Welcome Home
I jerk off one last time in my bed at the Marriott, thinking about all the times I fucked Holly in it. I treat it as a kind of symbolic last hurrah with her, even though I know I’m going to think about her asshole and her tits and how she sucked dick every time I jerk off for the foreseeable future, and I assume I will be doing a lot of jerking off until Alyna actually lets me fuck her again, if she does. She added a demand to her list that I get an STD test, which conjures two reactions in me. I’m slightly scared that it might come back with something, because I did fuck Holly a few times without a rubber, but I’m also encouraged that Alyna would ask for this, because it means she’s already thought about fucking me again.
I blow my load in the sheets and leave it there for the housekeepers to clean up. I take a final shit and give the place one last look, trying to force myself to see it as a bad place, a place I should have never had to be in at all, but the memories of fucking Holly are too good for me to do that. I know I’ll always think fondly of this hotel. Every time I drive by, whether Alyna and the kids are in the car with me or not, I’ll always remember it as something special. I got to fuck my Maria Reynaldi, and I got to do it here in this room.
I toss the room key on the bed and walk out.
When I get home, even though all I have with me is my duffel bag, it still feels like I’m moving back in. The kids are happy to see me. Andy gives me a big hug and says, “Are you finally done with work now, Daddy?”
I say, “Yep. All done.”
He says, “Finally. Jesus Christ.”
I look at Alyna. She says, “He just started saying it a few days ago.” I laugh and he says it again. She says, “Don’t laugh or he’ll just keep doing it.”
I say, “But it’s funny.”
Andy says, “You think I’m funny, Daddy?”
I say, “I think you’re extremely funny,” and tickle him until he screams and I feel more normal than I did at the parent-teacher evaluation.
I pick up Jane and she says, “Daddy. Drink.”
Alyna hands me a cup of juice from the counter and I help Jane take a sip. She says, “Thanks you,” and I feel even more normal. These small things are not Holly. These small things are not fucking. These small things are not exciting. These small things are my life, and the realization of this fact makes me neither happy nor sad. It just makes me feel normal, and that is better than not feeling normal.
We let the kids stay up a little later than they normally would, and I watch American Idol with my family, and we eat a pizza from Papa John’s. We drink soda and we laugh. When the show is over, Alyna gives the kids their bath and I play Modern Warfare. When the kids are clean and in bed, Alyna comes out into the living room and says, “I’m going to bed.”
I say, “Okay.”
She says, “I know this is weird, but are you coming?”
I say, “If you want me to.”
She says, “What else are you going to do? Sleep on the couch?”
I say, “I’m going to do whatever makes you comfortable.”
She says, “We’re going to have to sleep in the same bed at some point. Might as well get it out of the way.”
In bed we do not fuck. We do nothing that even approaches fucking. I don’t expect us to. I also don’t expect Alyna to do what she does. For several minutes I lie staring at the ceiling, comparing the pattern of the flecked white surface with the ceiling in the hotel room. Alyna is on her side of the bed with her back to me. I think about the last time Holly and I were in the same bed. After we fucked she rolled over to the edge of the bed, like Alyna is now, and I stared at the ceiling, like I’m doing now.
Just as I’m trying not to think about the fact that the only difference between Alyna and Holly in this circumstance is that Holly fucked the living shit out of me before rolling over and offering me no affection, Alyna rolls over to face me and without saying anything snuggles into my armpit and puts a hand on my chest.
I’m frozen by it. I don’t know if she’s trying to initiate a reconciliation fuck or if she’s just trying to get used to sleeping with me in the bed again. Eventually she says, “We have to do this, right? And I’m not talking about sex. Don’t get the wrong idea. But is this okay? I mean, is this weird?”
I lower one of my arms and put it around her as I say, “No, this isn’t weird at all. I think it’s completely normal.”
I feel her out-of-shape body against my out-of-shape body and it feels completely normal as I drift into a dreamless sleep with my children and my wife sleeping under the same roof that I am.