Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ONE MONTH LATER
Sadie
T wo awesome things happened today.
Number one, Peter got sentenced to six years in prison for his part in my attack, and for draining my accounts to feed his gambling habit. Allison called me and gave me the good news, and I can’t say I’m not thrilled to bits that he’s finally having to deal with the consequences of his actions. She told me he cried and spluttered and pleaded with the judge to give him a mulligan on the basis of his ‘otherwise unblemished record’ and his ‘standing in the community’, but none was forthcoming.
And second of all, I had my six weeks postpartum check-up with my doctor, and I’m good to go. Hot to trot. Back in action. Able to get back on the horse and ride Leo into the sunset.
And now that I can , I’m starting to feel tightly nervous about it. It’s ridiculous; I’ve been looking forward to sex being doable again, and now it is, I’m hesitant. And not because I don’t want to get pregnant again - we can take steps to prevent that, as, while I love being Rhiannon’s mummy, I want a good long break before I think about a second baby - but because my body looks nothing like it used to.
I’ve always had the safety net of being objectively hot, according to society’s standards. Perky boobs, nice butt, flat stomach, toned legs. But I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, and I’m covered in tiger stripes, my belly is still a bit jellyish, my butt is enormous, my boobs are covered with yet more stretch marks and blue veins, and aren’t as buoyant as they were, and my nipples look furious with life.
I’m well aware that Leo loves me for me , not for how I look.
But my sense of myself and my own sexuality is all off, and I don’t know if I want him to see me like this, all…deflated, both inside and outside.
When I told Leo that we were good to go tonight, he was so thrilled that he booked us a nice meal at the Red Lion to celebrate, elated by both Peter’s incarceration and my official green light from my GP, and I can’t bear to burst his bubble.
Fuck me, though, I can’t find a damn thing in my wardrobe that’s flattering in any way, shape, or form. I don’t want to wear my old maternity clothes, even though they’re more comfortable right now and hide a multitude of wobbles, but at the same time, my pre-baby clothes still don’t fit right. They emphasise all the areas that are recovering from creating a human, all the lumps and bumps and padded areas.
I’m eating sensibly, I’m making sure I do some yoga poses every day, and I am enough of a militant feminist to be furious with myself for this insecurity when I should be thanking my body for housing my beloved daughter safely for nine months. And, obviously, giving a massive two finger salute to society at large and anyone who thinks pregnant people should snap back to their pre-baby body as fast as possible.
But you try having a husband as gorgeous and lusted after as Leo and see if you can shrug off the jelly belly and scarred skin.
Leo
Something’s not right with my wife.
Sades is picking at her dinner opposite me, listlessly moving it around her plate with her fork more than she’s eating it, and she keeps chewing her lip and tugging on the hem of her loose black t-shirt dress and her flower printed scarf.
It’s the first time we’ve left Rhiannon to go out; Cathy was delighted to be asked to babysit, and we know she’s in safe hands. But my ever-sharp intuition is telling me it’s more than that.
She just…doesn’t seem like herself. She’s distracted and quiet and frowny.
“Would you like to order something different?” I offer.
Her lips bunch in a guilty moue. “No, it’s great. I’m sorry, I just…” She sighs. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Oh, hell no.
I refuse to just sit here while she’s so clearly depressed about something. The words ‘postpartum depression’ flicker through my mind; I’ve been carefully watching her for signs of it, and I thought she was doing well, but I guess it can just happen.
If she’s got it, I will not rest until she’s had all the help and treatment and support she needs to get past it.
So I drop my fork and move to the seat next to her in the booth. “Talk to me.” She turns her head towards me, but doesn’t meet my eye. “You missing Rhiannon? We can take the leftovers and go home if you want?”
There’s a long silence. “It’s not that. I mean, yes, I can’t stop looking at my phone, and I can’t believe how weird it feels not being with her, but…” She stares up at the ceiling, and she looks for all the world like she’s trying not to cry.
“Need to do the back to back thing again?” I ask, remembering that time when we sat that way on Lucinda and Angus’s bench not long after our first kiss.
To my surprise, she turns, looking away from me. I follow suit. Anything my wife needs to be able to say stuff out loud is all good with me.
“It’s about the whole…naked bedtime shenanigans thing.”
Oh. Oh. I wasn’t expecting that.
“There’s zero rush,” I hurry to reassure her, and she slaps my hand.
“Stop fucking interrupting me,” she says, and I can hear a smile in her voice. It gives me a sense of deep relief.
“Even when it’s common sense halting your crazies?”
A tiny gasp. “Wow, you really do remember everything, huh?”
“About you? Absolutely. Loving you the way I do, it’s kind of a reflex to remember everything about you by now.”
“I know.” I feel her relax against me, almost all of her tension gone. “I’m being so stupid.”
“Are you worried it’ll hurt?” I try to put myself in her place. Forcing a kid out of your most delicate area, even the most beautiful little sweetheart in the world, must have felt…god, I don’t have the words to express how sore she must have been. And maybe she still is. Add to that the fact that I’m not a small man, and the activity has the potential to put her right back in that birthing centre bed, biting her lip and giving it hell… Yeah, I’m not arrogant enough to believe it’d be the most appealing prospect.
“No, not really.” She sighs. “I’m worried you’ll think I’m gross.”
… Wh…
No. No way. I misheard her. Maybe she said I’m worried you’ll think I’m Colin Jost , or possibly I’m worried you’ll think I’m really a few goats . I mean, they are both pretty goddamn abstract, but they still make more sense than the thing she definitely can’t possibly have said.
“Leo?” She shifts uncomfortably behind me. “Say something, dickface.”
I clear my throat. “I…sorry, what did you say?”
“I mean, think about it. Yeah, you’ve seen me full blown preggers, but before that, I was… lithe . And hot . And the only marks I had were the tattoos I chose. Now…” Her voice sounds a bit croaky. “I’m saggy. And covered in stretch marks. And my boobs look like they’ve been tenderised with one of those little meat hammers. And it’s… It’s hard to put this body out there, because it’s not…it’s just not - ”
I’ve had enough of this.
I stand and take her hand, tugging on it. Thank fuck I started a tab behind the bar; they have my card, they can charge me whatever.
“Hey,” she protests as I pull her away from the table and towards the door.
“Andre,” I call to the bartender on duty tonight, “use my card to pay for what we had. I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Or the next day.”
I hear him snort with laughter as he mutters, “Leo gonna get some…”
“Dude, what the fuck?!” Sadie sounds like a perfect mix of stunned, puzzled, and pissed. Makes two of us, woman, I think darkly. She keeps asking me what the fuck I think I’m doing and where the bloody hell I’m taking her, but I don’t say a word as I stride straight to Wishbone, not slowing my pace for her at all.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so furious in my life.
I hold onto her hand as I jab the key in the lock and pull her inside, still holding it as I lock the door behind us, still holding it as I pull her up the spiral staircase to the studio apartment neither of us have been near in months.
“Leo,” she snaps, chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath, “ what are you - ”
“My turn,” I interrupt, my voice louder than hers. “Dude. What the fuck?!”
She blinks, surprised.
“Do you seriously think , even in the deepest depths of your worst thoughts, that I think you’re anything except ridiculously, unfairly beautiful? Not just pretty, though you’re obviously that, too, but beautiful ? MOTHERFUCKETY WHAT?!” Her eyes twinkle a little when I use one of her favourite exclamations to make my point, and I’m not sure if it’s more mirth or more tearfulness.
But the tirade is in full flow, the lion is loose, and I am on a fucking roll.
“What was that bullshit you were spouting? ‘Saggy’? ‘Stretch marks’?”
“It’s not bullshit,” she bites out, throwing her dress off, revealing black lace tights, long black shaper pants, and a black satiny maternity bra. “Look at me. Seriously, with your rose tinted everything-is-great Leo glasses off, and look at me, dickface . ”
“What do you think I fucking do every single day?! I burst out, and she shuts up. “I stare at you, several times, twenty four seven, and think, holy freaking shit , how did I get so lucky?! How is my wife so stupidly gorgeous just brushing her teeth?! And I’ll be watching you be our daughter’s mother, and seriously, you’re doing a great job, by the way, and when I’m watching you, I’m simultaneously getting painfully hard at how much of a damn MILF you are, and counting the motherfucking days until I can get inside you again.” I pull on my hair in frustration. “Christ alive, woman…” I walk towards her, backing her up against the wall and grabbing her hand again. Her eyes fly really wide open as I press it against my crotch, which, surprise surprise , is like concrete for the woman I love more than my own life. “This is what you do to me, then, now, and always, whether you’re pristine or covered with the roadmap of your life, the marks that show you’ve lived ,” I say to her, slowly and clearly. “I fucking want you, and I’ve got the blue balls of a teenage virgin reading his dad’s Playboys . But if you’re not ready, say no more, it’s one hundred percent OK, I’ll jerk myself off in the shower like I’ve done every single day for the past six weeks. But for fuck’s sake , don’t say no because you think I don’t like your body just as it is now. Just as it was then, and whatever it wants to become.” I drop to my knees, relishing the way she clutches my hair as a sign she believes I’m telling the truth, and pull the knickers that are holding her post-baby belly in until the stretch marks she so reviles are revealed to me.
How can anyone anywhere think these are ugly? I kiss one. Then another. Then another. “This is where you kept my daughter safe and sound for nine months. And if you think I care that the process left marks behind, or that I don’t freakin’ cherish what they symbolise, then you are the dickface here.”
I look her dead in the eye, and my heart pulls as I see the tears pouring down her face. “I will lay you down on that bed and go no further than kissing every mark, every lump and bump, and consider it my life’s big privilege. Or, I’ll throw you down on there and fuck you to kingdom come. But either way, I love you a genuinely insane amount. And I will not have you talking shit about my wife, or acting like she’s not sex on legs at any shape or size.”
I grunt a little as she tugs me up by my hair roots, and I can taste her tears as she yanks me to her for a hard, furious kiss. I groan, mostly because I can’t help it, but also to make it even clearer to her that I am fucking into this .
My shirt is suddenly stifling, and it’s like she reads my mind because she rips it open, scattering buttons everywhere and sending them clacking to the floor. I pull her closer, but her bra, her tights, her fucking Spanx, they’re in the way. I can’t feel her skin against mine, and abruptly, I find that fact intolerable.
“Fucking hell , woman,” I say against her lips as I pull them off, tearing the lace of her hosiery, “can’t you see…you make me weak at the knees .”
“Shut up and do me,” she snarls, and there. There she is. My fierce Boudicca, radiating the same power that made me fall for her damn near instantly.
“You got it,” I snarl back, and shove her back on the bed, making her squeal in surprise. As I look down at her body, so abundantly curvy and full of life, my dick surges so hard that I don’t think I’d need more than a couple of jerks to release all over her. Less than a couple if it was her hand instead of mine doing the stroking.
“Get naked,” she orders me, “unless you’re all talk?” She gives me a challenging look.
“Will you stop fucking talking like that,” I growl, obeying her as quickly as I can and then pouncing on top of her, grabbing her jaw. “You. Are. Mine .” I kiss her brutally, wanting to steal her breath, wanting to bruise her lips with my own.
She clings to me, whimpering happily and rubbing her wet core against my poor, barely-hanging-on-as-it-is cock. “Yours,” she agrees, the word muffled against my mouth.
Baseball… That time I had strepthroat… Click taking a dump when I take him for a walk… The payroll spreadsheets… All the killers in every shitty horror film she’s ever made me sit through…
When I’m sure I’m back under control enough not to embarrass myself and put a premature end to this amazing date night, I roll us over so she’s on top. The longer she straddles me, the more her self-assuredness grows until she’s meeting my eye with the same smart-ass confidence she used to have.
“You know what to do,” I whisper, willing her to read my mind and do exactly what I’m thinking. The reverse coital alignment technique is one of her preferred positions, on top of me, our legs parallel, grinding away until she peaks. It has never yet failed to get her off, and I usually follow quickly behind because penetration this way is snug .
She smirks, teasing me at first by notching me just at her entrance, just the first inch, circling her hips and making me frantic , until she slams down mercilessly. I shout, and she groans, and we slam together over and over. But just a second before my balls tighten to the point of no return, she stops. Her hips are still, and I shudder under her, crazy with need for the friction again, but she runs her fingers gently over my face, soothing me. “Shhhh,” she whispers, soft as candy floss, before straightening out her legs like I wanted her to, keeping me inside her. It makes me breathless, dizzy, as she writhes on top of me, and I slap her ass repeatedly until she’s crying out as well.
She circles her hips over and over, and when we come together, it’s so hard and so brutal , almost, that my fingers dig into her and hers into me as we clutch each other for dear life while we ride it out. My head is spinning pleasantly, my temples are pounding painlessly, and I’m seeing spots, and I’m so fucking happy and satisfied that I start chuckling.
“Wow,” she says, lifting off me and settling at my side, her chin resting on my pec. “I missed that.”
I take her hand and cover her fingers with kisses. “Me too.” I brush a lock of hair out of her face, enjoying how flushed and sparky she is in the aftermath. “How did it feel? Are you doing OK?” I’m assuming so, given that I deliberately let her set the pace once I was inside her.
“Yeah, it was…reassuringly the same.” She grins. “And I’m sore in a good way, not a need-more-stitches way.”
We lie there together, catching our breath, soft touches and affectionate caresses keeping us in our bubble of intimacy for long moments.
“Not to be that person,” I begin once we’ve fully relaxed again, “but I’m starting to miss my other favourite girl.”
“Ditto,” she says instantly, and we beam at each other at the prospect of taking our baby daughter home and rocking her to sleep.
As she puts her clothes back on, her just-fucked hair looking as sexy as hell, she grins and points at the night stand. “I remember one time when I stayed here overnight, back in the day. I saw an empty condom wrapper, and it made me laugh.”
One side of my mouth pulls up in a grin. “Back in my man slut days, while you were keeping me waiting.”
“Now you’re my man slut,” she says, walking towards me and reaching around to pinch my butt.”
“Fuck, yes, I am,” I agree.
I was then.
I am now.
And that’s exactly what I always will be.
Hers .