered over by icy-cold tile.

Lifting my thigh to his waist, Ken settled between my legs, bending at the knees to make up for our height difference, and kissed my throbbing slit with the head of his perfect penis. He entered by only an inch or two before withdrawing, and then he did it again. Ken was teasing me, giving me just a taste of what I craved, while exhaling steamy breaths into my collarbone. Unable to delay my gratification any longer, I grabbed his hips and pulled him to me in one hard, satisfying thrust. We both stilled, relishing the moment, before I pushed his hips away from me and drove him back in, harder than before. The next time I pushed him away Ken pushed back, careening into me with a force that let me know he was taking control.

Again and again I pushed and he pulled, and with every collision I felt closer to
him
. But not close enough. Not yet.

Flipping around, I stood, spread eagle, on my tiptoes with one hand against the wall, my free hand reaching between my thighs to guide Ken back into my needy body. Ken bent his legs as he entered me from behind, then stood slowly, almost lifting me off my feet once he reached maximum penetration.

That! Yes! Please!

My clit throbbed, and almost instinctively, Ken pressed the forgotten vibrator into that swollen little swath of flesh.

Ah!

Reacting to the intensity, I cried out and constricted my muscles around Ken’s cock, squeezing it hard as he stood to fill me again, pushing him over the edge. Ken gripped my hips with both hands and convulsed behind me, releasing himself as deep into my new curvy body as he could get.