Forever After (AFFAIRYTALE Book 2) Read online

  A funny thing happened . . .

  More often than not, there was none. For months, conversations with myself would go something like this . . .

  I feel like he doesn’t love me as much as I love him?

  Where is the evidence?

  There is none.

  I feel like he might leave me and go back to an ex-girlfriend.

  Where is the evidence?

  There is none.

  I feel like my saggy breasts and stretch marks are unattractive and that he might not be as attracted to me if he’s sees me naked in the daylight.

  Where is the evidence?

  There is none.

  I feel like what we have is too good to be true and I will be left heartbroken.

  Where is the evidence?

  There is none.

  My list went on . . .

  And on.

  It covered everything from relationships to my career, personal and long-term goals. When I got to the very bottom of every possible insecurity, the evidence stacked in front of me was overwhelming.

  There was none. At least very little.

  The jury voted unanimously. I’d been living my life based on hunches, assumptions and fears. All bad experiences carried over into the next experience, making it tainted. Which is much like hoarding, I figured. And I certainly was not a hoarder. I was a thrower. But as I realized that I was an emotional hoarder—I was willing to do whatever it took to recycle or dump anything I didn’t need.

  Also, I paused to evaluate why I was so untrusting of the love Grant was trying to give me I had a hard time finding the answer. But eventually I did. It started with the question, where in the past had I been fucked up so badly that I was no longer able to believe what my partner was saying? Who had lied to me so deceitfully?

  I’d yet to be in a relationship that hadn't let me down. Ah ha. That’s it. I was waiting for the shoe to drop, the ball to swing and wreck me once again because all of the relationships I’d ever had (friend or lover) had never ended positively. Things don’t end if they are swell, things end because they went to hell. I’d accumulated a heaping pile of shit in my mental garage that was not only not useful, it was suffocating.

  As I dissected the state of my fucked up brain, I unearthed another revelation. Healing cannot happen in your bedroom with your journal or with your nose in a book. Healing can only happen in a healthy relationship. So many of the things I was struggling with could only be fixed in a relationship. I wasn’t capable of fixing them on my own because the very nature of my insecurities, fears, and irrational thoughts involved relationship issues.

  The reality was that he just might be the only person who could help me get over them.

  …

  Which is exactly what he did.

  Chapter 5

  Forever After-Grant

  We’re in our living room, which is connected to the kitchen in the center of our house. Our master bedroom is on one side of the great room and the kids’ rooms are on the other. For now, the kids are in bed and Grant has just gotten out of the shower to join me for a glass of wine. This is our routine. I’m one glass in and have his waiting on the counter. He picks it up, and then walks over to me and kisses me on the cheek. I have my laptop open and my feet kicked up.

  Grant: Are you going to ask me more questions for your book?

  C.J.: Nooo way. I lie and roll my eyes trying to hide my laughter. From the look on his face he knows he can’t get out of this. I look at the list of tentative questions I’ve jotted down then pick one. My favorite one. I loved that you were so supportive of me when I wrote AFFAIRYTALE. Did you ever think it might be a bad idea to tell our secrets to the world?

  Grant: You know I’ll always get behind you. One hundred percent.

  C.J.: Is that an innuendo?

  Grant: Do you want it to be?

  C.J.: Not right now. I have more questions. He looks at his phone. I acted crazy the first time we went to Maui and I wrecked your proposal. In my defense, you made me nuts. Why did you wait until the second-to-last day to propose? How could you not know that would drive any girl mad?

  Grant: [laughing] I guess I envisioned a certain mood and setting, a certain place. I wanted it to be just right. That’s the only reason I waited. And I didn’t make you nuts. You made yourself nuts. Honey you should have known.

  C.J.: So that I can feel worse about what I missed, tell me, how were you planning to propose?

  Grant: I had it narrowed down but I hadn’t decided on the exact details yet.

  C.J.: I wait for the rest of his answer but it never comes. That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me? He shrugs. Whatever next question. Did you ever think I might be too berserk to marry?

  Grant: No. Of course not.

  C.J.: Tell me about a fond memory you have of one of our adventures together?

  Grant: I liked the time we were in Whittier, Alaska. We were on that little hike. It was mysterious. Too bad we couldn’t go further. It was fairytale-like with the green moss and white snow. He puts down his phone on the couch beside him and stands up. I have to go pee then I need to have a waffle.

  C.J.: We just got started!

  I sigh and go back to my writing. Ten minutes pass before he sits down again with his mouth now full of toaster waffles. There are more in a tall stack precariously balanced on the plate in front of him.

  C.J.: Are you better now? He laughs a little looking at the gluttonous pond of syrup he is drudging his fork through. You know how lucky you are to be able to eat like that?

  Grant: I’m sorry honey, did you want me to make you some?

  C.J.: No. If we could teleport together anywhere right now, where would you want to go?

  Grant: Hmmm . . . any place I could possible go with you? I suppose it’d be Hawaii. And if I wanted to take you anywhere else we’d go there too. We don’t need to teleport.

  C.J.: That’s a great answer. But who’s going to watch the kids while we teleport around the world?

  Grant: [chewing] We’ll take them with.

  Did he just say what I think he said?

  C.J.: I’m not sure I heard you correctly. I use my fingers to tally the math as I talk. You want to take a baby, a toddler and a teenager with us on romantic trips around the world?

  Grant: [shrugging] Why not?

  There are so many why nots I don’t even know where to start. I hold my hand to my heart in a desperate plea. Please don’t make me travel with little kids.

  C.J.: Don’t you like vacation sex? Can we please just travel alone until the little kids are older? I’ll make it worth it, I promise.

  Grant: Yes. Okay sure.

  C.J.: Thank you. Speaking of vacation sex. Remember pot sex in Jamaica?

  He sets his plate down on the floor. Someone there has been waiting for it.

  Grant: Yes. How could I forget.

  C.J.: And do you remember when you tried to piss all over my clothes?

  Grant: You’re not going to write about that are you? Honey, come on . . . that’s embarrassing.

  Chapter 6

  “WE CAN’T BEHAVE LIKE PEOPLE IN NOVELS, THOUGH, CAN WE?”

  ―EDITH WHARTON, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

  SexPot

  AFFAIRYTALE-Deleted Scene

  “Should we?” Grant asked, lifting his shoulders and flashing me a dubious grin. “I’ll do it if you do.”

  “I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I get all paranoid and self-conscious.”

  “Okay we don’t have to. I just thought since we’re on vacation . . . and it might help with your back pain.”

  “The only thing that helps with my back pain is sex.”

  Grant pulled me in close for a long kiss. One that tempted me to reconsider. But my past experiences smoking pot were not so great. Before, it had made me feel so paranoid and fat. However, I was also willing to experience life with Grant in ways I’d never before.

  When in Jamaica . . .

  We stood hugging and swaying
on the sidewalk outside our hotel room just a few steps from the sand when I spoke.

  “You know the last time I was here you were on my honeymoon.”

  I looked up at him, he looked down to me and we burst into laughter. What else do you do with the unusual circumstances of our past?

  “Okay, I changed my mind,” I said. “Let’s do it. But only if we can do it together and no one else is around, and I’ll only do it if we can have sex.” I bit my lip. “I’ve heard that smoking pot then having sex is amazing. That your senses become heightened and every touch is more intense—more erotic,” I teased.

  “Honey I like the way you think. Of course we can have sex. I’ll find us a joint.”

  The Caribbean water was turquoise green and gently rolled over my bare feet as we walked along the shore looking for a ‘farma’. As expected, it didn’t take more than ten or fifteen steps to score a fat skunk smelling joint—of which there was an endless supply. All we had to do was go back to the picnic table in the shade and ask.

  We spent that day in the sun with Dylan and Nikki but we were careful not to drink too much. We didn’t want to be fucked up before we got fucked up. This was also an evening rendezvous we wanted to share with no one else. When we finally retreated to our private abode we were mentally and physically prepared for . . . an experience. At the very least, I was ready for some additional pain relief.

  We opened the door to our hotel and a cold gush of air rolled out like a thick cloud of smoke. It was as if our room had been smoking a joint while we were out, preparing for our return. Everywhere we went in Jamaica the smell of pot lingered. The little oceanside cafe where we ate scrambled eggs, the Cold Beer Joint that obviously sold more than cold beer and coconuts, the bathrooms, even the outside air held a hint of the green commodity.

  Grant looked back at me as he opened the drawer he’d hidden our stash in. He had on characteristically dark sunglasses and a worn ball cap clad with the Jamaican colors and a bottle cap opener sewn in.

  “Have you ever had sex stoned before?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Good, I like it when we do things neither of us have done.”

  “Me too baby. Trust me, there will be many, many more things for just you and I to do.”

  “Let’s compare our list of the top five places we want to travel together that we’ve both never been.”

  He separated out the seeds with a credit card and pulled out some rolling papers as we talked.

  “Great idea. You go first,” he said.

  “Hawaii—”

  “You don’t have to put that on your top five. We’ll go there many times.”

  Feeling giddy inside, I went on. “Costa Rica, Australia, Japan, Palau, Fiji . . . is that five?” I count them on my fingers again. “No. Okay one more, let me think. How about Thailand!”

  “That’s a great list.” He walked over to where I was sitting on the bed and sat beside me twisting the ends of the joint in his fingers.

  “Your turn.”

  “Japan, Australia, Truck,” he said.

  “Truck? WTF is Truck?”

  “A diving destination.”

  “Okay what else? Two more.”

  “Alaska and Norway.”

  “I love those! Can I come too?”

  “Of course. I listed those for us.” He slid into bed next to me as we both leaned against the headboard.

  An old square air conditioner was mounted into the wall of the bedroom, it sounded like a lawn mower trying to plow down a forest of trees. Thin transparent bed sheets covered a mattress that was as thick as a flip-flop and annoying spots of protruding coils poked at me through the night.

  Grant and I sat on the never-been-replaced mattress. His warm hand sprawled out over my tanned thigh and the other held up a fat, white joint. We looked at each other, making eye contact for only a moment before bursting into laughter.

  “You ready?”

  “I guess,” I shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed yet excited to be doing something new with him.

  With a quick flick of the flint, he lit the larger end and then took short puffs until it burned on its own. As soon as it did, it burned fast with lots of smoke. He quickly passed it to me; his mouth and lungs full.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said and then took the biggest hit I possibly could suck in until my eyes went crossed and my lips made farting sounds trying to stay together.

  He burst out laughing and with it came a plume of pungent smoke. A moment later I did the same. We passed it back and forth, burning it down puff by puff until we couldn’t hold it anymore. Grant flushed the remaining evidence down the toilet and shut off all the lights.

  I lay flat with my eyes open in the darkness, evaluating my state of being. He slid back in beside me and I could feel he was completely nude. The sensation of being high intensified quickly. I realized this wasn’t at all like the small town ditch weed from back home. My ears began to ring and my mind started to change; collapsing inward, making me small and everything around me extra large. Had I been with anyone else in that shrinking room I would have felt paranoid and stayed silent, praying for it to end quickly. But this time something was different.

  I was high, yes, but I wasn’t paranoid or self-conscious. I was just high and turned on with anticipation at what I was about to do—have mind-blowing sex with the man of my dreams. Since my mind-set was calm, confident, and trusting of every experience that happened with Grant, instead of becoming a paranoid Smurf, I was able to actually enjoy the experience.

  “Honey, you okay?” he asked. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed in the silence between us. It could have been eons.

  “I’m really high.”

  “Me too.”

  After what might have been fifteen minutes of laughter over nothing, he slid his warm hand gently up my thigh, inching closer, each fingertip dragging behind the last, moving in slow motion to make a permanent trail of sensation on my skin. With my eyes closed it was hard to know exactly where his hands were since every inch of me was tingling where his fingers had been. He circled his hand around my most intimate parts lighting them on fire.

  He slid my panties off, and hovered over me, brushing his lips across mine moving slowly and deliberately, mimicking exactly how he was touching me down below. He knew the way I liked to be touched and he was being extra skillful.

  We were being serenaded by the whirring and clomping of the air conditioner. Everything moved in slow motion. Every inch of exposed skin did not go unattended. With his fingertips, the rough stubble of his face, and the smooth skin of his palms, he teased me, intentionally pushing all of my senses to their fullest.

  …

  I woke up sometime late into the night disoriented in the opaque blackness of the room. I could barely see my body it was so dark. I sat up, needing a minute to figure out where I was, and remember why I was so incoherent and alone. As I came to, the sound that woke me up grew louder.

  Tap tap . . .

  Tap tap tap . . .

  It was the tapping sound of two palms flat against a wall, patting it up, down, and sideways searching for something in the blinding darkness.

  “Honey? Is that you? What are you doing?” I said through my groggy haze. I didn’t have a clue where he was or what in the world he was doing tapping on the walls.

  Grant was startled by my voice.

  The tapping immediately stopped.

  It occurred to me he was sleepwalking or still really high—likely both. I heard him rustle with his clothing. He was close to me, somewhere on my side of the bed, near my open luggage that was lined up on the floor against the wall. I just knew something was wrong.

  “I’m using the bathroom.”

  “Wait!” I shouted. “That’s not the bathroom! You’re on the wrong side. The bathroom’s on your side. Don’t piss on my clothes!”

  There was a long pause before the tapping resumed. This time it in the right direction. My luggage has so far
, narrowly escaped its fate of being mistaken for a urinal.

  He hand-surfed his way to the opposite side of the room and eventually found the bathroom doorknob. I listened as he took a very, very long pee. Then I remembered the story he told me about the time he came home drunk and pissed all over his mom’s wicker chair at the lake. He blamed it on his friend who was staying the weekend with them. Grant was definitely a repeat offender. A serial pisser—a Pee Bandit.

  He flushed the toilet and crawled back into bed. Without saying a word, he was out.

  Chapter 7

  Forever After-Grant

  C.J.: What book are you currently reading?

  I look over the top of my writing glasses and wait for his response. He sighs. My questions are clearly going to prevent him from devouring his bedtime waffles. They have only recently become a trend—usually it’s a plate of nachos.

  Grant: You want the full title? I’ll find out. He sets his fork on the plate and looks at his phone. Robert Oppenheimer’s The Life Inside The Center.

  C.J.: What does inside the center mean?

  Grant: It’s kind of complicated to explain, you would really have to read the forward. Seems like he’s only saying that ‘cause he doesn’t want to talk. He enjoys stuffing his face.

  C.J.: I’m not going to read the forward. It’s like a billion pages long. I have a pretty decent IQ, you could try explaining it to me.

  Grant: Well, I’d have to open up the book and make sure I cover all the points and I’m trying to eat my waffles right now. Can you ask me something else please?

  C.J.: Fine. What book am I currently reading?

  Grant: You’re reading that book on Afghanistan by John Krakauer.

  C.J.: That’s correct. What’s your all-time favorite book?

  He finishes chewing and sets his plate down for the special someone who is lying at his feet, watching him eat those waffles.

  Grant: Oh, I think it’d have to be . . . I’d say The Greatest Show on Earth, a close second would be The Demon Haunted World. Honey, [rubbing his head with his palms] I have a headache.