“I have my heart set on something,” I told him. “But it isn’t a crowded restaurant. How could I get away with wearing only this?” I hopped down from the counter and turned around. Oh yeah, I was wearing the apron, and only the apron. And the shoes—don’t forget the shoes.
“Caroline. Wow,” he managed.
I grinned bigger. “I have pie.”
“You sure do.”
“Silly boy, I baked for you. Your very own hot apple pie. All you have to do is come over here and get it.” I broke off a piece of the crust and dragged it through the cinnamon sugar goo dripping down the side. Would he want pie or me first?
Turns out, he wanted both.
April
“See, now, I thought we were making progress. We watch baseball together, I sneak you peanut butter every now and again, and you go and do this? Why? Why do you continue to do this? And furthermore, why do I continue to allow this to happen?”
As I reached the top of the stairs, I overheard the conversation inside my apartment. Simon was home alone—maybe he was on the phone. Once inside, however, I peeked around the corner and found him sitting across the table from my cat, Clive, his Stanford sweatshirt between them. Clive had “marked his territory” on this very sweatshirt several times early on in our relationship, but it had been a while since he’d deemed it necessary to remind Simon who was the actual man of the house. We both thought Clive was over this particular peccadillo. Apparently not . . .
I stifled a laugh at how seriously Simon was staring at Clive, and how unseriously Clive seemed to be taking all this, batting at his tail as though it were unattached from his body. I backed down the hall silently, and then made a big show of rattling the doorknob to let them know I was home.
When I came into the dining room again, I found Simon reading the newspaper nonchalantly. He made no mention of the conversation he’d been having with my cat.
I allowed him that dignity, and pretended not to notice when I found the sweatshirt in the trash a few hours later.
May
A noise filled the bedroom, rending the night and pounding my eardrums. A great sawing, a loudness of indeterminate origin dragged me from my dreams of Clooney. I was sweltering, with a very warm body wrapped around me from the back and horrible noises pouring forth from his mouth, directly into my brain. I grappled for a cool spot on my pillow, his heat billowing toward me in waves as the snoring—oh my sweet Lord, the snoring—rattled my insides.
Even Clive had retreated to a safe perch on top of the dresser.
In a completely shit move reminiscent of schoolyard playgrounds, I drew back my legs and kicked the mass of sweaty, snoring boy that was filling my bed and ruining my sleep.
“Oof!” He woke with a start, inadvertently pressing more of his hot skin against mine. I peeled myself off the bed to stand over him, brandishing my pillow, which no longer contained even an ounce of coolness.
“Babe, what’re you doing? Did you kick me?” He curled back in on himself like a roly-poly.
“You have to stop!” I yelled.
“Stop? Stop what? Come on . . . come back to bed,” he mumbled, already slipping back into his dreams, where he seemed to be a lumberjack.
“Don’t you dare go back to sleep! No! More! Snoring!” I yelled, wild inside and out now. Being deprived of my sacred sleep turned me into a woman possessed.
“Snoring? Come on, it can’t be that bad—what the hell!”
I’d snatched his pillow away, dropping his head to the mattress.
“If I can’t sleep, no one will sleep! You are loud, and you are hot!” I shrieked.
“Well, the hot we knew, right?”
“Aaarrgghh!”
“Wait, are you PMS-ing?” he asked, almost immediately looking fearful as he realized his mistake.
Simon finished the night across the hall in his own apartment. I needed my sleep.
July
“Goddamn, Caroline, that was amazing.”
“Yes, yes it was,” I purred, stretching my legs around him, clutching him closer to me, feeling him still inside me. His breathing synched with mine, relaxing into me as I scratched at his scalp and made little patterns on his back with my fingertips. After a few minutes he raised up on one elbow, and I smoothed his hair back.
“You didn’t come, did you?”
“No, sweetie, but it was fantastic anyway.”
“Let me make it up to you,” he insisted, moving his hand in between us, surprised when I stopped him. “Babe?”
“It’s not always about that. It can still be amazing, you know? Some nights, being here, being close with you, is all I need,” I said, bringing him down for another kiss, slow and sweet. “I love you so much,” I whispered in his ear, his answering grin making my heart swell.
After the Great Orgasm Hiatus, which in my head is how it was officially known across the land, was she always there for me? Of course not, not every time. But mostly she was there, and mostly she was there for multiple Os, and sometimes she brought G with her. Those were the nights I damn near passed out.
But while I loved the countertop sex, and the shower sex, and the kitchen floor sex, and the stairway sex—well, one night of stairway sex—the quiet sex was still my favorite. When it was Simon on top of me, letting me feel his good weight and his good love pressing down on me, inside me, all around me. And if on occasion the O stayed away, it was okay.
I knew she would always return.
Simon shuffled back toward the bed, bringing a bottle of water with him, Clive close at his heels. Clive wisely stayed away during the relations; he’d attacked once and was almost punted. So now he took cover away from the action. Simon getting water was the signal that he could come back in to snuggle.
As Simon passed me the bottle, I turned on the news to check the weather for the next day to see if I’d need an umbrella. Each on our own side, with Clive in between us, we watched the forecast. Our hands were clasped on the pillow in between.
Pretty f**king great.
• • •
August
“Go ahead, I know you’re dying to say it.”
“I don’t think I have to, Caroline. Your moaning is saying it all.”
“No, no, I know you want to. Go ahead.”
“Fine. I told you so.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now shut up and let me get back to my noodles.”
Simon laughed as I slurped up my pho, a delicious Vietnamese noodle soup. For years, I thought I didn’t like Vietnamese food. I suppose eating it in Vietnam made all the difference.