"Now then... what was next on my things to do list?"

Friday, May 26, 2006

It's hard working when I'm horny.

I cross my legs, and my slacks tighten against my cock, which reflexively stiffens. Some chick holds the receiver too close to her mouth while leaving me a voice mail, and her breathy coos send me to Oz. "Please call me back" might as well be "Please fuck me with your steely pork sword." The reaction is the same.

Being monogamous feels right for me, but it scares me, too. My body doesn't care if Tim is on her period. My balls don't ache less because she's working all weekend. There are certain times when I need to fuck, and it's sometimes hard making that happen.

11:45

I call Tim. "Hey," she says.

"Where are you?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Where are you?"

"I'm on 95, exit 12. What do you need?"

"You."

"I'm not far from your office."

"So come over!"

"Why?"

"You know why."

Yearlike moments pass, until finally my phone buzzes. "Steve, Tim is here," Bonnie says. "Should I send her in?"

That depends. How horny does she look?

"Sure."

Tim looks out of place in my office, with her navy blue, Ralph Lauren-logoed dress and black boots that don't quite match. She doesn't care that she clashes, nor do the three 20-something male employees who suddenly have urgent business in the general area outside my door.

"What?" she smiles, dropping her keys on my desk. But it's a silly question.

"Close my door."

As she turns the deadbolt, I go stiff. My ears ring. I wouldn't stop now, couldn't, even if the building were on fire. If a 747 were screaming towards my window, all I would do is try to come faster.

"I hope you don't expect me to get naked, Steve."

I'm already unzipping, pulling my pants down but not off, and she follows my lead, reaching under her short dress and sliding her panties down her thighs.

She straddles my legs, facing me, flipping her hair out of the way.

"Hope you...appreciate this...," she whispers, wiggling into position as her eyes roll back and her voice fades, giving way to the rhythmic squeak of my leather chair. I grow harder inside her, marveling at her tightness, wondering how she got so wet, so quickly.

She grabs the back of my chair and I pull her hips to me as the squeaking grows faster, more urgent. "Uhh," she moans. "Right there."

My phone rings. Let it.

She pulls back, slowly, staring at my face as I watch my wet cock slide out of her. She likes when I look.

I am fully out of her for a moment before she thrusts it hard back into her, kissing the side of my neck, then tickling with her tongue, then biting. I am overcome by all of it, the juicy sound of our sex, the squeaking chair, her hot mouth against my skin. I blast cum inside of her, pulling her tight against me, and the chair stops.

"Feel better now?" she asks.

You guys could learn a lot from Paige...

January 3, 2006, 9:27pm
Steve's house

The phone rings, and I jump, knocking over my water bottle.

Dad is gone. He must be. The paramedics didn't even seem to be in a rush, according to Greg. They didn't even turn the siren on. He must have been a lost cause.

It seems unfair. I know that we are all supposed to outlive our parents, but it wasn't so long ago that mom bit the dust, and she wasn't much of a mother to begin with. I hardly ever saw her, and when I did, she was loaded and dropping more F-bombs than Richard Pryor.

Dad is different. He was a great father. He was hardly home during the day, like mom, but that's because he was working 12-hour shifts at a hot, smelly garment factory so my brothers and I could buy our Sega Genesis and our Reebok Pumps.

My dad used to collect $40 from me every month for car insurance. I bitched at him all the time about it, about how unfair it was that I had to pay for my insurance when other kids my age did not.

I was packing my bags to go away to college for the first time when dad walked in and handed me a manilla envelope, grinning. "What's this?" I asked, and opened the envelope.

Inside was every dollar of insurance money I had given him.

For some reason, even after all these years, after everything that's happened, I just keep thinking back to that manilla envelope. He taught me the value of saving money, and he showed how much he loved me, all at the same time. That is what good fathers do.

My brothers and I deserve to have a father like ours around for a long time. He ought to be able to see all of us married, with families of our own, before he dies. It only seems fair, but I know it doesn't work that way.

"Please don't go over the bridge on the way to the hospital," Tim says.

"I have to, Tim. It's the fastest way there."

"Why don't you take Cold Spring Street?"

"That's five miles out of the way!"

"So what?"

"So he'll be dead by then," I snarl, recoiling at the sound of my own voice.

She stares straight ahead, chewing a fingernail.

"Why are you so afraid of bridges anyway?"

"I don't know! Stop asking me!"

"Does it have to do with--"

"No!"

"You'd never guess it was me who's under stress," I say. "It's my dad who's in the hospital, in case you've forgotten."

**********

10:14pm
Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, Intensive Care Unit family room

"Hi, gunkle Steve," Mackenzie says. She's up awfully late.

"Hi, honey."

"Gunkle! Look at my Polly Pocket," she says, waving a four-inch tall doll at me.

"That's nice, sweetie."

"Steve," Chris says, ominously, from the doorway, and with his shadowy face and dark jeans, he looks just like the Grim Reaper. I don't like the sound of his voice.

I hug him. "You okay?"

"No."

"Is he-- how is he?"

"He's stable for now. His kidneys shut down. His lungs are filled with fluid. He's also got some heart damage, evidently."

"What are his chances?"

"The doctor says if he wakes up to say goodbye we should consider it a victory."

Greg sobs softly.

"Gunkle, why is my daddy crying?"

**********

Sssssshhhhh-haaaaa.

I remember the sound from when mom was in the hospital. Dad has a thick grey tube shoved down his throat to help him breathe, just like she had. It's odd to think that, less than two years ago, dad stood next to us, strong and healthy as an ox, as we watched mom die. Now, we're watching him die, and he's every bit as weak and helpless as she was.

Sssssshhhhh-haaaaa.

"Dad?" I say.

Sssssshhhhh-haaaaa.

He looks old, with a frail neck and 2 days' worth of salt and pepper stubble. His skin is yellow and clammy.

"Dad, the doctors are taking care of you. You're going to be all right."

"He's got pneumonia," Greg says, to no one in particular.

They're hitting him with big-gun antibiotics, and pulling water out of his system as fast as they can, but progress is slow. Even so, seeing a nurse standing beside his bed with pages of notes, rushing from machine to machine, is comforting. She's helping him, and she hasn't given up hope.

"He's a sick man," the doctor says. "I don't want you to get your hopes up."

"What are the best case and worst case scenarios?" I ask.

"Best case? He gets up and walks out of here. Worst case--"

"He goes out with a toe tag?"

"Yes."

Tim is in the family room, watching Mackenzie. "I'll go relieve her so she can see your dad," Nancy says.

"She doesn't want to come in," Nancy says, two minutes later.

Tim hates hospitals. After being raped and stabbed, I guess I can't blame her, but I was hoping she'd come and see dad, just for a minute.

"You sure you don't want to come in?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Are you-- is this--"

"I'm fine, go be with your family."

"You're family, too."

"Thanks, hon," she says, rubbing my forearm. "I'm sorry, but I just can't. I was going to try, but--"

"I understand."

"I promise I'll keep you company when we get home, but I'm just gonna stay in here."

**********

January 5, 2006, 4:56pm

"Dad, it's time for us to go home now," I say. "We'll come back this weekend."

His right eye twitches.

"Dad?"

His eyes open.

"Dad! Dad! Guys, he woke up!"

Greg and Chris rush to the bed. "Follow my finger, dad," I say, and slowly move it from side to side. He stares straight ahead, one eye open wider than the other, like a stroke victim.

"He's heavily sedated," the nurse says. "Whenever we intubate, we sedate them, so they don't get agitated."

"But this is a good sign, right? Opening his eyes?" Greg asks.

"He's very sick," the nurse says.

It could be worse... his name could be T-Bag...

"Don't you and Tim ever fight?"

Everyone asks me that. Believe me, we do.

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 7:07pm
Steve's house

Tim asks me a long, complicated question, and I answer with a grunted "Yeah", without looking up from my Excel spreadsheet.

"If you're too busy to talk, you could at least be considerate enough to tell me before I start explaining something," she says.

"Didn't know it was going to be a ten-minute speech," I reply, and she storms from the room with a frustrated growl.

"You're so rude sometimes. You really made me angry," she says, after calming down.

"I tell you how busy I am. You're worried about how much work I have all the time. But then when I try to do it, you fucking badger me."

"I'm not badgering you! I'm trying to ask you a question!"

"Can't you see I'm busy, Tim?"

"Stop working for five minutes! Take a goddamn break!"

"Why? So I can stay up until 2:05 this morning instead of 2:00?"

"No! So you can have a life!"

The phone rings.

"We're not done, Steve," she replies, flipping her eyes at me. It's the same look she used to give me when she was dating Dom--or, more accurately, fucking him. It is an "I want you, but are you sure can you handle this?" look. Is it disrespectful that my heart flutters at her Cover Girl eyes while she's trying to yell at me?

"Hello?"

"Steve. Steve?"

"Greg. Greg?" I say, mocking his frantic tone. It's always something with my little brother.

"Steve, Dad's sick. He's really sick," he says, in a quivering voice.

"You mean he's--"

"The ambulance is here. The paramedics are giving--they're doing CPR. Steve, they're doing CPR on Dad!"

"Greg, take a deep breath, okay buddy? It's going to be alright."

"Steve, what do I do? They can't revive him! He's not breathing!"

"Greg, calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down! He's dying!"

"Is Nancy there? Put her on the phone."

"Steve? Oh, Steve," she whimpers.

"Please tell me he's breathing."

"Oh, Steve."

Wow... I really held out on you fuckers, didn't I?

Marlene is turning out to be a great girlfriend. Graduate school is tough, and she understands when it's time for me to hang up and go study. Sometimes she leaves little notes under my windshield wiper while I'm in class, and I sit in the driver's seat, reading and smiling. She always signs them "Leenie", with a little heart next to her name; one day, instead of a heart, I see the word "love" in her loopy, girlish hand.

We sleep in the same bed a few times a week. We haven't had sex yet, but on more than one occasion I've awakened to find my bare crank in her hand. She tugs me off expertly now, staring longingly at my naked cock while she strokes it. She's definitely not shy about seeing it anymore.

"I want you to get tested for STD's," she says one night, as we sit in my car eating ice cream. "And if we have sex, I want you to wear a condom."

"Okay, Leenie, whatever you want," I say, and I am so hard that I have to shift positions in my seat. It's finally going to happen!

So much for her waiting until marriage.

I know now that I was stupid for fucking Brenda. I was stupid to listen to her, stupid to pay any attention to her whatsoever. Brenda is a typical cock-blocker, someone who hates to see others happy because she is miserable. I have no doubt that she had sex with me to ruin my relationship with Marlene.

But it didn't work, and that must piss her off. That must motivate her even more to screw things up, and now she's got a way to do it: All she has to do is utter three little words, "I fucked Steve," and I'd be done.

I don't feel guilty: If anything, I'm flattered that two girls who live together think enough of me to want to get naked for me. But how long can I count on Brenda to keep her yap shut? No matter how much fun Marlene and I have, the worry is never totally gone: That one mistake bubbles up from my subconscious, reminding me that, like a dormant virus, it can awaken at any time and devour me.

"I'm gonna tell Marlene," Brenda taunts drunkenly one night, her head lolling from side to side, as if it were a helium-filled balloon. "I'm gonna tell Leeeee-nie..."

"Gonna tell her what?" I ask, and she doesn't answer. Dumb question.

Monday, November 2, 1992, 1:41am
Steve and Paulie's apartment

"Tell me it isn't true," Marlene sobs over the phone.

"Tell you what isn't true?" I gasp, as my ears burn.

"Did you have sex with Brenda?"

I was a bad liar in those days. My stories were plausible enough, I guess, but I always hesitated one beat too long, or let my eyes drift off, betraying my guilt.

"I-, I-, Marlene, I--"

"Oh my God," she shrieks. "Oh my God!"

10:30am
University development office

It's funny how this office, which once glowed with romantic tension, now feels like the scene of a crime. It's quieter than usual, and the silence gives me time to think. More time than I want.

I return from the restroom to find a Krackel bar on my desk. It must have been the one she got in San Diego; she never did give it to me when she came back. I still have it to this very day.

I want to talk to her, to thank her for the candy, to apologize, to tell her that I was really starting to like her. But as she rushes awkwardly past my desk, I know we're never going to speak again.

We never did.

April, 2006
Steve and Tim's house

"Every girl has to get her heart broken at least once," Tim says. "You did her a favor!"

I wish I could agree.