The Conception Deception

As my eyes reluctantly opened, I slowly took in my morning situation. I was waking up in my own bed, slightly hung-over, and next to someone. My eyes focused a little- I was in bed with a woman...OK, that was good. I untangled an arm from the sheets and rubbed my face. As I looked again, my memory started to kick in. Her name was...Diane? Dana? Donna? Dominique!

That

was it.

Well, first thing in the morning she didn't look quite as hot as she had last night, but then again, who does? Her face was smooshed against a pillow, her mouth slightly open and twisted, drool puddling around her lips. Her hair, sandy blonde and long, was all over the place, but not in that sexy disheveled way. It was just plain disheveled. But I knew that, if I let my eyes go under the covers, I'd see a hot, sexy, curvy body- a body I had very thoroughly explored the night before.

She was facing me, which meant the sun wasn't hitting her eyes like it had been hitting mine. Maybe she'd sleep a little longer. We had been going at it until at least 2 a.m., and it was just now 8:30. I thought I could probably make some breakfast before she woke up. Maybe she'd like that. But first things first, I stumbled to the bathroom. It took a minute for my morning wood to soften enough so that I could relieve my bladder. I had fallen asleep right after I dropped the second condom on the floor, and I was regretting not relieving myself before falling asleep.

Pulling on some boxers and a tank top, I headed over to the kitchen and tried to avoid clanging pots and pans as I began making omelets and French toast. Of course she was going to appreciate breakfast, but even if she didn't, I sure as hell had an appetite. As the butter sizzled in the pan, I tried to solidify my memories of the night before.

We had met in the club; she had warmed up to me pretty quick. I wasn't too skilled at picking up women like that, but she had made it easy. I've got an athletic build that my job has helped me maintain. With my Puerto Rican heritage, I've got a nice bronzed look, too, so I didn't have to do much pursuing. After only a few drinks and some gratuitous dancing, she had made it clear that she would leave with me. We had gotten back to my place at 11:30, and by midnight, we were naked in bed.

Flipping over a piece of toast, I recalled how we rolled around, taking turns on top. She hadn't been too interested in oral- giving or receiving- which suited me fine. I prefer intercourse- traditional penis-in-vagina type stuff. It had been a while since I had used a condom, so the different sensation (or general lack thereof) had given me some staying power. Even with a girl as hot as she was- not just looking hot, but acting hot- I managed to hold off while she got a few good cums. After our second round, I was completely spent. I dozed off, wondering if she would leave then or if she'd stay until the morning.

I had to admit, I was really glad she was there when I woke up. I didn't like an empty bed and still hadn't gotten used to it. A pot of coffee was just finishing when I heard the toilet flush. With a shuffle of feet, she came squinting into the kitchen with a slightly embarrassed smile. She had put her club clothes back on. I had been hoping she'd just grab one of my shirts- there are few things sexier than that. Oh well. At least the club outfit showed off her ample breasts and curvy hips.

"Mind if I grab a bite before I go?" she asked, her voice a little gravely.

I poured her a mug of coffee and set two plates on little island in the kitchen. "Morning, Dominique," I said cheerily, "Pull up a stool."

She hesitated, a little awkwardly, then sat down. "Thanks...uh..."

"Russell," I prompted her, then slipped some toast on her plate and asked how she'd like her omelet.

"This is plenty, thanks," she said, taking a bite. "I'll be out of your hair in a minute."

"Don't worry about it. Stick around as long as you like. I can give you a ride if you need." I hoped I wasn't coming off as desperate or creepy. I mean, I was just trying to be friendly. And, to be honest, she was pretty hot. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her, getting to know her a bit.

For the first time that morning, she looked me in the eye. "Awww, that's sweet. But I just want to get home. No need to let this reach the awkward phase. This is Hunter's Glen, right? I just live over in Eastbrook. It's an easy walk."

She was less than a mile down the road, in some housing that was predominantly college students. No surprise- she looked about that age, maybe a little older, like grad school age. Finishing her toast and getting half her coffee down in one gulp, she stood up, glancing through her purse until she found her phone and keys. Before heading towards the door, she came over to me at the stove and gave me a short, aggressive kiss. It was odd to taste the coffee and syrup on her tongue after tasting all the mint and alcohol on it the night before.

"Thanks for a great night, tiger," she said with a smile. Then she walked straight to the door and headed out, closing it gently behind her. There are few things sadder than watching a woman walk out of your life, even if she's only been in it for a few hours.

I sat down on my stool and devoured my omelet. After that, I took my time with the French toast. While I chewed, I thought about my feelings from that morning. Confusion, frustration, disappointment- not at all what I had been hoping for, especially after getting laid. In fact, I had been feeling all those things

before

I went out, and now they were just compounded.

Had I done something wrong? Wasn't a hook-up like that supposed to become a regular thing? Then after a while of hooking up together, you start to do other things together. Then you start to fall in love. But I guess if the sex was bad, then it ends at the hook-up. I didn't think the sex was bad, though. And I was pretty sure she would agree.

Images from the night before started passing through my mind. She had been voracious, trying to feel as much of my body touching her skin as she could. She had stretched out on top of me, writhing and moaning. She had cum just from rubbing her slit along my length, before I even entered her. I had pushed in while she was still cumming and I could feel her walls squeezing erratically. And that had just been the beginning. No, there had been nothing wrong about the sex.

Nevertheless, she was gone. And I was in my kitchen alone, my stomach pleasantly full and my cock straining against my boxers.

Ahh, what the hell,

I thought.

No reason not to.

I headed back to bed, grabbing a box of tissues on my way.

*******

It was a nice Saturday in the spring, and even though that would normally be a great work day for me, I was taking it off. My landscaping business was doing well enough, and I didn't have any clients with urgent needs (although really, when is a landscaping need an emergency?), so I planned to take the day off, hoping I would have some success at the club Friday night and would be able to spend at least my morning, if not the day, with a lady.

Once Dominique (or was it Dominica?) had left, that ended my optimistic plans. I tried to make the best of the time anyway. I paid some bills, did some cleaning (the bed sheets sure needed to be washed), and got caught up on a TV series I had been missing lately. Marco, my cousin, called in the afternoon to confirm that I was coming to dinner at his house the next night. Knowing his wife planned to grill pizzas, I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

As I finished talking to Marco, I headed out to the mailboxes, which were set up as a big box of small slots, erected just at the bottom of the steps to our apartment building. All 24 apartments in our building checked their mail at that one spot. It was sometimes odd to me when I bumped into a neighbor there and realized that I didn't

know

any of these people. I wondered what I would say if I was ever interviewed by the news after one of my neighbors had committed a horrible crime.

"

Yeah, he seemed nice...quiet...friendly. Usually checked his mail around 4:30.

" My entire judgment of that person would be derived from a handful of 5-second interactions at the mailbox.

So I was a little startled when one of "the lesbians" said hi to me while we each unlocked our mailboxes. I didn't know if she was really a lesbian, but my fiance...ex-fiance...and I had given nicknames to most of the other residents (since we didn't know their actual names), and this particular woman lived with another attractive woman, and neither of them ever seemed to have men around. She was short, probably only a little over 5 feet tall, and she wasn't really curvy. The word that came to mind was "sporty," but she was in workout clothes at the time, which probably influenced my opinion. She was probably a few years older than me, which would have put her just over 30.

"I haven't seen your little boy lately," she said kindly.

"Huh?" I replied, mostly just unsure what she meant.

"I used to see you two on the playground- I can see it from my apartment." She used her mail to point to the neighborhood playground equipment. "But it's been a while. Too cold?"

Well, there was no easy way to answer that one. My first instinct had been to answer truthfully, "He wasn't my kid." He wasn't. I was dating, then engaged to his mom. But I had treated him like my own- I had loved that kid. He had been three years old when I met him and five when they left. I was the only dad he'd ever known.

"His mother left...broke our engagement, took Conner with her." It was one of those answers that sort of ends the conversation. If you're looking for polite chit-chat, you opened the wrong can of worms, lady.

"Oh," her face darkened. "That sucks," she said with genuine sympathy. "I'm sorry I brought it up...I had no idea." She was at least sincere and not awkward about it. I tried to return the favor.

"Hey, it happens. And you had no way of knowing," I said politely, locking my mailbox and heading towards the stairs. She was right behind me. The "lesbians" lived on the second floor, just below me. As she left the stairs, she said to me, "Have a good weekend!"

Out of habit, I simply replied, "You, too," and went on with my uneventful day.

*******

I considered going out again that night, since I would be taking Sunday off, anyway. But even if I got lucky and had another girl come over, I didn't like the idea of another woman making an exit from my life. Maybe I was messed up in some way, but I didn't like the idea of just being used for sex. Isn't that a young guy's dream, though? Sex with no responsibilities, no consequences, no strings attached? And yet the thought of it just made me sick.

I texted a few friends to see what they were up to that night. A few were going drinking (I'll pass) and some had dates. Marco and his family were at his in-laws, otherwise I'd be welcome to come spend the evening with them. So it looked like I had to make the most of an evening alone. I ordered a pizza, rented a few new movies, and settled in for the night.

I was mildly horny, but not enough to make me want to go out. I figured I'd jerk off before bed. It was the other thing that bothered me, that made me want to find a girl for the night. It was the loneliness. Some guys could do it, but not me. I wasn't made to be alone. I had always wanted a big family- a wife who was my best friend, kids running all over the place...and I had always thought that by this time in my life I would already be well on my way to that goal.

When Morgan and Conner had left, I was crushed. It wasn't even losing Morgan that bothered me- she and I weren't the best couple. We got along OK, and the sex was good, but I think I was mostly in love with the

idea

of her. When she broke our engagement, and given the circumstances under which that happened, I felt like I was losing my best chance at that life I had always dreamed about.

Marco had led me through a lot of the fall-out. But still, it's hard to take comfort from someone who is enjoying all the things you are being denied. He's six years older than me and has four awesome kids, with another on the way. I like being "Uncle Russ" to all the kids, but there was nothing like the time Conner first called me "Dad."

Over the past few months, I had tried my damnedest to bury that dream. I started to figure that maybe it wasn't a family that I wanted- just companionship. I just hated being alone. It made sense, usually. I never felt a strong emotional connection to Morgan, but I had believed that if we had a lot of kids, I'd be happy. The more unlikely that dream seemed, the more it made sense to just find a girl who would share my bed and still be around in the morning.

I never liked mixing pizza and beer, and I never wanted to turn to drinking to deal with my problems, but I was out of options. During the second movie, I started working my way through a six-pack, slowly forgetting all about anything else that had happened that weekend.

*******

I decided to spend Sunday (once I woke up and chased away my headache) tuning up some of my lawn equipment and working on my accounts. Really I was just trying to keep my mind occupied until dinner at Marco's. It went as it usually did- his wife Becca made pizzas for us to cook on the grill. The kids ran around the yard and we all had a great time. After the sun set, Marco and I sat on the deck and talked about life. I told him about Dominique and he just winced.

"That life isn't for you, man. You know that," he said.

"Where else am I going to find someone?"

"I'm sure Becca could find a girl for you," he joked.

"Becca thinks I need a woman to whip me into shape. Sometimes I think she means that literally. Sooo...no thanks!"

Marco laughed, knowing all too well what kind of women his wife suggested for me. "Just keep doing your thing, man. Just be yourself. If you've got to go out there and pretend to be someone else in order to find someone, then she's never going to love you for who you are."

"True, but it doesn't help in the short run."

"Well, keep your eyes open and your heart guarded." Then after a swig of his drink, he added, "I still wish I knew what was up with Morgan."

"I told you, she just decided I wasn't what she was looking for," I said bitterly.

"Yeah, you say that. But there's something between the lines there that I can't read. It's what you

don't

say that I worry about."

"Screw you," I said dismissively. There was no malice between us, but Marco liked to push. Sometimes it was good for me.

"Alright, alright. I'll drop it for now," he said, holding up his palms in defense. Then he went on to talk about a soccer game we were planning to watch later that week, and our conversation went into more comfortable territory. We went inside as the kids were finishing up catching fireflies in the yard. I headed home just before their baths.

"Figures," Becca teased me. "You want all the fun part of having kids but leave when the hard part begins."

"Leave the man alone," Marco said, walking me to the door. "Let him enjoy life without kids while he still can."

I laughed politely, not wanting to let on to what a sore spot they were hitting on. I drove home and went to bed early, telling myself I would get up early for work, but knowing that I also just didn't want to be left with my thoughts in a quiet apartment.

*******

After work on Monday, I was stopping to pick up my mail on my way into the building when the 'lesbian' came bounding down the stairs. She trotted up to the mailbox just as I was closing mine. "Hey!" she said. "Back from work?"

"Yeah," I replied, wiping the sweat from my eyes. It was a warm afternoon, and I'd been outside for most of it.

"Do you work outside?" she asked.

"Landscaping. I have my own business, but I also do a lot of the labor." We both stood at the mailboxes in that slightly awkward moment when you're not sure if there is going to be more to the conversation.

"Oh! Like, mowing lawns and trimming trees?" She asked, moving slowly towards the stairs.

"Sometimes. But also a lot of planting and decorating. Most of my clients are businesses and hotels that have grounds to design. They have people to mow the lawn, but we make the rest of it look nice."

"That's cool. Did you study that?"

"No. I studied business. But my dad was the stereotypical immigrant day-laborer. I would go mow lawns with him and the other Hispanic guys in the summers. I decided to make a business out of what I knew."

"Awesome," she said, acting way more interested than I would have expected. "Is business good?"

"We're doing alright, yeah. I've got a few employees and steady clients." At that point, we had reached her floor, and she walked down the outdoor hallway to her apartment. "Well, see you later!" she shouted back to me. I watched her walk away and silently blessed the person who had invented yoga pants.

*******

The same thing happened the next day. I got home, checked my mail, and there she was. It was a little odd- I had never run into her like that before. I decided it wouldn't hurt to mention it. Maybe it would open the door to a conversation. Maybe, I wondered, she was checking me out.

"How come I've never seen you out here before?" I asked

She answered quickly, "I used to work a different shift- it had me gone all afternoon and evening. But I'm on days now, as of last week."

"Oh," that actually made sense...mostly. "What do you do?" I asked as we made our way to the steps.

"Customer service for a big bank- mostly on the phone. Until last week, I was one of those humans you're trying to get to while you work your way through the automated phone system."

"Ah, I see. And most people call after work so..."

"Nights and weekends. Right. But I'm managing now, so my hours are a little different."

"I bet your roommate likes having you home in the evenings," I said, and then immediately wished I could pull the words back into my mouth.

"My what?" she said, not understanding my implication. "Oh, my roommate. No, she moved out a few months ago, after she graduated. I miss the extra help with rent, but it's nice having the space back. You know how small these places can feel."

"Yeah," I said, not really understanding. It just felt empty to me. "Anyway, see you around," I said, heading up the extra flight of stairs to my floor. I tried not to think about her. She was cute and friendly and she didn't seem to have been in a relationship with her 'roommate' (and thank God she didn't catch on to what I had said). She had that bubbly sense about her that made me think she didn't realize that she was coming off as flirty. She wasn't my type. I was ready for serious and settled. Marco was right- I wasn't going to find my type of girl in the party scene. Maybe I should check out some church girls or something. Hell, I didn't know. Where do you find a

nice

girl?

*******

I ran into mail girl one other time that week- not at the mailbox but in the parking lot, heading to our cars in the morning. We said hi, but not much else passed between us. Then on Friday evening, she knocked on my door. I had been washing dishes, so when I opened the door, I still had wet hands. Drying them off with the towel I had slung over my shoulder, I looked at her questioningly.

"Hey...neighbor," she said awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I don't even know your name. I'm Claire." She extended her hand, and I shook it with my dry hand.

"Russell," I said. "What's up?"

"Can I talk to you about something?" she asked, clearly nervous.

"OK. Do you want to come in?" I offered, stepping to the side.