Love's Awakening (7 page)

Whoa.
There
you
go
again.
Shh.

“What do milk cows do when they’re not milking?” Oliver asked.

“Sometimes I imagine myself in a field, grazing the grass.”

A smile from Oliver. Slight. “For what it’s worth, cows are cute.”

“Are they?”

“Sure. They have their own charm.”

“And what’s that?”

“Promise not to laugh.”

This
is
intriguing.
“Promise.”

“When I was in middle school, my class took a trip to a farm. The cows there were for making cheese, and they...I don’t know. They made me calm. Peaceful. Their eyes were soothing, like they were saying everything would be all right.”

Celia’s heart warmed.
Aw.
He’s
sweet.

Oliver wiped his palms on his jeans. “Have you ever looked into a cow’s eyes? ‘Cause you should.”

“I will.”

“Good. Good.”

“I went to a shrink yesterday,” Celia offered. “Dr. Frowny Face. He has a pole up his ass.”

Oliver laughed. “Nice.”

“Your dad worried about you.”

Oliver’s expression darkened.

“He loved you. He really did, but he had a hard time showing it. He wanted you to settle down, be happy and—”

“Did he tell you about Paul and Erin?”

Celia blinked. “Who?”

Oliver rotated his cast and pointed to two names:
Erin
E.
Paul
J.
“Did my father tell you about them?”

“No. Who are they?”

“Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Look, Dad left me a note. The wreck was on purpose. Here, let me show you.”

Chapter
Six

Oliver watched and waited as Celia read. Her eyes moved quickly, scanning the lines. Then she stopped, her gaze turning incredulous. Unseeing. She’d stopped squeezing long ago. At last, she detached the collection bottle. She handed the note back to Oliver, but her movements were vague. She was half a ghost.

Celia removed the shirt—deep purple—that had been covering her breasts, and the shirt fell into her lap. Oliver could not help but
look
. Celia’s bra had no cups, and her nipples were big. No way around it. Huge. Ginormous. And erect, very erect.

Oliver gulped.
Wow.
Oh,
wow.

He forced his eyes up.

“Still think cows are cute?” Celia asked.

Oliver swallowed. “Nothing wrong with them.” Them meaning Celia’s breasts. And there truly wasn’t anything wrong. The nipples possessed their own strange beauty, and Celia’s breasts were full, round. Lovely. Oliver felt himself hardening.
Oh,
hell
. Celia had better not look down at his crotch.

Celia sighed, put her bra cups back on and pulled her shirt up. “My left breast is bigger. When I thought they couldn’t get any worse.”

“They looked the same size to me.”

Celia laughed wearily. “Gonna be a long time before a man finds them fit to be touched again.”

Oliver scoffed. “If that’s the worst of it, then—please. You’re fine. Totally fine.” He wondered what Shannon’s breasts had looked like after she gave birth. He was pretty sure she’d never breastfed Paul or Erin. The babies went to Malcolm and Sherelle right away, and Shannon wanted nothing to do with Oliver.

Celia only laughed again. More wearily.

“I’d touch them,” Oliver said.

“W-what?”

Oliver felt heat creep up his neck and spread to his face. “Not like that. I just meant breasts are breasts. Beauty comes in many, uh, they weren’t that bad, uh, they, of course I didn’t see what they were like before you got pregnant, so—”
Stop.
You’re
making
it
worse.

Celia stared at him. Awkward silence. Long, awkward silence, and Oliver’s hardening deflated. Thank goodness.

“Well, thank you, Oliver,” Celia said at last.

“Sure,” he mumbled. “Ain’t no big thing.”

She smiled hesitantly. “All right.”

Oliver had never told anyone about Paul and Erin. As far as he knew, his grandparents remained in the dark. Maybe his father had told them, maybe not, but the secret of the children, of Erin’s smiley face and their names on Oliver’s cast, was sour. Always had been. Oliver decided to improvise, to tell Celia stuff he didn’t know for sure about Shannon, but it had to have happened. Didn’t it for all nursing women?

“Look, Celia, your breasts will get better. Shannon’s did.”

There. Oliver had said it. Something close enough, anyway. And he felt better right away. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Teenagers made stupid mistakes. Nothing to be ashamed of at all.

“Shannon’s got better? What do you mean? Who is Shannon?”

Oliver indicated the names with his finger.
Erin
E.
Paul
J.
“Shannon is my ex. And like I said, her breasts got better.”

Celia’s eyes went wide. Wider than at the hospital when Oliver told her about the accident, and wider than just now with the transgender news. “You have a baby?” Celia squeaked.

“They’re not babies. Boy and girl. Twins.”

“Oh, wow.”

“You’re right that I didn’t have class two weeks ago. I went to his baseball game. He hit a single. He should’ve been out at first, but he ran like hell.”

Celia studied the names on the cast a long, long time. Long enough for Oliver’s tongue to thicken and his heart to stiffen.

Long enough for him to realize what an idiot he was.

Oliver reached into his pocket and jammed a letter into Celia’s hands. “This explains the transgender stuff. Thanks for coming over.”

“Oliver—”

“Go home, Celia.”

“You have children, you have—oh, wow. How old? I thought you didn’t want kids.”

“I don’t have children.”

“Of course you had to go to the game. Yes, of course. He’s your son.”

Your
son.
Your
son.

“I told you,” Oliver said. “I don’t have children. I’m not their father.”

“Then who are you? I don’t understand.”

“I’m Oliver. Oliver who sees them a few times a year. Officially, anyway. Unofficially I go to games and events sometimes and hide and…I’m not their dad. Shannon’s not their mom.”
Stop,
stop.
Why was Oliver running his mouth like this? Celia was not the person for pseudo therapy. Oliver fled to the kitchen and began emptying the dishwasher.

Celia came in a moment later. “Oliver,” she said, and her voice was soft and delicate like the first time they met, and Oliver had no choice but to look into Celia’s eyes. Oliver saw yearning there, or at least he thought he did. It was quite possible he was simply projecting his own desires.

“Go home, Celia.”

“Can I hug you goodbye?”

A
hug?
No
way
. Oliver shook his head.

“Do you have pictures of them? How old are they? Does your dad know about them?”

“Of course he knows.”

“Do your grandparents?”

“Probably not.” Up went plates into the cabinet.

“Oliver—”

“Later. I’ll tell you more later. You should go home and read the letter explaining the transgender stuff.”

Celia retrieved a fistful of spoons and forks, and Oliver indicated which drawer they belonged to. They worked until the dishwasher was empty, and then Celia said: “If you’re not their father, who is?”

Oliver sighed, fatigue snaking into his pores. “Sherelle is their mother. Malcolm is their father. It’s an open adoption.”

“Where’s Shannon?”

“Around,” Oliver said. “Same as me.” He grimaced. “And since the kids were born, she’s wanted nothing to do with me. At least she puts on a good show in front of the kids.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“Middle school. We were together four years or so, and then she got pregnant.”

“That had to be rough.”

Oliver chuckled. “No kidding.”

Celia reached for him. “Oliver, let me help you. Please? I want to hear about the kids.”

“No.”

Celia slid an arm, then another, around Oliver’s waist. She rested one hand in the small of Oliver’s back. Her breath was hot. Wonderfully alive. Her breasts pressed into his chest, and they stayed entwined. Oliver willed himself to behave. No erections. He recited math problems in his head:
Nine
times
twelve
is
108.
No,
120.
No,
108
is
right.
One
hundred
eight
plus
one
hundred
twenty
is…

That kind of stuff.

Oliver was in agony. Torture. Celia with him felt good. Right. Better than with Lori, better than with Shannon, better than with anyone.

Celia drew back a bit but kept her arms around Oliver. She smiled her lopsided smile. “I don’t know about you, but I feel better.”

Oliver moved without thinking. He brushed his mouth against Celia’s, only then becoming conscious of his actions. His every nerve was meltingly aware of where Celia’s warm body touched his. Half of him said to pull back, but the other half pressed on. His cock rose to the occasion.

Celia responded to the kiss and cock salute with a shiver and a soft moan. She and Oliver were together, their bodies, very together, so tight they meshed as one. They kissed deeply, leisurely, in sync, no sloppiness, though there was plenty of tongue. Tangling, exploratory, playful. It was a passion Oliver had not experienced before. A serious, solemn passion that reached down through him, through his heart, stomach, lungs, to his toes. A passion that acknowledged he and Celia were kissing to get their minds off other matters. David for Celia, and for Oliver, Paul and Erin, but they were kissing, they were feeling, they were alive. They kissed with a passion that acknowledged they could never be together and that this might well be their first
and
last kiss. Intimate. Sweet. Tender.

Oliver had never imagined he could be like this. That Celia would be like this. This good. This perfect. Many things clicked inside Oliver, not at the same time, but a little after another, the click click click of dominoes.

This was what it was supposed to be like.

This. This. Oliver and Celia kissed, Oliver was not sure for how long, maybe five minutes, maybe ten, maybe fifteen. Then it was over. Celia drew aside, close enough for her breath to blow hot on Oliver’s cheek, but far enough for finality.

“Oh, Oliver,” Celia said. She sounded like she might cry. “I don’t know what came over—I better go.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said gruffly. “Go home.” The kiss had been the best of Oliver’s life. They could not just abandon it. But of course they would.

*****

Celia spent the next few days on her laptop. She watched DVDs of her and David: their wedding, vacations and so on. She searched for clues that David was transgender.

She found nothing.

Sometimes anger burned inside her like a low fire. Other times, she gave in to exhaustion and numbness. On hers and David’s wedding video, they cut the cake and smeared each other’s faces. David had nothing but long kisses and romantic words for her. At three minutes and ten seconds into the video, David playfully grabbed Celia’s ass. Celia, wedding dress and all, chased David around the reception hall and tackled him.

The present-day Celia wanted to smash a vase. How could David think that mistreating her for six months was preferable to admitting he was transgender? Was it preferable for David to kill himself?

When Celia got sick of watching DVDs, she Google imaged “cows.” Oliver was right. Cows possessed deep, soulful eyes, and looking into their faces helped Celia re-orient herself. Helped subside her anger toward David.

Celia tried her best not to think about Oliver. About that kiss, about Oliver’s hardness pressing into her. She and David had been missing that connection, that spark, but Celia refused to dwell on the realization. She had been caught up in emotion. She did not have that type of connection with Oliver—with her own stepson. No way, no how.

However, the fact remained that Celia still felt Oliver’s warmth, Oliver’s awed eyes on her breasts, Oliver’s pained voice when he talked about the children. A curious swooping pull had begun between Celia’s legs during their kiss and had yet to evaporate. It lingered, barely there sometimes, more there other times. Celia was tempted to laugh. Barely two weeks after having a baby, she should not feel any stirrings of desire.

But sure enough, that’s what this was. For
Oliver
. Celia rationalized away her reaction. No big deal. After months of coolness at David’s hands, Celia was desperate for warmth. All this was. A physical reaction toward a man doing her a favor by pretending to find her pretty. By pretending that cows were cute.

Oliver was not attracted to her. Nope. Oliver had avoided her four years because Celia was his age and a possible gold digger—not because he was attracted to Celia, to his father’s wife. Right?

Best to think about David. David was a more-immediate problem. Never mind that every time Celia closed her eyes, she replayed Oliver’s arms around her, Oliver’s cast pressing into her side. Her own arms around Oliver. Their kiss. The sensation was so intense Celia and Oliver might as well have parted a mere five minutes ago.

Celia had always prided herself on being open-minded. What if David had told her about the transgender thing? Celia played out such a conversation in her mind:

Celia,
I
feel
like
a
woman
in
a
man’s
body.
I’m
not
happy.
I’m
transgender.