December 2010

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York

She was half-certain she was on a beach somewhere, watching naked little children run as only naked little children can.

Maybe it was Europe. Or Hawaii.

Only half of her was there.

The other half of her was in bed, being kissed sleepily by her husband. She felt the wetness of his tongue against hers and the brush of his REM cycle erection on her leg, and the beach grew fainter.

This happened sometimes. They'd wake up in the midst of passion and not know how it started. Sometimes on rare, very rare occasion, they'd make barely conscious love to each other, and wake up happier the next morning but not really know why.

Pam wrapped her arms around Jim, keeping her eyes closed. She stretched, arching against him, feeling his chest hair scratchy against her nipples.

"Mmmmmm Jim."

Taking half-asleep advantage of their mutual state of nudity, he let his hands drift to her rear, massaging. "So sexy," he mumbled against her jaw and pulled her against him.

His warm, hard penis pressed into the crease of her thigh and she grew more conscious, wanting. Pam raised her leg over Jim's hip, opening herself to him.

"I love you."

He started to slide into her, their eyes fluttering open. He moved deeper as they blinked at each other through hooded lids. She reached down between them and used her fingertips to massage his testicles in the way she knew he liked.

"Ohhh, good girl…"

Pam smirked sleepily. Jim only said "good girl" to her when his brain had traveled completely to his crotch.

He sought out her lips and kissed her with his eyelashes against her cheeks. She let herself sink into the pillows and they kissed slowly, him still hard inside of her, barely moving.

"Oh god," she whispered against his lips. "I want…"

"Anything," he kissed the word down her throat. "Anything."

"Jim…"

A sudden high-pitched wail broke their reverie. With a groan, Jim withdrew and rolled off Pam. She growled in frustration feeling him leave her.

"Damn it," Jim groused, now awake. He grabbed Pam's face in his hands, kissing her soundly. Pulling back, they grinned ruefully at each other. She reached to the foot of the bed, grabbing his boxers and t-shirt and handing them to him.

"Your turn."

Jim rolled his eyes and gestured to his waning, but still present, erection. "Take one for the team, Pam," he begged over the continuing racket. "I'm sure we'll end up traumatizing her somehow, but not like this."

She sighed dramatically, pulling on her underwear and an oversized button down of his.

"Seventeen hours of labor, Jim," she reminded him, dragging herself out of bed.

He grinned. She was so sexy, all tousled like - no, no that wasn't helping. Baby spit up, diaper genies, electric bills, dry cleaning… okay, that was better.

"I'll make it up to you," he told her.

She smirked, as if to tell him that yes, yes, he would.

"Be there in a minute."

Pam slipped down the short hallway into the tiny room with the duck wallpaper and approached the white crib, and the little red-faced noisemaker inside.

"Don't you think for a minute, Sadie Margaret," she scolded with a smile, "that I won't remember this when you go on your first date."

She lifted screaming Sadie from the crib.

"What's the matter, girly girl? You need changing?" She checked Sadie's diaper. Yep.

Pam was in the middle of powdering the baby, whose sobs had subsided a bit but not quieted, when Jim came in.

"We're going to have to move again if she keeps screaming like this," he remarked fondly, coming to stand beside Pam. He rubbed Sadie's belly as Pam strapped her into the new diaper and tugged her lavender flannel pajama suit back into place, snapping it up.

Jim picked up the six-month-old and pressed her into his chest, breathing low and deep, hoping to lull her into calm.

"Look," he said, carrying her to the window, "it's snowing."

Soft, fat flakes were falling into the yard of the tiny apartment house they lived in. They'd moved to Bay Ridge three months earlier. The two bedroom apartment was one of five units on a quiet street. It wasn't forever, they knew, but for now, it was home.

Sadie's sobs were quieting into whimpers. Pam leaned into his side.

"Snow," she smiled. She tilted her head up to Jim and he ducked to kiss her lips.

"Come on," he said. He settled himself in the rocking armchair, his feet stretched out on the ottoman and arranged Sadie on his chest, holding her with his left arm. With his right he reached out to his wife.

"I think there's room for one more."

He didn't have to ask her twice. Pam curled up in Jim's lap, nestling her head in the space between his neck and shoulder. He could feel her breath against his skin.

"You're such a good daddy," she sighed, sleep starting to overtake her again. "You always make her so calm. She knows how much you love her. Promise me she'll always know that, okay?"

He rubbed his lips over her hair. "Promise." And he did. She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes.

And while Pam drifted off, the baby, despite Jim's efforts to lull her back to sleep, seemed to grow more alert. The whimpers had become gurgles as Sadie pushed herself up a little, half crawling up Jim's chest.

She had his hair, he was pretty sure, sticking up in all directions, and his smile, Pam's eyes and, thank God, he thought, Pam's nose. And the softest, roundest cheeks, like pink marshmallows.

He looked at the clock. 5:30 a.m. Hopefully he could get her back to sleep and grab another hour or so himself before having to get up for work. He rubbed her back in small circles, hoping to calm her.

"It's almost time for Christmas," Jim whispered to his daughter. "Your momma loves Christmas. She plays music and burns cookies, and her eyes just light up." He pressed his cheek to Pam's hair, loving the feeling of her there. "We'll go to Rockefeller Center and see the skaters, and we'll visit Grandma Joan and Grandpa Ed and Nana Larissa and Papa Bill in Scranton. And when it gets warmer, we'll go to the park and I'll take you on the carousel. What do you think about that, Sadie-daisy?"

Sadie babbled happily. He took her reaction to mean yes.

"All right," he said softly, lifting Sadie up to place a kiss on her belly as Pam snuggled deeper into his side. "Then it's a date."