I was very lucky to have beta read the first two chapters of "Bouncing Back"
Bouncing Back Ch. 01 - Lesbian Sex - Literotica.com
a story by the amazing and prolific writer Emily Miller. She has as of this being uploaded so far only published chapter 1!
As ever with me when reading another author's story, an idea for a twisted "Bazzle" alternative manifested itself.
I will say from the outset that from what I've read of Emily's story hers is far superior! I have borrowed a framework and a vision. But now this is very much a Bazzle story.
As such it will contain plenty of smoking and drinking, plus other good stuff- including the lesbian interaction...
I have been given permission by Emily to publish (she also kindly beta read it). All errors are still mine 😊
Just Keep Swinging
"Mom, Mom, Timmy has taken my pen!"
"Has he Jo, can you use another?" I bark from just inside the open back door. My voice was now almost gravelly when I shouted.
"No. He has taken my best purple one. Mom, help me!" The voice pours like a river down the stairs.
I hate these moments when the over excited and angry shrill voices bounce off our magnolia painted walls, as the sound makes its way down the stairs. I sighed. "Okay, on my way." I call back up the stairs trying to do positivity whilst rolling my eyes like a twister. It is ten thirty am on a very wet Saturday morning. It's meant to be nearly summer. We are meant to be outside doing things. A family walk or something exciting. The car needs vacuuming for a start. But no. Everyone is cooped up in the house like chickens and as such everyone is already at the end of their tether. We have all been up since ten to six when we got bounced on in bed. I am already counting down the hours until school drop-off on Monday. Eight thirty on Monday morning I am liberated. At this moment it feels like a month away.
Parenting was now meant to be easier. We had prepared ourselves the best we could. We had money in the bank, having made a lot of savings in preparation. There was no getting away from the fact I was a mature mom. Practically geriatric. I gave birth to my second daughter Johanna, when I was thirty-six. I am now well over the hill at forty-two. I knew what to do, I had already had my son, Timothy, two years before. Dealing with one was easier even though we had no idea, actually dealing with two was a nightmare. When I assumed it would be easier. The two of them have chalk and cheese personalities. My friends had gone through it all about ten years before. I had focused on my career. Hell, it is scary seeing them post that they are either grandparents or their kids are now eighteen and off to university. That just scares me. I've got years until that freedom. As for being a wife. Well...I've been married to John for over twelve years now.
We all have our vices. I still enjoy myself. I take another drag of my cigarette and exhale through the open back door, most of the smoke going the right way. The rain is pouring down, it's gotten heavier in the last few minutes. I am meant to be outside, that's what I agreed with John. But I am staying dry. I then flick the tip with my index finger, the extended ash scatters in the breeze swirling around. I will go outside and sweep them all up at some point. I don't have the time now. I really now need to climb the stairs yet again and go on a pen hunt.
I, like, properly quit when I had both Timmy and Johanna. But I had a wobble in-between but as soon as I found out I was pregnant again, I was very good yet again. Once breast feeding finished...with the stress of two young children screaming at me I found myself reaching for my well-known support. I just needed a cigarette. Then of course one was never enough. I just wanted another.
My life now is still like spinning plates. It used to be customers I was trying to keep happy. I loved my job. Being busy was fun and I loved being important. The money also helped. But it seems I am now trying to keep three people happy. It is stressful. Like really stressful. There is always someone demanding something or losing something or just wanting attention. It feels like it's twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year job. I can now never truly switch off. I am forever needed. I do feel sometimes as if I need to climb inside a rocket and be fired up and away into outer space. Just to escape.
I have now made a rule. The kids sort of understand. Mommy has a "time out". A few moments where I am not playing a NATO peacekeeping trooper. I'm definitely not on a smoke break, that is totally wrong. I am not going to announce that too all and sundry. I don't want the children repeating or them thinking that. Or telling the teachers. I'm not a bad mom. They don't need to know that. It's mummy's time out. It just so happens it is my moment with a cigarette. It is my time. Five minutes of bliss in an otherwise stressful world. I only get twenty or so of them a day. Twenty moments to myself. My thoughts. With a cigarette between my lips and the smoke in my lungs I can block everything out until it's finished. I can then go again and face the world. If they had been really truly annoying, I might have made it ten minutes in the garage and two cigarettes.
John...where do I begin. I met him twenty-two years ago on a night out. Actually, in a nightclub. He was tall and slim with a lovely smile. At that moment, I was looking the best I have ever done, I was at my fittest and had just won a tennis competition. I was at that moment on top of the world.
"Mary!" His deeper voice cascaded down the stairs, it was so deep that it almost came through the walls. It always does. Like a jackhammer it vibrates through the building.
I close my eyes and drag hard, and exhale out the door, before turning in once again. 'On my way dear." I call up the stairs with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. I wave the displaced smoke away. His coffee would be empty or the thermostat on his radiator too hot. He will be too busy to come down the stairs or sort it himself. But I have to deal with Johanna and the case of the missing pen first. I flick my orange filter and briefly watch as it cartwheels out onto the patio. To be dealt with on a dry day.
Today, and since lockdown, he practically lives in the back bedroom. Coming out of the man cave for food and sleep. No longer needs to drive into the office quite as regularly. I have never gotten back into work either. I had promised to start job hunting again in 2020. Children were either about to go into school or nursery. Yup, lockdown. That finished everything. There were no jobs to look for.
A few years earlier I just had to give up work and most of our fun social life to try and be a mom. Things were not happening. Sex was. Lots of it. There was no lack of effort on either side. It was perfunctory, almost a chore. Check the calendar, my temperature and undress and jump on the bed or sofa. But with ever worrying certainty every month my period rocked up, mother nature sitting there in my panties grinning triumphantly all in red at me. Everything was also getting too stressful at work. Equally it was hard at home. My mom was continuously on at me for grandchildren. "You and I are not getting any younger" was the refrain. Then John was on to me to be a dad. I now really truly wanted to be a mom too. He had very supportively gone along with the no kids rule up to the point where I said I now wanted to be a mom. I was the one that had changed my mind, he now had one focus. He saw a reason for his life. Sex. It was no longer spontaneous. It was not really enjoyable. It became a function. Three times a day on the weekends, we even jokingly did it upside down on the stairs. Just to experiment and see if that was the cause.
It just was not working. There was a consequence. I was unfortunately smoking more and more, whilst telling everyone I was quitting. I was planning on quitting. I knew I had to. I didn't want to admit that might have been part of the problem. The stress levels I was suffering from were not helped by coming off the pill. My hormones flew around and around like an aircraft circling an airport. My moods are swooping and swirling like a bird. Even I noticed it. The dream that this month we had done it, only for total emotional failure. It was my mom that suggested quitting work and staying at home. Life calmed down. I could suddenly breathe a little easier. I was not rushing out of the house at seven in the morning, spending an hour driving to the office. It certainly helped. I was also not getting home at 630 at night.
It was easier to stop work than smoking. I almost danced after handing in my notice. Even though I had to show effort to quit, telling them I was busily trying showing off the patches on my arm when we decided to go down the IVF route. I honestly did cut down a bit. What helped was that being out of the office, there was now calm in my life. The stress of the office work vanished. I was not being as highly strung. There was no pressure on reports or meetings. Nothing.
However, what didn't help the body clock situation was that for several years, including the first four or five years of our marriage, I was dead against having any children. I just did not want to be a mom. No, it was not for me. The idea scared me. We didn't like to announce it, but I was on the pill, and we were wearing condoms. There was not a chance in hell of me getting pregnant. The idea of being a mom truly scared me. I wasn't ready.
I liked having our expensive holidays together. Getting in or even out of my bikini spreading my arms and legs out on a stunning white sand beach taking in the sun, sea, and plenty of sex for two weeks every year. There is nothing like post coital sand in the butt crack. I liked that at home at the weekends could fuck at two on a Saturday afternoon and not give a care in the world that we were both sprawled out naked on the lounge sofa. I could reach across and swiftly light a cigarette afterwards and spread my legs, grin at John and be dripping our combined juices all over the couch.
That was an amazing time for me. Life was reckless and for me, fun. I then all of a sudden without really noticing, I turned thirty-one. Almost overnight I was now very much on the wrong side of thirty. Forty was on the next horizon. However much I willed it, I was no longer in my twenties. I was truly in my thirties. I was now looking towards a fat, frumpy middle aged forty with fear. It was also around then that I got a tinnitus type thing. I could now hear the ever louder ticking noise surrounding me. It was from my own personal body clock. I was married, I had a well-paid job, and a large house. Life was amazing. But mother nature was banging her drum.
For all the trying and stress it created, relief finally washed over me to a certain extent. It was the day that we were due our first meeting with the IVF doctor. Mother nature had worked. I had almost violently threatened my ovaries and his sperm with a test tube, and they had responded. We just had a scan rather than treatment. My second was so much easier. We didn't plan her, but the postpartum sex was fun even if I felt fat and grumpy. She was a delightful surprise.
I have separated my children into different rooms, they are like two scrumming rugby players but each now with their own expensive tablet. It scares me every time they get their mitts on them. Just how long before it gets thrown at the wall in a fit of rage because the operator made an error and blames it on the computer. Peace and quiet is the aim for all. Silence fell, this meant they were now quiet playing games or probably watching awful YouTube videos. As a rule, I had fifteen minutes now before they would start fighting again. Yes, bad mom. They should be doing arts and crafts or playing board games. Promoting their dexterity and STEM or other such bullshit. But the stealing pen game brought that to a halt. Screen time was a win. Quiet was very much a win for me. I like winning. I always have.
It was then time to face my husband. I took a deep breath outside the nursery cum office door. He has accepted that I smoke, as I always have. But I know that he is never happy with it. That's why since we had children I have been standing outside. Or inside in the garage, to stay dry and warm or at the point of last resort on the back door with at least the door open. I never smoke in the house when they are awake. Once they are asleep it's my time. They don't need to know.
