Monday Breakfast

Five days of full-on parenting. No sex.

When I was married, that wasn’t anything.

Back then, I parented every day. Five days without sex was not at all unusual. Heck, five months of celibacy was a pretty standard stretch.

But now, when I parent, I do so alone. I am on-call 24/7, with no passing off of duties. No “honey, can you get that?,” no “did you remember to pick up the . . . ,” no “I’m concerned about that cough . . . does he feel warm?”

I am on my own as a single dad.

As for celibacy: nope, that just doesn’t cut it. Not anymore. Even a few days without sex is just plan wrong.

Shelby saw it coming, bless her heart. That’s going to drive you crazy, she said.

She didn’t offer to help with the parenting. I don’t want that. She offered to help with the man who parents.

“Want a couple of days after the kids are back in school? It’s going to snow. If I have to be snowed in someplace, I want to be with you.”

Yes, baby.

On Monday morning, the sky was gray, the news full of hand wringing about an imminent snowstorm.

I got the kids to school. I walked home through Central Park, glad that this was the last scheduled day that Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Gates would be on view. A few days of dismantling the things, I hoped, and we would get our park back, rid of those orange hazard signs.

I got home just before Shelby showed up.

It had been two weeks.

My sweet lover kissed me hello.

We undressed while talking, like long time lovers, and got into bed. She was in my arms. She was mine, again, finally.

We kissed. I was in her.

We made love.

And it took time, but somewhere along the line, as she rode my cock, as I sucked her nipples, or as I pinned her down and roughly used her tits as handles to move her body to my thrusts, somewhere in there, that longing that I have for her—that intense pang that makes me want to devour her—subsided and was transformed, as it always is, into a slower-burning yet no less intense state of desire.

I could touch her without my teeth gnashing with hunger for her flesh.

Shelby fell asleep afterwards. The snow started to fall.

She is so lovely on my pillows.