Chloe
I awoke in the master bedroom as the grey drizzling morning light crept through the blinds.
It was a gentle rain that made the morning atmosphere feel relaxed and the light drowsy.
I ached. But it was that good kind of ache. An ache that, once I curled and stretched like a cat, spread through my entire body. Muscles ached in my belly and thighs, and I was wholesale satisfied.
Behold the field wherein I grow my fucks, and see that it is barren.
I reached over to find cold sheets on his side of the bed.
Barren indeed.
I realized his robe, the robe I had come to bed in, was gone. In the night, I was vaguely aware of shrugging out of it, pressing my flesh to his, feeling his breathing in the night.
Now, alone in a cold bed, I felt the growl in my belly rumble up within me.
How dare he not be here!?
I smelled coffee. Then, bacon. Then...
Oh, he wasn't---
I slid off the bed, going to the closet to find a warm sweatshirt that smelled like fresh laundry and vaguely of his aftershave lotion. The sleeves were too long, but the aromas of him had me swaying dreamy-eyed a moment before heading to my room to find a fresh pair of underwear.
I could hear him doing his best to maneuver downstairs quietly. The smell was unmistakable.
"Mmm," I growled. "Pancakes."
Fan-fucking-tabulous!
A thought drew me back to my bookbag. I dug in a pocket for the little round pill case. I popped out my daily pill and palmed it, dancing out the door and down the stairs.
Cy
I'm going to hell.
I flipped the sixth pancake over on the griddle, wondering which of the nine circles of Dante's Inferno God would throw me.
The second level was for "Lust."
An unceasing wind blowing the spirits of the horny and damned asunder, so fierce that they could scarcely touch, let alone grip and grind and grope. Cleopatra and Helen of Troy were supposedly there, never getting the nookie they so desperately craved.
Then there was level nine: Betrayers of all decency--corruptors of the pure. A frozen waste where a three-headed dragon devoured Judases and Benedict Arnolds and then vomited them up again after gnawing their bones only to re-eat them once they regenerated. Basically, Washington D.C. in an election year.
Dear God, what have I done?
The images of her alabaster legs wrapped around me. The sound of her moaning beneath me, her breath rushing out as I thrust into her. My cum pumping into her as our hands clasp together at the edge of the mattress.
And then afterward, her sleeping eyelids and angelic mouth as she nestled into me.
I hadn't done this. I couldn't have done this.
"Morning."
I turned to find her in one of my Army sweatshirts. The panties were black and lacy at the edge, riding up high on her hips, making me hunger with gluttony and crave with greed.
She went to the cupboard and took down a glass, running some cold water from the tap and taking a pill to show it held between her teeth.
I realized she was making a show of taking her birth control and scowled at her as she laughed. She downed the pill with a hearty sip from the glass.
"Didn't you pack pants?" I asked.
"I am an emancipated woman," she said. "Deal with it." She eyed my pajama bottoms, t-shirt, and my open robe. She cocked her head, reading my t-shirt. "Who or what are Butthole Surfers?"
"A 90s band," I said. "They were all in love with dyin'; they were drinking from a fountain that was pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain."
She found my phone and opened my Spotify. As she began searching, I shook my head at what was apparently becoming a game between us. "That song is called Pepper, by the way."
She hit play, and the song began. She nodded her head a moment, along with the opening baseline.
"Groovy," she said.
"We didn't say 'Groovy' in 1996," I said. "That started in '97 with the Austin Powers craze. And it was said with ironic ennui by anyone over 20."
"Thank you, Gen X," she said, grabbing a slice of bacon. You could have nudged me," she said. "I could have squeezed orange juice or brewed the coffee or--
Chloe
Blown you.
"--been otherwise useful," I said.
I sat at the kitchen table, crossing my bare legs and picking up the still folded morning paper.
"What were the terms you used?" I asked. "Cool? Radical? Gnarly?"
"I remember vaguely saying something was 'bad' when it was actually 'good.' Still scrambled?" he asked.
"Over-easy," I said.
He turned. "Since when?"
"Emancipated," I shrugged. "I don't have to tell you everything that's changed in my life since I went off to college, do I?"
He shook his head, turning back to the stove and cracking two fresh eggs with one hand.
With his back to me, I could watch him clandestinely as he tended the eggs, flipped the pancakes, and blotted the bacon. He poured a cup of coffee and went to the fridge, holding up the milk in a silent question.
I nodded.
He brought the coffee and milk over to the table and poured them as I looked up at him, his eyes refusing to meet mine. He left the milk bottle on the table before returning to take the last pancake off the griddle before it burned and flipped my eggs over.
I plucked a packet of Splenda from the table and made a show of flicking it, so the granules of sweetener accumulated at the bottom, and I tore it open and added it to my coffee.
"You don't do iced macchiatos?"
"Unlike most of the guys in your dating pool, I was in the Army and then in construction as I worked my way through college. Barista skills didn't come into play."
"You never talked about the Army," I said. "Where did you serve?"
"I was an M.P.," he said. "Fort Collins, Colorado. Northern Ireland. Then a year in Chad."
"Oh, you experimented in the army?"
"It's a country in Africa, smart-aleck."
Cy
Now, if you were to ask me four years ago how to pull off a post-coital pancake breakfast that won you five stars as both a husband and a father, I'd tell you this:
Divide the batter into two bowls. Crumble bacon into one bowl of batter. Chop bananas and sprinkle chocolate chips into the other bowl.
Your lover gets bacon. Her kid gets chocolate chips and bananas.
This particular Saturday morning, I had started with two separate bowls of pancake batter.
After my second cup of French roast, I realized my dilemma.
What if the woman... is also the kid, Cy?
"Ever kill anyone?"
I scowled at her.
"Sorry," she said. "Sorry. Probably not something you would want to talk about over breakfast if you had, huh?"
"No," I said. "I never did. As an M.P., my job was keeping soldiers from getting drunk and acting up on base. Any conflict I saw was on CNN or during a traffic stop."
She nodded. "Boring, huh?"
"That's why I never talk about it. I was shot, though."
Her eyes widened. "Really? Where?"
"Northern Ireland," I said.
"Har har. I mean, do you have a scar?"
"Not at breakfast," I said.
She pouted, stomping her feet.
"Don't do that, please!"
"I'll stop if you show me."
I turned, lifting my shirt and pulling down my PJ-bottoms to show a scar on my hip.
"Who shot you?"