I could hear my daughter charging up the stairs. That was not unusual, she charged almost everywhere. She had been out late the night before, her eighteenth birthday, with friends and had been downstairs chatting with Ryan, her father and my husband, while he prepared omelets for breakfast. Ryan, who was used to our daughter's seemingly inexplicable impulses, was not surprised when she bolted from the kitchen when he mentioned that I was upstairs breaking down the beds.
My daughter was on the stairs when I pulled the sheets from her bed and out popped a small white vibrator. My first thought was that it looked like mine; my second thought -- it took a moment to sink in -- was that it was mine. That's when Katie plowed into the room and saw me staring at it.
She's a bright girl. She instantly understood the situation. She gave me her biggest widest smile, the one that says, "Just me being me," which almost always works. In a lilting, questioning tone, she said, "I guess I'm busted."
Just then my husband called from downstairs, "Breakfast is ready."
I handed Katie the sheets, "Put these in the washer. You and I will have a conversation later." I returned the vibrator to my bedroom and headed downstairs.
Katie was sheepish at breakfast and, in an obvious play to my goodwill, volunteered to help me clean the house. It was while she and I were upstairs making beds that I had the chance to ask: "How long has this been going on?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yes."
"About six weeks. I heard you using it when Dad was in San Francisco. You seemed to be enjoying yourself a lot more than I do when I use my fingers. So the next day I borrowed it when I got home from school. It was a heck of a lot better than my fingers; it was better than the clumsy high school boys. I figured after the party last night I'd be plenty horny, so I borrowed it yesterday afternoon. I figured with Dad in town you wouldn't notice."
My anger over her using my vibrator was temporarily superceded by my anger over her listening to me masturbate.
"Katie, you shouldn't be spying on me!"
She looked genuinely hurt.
"Mom, it's not fair to blame me for that. It was the night Dad was out of town and you and I watched a movie. I was falling asleep on the couch so you put a blanket over me, kissed me goodnight, and went upstairs. I'm not sure how long I was asleep, but when I woke up you were at the bottom of the stairs and talking to Dad with that thing was between your legs. I couldn't hear what you guys were saying, but it didn't take a lot of imagination. What was I supposed to do? Say excuse me and leave?"
I remembered the evening. I had gone upstairs to masturbate, but missed my husband. I went back downstairs to fetch the phone and called Ryan. He was as randy as I was. We immediately started describing what we'd do to each other when he got back and, impatient, I stopped on the stairs. I knew my daughter was in the next room, but figured she was asleep.
My face turned bright red. "No, you did the right thing. My bad."
"Well Mom, you seemed to enjoy it so much I decided to borrow it. The damn thing is addicting." It was then that Katie noticed my flushed face. "Don't get all discombobulated Mom. You two are cool."
"I didn't think parents could be cool."
"Well, cool for parents. You and Dad are so much in love. Most of my friends' parents barely acknowledge each other's existence, you and Dad still light up when the other enters the room. Living in the same house with the two of you its kinda hard not to notice you can't keep your hands off each other. Like I said, it's kinda cool."
"Well, good. Now I'll be completely self-conscious."
* * * *
I was twenty-one when I met my husband at Georgia Tech's campus bookstore. I was about to graduate; he was an assistant professor in the metallurgy department. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was seeing an assortment of party guys. The kind of guys who'd take me out dancing to the break of dawn and screw me in the parking lot as the sun came up. Ryan came across as studious, thoughtful, stable, and a bit nerdy. He seemed like a nice balance. I gave him my phone number.
Two hours later my phone rang.
"Lois, I figured this was the shortest socially acceptable amount of time I could wait before calling." He wasn't playing hard to get.
He asked me to lunch. Then he asked me to lunch again. After awhile he got a Tuesday night spot. Then, even, a regular weekend date. My girlfriends were a bit confused; he was neither hunk nor party animal and, by our standards, he was old. I made some facile excuses - he made enough money to treat a girl right - but the fact was that he was growing on me.
Part of it was that he treated me so well. My good time Charlie's might cancel a date at the last minute, show up two hours late, or start flirting with the nearest blonde when I was in the bathroom. Ryan opened doors for me, pulled out my chair, and showed up with flowers instead of cheap wine to see how fast he could get me drunk. Part of it was that he didn't compete. None of the other guys wanted to be my steady, but they all wanted to out do each other. They wanted to hear they were the best looking or best dancer or most fun or best fuck. He didn't. He never asked about the other guys. Years later I asked him about it.
"Babe," he told me, "I couldn't compete with those guys' looks and I didn't want to compete with them playing the bad boy. All I could be was the best me. And I had this weird sort of belief that if I was, it would all work out."
And part of it was that he adored me. Girls like to be adored.
He was the obvious candidate to go to my graduation and meet the parents. At dinner he was deferential and charming. My mother developed an instant crush on him. Afterwards he walked me back to my place and gave me my graduation gift. I was stunned. It was a beautiful antique broach, inlaid with pearl.
"My god, it's lovely. Where did you get it?"
"You don't remember?"
"No."
"You and I were at an antique shop in Chamblee about two months ago. It was in the display case. You raved about it. When we stopped at Mona's," my favorite Lebanese restaurant, "on the way home I excused myself, called the shop, and asked the owner to set it aside. I came back the following day and bought it."
That night I did something I'd had thought impossible when he and I had chatted at the bookstore months earlier. I invited him into my bedroom and we became lovers. And, it turned out, he was fucking fantastic. He started with a long back and front rub that had me dripping wet. He made patient, expert, love to my breasts with his tongue and lips while using his fingers to bring me off. He held me through that orgasm, ran his fingers over my body until I was ready to go again, and then used his mouth until, rutting in need, I came all over his face. After I recovered from that he sucked each of my toes before kissing and licking up my body. When he reached my face his lips toyed with mine, the passion building, and then in the midst of a mind-bending, deeply sensual sexy loving kiss, he entered me.
Somehow, I didn't expect him to be as big as he was. His was not the largest I'd known, but it was healthy. At first he just let it sit inside me, occasionally jerking it with his muscles while kissing my face, breasts, mouth, ears, nose, and neck until, despite the late hour and the bevy of orgasms I'd already experienced, I craved his cock. He seemed to know when I was ready and began to fuck me, slow and steady. Soon I was digging my fingernails in his back, moaning, loving the feel of his lean body on mine, his chest against my swollen breasts.