I don’t know how to be happy.

I blinked in the sunlight that streamed through my windows and stretched like the cat who lay on my pillow purring like a crazed motorboat.  He’ll be here soon, I thought, and as if on cue, I heard the front door open and close and the cat tore off to greet our visitor.

“Good morning, TN!” I called.

“Good morning, Hyacinth!” he called back.

I fixed  my eyes on the doorway and let him fill my view as he sauntered in, sheet marks pressed into his skin and his eyes puffy, but his cock enormous and jutting out against his shiny black basketball shorts.

I giggled at the image of his exhaustion mingled with a giant erection.

He walked up to the side of the bed and pulled himself free of his shorts, his taut, pink skin a slightly curved appendage for my viewing pleasure.

I wrapped my hand around it.  “Mmm,” I said and stood up.  “I have to pee.  I’ll be right back!”

When I came back out he pushed me roughly down onto the bed and licked his hand.  “I doubt I needed to do this.  Hmm, let’s see.  Could Hyacinth be wet already?”

“It’s possible,” I answered looking up at him.  “You wake up with that monster between your legs everyday.  I happen to wake up wet everyday.”  He pushed at my opening and sure enough he slid right in.

We moved together in the sunlight, carefully avoiding each other’s morning breath and hugged and humped and clutched and climaxed.  He pinned my legs onto his shoulders and moved until I was begging him to stop and then with a puffy-eyed grin kept going.

We were done relatively quickly, it being the morning and all.  He gently removed himself from me and lay beside me.  “Hang on,” I said and rolled over and grabbed my phone, something I’d done alone for so long.

I began taking pictures of us freshly post-coital.  It felt intimate and odd, like a salty candy that gives you two flavors at once.

He left shortly after to go to work and I smiled, stupidly happy.

And then I realized how uncomfortable I am with happiness and how I am doing my best to destroy what little peace I’ve finally managed to accomplish with him: I suggested that he fuck other women. 

The night I came up with this grand plan I had just met his parents.  Over the course of roughly 4 and a half hours I’d had a glass of white wine while getting dressed, a glass of Prosecco before dinner, and a glass of Rosé with my scallops, but when I’d suggested it to him he seriously wondered if I were drunk.

“I trust you, TN, I really do.  And I’m proud of you and I think you’re amazing in bed.  I want you to be able to go out and have fun.”

He just looked at me, dumbfounded as I blithely continued.  “No, really.  I’m so happy with you, I want you to be happy, too.”

“Ok…” he said, incredulous.  “But why the change of heart?  You’ve never felt this way before.”

“It’s because you told me you loved me and I feel safe with you, content.  I really feel like I could handle it.”

I’d dozed off then on his warm, furry chest and forgotten all about it.  But he hadn’t.

The following day he brought it up again.  “So, what you said the other night.  Do you still mean it?  Or were you just drunk?”

It all came rushing back to me: the warm glow of acceptance, the sense of safety, this ridiculous drive to prove I were invincibly in love with him.  What.the.fuck.  But I was too embarrassed to back out.  “No, really, I do,” I replied and then began that weird dance that people in open relationships do wherein they try to think of every possible thing they can’t handle: no two dates with the same woman, no threesomes without me, no lies, everything has to be transparent to me.  Then, of course I asked if he’d care if I slept around.

He was thoughtful, then said he’d be ok with me and another couple, but not with another man.  I told him I couldn’t imagine fucking another man anyway, I already had my unicorn firmly in my grasp.  He’d smiled at that and then I felt a twinge of something, like a tiny splinter: why would he want to fuck another woman? aren’t I good enough? the best?  And that’s when I knew I was full of shit and actively trying to sabotage my own happiness.

The next night, after the sweet, yet brief morning love session, I came to him with hat in hand, sheepish and utterly embarrassed.  “You’re right, TN.  I can’t handle it.  I think I’m just really uncomfortable with how happy I am.  I mean, look, we’ve only been this kind of happy for 3 months and I’m already looking to inject it with chaos.”

He pulled me into his nook and stroked my arm.  “I thought so,” he said.  “Besides, I’m not a player.  I’m really not that interested in opening this up.”

I’m almost 40 years old and this is a humiliating moment for me.  I left a marriage that was safe, yet passionless, and embarked on a wild year or two of no safety whatsoever, but chocked full of passion.  I manage to cultivate a passionate — and safe — relationship and the first thing I try to do is dismantle it.

After everything we’ve been through — 4 am girl, my secret sex blog, his resistance, my anger — we’ve made it.  He wants me and my entire life and I am inexplicably uncomfortable with his unconditional regard despite my longing for just this very thing.  I am a stupid bastard.

So for now we have agreed to just be happy with each other and I’ve vowed to immerse myself in this new sensation called happiness.  It’s strange and terrifying, but I happen to like salty candy so I’m going to keep chewing.

I’ve blown my wad. I’m totally exposed.

Metaphorically speaking I’m covered in jizz.  I’ve exposed my heart and pushed the game into sudden-death overtime.  Or at least that’s what it feels like.

When I told him I loved him after Christmas last year I shared it in that selfish way the guilty do when they confess: it was eating me up inside to not tell him.  What if something happened to one of us and I’d never let those words fall on his ears?  I couldn’t live with myself.  I can keep a [very] modestly popular blog about our sex life secret, but not my feelings.  Even I have my limits.

What I didn’t expect, truly, was how it would catapult us into a different relationship, a new color.  We are openly loving and growing more so every day.  My thinking is different somehow, softer.   But he knew, which is why he deliberately kept his feelings from me.

When I pressed him for answers — incredulous that he had known since the moment I broke up with him days before our awful 4 am girl debacle that he was in love with me — about how he could live with himself if something had happened to me and I’d  died without truly knowing his feelings he’d said he would have hated himself, yes, but he’d have lived.

The literalness of his thinking knows no bounds, Internet Boyfriend.  Of course he’d have survived, but would there have been regret?  The answer, thankfully, was yes.

So imagine my surprise to be on this fast track to full-blooded relationship just because we’ve admitted our love to one another.  I thought his reluctance would pretty much keep us in a holding pattern forever and while it’s definitely still there, it’s also vastly reduced to the point which I am wondering if this is all a good idea, is it really sustainable?  Are we real if he’s not resisting?

My move away will be the test.  We will have to make an effort to see one another, overnights will become a necessity not a treat, he will have to be flexible when now he’s as stiff as a board.  Will we manage it?

I want to say yes because we love each other, but I know better than most that love doesn’t conquer all.  Granted, The Neighbor and I seem to have a pretty solid base, but there’s still things I worry about: his lack of friends or desire for them, his reclusiveness, the fact that he’d have been “ok” letting me die having never known he loved me.  What the ever loving fuck.

And this is all related to having had a sexless marriage.  He’s similar to my exhusband in all the ways I just listed.  Apparently, I have a “type.”  The definition of a sexless marriage is generally agreed upon by experts to be having sex 10 or less times in a year.  If I remember correctly, I managed to get my ex to fuck me roughly every 6 weeks.  Sometimes every 4, if I was lucky. For basically 6 years.

I never want that to happen to me again because it is a dark and ugly place to be and the closer I become to TN the more afraid I am of us morphing into something I don’t recognize like what happened to me before.  I made one bad decision after another when I met my ex 10 years ago.  Am I still making them?

I go through the list: TN and I match up in so many ways in which my exhusband and I didn’t.  He’s always kind to me, he accepts me the way I am, he appreciates my looks, my body, and my sex drive, and he’s not once been overwhelmed by my exuberance for life, friends, family and the world like my ex was continually.  He is, quite literally, the freshest breath of air I’ve had in years.

All this to say in a backwards, convoluted way: I feel loved, y’all.

Fucking loved and seen and wanted and loved again. I feel things with TN I’ve never felt before and I am like a heroine addict.  It must never end or I may die in an explosion of cocks and balls and salty tears on strange pillows.  I have never dared to love like this before and now I get to experience [an almost] constant fear of loss.  It’s not unlike being a parent and feeling instantly bereft at the thought of something happening to your baby, yet knowing you have utterly no control over their fate or yours.   I am an exposed nerve.

So, there you have it.  I’m covered in jizz.  I’m all over the place.  I’m filled to the brim with gooey love and terrified of a future that either mirrors what I left or one that doesn’t exist at all.

I wish I had a jizz picture for you.  That’d be so much better.

 

[Ed. Note: What’s really interesting about this post is that the “I’ve blown my wad” title was going to refer to me showing you my LOOSE Boobday picture two days earlier because I couldn’t wait to share it.  Funny how the brain works.]

 

Don’t envy me.

It’s boring to keep saying I have an amazing sex life.

But, I do.

I can’t help it.

I live next door to a young man who has grown exponentially in the almost two years we’ve been dancing inside of each other. He knows the switches to flip, the dials to turn, the words to seethe between gritted teeth.

He’s mastered contrition and acquiescence with a look and a softening of his bones and he’s become fluent in my language of sensitivity and large need.

I was asleep before he came along, walking through a dream. Now I am awake, the breeze slick on my eyeballs, the birds in my ears, the flowers tangled upon my face.

I cannot go back to less than this. I will die. Like I was dead before him.  A hull of a woman.

It scares me, this new Technicolor life I have with him. I don’t want it to go away.  And that in turn terrifies twice over.

Does this mean I make compromises I shouldn’t? That I roll when I should dig?

Should Love be a part of my vocabulary, fill the space around me with its sound and feel? I believe I feel it, but I never hear it.

Does my fear of loss keep me from asking for what I really want?

::

I cried to him the other night while faced with the terrible thought: him or my baby? Of course, there is no question, no hesitation, my baby would win. My child needs me to fight and advocate, to protect. The Neighbor has permission to be a part of our lives only, but he’s not in it. Not yet.

“You need to understand that Peyton is innocent, TN, and I do not appreciate the way you’ve been behaving around my baby the past couple of days.” The tears leaked down my cheeks as I said the sad words. “You will not be welcome here if you can’t be better. That child is everything, my number one priority, and it’s my job to keep it that way. Do you understand me?”

He looked at me silently over the chess board he’d set up for us, shocked.

“Anyone in my life would feel honored to read a bedtime story, but not you. You roll your eyes and run out of the house on an errand and an excuse.” I paused and put my head in my hands again, then lifted my tear-streaked face to his waiting one. “Please, please, tell me I have this all wrong and that you do care for Peyton, that you care for the little heart that’s in that body and that you don’t just ‘endure’ the child.”

As the words left my mouth he jumped to respond.

“God, no! No, not at all!! Hy, I’m so, so sorry if I’ve made you feel that way. I just didn’t want to be around anybody tonight. No one! I didn’t mean to roll my eyes when Peyton was talking to me. Please, you’ve got to understand I’m just in a really terrible mood!”  He sounded sincere.

“Then don’t come over here. Don’t do me any favors. If you’re in that bad of a mood to not see the perfection and love that’s in that little person, then stay away. You’re not welcome.” I said it gently, but with a mother’s righteousness.

He nodded that he understood and I cried some more as I remembered my own stepfather, the eye rolls, the impatience, his lies and deceit. And how little I felt, how useless and empty.

“Or maybe,” TN suggested quickly, “You’re dealing with someone with absolutely zero experience with kids.” He let that hang in the space between us.

“Is that the case?” I sniffled, hopeful. “Really??”

“Yes,” he said earnestly, almost panicked that I might not believe him. Then he seemed to have a sudden idea, that maybe this was going in the wrong direction.

“I like being around Peyton, Hy, but I don’t come over here to play with your kid, I come here to be with you. You know that, right? There’s a difference. ” As if to say, Don’t make this more than it is, Hy. We’re still just “having a good time together.” “But, I do enjoy Peyton’s company. It’s just hard for me sometimes.”

I nodded sadly, but I felt better  I get it.  Little kids are nose-picking, million-question-asking, innocent angels.  It’s a tough combination for the uninitiated. “I’ve never dated anyone while I had a kid before, TN. This is new to me. And you and I have,” I searched for the right words to convey “idiotic”, “an unconventional, non-traditional type of relationship. We’ve never discussed Peyton before in relation to our relationship before. We needed to talk about this.”

He agreed.

“I don’t know what Peyton see’s at my ex’s and with his girlfriend. Am I modeling the wrong kind of relationship by not having certain things??” Namely, the unspoken Love and commitment that TN and I never discuss. “Does it matter? Does our loving, positive, sweet relationship make up for what it’s not??” I let the questions hang and TN said he didn’t know either.

Then he said he was a little hurt that I didn’t seem to see any of his sweetness with my baby. He reminded me about how wonderful he has been over the last year he’s been in our lives. The long talks, the patient playing, the sweet hellos and goodbyes. And it’s all true. He’s always been good to my baby and Peyton loves TN like any little person can.  He’d only been noticeably cranky with my sweet one for two days.

I don’t know what kind of impact he’s having on Peyton in the bigger picture.  Peyton would surely notice an absence if we separated — like when the neighborhood stray cat finally disappears: Where’d Kitty go?  Hmm.  Ooh!  Look at that bug!  La dee da — but my baby would be ok.  It’s my job to ensure that people’s’ departures don’t cause the house to crumble, after all.

We smiled sweetly at each other from our chairs and I giggled my relief, happy we had survived this small tempest.  I felt closer to him.  And then I nearly beat him at chess, my first game ever.

::

Are moments like this a bigger deal than I make them out to be because I don’t want to know that TN, my sweet lover and love, really isn’t a good fit for my life with my baby? Do I make excuses for him?

My amazing sex life — and my easy heart — have me confused.

So, yes, I have a lot of great sex, but I also have a half-cocked heart and a muddled relationship. It’s not all roses for Hyacinth.

When you read about my hot encounters remember I never hear, “I love you, Hy.”  I don’t see love in his eyes, I don’t plan for our future together.  I don’t hold his hand and I don’t even know if I should invite him to my baby’s upcoming birthday party.

::

In the days that followed, it seemed that he made special efforts to connect with Peyton and with me.  My shaky worrying about the state of our affair abated.  Just a little.  I felt lighter, back floating on a little cloud of denial.  Or maybe it’s real happiness.  I honestly can’t tell.

Big, juicy cock, fingers in a cunt, eyes locked in lust, tears slipping into the shells of my ears, blooms of orgasms that opened my soul.  Just the usual bullshit in these parts.

“I’m happy to know you,” I said one night, curled in his nook, tears wet on my face, as my body fell back into place. It was my “I love you.”

He sighed into my hair, maybe he kissed my temple. “I’m happy to know you, too.”

Perhaps it was his “I love you, too.”  I don’t know, but the sex was good.

It’s always good.

I send love notes.

Love notes 1, 2, and 3.

“You look so hot right now,” he said looking down at me from between my calves.  “You’re like a little sex package.”

His cock, buried deep inside of me twitched and then he pushed in deeper.  I gasped and fluttered my eyes up at him.  “I feel more like a sex pretzel,” I replied and pushed back against him from my grip on the headboard.

I couldn’t move.  My ankles rested on his shoulders and his weight pinned my thighs to my breasts which tried to escape over my shoulders.  I was folded in swells of my own flesh and pinned by the muscular density of a man on top of me.

I was in heaven.

::

He came home a couple of hours early Sunday and surprised me by waltzing into my apartment unannounced.  My bed was stripped and under a pile of laundry.  I wasn’t prepared to see him, but my heart jumped when he filled the doorway.

I went to give him a hug, but he suddenly dropped to the floor, looking around under my bed.  “Where’s the kitten?” he asked.  I stood there with my mouth a little open.

My breasts were heavy and free under my white t-shirt and my little pajama shorts clung to my thighs, but there he was.  On the floor.  Looking for the kitten I’d gotten the day he’d left.  Never underestimate a man’s priorities and brain, I told myself.

Mirthful, I smiled.  “Hey!  Come give me a hug!”  There was a gentle reprimand in my voice  — you pay attention to the woman first, not the cat — and I still wobbled on the beam of our relationship happiness.

We hugged and caught up then, a little stilted at first.  He told me of his adventures and I of mine; he apologized for not being in touch, but he thought I knew he had no cell reception.  Quickly, I unzipped the stifling suit of resentment I’d been wearing, butt hurt at the lack of weekend communication, and stepped out into a light breeze of acceptance.  We lay on one another and laughed and touched and sniffed lightly, like two long-separated and friendly dogs now.

He left soon after, exhausted.  He thanked me for the cookies I’d left on his doorstep and gave me a kiss.

Late last night he returned, his hair rumpled from an early-evening nap.  My bed was made, the house spotless this time.  I was in bed watching Mad Men, Peyton slept soundly in the room across the hall, and a candle flickered messily in the corner.  The kitten purred and zipped around at his arrival like an ill-working moped.

The Neighbor is like a magic trick for my day.  He enters a room and my spirits lift, my heart pounds, the birds sing.  Even when I am confused or angry his presence tilts my view from the trash on the ground to the light filtering through the treetops.  Sometimes my fear of losing him and us closes in on me and I have to beat it off with a stick, other times I feel serene at the prospect of setting us both free.  But he was there in my room last night, determined to be with me despite his exhaustion and my heart swelled, and I didn’t think of anything except welcoming him in.

He walked around to his side of the bed and I went and tucked the kitten up under my arm and joined him in the bed.  The kitten, Faisal, was geeked up on the drug that is kittenhood and sped off.  TN took the lack of feline distraction as an opportunity to latch onto my breast with his face.

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I hadn’t been touched in 5 days.  I’d forgotten myself.  His absence was so gentle, so quiet.  My time was wholly my own and in my own presence, I forgot my own pleasure.  No child, no pseudo-boyfriend to keep me occupied.  I could have spent the entire weekend with my hand lashed to my cunt and the idea never crossed my mind.  Is Hyacinth horny when no man is around to fuck her?  What a thought…

I closed my eyes and reveled in the sandpaper scratch of his face on my skin and pressed into his mouth.  We tangled and grabbed, gripped and rubbed.  Faisal was taken to his room so there would be no stalking of swinging balls.

When TN slid into me I felt like I was myself again: Hyacinth, fuckable, sensuous, wanted, devoured.  When he is in me I feel like I am home.

His grunts were as loud as the squelching of my pussy, his words demanding and unapologetic.  He pinned me down and pounded into me and my g-spot blossomed big and hard and I concentrated on spiraling it out to my fingertips.

I panted and rolled my eyes into the back of my head and he sat up and folded my legs against my chest and pistoned into me like a jack hammer.  I cried out into my arm so as not to awaken my baby.

Soon, he stopped and drooped a little.  “I hurt everywhere!” he cried with a laugh and rolled off and took me with him into his arms.  His first attempt at snowboarding officially thwarted our usual sexual antics.

I smiled into his skin  and retrieved the kitten.  He purred and played with us until we settled down to watch Game of Thrones at which point he decided to attack a tinkling feather on the floor.

I felt two strong emotions laying there in his arms.  Never one to be truly content for long periods of time, my brow furrowed in the darkness as I tried to put my finger on it, this strange sense of unease.  Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I was wrapped in his arms and watching — we now suddenly realized — a Spanish version of episode 3 with Portuguese subtitles.  It was hilarious and conventional, all the puppies and rainbows any self-respecting unicorn could shat out.  But my nerves continued to be on edge, scratching at me.

I live in this space of uncertainty.  I realize I yearn for what’s on the other side, yet thrive in the workspace before it.  I constantly have to remind myself that nothing is in my control, I will survive heartache, -break, -demolition.  I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.

This is how I talk myself down from the ledge of permanence and of needing “answers.”  The “Do you love me?”s, “What are we doing?”s, and “Am I your girlfriend?”s.   I remind myself of my current happiness and how I am merely a sensitive observer of my own life; a willing participant, but nonetheless powerless to bend others to my will.  And I relax a little knowing that I’m living my life the best way I know how.

And, ultimately, what I find most reassuring about his return — above and beyond his beautiful boyish face, his magnificent cock and his big, fat brain — is that I can send him titty pics again.  That was the worst part of the 4 day separation.  I couldn’t send him my uniquely Hyacinth love notes: my boobs, my body, and my smile.

I do as promised.

This shirt is 8 years old.

Last night The Neighbor came over a little past 10. Peyton was soundly asleep and I was at my kitchen table doing some work.

I was tired, but happy to see him — a new morning gig has me up at the crack of dawn every day and 10pm more feels like 4am. I just looked at him with an open expression. He felt silly and made to leave. I told him to stop and to come closer and put his bubble butt “here, in my hand.”

He came closer and I discovered he had on tight workout clothes. Unacceptable. “What’s all this?” I asked.

“Oh. I tried to workout tonight, but my leg hurt, so I had to stop.” I rubbed his legs. “I think I hurt my knee yesterday on the stair climber.” I kept rubbing. “I’m going to go lie down now,” he said then and disappeared to my room.

I followed him, thoughtful. Hours earlier, I’d gone back to my writings of March of last year and reread them all. And I was mortified.

I ached for the woman I read on the pages. She was so confused, in a lot of pain, and wrestling with burgeoning feelings for her neighbor who told her repeatedly their affair would soon end and he would date the woman of his dreams, his future wife.

I read how he’d taken the-girl-who-wouldn’t-touch-him to his best friend’s birthday party and my stomach had clenched. This year, I was resoundingly not invited to the same best friend’s birthday dinner.

Immediately I thought back to the night several weeks ago when he told me 4 am girl and his ex girlfriend were different from me because, as he said “They were his girlfriends,” and I am not and I felt small and silly and misused.

I wrestled with the proverbial kick to my gut. Had I not just written an essay about how I wasn’t afraid of loss anymore? That I was in charge of myself and my feelings?? I dug deeper.

It wasn’t a fear of loss that was twisting me up. It was a feeling of being less-than, not as important, being tucked away in a dark corner. Not right.

I entered my room and took off my pants and climbed into bed with him, my mind in a flurry. “Just so you know, I’m too tired to fuck or get sucked,” he said. He reached out his arm to me and I sighed and snuggled into his nook. “Here,” he said lifting his shirt.

“That’s ok. Me, too.”

I giggled and pressed my nose to his warm, clean skin as I would a bouquet of fragrant roses. He smelled of strawberries and skin and love. “Mmm,” I purred, shoving thoughts from my brain. “My favorite place o be.”

He pulled the covers up over my head and I was encased in a strawberry scented biodome. We both giggled.

We cuddled then and I tried to forget about that girl from forever ago who was so easily allowed into an important part of his life when I am not, but it still bothered me.

And there was more: there were two other conversations we’ve had recently that had lodged in my skin like splinters. Splinters that I strained to ignore, but became inflamed last night.

There was the chat a week ago when I asked him if his best friend knew who I was yet. The answer is somewhat ridiculous: the best friend knows that TN’s fucking a woman named Hyacinth and that TN is close friends with his neighbor. The best friend doesn’t know she’s the same woman.

At the time I was in our usual position when alone: in his arms. “Well, that’s weird,” I countered playing with his chest hair, my feelings bruised.

He became defensive.

“It’s not ‘weird,’ Hy. He doesn’t care and neither do I.”

I felt sucker punched.

And the second talk took place two nights ago when I shared a disturbing dream with him.

We lay in bed, naked, and I was filled with embarrassment and dread. He was going to propose and I didn’t want him to. Like a sunrise I was unable to stop, he drew out a little chocolate cake-ball and inside — I knew — was the ring he’d painstakingly chosen for me.

I acted surprised and grateful and slipped it on. A round solitaire, big, but not gaudy. I told him neither yes or no, but asked for some time. In truth, I needed to figure out how to turn him down.

I didn’t want to marry him because I didn’t want to inflict him on Peyton; a man who’s sworn he could never love another man’s child will not be invited to be in my child’s life in that way. Though, you’d never know it by watching them together — he seems to enjoy and care for my baby –but I figured he’d forgotten about Peyton’s existence. Our time together is rarely a threesome.

What I shared with him was that he’d proposed, I wasn’t happy about it, didn’t really trust that it was him, and then the lengthy part of the dream wherein my mother lost her shit on me and co-opted my feelings.

I knew immediately it was a mistake telling him. He tensed and seemed strange and I could hear the wheels spinning in his fat brain. I knew what the dream meant and it certainly wasn’t the desire for a wedding with him. It actually represented my growing sense of closeness with him and the inevitable decision I am going to make for the safety of my child’s heart, which is to leave. Pretty simple. But what he heard was, “HY DREAMED I PROPOSED TO HER.”

And so last night, in my strawberry bubble of sweetness, I felt compelled to bring up the best-friend-birthday-dinner-thing to ward off a an early attack of the 90-day-Hy-freaks-out schedule (I’m due in April, in case you were wondering, so these early scrambles are actually like clock work).

I told him how I’d read my old journals from a year ago and I’d discovered the note about the girl. He explained that she was actually a part of that circle of friends and that’s why she was there. Where’s my dunce’s hat?, I wondered. What an epic fucking fail on my part.

As we talked he pushed my hand down his pants, but his tight shorts were restrictive. “Take these horrible things off,” I said. He raised his hips and slid them off and pulled down his underwear. His erection sprang free and he placed my hand on it. We kept talking.

“Are you weirded out?” I asked.

“Yeah, a little,” he admitted.

“I felt I had to tell you how I was feeling. I’m trying hard to communicate with you. Are you still freaking out about my dream last night, too?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you?”

“Why?” I asked squeezing his cock.

“Because, it’s a little upsetting!”

“But why? I never get inside your head. You have to tell me how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” he said evading the question still.

“No, because I said clearly that I did not want to marry you and that I was upset that you’d proposed in the first place, but all you’re focusing on is the proposal part and not the rest!” I sighed. “I swear, I’m cool. I don’t want to marry you and I don’t want anything to change.”

“Ok, but you have to understand how that could freak me out because of the nature of our relationship.”

I froze.

The “nature of our relationship”? What did that mean? Holy fucking shit. He still thinks we’re not together! All the breakups we’ve ever shared flashed before my eyes where we cried and my heart was ripped out; his icy blue eyes looking directly into my darker ones and saying, “I do not love you. You will never be my girlfriend.”

I cringed and took a deep breath, pretended that I totally agreed. Of course! The nature of our relationship precludes any kind of commitment or long-term feelings, therefore he has every right to be freaked the fuck out that I was dreaming about marrying him.

We cuddled a little longer. I felt stupid and like finding the nearest rock to climb under instead of basking on top of the warm rock of my lover’s body. He stood up and got dressed, tucked me in and gave me a long, easy kiss goodnight, his heart safely behind steel.

Countdown to Freakout #6 continues… also, how human am I?

These tits are 37 years old.