Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 7:30 AM
Steve and Tim's house

"What were you doing in the shower so long, mister?"

"I always take long showers."

"You better not have been cumming in there!"

It's only been 48 hours or so, but I'm already dying. I couldn't be more spoiled if my last name were Hilton. I wake up most days with my wife on top of me, squeezing my already-hard dick between her muscled thighs. Sometimes we do it twice before I even put a foot on the floor in the morning, and if I get home early enough from work, the chances are pretty good that cuddling will lead to kissing, kissing will lead to touching, and before long, she'll be bent over the cushioned armrest, her tight ass pointed up at me, waiting for me to take her again.

On the rare days when we don't do it, I'm either not horny enough to do anything about it (yes, it happens) or I jerk off. Of course, Tim has no problem with this.

Except today.

We've been planning this forever. She's been off the pill for 6 weeks, and it's finally time to try to get pregnant. No cumming for three days, that was the rule.

"Why would you think I was cumming when today is the day?"

"The day for what?" she says, tipping her eyes up at me.

"You know," I smile.

"Say it," she whispers, touching her palm to my cheek and pressing up against me, with nothing more than her night shirt between us, her stiff nipples poking my chest.

I go as stiff as a 15-year-old having his first slow dance. Tim loves dirty talk almost as much as I do. It turns me on that she likes it.

"It's the day we can try making a baby."

"How are we gonna make the baby?" she coos, flicking her tongue against my earlobe.

The bottom drops out of my stomach. I didn't need any help getting turned on today, and she's making it ten times worse. I mean better.

"By fucking each other's brains out," I finally manage, and the night shirt is already off.

**********

Saturday, October 25

She's well over a month late. But we couldn't have gotten it on the very first try, could we? But then again, we tried a lot more than once...

She resisted taking the test for weeks. She didn't want to be disappointed if it was negative, so we waited. But if it is true, she needs to be seeing a doctor regularly.

She sits in my lap on the bed, and the minutes pass like centuries.

The clock changes.

"Go look," she says.

"Don't you want to?"

"No. You."

As I watch myself walk to the bathroom, it hits me. I have a wife! I've settled down! I haven't gone out on a Friday night in weeks, and I don't miss it. I'm not living that life anymore.

I pick up the pregnancy test and read it. I turn to face Tim. She's staring at me.

"Come here and give me a hug, mom," I say.

45 degrees and falling

Tim's mother, Diana, knows everything.

She knows how they'll cure cancer someday (high-tech blood transfusions), how to prevent kids from being abducted (by implanting GPS devices under their skin), and how to keep convicts from escaping prison (by building jails in space. Dumb idea, I know, and I'm sure Michael Scofield would find a way to break out anyhow.)

But most annoyingly of all, Diana knows how to keep mother Earth beautiful and pristine for all of eternity: By never throwing anything away. Ever.

Putting something in the garbage is painful for Diana. Every once in a while, just for laughs, I'll drop a plastic bottle in the trash while she's watching and wait for the scream. "What are you doooooing?!" she'll shout. "Recycle it!"

As for anything larger than a plastic bottle, you can forget it. If she has no room in the house for it, she'll try to sell it; if she can't sell it, she'll give it away; if she can't give it away, she'll put it on her curb with a "Free" sign on it, and leave it there for weeks until her husband threatens to divorce her.

Monday, September 8, 2008, 6:39PM
Steve and Tim's house

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a strangely familiar red-cushioned office chair.

"It's our new chair!" Tim says, way too enthusiastically, like a kid trying to convince her mother to keep a stray dog.

It doesn't look new. And there is only one person sufficiently lacking in common decency to palm off a faded, tattered, and probably malfunctioning piece of crap like that on us.

"That's your mother's chair, isn't it?"

"It works," she says, unconvincingly. "Plus, we need a second chair, so we can sit together while you're on the computer!"

She hates it too. But she only stands up to her mother on very important matters; otherwise, fighting with her would be a full-time job. The chair is not going anywhere, so Tim must make her peace with it. She's forced to smile bravely and pretend to love it, the same way you compliment a friend's ugly baby or smelly dog.

"Watch!" she chirps, plopping down onto it.

I stare as her breasts bounce heavily. Why didn't I notice that tight T-shirt before?

She wriggles cutely into the seat, and the back rest immediately tips away from her and comes to a stop at a 45 degree angle, so that the chair looks more like a poolside lounger than a piece of office furniture.

She smiles weakly and reclines against the back rest, spinning a little to face me, her knees slightly apart, hips thrust upward, her tight shirt straining against her boobs.

My cock stiffens at her suddenly suggestive posture. I love that she still turns me on so much, even after two years of dating and almost a year of marriage. I imagine myself pulling that frayed shirt over her head and feeling her nipple stiffen as I tighten my lips around it...

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You are so fucking gorgeous, you know that?" I ask in a hoarse whisper.

"You're crazy," she grins, rolling her eyes.

I grab her shirt and pull it up over her head, just like I imagined. Her naked breasts stare out at me, her nipples already at firm attention. She's been thinking about this, too.

Yeah, I've seen her tits a million times, and yet, like a song that never gets old, their smooth skin and gentle, sloping curves still get me hard every time.

My heart races. I hear the soft cling-ing of my belt buckle as I pull off my creased office slacks and frantically unbutton my white Oxford shirt. I watch unblinkingly as she slips her jogging shorts over her round ass and turns her big blue eyes up at me with a sexy half-smile.

I lower myself in between her legs, my pulse pounding in my ears, and rub my cock against the smooth skin of her pussy.

There is nothing like a hairless vagina. I love the pink folds of flesh and the telltale shine of wetness that tells me she's turned on. I love how her clit swells with her arousal and the way it feels between my teeth, hard and bulletlike. Covering all that natural beauty with wiry hair is a sin. Shaving it clean is like cutting down a row of nine-foot tall shrubs and revealing a gorgeous house behind them.

I shove it into her all at once, and the pleasure rushes to my head. I watch her, soaking in every detail, her bouncing tits, her half-opened mouth, her curvy thighs pinned against my hips, the way her hair cascades gently down her shoulder, ending halfway down her chest, the graceful peaks and valleys of her nude body, as if designed by an architect.

I grab the arms of the chair for leverage and thrust my cock into her harder, so hard that she falls back against the chair with all her weight. This thing is going to break one day, I think.

"Oh God," she whispers in my ear, and I look down again, growing harder as I watch her pussy lips alternately turn inside out and disappear inside her again.

The seat back protests loudly under our combined weight, an ugly, squeaking groan that under any other circumstances would have made us stop short.

But not now.

I'm going to cum. I can feel the orgasm rising inside me, like a storm cloud waiting to explode with angry torrents of rain.

I fuck her harder, faster, listening to my own heavy breath, feeling her legs tighten around my waist and her hands squeeze my biceps. It's probably my imagination, but it almost seems like the chair is...

Crack! Thud!

The seat back breaks free of the chair and drops to the floor. Tim falls violently backwards, flailing her arms wildly for balance. The lurching of our bodies tips the chair to one side, and for an endless moment we are at a crazy angle and the room falls eerily silent before we crash to the floor in a heap, as I am bombarded by elbows and knees.

"Looks like your mother's getting her chair back," I say.

Steve's therapy, redux

Monday, July 21, 2008, 7:00pm

Dr. Debra Sussman's office

After my illustrious attempt at therapy back in the day, I never thought I would be in a shrink's office again, but here I am.

"Steve, Felicia, come on in," she smiles, as if we were her long-lost cousins.

"Please call me Tim," she says.

Debra extends her arms to hug us, but we hesitate, and she ends up patting our shoulders. It's awkward.

The room seems made for calm reflection, from the maroon couch to the soft carpet and the nondescript wallpaper; though it manages to relax me, I forget what it looks like five minutes after I leave.

"So, what's up?" Debra says, placing her hands in her lap.

"We've been fighting," Tim says.

"Really?" asks Debra, raising her eyebrows, as if she were some kind of accountant or tax adviser who couldn't possibly help us. "What'cha been fighting about?"

"I work late hours at a restaurant in downtown Boston. I barely get to see Steve at all, since he works during the day, and he's really frustrated about it. He never gets to see me, and we're newlyweds, and he feels like we should be spending a lot more time together."

"Is this correct, Steve?"

"Yeah. But she didn't mention that she has wanted a chef job for a long time. This is her lifelong dream, and it's finally coming true, and she needs me to be more understanding about that. She loves me, and enjoys our time togther, but she also needs to be happy and fulfilled careerwise, and this is the only way she sees to accomplish that right now."

Debra looks at me, then at Tim, then back at me. The room fills with silence for what feels like an hour.

"Let me tell you something," she says, matter-of-factly. "You just stated each other's points of view perfectly. Know how I know you did it perfectly?"

We look at her.

"Because you didn't interrupt each other, and you didn't correct each other. Not once. I have couples who have been coming to me for 18 months who still can't do that. You did it the first day!"

She smiles.

"Can we go now?" I ask, and we all laugh.

"Steve, did you know what the hours were when she took the job?"

"Well, yeah, but--"

"So that's a yes?"

I know where she's going. I didn't object when Tim was interviewing for the job, so I have no right to object now. But that's an oversimplification.

"And Tim, you spent a lot more time with Steve before you took this job, right?"

"Yes! But he knew that--"

"So that's a yes also," Debra says.

Good! For a minute there, I thought I was being ganged up on.

"Steve, do you want her to quit?"

"No, I just want more of her time."

"How's she supposed to do that? She works late nights!"

Umm...

"And Tim, do you want Steve to just be happy with the way things are now? Are you happy with the way things are?"

I would really love it if Tim said the right thing here. I'm not going to lie to you: It's hard feeling like I've taken a back seat to my wife's career.

"I miss him," Tim says, looking sadly at me. "I know you might not believe that, Steve, but I miss you so much."

"Me too, Tim."

"So you want me to tell you how you can spend lots of time together while you both work full time on different schedules," Debra says, looking at us.

"No, I told you we were fighting," Tim says. "The problem is the fighting. We're not communicating."

"You're communicating fine," Debra says.

"We're communicating fine today," Tim says. "At home we're screaming and swearing, and..."

"Fighting is not a bad thing, you know."

"It is when it's taking over the marriage," Tim says.

Wow. These two aren't playing around. Better just stay out of their way, for now.

"Steve, do you agree?" asks Debra.

So much for keeping my nose out of it.

"Trust me. We wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to come out here unless it was an emergency," I say. "You know, I just wish--"

They both look at me. "What?" They say in unison.

"No, it's nothing, it was just something stupid."

"Say it," says Debra. "There's no judgment allowed in this room. There are no dumb statements."

"I was just gonna say, I wish we could both stay up all night and spend that time together instead of sleeping. But, I go to work in the mornings, so I have to sleep."

"Wait a minute," Debra says.

"No, I can't pull all-nighters. There's no way."

"You don't have to," she says. "Steve, what time do you get home from work?"

"I dunno. Six-thirty? Seven?"

"And what time do you get home, Tim?"

I see where she's going with this. I get home, eat something, and sleep for seven hours or so, then Tim gets home and we chill out until I go to work.

"You could just sleep when you get home!" Tim says. "Then we can spend time together!"

"I know. But that would screw up our body clocks big time, wouldn't it?"

"This is not a long-term solution, guys," Debra says. "But it sounds like you're not connecting, and you need more time together. Give this a shot. Stay up together and talk about your situation. Talk about your long-term goals as a family. Are you planning on having children?"

"Yes!" Tim says.

"You do realize it's going to get harder when you have kids, right?"

"We know," Tim says, looking at the floor.

"Spend an overnight together and talk about how you're going to fit kids into your schedules. That's your homework," Debra says.

"...I'm guessing Jay Leno is out of the question..."

Marriage was supposed to end my story.

The fancy wedding was the final scene, after which I would say, "...and we've been together ever since." I was supposed to put away my bad habits like out-of-style clothes, and lead an uneventful existence until I the day I end up stuffed into a box wearing a fancy suit. But alas, things have happened.

Tim worked hard to find her job. She networked tirelessly, chased down endless leads, and tolerated every perverted restaurant owner who refused to even consider her for a chef's position because she happens to have a vagina ("You're cute! Why don't you work for me as a hostess? You'd make good money!")

She finally found a sous chef job in downtown Boston. It was far (35 miles), the pay was less than she wanted, and of course the hours were horrible, but she was thrilled.

I was thrilled for her, too. There was joy, pure joy, in her face when she told me the news. She was going to get paid to do something she absolutely loved. I was proud that she persevered, and impressed at how ambitious she was about it all. I knew she would have to work many late nights, including lots of weekends, but we'd find a way to spend time together. We were newlyweds, right?

As it turned out, "many nights" turned out to be five or six a week, "late" meant 1:00 or 2:00 am, and "lots of weekends" translated to every weekend.

At first, I felt better with a shower of kisses, an "I'm sorry, baby" and a cowgirl-style, middle-of-the-night fuck. But it got old fast.

When I wake up for work, she's still sleeping, and when I get back, she's gone, already on her way to the restaurant. I hate coming home to an empty house, with nothing for dinner and everything in darkness. I hate going to bed alone, as if I were a single guy all over again. I got married for companionship, and it feels like I never get any. Call me spoiled, or greedy, or whatever you want, but this sucks.

Tim tries to make it up to me. She didn't dare take a weekend day off for the first six months or so, but then she managed to get a Saturday and Sunday off, and took me to a bed and breakfast in the mountains, where we turned off our cell phones and she catered to me like royalty the whole time. She cooked me everything I wanted, paraded around in sexy outfits, and sucked and fucked me as if it were my last two days on Earth. I did feel a lot better after that, but she had to work 12 days straight to make up for all the favors, and nothing truly changed afterwards.

The argument goes something like this:

"You're never home."

"You supported my career choice; now deal with it."

"I didn't know it was gonna be this bad!"

Add in a few "bitch"s, "asshole"s and "fuck you!"s, and it's more or less a weekly conversation at the Caruso household. It's interesting, in a way, how we can make the exact same points so many times without resolving anything. It occurs to me sometimes that this is how marital problems get started. But that could never happen to Tim and me.

Could it?

Tim says I need to deal with it while she builds her career, since I spent many a long week building mine, and I remind her that I wasn't married or even dating anyone at the time. Every argument has a counter argument; every jab earns a jab in return. We are both too good at arguing, too good at turning things around on each other to make any progress.

Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen if we don't find any common ground on this issue. "If you want me to quit, I'll quit," she always says, but I know she doesn't mean it. If she ever left that job because of me, I'd never hear the end of it. I wonder if we would ever split up because of this.

The arguments keep getting louder, and the problem has infected other areas of our lives. On nights when she's actually home, we usually end up going to bed mad. At a party, if one of our friends mentions working late, we glare at each other. How much worse can it get?

"Why doesn't she just quit?" my brother Chris says. "Her marriage should be more important."

"Says the guy who's fucking around with some young hottie."

Yeah, he's still boning her.

"Different!"

"What about Tim's side? She'll say that it's just her being away from home, and that's not the end of the world either."

"You see your wife two days and two nights a week. That's not enough!"

Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 5:45pm
Steve and Tim's house

I've been in Cincinnati for three days on business. I am exhausted, physically and mentally, and glad to finally be back.

"Nice of you to come home," Tim sneers as I pull my suitcase through the door.

"Wow, three whole days alone, Tim. How did you handle it?"

"You mean three days since I had to do your laundry? And a sink full of dishes?"

"I left at three AM, Tim! How the hell was I supposed to do chores?"

She jumps up from her seat at the kitchen table. She's wearing a powder blue short-sleeve T-shirt that I've always loved on her. It's a little baggier since the breast reduction, but she's still sexy as hell in it. I'm smitten by her, even as she crosses her toned arms across her chest and looks lasers at me.

"Why are you traveling so much? I hate when you're not here!"

"You do, Tim? Why? It's not like you're ever home anyway."

"Don't be sarcastic. Your chores are your responsibility, and if you don't do them, then it's more work for me!"

The anger spills over inside me. She's reaching, looking for something to rag me about, probably so I can't rag her first.

"So leave the goddamn dishes and laundry then!" I shout. "At least let me get in the door before you start pestering me. Bitch!"

"Fuck you! You are such an asshole!" she shrieks, whipping a plastic tumbler at me. It careens off my arm, leaving a mark.

I grab the tumbler and throw it back at her as hard as I can, but she's already left the room. It bounces off the wall with a hollow thwok!

I sit at the kitchen table, waiting for my racing heart to slow down. I open the paper, but I can't concentrate. I might as well be trying to read Klingon.

I look up. Tim is standing over me, her beautiful face stony with anger. Or maybe it's disappointment.

Is this it? Is she leaving me? Is she going to ask me to leave?

"I want us to go talk to someone," she says, finally.

I left my heart gall bladder in San Francisco Hawaii

Wednesday, October 25, 2007, 8:12pm
Room 424

The operation is tomorrow morning at 7:30, so I can't eat anything tonight. Not that I am hungry, anyway.

A nurse came in about 15 minutes ago with a small paper cup full of pills. Whatever was in that cup made me forget all about the pain; now, all I want to do is sleep.

I'm a little cold, so Tim drapes another blanket over me. For the first time in what feels like 300 years, I straighten my legs out and my abdomen does not scream in agony. I take a deep breath, and it's pure relief.

I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I lived in a third world country, or anywhere with substandard health care. What if I had to endure this without hospitals or medications?

"...can come back first thing in the morning, before his surgery--" the nurse is saying to Tim. I had almost nodded off.

"I'm not leaving my husband," Tim says, firmly.

"He's fine," the nurse says, reassuringly.

"I know he's fine. But I'm not leaving him."

"You can come back in the morning."

"We've been married for five days; I am not leaving him. You can either get me a cot to sleep on, or I'll sleep on the chair next to him, but I'm not going anywhere!"

"I'll speak to the doctor," the nurse says, clearly annoyed.



Thursday, October 26, 2007, 7:27am
Pre-op

"You're gonna feel a little pinch," a nurse says, and inserts a needle into my left arm, next to the elbow.

I laugh out loud. After what I went through yesterday, regular pain is a joke.

"I'm giving you something to calm you down before the surgery," Dr. Patel says through his powder blue surgical mask, and injects something into the tube in my arm.

Whatever he gave me rushes to my head like ten shots of whisky. I look up, and the wall is... breathing, rippling before my eyes as if it were made of water.

"What is that shit?" I ask, and the doctor answers me in a faint voice, as if he's standing at the other end of a long hallway.

"I love you, Tim," I say, and the room goes black.

**********

"...hrtsdsntit..."

Voices swirl around me, and I struggle to focus on them. This must be what a bear feels like after hibernating for five months.

"Steve...hurts...it?"

I'm hearing every fourth or fifth word. I might as well relax until the drugs wear off.

I wonder where Tim is--

"I saw his eyelids flutter! I think he's awake! Baby? Can you hear me?"

Opening my eyes is every bit as hard as prying the cap off an old bottle of glue. But when I do, the first face I see is Tim's. She's smiling down at me, just like a blonde, ponytailed angel.

"Hi, honey," she says.

"Heyy," I slur.

"The surgery was successful. It took a lot longer than they thought, though."

"What time is it?"

"It's after noon."

Jesus.

"I'm sorry for ruining our honeymoon."

"Stop it!" she says.

Leave it to me to have a medical emergency while celebrating my nuptials.

Can you believe the stones on this guy?

Tuesday, October 24, 7:00pm
Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

All day, Tim and I have been spraying each other down with Panama Jack, downing colorful drinks by the pool, then rushing upstairs to rip each other's bathing suits off and fuck in every position imaginable. I could totally get used to this.

I am lucky to be married to such a horny woman. Most days, I wake up with her on top of me, sucking on my earlobe or reaching her dainty hand underneath my boxers. Yeah, sometimes, my cock wakes up before me.

We have been fucking nonstop since we got here. The weeklong holdout has worked wonders. No matter how much we do it, I feel completely backed up. But it's not just that.

Wedding planning is stressful. Bills are stressful. Work is stressful. We get a break here or there, get lost in a movie, maybe go to bed early every so often, but other than that, it never lets up.

But there is something liberating about flying 10,000 miles from home. It's not like taking a day off, and being 15 minutes from the office. Right now, I'm not even in the same hemisphere as my office. There's no possible way I can accomplish anything here, and no one expects me to. I've got a free pass for 10 days, and I sure as hell am going to use it. At this point, there isn't a whole lot to do other than eat, drink and fuck like inmates on a weekend furlough.

The concierge at the hotel had to talk us into going to the luau. We have not been doing many of the touristy things here, other than going to the beach and relaxing, and it's been sheer heaven.

The beach is completely dark except for a few blazing torches. A soothing wind blows softly against our skin, as if ordered by a considerate host.

A row of long-haired, ridiculously curvy, grass-skirted hotties stand flawlessly still, and then the music starts--loud, hectic drumbeats played by two men on either side of the stage, and the girls spring to life, dancing with controlled fury. I am amazed at how their hips move so independently of their bodies--and yeah, more than a little turned on, too.

"Should I get you a bib?" Tim asks, curling her lip at me.

"They're not that hot."

She rolls her eyes at me.

**********

Men with shovels surround a spot in the sand and dig furiously to expose an underground oven called an Imu. Reaching bottom, they pull a gigantic pig from the hole, and I can feel the blast of heat 10 yards away.

The closest thing I can compare it to is pulled pork. The meat is so incredibly tender that I almost don't have to chew it. I am full after the third heaping plate, but it's way too good to stop. When's the next time I'm going to be at a luau, anyway?

Wednesday, October 25, 2007, 5:07am

I sit quickly upright in bed, clutching my stomach.

The pain is on the right side of my abdomen, just under the rib cage. I've had it before, usually on mornings after I overeat. Generally, I take a Gas-X and it goes away in a half hour or so.

It feels like I have to shit, but I can't. I load up on Gas-X, and the pain doesn't flinch. It's all I can do to stand upright, as the pain squeezes down like a vice on my intestines. Hours pass.

"Can you come down and eat?" Tim asks.

"Do I look like I can eat?" I snap.

"I know it hurts! You don't have to be a jerk about it!" she hisses.

10:15am

Tim makes me a warm compress and I lay down on my left side, but the pain is no better. And it hasn't moved from that one spot, either, which makes me think that this is not just something I ate. I wonder if I'm getting an ulcer.

I take a hot shower, and it helps a little. Tim runs to the store and does some laundry, and we watch TV together for a while.

"I'm sorry you're so sick," she frowns. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"Let's just wait it out."

1:00pm

I've been in pain for 8 hours straight, and it's gotten no better.

"I want you to go to the hospital," she says.

"What? We're in Hawaii!"

"They have hospitals here, Steve."

"Just give it some time. I'll be okay."

"Either let me take you to the hospital, or I'm calling an ambulance!"

**********

The emergency room is packed. After hearing my complaint, the triage attendant, wearing a worried face, sits me in a chair.

An obviously homeless man approaches the desk. "I need someone to wrap up my foot," he says.

Why? Aren't you gonna eat it here?

I focus on Randy, the homeless man, as he talks. And talks some more. He was playing Frisbee with his girlfriend Becka's brother, you see, because his girlfriend's brother thinks Randy is no good for Becka, and he's trying to loosen him up a bit--

It's no use. The pain simply will not quit. It keeps tearing away at my insides, as if I swallowed a bowl of broken glass. The only thing that helps a bit is leaning to the right in my chair and holding my left hand over my head. At this point, I'm probably competing with Randy for "Biggest freak in the ER" honors, and I don't even care.

I was right before about this not being a digestive problem. It's been far too long for that. Something is broken inside me. It's too high to be my appendix, but I wonder if it's a kidney. Or my gall bladder...

They finally take me to an exam room. A technician smears gel on my stomach and rubs a device the size of a computer mouse across my midsection.

"Take a deep breath and hold it," she says.

"What are you seeing there?"

"The doctor interprets the images. I just take them."

"But does it look like--"

"Deep breath and hold, please."

Every few minutes, someone pops into the room to ask how I'm feeling. I wish I could take something for the pain, or at least sleep. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I could nod off for a while--

The door opens. "Mr. Caruso? I'm Bonnie. From the business office. Your emergency room copay is..."

Is she seriously asking me for money? Now?

"I'm a little indisposed here. I'll pay on the way out, Betty."

"It's Bonnie."

Sure that's not "Bitchy"?

**********

"You have multiple gall bladder stones," Doctor Patel says.

"Am I... is that serious?"

"Your white blood cell count is very high. You should have your gall bladder out immediately."

"You mean you want to operate?"

"Yes."

Steve's wedding: The aftermath

Sunday, October 21, 2007
Kahului International Airport, Maui, Hawaii

I've flown across the country lots of times. It gets easy after awhile: Do some work for a couple of hours, knock out a few crossword puzzles, watch a movie, take a nap, and you're there. But none of that prepared me for flying to Hawaii.

It's five hours from Boston to LA, and another five from LA to Hawaii. It's like flying across the country and back again all in one day.

In Hawaii, every local clock, as well as the position of the sun, tells us it is 3 in the afternoon, but our bodies are telling us it is 8:00 at night, and that we should be getting ready for bed. We should be fine tomorrow, as long as we keep ourselves awake for the next six or seven hours. Somehow.

After stepping off the plane, it takes us about 45 seconds to get Hawaii-fied. We deplane and walk 50 feet, turning left onto a long hallway with a floor-to-ceiling picture window, and I stop dead in my tracks as I look through it. To those who live in Hawaii, it's nothing. To me, it's a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh, a work of art burned in my memory forever.

Two palm trees stand side by side, bent slightly to one side as if curved by the wind. Behind them is a hulking mass of black rock the size of a strip mall. The sky is cartoon blue, a shade we might see in Boston once or twice a year, when the pollution takes a day off.

I used to think we flew halfway around the world, but that's obviously not true. Clearly, we've flown to another planet entirely, where no one stresses about the weather, because it's gorgeous every day. In fact, I bet no one stresses about anything here, because it simply doesn't make sense.

"...just gonna stand here all day?" Tim is asking.

"Hm?"

"Let's go get our luggage! I can't wait to see the hotel!" she chirps.

6:01pm
Makena Beach, Maui

I'm unprepared for the view. The horizon stretches endlessly from east to west--an uninterrupted meeting of sky and water so profound that suddenly, I can comprehend my place on earth, the overwhelming hugeness of the planet and everything beyond it.

Warm waves splash against my feet then retreat back, scurrying away from me like shy children. The sand is...cleaner here, softer, less rocky than I am used to, and the water melts it away around me until I find myself buried ankle deep in it.

Tim and I find a spot above the tide and sit, me leaning back against my elbows, her sitting between my knees, watching as the sky burns pink and orange and the sun slowly disappears into the ocean.

"I'm tired," she says.

"Don't go to sleep, hon. It's too early!"

"I won't."

Neither will I.

2:32am
Makena Beach

"Shit! We fell asleep!" Tim says.

So much for beating jet lag.

Steve's wedding: the duringmath, concluded

"It is truly an honor for me to introduce to you for the very first time as husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Steve Caruso!"

Most people don't get applauded very often, and it is quite a rush. Kind of strange, too, since we didn't do anything particularly unusual.

Up until a week ago, our wedding song was going to be "Have I Told You Lately" by Van Morrison, but "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat took a late lead, and we decided to go with it at the last minute. The tempo is odd and hard to dance to, but we aren't interested in much besides whispering to each other and swaying slowly, anyway.

The rest of the bridal party joins us on the dance floor. As the song ends, I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around.

"You're my best friend," Paulie says, and I hug him back without looking him in the eyes, because I am sure he's sobbing like a kid going off to his first day of Kindergarten.

He lets go of me and hugs Tim, and I hug them both, and pretty soon it's the biggest group hug you've ever seen, right in the middle of the dance floor. Today, there is no family drama, no fighting, just lots of love all around.

Chris takes the microphone for a toast. "Steve and Tim are one of those couples that you root for, the way you root for a favorite team," he says. "We all noticed a change in Steve when he and Tim started dating. You could see how crazy they were about each other, even when they were saying, 'Ohh, we're taking it slow, it's nothing serious.'

"I speak for everyone in the family when I tell you, there were a lot of people praying for this. And today, Steve and Tim's wishes came true, and ours did too.

"I love you both, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness."

I get up and hug Chris when he is done, and laugh to myself as I think about the day not so long ago when I kicked his ass and put him in the hospital. It seems like a million miles away now; I feel as close to him as a brother can be.

**********

"I'd like to call your attention to the dance floor," the DJ says, "where the bride and groom have a surprise for us!"

People look up from their salads, then exchange curious glances. Tim has changed out of her wedding dress and into a slinky white one with a long slit up the side.

Before anyone knows what to make of it, the music starts and Tim and I are tangoing feverishly across the floor, amid hoots and hollers.

The tango was my idea. I suggested it months ago, and Tim loved the idea, so we hired a choreographer. Week after week, we practiced pretty much daily until we could do the dance in our sleep. Mindy told us that was the goal, to be able to go from start to finish without thinking about the next move.

We've had tons of practice, yes, but it's not nearly the same as doing it for an audience. The adrenaline is flowing, the spins are easier, our feet move faster, and we have to fight to keep from getting ahead of the music.

The song ends, we take a bow, and every guest is out of their seat, applauding thunderously. We bow again, and the applause gets louder before finally fading. Mindy said there would be a huge ovation. Guess she was right.

The dance is the one thing we hear about most for the rest of the night. Even now, weeks later, people still mention it to us. It just goes to show you: It doesn't really matter where the wedding is, or what you had for dinner. It matters who was there, and what happened.

**********

The limo is supposed to pick us up at 4:30 and take us to the hotel. That's only about a half hour from now.

People always talk about wedding night sex like it's a big deal. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be fuck-ready tonight at all. I am exhausted.

We agreed not to do it for a full week before the wedding, to build a little sexual tension. We usually go at it once a day, sometimes twice, so at this point, I am ready to burst. But having the wedding stress off my shoulders is such a relief that eight hours of sleep might just make me come.

"Hey everyone," Tim says over the speakers, and I look to the front of the room, where she stands holding the mic. "I'm trying really hard not to be corny, but I'm very bad at this..."

What is she doing?

"I just want to say that I've been through a lot in the past couple of years, my surgery, getting a new job, moving, and it was pretty stressful, and I feel so lucky that Steve was there to help me every step of the way.

"Steve, I'm very sure I would not have made it through in one piece without you, and I'm so lucky to have you. You are the most caring, supportive person that I have ever known. I love you more than words can possibly say, and thank you for making me the happiest wife in the whole world."

She pauses as the "Awwwww"s subside.

"The night that Steve and I first met--and please, don't get the wrong idea about this--but I was on a date with another guy."

She pauses again as the room fills with laughter.

"It was nothing serious, I promise. The guy wasn't my boyfriend or anything. But I met Steve, and we talked all night long, and by the end of the night, I was a smitten woman.

"It was about 2:00am, and the place was closing, so the DJ played a slow song. And I wanted to dance with him, so I said, 'Ooo! This is my favorite song! You have to dance with me!' Meanwhile, I had never heard the song before in my life."

Laughter.

"So we danced, and it was actually a few months later when we actually started dating, and then one night after we had been together for a while, he said, 'Honey, listen to what I downloaded!' and it was the song we first danced to. And I was like, 'Awww!'"

I know where she is going with this now, and I am really flattered.

"I thought it would be nice if we played the song now, so we can dance to it again."

The DJ plays the song, "Sweet Bitter Love" (which is playing now) by Aretha Franklin. Somehow, as she sings, Aretha manages to convey deep love and deep sorrow at the same time, and I can't help but feel a bit sad myself, that this amazing party is almost over, and that it might be a long time before I see many of these people again.

But it's more than that. As I think back on that first night, it amazes me that Tim and I wound up together. I was dating Stephanie, she was with Dom. In fact, she probably went home with Dom and fucked his brains out that night, and many other nights before she and I finally got together. What if I never saw her again after that night? Just like that, she would have been out of my life forever, and this day never would have happened. It's sad to think that I could have missed out on everything we've had over the last two years.

I've been thinking about Mom a lot today too. Yes, I am sure she would have managed to make a scene somehow, but it would have been nice to have her here just the same. I was the only one of her three sons who she did not get to see on his wedding day.

The song fades out, and Tim and I goodbye our way around the room.

As we walk through the door, I turn and look one back final time at the festively decorated hall and the smiling guests as they wave us a fond farewell.

As Sam Malone once said, I am the luckiest son of a bitch on earth.

"I, Felicia, take you, Steven..."

Saturday, October 20, 2007, 4:12am
Residence Inn, Room 2104

I'm late.

Holy shit, I'm late!

I snap upright in bed and frantically fling the covers away, grabbing for the digital clock next to me and knocking it to the floor.

I was supposed to be there at 10:30. And now it's... it's...

It's still dark outside.

I exhale slowly through puckered lips, as if blowing cigarette smoke. My nerves are getting the better of me.

I weave my way through the living room, around my sleeping brothers and friends, and manage to drink half a glass of water before going back to bed. I sleep for what seems like forever, roll over, and check the clock. 4:49.

11:10am
Northern Pines Country Club

"She's not ready yet," Chris says.

I peer out a heavy oak door and take a long look. Every ornate wooden pillar has been carefully adorned with tulips and silk bows; guests fill neatly-curved rows of antique chairs, and soft music plays over strategically-placed Surround Sound speakers.

It hits me that every one of those people are here for Tim and me. They all got up early on a Saturday morning, put on fancy clothes, and drove to a country club in the middle of nowhere to see us get married. If this many people care about me, I guess I'm doing all right.

"Steve, she's ready. She's ready!"

I take a deep breath and look at my watch. It's 11:21.

Chris and I walk out the door and across the room, stopping in front of a huge picture window which overlooks towering pine trees and an ocean of flawlessly green grass.

I look around, my eyes picking up friendly, familiar faces in the crowd: Aunts and uncles, old friends from school, and, in the front row, my dad.

I am so glad he got to be here, so glad that he lived when the doctors said he might die. This day would not have been the same without him.

He smiles at me and rubs at his eye. What a softie.

The opening notes of Kanon in D by Pachelbel waft from the speakers, and my niece MacKenzie bounds down the aisle, just like she did at practice, dumping handfuls of rose petals as she goes.

Next up the aisle is my best friend Paulie, striding purposefully, hands crossed at his waist, mouth and eyes turned downward, as if this were a funeral. He's probably trying to keep from crying.

Lila follows close behind him, a vision of beauty in her rasperry-colored dress, her long hair pulled up in an ornate bun, with one strand hanging down, just the way I used to like it.

Tim and Lila love each other. They have grown very close over the past couple of years, and we agreed right away that she should be in the wedding, as crazy as that may sound. With all the people that Tim and I have been with, Lila is the only ex here today.

She catches my eye as she sits down and gives me a bright-eyed smile, and I smile back. I wasn't always good to Lila, but seeing her face now, I know that everything is okay between us, and I am glad.

My brother Greg. He walks the aisle and takes his seat, waving sweetly to his daughter MacKenzie on the other side of the room.

Next is Tim's cousin, Ellie, who came all the way from California to be here. She and Tim have been close since they were little girls, and often called each other when they had no one else to talk to. As soon as we sat down to pick the bridal party, the first name Tim thought of was Ellie's.

Ellie is no waif. From across the room, she is all boobs and hips, and I am sure she will have her share of admirers at the reception. She takes her seat.

Next is Tim's sister, Drea, the Maid of Honor. A hush falls over the room as she walks past, maybe because it's almost time, and maybe because Drea is so beautiful. She really is like a younger version of Tim, except a bit taller, with darker hair. She walks with a straight back and a quiet confidence, like a runway model.

Drea is just 18, and therefore miles cooler than anyone else in the room, but she has been a huge help in getting ready for the wedding. Whether it be making phone calls, running errands, or reminding us about important tasks, she's been the Most Valuable Player for us. Thanks to Drea, the wedding planning was a lot less stressful than it might have been.

She walks past the chairs where the rest of the bridal party sits and stops at the front of the room, across from Chris and I.

As if on cue, the violins swell to a crescendo. Every guest in the room stands and turns around, and Tim makes her way up the aisle, her right arm holding her father's left.

The first thing I notice is her bare shoulders. The strapless, sleeveless gown was a great choice, given her long, dainty neck and toned upper body. Silk gloves stretch past her elbows, and she's holding a cluster of deep red roses.

The dress is smooth and blizzard-white, with a train that extends for a mile behind her. Her makeup is flawless, like a movie star's, and even from 20 feet away, my cheeks flush and my heart flutters at the sight of her denim blue eyes.

She is far too beautiful for words, so completely perfect that, if I drop dead this minute, my life will have been worthwhile for intertwining with hers.

The music fades. Marvin extends his hand and I shake it. "Congratulations, son," he says, and I am touched that he would call me that. He is not one to show emotion easily.

I take Tim's gloved hand in mine and it's almost as if I am in the presence of royalty, like I somehow lucked out and got to meet a celebrity.

"Hi," she smiles.

"Hi," I say back.

**********

The vows come and go quickly, so quickly that I barely remember them. But as the Justice of the Peace says "You may kiss the bride," I know that, at long last, we finally made it, that I did not screw this up, and that despite my past, I have a great life ahead of me. Applause washes over us and we walk triumphantly back down the aisle together, smiling and laughing.

Now, it's party time.

Steve's wedding: The duringmath

Friday, October 19, 2007, 11:45am
Steve's office

"Steve, the implementation budget for Adams Corp. is gone," Ted says.

"Project isn't done yet, Ted."

"But the budget is gone."

No matter how long we stay on the phone, nothing productive will come from this conversation. Ted's call is a symptom of deeper problems.

Our salesmen use their considerable powers of persuasion to coerce clients to pay us huge sums of money. They are so driven to bring in business, in fact, that they sometimes do stupid things like lower the price. I have no respect for a salesperson like that.

Go ahead. Walk into a Lexus dealerhip and tell the salesperson that you really like the car, but you don't want to pay $70,000. Instead, you'd like to pay $40,000. I can tell you for sure you'd be leaving there on foot. You wouldn't get a deal like that, and you wouldn't expect to, either.

"Why do you care, Steve?" you are asking.

Easy. Because the price that the customer agrees to includes a budget for my team to implement the software. And the lower that number is, the faster we have to get the project done, and the less time we have to manage the details. Oh, and if there is any delay whatsoever, we are fucked. Just like we are now.

I was smart to get out of my last job. The hours were ridiculous, the work load neverending, and the politics overwhelming. But my new job isn't paradise either.

My team is going to end up finishing this project in a quick and sloppy way, and none of the time we work on it from now on will be billable. Unless, of course, the salesperson is able to get more money out of the customer, which never happens.

This kind of thing happens constantly around here. Because of that, sometime next January, Bert will call me into his office and ask me why my team isn't billing more. He ought to know the answer without asking. Or maybe he does know, but he's looking for an excuse to keep from giving me a bigger raise.

The funny thing is, though, I don't even care. It will bother me someday, but right now, work is nothing more than background noise. I keep repeating to myself, "This time tomorrow, I will be married."

Married. Married. Married. I think about the word so much that it seems foreign, unfamiliar. Marriage is for old, stuffy people, isn't it? Could it be that I am really going to do this?

Yes, it could, and the truth is I am so proud to be marrying Tim. I know, she had her partying phase, and she screwed around a hell of a lot more than I did--in fact, that is how I met her. But I sense a seriousness about her, a devotion to me and our relationship that I have never felt with anyone else. That devotion makes me want to do the same for her, makes me think of her constantly, fills me with the urge to grab hold of her and never let go.

Yeah, I definitely can't wait until tomorrow.

2:00pm

"Guys, I'm out of here. I'll see you in two weeks," I say, as I dash out the door to a wave of goodbyes and good lucks.

7:00pm
The Brown Stone House
Rehearsal dinner

Chris stands up and taps his glass. "The lone holdout is finally caving in," he begins, to a gale of cheers.

"Thanks for coming out, everyone. It's going to be a great day tomorrow, when my little brother finally gets married. I think you made a great choice. I think you both did," he says, smiling at Tim and me.

The guys are staying at a hotel tonight, and the girls are at my house. As I walk to my car, and Tim walks to hers, I quiver like a 17-year-old on his first date.

I look at Tim, at her beige blouse and blue skirt, at her long blonde hair and round blue eyes, and feel that rush of pride again. Tomorrow, she will be my wife. And yeah, the little boy inside my head wonders what she sees in me.

She hugs me and I close my eyes, inhaling her perfume, touching her silky hair. "You're nervous!" she laughs.

"Not as nervous as you!"

"I'll see you at the wedding," she whispers, and I watch her drive away.

T minus 7

"Where's the contract? Steve, where's the contract for the DJ?!" Tim shrieks, shuffling through a pile of paper.

"I don't know, Tim."

"What do you mean, you don't know! You're supposed to be the organized one! This is the DJ for our wedding! If we don't find this, we're screwed!"

"Tim, we booked the guy three months ago. We paid a deposit. He'll be there."

Welcome to my life of the past eight weeks. Yes, Tim is the most beautiful, sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on. She is also quickly losing her grip on sanity. I can't wait for our wedding to get here, not just because I love her, but because I don't want to duct tape her mouth shut.

We decided to keep the wedding small and cheap. And still, no matter how much time we devote to planning this five-hour event, we go to bed with a thousand details unattended to, and Tim can't sleep because of it.

"This is our one chance to get this right," she'll say, tears forming in her eyes. "If we screw this up, that's it."

I am so glad I waited until my 30's to get married. It made me realize that, whether the wedding is successful or disastrous, everyone, including us, will forget the details in a few years' time. We won't remember that the tablecloth did not match the flowers, or that the DJ pronounced Paulie's name wrong. And yet, these are just the things that Tim sweats endlessly about.

I tell her that this should be a happy time, that we should wake up thrilled every single day as we look forward to being husband and wife, that we are going to do something for each other that we have never done for anyone else, ever. I tell her I am excited because I know this is the first step toward our dream of having a family.

"I'll be excited after we cut the cake and dance," she says.

**********

"Hon, can you leave work early tomorrow?" she asks, as I stare at the TV.

"Hon?"

"What?!" I shout, then wheel around to look at her, and drop my Diet Pepsi.

In her underwear, she's as thin as an anorexic runway model.

"Jesus, Tim! You're wasting away!"

"I'm not that thin."

"You look sick!"

"Thanks."

She gained 10 pounds after moving in with me, which put her around 127. On her 5'2" frame, the result was curvy and delicious. She's at least 20 pounds lighter now, and believe me, her Angelina arms are not attractive.

"Seriously. Why are you losing so much weight?"

"If my wedding dress is too big, I can gain weight to fill it out. It's easier to gain than to lose."

"You're gonna make yourself sick."

"Leave me alone, please."

I realize the day is going to be here and gone before we know it. I really wish there were some way I could bottle it and save it, so I could sample it again in 20 years.

I've been thinking a lot about my life lately, about how far I have come as a person and how important this is for me. Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted this, always envisioned myself married and having children. I am so happy to finally be going for it.

The only thing that annoys me is how I keep hearing the same jokes over and over: "Ready to take the plunge, Steve?", "Getting cold feet yet?", "Putting on the old ball and chain, huh?". Hilarious.

I would love to write more, but this is the busiest I have been in a long time. I'll try to check in briefly over the next couple of weeks, but it might be hard.

Wish me luck, thanks for reading, and I promise there will be more Bismarck when I get back home. With my new wife.

Sounds weird, eh?

Paying the Piper

Tuesday, May 29, 2007, 11:59am
St. Francis Hospital

So much for me going to work. I wouldn't have been able to concentrate, anyway.

"I'm just warning you. He doesn't look too good," Tim says as we round the last corner before Chris's room, our shoes squeaking rhythmically across the shiny floor.

I was there, I saw him right after it happened. While it was happening, actually. How bad could he really be?

I make a right turn at room 322 and freeze dead in my tracks, standing statue-still as I feel my skin turn instantly cold.

His face is so hideously bruised that I barely recognize him.

It's funny how the mind works. It will make up all sorts of crazy shit when it really doesn't want to believe something. Why is Chris wearing a mask?, I find myself thinking.

Dad and Janet stop talking and look up at me, their faces a mixture of "I hate you" and "How could you?"

"Hello, Steven," my father manages, finally. He and Janet walk past me and down the hall, with Tim close behind, leaving Chris and I alone.

"Hey, Twinkie," he says, in a scratchy voice.

"D-- did I do this?" I ask.

"It's from my nose. The bruising spread to my face. It happens sometimes. I have a subconjunctival hemorrhage too."

"Huh?"

"The whites of my eyes are all bloody. See?" He says, pointing to his face like a young boy showing off a scab.

"Chris, look, I--"

"Steve," he says, in his usual softspoken way, and I stop to listen. "I was miserable. And jealous of what you and Tim have. I was just trying to ruin it so you would be as pissed off as I was."

"When I heard what you did, I--kinda felt like you would have actually done it. That you would have had sex with Tim, if you could have."

"I don't know, man. I wasn't thinking that far ahead. It was very impulsive."

"Well, it hurt to think my brother could do that."

"I don't blame you. I don't blame you for any of this," he says, softly. "I probably deserved it."

He turns his swollen eyes to me, and between the dark purple bruises and his Bassett Hound-like expression, I have to look away.

"I want to make it up to you and Tim. I told her, too. I want to earn your respect back. I mean it."

"Just get better, man."

"I'm trying." He brings a plastic cup to his mouth and takes a shaky sip.

"I guess you told Janet about what you did. Right?"

He nods slowly. "She basically isn't speaking to me. She says if it wasn't for the baby she would have divorced me."

"Did you tell her about--"

"Irene? Do I look retarded to you?"

"No. Bruised, but not retarded."

"Fuck you," he laughs.

1:30pm

"I know everyone is still mad, but I want us to talk things over. If you have something you want to say, say it now," Dad says.

"I--" I begin.

"First of all," Dad says, "Chris, I don't know what the hell got into you, but Tim is just like a daughter to me, and you hurt me just as much as you hurt her and Steve. How could you do such a thing?"

"I'm sorry, Dad. And I already apologized to Tim. And Steve."

"And Steve, since when do you beat up your brother?!" Dad says.

"I was wrong for handling it that way, and I want to say I am sorry for letting the family down. I--"

Obviously he's heard enough from me, and he cuts me off. "Tim, do you have anything you want to say, since you were the victim here?"

"I spoke to Chris, and Steve, and I let them know my concerns."

"Do you forgive them?"

"I... of course I do. I just, Chris kind of surprised me, and Steve--"

"What do you mean, he surprised you?" Janet sneers, sweeping her chestnut hair from her eyes. She stares unflinchingly at Tim, and the rest of us follow suit. The question seems innocent enough, but her voice is pure anger.

"I-- he, just, didn't seem like the kind of person who would do that," Tim says, clearly choosing her words carefully.

"So what does that tell you?" Janet says, staring harder.

"You think this is my fault?" Tim says.

"I can't understand why he would do that!" Janet says, mockingly, batting her eyes at the ceiling. "Gee Tim, could it be the way you were dressed?"

Tim's eyes narrow. "What did you say?"

"You have a nice body! We get it! You don't have to rub our faces in it!"

"It was a pool party!" Tim shouts.

"That doesn't mean you have to walk around with your tits hanging out!" Janet shrieks.

I turn to Chris. He's already looking at me.

Somehow, though his eyes are bloody, I can see the same serene look I've seen five hundred times before, the look of a man who can handle any crisis easily. Without a word, I know it's time to get to work.

I stand up, and to my surprise, Chris does too, swinging his legs briskly over the side of the bed and hopping to his feet in one swift motion. He walks over to Janet, grabbing her raised forearms in his hands. The room falls silent as they hug.

"Let's go for a walk, Tim," I say, and we head for the hallway.

"How about a fruit basket instead?"

Monday, May 28, 2007, 5:44pm
Steve and Tim's house

I sit at the kitchen table, running my eyes over the newspaper in front of me, trying in vain to read it.

This was a mistake. Chris is my brother, as he pointed out while I was kicking his ass, and I will see him often as time passes. And since I am marrying Tim, she'll see him too, and there is no realistic way he can avoid her, as I demanded he do.

There is no excuse for what he did, but I handled it as badly as I possibly could have. There must have been a better way.

Tim is going to be angry, for one thing: She told me not to do anything stupid, and she was right. She didn't even want to tell me about this in the first place, but I badgered it out of her. I'm beginning to wish I had never known about it at all.

The door opens and slams shut. Tim stomps by me without a single word.

Damn, is she pissed off. Even when she's really mad, she'll sit down across from me with an arms-folded pout, but today I didn't even get that.

I wait a few minutes and walk slowly upstairs. This is not going to be fun.

She's in the bathroom washing up. I stand in the doorway and she looks straight ahead, her stormy eyes burning holes in the mirror. She dries her face, then digs globs of moisturizer from a small jar and rubs it into her skin so hard that it might as well be war paint.

"Are you gonna talk to me?" I say, finally.

"I don't even wanna look at you right now," she huffs, and brushes by me and into the bedroom.

I sit on the bed and watch her as she pulls her soiled chef clothes off, replacing them with jeans and a t-shirt. She walks past me and back downstairs, keys in hand.

"Where are you going?"

"To see your brother. In the hospital."

"Tim, I was angry. He hit on you!"

"I'm way too pissed off to talk to you now."

"Tim, don't leave."

Slam.

7:29pm, text message from Tim:

i am staying at my parents house 2nite just wanted u 2 know i was ok

Steve:

i am not ok with that we are going to be married and if there is a problem we should be able to talk about it

Tim:

we will talk but not til 2morrow im sorry but i need time to calm down

Steve:

please come home in the morning i will go in late so we can talk

I hate that Tim's mother is involved now. Though she puts up a good front, I know that to her, this is still a power struggle, and she is salivating at the opportunity to dig her hooks into Tim when she is vulnerable. I am sure Tim will come home tomorrow filled with Diana-isms about how horrible I am.

Tuesday, May 29, 7:45am

Steve and Tim's house

"Can I talk first?" Tim says.

I love the way she looks in the morning, with no makeup and a long ponytail. With her rosy skin and bright eyes, she might as well have been plucked from a midwestern farm.

"You really hurt me. You didn't trust me, for one, and you didn't respect my wishes when I asked you to let me handle it."

"Who says I didn't trust you?"

"You beat up your brother because you were afraid something would happen if you didn't."

"According to who, Tim?"

"Are you telling me you weren't worried? At all?"

I hesitate just a second too long before saying no, and that's all she needs.

"You see? You don't trust me! Do you?"

"This isn't Leave it to Beaver, Tim! I know how I used to be, and it's a little hard trusting other people."

"So I'm 'other people' now? I'm just some girl that you're sleeping with?"

"Don't be stupid, Tim!"

"So I'm stupid now?"

I hate arguing with girls. It's as if they have high-speed microprocessors in their heads, capable of breaking down everything I say, turning every word around and shooting it back in my eye like a spitball.

"Of course you're not just some girl! You're living in my--our house. Your name is on the deed. We're a family!"

"Your house?"

Shit. I knew that was coming.

"That's not fair, Tim--"

"Why are you marrying me if you don't trust me? If you're having all these... issues, then why did you say yes? Did you feel pressured into it? Do you need more time? Are we moving too fast?"

"No!" I shout. "I'm a big boy. If I wanted to say no, I would have."

"But you still don't trust me!"

"I've never really been in a healthy relationship. I've cheated and been cheated on. I get stupid sometimes, but that's my problem. I know you are trustworthy, and if I felt you weren't, then of course I would let you know."

"So you beat up your brother because you got stupid?" she sneers. "You drove a half hour to get down there. Were you stupid for a half hour?"

"The fight had nothing to do with you. Or it had less to do with you than with Chris and me."

"I don't understand."

Sunlight pours through the kitchen window at an unusual angle. I'm usually never home at this hour. A lot of time has passed, but I don't dare check my watch in front of Tim. The more I talk to her, the clearer I see the depth of her anger. She is disappointed and hurt, and it's going to take a long time for things to get back to normal.

"I knew you weren't going to hook up with Chris. I wasn't trying to prevent something. I'm not dumb; I know there's no way of preventing something like that, so I would never even try."

"Mm-hmm."

"Was I supposed to be happy that my brother tried to get your clothes off?"

"Like he really would have gone through with it, Steve."

"Why not? He did with Amanda. And Irene. And that chick Carol from his work."

She sits silently for a moment. She has clearly not seen things from a guy perspective.

"I don't... I'm not the same as them. I'm family! He couldn't do that."

"But he tried to."

"But it wasn't... I can't explain it. It wasn't sexual. He was acting out."

"And I suppose his acting out is okay and mine isn't."

"I didn't say it was okay!" she shouts.

"So why are you bitching at me? Why aren't you bitching at him?"

"Hello! Because he's in the hospital, Steve!" she says, her voice reverberating.

"Do you forgive him, Tim? Is everything all hunky dory with you two now?"

"He apologized."

"And that's it? Everything is perfect now, after his apology?" I say, sarcastically. "Would he have apologized if I didn't find out about it? Or is he just sorry he got caught?"

"It doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't."

"And it's not perfect now," she says. "I told him that I was really disappointed in him for doing that, and that it was inappropriate, and that he caused a lot of friction between you and me."

"You did?"

"He wants to make it up to us. I told him to just focus on getting better."

"Tim, you have to know, this is about my brother betraying me. I know I act like I don't give a shit about stuff like that, but..."

"He hurt you, so you wanted to hurt him back."

"Yeah."

"He knows that, Steve. He would have talked to you about it. Why did you have to beat him up?"

"It's about male pride. You need a dick to understand."

"What does that mean?"

"Let's say I go talk to him, and he yesses me to death. What then? Do we go back to normal?" I ask. "Sounds like he's getting off light to me."

"Who says you had to go back to normal? It's your right to take some time apart from him, or to tell him that you need proof that he's learned his lesson."

"And if he never does?"

"Then you have to find a solution you can live with. And I could have helped you with all of this! I always ask you for help, why can't you ever ask me?"

Tim reminds me of a therapist sometimes. She's been through a lot of therapy herself, and has obviously learned from it. I think it has really helped her, and I am proud of how well-adjusted and sensible she is.

"I'm a man. Asking for directions is a big deal."

"Hm."

"So in your scenario I might never speak to him again."

"Of course you'll speak again. Your brother is very sorry, you know. Even though you acted like an asshole."

Normally I'd be pissed about that remark. But she's called me names before, just like I've done to her, and if that's all she's going to do, then I've dodged a bullet.

"I know."

"Is this how you're going to solve your problems now? What if we have a child and he disobeys you? Are you going to beat him up?"

"How can you say that, Tim!? How can you even ask that question?"

"You did it to Chris."

"Chris is my brother. We grew up together. You don't have a brother, so you don't understand. It's been years since I've hit anyone at all."

"Maybe it will happen again. If you did it once..."

I look her in the eye. This better be convincing. "Tim, on my life, I promise I will never hit you or our children, ever."

"Okay." She gets up from her chair and hugs me, and it's a rush of relief to smell her hair, to feel my hands on her muscled back. For the first time today I feel like we might actually get past this soon. "I'm still mad at you, but I'm glad we talked."

"Me too. How is he?"

"You broke his nose. And he has a problem with his stomach where you kicked him."

"But I didn't kick him in the stomach!"

"Must've been someone else then," she says, sarcastically. "He might need an operation."

"What?"

"Yep."

"Tim, I'm sorry about this."

"Don't tell me, tell him."

"Men get lost sometimes, as years unfurl"

Monday, May 28, 2007 (cont'd)

I remember very little of the drive down. I thought the ride would calm me, but as I turn the incident over in my mind, I only grow angrier.

I know what happened. He's on a hot streak; a couple of pretty young girls have gotten naked for him, and his wife hasn't found out. And now that he's bulletproof, he's going to hit on every hot chick he sees, and his hard cock won't care who she happens to be engaged to at the time. I know what it's like to feel that way, and I am sure he would have gone through with it.

He knows how huge this relationship has been in my life, how content I am to finally be settling down, and he would have destroyed that for his own selfish pleasure. He would have ripped my life apart, just to see her gorgeous naked tits, her shaved pussy, her curvy thighs.

Her nude body flashes in my mind's eye, and my cock stiffens despite the rage. My breathing quickens, and for a moment it's all I can do not to pull over and jerk off. I am like an animal, rabidly territorial, eager to rip my enemy's throat out before mounting my waiting female.

Chris's house
681 Circular Avenue

He's in the front yard, trimming the hedges. Birds sing; sunlight streams between the branches of an oak tree, making bright patterns on the grass.

I park and walk towards him. When I am ten feet away, he turns and looks casually at me. "Hey, Steve. Are these shrubs uneven?"

I punch him in the face.

I was aiming for his neck, actually. I've never tried to punch someone's face. Why would I, with all of those bones and teeth in the way? Back when I fought a lot, I always aimed for the neck; it hurts them like hell, and it's as soft as punching a beach ball. The fights usually ended quickly.

But Chris didn't cooperate. He saw the punch coming at the last moment and tried to get out of the way, but only ended up putting his nose right in front of my fist.

There's a subtle snap, no louder than a twig breaking, and right away I know it's broken. Blood gushes over his mouth and chin, and I recall the red beard Greg had after mom slapped him that day, all those years ago.

He touches his fingers to his nose and pulls them away slowly, staring at the bright red goo that drips from them.

The blood emboldens me. He is wounded, vulnerable, and now is my chance to make him remember this mistake permanently.

I hit him harder, in the neck this time, and he stumbles over his feet and collapses to the ground; I fling myself on him, rearing back and hurling my fists at him with every ounce of strength I have.

"Steve, stop! Please, stop!" he cries, crossing his forearms in front of his face, but my rage has taken over and I am outside my body, observing the action like a disinterested third party, noting the tiny smacks of fists against skin, and the red welts that have already started to form.

The screen door flies open. "Steve, what are you doing? Leave him alone! Leave my husband alone!" Janet says.

She grabs my right arm in her hands and pulls hard enough for her nails to draw blood. I barely feel it.

I stand up and fling her across the lawn like an empty pillowcase. She falls to the ground, then rushes back into the house, sobbing.

She'll be calling the police now, I think, and I don't care.

"Steve, I'm sorry," he pleads. He raises his head and lets out a weak, gurgly cough, the cough of an old man. "I'm sorry! Please don't hit me again."

Don't hit you? No problem, motherfucker.

I reach my leg back and kick him savagely to the midsection. He doubles over, the air escaping his body with a small "hup!". He curls into a ball and I rain kicks onto his exposed arms and legs, then finally stop to rest as he lay there trembling, struggling just to breathe.

"Steve, I- I'm your brother," he manages, so softly I can barely hear him. "Let's- we could've talked about it," he whimpers, his voice shaking. I step back and look at him, at his faded WPLR t-shirt with fresh mudstains where I kicked him. The shirt has ridden up a bit, exposing a small spare tire where his tight abs used to be. His hair has thinned noticeably at the top, too. Since when does he have a bald spot?

Suddenly the whole thing seems ridiculous. The facade is gone. He's no longer the aloof, womanizing player that he had become; now, he's just my brother again, the guy who quotes Monty Python with me and takes me to football games for my birthday. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

The screen door opens. "I called your father. He says you better stop fighting right now," Janet says. "He's on his way down here."

Oh, my dad says I better stop fighting? Well, I better stop then, otherwise he might take away my car keys. Or he won't let me go to prom.

I grab Chris's face in my hands and pull it to me, so our noses are an inch apart. "You come near her again," I say, through gritted teeth, "and I swear to fucking Christ I will kill you. Get it?"

He nods. "I'm sorry, Steve," he says, his teeth still coated in blood. "Please believe me, I am so sorry."

"Your father says not to leave," Janet calls after me, but I am already gone.

Chris crosses the line

Monday, May 28, 2007, 1:10pm
Steve and Tim's house

I'm not one of those guys who keeps a leash on his girl as if she were a pit bull.

I can spot jealous guys a mile away, the ones who pull their women close, leering suspiciously from side to side as if guarding Paris Hilton's jewelry collection. I find insecurity unattractive, so I consciously avoid it. No matter how much I'm burning on the inside, I pretend to be busy reading labels while some muscled Fabio wannabe strikes up a conversation with Tim as we wait in line at the drugstore. Then I'll make a joke, and the three of us will laugh, and he will realize he's getting nowhere and move on.

Five minutes after sitting down at a bar, she's got enough free alcohol in front of her to put Lindsay Lohan in a coma. She's the center of attention at every party we go to, and she's barraged with a steady stream of pickup lines as she works or does her errands.

I won't lie to you: Dating a beautiful woman is hard. I'm not the tallest, tannest, or sexiest man in the world. I don't have Donald Trump's money or Tommy Lee's dick. I do well professionally, and I'm happy and in decent shape, but Tim is an all-star. She can have any man she wants! I fear that, eventually, one of the guys who hits on her is going to be too good to pass up.

Tim says that she jumped from guy to guy for a long time and that she's tired of it. She says that she loves talking to me and learning from me, and that she can count on me when it's time to buckle down and solve a problem. She enjoys taking care of me, making sure that I eat like a restaurant critic every night, and that I blow more loads than a porn star.

She talks about our wedding and our future family all the time; when we go out, she stares at every passing baby the way I stare at the Victoria's Secret catalog.

I believe what Tim tells me. I trust her more than I have trusted anyone in my life. But that sliver of doubt never leaves, nagging me like a pebble in my shoe, and I've always wondered how I would react if some dude crossed the line.

"I hate to have to tell you this," Greg says on the phone, "but I heard something yesterday you're not gonna be happy about."

"What did you hear?"

"Tim was... she..."

My stomach drops. What is it? Did he catch her with another guy? But yesterday was a family picnic for Memorial Day. No available guys were even there, and no one who would have had the balls to hit on her, except...

Chris.

"Chris walked up to her in the kitchen, and he--"

"Greg, for Christ's sake, spit it out!"

"I was outside, changing the propane tank on the grill. The windows over the kitchen sink were open and I could hear them talking. He said, 'You look bored. Is my brother boring you?'"

"What did she say?"

"Steve, you have to promise me you're not gonna get pissed at Chris. He's just under a lot of stress--"

"Too fucking late. And unless you want me pissed at you, you'll finish telling me what happened."

"I heard her say, 'Stop!' Then he walked out."

"That bastard."

"I figured Tim might have told you herself, but I needed to let you know just in case--"

I hang up and dial Tim's work. Someone was having a party at the restaurant, and she got called in.

"She's really busy," a young man's voice says.

"It's an emergency."

"Honey? What's wrong?" Tim says.

"What happened with you and Chris yesterday?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about what?"

"Steve, he's obviously miserable, he was drinking all day, and he said something stupid."

"What did he say!?"

"I'm really busy here."

"Tell me what he said."

"No. You're gonna fly off the handle, and it's not necessary. Nothing happened!"

"Did he hit on you?"

"Steve, I think he was just kidding."

"What did he say!?" I shout, my heart thumping almost audibly.

"Baby, it's very hectic right now. My steaks are burning, I promise we'll discuss this for as long as you want when I get home," she says, sweetly, but I get the impression she's as close to snapping as I am.

"For Christ's sake, why can't you just tell me?"

"Fine," she huffs, her voice sharp and angry. "He asked me if I was bored with you. He put his hand on my ass and tried to kiss me. Are you happy now?"

I'm gonna fucking kill him.

"You're such an asshole sometimes. What, you think I'm too immature to handle being hit on? Or do you just not trust me?"

"I'll see you when you get home," I say, in a Hannibal Lechter monotone.

"Don't do anything stupid--"

Click.

OMG, i totally just killed someone lol :-D

What the fuck is wrong with people? I mean, really now!

How sick does one have to be, to put a bullet in someone, watch them fall to the ground, bleeding, and then keep shooting?

What I really don't get is why this guy waited between attacks. He killed two people at 7:15, then 31 more a couple hundred yards away, two hours later.

What the hell was he doing in those two hours? Laundry? Checking email? Maybe a couple of quick IM's?

It seems as though most of the victims didn't even know this loser, and yet they lost their lives. Maybe there is a God up there, but if there is, I'm pretty sure he just created the Earth and turned his back. No way anyone looking out for us would permit this kind of nonsense.

**********

Friday, March 23, 2007 11:59pm
Steve and Tim's house

My blissful sleep is interrupted by the shrill bedside phone. Gotta turn that ringer down tomorrow.

"The baby won't sleep! She won't eat..." Janet shrieks, so loudly that I pull the phone away from my ear.

Chris annoys me more with each passing day. If he wants to fuck around on his wife, fine, but he's being careless about it. I don't care how leak-proof your alibis are; keep pushing it and you're going to get caught.

"I'm sorry about that. I really am. "

"Chris won't answer his phone!"

"Where is he?"

"He's out drinking with his work friends! He's with them all the damn time!"

Yeah, well, in fairness, his "drinking friends" have really nice blowjob lips...

"Steve, you have to help me! What bar is he at?"

Hmm. He's probably either at the Horizontal Haus, or the BJ Cafe.

"How should I know?" I exclaim, more awake now.

"You have to help me find him. What if he got into an accident?"

I sit up. This could actually be bad news. When he finally comes home, she's probably going to demand his friends' names and numbers. But that's his problem.

"Please help me, Steve."

Chris obviously has no intention of answering his phone, so I try Irene. I'm trying once and going back to bed. Enough is enough.

"Hi, Steve."

"Irene! What's going on?"

"Wellll..." she giggles.

On second thought, don't answer that.

"Janet is looking for Chris."

She covers the phone. "Your wife is looking for you," I hear, faintly.

"What the hell, Steve?"

"Your wife just woke me up because you won't answer your damn phone. Moron!"

"I'm kinda busy here!"

"So call her, and then get back to whatever it is you're doing. And stop involving me in this shit!"

"She called you, not me, you idiot." Irene giggles in the background.

Click.

It's a good thing Tim did not hear that, I think.

Oh shit! Tim!

I look down. She dozes silently, her right hand under the pillow, like always. In my drowsy stupor, I didn't think to leave the room. I hope she didn't hear anything.

I watch her for a moment. Nothing. Thank God. Now, to head back to sleep--

"Who the hell is Irene?" Tim says.

With sincere condolences to women everywhere...

In hindsight, this makes perfect sense. Tim is on the pill, which is about 98% effective. We've never even had so much as a scare, in well over a year together.

I am completely flattered. Tim is beautiful, hard-working, driven and talented. She impresses me and turns me on. But, nonetheless, a subtle ache surfaces now and again, a lonely raft in an ocean of joy.

I was getting used to the idea of being a father. My brothers both have kids; many of my friends do too. You don't have to ask a father if he's happy with his children; you just have to watch him wrestle around on the floor with them, or listen to the stories he always seems to have about them on Monday mornings. I know we'll have kids someday, but...

"Are you proposing to me?"

"I know you said you wanted to wait until we were living together for a year, but it's almost a year," she says, so quickly that I can barely make out the words. "And I'm totally okay with a long engagement!"

"I--"

"We can do this, Steve! We can totally do this! We love each other!"

"Can I finish?" I smile.

"Okay."

"Yes!"

"Oh my God!" she shrieks, and we hug tightly.

We call my dad first. "It's about friggin' time!" he says. "If you waited too much longer, I was gonna marry her myself!"

The call to Tim's mother should be interesting.

"Steve and I are getting married," Tim says into the speakerphone.

Silence.

"Congratu...lations..." her father says in the background, his voice trailing off.

"Steve and I have something to talk about," Diana says.

"Tim asked me, Diana, not the other way around."

"Steve was less than honest with me," Diana says, completely ignoring what I just said.

"Mom. Do you have to ruin everything? I just told you we're getting married, and you're bitching at us?"

"I spoke to Steve a few weeks ago..."

"Mom, this was my idea, not Steve's."

"So Steve had no idea this was coming," she says, skeptically.

"None," I say.

"Hm."

"Mom, I'm marrying him, so just get used to it. I'm not gonna let you ruin my Christmas and my..." she buries her face in her hands.

"Diana, I think you ought to apologize to your daughter," I scold.

"Steve, I'm just trying to--"

"Diana! Apologize!" Marvin booms, so loudly that I scarcely recognize his voice. We all freeze.

Tim picks her head up. "Dad? Did that come out of you?" We burst out laughing, the four of us, and suddenly I know everything will be alright.

"I'm sorry for my display," Diana says. "Congratulations to you both. Steve, welcome to the family. We love you very much."

**********

The more I get used to being engaged, again, the more I realize it was a really good idea. We'll take it slow, we'll get used to being married, then we'll start a family. Thirty-six is a great age to begin this chapter of my life, especially since I've gotten all of the misbehavior out of my system.

My phone vibrates. Krista calling, it says.

I guess the pills worked after all...

Saturday, December 23, 2006
Steve and Tim's house

If she truly is pregnant, I have to get her to admit it. Why would she want to hold back information like that, anyway?

Maybe she wants to spring it on me for Christmas. Wouldn't that be cool? I give her a flattering ensemble from Bebe, and she congratulates me on being some kid's personal ATM machine for the next 18 years. Actually, 18 years would be a bargain.

I would confront her on it, but I'd hate to ruin the surprise. Besides, what if I am wrong? I never have seen any concrete proof...

Wait a minute.

It's been at least a week since we've put out any garbage. If she's taken a pregnancy test at home since then, I should be able to find it.

I sift through every trash pail in the house, then dump three overflowing Hefty bags on the garage floor and patiently sift through the rotting apple cores and the slimy skeletal remains of the rotisserie chicken we ate five days ago. Five unseasonably hot, chicken-decomposition- friendly days ago.

I breathe through my mouth as best I can, but the smell manages to find me in little wisps, and it's far from springtime in the Rockies. I have all I can do not to gag.

I finish inspecting the garbage; no discarded pregnancy test. Of course, she might have taken the test at a friend's house, or maybe she threw it away somewhere other than home. That's what I would have done.

But there is another way: My neighbor is having a Christmas Eve party tomorrow, and liquor will most definitely be flowing. I wasn't planning on going, but I'll take her, and see if she has anything to drink. She's always good for a shot or a glass of wine at parties like that, so if she sticks to the Diet Coke with lime, I'll be very suspicious.

Christmas Eve, 2006 8:15pm
Kevin's house

I'll wait for Kevin to offer her a drink. Can't look too obvious, you know.

"Steve!" Kevin shouts, lifting me off the floor in a drunken hug.

"Hey Tim!" he says, kissing her twice on the cheek, then staring at her.

She looks at me briefly with a sly smile, as if to say, "Charming friends you have!"

9:05pm

There are only about 10 people here, and the conversations have slowed to a near standstill. Normally, this is the point where I would bail, but I still have something to do.

"So Kevin, do you still brew that beer of yours?"

"I haven't for a long time. It's just Sam Adams tonight, I'm afraid. You want one?"

Bingo.

"Um, sure! Tim, I'm getting a Sam Adams. Do you want anything?"

"No thanks, hon."

Christmas, 2006, 7:45am
Steve and Tim's house

She sits alongside me on the couch, and we drink in the atmosphere one final time before opening the presents.

"Merry Christmas, Tim."

"Merry Christmas, Steve." She kisses me, sits slowly back down, then leans over and kisses me again, slower.

"Honey?" she says.

Here it comes. Finally, after all this waiting!

"I just want you to know how happy I am with you, how much I care about you. You helped me so much with my life, encouraging me when I was looking for my job..."

"Uh-huh..."

"We've been through a lot together--my surgery, your dad being sick--my mom being...my mom. I love you so much."

"Me too!"

"I bet some married couples have not been through what we have. So, maybe it's time for us to be a married couple."

"Are--"

"Steve," she says, with a deep breath, "will you marry me?"

"That could be us"

Monday, December 18, 2006, 2:03am
Steve and Tim's house

"....a girl!" Chris says on the phone, though I can barely hear him through the fog of sleep.

"Huh?"

"It's a girl!" he shouts again, his voice quivering. "I'm a father!"

Wow, cool. Have you told your girlfriend yet?

St. Luke's Hospital, maternity ward
3:30pm

Tim holds the baby expertly, supporting her tiny head in the crook of her elbow, gently stroking her wispy hair. "Hi, Veronica," she purrs. "I hope uncle Steve is gonna hold you and not be a big chicken!"

"I held MacKenzie when she was born."

"Here, take her, so I can get your picture!" she smiles.

**********

Steve and Tim's house, 7:30pm

"You haven't said two words all night, Tim."

"Are we ever gonna have a baby?"

"Are we really having this conversation again?"

"No, I'm serious."

"So am I!"

"Just tell me. What are your--intentions with me?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Tim!"

"Am I someone you would ever consider marrying?"

I have no idea where this is coming from. I've told her a million times that--

That's not true. I've never actually come out and said that I intend to marry her and start a family together. Sure, I've joked about what it will be like after we're married for 20 years, but that's hardly how she needs to hear it.

We've lived together for over a year, and endured some drama: Her mother almost breaking us up, my father almost dying, the months of agony as I searched desperately for a new job. We were both there at the end of each day, making it bearable.

The closest I've come to long-term commitment is telling Tim about my "one-year rule": We should live together for at least a year before discussing marriage, then be married for at least a year before discussing children. Neither of us is going anywhere; why rush?

"Tim, of course I want to be with you."

"Because if I'm wasting my time with you--"

My first impulse is to raise my voice, because it feels like she is not hearing me. But there is something different about Tim today; it almost seems like she's doubting the relationship all of a sudden. But why would she be doing that?

It must be the baby. Seeing Veronica reminded her that motherhood is something she really wants, and that she wants it with me.

"Don't you remember what we talked about, the one-year rule?"

"You're old enough. I'm old enough. We have money. We have a nice house--"

"Tim, you're 25."

"Did you see them? Your brother and his wife? How happy they were?"

"Of course I did!"

"That could be us!" she says, pleadingly, her voice sinking to a whisper.

Thursday, December 21, 2006, 12:15pm
Steve's office

"Are you coming home on time?" Tim asks.

"Um, yeah."

"Please don't be late?" she pouts.

"You okay?"

"I'm feeling kinda run down. I want your company. Is that too much for a girlfriend to ask?"

"Tim," I laugh.

"Please?"

8:00pm

"Come lay down next to me."

"You feel warm," I say, kissing her forehead.

"I'm fine, just hold me. And can you turn that TV down?"

I wake up midway through the 10:00 news with Tim dozing next to me, her arms still gripping my shoulders, our noses almost touching.

Let's see: She's acting clingy, she's tired and sluggish, she's questioning me about our future, and gauging my interest in having a baby.

I think she's pregnant.

Stevo is who we thought he was

Transcript of the recent press conference with Denise Green, president of the Steve Caruso Monogamy Foundation.

DENISE: "I would like to take this opportunity to announce our full support for Steve during this time of turmoil--"

REPORTER: "Turmoil? Denise, he cheated on his girlfriend of over one year!"

DENISE: "Yes, but--"

REPORTER: "Does it surprise you? Didn't it seem like Steve had matured?"

D: "Please, let me--"

R: "Are you concerned that a monogamy foundation like yours is going to suffer political damage for supporting an unapologetic womanizer like Steve?"

D: "No, because--"

R: "No? But they were living together! They were talking marriage and children! And then he just goes off and curls toes with some psycho nutbag!"

D: "Fine. Fine! You know what? Fine.

"Stevo is who we thought he was. We've all read the blog; we know what he's capable of. I mean, who the hell fucks his first cousin like it's bullshit. Bullshit!

"Everything was fine. He dated Stephanie for the better part of a year, and then he kissed Tim, but he told Stephanie about it, and then he cheated on Tim--he is who we thought he was!

"Now." [Slaps microphone violently] "You wanna throw your panties at him? Go ahead and throw your panties at his ass. But he is who we thought he was! And he screwed us in the end!"

[Storms off, stage right]

Not getting the joke?