Mary and Daphne #127 (Patreon)

“Mary,” I shouted. “Mary!” She arrived in the room skittering across the floor in her socks. Not a foot fetishist, but she’s just so wholesome and scrumptious in her socked feet.

“What?!?”

“We have an emergency,” I said with her looking at me like I had better have an actual emergency or I’d come to regret shouting like I did. I took a calculated risk. That’s me, Risk Taker. One of the world’s all-time great gamblers, actually. If I only I knew the rules to anything other than Uno.

“Yes,” she said with that I’m-about-to-teach-you-a-lesson face of hers on.

“You’re still wearing all your clothes and we had a date. C’mere and lemme take ‘em off.”

“Better idea is you keep the water in the tub.” O yeah, I was in the tub. Champagne, strawberries, chocolate. We coulda gone out for date night, but the maitres d’hotel around here get so testy about being naked and never accommodate our request for a tub in the restaurant. Fine dining my ass.

“Get in here,” I beckoned.

“I just hafta …”

“No, you don’t. They’ll survive until tomorrow.”

“I just need to …”

“You leave the room, and I’m gonna shoot you right in the back,” I warned her, revealing my squirt gun. I won’t even tell you where I concealed it (it was under the bubbles).

I could see she was torn by her commitment to whatever work thing she thought she needed to do and her commitment to keeping our date, and she could see I was just a couple inches from I’m-being-cute-and-next-I’m-gonna-be-pissed-if-you-stand-me-up-for-our-date-any-longer-than-you-already-have. Good thing I’m married and that we live together, because if we had just started dating, I don’t think I’d wait twenty minutes.

“That’s some tough love you’re practicing there, kiddo,” she said as she started to get undressed.

“I learned all about tough love from you … And, um, take your socks off last.” Because reasons. Wholesome (lusty) reasons. Really.

She grinned at me and complied because I’m powerful and also because she loves me and stuff. “Did you get started without me?”

Did I … “O! You mean the champagne. Yes. I had almost a whole flute.” I couldn’t help a-capella-ing a strip tease song as she took those socks off. I know we as a society make fun of past generations that acted like a glimpse of an ankle would send them into uncontrollable lust, but have you ever looked hard at a woman’s ankle? Work of art. Really.

“Make room for me, ya little lightweight.”

“I may be a lightweight, but I punch above my class.”

“How is it that you can drink hard liquor and not get tipsy, but a little champagne and you’re off to your happy place.”

“I’ve always wondered that. Aren’t you glad I am though?”

“Very. Happy date night.”

O my gawd she kissed me! Holy heck!  “Huhuhahaha!”

She scortled at me. “You’re wound up like a spring today.”

“Yeah, and I don’t know why. Guess I’m just ready for the change of seasons. Not that we actually get a real fall here, but I can pretend.” I do miss having four seasons, but when you have four seasons, one of them is winter. I can deal with winter in small doses, but I have no desire to move to one of the cold places.

“We can take a trip. Go leaf peeping,” Mary suggested as she hoisted her flute. “Cheers.” Clink.

“What are we toasting?”

“Anything. Everything. That we’re healthy and comfortable and together.”

“That was a good toast. I’m stealing that for the next time I hafta give a wedding toast,” I told her.

“You know what happens to little girls who steal?”

“Nope, because I’m not a little girl and because that’s not theft. It’s copyright infringement, but it’s not even that cuz we’re married and I own half of everything that’s yours.”

“Like that’s gonna stop me from paddling your butt at the next wedding we go to.”

“Mary,” I said with a bit of an eye roll, “our own wedding didn’t stop you from paddling my butt at a wedding.”

“Lisa was such a good bridesmaid keeping everyone away from the dressing room while I dealt with you.”

“Pretty sure she just told everybody we were having sex.”

“Would’ve been a whole lot easier than baring your bottom from under all those layers.”

“And we managed to not even wrinkle anything. To having mad skillz.” Clink. That was a fun party. Too bad we can’t throw a $20,000 party once a year.

“We should plan a party,” I blurted out. “For when people can really get together again. We can invite everyone. Rent a space, get everyone to chip in. Just … ya know, see everyone, celebrate. We shouldn’t save those things just for special occasions.”

Mary shrugged. “Go for it. See what people can chip in and if they’ll really commit to it, and we can do it.”

“I hate planning parties,” I remembered. Awkward turtle over here, being awkward and turtle-like at most parties. I’m good at fetish parties, but we can’t invite everyone we know to that. Been not talking about the time Mom figured out what the quote ‘cutting board’ unquote hanging in our kitchen cabinet is really for, and I’m planning on continuing to not talk about it with her until always. Silent denial: the lubricant of so many families, as it should be.

“Then I’ll plan it,” Mary volunteered. “No bridezilla this time around.”

“You weren’t a bridezilla.” Sometimes I swear Mary’s head is on a swivel, like when she pivoted her to give me one of her think-about-it-for-a-sec looks.

“What? You w … Hey! I was not a bridezilla!”

“Yeah, you’re right. You’re too little to be a bridezilla. Maybe more of a bride-gremlin.”

“I am not a gremlin!”

“Yes, you are. From the first part of the movie when it was still fuzzy and just wanted attention.” Whelp, walked into that one.

“I was not … fuzzy.” Um, take that!

“Yeah – I don’t think I’d bought you your first footie pajamas yet.”

“And besides, me seeking attention had nothing to do with our wedding, and if all the attention seeking I’ve done ever since doesn’t prove it, I’m gonna be downright needy just to prove my point.” Sometimes when she swivels her head, it’s to kiss me on the temple. Sigh…

BTW, “I’m not needy, am I,” I asked for reasons other than being insecure and needy. Really.

“Nope.”

“Good … ‘Nope’ as in no, or ‘nope’ as in I’ll never say so?” See? Really.

“I like you the way you are, which isn’t needy. It’s affectionate. That’s your love language, being affectionate. I can tell because you’re only that way with me.”

Dawww, she noticed. “And you know why? Cuz I love you and stuff.” She’s so good at noticing stuff about me. Can you be a fan girl for your wife?

“Also, Mary, I’m not a gremlin. I’m a spritely water nymph.”

“I didn’t know they had water nymphs there,” Mary said while my she’s-teasing-me radar was down. She does have a way of bringing down my defenses through charm and guile (and force the rest of the time. Whimsical sigh…).

“Where?”

“The Island of Misfit Toys,” she delivered her punchline as dry as the flute of champagne she emptied in one last swallow. She promptly reached for the bottle. In vino veritas. She gets handsy and teasy, and I get handsy and flirty. But then I guess her getting teasy is how she flirts.

Good thing I like it, but still had to say, “I am not from The Island of Misfit Toys! I’m from Wisconsin! … And stop looking at me like those are the same things, you, you … coastal elite!”

“Yeah, grandma told me I was marrying down, but …” Splish. A splish is a splash but smaller, just FYI. Keep up, people reading my diary which is no one.

“No splashing, naughty girl. I’ll haul you out of this tub and spank your bottom for you. Is that what you want?”

“Um, yes, but let’s wait until the champagne’s all gone and the water gets cold.”

“Ha! I like having date night with you.”

O my gawd she likes having date night with me! I think after five years of courtship and three of marriage I’ve finally landed her.

“Can we get a hot tub,” I asked not randomly because as long as we’re squeezing into the tub together and I got her hopped up on champagne and professing her love for me why not ask for something we can’t afford?

“Where would we put it?”

“In our vacation home in the mountains. Also, can we get a vacation home in the mountains?”

“Sure.”

Wait, what? “Really?”

“For our twentieth anniversary, I’ll get us a vacation home in the mountains.”

“Really?”

“You asked that already.”

“I know, but really?”

“Well, if we’re not spending my inheritance money on school for you, yeah, why not? Twenty years, give or take, if we save along the way. Might be more of a vacation condo, but sure.”

“Cool … Thank you … So I have that to look forward to.”

“Or,” she said, “we could just take more trips now and rent places. Would you rather have a vacation home and take fewer vacations until we have it, or take more vacations now?”

“Ooo, dilemma … I’m spoiled rotten, aren’t I?” I didn’t mean it in a bad way, just FYI. More of a factual way.

“Hardly. We work hard so we can play hard.”

“I don’t work.”

“And I wish you’d stop being insecure about it. And you do, too, work. You just don’t work outside the home.”

“True … Could vacuum more often.”

“Shush. I’m glad you don’t have to work. I like providing for you. It makes my job a lot more rewarding because it makes you happy. You happy?”

“I’m happy.”

“Good. Me too. And I wanna take you places.”

“Where do you wanna take me?”

“All the places.”

“That is such a me thing to say,” I said.

“Wherever we wanna go.”

“Know where I wanna go?”

“Where?”

“Dinner. I’m hungry.” Okay, so there may be a flaw in the date night bathtub idea. Good thing they invented food delivery.

“Me too … And the champagne’s gone.”

“And the water is getting cold … Hey Mary?”

“Yeah, Daffodil?”

“Before my spanking, can you put your socks back on?”

“After, will you wear your footie pajamas?”

“Deal.”

Yoink. (That was me pulling the plug, just FYI.)