Tempted (35 page)

After conducting a thorough evaluation of the foodstuffs, we determine that the chili cheese dogs m
ay be the best in history,
and
that we need two more, each, in order to make a proper and unbiased determination.
 
I
ask David for his
drink order while backing into the aisle
,
and I accidentally collide with another patron, one who is carrying a tray full of drinks that are now all over his Izod sweater.
 
I turn to apologize profusely, but am too stunned to speak.

“Why don’t you look where you’re
...
Claire?” Bret mutters, his hands dripping ice and cola on the ground between us.
 
I manage to blurt out “I’m sorry,” and offer to replace the drinks.
 
Opportunist that he is, he doesn’t hesitate in accepting my offer.

We walk to the concession stand together, awkwardly trying to make conversation, Bret dripping and sloshing all the way.
 
After a sentence or two
,
we have nothing to say.
 
He asks about my love life, which I imply is wonderful.
 
I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going with Alex.
 
I can tell Bret thinks I mean David.
 
I ask how he and his
brood
are doing, sincerely interested and hoping to hear of white picket fences and family picnics.
 
The truth of the matter is that Bret’s wife took their toddler and their newborn and moved back in with her parents.
 
Bret has just managed to have the restraining order lifted
–
God only knows what he did to warrant a restraining order
–
and he will soon be able to see his children again, when supervised by a social worker, of course.

While the concessionaire pours drinks that are the size of my bulldog Persephone, Bret scours the menu and decides to add a few things to the o
rder that I’m paying for,
and
he does so without asking.
 
We walk back to our seats, laden with an impressive array of artery-clogging snacks.
 
He has drinks, candy, pizza, and soft pretzels with mustard.
 
I have four magnificent chili cheese dogs, all with mounds of extra chili.
 
As we near our seats
,
I try to come up with something positive to say, some well-wish or words of wisdom to end what I hope is our last conversation.

Upon returning to our seating area, we find the aisle crowded with unattended youngsters and I have
to wait for an impressively
robust
couple to get out of their seats and into the aisle before I can scooch down the row.
 
David acknowledges Bret with a friendly, “Hey, how ya doin’?” and a smile.

Bret sees fit to return, “Smile while ya can, Buddy.
 
Your girl Claire here is frigid and a real ball-buster.
 
You’re gonna need your right hand and lots of baby oil if you plan to date her.”

I make my way down the row to my
VIP
seat in serene satisfaction, with Bret’s curses and threats rolling off my back.
 
Poor man was somehow knocked into again and his preppy sweater is once more doused in soda.
 
And this time
,
his designer jeans are smeared in chili and cheese
–
extra chili.
 

Woops again.
 
My, but I’ve become clumsy.

When my kundalini first stirred, I vowed I would never
be locked into
a routine again.
 
But, oh, how I love t
he pattern my life has taken – d
omestic bliss with David, erotic ecstasy with Alex, family harmony with Mom, and warm fuzzies with the menagerie.
 
Life is really good.
 
And what’s more, I am really happy.

This afternoon, when Mom excuses herself to powder her nose after an especially brutal assault on my character, David asks me what’s going on.
 
He says I just sit around in a dreamy haze while my mother hurls verbal grenades at me.
 
This seems as good a time as any to tell him about Alex.
 
When I do so, a momentary pall casts on his sunny face, but is gone just as quickly.
 
For a moment
,
I think he’s jealous.
 
But that moment passes.

* * *

A few days later, David and I are having a giggling fit over some nominally entertaining viral video on Youtube
,
when I get a call from Mom’s senior housing community.
 
“Hello, Miss Eden?
 
This is Delores Feldman, Head Administrator at Redwood Meadows.
 
Your mother has taken a fall.”

“You mean she’s fallen and she can’t get up?” I reply, sending both David and myself into new peals of
shameless
laughter.

“Yes.
 
That’s correct.”

Suddenly sober, I listen intently to all Head Administrator Feldman has to say.
 
Mom took a nasty spill and her hip and knee are a mess.
 
She needs care and they are not equipped to look after someone so
...
so
...
 
They don’t know quite how to put it, but I get the picture.
 
She’s demanding.
 
David suggests she come stay with us, here.
 
I choke on my tea and my life begins to flash before my eyes.
 
He volunteers his room and vows to look after her personally.
 
He says it’s the least he can do, yada yada.

“C’mon.
How bad could it be?”

I balk.

“It’ll be fun!”

I guffaw.

“Just leave everything to me.”

He does have a point.
 
Mom is putty in David’s hands and behaves like a calm, little lamb for him.
 
This just might work.

I hear the car pull up with Mom hooting and hollering in glee, having just made the trip with the top down in David’s uber cool M6.
 
I come out to greet her and suddenly she
is all aches and pains and woe-is-
me’s.
 
David puts a stop to the nonsense quickly, telling her to play nice, and whaddaya know?
 
She does!

As days turn into nights, then weeks, Mom is in high spirits, but it’s clear her health is deteriorating.
 
It’s hard to wat
ch, but I am grateful that her a
utumn days are being spent with love and laughter.
 
She’s even fallen prey to the charms of the menagerie, especially
Daph
ne.
 
She now refers to the critters as her grandchildren, going so far as to post
ing
images of them on Facebook and carry
ing their
photos in her wallet.

David now sleeps on the couch in the family room.
 
That room has seen more action the last few months than the whole time I’ve lived here!
 
Sometimes I just sit and watch him sleep.
 
He really has been a Godsend, and I’m crazy about him.
 

Lately, his time on the couch has been diminishing
–
ever since I told him about Alex, coincidentally.
 
He
often goes out
for the night after Mom has fallen asleep
.
 
With whom or where, I have no idea, but all signs post to booty calls, plural.
 
I’m less than thrilled, though I know it’s none of my business.
 
It’s not that I’m judging him.
 
It’s just that I can’t take the idea of random women having their hands on David.
 
I know how unfair this feeling is, especially when I have Alex.
 
But, I am confused and befuddled, and so I determine to adopt Scarlet O’Hara’s ‘I’ll think about that tomorrow’ attitude.

As for Alex, he’s been quiet the last couple of weeks while busy with his kids and lots of activity with his own parents, sisters and brothers.
 
Theirs is a large family
,
and the month is full of birthdays and anniversaries and other excuses to get together and cavort.
 
We talk and text and message when we can, which hasn’t been as often as I’d like.
 
This evening, after a lo
vely day of collecting brightly
colored leaves around the grounds for Mom, a tradition with her from my youth, I settled into bed with a touch of melancholy.
 
Alex had spoiled me with so much attention that I have come to not only appreciate it, but, well, expect it.
 
And frankly, I miss it.
 
We had a brief and most licentious phone conversation the night before, in which I graphically explained to him exactly how I wanted to fall asleep at night.
 
Tonight we’ve not been able to speak due to family obligations on his part, but he does manage to send me a goodnight message.

10:38pm

Alexander Armstrong

Last night you mentioned how much you wanted to go to sleep with me inside you.
 
I loved it, of course, when you first mentioned it.
 
And now, p
ondering it further, I must say,
the thought of falling asleep inside of you, and I CAN feel you, is so wildly erotic and sensual to me. Not because it's my
‘
penis
’
inside you, like some sex thing mainly. But because it's so perfectly intimate. A sweet, simple, physical
connect
ion of two lovers, falling asleep together as close as close can be.

I think most people would see your suggestion, your request
,
as naughty. But I know you. And though I know there is of course the
erotic element of that posture –
falling asleep inside of you –
it's the exact opposite of na
ughty. It's absolute innocence, a
sort of perfect hug. And it's the combination of that sweet innocence and your willingness to express your love so purely and honestly, with all of you, that I find
so incredibly attractive…a
mong others things, countless other qualities you radiate.

Make no mistake, I AM going to bang you off of every
fucking
wall and piece of furniture
in the house
, and maybe even a few trees
during our walks in the woods – b
ecause you're wicked sexy hot. I don't know how exactly to say what I'm trying to say. Just the thought of you does lovely crazy things to my mind and heart and soul and body. You, Cariña, are a goddess. I have such humble admiration, and so very much respect for you. God shines thr
ough every aspect of you
.  You’re
brave and youthful and bold and vulnerable and playful and open and honest and loyal and trustworthy and compassionate and understanding and sweet and innocent and loving and generous and wise and magical and simple and infinite and perfect.

It will take me a lifetime to even begin to express why I love you. But I promise, I'll do my very best to keep trying, again and again, every day, forever. I hope to see you soon, in my dreams. I pray for that each time I try to fall asleep. But right now, I am going to slip inside of you, snuggle my chest against your back, feel your chilled feet seeking warmth in my heat, put my face in your hair, wrap an arm around you, so that I can rest my hand on your heart, and feel your breath
,
as you drift into sleep with me. Goodnight, my Love. I love because you ARE love. Sweet sweet dreams. And I shall speak with you in the morning.

I fall asleep
–
in love.

“Frailty, thy name is woman.” ~William Shakespeare

The first time I read those words describing Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, I remember looking down my nose at her, and regarding her with a plaintive opinion, at best.
 
I viewed the ease and speed with which she married the brother of her recently deceased husband as betraying a weakness of character and lack of morals.
 
Ah, with what facility do we judge when taking in the Bard’s words for the first time in high school English class?
 
And now, more than a score of years later, I find
my
character to be no nobler than Gertrude’s.