As I watched Natalie rush off to join her parents, Carleigh’s brother and sister-in-law who lived in Richmond, I couldn’t help but wonder what our children would look like. Natalie was a doll, and I would’ve given my other arm to have a daughter like her.
It was finally Mom’s turn. She threw her arms around my neck, while my father shook my hand.
“Welcome home, Son,” he said in a strained voice.
Even though they had been to see me in the hospital almost daily, Dad was still struggling with what had happened.
“I can’t believe I spoiled your surprise,” Mom whispered into my ear. As she let me go, she added, “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re a lot of things, Mom, but an idiot isn’t one of them.”
She smiled and pinched my cheek. “I love you, Damon.”
“I love you, too.” I glanced at my father. “Both of you. Thanks for being here for me, throughout this ordeal.”
“There’s no other place for us to be,” Dad replied. “You’re ours.”
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” Mom asked. “We’ve got all of your favorites prepared.”
“Actually, I’m so happy to see everyone, I really want to sit and talk.” I glanced around the house as I walked farther into the foyer. “I can’t believe so many people traveled here.”
A lot of my aunts, uncles, cousins, as well as many of Carleigh’s family members, were there. I still never figured out where everyone had hidden their cars in order to surprise me. They must have damn near hiked to the house. The one person who was obviously missing was Carleigh’s mother. My mother-in-law hadn’t visited me even once in the hospital. I guess hunting down dick action was her full-time gig. Fine by me. She could have crawled back in her cave for the remainder of her life, for all I cared. Whenever she was around, she seemed determined to cause turmoil in my marriage, and I loved my wife too much to sit back and willingly put up with it.
I was elated to be around all of the people who were concerned about me. Her being there would have put a damper on the entire evening. Made everything else seem fake.
Speaking of fake, Jordan walked up to me next.
“Hey, Damon.” She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I wanted to push her ass down on the floor. She let go and looked into my eyes—phony heifer. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better. Sorry I couldn’t make it past the hospital, but you know how that goes.”
Good! I didn’t want your ass at the hospital!
“Wow, that was so scary. I saw the entire thing.” She started staring at my pinned shirt. “Sorry about the arm, but such is life.” She shrugged like it was no big deal. “Carleigh will get used to it, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure she will. Right around the same time I get used to it.”
Jordan laughed uneasily. “Of course. You have to get used to it, too. You know what I meant.”
“I know what you implied, Jordan.” I started to walk away from her. “Where are Bobby and Steve?”
Bobby and Steve were the last ones to arrive, hours later. Carleigh had gone into the bedroom to give us some privacy.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Bobby asked as he guzzled down his third or fourth beer of the evening.
“The same thing I’ve always done,” I replied sarcastically. “I’ll be back at work in a couple of months and I’m still going to run my website.”
Steve picked up a pretzel out of the bowl on the kitchen table, where we were seated, and snapped it in half. “Don’t you think you should slow down a little bit?”
“Would you … slow down?”
He shrugged. “I can’t answer that but—”
“But nothing.” I stood and walked over to the sink to put my plate in there to be washed. “Both of you need to chill the hell out.” I sat back down and looked back and forth between them. “My life has been forever changed, but I still have a life. My arm is gone. No big deal. I can still see. I can still hear. I can still think. There’s no way that I’m going to sit around and act like some kind of invalid. This isn’t a damn dress rehearsal. I’ve got things to do.”
Bobby looked at Steve, who had lowered his eyes to the table. “Hey, no one’s saying that, Damon. Steve didn’t mean any harm. We’re all still dealing with what happened. I wish that I could’ve been there for you, man. That I could’ve done something. Anything.”
“Bobby, don’t get overdramatic on me. It’s okay.” I reached over and grasped his hand. He put his other hand on top of mine and grabbed it. “I’m a grown-ass man and I’ll deal with this. People come back from the military all the time fucked-up; even some of our friends.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t volunteer for this shit!” Bobby exclaimed, letting go of me.
He stood and started pacing the floor as Steve and I watched him go through whatever he was going through. Until that moment, I never realized how much Bobby really loved me. Sure, we had been kicking it together since forever, but it is true that your darkest hour is when you determine who your true friends are. Bobby and Steve were my true friends. My blood brothers, even though different blood flowed through our veins.
Steve cleared his throat. “Bobby, we should go. It’s late and Damon needs to get some sleep.”
It was late; very late. “You two can crash here, in the guest bedrooms.”
“That’s not a bad …” Bobby was saying until Steve glared at him. “Oh, no, I need to get home.”
“Why don’t you want to stay, Steve?” I asked.
“This is your first night back. Everyone’s imposed enough.” He nodded toward the hallway. “You need to go in there and spend some quality time with your wife, if you know what I mean.”
We all chuckled. They knew the deal. I had one hell of a buildup in my balls. Shit, all that time in the hospital without sex; not even being able to masturbate because someone might have walked into the room. I was about to go insane.
After I saw them out, I turned off all of the lights and headed to the bedroom. Carleigh was fast asleep. I bent over and kissed her on the forehead. She was freshly bathed and smelled like lavender and vanilla. As much as I needed some pussy, I yearned for a shower even more. They had given me sponge baths the entire time that I was in the hospital, but I needed to feel the power of high-pressured water on my body. They had given me a bag to place over my bandages when I showered or bathed, but told me to be careful. A home nurse would be coming by daily to check on me and to change the bandages for at least the next month, so I was willing to take my chances.
I got into the shower and finally let it all go. I had the water so hot that the mirrors instantly got foggy, and the soap was invigorating. I cried for nearly an hour, right there in the confines of the shower, coming to terms with how my life would change. As much as I hated putting on pretenses, I now had to do that very thing. I couldn’t let my parents or Carleigh or my friends know how deeply I was affected by the loss of my arm. Those emotions and the disappointment that I felt would have to forever be my secret.
Once I climbed under the covers with Carleigh and placed my remaining arm around her waist, I immediately felt her tense up.
“Do you feel better?” she whispered, shifting her weight so she could look at me. “You were in the shower a long time.”
“It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to bathe the way I like. You know how I am.”
She sighed and fingered my chest, then stared at my bandages. “Does it still hurt?”
“Yes, but I’ll get through this. I have a very high tolerance for pain.” I winced as I tried to move and a pain shot through me. “At least, I think I do,” I added, then chuckled.
“I keep telling you that you have to take it easy and try not to overdo it, Damon.”
“And I keep telling you that I’m not going to allow this to be some kind of crutch to prevent me from doing what I need to do, as a man, and as your husband.”
“Your job said you can stay off for up to a year; I called Samantha Howard and asked
her.” She ran her fingers over my cheek. “But you knew that already, being that you’re the head of human resources.”
“Yes, I did know that already, but I’m not staying off work for a year. I’d go bananas. A couple of more months and I’ll be fine. It’s not like my job is strenuous.”
Carleigh kissed me and it felt great to know that she even still wanted to kiss me. I hungrily explored her mouth, remembering what it was that I was prepared to fight for—my life. I started pulling her nightgown over her head. She broke the kiss and hurriedly took it off. She was nude underneath and I had come to bed that way. I entered her with a grunt and lay there for a moment, gathering my bearings. Women could never understand what pussy really feels like to a man; never.
I fucked Carleigh without mercy for the next thirty minutes or so, until her head, shoulders, and arms were hanging backward off the bed. I kept on thrusting deep into her, even though I was sure the blood was rushing to her head. She seemed to love it though and moaned and yelled out like it was our first time together, all over again.
After I climaxed the first time, Carleigh started sucking my dick, and it was a welcomed kind of pain; the best kind of ache. Once I was hard again, she got on top of me and started swiveling her hips like she was twirling a hula hoop. I grabbed her waist with the one arm that I had, then started slapping her on the ass.
“Ride this dick, baby,” I told her. “Ride it faster.”
Carleigh placed her hands on my chest and pounded my dick even harder with her pussy, like she was trying to draw out my soul with her pelvic muscles.
“I want you to fuck me from behind,” she announced before climbing off me and quickly getting into the doggie-style position. “Hit my G-spot. Work my shit.”
I was gasping for breath, but I was not about to give up. If my doctor had been there, he would have been ready to put me back in the hospital. I was acting a fool; we both were.
Carleigh was on all fours as I pounded into her, using my curved dick to hit the right spot. I had figured out when I was a teenager that something about my dick was special, besides it being long and thick. It being curved drove women insane. When I fucked them from the back and rubbed it against their G-spot, they experienced incredible orgasms, like the one my wife had about fifteen minutes later.
Totally spent, we both collapsed back onto the bed. Carleigh pulled the covers over us and laid her head on my chest.
“The sun’s almost up,” she said. “What time is your therapy tomorrow?”
“You mean today.” I kissed the top of her head and ran my fingers through her hair. “The therapist is due here around noon, but, shit, I’ve already had all the therapy I need for the day.”
We both laughed, then shared one last kiss before falling off to sleep in each other’s arms.
Brooke
October 10, 2007
I CAN’T believe your ass is up in here!” Destiny was all loud as she sat at the counter at the diner. “You can’t wait table on crutches!”
“Then how come I’m doing it?” I said, and used one crutch to make my way over to the serving window to pick up a customer’s plate of corned beef hash, if you wanted to call it that. “I may be moving a little slower, but I’m still faster than most of the people in here.”
“She needs to be at home in bed,” Tony chimed in. “And Hank ought to be ashamed of himself. This has got to be against somebody’s labor rules.”
Hank had made a run to a distributor to get some more ketchup. How the hell could he run out of ketchup, of all things? With the way the food tasted, most people had to drown it in some kind of sauce to make it edible. It was amazing how many regulars Hank had. Some of them had been coming there for decades. I guess if you eat enough bad food, it eventually starts to taste good. They must have built up immunity to his poison.
“Well, complain when he gets back,” I dared Tony, knowing he wouldn’t say jack shit about it. “I need to work. You know as well as I do that Hank doesn’t have benefits in this dump. Luckily, I had a private health-insurance plan. Thank goodness I didn’t fall behind on my premiums. I would’ve been screwed.”
“Why don’t you let Patrick cover your car payments and bills while you’re laid up?” Destiny suggested. “You don’t have to worry about paying me rent. Sheesh!”
“I’m not about to lay up in your apartment and not pay rent, Destiny, no more than you’d ever do that shit to me.” She got quiet and stirred some more sugar in her iced tea. “And you’re going to get diabetes if you keep putting twenty damn sugars in one glass of tea.”
“I used fourteen packets, thank you very much,” she stated sarcastically. “You don’t need to pay me any rent. You’re over Patrick’s most of the time anyway.”
“But I live with you,” I insisted.
Destiny rolled her eyes. “I still say this is ridiculous, you working like this. I was telling your mother that—”
“My mother? Don’t tell me that you called my mother on me! You might as well have called the po-po.”
“Somebody needs to talk some sense into your ass.”
I sensed Tony motioning behind me and swung around in time to see him swirling his finger around his temple region, implying that I was crazy.
“Takes one to know one,” I said, and tapped his foot with the bottom tip of my crutch.
Tony screamed like I’d shot him, and everyone in the diner stared at us.
“Stop being such a baby,” I told him. “I barely touched you.”
He snapped his fingers. “I only like tender touches, chile. I’m not into that S-and-M shit, living behind the veil and all of that.”
Destiny almost choked on her tea. “I don’t even want to think about you in leather thongs.”
“And I don’t want to think about you in them either,” Tony snarled at her. “Not unless you’re hiding a dick under that dress.”
Joe, the cook on duty, yelled from the back, “You all need to shut it up before you both get fired. Hank will be back any minute, and you know he has his spies.” Joe peeked over the serving window and looked to see which regulars were there.
“Fuck a spy,” Tony said to Joe. “Hank needs me, and he needs Brooke. If I get fired, I already have my plan B and plan C laid out. Plan B is to become a stripper at the Mill over by the Navy Yard, and plan C is joining the damn navy.”
“Navy!” Destiny, Joe, and I all exclaimed at the same time.
“The navy’s not ready for you,” I informed Tony. “They’d have to put you in a private barracks. You’d be trying to get down with every man there.”
“What’s even wilder is that all of them would be trying to get down with me.”
I ignored that comment. Tony was constantly swearing that every man was a creeper, a booty bandit.
Destiny got up from the counter. “I’m going back to the office. Back to my daily grind.” She looked at me. “You need to take your ass home.”
“I love you, too, boo-boo,” I said teasingly, then blew her a kiss as she left out.
My next order was up, so I limped over to get it and took it to table 12.
When I got to Patrick’s penthouse later that evening, my parents were inside, lying in wait with him. They were determined to convince me to “stay off my feet” a little longer.
“We can help you out some,” my mother said, sitting beside me on the sofa while my leg was propped up on the coffee table. “You’re still our daughter and we have a little extra money.”
Daddy was seated in an armchair and was eyeing Patrick, who was standing by the window, with disdain. Patrick had his back to us, probably because he was angry with me for making him look like a total cad.
He definitely felt that way because when Mama said that, he turned to face us and then looked right into Daddy’s eyes. “I’d be more than willing to provide Brooke with everything she needs. She’s stubborn.”
My father sighed and nodded in agreement. “She’s always been stubborn. She gets it from her mother.
”
Mama and I glanced at each other and fell out laughing. We knew that we were stubborn, but I preferred the term determined.
“Daddy, I want to work,” I said. “I don’t want to sit around here all day, watching television. That’s boring. If there’s nothing else you know about me, it’s that I hate idle time.”
“You always say that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, dear,” my mother said to my father.
“How much longer is that cast going to be on?” Daddy asked me.
Patrick jumped in like he was the authority. “The doctors said she has a few more weeks.”
I can speak for my damn self, I thought.
“Daddy, it’s not like I’m racing cars or herding cattle. I take a cab to work because I can’t drive yet, but I’m telling you, I’m fine.” I took my leg off the coffee table, got up from the sofa, and stood up. I beckoned Patrick to me with my finger. “Come here.”
Patrick grinned and walked over to me.
“Dance with me,” I said.
We started doing the tango, and my parents both laughed. When Patrick dipped me and my leg stood straight up in the air, Mama said, “Be careful, Brooke. We don’t want you to break something else.”
Daddy stood and folded his arms in front of him. “We better go. It’s getting late and I don’t want to miss 48 Hours Mystery.”
“You still watch that show, Daddy?”
“He never misses an episode,” Mama replied. “It is a pretty good show, but he turns the volume up so loud, sometimes it drives me wild.”
“Maybe I like driving you wild,” Daddy said with a little too much seduction in his tone for me.
“Oh, boy, please don’t flirt in front of me!” I exclaimed, letting go of Patrick and shielding my eyes. “Next thing we know, you’ll be swapping spit.”
Mama laughed. “We swapped a whole lot more than that to get you and your brother here.”
Her last statement made even Patrick uncomfortable. “Let me get your coats,” he said, heading for the closet in the entryway.