i don’t have the easiest schedule in the world. i wake up every weekday at four a.m., while my husband and son are sound asleep. i dress quietly in the darkness and tiptoe downstairs (as much out of fear of stepping on our resident mouse as of waking anyone). i leave the house at five, with any given percentage of a pot of coffee already sloshing around in my belly. there’s an hour-long bus ride and another hour at work before there’s even a hint of sunrise. i usually work between four and eight hours, then there’s the hour commute back and a mandatory shower because my workplace smells…funky. in the bad bad bad way. twice a week my husband works in the afternoons, so the entire morning is rushed and stressful. i come home in a bad mood (which is usually amplified by some godawful bus experience or another), and the poor husband has to suffer my murderous glare as we try to get lunch together before he leaves.
but when he leaves, a magical thing happens. i am clean. i am fed. the child is fed, and can be sat down with a movie in the living room. i get “personal time.”
you can practically see the golden glittery light of fairytales surround my bed as i lay back on the pillows. sometimes, if i’m really, really lucky… it’s quiet.
breathing freely is a miracle in this world.
there are days when i use this time to nap. there are times when i can’t keep my eyes open anymore, and all i need is to be curled up in a blissfully empty bed, under blankets that are not being hogged by anyone else.
the best days, though, are ones like today. no one needs me for anything. i even remember to take the laundry out of the dryer so i don’t have to interrupt myself. i have a guaranteed hour of peace and quiet. to a lot of people, this won’t sound like a lot of time. to many, it probably wouldn’t be nearly enough. to me, it stretches forward, something vast and indefinite.
i pile up the pillows and recline like a goddamn queen. just a lazy reach to one side and there’s a vibrator in my hand, all plugged in with a washcloth rubberbanded around its head and ready to go. that first orgasm is always fast and tense, just enough to brush away the surface stress and start feeling things a little more. the next one takes patience, to breathe through the jolting hypersensitivity to a place where tension really starts to melt. i’m almost never satisfied with one or two. sure, they leave me with that high singing feeling behind my eyes and a little more bounce in my step, but it takes four or five good hard comes to get me where i want to be. in the middle of that magical final one, you’ll almost invariably find me on my knees, gripping my njoy hard enough to make dr. kegel himself proud, yelling things that might not be words and shaking like a leaf. it must be a beautiful thing to behold.
i collapse back onto the pillows, but not for long. i float out of the bedroom to do the requisite washing, and in the mirror all i see is a transcendent smile and rosy cheeks. it’s like the morning never happened.
reality does descend before too long, because there will always be a tantrum over some forbidden non-toy, or a blood sugar meltdown when the little one is too excited about life to eat his snack. it’s a cycle of ups and downs, and i just need to keep remembering that my time is never more than a couple of days away. most of the time, it’s worth the wait.
