Husband Dot Com (3 page)

Lane started undressing me in such a way that it made my skin tingle. His hands slowly melted my clothes off. His lips overtook me as we fell hard into his bed. Lane pulled my legs apart to make room
for his beautiful body as he leisurely climbed on top of me. The warmth of my lady-skin gently stretched as he slowly entered me. The sensation of him inside me made my back instantly arch as his body merged with mine. Lane was a total missionary man and mounted me like a tidal wave. I was lost in a skin maze of pure bliss. We lavishly lingered in the sheets—totally mesmerized with each other for hours. I was imprisoned by Lane’s sheer mist of manliness that I could not see my way out of. We were consumed by our mortal urges in an unusually heady and passionate way. The last thing I remember hearing was the ocean breeze blowing the palm trees back and forth before I drifted to sleep.

I suddenly awoke
a few hours later and realized that I was handcuffed to a long, black surfboard. I thought,
Holy shit, what are my arms doing strapped above my head?
I tried to move, until I felt the sensation of Lane's lips kissing my skin. His face was buried between my legs. Lane looked up at me and said, this is what I wanted to do all night. I was floating when Lane was kissing my wild-orchid. Lane had a gifted way to say good morning to a sleeping woman. He was such a real man to head down to my southern region right after sunrise. I wrapped my legs around his back and let him take me on a tropical journey. I kicked back to enjoy the tender fleeting moment and allowed Lane to deliver me beyond the threshold of splendor one last time.
That evening with Lane, I was on my hot-bus. A hot-bus can only be described as a perfect storm of hotness. It’s like falling into flawless circumstances where the universe says, “Yes, you are invited.” My spirit was beaming. I was almost at my ideal weight. My hair was behaving and my outrageous outfit was snug in all the right places. That Saturday night my hot-bus drove directly into a divine parking lot and parked right beside perfection. Hot-bus days are as fleeting as a sighting of Big Foot trying on a pair of six-inch, peep-toe heels at the mall. These days, I can only see the taillights on the hot-bus as it is driving into the fog. Catching up to the damn thing is somewhat challenging, especially because I keep skimming crumbs off the bottom of white cheddar popcorn bags and inadvertently drowning my inner skinny diva!

That night, I was at the right place at the right time with Lane. There was something spectacular about stepping gracefully into an evening of extraordinary circumstances. Some things in life are a pure delight—simply because they exist.

It’s not like I am ready to surrender my dusty lady-crown yet, even though it’s missing a few sparkles these days. Who cares? I am so over trying to be perfect anyway! Perfection is a destination that resides a million miles away. Geez, the only way that I could ever visit perfection would be to take a free bareback ride on an out-of-control meteorite. Besides, having a spark in your eye is much better that skinny thighs any day of the week—well, at least that’s the notion that I delude myself with on a daily basis. It has always seemed like my mascara wand has never been long enough to land anything that even remotely resembles the intangible planet of perfection. Although, I will never give up hope that my locks will once again be crowned with sparkling tanzanite QVC jewels, no matter how the years may find me.

Being
forever guilty of trying to rock what I’ve got and somehow keep it hot, I must in good conscience give an honorable mention to a couple of oldies but goodies— false eyelashes and hot rollers—vanity’s little life vests! I also must halfheartedly throw in the fact that the only good thing about wrinkles is that along with those little bitches comes wisdom. Besides, wrinkles and all, you can't keep a good sexpot down for too long. Okay, maybe for ten minutes, with pink satin ties and a box of frozen mini Charleston Chews—like I said before, I am so not perfect!

With all of my wrinkles and wisdom lingering on this side of the Mississippi, I knew that Lane was too beautiful and fleeting to even dream of capturing. He was
also too damn irresistible for his own flipping good. Lane was a stray dog that I could no longer keep. I was absolutely positive that every single woman with a wet hoo-hoo, living within in a hundred-mile radius of him, had her porch light on, a key under the mat, and a glass of Jack Daniels waiting patiently for him to show up at her doorstep. Lane was emotionally dangerous for me—an unconquerable man. Hell, when you’re beat you’re beat, sometimes it’s better to toss your white bra in the ring and skip away with your heart still intact—even if your glorious sugar cookie is broken up over it.

Lane and I did go out a few more times after our unforgettable second date. Living decidedly different lives, we came to the realization that other than taking a spin on the wild side, vertical
ly we heard crickets in the grass. I wanted to be happily married someday and he wanted to be a lifetime bachelor—searching for the perfect wave and the perfect babe. No regrets here, I will always have a soft spot in my strawberry-patch for Lane.
My glorious spin around the Ferris wheel of lust with Lane gave me a long overdue clean man-slate. Spending time with Lane had taken a giant washcloth soaked in high voltage tarnish remover and polished me right back up to my prior glory. Then instantly, I had my "sex-dazzle" back in full-force.
 

Just as my
girl tiara was starting to glisten again, I discovered that looking for men online was quickly becoming my favorite new pastime. Meeting men through natural causes was on the verge of becoming a cloudy distant memory. Lane was my last thrill du-jour before I logged on to a new dating website. I will affectionately refer to that site as “a whole lot of Mr.Wrong.com.” Before I ever knew what electronically hit me, I’d be speeding down an Internet collision course to meeting my first husband. The unforeseen future for me would soon be full of mishaps, misadventures, and marriages.

Seriously, where the heck is my bling?
These were the thoughts that were swimming around in my head by my early-thirties
. Where was the two-carat rock that should be weighing down my ring finger—why not me?
Old, yes, old is how I felt.  My third decade of life had blown right by me with no wedding ring on the nearby horizon—it stunk. I was the fun girl with a string of long-term relationships. The girl that never won the blue ribbon at the county fair—yep, that was me.

Way too many of my youthful years were spent treading water i
n shallow ponds with commitment-phobic men. Or maybe, I was the commitment-phobic girl hiding in the murky water? Either way, I had the misguided notion that I should have been driving around four screaming kids in some innocuous grey minivan. Oh, the image would not be fully complete unless I was sporting a generic soccer-mom bob. Although, it seemed fate had different plans behind door number three for me. Slighted by my own hand, I spent numerous years shoveling the unforgiving sands of time right out of my very own size-twelve hourglass.

It is
so effing ridiculous to me now that I allowed my ankle to get caught in the transparent teeth of such a make-believe relationship trap. I was at the point in my existence where I found myself staring at every couple walking by and thinking to myself,
“See they are married, why am I still single?”
That was a hellish, slippery, emotional slope to slide down with a tight cocktail dress on. Once I started rapidly descending down that slick path, my decisions became completely scrambled. I ended up making rash choices with some seriously disastrous consequences.

Luckily, I was already blessed with my daughter, Hope. I indulged in a whimsi
cal fling when I lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado during my mid-twenties. I moved to mountain country with my sister Lynn—looking for a high-altitude adventure—found it. I briefly became flirtatiously entangled with an adorable cowboy type. He was also a weekend ski instructor—that made him so much hotter, especially to a sunny Florida girl. Weeks before I arrived on my new frozen soil, I packed up my car and left my long-time boyfriend in the brokenhearted dust. I was ready to breathe in what life was like outside of the concrete jungle of South Florida—a place that I had always called home. I was on a mission to find snow, and more importantly, myself.
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Soon after arriving in Steamboat, Lynn and I went out
on the town. Like most twenty-something girls, our sole mission was to stir up a good time. We found a great brewery in the center of town and soaked up our unknown digs. Across the crowded bar I spotted him, my mountain crush was walking in the door. He was tall with light, brown hair and blue eyes. I thought he was the most stunning male specimen that I had ever seen. The eggs in my uterus jumped for joy when our eyes locked. I had to talk to him—no matter what. Wearing a John Deere baseball cap and a light blue plaid shirt, he walked past me. My sister looked at me and said, “What has gotten into you?” She could tell by the look in my eye that I was fixated on him. So, Lynn walked up to him and lured him over to our table to meet me. His name was Miller and he had me spellbound from his mere presence. That was it—I was temporarily hooked!

I was on the rebound from my Florida love. I was very much looking to completely forget my life in Florida
, like and old scrapbook tucked underneath the bed. Miller had a jacked-up Ford pickup truck that he came and picked me up in for our first date. He drove me around town, listening to country music and showing me the sights. Miller was in his early twenties and still had a lot of boy left rustling around inside his boots. Our romance was more playful than sexual. Although, Miller and I did roll around in the barn a few times—so what if I got a little hay stuck in my hair! I was only trying to keep warm—it was freezing in those flipping mountains! Good thing the stars high above the western sky are pretty good at keeping secrets.

A few months later the stork did a “fly-by” over my apartment and winked directly at me. When I found out that I was pregnant, I knew that the journey that I had surprisingly embarked on would have me walking alone as a single parent. Let's just say that my relationship w
ith Hope's father was not a one-night stand, but somewhere warmly nuzzled between a few beers, a cowboy hat, and a fling.
 

I lived in mountain territory for a few years until I was “over” freezing my ass off. I was also totally homesick for my friends and family. I traveled across the country with Hope and brought her back to South Florida to meet everyone I had left behind. I knew that my time spent in the mountains was to find
Hope and bring her home.” She was a beautiful baby, with hair like sugar and piercing blue eyes. I was head over heels in love with my new favorite girl. Life had given me the best gift by far—blessing me with little Hope.
Even with Hope, my life puzzle seemed to be missing a few key pieces. I was under a terribly misguided impression that I had holes in places of my life that needed to be filled. Even my close friends were nudging me to hurry up and find the right guy. As if my wanting a man should have made him materialize at my doorstep. Everyone in my circle of friends was already married, or divorced by my age. Finding my soul mate was brainteaser that had somehow evaded me. I was left to contemplate why only half of the puzzle was mine? I was way behind the family unit, gas-guzzling SUV curveball— by a long country mile.

The inception of online dating happened to be a man miracle for me. I could stay home with
my daughter and shop for men online from the comfort of my living room. I started the journey of online man hunting back in the dark ages of the late 90s. I think my giant desktop computer may have been carved out of stone—not kidding! That antiquated time was prior to the couch-lounging laptops and tablets that I adore so much today. After a few years of online dating, I had become remarkably well-versed in the vast sea of logging on and finding lust.

Meeting Trent was a tornado that blew the doors off my life. I found Trent while I was scrolling through dozens of local profiles. In only six short months we went from first date to getting hitched in “The Biggest Little City in the World”. Our courtship landed us in Reno to begin our eternal commitment to one another. Our dating life was a whirlwind from the moment I clicked the “send message" button. My first email to him was a brief wink, wink—a cyber-flirt, shall I say. He quickly responded to my email with interest. Shortly after we made our connection, we met in person. Right away, I knew that Trent would have an impact on my life. There have been times when I have met people and from that moment on, I knew that my life had forever changed. Meeting Trent was one of those defining moments. At first, I did not know what the change meant in the grand scheme of things, but the world as I had known it had been thrown off its axis—or rather, its ass.
Trent was a bit of a male peacock from the moment we met at a quaint Italian bistro located in a Coral Springs strip mall. Trent had jet-black hair, extremely green eyes, and well-defined upper body. He dressed nice and I caught a whiff of him that smelled like a cocktail mix of success and Crave by Calvin Klein. His smile brightened him up a notch from just “okay” looking, to skirting the good-looking side of the fence. He worked hard to get where he was in life and he had some expensive toys to show for it. We had a lot of things in common from the second we began unraveling our interests. Spending time with him always had an air of excitement about it. We were quickly wrapped up in a ball of infatuation that was impossible to break free from. We were both in perfect places in our lives to be in a new relationship and start life built around each other. The stars may have been in alignment for us, but as time would reveal, we would find ourselves dancing around in the wrong universe—all the way to Reno Nevada.
My trampy silver heels made me look as flashy as a Kentucky-bred mare on race day. I pranced across the casino floor, imagining how deliriously brilliant married life would be. I was a little more svelte thanks to my pre wedding, no carb diet, and growling stomach. Going to sleep hungry for a month had really paid off in spades. I had a bit more swagger to my strut going on inside my new favorite size-ten jeans. Something about the lights, the people, and the energy were exceedingly alive that evening. There was a crackle in the desert air that I had never experienced before. I was followed around by a warm, fuzzy, radiant glow the entire evening—well, not quite the entire evening.