Vice, Virtue & Video: Devoted

by Bianca Giovanni

  I stand up, coming around to his side of the table and standing behind him. I rub his shoulders for a second and then lean down, wrapping my arms around him. He turns his head and gives me a tender kiss before nuzzling into my neck.

  “I’ll clean up,” he says. “Take a bath and relax, and I’ll be in there when I’m all done.”

  “Okay.” I nod. “I missed sleeping next to you.”

  “Christ, me too!” he sighs. “I can’t get comfortable unless I’m all tangled up with you.”

  “Ditto, my man.”

  He smiles as I kiss him and then head off to the bedroom. Everything’s fine. Everything will be fine. I don’t have to freak out, and maybe it would be wise to stop thinking about what will happen in a decade. I decide that, for the rest of the night, I’m just going to enjoy my life, my home, my husband. I’m generally pretty happy, so I need to stop dwelling on shit that will bring me down.

  Chapter 15

  James

  LOLA LOOKS UP AT ME as I carry a tray of food into the bedroom. She’s been feeling shitty since she got home, and she’s certain that she caught some kind of heinous pathogen at the airport. Ebola, SARS, H1N1, and the disease from Contagion were all brought up in her exaggerated self-diagnosis. She’s sniffling, her nose is all red and her hair looks like she slept in a Dumpster, but she’s still adorable.

  “Did you bring me breakfast in bed?” she croaks, repositioning her pillows so she can sit up.

  “I sure did,” I say with a smile, getting her situated with the tray in front of her.

  “Aw, baby,” she replies, putting her hand to her heart. “You are just killin’ it with this husband thing.”

  I chuckle and give her a kiss on the forehead before I look back at the tray. “Okay, so we’ve got an omelet with just about every pepper I could buy—since I know you can hardly taste anything right now. There’s turkey bacon, toast and a little fruit smoothie I whipped up with pineapple and strawberries. I also have orange juice and coffee if you’d rather have that.”

  She pauses, looks at me, and gives me the most grateful smile.

  “What?” I ask, grinning back.

  “You,” she says. “You’re so thoughtful and sweet, taking care of me like this.”

  “I really dig taking care of you. You’re such a little sassy-pants most of the time, and I like that you need my help sometimes.”

  “You just like that I’m too groggy from NyQuil to give you shit.” She grins and grabs a piece of turkey bacon.

  “I just like being able to do things for you, that’s all,” I reply, brushing her mess of tangled hair behind her ear. “Have some food. Then you can take your Sudafed, and I’ll run you a bath.”

  I’m glad to see that she’s still got an appetite, though I worry for a second that the omelet is too spicy. I really loaded that thing up with peppers and I hope I didn’t go overboard. Clearly, she doesn’t think so, because she closes her eyes and groans with delight as she eats the first bite. She’s devouring the meal, and it makes me happy to watch her enjoy it.

  “I think we should probably make a doctor’s appointment, don’t you think?” I ask her when she’s halfway done.

  “It might just be a little cold,” she says with a shrug.

  “Lo, the wedding’s in a little over two weeks. I want you back at a hundred percent by our wedding night.” I give her a wink.

  “As long as I can breathe, I’ll be ready for that,” she says, her stuffy nose making that statement sound more adorable than sexy.

  I laugh and kiss her forehead again. “I’m making you an appointment. I’m gonna see if they can get you in right away—play the wedding card, you know.”

  She nods, sniffling a little from the spice of the peppers.

  I step out into the living room to make the call, and I’m happy to learn that a last-minute cancelation means I can get her in to see our doctor tomorrow. She had a mild sore throat two days ago, then the congestion hit, and last night it was coughing and a slight fever, so I’m glad we can get her checked out and, hopefully, on some antibiotics or something.

  She’s all done eating when I tell her the plan, and she agrees that maybe it’s more than just a little cold.

  I take the tray back to the kitchen and then dart into the bathroom to start the water for her bath. When I come back out, she’s still got that appreciative smile on her face and her eyes are filled with warmth as she gazes at me. She takes my hand when I sit down on the bed, and with just a look, I can tell that she’s very thankful for the way I’m tending to her.

  I lean over to kiss her, but she puts her hand to my chest to stop me.

  “Don’t,” she softly warns. “I don’t want to get you sick.”

  “Baby, with my job, I’ve built up so many antibodies they should make a vaccine from my blood,” I joke, scooting in and kissing her anyway.

  She laughs when I pull away. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she says with a shake of her head.

  When the tub is sufficiently full, she shuffles into the bathroom and starts to take off her pajamas, but I insist on helping her. Even when she’s sick, I’m not going to miss an opportunity to undress her. I drop to my knees and slide her pajama shorts down her legs before I kiss her bellybutton. She giggles, but her smile is a little bit sexy, despite the raw nose and puffy eyes.

  I ease her into the water and then sit on the side of the tub, slowly washing her with a sponge. I know she must be pretty achy, and I’m enjoying the way she moans a little as I softly drag it over her skin. Her smile is more sensual when I lean over so I can wash between her legs. It’s getting a little erotic, but I can’t help it.

  “This must suck for you,” she says. “No more non-stop fuck-a-thon.”

  “I can deal,” I say, shrugging. It is kind of rough, though, because I was really used to having her anytime the mood hit us.

  “What’d you do last night?” she asks with a devilish grin. “I was passed out on NyQuil by, like, nine, but you must have stayed up a little while. How’d you pass the time?”

  I know exactly what she’s getting at, and I give her a smirk before I reply. “Twice. In the shower.”

  She giggles and shakes her head. “Twice, huh? My poor deprived husband.”

  “You’ll be happy to know that I was thinking about what I want to do to you when you get better.”

  “Details, details!” she demands adorably.

  “If I tell you the details, it’s gonna turn me on,” I protest.

  “James, I’m a walking bacteria factory right now,” she says with an eye roll. “I saw myself in the mirror. If you could get turned on looking at that, then you must have some kind of zombie fetish.”

  I laugh and shrug my shoulders. “Believe me, nothing stops me from getting turned on when I think about you.”

  “So,” she says, “gimme the details!”

  I sigh and try to refuse, but I know I’m going to cave, so I might as well just tell her. “All right, here goes.”

  I proceed to tell her about this fantasy I had while I was jerking it last night. We were on this big, sprawling beach all by ourselves. She was in a little string bikini like she wears, and she was doing a sexy striptease as she pulled it off. She peeked over her shoulder and dove into the water, and I jumped in after her. We were out where I could stand, but her feet couldn’t touch the ground, so she wrapped her legs around me and started grinding on me while she was kissing my neck and stuff. I took her back up onto the beach, and we were making out in the sand when she rolled me onto my back and started riding me until her muscles shook. We came together, and she called out my name. It was beautiful, one of those sensual fantasies—way different from the ones I used to have. Before Lola, my fantasies usually involved getting blown by a girl who was strapped to a table on her back with her head hanging off the side, or plowing some horny chick from the back while she went down on some other girl. My fantasies were a lot like the shit I did at work, which is why I think they’ve chan
ged so much now. I’ve seen what emotionally fulfilling sex is like, and I want that all day, every day.

  “So even your jerk-off fantasies are romantic now,” Lola teases.

  “Kinda,” I shyly reply.

  “And here I thought you’d be dreaming of me tied to a bed while we engaged in a little backdoor action.”

  That makes me laugh, but she can see that my smile is kind of guilty.

  “You have fantasized about that, haven’t you?” she says with an accusatory finger point.

  “Not all the time,” I say with a sneaky grin.

  “Tell me about those ones too,” she says, giving me a flirty gaze despite her illness.

  “You don’t want to hear about those ones.” I’m attempting to dismiss this whole thing because I’m worried about what she might think if I reveal some of my deepest, darkest, dirtiest fantasies.

  “I do. I want to hear all about them. I love hearing you talk about sex. You make everything sound so hot.”

  That inadvertently makes me hot, and I exhale as I try to contain my lust. I wonder if she’s doing this on purpose, if she’s trying to turn me on.

  “I just want to preface this by saying that these are just fantasies.” I think a disclaimer might be necessary if I’m going to tell her the whole truth here.

  “Understood.”

  “These are ideas, only concepts. This doesn’t mean I want to do any of this stuff or that I’m not satisfied without it.”

  “Right. Go on.”

  “Okay,” I sigh. “I have this one where you and me are at a concert—kind of like that time we went to see Ludacris in high school.”

  She nods, her smile eager for me to continue.

  “We’re off to the side, and I scoop you up and push you against the wall. You’re not wearing panties, and I open my fly and I’m pounding you right there in front of everyone. You’ve got your eyes closed and you’re moaning all sexy like you do, and you know people are watching, but it turns you on even more.”

  “Very nice,” she says with raised eyebrows.

  “There’s this other one that’s pretty dirty,” I say cautiously. “I’m not really sure if you want to hear it.”

  “Of course I do,” she replies, giving me a sexy look.

  “Well, in this one, you look all cute and innocent—pigtails, knee-high socks, white cotton panties, the whole nine yards.” She looks surprised. “You’re even sucking on a lollipop.”

  “I feel like this is going to turn pervy very quickly,” she teases.

  “It does,” I admit. “So you’re wearing my shirt and you push me onto the couch and start slowly unbuttoning it. You’re being all cute and shy, but you know you’re hot, and it’s turning me the fuck on. You ask me what I want to do to you, and I start giving you instructions. I have you touch yourself for me and I tell you what a good job you’re doing, like I’m teaching you how to do it.”

  Her puffy, red eyes are getting increasingly sultry.

  “Then I slowly take your panties off and you tell me how you’ve never done this before. I start licking you and you’re moaning all pretty. I bend you over the side of the couch and lick you everywhere—”

  “Everywhere? Even back there?” she says with a gasp.

  “Everywhere, baby.” I grin, and I can see her taking a deep breath.

  “You’re nasty!” She giggles, and her cheeks are pink.

  “It gets worse,” I say, chuckling. “In the fantasy, you, um, you let me in the backdoor, and you love it. You’re really tight, and you’re moaning and telling me how you’re gonna come.”

  As I’m describing this lewd scene to her, I can feel my body start revving up. It’s just so hot to think about it.

  “It’s sexy because I go real slow, since I know you’ve never done it before.”

  She grins. “I’m just amused that even in your fantasies you like being gentle with me. I was half expecting you to say you tore my clothes to shreds and fucked me like you were trying to pound me through the mattress.”

  “I have fantasies like that too,” I admit, “but the really vivid ones are the ones where you’re like, ‘Oh, James, I’ve never done this before. I’m scared,’ and I’m like, ‘It’s okay, baby. I’ll take real good care of you.’ And then we fuck like crazy.”

  “You’re really into the whole ‘claiming me’ thing, aren’t you?” she says with a cute smirk. “You really dig that you’re my first.”

  I laugh really hard, but I have to nod. “I’m basically the Neil Armstrong of your vagina.”

  She throws her head back, totally cracking up. “But, enlighten me, what the hell is it with guys and anal? Why on earth do you dudes want to do that to us when you could just fuck us the usual way?”

  “It’s taboo, and that it makes it hot. And it’s especially hot in this fantasy because you’re such an innocent good girl. You’re all wide-eyed and cute, and then you let me claim that ass.”

  She snorts with laughter and shakes her head. “Such a dirty boy,” she says before she takes a glance down at my crotch. “I think you like telling me all about your naughty fantasies.”

  “Uh-huh.” I nod.

  “I think it turns you on to talk about licking my pussy or fucking my ass.”

  “Fuck!” I exhale. She knows exactly what she’s doing and nothing turns me on more than when she starts talking dirty. It’s unexpected and un-fuckin’-believably hot.

  “Would it turn you on to show me?” she purrs, despite the stuffy nose.

  “Huh?”

  “Would it turn you on to show me what you do when you’re thinking all this dirty stuff about me? Would you like me to watch you stroke your cock?”

  “Fuck, Lola!” I sigh. “You’re killing me here! It’s been days since we last had sex, and I can’t be held responsible for my actions if you’re gonna say shit like that to me.”

  “So whip it out and let me watch you,” she says, biting her bottom lip.

  “Don’t act like you can dare me to do it and I won’t,” I retort. “Don’t sit here and pretend that I won’t take it out right now and go for it.”

  “Well? What are you waiting for, stud?”

  “Fine,” I defiantly reply, opening my fly and taking my cock out.

  She licks her lips while she watches me stroke, and it turns me on even more. This is kind of scandalous, sitting here jerkin’ it right here in front of her while she gives me sexy glances, but fuck is it hot too!

  “Tell me what you’re thinking about,” she sensually whispers to me, even though the stuffy nose.

  “Fucking your tight little pussy,” I exhale, stroking faster.

  “Thinking about how wet you get me?” she says, turning me on to a ridiculous level. I swear to God, she’s a fuckin’ expert at this shit. “Thinking about how much I love to feel your big cock sliding in and out of my pussy?”

  “Fuck, Lo!” I groan, getting closer to the edge. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and I can’t take much more.

  “Are you gonna come, baby?” she whispers, running her finger down my neck to mimic that trail she usually ghosts her lips over. “You thinking about how good it feels when you come inside me?”

  This shit is making me crazy! That’s it! No more! “Oh, God! Lola!” I moan, my whole body jerking as I come.

  I manage to open my eyes enough to glance at her. She’s staring down at my dick and watching like this is a space shuttle launch. She’s enraptured. I can’t even fully process how sexy the look on her face is. Jesus Christ! Dirty talking and now this!

  When I finish, I have to brace myself on the tub as I pant.

  “That was so fucking hot, James,” she says, clearly very turned on as well.

  “I love when you become my dirty girl.”

  “I love finally getting to enjoy the sight of watching you come,” she says, suddenly more adorable than sexy. “Usually you’ve got me so far gone by that point that my eyes are practically rolling back in my head. It was hot to get to see t
he whole production this time.”

  “How can you be so cute and so fuckin’ seductive at the same time?” I laugh and lean over to kiss her forehead.

  “Because, according to your pervy fantasies, me being cute turns you on just as much as me being seductive,” she teases.

  “Honestly, pretty much everything about you turns me on. Even right now, you’re sick as a dog, but all I want is to figure out new ways to pleasure you.”

  “I wish I could breathe enough to let you indulge.” She laughs and pats my shoulder.

  “A little decongestant and you might be.”

  “I’m too sick for sex,” she replies with an apologetic smile.

  “I know. But once you get better, we’re doing it all fuckin’ day and all night.”

  “You bet your sexy ass we are!”

  I laugh hard before glancing down at the results of my little show. “I’m gonna clean up, and then you can get back in bed and I’ll take care of you.”

  “Okay, James,” she says gratefully, all that sultriness dissipating.

  Once she’s out of the tub, I get her back into our big, comfy bed. Her smile is so happy and proud. She always pretends to be the toughest little badass, but I know she’s sort of digging the way I’m taking care of her. She knows it’s not because I think she’s weak or anything, it’s just because I love her and I like caring for her.

  “I want you to just rest today, angel,” I say to her, sitting on the side of the bed closest to her. “I’m just gonna chill here and be at your beck and call all day.”

  The smile spreading across her face is sweet, but a little cocky too.

  “Wanna watch a movie or something?” I ask. “I know you were bitching the other day because I didn’t want to do a My So-Called Life marathon with you and hear about Jordan Catalano all day, but now you’re sick, and I’ll do it if you want.”

  A bigger smile, which I return.

  “Actually,” she says, “I’d love to watch action stuff, like Predator or The Expendables, if you want to watch that with me.”

  “Predator? You’re sick in bed and you want to watch Schwarzenegger fight an alien with dreads?”