“Shh.” I hold my finger to his lips.
“I know,” he whispers.
I pull his coat off, we stumble to the living room, fall onto the sofa kissing wildly, so hard that our teeth bang together and we pull back for a moment giggling. The room is dark, the only illumination coming from the twinkling little lights of the Christmas tree. Part of me listens for Gracie, for any sound of her stirring, but there isn’t any. She’s asleep, I’m sure. She rarely wakes up in the middle of the night anymore. I’m pulling at his clothes, he’s pulling at mine, we roll onto the carpet by the tree, we’re kissing and licking each other, his hips are bucking, he’s rubbing his penis against my stomach, my nerves are berserk, I’m jamming his hand into my panties and between my legs and whispering frantically, “Like this, like this,” guiding him, pushing his fingers where they need to be, and in what seems like seconds a tidal wave slams into me, my back arches, I hear him groaning and feel warm liquid squirting onto my belly and breasts, we come together madly, deliriously, it never seems to end.
Finally our breathing slows. We lay on the carpet with sofa pillows under our heads. I laugh, tickle him lightly, kiss him.
“I love you, Ms. Straw,” he whispers. “Mo-na.”
“Connor, I love you. You’ll never know how much I love you.”
We rest for a while in the twinkling darkness, the magic darkness. Our mood quiets. After some minutes he murmurs, “I never knew how a lady comes.”
I laugh quietly. “Now you do.”
“I mean, I knew that girls could. That women could. I just didn’t know how it worked.”
“You’re an expert now.”
“It was easier than I thought.”
I look at him, laugh, stroke his jaw, run my fingers over his ears and through his hair. “You’re a natural, sweetheart. You’re great.”
His grin is so big, so unreserved, so open, that I know he feels wonderful, strong, free, that he wishes to be nowhere else on earth but with me, here, now. We embrace, his semen sticky between us. I sit up, not wanting it to run onto the carpet. I need something to wipe it, so without preamble I slip off my panties and use them. I’m naked before him for the first time. It feels right, utterly natural.
“You’re—you’re so beautiful,” he says, reaching to my hip, stroking it, touching the hair between my legs.
“Surprised?” I say, smiling down at him. “At all this… stuff?”
“No. I’ve seen R-rated movies. I know how ladies look down there. But…” He stops talking, buries his face against me, pressing himself into my skin, me.
Finally I push him gently onto his back and straddle him, look down at his face in the Christmas lights. I play with him, coaxing his erection to return again, getting him ready. What I feel is so emotional, so deep, that if I try to tell him what I feel I’m afraid I might dissolve or explode. I can only deflect it with humor. I tilt my head to one side and whisper coquettishly, “Hey, big guy, you ready to lose your virginity?”
“I thought I already did.”
I wink at him. “This’ll make it official.”
“I don’t want you to get pregnant,” he says.
That fills my heart. I smile, stroke his face. “I had an operation, sweetheart,” I say quietly, truthfully. “After Gracie was born. I can’t have any more babies. But thank you for saying that. You’re very responsible, Connor. You’re a real man.”
Gazing at him I rise a little and then ease myself gently down onto him, feel him inside me for the first time.
“Good?” I ask.
His eyes are wide. “Oh my God.” He laughs shakily. “Oh… my… God.”
I laugh. We move, sway, we swim on the wild waves for I don’t know how long. We finish eventually, his eyes rolling up in his head, both of us joyfully arching together, becoming, for a moment, the same person in two bodies, one body, the same person in a third body which is simply us.
He catches his breath, calms, looks up at me.
“Okay… I’m officially not a virgin anymore, right?”
I smile, dangle my hair in his face. “You are definitely officially not a virgin anymore.”
We touch each other gently, interweave our fingers, smile, giggle. Finally I climb off him, lay beside him utterly spent, perfectly happy. He rests his head in my arms. I’m covered in him, inside, outside. He caresses my breasts gently and slowly falls asleep. So do I, for a time. I’ve completely forgotten about Gracie, about anything. Nothing matters but the two of us here, now, forever.
Later he asks, “Why don’t people in old movies have sex?”
“Well, they couldn’t. Movies were censored back then. It wasn’t allowed.”
He moves his fingers, his tongue on me, in me. He giggles. “They skipped the best part,” he says.
He leaves an hour before dawn.
I get a few hours’ deep, dreamless sleep and feel more relaxed and happy than I have in ages when Gracie finally starts to get up. I’ve showered, made myself coffee and a bagel with cream cheese, gotten the paper and read it. The little kitchen TV is on to a cartoon, the volume low. I smile as she comes in wearing in her bunny pajamas and rubbing her eyes. “Hi, baby!” I say. “Have a good sleep?”
“I’m thirsty.”
I pour some juice into a sippy cup and hand it to her, tousling her messy hair, leaning down and kissing her on the head. I pour her favorite cereal for her, add milk, put the bowl and spoon before her.
“When’s Daddy coming back?” she asks, staring at the TV screen.
“Tomorrow, honey.”
She nods.
“That boy was here again last night,” she says finally, her eyes on the cartoon.
I swallow. “What?”
“That boy.” She yawns.
I sip my coffee as naturally as I can. “What boy? What are you talking about, honey?”
“The boy who shovels the snow.”
I try to laugh. “You must have had a dream, sweetheart.”
“I didn’t have a dream. I heard him. And you. Talking. You were trying to be quiet but I heard you.”
I shake my head. “Just a dream, sweetheart. Nobody was here last night.”
“I got up. You were in the living room with him. You weren’t wearing any clothes.”
I stand and move quickly to the sink, try desperately to not allow my breakfast to come back up through my throat. I splash cold water on my face. I’m suddenly shaking all over. This is madness, I think. It’s all madness. This can’t be happening. This is not my life, this is somebody else’s life.
“He wasn’t either,” my daughter continues. “He looked funny. You were playing grown-up games.” Her voice is oddly indifferent, as if this is a matter of no great importance.
I grit my teeth, swallow, force my coffee and bagel to stay down.
Eventually I turn to her, crouch before her. “Honey, can’t you hear how weird that all sounds? Why would that boy come here in the middle of the night? Why would we take off our clothes in the living room?”
“You and Daddy take off your clothes.”
“That’s in the bedroom,” I say. “That’s different. And we’re married. Married people do that. Not other people. Honey, you just had a really vivid dream, that’s all. I slept all night in Daddy’s and my bed.” I hold up my right hand. “I swear.”
She looks at me, a curious expression on her face, then shrugs and turns her eyes toward the cartoon again. “I don’t care.”
I stand there looking at her, tousle her hair again, pretend to sip my coffee. Then all at once a terrible biting cramp clutches at me and I rush to the bathroom, drop down onto the toilet, let loose the worst explosion of diarrhea I’ve ever had in my life. I weep, emptying myself of everything in me, sitting in my own shit, weep uncontrollably, my face buried in my hands, my heart tearing to pieces, my soul splintering.