Chapter Twenty Two

When we’d both caught our breath I asked, “What are you thinking?”

 Jay gave another of what had been many of those contented sighs...  Just to get his voice working again.  “I think I’m just surprised.”

 “Surprised?” I asked, that being the last thing I expected to hear.  “You started all this.”

 “Hmm,” he laughed quietly.  “I was just hoping to have a cuddle, and I wasn’t even really expecting that.  If I wasn’t in such a weird state with my sleep I wouldn’t have ever had the courage to put an arm around you.”

 I started to blush furiously.  “You have got to be kidding me...”

 A tired smile crept onto his face.  “Regrets?” he asked, joking.

 I ran my hand over his chest.  “Of course not, I just...  I don’t know.  Now I feel...”

 “Don’t you dare say ‘like a s**t’.”

 I wasn’t going to say that, but he was pretty close.  “Desperate, maybe?”

 “So I was a last resort?” he teased.

 “No!  Over-eager might be a better way to put it, then.  Come on, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

 He took a big breath in through his nose, still recovering.  “I’m not sure, but deep down I’m sure I wanted you far more than you wanted me.”

 I still couldn’t get that...  “Why?”

 “How could I not?”  I didn’t have a clue what I could say to that, but he continued.  “Laura...  You are the sweetest girl I have ever met, in my life!  You are f...  You are gorgeous.  Absolutely gorgeous.  You are a hell of a mother, which I’ve never even been specifically attracted to before.  Seeing you with Madison just...  Reveals the love you have in your heart.  It touches me in ways I’ve never felt before.”  Tightening his hold on me even more, he added, “And it turns out, you are amazing in bed.”

 My head spun from all he’d just said.  “How can you think I’m gorgeous...”

 He laughed.  “We’ve been through this.  The ever-present media makes you ashamed of your body, I get it.  It’s all lies, though.  Think about what I said, we’re not teenagers anymore.  A woman’s body goes through changes.”

 “There’s women ten years older than me who still look great.”

 “You look great,” he whispered to himself.  To me he said, “They probably never had kids, or maybe their body handled it differently.  Maybe they had work done, or maybe they’re better at hiding...”  He cut himself off.  “Who cares?  At some point, things change.  Is finding a girl who hasn’t changed yet, then, a good criteria for looking for a mate?”

 “I guess not?”

 He rubbed my arm.  “You are stubborn.  No, it’s not.  A guy who ditches a girl because she gains some weight, or gets some wrinkles, or whatever, is going to find himself alone when he’s in his thirties and college girls now think he’s gross.  They deserve what they get, if they’re that superficial.”  He kissed my hairline.  “You’re not an ornament, Laura.  I just told you what makes you attractive.  I could go on, if you’d just let me see you.”

 I sighed.  At least I know he won’t be cruel about it, when he sees...  “Alright...”

 It was getting warm under the covers anyway.  I let him pull them away, my heart skipping a beat.  “Well,” he smiled.  “You didn’t burst into flames.  And you’re still gorgeous.  You were starting to make me wonder if you were deformed, or something.  Not that I’d care if you were...”

 I put my hand on the belly that had been insulted for the last five years.  “This isn’t deformed?  It sticks out no matter what I weigh, and don’t even tell me you don’t see the stretch marks.”

 “I don’t even see the stretch marks.”  There was humor, but also a quiet truthfulness in his voice.  “They’re there, yes.  What am I doing, in your mind?  Fixating on them, saying ‘oh gross’?”  He laughed to himself.  “You know, I have seen the dumbest body modifications imaginable, especially at my job.  A girl had the top of her butt crack pierced, once.  Tattoos of things that the girls who had them didn’t even know what they were.”  He paused to scoff, “’Ying-yang’ indeed,” to himself.  “Yet the slightest natural change...”  He ran his hand over my stomach.  “These lines should make you happy.  Think of them as a badge of honor.  They tell the tale of you carrying Madison.”  He slid lower to deliver several kisses across my belly, then rested his head on it.  “I also told you...  You’re soft.  It’s pleasing...”  He let his voice drop as he drew himself into the sensation of my skin on his face, happy to show me that he meant it.  “There’s nothing wrong with having a belly.  You’re supposed to, and I love it.”

 I hadn’t thought such an answer possible.  I knew I wouldn’t mind hearing more...  “What about these?”  I held my breasts toward the center of my chest, where I wished they’d stay, and let go.

 He moved back up to lay next to me, and stroked them alternately with his fingertips.  “What about them?”

 I pushed them in again.  “They used to sit right here.  Now...”  I released them to demonstrate.

 “Laura, breasts that just sit there aren’t very exciting.  It’s why guys don’t like fake ones.  They’re supposed to hang.  They sway so seductively, and you have no idea how wild it drives me.”  He laughed again.  “Why do you think I told you to wear t-shirts when I’m teaching you?  If you didn’t, I’d be staring down your blouse the whole time.  Or using half my attention to stop myself, anyway.”  His head cocked as something occurred to him.  “Do you really wish you were still a teenager or something?”

 “No, but...”  I rolled into him and pulled the covers back over us, but no longer to hide from him.  His arms circled me again.  “I’ve just had my body insulted a lot, alright?”

 He sighed in aggravation.  “Not really.  Hearing that pisses me off.  Why would you put up with it?”

 I shrugged.  Bringing it up brought back memories, which made my eyes start to sting.  “I didn’t think any better of myself...”

 He sighed again, but compassionately this time.  “You must, at least a little.  You have the good sense not to wear make-up, at least.  Right?”

 I chuckled and patted his chest.  “Not quite...  It’s expensive, and I have no one to impress.  That’s all there is to that one.  What do you mean by that, anyway?  Good sense?”

 “I’ve gone through this so many times at work...  At least you won’t make fun of me for it.  You can believe in god, Laura, or plain old biology.  Whichever it is, women were designed to look perfect to us.  And you do.  Every girl’s face is a manifestation of feminine beauty.  To put make-up on it...  To smear perfection with man made crap makes as much sense as trying to improve the Mona Lisa with finger paints.  You just don’t do it.  And that’s just the aesthetics.  Never mind what it does to your skin, or as you said, the expense.”

 He took a breath before continuing, and I could tell this was indeed something he’d been through before.  I got the impression he was venting, and that no one had ever really listened to him before.  “There’s a whole goddam industry just based on the fact that it’s so easy to make you forget how beautiful you really are.  It’s my enemy.  There is nothing I love more in life than feminine beauty.  Nothing else has ever touched me so deeply, even when I was little.  These days it’s being warped, whored, ignored...  I read books about times when it was worshipped, and I feel like I exist in the wrong time.”

 I shook my head.  “No, Jay.  You’re needed now.”  I cupped his cheek, brushing his stubble with my fingers.  “That was beautiful...  Why would anyone make fun of you for that?”

 “Because it’s easy.  I get into stuff like that, and I’m exposing myself.  I don’t know if it makes people uncomfortable, or if they really think it’s stupid, or whatever.  I just don’t fit in...”  He started to stroke my hair, and his speech began to slow.  “I guess you could say...  Feminine beauty is sort of, god to me.  I don’t know what I even mean by that, exactly, but it certainly is worthy of reverence.  How else would I feel toward something that makes me feel more alive than anything else?  It is so sacred to me, and what I see the world doing with it just makes me sad for it.  I don’t know if it just doesn’t know any better, or if it’s truly that malicious.  It has you so focused on appearance, when that’s not it at all.  You are very attractive physically, Laura, but when I call you beautiful that isn’t what I’m talking about.  Beauty is a feeling.  It’s how I feel next to you.  I feel like I’m swimming in it.  No, I feel like I’m basking in its rays.  And now that we’ve done this...”

 He yawned, and his hand hit the pillow behind me.  He ceased struggling to keep his eyes open.  “I feel like my...  Soul has feasted....  Thank you...”

 His head turned into his arm, his breathing told me he was asleep.  That was just as well.  What could I possibly say to all that?  Are you even real? I wondered as I brushed some hair away from his forehead.  I stared at him, realizing how much of what he’d said I felt toward him as well.  As much as I loved his body, he could have looked like anything and I’d be feeling the same wonderful feelings.

 I got up, and my body felt lighter.  I floated to the bathroom and took a hot shower.  It occurred to me to call Sara.  No, this feeling you have is yours alone to enjoy.  All I really felt like doing was being next to him some more, even though he was asleep.  I rummaged through the box of Madison’s baby things for a few minutes.  Then with a smile of sudden inspiration, I picked Hans Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales off the small shelf I had in my room.  It was dusty...  I blew on it and flipped the pages, then laid next to Jay and read an old favorite, 'Under the Willow Tree'.

 I would never forget you, I thought when I finished it, and ran my fingers through Jay’s hair.

Reviews

[Sarah]

I liked this chapter. Such a connective chapter between the two of them. Although Jay's rant seems a little much. Kind of repetitive.

Despite all of the compliments, Laura still doesn't believe she is beautiful and that's just sad to me. Now, that they have made love, I'm curious as to where this will go and where Earl will fall into all of this. What reaction Jay will have when he sees him. I'm excited to read more.

[Christopher Miller]

I'll take another look at that when I do my next edit. One thing it does not need to be is repetitive, I have plenty to say on that subject.
You will (hopefully) see Laura's opinion of herself, among other things, change as the story continues.