Non Equidem Invideo, Miror Magis
 
 

MICHAEL:

I wake up to hit the washroom, it's 7:07 a.m. Might as well go home now. I mean, I suspect my dad knows I was out all night, but too bad.

I kiss Kelly goodbye, she's real sleepy, she just sort of smiles and says love you and goes back to sleep.

I might be imagining it, but she looks pretty satisfied.

Anyway, I got to get my lenses out. Yep, did it again.
 

FROHIKE:

I hear the door open. Finally. It's only what, 7:30 in the morning, or close to it?

And Leslie has to leave at 11.

I'd get up and chew his lousy ass out, but I've got to get a couple hours of sleep before she takes off.

Not that it would do any good, anyway. He's obviously going to keep doing this, no matter what I say.

I really needed those teenage years to warm up for this.

Leslie told me last night she'd be coming again soon. I was delighted.

She announced that next time, she's bringing Pam. Pam as in her lover.

I hate to sound like a conservative old stick in the mud, but this is hard for me.

I'm having enough trouble coping with my son, who is avowedly heterosexual and painfully normal in that fashion.

I'm not sure what the etiquette involved with a child who has a lover of the same sex is...I don't even know how I feel about it.

I love my children. But they went from children to adults with my not having anything to work with in between. Let's just say the transition from innocence to sexuality is tough, particularly when it's an abrupt one.

I want them near me. I don't care how difficult it is.

I told Leslie it was fine.
 

BYERS:

I roll over on my side, and notice Juliet has gotten up.

And I can smell delicious things from the kitchen.

She's making breakfast.

We rarely have time for breakfast, much less at home, so this is a very special treat.

This weekend, we've made certain we've treated ourselves. Juliet will be leaving for New Jersey tomorrow morning. She assures me it won't be that long a trip.

I think any overnight trip she makes at this point would be too long.

Smelling the concoctions being formulated in the other room takes me back...

To when Susanne and I were together.

I'm not certain why this is. One thing Susanne could not do was cook. Breakfast, if we had it, meant cold cereal and milk.

It didn't matter to me. I'd have lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches forever. Willingly.

So it's strange how much I enjoy that Juliet is an excellent cook. She doesn't have time to do it frequently, but when she does, the meal is inevitably delicious.

I'm salivating already.

I'm tempted to go to the kitchen to ask if I could help her with anything-it would be the right thing to do-but perhaps, since she got up by herself, she means this as something she'd like to prepare herself.

And being lazy and selfish, as I am at this moment, I'm willing to let her do just that.

I've become so horribly spoiled.

And I love every moment of it.
 

I'm waiting for her to call me, but, to my surprise and delight, she brings a tray into the bedroom, covered with linen napkins. There's steam rising out from under the napkins, and I notice a large pitcher of orange juice on the tray as well.

"I thought you might be hungry." She's got that evil grin all over her face again.

Over breakfast?

"Here." She pours me a glass of orange juice-I notice she's using the champagne flutes.

In a moment, it becomes obvious why. It's not just orange juice. She's made mimosas.

I'm really not accustomed to alcohol at this hour of the morning, but the orange juice tastes fresh-squeezed, and it's nice champagne-I think it's Piper-Heidsdeck.

We toast one another. "To a short trip," is mine.

"Salute!" Juliet's mother is Italian, and she incorporates her mother's heritage into many of her practices.

Not the least of which is her culinary skill. God bless Professor Parker.

Speaking of culinary skill, I'm dying to know what hers begat this morning, but she has made no motion to open the napkins and expose the steaming wares
underneath.

Instead, she takes her champagne glass, places it against my lips, and has me sip out of her glass.

A mimosa tastes strangely better when it's being fed to you by a lovely woman.

I do the same for her. She licks the rim of the glass.

Then she begins to trickle a thin amount of the concoction on to my chest and abdomen. The coolness at first is a shock against my skin, but then she begins to lap it up off me...and the contrast in the chill of the champagne and juice versus the warmth of her mouth is, to say the least, erotic.

She continues this practice until she has covered every inch of me in mimosas, and licked them from me.

By now I'm straining for control, but I'd like to return the favor first.

And I do...I coat her in the mimosa mixture, and I begin to devour her along with lapping up the sweetened beverage.

I notice there is some jam in a small glass dish on the side of the tray. I dab some on each nipple...very, very sweet. And I continue to do this until there's no jam left in the dish.

Strawberries and whipped cream. I dip a strawberry in the whipped cream and feed it to her, leaving some whipped cream on her lips so I can kiss it off. She takes a strawberry, dabs it with whipped cream, and begins to draw designs on me with the whipped cream, until there is an interesting white road map covering my entire body. Which she then proceeds to eat.

Oh God. I have died and gone to heaven, I swear. And I'm an atheist.

She's feeding me strawberries, which I adore, but tells me I need to save a few.

"For what?"

"For the pancakes."

She made pancakes?

Well, she made pancake batter.

"Didn't you know? Licking the batter's the best part." She's giggling.

And maple syrup.

This morning, if someone were to say I was a sweet man, they would be technically correct.

The syrup is warm, in contrast to the coolness of the other food items, and on Juliet, I add a little butter, watch it melt, and indulge.

We've got to have breakfast more often.

We're soon totally covered with food, and the sheets are in a very sorry state indeed, and I can barely control myself.

"Now for the best part," Juliet announces.

"Which is?" My breath is ragged and shallow.

"Finishing up in the shower."
 

And do we ever finish up in the shower.

I move my mouth over every inch of her, tasting as all the foodstuffs dissolve in the warm water, savoring the delicious skin underneath.

Then warm soapiness, shampoo, and her sliding herself on to me.

It's slick and hot in here, and I don't just mean the shower.

Her hips buck sharply against mine, and I respond in kind, this motion repeated until I'm flowing like the mimosas were a little while ago. The sexual release makes me slightly lightheaded, but it's a delicious lightheadedness. One I have previously not encountered in my life.

I think the best thing about Juliet is, she has taught me to play. A skill I never imagined needing, but having had it placed on me like a gift, I have come to crave it. She has brought me the notion of...fun.

You have to understand, Byerses do not have fun. It's not in the DNA or the family background. Even Kat, the closest thing there is to a Byers who could be considered 'fun,' had to leave home to truly learn the art of enjoying herself fully.

I've been away from home for over half my life. Only now am I beginning to understand the value of play.

I think fleetingly of my father, and I'm surprised at what the thought entails.

Pity.

But I have more important things to think of at this moment.

Such as, what were we supposed to do with the toast?
 

MICHAEL:

Dad's cooking breakfast so Les doesn't have to travel on an empty stomach. Boysenberry waffles. To die for.

"Nice of you to show up," he says sarcastically when I come into the kitchen.

"Lucky I did," I mouth back.

"Oh, Daddy, leave him alone! He IS 25, you know!" Les is kind of laughing at him.

Dad's reaction is to glare at both of us.

Can't believe that Les would ever stick up for me.

She tells me she's coming back in a few weeks, next time with Pam.

Oh boy. Now that's gonna be an interesting weekend.
 

LANGLY:

Every time I do this with Miranda, I pay the next day, in the form of major indigestion.

And I've got a pretty cast-iron stomach, but let's face it, we didn't exactly go light on the junk food last night.

What really jacks me off is that she'll suffer not a bit from this binge. She'll probably wake up and say she's hungry.

Ally brings two mugs of peppermint tea to the bedroom, one for each of us. I feel probably as bad as she does, even if the source is different.

"Langly, you better not be getting sympathy nausea."

"I'm not."

"Good. I don't think I can deal with that."

"Could use some sympathy for my nausea, though."

"What, I bring you tea, you want sympathy, too?" She shakes her head. "Langly, you know what's going to be hard about having this baby?"

"You mean, besides everything?"

"Having another child."

"Well, yeah, then you'll have two."

"No, Langly, I'll have three! I already have two!" She's pointing right at me. "And you'll still be the worst of the bunch!"

Good thing she loves kids.

She's sipping her tea. "You know, this stuff does really settle my stomach...it's kind of nasty tasting, but it does make the nausea go away...you know what's really sick, sweetheart?"

"Besides me?"

"Besides even that...Langly, I'm totally horny."

WHAT?!

"I mean it."

"Yeah, but that's sort of off limits right now-"

"Langly, lie down and shut up."

Yes, ma'am!

Sometimes it pays to follow instructions...particularly when it gets you the blow job of the century...maybe the millenium...

I feel kinda guilty I can't return the favor right now...but not that guilty...

Oh man. Ally's got a mouth that's absolutely incredible...ohgodohgodohgodohgod...

This is so good. It feels so great to be breathing hard, to be sweating, to be...

Loved.
 

FROHIKE:

My daughter has taken off, with a promise to be back again in a few weeks.

Next time with Pam.

I think I might feel less anxious if she had left off the 'next time with Pam' part.

What on God's green earth am I supposed to do?

Michael's on the sofa, watching the ballgame-Mets versus Dodgers. Such a chauvinist about National League ball.

I'm sorry, I'm a native Baltimore boy, and for me, there's only one team.

He's got that soft look on his face he has whenever he and Kelly have had an...intimate encounter.

It sounds so much nicer than saying they were banging each other.
 

MICHAEL:

"So Dad? Aren't you gonna ask me where I was last night?"

"I know damn well where you were. I don't think I need to ask."

"Yeah, well, aren't you even curious what went on?"

No, son, I don't need the intimate details of your sex life, thank you very much.

"Langly was in kind of rough shape...I think things are getting hard on him."

He looks over at me suspiciously. "You were up talking with Langly?"

"Most of the night, yeah."

"He's not taking Joan's condition well, is he?"

"Nope."

"Truthfully, I've debated about telling him...I've known for a few weeks now."

What the?

"Jo told me."

Should've guessed that one.

"Joan wants to die at home. And Jo has to be prepared for that."

"God, that's gotta be weird for her."

"Jo? As she said, she's had strangers die in her arms. Why not a friend?"

Yeah, that sounds like Jo. Totally cool, like it was no big deal or something for her to do it.

I can't believe I shortchanged Jo so bad when I met her.

Then again, Jo's like not real revealing or anything. You got to get to know her first.

She and Dad are a lot alike.

"And I stayed with Kelly."

"I figured as much." He's still kind of huffy about it.

"So Dad, what're you gonna do when Les brings Pam down?"

He's got this look like he is major bewildered.

"I don't know."

"I don't think Les is gonna be so cool about your sleeping apart policy."

"Which you blatantly disregard at every opportunity."

"Hey, I needed her last night. I had a rough go with Langly."

"How rough?"

"Maybe you oughta go see him today, see how he's doing."

Dad just grunts. I think he's tired of us all right now.

"Uh, Dad...he knows."

This makes Dad jump up and look sharp. "Knows WHAT?"

"Uh...what's on the disk...you know...the one-"

"The one I told you not to take! The one you were specifically told to not show to him! Michael, what is the matter with you?! Are you just trying to be thoughtless and sadistic every chance you get?"

Uh-oh. He's yelling, which he doesn't do very much.

You know he's REAL mad when he does.

"No wonder you had a rough go with him! Why did you do it to him?" He's got this shake in his voice, and it's a little scary, tell the truth.

"Look, we were talking about stuff...about parents and kids and things like that...and I opened my big mouth-"

"As per usual! Michael, unless you can display a little more maturity and discretion, you will not work on the magazine! Is that clear?!"

What the?

He's kicking me out of TMB?!

"Look, Dad, he was gonna find out anyway-"

"Only if you opened your big mouth, which you did!"

"Well, I'm sorry! He says he wanted to know!"

"And sometimes people are better off not knowing!"

"He didn't take that part that bad, really."

"No, I imagine he's not even able to believe it right now! But what happens when he does? Then where will he be? Michael, don't you even think about what consequences your actions have? I don't think you do!"

"I do so! I-"

"Michael. You don't think beyond your dick right now."

"Yeah, well, you should talk! Who's the one with the collection, huh?"

He looks like I smacked him. Too bad. He's not gonna get righteous with me when he's no better than the rest of us.

He gives me this real hard, cold stare. "I expect you in the offices in an hour. And you are not leaving until you're caught up and have something of substance to contribute to July. Is that clear?"

I just look at him. Trying to be a smartass, but I don't think I've ever seen him look so serious. And it sort of worries me.

"Or you're out. I mean it. I won't have this shit, Michael. I'm not kidding."

"So where're you going?" He's got his keys in his hand.

"To clean up the mess you made. Again."

He's got no room to talk about cleaning up messes.

But he's out the door before I can remind him about that.

END OF PART 22