LOVE AT FIRST DATE

Chapter 23: His Hell

"This has never happened before, y'know," he angrily assured her, arms tightly crisscrossed against his bare chest as he stared down at the jeans he had hastily yanked on, in a fit of frustration, before storming out of the bedroom and onto the couch.

"It's okay, honey," Michelle soothed him for the half-dozenth time, her voice seeping out from behind the open refrigerator door. "Really, you're making way too much of it."

"It's not okay, Michelle. Why can't ya just lock him up?" he fumed.

"Because he's been locked up in the carrier all day. He's got to be allowed to roam around for awhile," she gently explained the ways of the animal kingdom to him.

"Well, why can't he freely roam around the bathroom or somewhere… Anywhere but the bedroom…"

"Here, look what I came across in the freezer," she sweetly announced, entering from the kitchen with the oversized chocolate ice cream cone she'd prepared for him, confident it was would bound to go far in taking his mind off his wounded ego.

"I can't… perform with him watching," he ranted. "I'm not into that kinda thing, Michelle."

"He's a cat, honey," she gently reminded, struggling to maintain a serious demeanor as she watched him pretend to barely notice the cone she was temptingly extending to him.

"Good thing, too, or he'd be up on voyeurism charges," he carried on.

"Animals don't perceive things the same way as humans do. Really, you're letting yourself get all worked up over nothing," she guaranteed him.

"Nothing, huh," he sullenly brooded, tightening his arms across his chest and subconsciously glancing down at his jeans, as if to be certain that all fasteners were secured in the event the degenerate should decide to swing by in the hopes of catching an encore.

What more could possibly go wrong today, he stewed in frustration. And just when everything had finally been going so right. He'd never been so happy to get home in his life. She'd smiled and beamed and reminded him of how handsome he had looked in his tuxedo as she'd worked to strip him of it. They'd knocked against walls and ravaged one another's mouths, peeling away the clothes that had formed a crumpled, scattered trail from the hall to the bedroom.

She had felt so incredibly good in his arms, her warm, bare skin pressed tightly against his own; her mouth, tasting so sweet from the slight remnants of champagne on her tongue. He had felt so relieved to finally have her home and alone again, entirely to himself and gloriously naked, all but for her earrings, and he his watch. Muffled music had filtered in from the living room's receiver, just audible enough to create some ambience without dictating or disrupting the moment or mood. The sun had just begun to go down, naturally dimming the light in the room. An early evening chill had been in the air, compelling her to curl her body up tight beneath him, blanketing herself with the warmth of his skin.

He thought of how her thick, reddish curls had splayed across the pillow, and the feeling of their silky texture inside his palm; how hungrily her body had responded to his; the way his heart had pounded so hard as she'd greedily transformed him, as always, into the equivalent of a personal playground. He reveled in the memory of how he had caught her stealing peeks at his face as she'd pushed all the buttons that made him groan. She had made him burn so hot, so fast, just by the way her fingertips had roamed around, searching for unique new ways to drive his atoms to the splitting point.

His mind flashed back to when he had raised her head with the crook of his arm and nudged her jaw back with his lips, clearing a path to kiss his way down her neck and across her delicate bones. He remembered how fragrant her skin had smelled as he'd dragged his mouth from here to there. He could still feel the tightening of her arms around his dampened shoulders and back, her faint, raspy whimpers and moans replaying inside his head, like music; like thrilling, sensual lyrics describing what his body was doing to hers. He recalled whispering how much he had missed her, despite their having spent every minute of the day together, but she had known what he meant. He'd pressed himself against her, slowly and subtly moving his hips the way he knew she liked.

The snug hold she'd had on him, enhanced by the silky warmth that pressed against him, had begun to slowly break him down. He remembered the quiver in his own voice, telling her how it felt to be part of her; how difficult it still was to believe that he was even actually with her; and how badly he ached to feel them coming apart in each other's arms, but at the same time wanting to hold out for hours. He had tried to program his mind toward taking it slow and making things last, but she'd shot his plan to hell, playfully squirming beneath him, lustfully taunting him; positioning to wholly devour him.

She'd snuggled her cheek closer to his and sighed deeply and excitedly, asking him to make good on his vow from the other night: to give her whatever she wanted from him.

"Anything, baby," he had heard himself pant in a heated whisper, his formerly smooth voice discernibly weakened. She had caught him off-guard, her words sending out sparks to every critical nerve ending. "Anything," he'd repeated as he'd gathered her more firmly into his arms, filling a fist with her curls and sliding the other beneath her. Once snug within his embrace, he'd bathed her face and mouth in kisses, playfully bit her bottom lip and begged to know the thoughts going on inside her mind.

She'd bashfully giggled and blushed as she'd whispered them against his ear. He had heard his own lungs aspirate hard with each word he had taken in. Everything had felt so magical and perfect and right with the world — until the king of kink had to go and show up and ruin it all, comfortably settling himself at the foot of the bed, like he owned the place, and staring directly at their entangled bodies, as if all he needed, now, was for someone to pass him a box of popcorn and a trench coat.

"Well…" Michelle broke into his thoughts, feigning disappointment with a deep, manufactured sigh. "If you really don't want this, I guess I can figure out some way to prop it up in the freezer until…"

"Just… It's gonna drip, Michelle," he snarled, foisting his hand out and taking the cone, as though left with no choice but to make the ultimate sacrifice and consume it for the sake of the couch and all innocent upholstery everywhere.

"Why don't you just relax for a few minutes while I—"

"I was relaxed. I was perfectly relaxed," he reminded her between selfless licks. "You, of all people, should know how relaxed I was…"

"Well, I… What I meant was now, dear. Put on the television, and I'll get Fluff-Fluff fed and settled into one of the rooms, and then you and I can—"

Her words dissipated and her eyes sealed shut in synch with the sound of his cell phone ringing. She couldn't believe it. Please just let this be a recorded message announcing the substantial savings to be gained by switching from cable to satellite. Don't let it be anything office-related — or, worse, family related. Not now. The poor man's been through enough for one day, she thought as she fetched the phone from the kitchen counter.

Between long, lengthy licks he silently listened to the voice on the other end, his stone-faced expression and dead-ahead stare revealing little in the way of the caller's identity, or the the nature of their one-way discussion.

Michelle watched for a few tense moments until wordlessly, and without eye contact, he thrust the phone out in her direction.

"For me?" she whispered in surprise, trying to imagine who would be calling her on his phone as she timorously brought it to her ear. "Oh, uhh… oh, my goodness," she interjected here and there, studiously absorbing a hurried rundown of the situation at hand. "Well, umm… Well, yes. Yes, of course. I… I can be there in ten minutes," she said, her eyes warily turning toward him in search of a reaction to her announcement. "Tell her not to worry about a thing," she concluded before slowly clicking his cell phone closed.

"I…"

"Just go," he softly said, his level of defeat and frustration so high that it seemed to have somehow affected the part of his brain that controlled screaming.

"I'm sorry, honey. I really am, but she specifically asked for me, and I can't just refuse. It's her first time, after all, and she's probably frightened as can be, and I am her Maid of Honor," she gingerly reminded him.

"Goooo, Michelle," he repeated in the soft, controlled voice of a beaten man, silently cursing his luck as she hurried to change from his tuxedo shirt into something more Delivery Room-appropriate, elaborating upon the unfortunate turn of events, throughout.

He silently licked the ice cream down until it had leveled off with the top of the cone, wordlessly listening to the details of how well Pete had apparently taken the news of the caesarian until someone had explained to him what it meant, at which point he'd promptly hit the deck and had to be wheeled down to Emergency to have his head patched up again.

"I promise to be back just as soon as possible," she vowed up and down, hastily gathering her purse and phone, and searching the counter for the slip of paper she'd earlier scribbled the cab company's number upon. "They do these procedures all the time these days. Really. Those babies will be extracted in no time, honey. One, two, three. It's like pulling…"

"I think you should marry me," he quietly muttered.

"…a tooth these days, or performing a simple tonsillec— Wh... What did you—? Did you just—?"

"Take the car," he said, rising from the couch and crossing over to the kitchen counter to rustle up the keys.

"But you… I… I'm not sure that I heard—"

"The babies aren't gonna wait, Michelle," he scientifically informed her, shepherding her across the living room and planting a quick kiss against the side of her head before hustling her through the door and throwing the series of locks behind her.

That ought to get her home fast enough, he figured, his hand quickly digging into his pocket to assure that the wadded up cloth was still there.

Now alone in the apartment, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of dead silence, all but for the soft hum of various appliances, electronics, and the mismatched ticking of assorted clocks. Oddly, he couldn't remember if it was normal for the apartment to sound so quiet, or what it had even sounded like before Michelle had arrived in his life.

He supposed he ought to feel guilty for focusing solely and squarely on himself; for wallowing in self-pity, and for his self-centered attitude and behavior, in general. He hadn't meant to snap at her. He knew that none of this was her fault; that she'd hardly been left with a choice but to comply with Sarina's wishes. He was fully cognizant of all that. But tough. He had generously and valiantly put up with every frustrating obstacle, pitfall, and aggravation presented to him throughout the day — his mother; the cat; the grandbrats; the bikers; her Nazi housekeeper; and that lame P.I. and his damned SUV. He deserved to wallow in self-pity now, scowling pejoratives under his breath. He had more than earned it, in fact. Besides, he knew that Michelle understood that it wasn't her he was angry with; rather, this whole day had been a total disaster, with the exception of a few choice highlights, of course. But, still, to think of all the alone-time they had lost to one insufferable interruption or another; the hours they could have spent nuzzled together, lying on their sides and studying each other's eyes. He liked that. It made him feel serene.

Serene… The word sounded like "Sarina," which immediately aggravated him all over again. This was supposed to be his first date with Michelle, yet whose side was she standing by but Sarina's, while he stood in the middle of an empty apartment with the fuzzball staring up at him, as if to suggest that they channel-surf for a nice old 1940's musical.

He scowled as he looked around the place, wondering how the hell he was going to kill time until she returned, which would likely be hours from now, given the history of the day and coupled with his god-awful luck. He wasn't about to resume his search for the microchip; that was a totally lost cause, he knew. It would be easier to order a new one in the morning than to waste time calling and interrogating Basilio. Not even a guy like Burke could hope to succeed in scaring the chip's location out of that kid.

He thought for a moment about reading the papers, or going through one of his Dad's file folders, but his head just wasn't into it. He could absorb himself in one of those political pundit shows, but he would wonder what Michelle's views were on whatever topics were being debated, and would wish she were there to hash through the facts and talk out the issues.

He moved into the hallway, recalling how the ceiling light had been flickering a little the night before. Flipping the switch on the wall a few times, he took a moment while his eyes were cast upward to dash off a plea to the testosterone gods, begging them to keep the maternity process moving along without incident; to just let the doctors go in and extract those kids with the same level of skill and efficiency that he and his former Marines unit used to employ when tasked with the surgical removal of hostages.

On his way to the kitchen to search for a light bulb, a peripheral barrage of quick-cutting visuals flashing across the TV screen caught his eye. He shot a threatening look at the fur ball, who had comfortably settled into the couch with some part of its fat self evidently pressing against the remote.

"You're gonna break it, from cryssake," he snarled, holding the ice cream cone away with one hand while digging beneath the mass of fur with the other, a veritable eternity passing by the time he had finally found the thing and tossed it onto a shelf in the armoire.

Repulsed by the layer of fur now clinging to his hand, he headed toward the kitchen with the fuzzball following directly on his heels, prancing along like a seasoned troupe member of the Joffrey Ballet.

Holding the ice cream off to the side again, he rinsed his fur hand in disgust, unaware that droplets from the tip of the cone were dripping onto Gaylord's head, now, as it hungrily lapped up the original droplets that had hit the floor.

"Great," he snarled to himself, cramming the leaking cone into the garbage disposal before running his hands through the water again, then stooping down to pick up the cat, effectively coating the palms of both of his wringing-wet hands this time. "Your mother's gonna have a fit," he bristled, standing the fur ball in the sink and ripping a paper towel from the rack. He had barely begun the clean-up process when his cell phone jangled inside his back pocket.

"Honey, I… I'm not sure if I heard you correctly," Michelle continued as she wheeled her way toward the garage exit, picking right up in the conversation as though there had been no time lapse at all. "You think that I should what? I must not have caught— "

"Carry meat," he clarified in an aggravated state, noting the transfer of fur from his hand to his phone, now wedged between his shoulder and ear.

"Wh… What in the—"

"It's an old Marines expression," he factually lied, engrossed in now having somehow brilliantly managed to rub the sticky chocolate even deeper into the fat cat's bottomless thicket of hair.

"A Marines expression?" she suspiciously delved.

"I have fur on my hands, Michelle," he abruptly announced, repulsed by the situation, yet grateful to have a legitimate reason to shift the conversation from meat to ice cream, sensing the unlikelihood of his story surviving her inevitable onslaught of upcoming questions.

"Wh… Well, how did that happen?" she seriously hesitated to ask.

"I got chocolate on your cat," he regretted to inform her, tossing the used paper towel aside and pulling another one from its mooring, confident that the sound of a ripping paper towel would go far in reminding her of the level of damage he was capable of perpetrating; not only upon his own skin, but the fur of others. "He's following me all over the place, too. I can't take two steps without him right behind me," he scowled.

"He just wants to be in your company," she calmly explained.

"He doesn't even like me, Michelle," he sorely reminded her.

"Of course he does. You two just got off to a bad start," she gently assured him. "Did you remember to feed him?"

"I've gotta feed him now?" he barked in astonishment.

"Well, yes, honey. Remember I was just about to feed him when the phone—?"

"Feed him what?" he demanded to know, prepared for a fight to the finish if she thought he was giving up any of the hors d'oeuvres Rosa had handed through the window just before he had sped through the gates.

"It's right inside the refrigerator. Just take the lid off," she calmly explained, sympathetic to his frustrated state and knowing that his ire was not meant for her, but for yet another unforeseen circumstance that was cutting into the precious little time they had left. The earlier blow to his ego hadn't helped matters, either, when he'd found himself rendered sexually useless in the face of Fluff-Fluff's fascinated stare. "That's all you have to do, dear. He can eat it right out of the container it's in. Okay? … Hmm?"

"Yeah, all right," he reluctantly acquiesced in a low mutter. "I just hope I don't make any mistakes, Michelle. I've never had to do this before," he quickly added, confident that implanting a little fear for her pumpkin chop's culinary welfare could only benefit his ultimate mission of getting her home, post-haste.

Abruptly ending the conversation with his usual snap of the cell phone's lid, he transferred the fuzzball from sink to floor, rinsed his furry hands again, and searched the refrigerator shelves, nauseated by the sight of raw chicken livers inside a container marked "Fluff-Fluff," neatly hand-rendered in a medieval scroll, with a little heart drawn in place of the hyphen.

He shook his head and walked away, unable to bear witness to the sight — not to mention the sound — of raw livers being scoffed down at lightning speed.

After the cat was finally finished making a pig of itself, and the revolting container had been slid inside the communal trash chute built into the wall a few doors down the hallway, he moved himself on to the bedroom with Gaylord glued to his heels once again, prancing directly behind him like his food had been laced with moron pills.

Eying the crumpled bedding, he started peeling the layers away, thinking Michelle would like the scent and sensation of tumbling around in clean, fresh sheets; especially given whatever it was Mrs. Sanchez washed them in that always made them smell so great.

Originally planning to stuff the used ones inside the washer for Mrs. Sanchez to deal with, he quickly changed his mind when he found half a jug of "fresh-scent" bleach on the overhead shelf. Emptying the other half on top of the sheets, he dropped the lid and hit the button.

With that task completed, he returned to the bedroom and spied Michelle's tapestry bag sitting on the floor beside the bed. As he contemplated unpacking it for her, a sudden rush ran through him at the thought of opening the closet each morning and seeing her things hanging in amongst his own. Given her over-active clean gene, she likely preferred things arranged in a neat and orderly manner, with all her stuff on one side and his on the other. But, for now, he gingerly draped each familiar office-wardrobe item over a hanger and scattered them here and there, preferring that they mix and touch and maybe even transfer their scents onto his jackets and shirts and things.

Midway through the task, he paused to answer his cell again, repulsed to discover that some of the fur from his hand had inadvertently transferred to his pocket when he'd earlier tucked the phone away.

"Y'know, the security guard in the maternity ward is a Marine who just rotated home from Iraq," Michelle just thought she would mention, now on her final leg of the journey down the hospital hallway, "and he's never heard the expression 'carry meat.'"

"Uh-huh… Ya didn't happen to ask him if he was recon with a sniper platoon…"

Silence fell over the other end. "Hmm?" he prompted her for an answer, squeaking open a dresser drawer to make room for all the silky things he'd found at the bottom of her bag.

"Well, I—"

"Platoons have their own expressions, Michelle. Like code," he informatively lied. "'Carry meat' essentially means 'just do what ya have to, and get the hell outta there, pronto.'"

"So where does the meat come in?" Work-Michelle's analytical mind wanted to know.

"It's code," he impatiently repeated.

"Code for what?"

"Just…I can't go into that part, Michelle. It's classified," he tersely explained.

"You're telling me that the United States Armed Forces found fit to classify 'carry—'"

"Just… just get yourself home soon, okay? Geeziz," he grumbled, annoyed with himself for failing to think the details through.

Michelle shook her head on the other end. Men — indisputably the worst liars on Earth. Not a one of them possessed even so much as a glimmer of talent or hope. She didn't know why they even went to the trouble, as transparently implausible as their stories would always turn out to be. He might as well have just simply tacked on "Oh, and by the way, I'm lying" to the end of his feeble Marines explanation. Not that it would've even mattered; she knew he hadn't said "carry meat." She wasn't exactly sure what she had heard, but she assuredly hadn't heard "carry meat."

Her heart started pounding again, as it had throughout the entire drive. She didn't want to think too long about what she thought she had heard. It made her head spin and her stomach flutter. Besides, it felt just a little too good to be true, anyway, and she'd just be crushed if, in fact, it turned out that she hadn't heard what she thought she had heard. She could also count it as among the most awkward and embarrassing moments of her life if she asked him, outright, if indeed he had said "I think you should marry me," only to be gently and tenderly told that, no, he had actually said something else. It might even throw their relationship back a step a two, spooking him with the topic of marriage before he was prepared to approach it himself.

Best she just put it out of her mind, as next-to-impossible a feat as it was, with her internal need-to-know mechanism now teetering on the brink of critical mass, at levels capable of putting Chernobyl to shame.

"Honey, I have to go now," she concluded with a sigh, spying a nurse at the end of the corridor, rapidly flashing hand-signal reminders about cell phone usage on hospital premises. "But I was thinking I'd stop off on the way back and pick up some Chinese food, or maybe a…"

"I'll take care of dinner. You just get yourself home, y'hear?" he insisted before signing off with the usual short clap of his phone.

Home… She still liked the way that word sounded, even when he barked it at her.

The apartment fell dead-quiet again. He missed her. It surprised him how much, on one hand; on the other hand, not at all, as his mind flashed back to the epiphany he'd earlier had in the car, listening to Michelle softly and mindlessly humming along to a jingle on the radio. A feeling of peacefulness had suddenly come over him; a deep, soul-satiating peacefulness that was almost surreal. His core had felt so mellow and harmonious at that moment in time, just from her humming like that. It had struck him so clearly that this was the way he wanted to feel all the time: complete and whole and blissfully tranquil. It was as though he had found his place in the universe; his center; his clear destination. The cat carrier over his shoulder would one day be sitting alongside one of those baby car seats… or two, or three.

It had bothered him to think of how much time had already been lost. He had spent a whole year staring at her, and keeping his distance, when he could've been building a life with her. He could've been transporting his wife and son home, then and there, from Sunday dinner with the grandparents. He could've had his Mom off his back a year ago.

That had been the point at which he'd decided tonight was going to be the night; that he would follow his heart, as his Dad had advised, and just go for it.

A familiar mixture of pure elation and fearful anticipation washed over him as the reality hit him all over again. He didn't know how he would do it; what he would say; or where they should be when he popped the question, or how he should segue into it all. His mind scrambled to recall all the tidbits he had read in those men's magazines over the years, failing to come up with more than "restaurant" and "romantic."

With fingertips dragging up and down the side of his face, he wandered into the bathroom, deciding to start the rest of the evening off right by giving her baby cheeks a break from his course, needle-like five-o'clock beard. Opening the medicine cabinet to pull out his various shaving things, the first thing he spied was the band-aid box, which immediately prompted a warm chuckle, recalling her miffed reaction to his ingeniously clever scheme. His smile grew broader as he reached for the bottle of aftershave, remembering how fast she had sped through the door, gifted with full and unfettered snooping rights to the bathroom down the hall.

Everywhere he looked, in fact, reminded him of one great moment or another: including the toilet, where he'd felt himself falling deeper in love in tandem with her every heart-wrenching, rib-wracking heave; the bathtub rim, where the furball now sat precisely where Michelle had been when she'd massaged that lotion into her lean, curvy legs; the bathtub itself, where she'd taunted him over his Mr. Bubble and Bismark model, and overall lack of Zap-A-Gap knowledge, just before his watch had sounded, kicking off the celebration of their very first anniversary; the medicine cabinet on her side of the counter, housing the tampon box that had started it all, alongside the box of condoms that had conjured the memory of Chris's theory regarding true love.

Midway through slathering shaving cream around his face, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket again, wanting to call her to say he was sorry for giving her a hard time about the whole Sarina thing. He wanted to tell her he loved her, too, lest she'd forgotten amid all his snapping and barking at her. But he hung up after getting her voice mail, realizing that the procedure was obviously underway by now.

Punching in another number, he used his free hand to glide the razor up his neck and over his jaw while patiently counting off the endless rings on the other end.

"Hey, I need you to do something for me," he finally said, just as he had been about to hang up.

Ten minutes across town, Michelle checked her watch before starting the engine and pulling out of the parking space. Between the surgical procedure itself, and getting Sarina settled in, and congratulating the elated, head-bandaged new father, who'd just been released from Emergency, more than two-and-a-half hours had ticked away. Applying a little extra pressure to the pedal, she felt her head swimming in myriad directions. She was hungry and weary, and could do with a stiff drink right about now, quite frankly. The miracle of birth had been tiring business from both an emotional and physical standpoint. She wondered how obstetricians could do it everyday — particularly the caesarean way, which had been a little scary and somewhat gruesome. But it had all been worth it to hear each fraternal twin's first squeals of life as they'd entered the world, one more boisterously than the other.

She thought about Sarina, and what a trooper she had been. An experienced "mama" who knew how to hold on tight.; that was for sure. Her hand still ached from the firmness with which the woman had squeezed it, as though she were gripping a sissy bar through the world's longest high-speed turn in the road.

As she crawled along through unusually heavy traffic for that hour on a Sunday night, she reflected on the deep bond that had formed the instant she had taken her position at Sarina's side. A newfound understanding of Tony and Petey's friendship had crystallized in her mind at that moment. She was the stranger who had come to the rescue when Sarina was down and needed a hand this time, ironically similar in circumstances to Tony's experience when Pete had come charging onto the scene, just in the nick of time.

Her mind drifted to thoughts of food, wondering what kind of dinner he had planned — not that it even mattered at this point, as long as it was edible and plentiful. But as she finally approached the apartment door, she was surprised to notice the lack of aroma from anything cooking inside. It didn't mean that he hadn't started dinner, she ravenously told herself; he could've ordered in from somewhere — possibly even from the Thai place. He knew how much she loved Thai food; especially Coconut Shrimp, the sweet scent of which she swore she could smell with every step deeper into the living room.

"Honey, I'm home!" she called out, giggling to herself at how funny the old cliché had sounded exiting from her lips.

"In here," he called out from the bedroom as she hurried down the hall in the opposite direction, eager to see if her cookie boy was still in one piece. Finding him blissfully crashed out on the couch in the office, she left the door open and hurried up the hallway, mindful to close the bedroom door behind her this time, which would give her cookie boy free reign of the apartment, but preclude him from stopping by again and destroying her other cookie boy's libido.

Noticing the light emanating from the wide-open bathroom door, her heart sank a little — not that it wouldn't be wonderful to join him in a hot, soothing, surprise Mr. Bubble bath right about now. She surely could use it after all the tension of the delivery room, further exacerbated when her future mother-in-law and her girlfriends had attempted to storm it, only to land themselves in the hospital's equivalent of a holding pen until her future father-in-law could arrive and take custody of the unruly crew.

Hoping that their hot bath included a bevy of takeout cartons floating on some kind of makeshift raft, Michelle rounded the corner and came to a sharp halt in her tracks, nearly choking on the gasp of shock that gripped her throat in a stranglehold.