Stuart Watson

Bedtime Story

After I adjust the pillows on the sofa to make room, I tell the kids to turn their games off and come cuddle up next to me and leave a space for Mom. 

I’m gonna read you a story.

Awwww, Da-ad!

You’ll love it. It’s about the first time your Mom fucked me with her ass.

The kids rush right over. It’s a good story, Dad, but don’t you know any others? Ben says. We’ve heard it like nine times.

I ignore him. Bets? You gonna join us?

She comes in, wiping her hands on a tea towel, and settles in next to Lacey. 

OK, here goes. Your Mom and I had been talking about it. We had agreed we had waited long enough. Are you sure? I asked, and she said, I want to give you what you want.

It was like standing outside St. Peter’s, after the flight, the train from the airport, after dragging my backpack up four flights to the marble room, after the slow, touchy fucking to the sound of bells beyond the window, barking dogs, kids squealing, all of it a weirdly celebratory chorus to our manic pursuit of union, all of it prelude to the grand finale, holy grail, visit to the greatest apse in the world. 

We were going to do it. Or, rather, she had invited me to fuck her ass. 

YOLO, right? she said, us so tangled in Roman sheets we might never escape. 

We were like athletes, nightly practice at the other thing, pretty relaxed now, pretty sure of the playing field, what was off limits, what wasn’t. I was always very oral, and turns out, she was waiting to be extremely grateful. I hear there are guys who can’t imagine eating a woman, their woman, and it leaves me slack-jawed. 

Dumb-ass, get down! You do not know what you are missing, motherfucker.

I never expressed any overriding desire to take my poker down that last mile, but my index digit made passing reference to her rosebud. Maybe last mile isn’t the best way to think of it. Isn’t that the execution walk? Stick with that metaphor, and I will be thinking, Who’s gonna die tonight, and I sure hope it ain’t either one of us, or all this anticipated bliss will be for …. Well, the word that came to mind there was way too close to the subject at hand.

I guess she sensed a curiosity about that port of entry on my part. So she offered. I sure wasn’t going to say, Nah, I don’t think you really want to so let’s pass on that, some things are best left unexplored, what if it turns out you really love it, what if you realized you’ve lived to the age of 47 and could have been stuffing your butt all these years for levels of ecstasy few humans ever achieve? And now we finally get there, and you tip off the deep end into profound despair and regret about opportunities lost? What if? 

Me thinking, Lost with whom?

Talk about a mixed message.

So, now we were stepping it up. I didn’t want her to know, but I was terrified. After all this anticipation, what if I biffed it? I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care, that it didn’t turn me on, that it maybe even grossed me out. I wanted her to enjoy it, too, and if she didn’t, I wanted her to lie to me that she did, because if she cried out in pain, that would shut down my boner faster than a goathead in a road bike tire.

I would be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. It was one of a couple of possibilities, although we spent most of our time on the one, and not the other, which is how we got kids. Duh. 

Make no mistakes, she liked pussy sex and I did, too, but in the back of our minds, always lurking there beneath a streetlight with a fedora slung low over its eyes, her ass curled a finger my way.

Psst, hey, buddy, wanna try something … different?

It was all so mysterious, right? Like a roadside -OTEL, with a locked room at the end of the walkway. You could book a new, clean Holiday Inn Express, but no. You had to stop and visit Mr. Bates. 

Cobwebs between the windows and the drapes, but you want it. You want past the door, to the musty, dusty inside. Ask the manager. 

Nope, we don’t rent that room.

Not because it’s reserved, or booked to someone else. Just that it’s permanently off limits. Which makes it all the more a curiosity, all the more alluring. Sin is about denial. If somebody named Pope doesn’t want you going there, you can quickly slip into obsession about how you need to book passage. 

Now, on my knees, her on hers, I was in it. She had me in it. I expected to see gift wrap and ribbon by the wayside.

Wow, this is cool, I thought, even as I also thought, but … maybe not as good as the other place, the neighbor, the girl next door.

Went there. Did that. Not sure what all the fuss is about, but for my money, I’ll stick with the way god intended for us to get it on. As if I’ll ever know what she actually intended. Just making this shit up as I go along. Just glad your Mom is the sharing type.

I let the last line hang in the air, maybe room for questions. Nothing. Then I look around. Everybody has collapsed into me, sound asleep. One by one, I carry them to bed. Even Bets. After lights out, I lie in the dark, bummed. Either I need a new story. Or a new audience.