“Fuck!”
Small goblets of blood began to pool from Cassie’s index finger towards the cutting board with her married last name, “Winters” engraved into the wood. It had been a wedding present from her childhood best friend and had been one of her favorite gifts. She hoped the blood wouldn’t stain. If it did, that would bring the total to four wedding presents that she’d broken or destroyed in their first year of marriage. Not a good statistic, by any standards. Cassie hoped it wasn’t some sort of sign.
What it could be a sign of, Cassie wasn’t sure. Everything about her relationship with Scott was solid. Even their fights, no matter how bad they got were usually resolved within a day. Plus, if she was being honest, all of their fights had been provoked by her. Every. Single. One. Maybe the ease of their relationship was what made Cassie fall in love with him to begin with. After the all the tumultuousness with Gabe, and all the game-playing and uncertainty that came with guys before and after him, Cassie clung to simplicity like a toddler who couldn’t tear themselves away from a parent on the first day of school. In their first few weeks of dating, Scott had been so straightforward, so kind, so sweet, so everything she ever wanted that she kind of thought he could be a serial killer. Or at least some sort of creep.
Over time he had proven to be just good ole reliable Scott. And most days that was good enough for Cassie. Sure, their relationship lacked the passion that her and Gabe once had. And she couldn’t talk for hours with Scott like she could with Ethan. And sometimes she wished that maybe, for one second Scott could get riled up about something… anything. But then she would remember that she didn’t need someone like her, she needed someone to ground her, which is exactly what Scott did.
And to think, they almost didn’t meet. He was supposed to be out of town for the holidays, and she was coming out of the worst year of her life (beginning with a bad breakup with the guy she dated after Gabe, and ending with her taking the secretary job at the studio). A friend was throwing a holiday party for all the Los Angeles orphans and since Cassie had just come back from San Diego for her family’s annual Hanukkah party, she was considered one that year. Ethan and Lucinda were headed someplace epic and romantic (that was during one of their “on” periods), so Cassie was forced to attend the party all alone. Cassie was never much of a “party person,” but especially not back in those days. If she hadn’t just seen Gabe’s Second “Rolling Stone” cover proclaiming him “The Sexiest Singer” or some other comparable title, she didn’t think he deserved, she probably would’ve stayed home with her faithful companions, Ben and Jerry. But, seeing Gabe’s handsome and clueless face plastered on a magazine lit enough of a fire under her ass to go out and live her life. So, that was what she was going to do, starting with Emma’s holiday party.
About an hour into the party, Cassie was gearing up to leave (that had been her final negotiation with herself: have a beer, stay for an hour, and then you can return home to the comforts of cable and sweatpants), when she spotted Scott from across the way. He was wearing a beanie, nice jeans (not the ill-fitting kind every straight guy insisted on wearing back in those days), a tie, and a cardigan that looked so cozy, Cassie couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to wear it (which she now often does). Scott had an ease about him that made Cassie notice and gravitate to him right away. He also happened to be talking to the party’s host, Emma at the time, so Cassie felt bold enough to trek over and say hello. Besides, it would be the perfect opportunity to thank Emma for inviting her and then mosey on her way out. Only, that was not what ended up happening.
In Scott’s retelling of their cute-meet, he always mentions how struck he was by the confident Cassie who marched right over and started talking to him. He always forgets that Emma was their buffer. Cassie prefers his version of the story— like she was some sort of take-charge woman who saw something she liked and was going to go after it, no if’s, and’s, or but’s. Cassie only wished that she was actually like that. Perhaps, that was another reason she loved Scott so much. He saw the version of her she always wanted to be. The truth is, Cassie is the person Scott and the rest of the world sees, but her own unrealistic expectations of herself make it impossible for her to see it, too. He was the first person to give her a glimmer of that.
Scott and Cassie spent the rest of the party talking, which considering how shy he is and how much social anxiety she gets was kind of extraordinary. Perhaps they both knew, even within those first few hours of meeting each other that that this could be the start of something pretty special. They discussed their New Year’s Eve plans together and were surprisingly delighted to find out they were going to the same party. They had spent the last four years living in L.A. circling each other, and now they were going to all of the same events.
When New Years Eve rolled around, Cassie spent a little extra time getting ready in hopes of running into him. Ethan and Emma came over to pre-game and strategize their midnight kiss plans She would later find out that Ethan and Lucinda had broken up during their trip, and unbeknownst to Cassie, Ethan planned on making her his midnight kiss that night, but that wasn’t on her mind then. Cassie and Scott spent the entire night looking for each other, only to finally come face-to-face at exactly 11:59 pm. It was near magical. Even Ethan couldn’t help but feel elated for her. After so many years of pining and heartbreak, it looked like Cassie was finally going to get her fairytale romance.
The next day, Scott officially asked her out. The day after that, they went on their first date. The day after that, he told her how much he liked her. The day after that, they went on another date. And the day after that, Cassie told him she didn’t want to sleep with him yet. This was the first time Cassie had ever told a guy this. She didn’t have any objections to sleeping with men on first dates, hell she’d even had a one-night stand before, but for some reason she wanted to prolong sex with Scott. Maybe it was because of everything that happened with Gabe. That kind of hurt and pain tends to take the fun out of sex for awhile. But, Cassie thought it had more to do with the fact that she could already tell that something was unique about Scott and she wanted to do something different for once.
It paid off. Scott was a perfect gentleman and agreed to wait until she was ready. The promise to prolong the deed lasted a whole month before Cassie gave in. Scott had been out of town doing PR for a film fest in Arizona. They had somehow found a way to see each other every day since New Year’s Eve, and this was their first time apart from each other since they started dating. Scott usually used the annual fest as a way to take a few extra days of vacation. He’d rent a car and take the scenic route, making stops at The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas before making his way back to L.A. That trip, he didn’t make any stops back home and drove for ten hours straight to be at Cassie’s by dinner. The steak and mashed potatoes she spent so long preparing for him sat uneaten as they made their way to the bedroom as soon as he walked through the door. The poor guy was so exhausted that he immediately fell asleep after he came. As for Cassie? The wait had been worth it. Scott was a gentle, but attentive lover. And even though first times were always awkward, their first time was sweet and sexy, and he brought Cassie to the brink of climax. Which all things considered, the brink of an orgasm was pretty damn good. As Scott soundly slept, Cassie penned song lyrics in her journal and didn’t think twice about their abandoned dinner.
Now, as she held her bleeding finger under their leaky and lukewarm faucet, she couldn’t help but think ‘those were the days.’ Dinners now were usually either pre-made on Sunday and then defrosted (and that’s when Cassie actually remembered to defrost them, which usually left all their food with the slight residue of freezer-burn), or quickly put together when Cassie got home from work and had to fight off pangs of hunger. Which is how she came to cut her finger— rushing to finish. The fact that dinner always had to be her responsibility (along with most of the other household chores… okay, all the other household chores) was starting to become a point of resentment for her. Scott wasn’t lazy by any means. He just didn’t care about structure and order like Cassie did.
A fresh wave of anxiety overtook her as she thought about if he would be capable of change if and when they had a child. Surely then he couldn’t expect all of the domestic responsibility to fall on Cassie’s shoulders. Especially not when she was working a sixty-hour week for a salary barely above minimum wage. She had tried to have a conversation with Scott about it, but his response was always: ‘let’s wait and see when we get there.’ The other side of having a partner who was so laid back and easy-going meant that Cassie was the one who had to do most of the work.
She heard their dog begin to bark at the unmistakable sound of Scott’s car pulling into the driveway. As Biscuit scampered towards the back door, eagerly awaiting Scott’s presence, Cassie turned the water off and brought her finger to her lips. At least he’d be home in time to witness her injury firsthand and perhaps that would garner some sympathy for her. Maybe even enough sympathy for him to take over cooking duties. Or at the very least, enough sympathy for him to suggest they walk down to the taco truck and eat street tacos instead of the “healthy” salmon and kale bowl she was preparing. In addition to her constant struggle to motivate herself creatively, Cassie was constantly struggling to lose five to ten pounds. It wasn’t that she was overweight, and most men cherished her curves, but Cassie felt like her hips and ass stuck out just a tad too much for her liking. So, she often planned for salmon and kale dinners, but hoped for tacos and burgers instead.
She should’ve known Scott was in a mood as soon as he walked in. Normally he’d greet her with a kiss and ask how her day was. Cassie thought he’d at least make mention of her sucking her index finger like an infant. Instead he breezed right past her with a head nod, and made a beeline for their bedroom. After a moment’s confusion, Cassie followed him in.
“How was your day?”
“Fine.”
“That’s it? Fine?”
He nodded. Sometimes when he came home like this, she knew that is was because of a difficult client and he had probably been dealing with some crisis for the past eight hours. She could only assume this, however, because Scott never talked about what was bothering him. He’d leave her with fragments that she’d have to piece together like fucking Sherlock Holmes. He didn’t want to burden her with his problems, especially since he saw most problems as pretty insignificant, but it left her feeling detached from him a lot of times. It’s hard to be the partner who seems to always be in crisis, when the other partner was never in crisis. A person can get insecure about that sort of thing.
“Yeah. How was your day?” he asked after a moment too long.
“Not great. A producer called me a loser and I cut my finger just now. It really hurts. I hope I don’t need stitches.” Cassie knew she didn’t need stitches and it barely hurt anymore, but she hoped this statement would help her case for sympathy. It didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Scott curtly replied.
“Do you want to go to the taco truck?” she pleaded hopefully.
Scott shook his head, “I’m not that hungry.” So her injury was in vain, after all. She felt envious that Scott was never hungry and when he was, he could eat anything he wanted without ever gaining a pound, whereas if Cassie even looked at food, it went straight to her thighs. And the concept of “not hungry” was a foreign one to her. It’s quite possible that those words had never left her mouth, let alone formed in her brain.
“Okay… do you want to do anything tonight?”
“No plans. You feel like having sex?”
Cassie thought about it. She wasn’t sure if she ever felt like having sex, but now that they were having sex for the purpose of getting pregnant, it became more weighted. She felt like having a baby, sure. But then again, they had sex yesterday when she was ovulating, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t anymore. So, the sex wouldn’t even count towards the baby-making goal. And in that case, Cassie felt like there wasn’t a point. This logic tracked in her head. She attempted to explain it, but it was just met with a befuddled look from Scott.
“Making a baby doesn’t have to be the only time we have sex,” he concluded. Cassie thought he had a point, so she reluctantly agreed as she took off her top, then gave him a perfunctory kiss before making her way towards his dick. If she could get him close to coming before he entered her, it’d be less time having actual sex. And she didn’t mind giving head. She actually quite liked it, especially if the penis size was neither too big nor too small. Cassie was like the fucking goldilocks of blow jobs.
Unless she was high (and sadly her afternoon joint had long filtered out of her system), Cassie usually counted when she gave head. It took Scott about 200 counts before he was close. Gabe she could get off in less than a hundred, which she had been grateful for because his dick was large. She wondered if his millions of fans knew this about him and felt a little surge of smugness that she knew something that intimate about him. And then she cursed herself for thinking about Gabe while she was going down on her husband, which only made her work his shaft even harder with her mouth. 76, 77, 78.
Scott let out a tiny moan. It was barely audible, but its’ mere existence was encouraging to Cassie. She was the loud one during sex. She’d often have teeth marks on the inside of her lip from biting down so hard. Or very unhappy neighbors. But, she didn’t really care. 102, 103, 104.
Her throat was starting to throb and she hoped he would finish soon. Instead, he reached up for Cassie and swiveled her around so he could enter her from behind. Cassie knew this was his finishing position, so it wouldn’t be long before they were done. She also knew that it was an old wive’s tale that doing it from behind was more likely to produce a boy. Cassie secretly hoped their first child would be a girl, but she was more eager for the sex to be done. Two more minutes of thrusting and Scott made another barely audible moan. This time Cassie felt his hips gyrate and she knew he had finished. She could feel him throbbing inside her. And even she had to admit that it felt nice.
After a couple of seconds, Scott pulled out of her and lay back on the bed. Cassie rolled to her side of the bed, panting.
“I wish we had pot,” she said.
“Me too,” he echoed back. She tried not to look disappointed as she realized that if she were in fact pregnant, she probably wouldn’t be craving bad things. As Scott began to softly doze, Cassie untangled herself from the sheets. If she wasn’t pregnant, that meant she could have a cigarette. A nasty little habit she picked up in college and tended to re-pick up whenever there were times of stress in her life. Which lately had been always.
As Cassie lit a cigarette and thought about the countless post-coital cigarettes her and Gabe shared, her heart ached for him in a way she didn’t think was possible again. And then she wondered if he ever thought of her in the same way and hated herself a little bit for even thinking it.