Undead and Unstable (28 page)

“Unless you want to spend the day finding a divorce lawyer, never finish that sentence. Sink Lair, get it through your head already: I’d do anything for you. I’d squander anything for you. And again with the seductive wordplay: squander.”

“Darling?”

“Don’t set me down unless you move me half a foot to my right! I don’t want to go in the yellow snow.”

“Darling, shut the fuck up and kiss me back.”

So I did. I knew I shouldn’t reward his ordering me around by giving him kisses and probably a blowjob (
if
we went inside … there are some things a girl shouldn’t do on her front lawn), but I did, anyway.

It’s not my fault! When I wasn’t squashing the urge to kick him in the shins, I thought he was irresistible. Sometimes I wanted to kick him
and
I found him irresistible; how was that for a mixed signal?

It was amazing to me; it had always been amazing that he thought
I
was, too. I prayed I never got so jaded that I could shrug off the depth of his feeling, the astonishing scope of his fierce devotion.

It seemed to me that if I ever started taking the love of a king for granted, it would be like losing my grip on basic humanity. If I couldn’t be surprised and touched and overwhelmed by love, what was the point of any of this?

He scooped me up in his arms and tramped through the snow toward our front door. “What? No snow angels? Right to the hot-tub banging, huh?”

“Oh, there are angels, all right,” he replied soberly. “And I am fortunate to be married to one.”

“Oh, boy! Comments like that will not get you laid, they will get you laughed at. Except for today, when they get you both. Let that be a lesson to you.”

That made him laugh again, and that got me laughing, and then he was staggering through the snow and I was clinging to his neck and we didn’t see the porch railing until he’d run into it hard enough to rattle my teeth and send us both sprawling like a couple of bowling pins.

We were still rolling around on the porch and roaring and holding our stomachs when Jessica opened the door and stared down at us. From our vantage, all we could see was the curving bulge of her enormous stomach and then, far, far above the curve, her small face, creased with surprise. (Marc, I assume, had figured I was fine and limped back inside. Mental note: Apologize on Sinclair’s behalf. Explain everything. Beg pregnant/zombie friends for forgiveness. Rinse. Repeat.) She didn’t say a thing for a few seconds, which we found even more hilarious.

“Hi, guys. Marc’s sulking with a huge bump on his forehead and says you can both get frostbite on your ‘nethers’ for all he cares. So … do you want me to let you back in when you’re finished?”

FORTY-SIX

No we did not. Which is to say, we were stumbling and
staggering through the house (Jessica had left the door wide open for us, proving again that we had either too much security or not enough, and never any sort of happy medium) while our mouths and hands were busy.

Awesomely busy. Thoroughly busy. Big-time all-the-time busy … we were kissing each other hard enough to leave bruises (theoretically) and tugging at each other’s clothes (literally). My outfit suddenly seemed to be made of buckles and rubber—stuff really hard to get out of, and Sinclair’s suit was proving just as intractable.

I stumbled and he tried to catch me and went over himself. We might have had more luck if we stopped kissing long enough to take in our surroundings, and clothing, but nothing doing. So we both went down in front of the sweeping staircase that led (eventually) to our bedroom.

(my love my love my Elizabeth my own)

I rolled to my side while Sinclair yanked at my sweater. A button went flying (I was wearing a sexy old-lady wool cardigan, complete with
faux
pearl buttons and a Kleenex tucked up the sleeve … okay, I’m kidding about the Kleenex) but the rest of the wool was resisting him. Stupid Merino wool! What’d I ever do to those sheep that their wool should resist me now, at the moment I was most horny?

(my love my love I love my love I love you my Elizabeth)

His Caraceni suit jacket was cooperating, or so I assumed when I heard the purring
“ri-i-i-p!”
of a seam getting yanked. Now I only had the super-sturdy pants to tear through, the tie to shred, and the Egyptian cotton shirt to tear into strips. The stairs were going to look like they were awash in crepe party streamers. Streamers made of Egyptian cotton. Dammit! Why’d Sinclair have to be rich? Why couldn’t he just shop at Wal-Mart with most of the rest of us, where any clothing he bought would rip
itself
to shreds after the first trip through the wash?

As we tore at each other’s clothing with our mouths sealed together in the fiery sharp kisses of vampires

(my love my love dammit what is this she’s wearing?)

our frustration only mounted. Frustration with the high-quality clothing we’d stupidly worn. And okay, sexual frustration, too. It had been days! Almost a whole week! I thought of the movie
Zoolander
, when the models find out the heroine hasn’t had sex in years and are horrified: “How do you live? How do you live?” Now that I think of it, there are many wise messages hidden in
Zoolander
, and if we as a society could only see the genius hiding beneath Ben Stiller’s ridiculous hair, we—ow!

“Friction burn,” I yelped.

“I am so—nnnf!—sorry—unff—beloved!” He was now wrestling with the tank top which I wore beneath the long sleeved shirt beneath the cardigan he’d gotten through.

Of all the days to layer! Chalk it up to a hazard of living in Minnesota.

By now we’d sort of lurched to our feet and had made it up a few more of the many many many many stairs, and I felt a flash of pain zip through my mouth as he broke the skin in his urgency.

“Ow!”

“—so sorry—darling—nnf—”

I bit him back, lightly, which was a tactical if yummy error, if his increased urgency was any indication. We both fell to the carpet again, but I finally had his pants open. There is no sexier sound than the clink of a man’s belt hitting the floor, even if his wife then falls on the buckle and spends a few seconds yelping and grabbing her knee. We really should separate, stand, and then carefully sprint to our bedroom, where most of the breakable furniture was already broken and thus there were less things to hurt ourselves on. Or hurt ourselves with.

I forgot all about the plan once I had my hand on my husband’s dick. Yep, that plan went right out the … the thing that plans go out when … when I can’t think of them … was there ever a plan? A plan for what?

I’m confused. And also very horny.

(Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh do not do not stop oh oh)

Thank goodness Sinclair wasn’t confused. He’d keep us on the straight and narrow. If there had been a plan, he’d know what it was. But he didn’t need to remember because he wasn’t confused. In fact, he seemed more single-minded than

(oh your your your fingers are are you have the face of an angel and the touch of a sorceress you you more do more harder harder oh oh)

usual.

“Seriously? You guys? Right there on the stairs, huh?” Someone was talking at us. I had no idea who. I didn’t remember anyone else except Sinclair. Did Sinclair and I live alone? Had we ever done anything or known anyone before each other? Cannot remember. There’s nothing before his mouth and his hands and his great big—

“Hey! You realize you’re leaving a trail of what appears to be cotton, Merino wool, and cashmere?” Someone else we didn’t know was talking at us. This was weird because the only other person in my world was my love, my own, my king, Sinclair. Probably I was just hearing voices. Probably it was only psychosis. Probably we didn’t have roommates. “You know that saying, ‘get a room’? Well,
get a room
!”

We’d stumbled to our feet, made it up a few more stairs, and then Sinclair tripped on his shoelaces

(shoes first! Dammit! I never think of that)

(nor I, my love)

and down we went again. But now there were a mere seven thousand steps between us and our bedroom. He fell almost full-length on top of me, which would have sent air whooshing out of my lungs if I’d had any. As it was, I could feel my ribs flexing and creaking from the impact. But I never once let go of his dick. Because when Betsy Taylor starts something, she by-God finishes it!

“Aaaggghh, Elizabeth!”

“Sorry.”

But victory would be ours because at last—at last—my panties were exposed and I was tugging them aside and the whole never-letting-go thing

(heh, that reminds me of
Titanic
when Rose is all “I’ll never let go, Jack, I’ll never let go” and then SHE LETS GO!)

(darling please stop nattering in my head before I take you right here on these stairs)

(oh no you don’t! I’m taking YOU right here on these stairs)

(I surrender you win have your way with me I shall offer no resistance)

(now what was I—oh, yeah, since I never let go of your dick I still have your dick and will now ruthlessly)

(yes)

(guide your dick)

(yesyesyes)

(into me. So let that be a lesson unto you, Sink Lair, we should never let the possible end of the world and/or the hideous deaths or awful transformations of everyone we love interfere with our frequent marital nooky because it’s just not a good—)

“Elizabeth,” he panted, pulling my bra free with a quick yank

(yow, friction! friction burn!)

“Please stop saying those things in my head. I would really like to have an orgasm now, so shush.”

Well, he wasn’t alone. And I was trying to oblige him. But my foot was now caught between the banister and the wall, and my head was at a weird forty-five degree angle because of how my neck was resting on the step, and he still had his tie on although his shirt was in shreds, and I was pretty sure one of his buttons had fallen into my bra and when my bra went flying so did the button but I had no idea where, and someone was still

“Dick, don’t! Use the side door, the side door! Do not go in there if you value your sanity!”

yelling from somewhere.

We thrashed and wriggled like a couple of bass yanked from the Mississippi and tossed on a dock. Horny bass. On a deck that was carpeted and looked a lot like six thousand stairs. Then Sinclair once again got to his feet, hauled me up with a yank on my elbow, kicked the part of the banister just below where my ankle had gotten lodged, freed said ankle, then slung me unceremoniously over his shoulder in some sort of undead fireman’s carry, and staggered up the rest of the eight thousand stairs.

“Oh thank heavens,” someone said at us. “They’re … I think it’s safe. They’re going to their room. We can all have the courage to start our lives over and work past this domestic trauma.”

I had to sort of clutch Sinclair’s back to keep from jouncing off his shoulder and tumbling back down the stairs, so I dug in

(ouch! Beloved, you have the curved talons of a tree sloth)

and wondered: had I ever felt so happy, so horny, so relieved, so delighted, so insulted, and so loved like this before, ever, in either my old life or the new?

Not even close. And speaking of close—ah! The melodious sound of Sinclair kicking our bedroom door open drove all other thoughts out of my head. He nearly tripped on the sizable piece of wood that had detached at his kick, then tossed me on our bed and turned back to make sure the board was moved and the door as shut as it could be. Unfortunately, it was a brand-new mattress (we went through them pretty often), and still chock full of sproinginess. In his lusty haste, Sinclair had tossed me pretty hard. If we’d tried to re-create it a hundred times we couldn’t: the new mattress spit me back out, ejected me like it was a damned launching pad, and I hit the carpet.

(—the hell?)

What was it with inanimate objects keeping me from banging the vampire king today?

Sinclair turned back from the door, surprised to see me on the carpet, but too horny to care, or speculate about physics, or discuss attempts to re-create what just happened, or wonder why every inanimate object in our house was determined to keep us apart.

“My own.”

“Yes. Mine, too.”

He fell on me. Or I fell on him. We didn’t know. And we sure didn’t care.