The Man Who Can't Be Moved

“Max…” Emma-Leigh’s voice -a soft and affectionate cooing- drifts into my peaceful, content realm of Jack Daniels and Budweiser induced sleep.

Through the haze of exhaustion and alcohol that had successfully numbed my senses for the past several hours, I can feel the weight of her body perched upon my stomach and her fingers lightly combing through my hair. The scent of chocolate hangs in the air, mixing with both the lingering trace of lavender shampoo that clings to her hair and the baby powder she sprinkles onto her skin every night before bed.

“Max…” she repeats, as she bounces up and down on top of me, growing more and more impatient with each passing second. “Max…Maxime!”

Her high pitched shriek finally shatters that last barrier between sleep and wakefulness; a tortured groan erupts from deep within my throat when my eyes flicker open and are immediately assaulted by viciously bright sunlight streaming into the room.

“Quel est le problème avec vous?!” I cry in agony, and drape a forearm across my forehead. “Why do you have to be like this? What’s your major malfunction?”

“I’m a morning person,” my wife reasons, and plucks my arm off of my face and then leans down to press a soft kiss to my lips. “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” she playfully tousles my hair and bounces up and down on my stomach once again. “We’ve got lots to do today! You’ve already slept past your jogging time! Time to get your ass out of bed and get the show on the road! We have to go to Flower’s to pick up your car, we have to go to Ross Park Mall and Home Depot to pick up everything on my ‘renovation wish list’ so we can finish the other bedrooms…”

“Max out the credit cards is what you want to do,” I tease, and slipping my hands up the bottom of her Tinkerbell nightshirt, skim my fingertips over her knees and along the smooth, creamy flesh of her thighs before settling my palms on her hips.

Even first thing in the morning -when her face is devoid of all makeup and her hair is both tossed up into a messy ponytail and pushed back with a wide, fabric headband- she’s incredibly beautiful and insanely sexy. Especially when her bare ass is pressed against my equally as bare stomach and the promised land is mere inches away and easily accessible. And like most men, I’m ready, raring and able to go when I first get up; the evidence of which is straining against the thin fabric of my boxers.

“…and we need to at least start on painting and decorating at least one of the guest rooms so that your parents have a nice place to stay when they come down and a couple of weeks and…”

“Let them stay at a hotel. I love my folks, but I love them the most when I don’t have to be under the same roof as them for an extended period of time.”

“…and Peyton and Lepretty are coming over for dinner and to discuss the wedding. We are matron of honour and best man, remember? They’ve got a list a mile long of things we’re in charge of and responsibilities and expectations we need to live up to and…”

“Babe, all I need to be responsible for is the bachelor party, okay? That’s all Tanger needs to worry about. And trust me, it’s going to be totally off the hook. The biggest, baddest, wildest and dirtiest bachelor party ever.”

“A whore and stripper fest you mean,” she gives a derisive snort. “What are you going to do? Invite all your nasty, STD ridden ex girlfriends? Make some extra cash by pimping them out to your teammates? Or have they already been passed around already?”

“Come on now…” I slide my hands around to the small of her back and trace the outline of intricately designed tattoo that stretches from one hip to the other. “…every guy deserves a bachelor party. It doesn’t mean that anyone is going to sleep with the strippers. You honestly think that I’d ever disrespect you like that? Don’t I always run it by you before I head to places like that? And besides, Tanger isn’t into that kind of thing. We practically had to drag him kicking and screaming to that strip club in Vancouver. So if he ever said yes to a bachelor party, I promise you I’ll hire random sluts instead of ones I’ve had personal relations with.”

“Oh that just makes me feel so much better,” she mutters.

“I already know the rules. Keep my dick in my pants and my hands to myself. I’ve been a good boy since that first night we spent together. There hasn’t been anyone else but you. Even in all of my wildest and wettest dreams or when I’d had to relegate myself to ‘taking care of business’ because you were thousands of miles away. Just you, Em. There’ll always be just you. And what’s all this worrying about all my ex girlfriends all of a sudden? I thought you said it didn’t bother you. I thought you said that…”

“I’m hormonal,” she explains. “Everything bothers me when I’m hormonal. I get upset if it’s raining outside, I’m pissed off if we don’t have my favourite cereal in the cupboard, I burst into tears if you don’t tell me at least once that I’m beautiful. And it’s not really the thought of women being around you now that bothers me. It’s your past that sort of, kind of, freaks me out sometimes.”

“Well the past is just that,” I remind her. “Let’s just accept the fact that I did my fair share of sowing my wild oats and I’ve eaten my share of putang pie and be thankful that I’ve got no STDs or child support payments to show for it. And besides…” I trail a fingertip along the crack of her ass. “…you wouldn’t like it too much if you were married to a guy who knew absolutely nothing, right? Consider yourself blessed that you have such a great teacher. Un professionnel total.”

“Jackass,” she grumbles.

“And besides…” planting my palms on the mattress, I push myself up into a sitting position and lean in to kiss her. “…consider it an honour that you turned me into a one woman man.”

“A one pussy man,” she corrects, and then turns her face sideways so my lips land on her cheek as opposed to her lips and placing her hands on my shoulders, shoves me onto my back once again. “I have to tell you something,” she says, and the seriousness that darkens her eyes and furrows her brow causes dread to immediately knot my stomach and tighten my chest.

“What’s wrong?” I can’t stop the panic from creeping into my voice. “Is is the babies? Are you having cramps? Bleeding? Are you…?”

“Nothing like that,” she assures me. “But…” she chews nervously on her bottom lip and then heaves a heavy, forlorn sigh. “I’m cheating on you, Max.”

“You’re fucking what?” I attempt to bolt up into a sit and she shoves me back down once again. “What the fuck did you just say?”

“I’m cheating on you,” she repeats, as my hands tightly grip the sheets below and concern turns to fury. “With two men,” she adds, and gives an apologetic smile. “My two favourite men, actually.”

“Is this some kind of fucking joke? This is bullshit, right? Tell me you’re fucking joking, Emma-Leigh. Tell me that…”

“I’m sorry…” she whispers, and then shakes her head in dismay. “I wish I could say that. I wish I could tell you that I’m not having an affair.”

“Who?” I inquire; my jaw clenched so tightly it actually aches and my knuckles both cracking and turning white as I fist the blankets. “Who the fuck are they? Two men? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. What the fuck is wrong with you? With them? What are you…”

“My two favourite men,” she says for a second time, and then gives a long, drawn out dreamy sigh and reaches behind her. “Do you really want to know who they are? You really want their names?”

“Do bears shit in the fucking woods? I want to know who they are so I can go and rip their fucking heads off and…”

“Their names are…” a smile tugs at the corners of her lips and she holds both hands up for me to see; a spoon in the left and a carton of ice cream in the right. “…Ben and Jerry!”

“You’re a fucking bitch,” I mutter, relief surging through me as she laughs hysterically and happily snaps off the lid on the container of Peanut Butter Cup ice cream and promptly digs into it. “Why the hell would you do that? Pourquoi voudriez-vous me piquer une crise comme ça? You actually thought that was funny?”

“Hysterical,” she admits. “I can’t believe you actually fell for that! How damn gullible can you possibly be, Maxime? Do you really think I’d ever do something like that? Even with just one man? You know that the sun rises and sets on you in my world. I can’t believe you actually think I’d do something like that to you.”

“You were being dead serious!” I exclaim. “You could have won an Oscar for that performance! We should go to Vegas and play cards with the high rollers. With a poker face like that…”

“I have to admit, it did something for me when you got all jealous and possessive like that. Does something crazy to my insides to see you get all worked up over me.”

“You’re my wife,” I remind her. “L'amour de ma vie. Why wouldn’t I get upset? What kind of husband wouldn’t get pissed off about something like that? I don’t any either guy looking at you, let alone touching you. Tu es à moi. Personne d'autre.”

“Well sometimes it’s nice to see it instead of just hearing it all the time,” she reasons. “I love when you go all caveman, leader of the pack ‘this is my territory, no one piss in my front yard’. So sexy.”

“Well as much as I like being the reason for your insides going all crazy, don’t ever give me a fucking heart attack like that again. I’m a pussy when it comes to you, okay? You’re my weakness. I’ll believe everything you say and I’ll walk to the ends of the earth for you and beat the shit out of any asshole that so as much looks at you the wrong way.”

“That’s not being a pussy,” she says, and pops a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “It’s bein a husband. My husband. And if I think its sexy when you go all crazy jealous, rip someone’s head off, then it’s your duty to be that way as often as possible.”

“Does it go both ways? If it turns me on to see you going at it with another girl…”

“Don’t be a perv,” she frowns. “I’d never have sex with another girl just to make you happy.”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to have sex with another woman. Although…” I trail my fingertips along her thigh. “….there is something insanely hot about you and another girl doing naughty things to each other.”

“Never going to happen,” Em insists. “Ever. So you can keep dreaming.”

“Oh I’ll keep dreaming all right,” I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively and then laugh when she holds the spoon between her teeth and slaps my hands away from her legs. “What I meant was that it would totally turn me on if I ever saw you bitch slap some chick over stepping her boundaries with me. Maybe after the babies are born we can go out to a bar one night and I can get you tanked and then get some girl to bust a move on me just so I can see you hand the bitch her ass.”

“We are some strange and twisted people,” my wife declares, and nodding in agreement, I settle my hands on her knees and cast a glance towards the clock on the bedside table.

“Ice cream at ten in the morning?” I grimace. “What’s up with that?”

“I was hungry,” she reasons with a shrug. “And this is what the babies wanted, so…”

“That’s it. Blame them for everything already. If you were that hungry, why didn’t you wake me up sooner? I would have made you breakfast or went to McDonalds to get you some of those hash brown things and breakfast burritos you’re in love with.”

“I made myself something for breakfast. A nutella and peanut butter sandwich.”

“Jesus Christ…” I gag. “Is that what it’s going to be like for the next few months? I’m going to have to tolerate you eating nothing but ice cream and nutella sandwiches?”

“I’m sure my cravings will change. I’m sure in a couple of weeks I’ll be on to something else. I’ll probably be into really gross shit like jam and pickle sandwiches or sardines and chocolate pudding. Or I’ll be the type that makes you go and get me fast food at two in the morning. It’s the least you can do, right? I think you owe me that much if I’m going to suffer in incredible agony in order to bring your spawn into the world.”

“My spawn…” I give a derisive snort and nestling the back of my head into my pillow, close my eyes. “…you should be counting your lucky stars that you ever met me. ‘Cause of me, you’re going to have insanely beautiful babies. It’s all my doing.”

“Sure it is…” she mutters, and a comfortable, companionable silence descends on the bedroom; sleep threatening to drag me under yet again as I listen to the curtains fluttering against the window frames and the scrap of the metal spoon against the inside of the ice cream carton as Em puts a seriously dent in a previously full container of Ben and Jerry’s.

******

“Where you going?” my eyes flicker open as I feel her slip off my stomach. “I thought maybe you could make yourself useless while you were up there.”

Rolling her eyes, she leans across the bed in order to set the container and spoon down on the nightstand and then stretches out on her back alongside of me.

“You never told me how your talk with El Capitan went yesterday,” I remark, as I slip my arm underneath her shoulders and pull her tightly into my side.

“I guess it went okay,” she says with a shrug, and rolling onto her side, nestles her face into the space between my neck and shoulder and drapes an arm over my chest. “Nothing like I expected it to.”

“What did you expect? You expected it to go worse?”

“I don’t know what I really expected. I think I wanted him to be…different…than what he was.”

“Different as in…” I press.

“Do we really have to talk about this?” she sighs, as her fingertips trace the tattoo that graces my right side. “If we talk about this, it’s only going to cause a big old thing. I don’t want to fight with you, Max. I don’t want to say something that you might take entirely out of context. I talked to him and I apologized like I’d wanted to and I told him about the baby. I think it’s safe to say that whether he’d been feeling for me and whatever threat he’d posed to you are officially dead.”

“Sounds like you’re kind of upset about that,” I casually remark.

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Em exclaims. “That’s why I don’t ever want to talk about things like this! Because whatever I say or don’t say, you jump on and you blow way out of proportion! I did what you asked. I invited him over and I talked to him. What more do you want from me? What more could there possibly be that I could do to make you stop this petty jealousy and this…”

“I wasn’t jumping on anything. All I said that was that you sounded kind of upset. You don’t have to pretend that you didn’t feel anything, Em. That you don’t feel anything even now. I don’t expect you to not feel bad that things ended the way they did.”

“It’s not the way they ended that upsets me,” she admits. “It’s the way that he…this is going to sound really pathetic…it’s the way he didn’t end things that bothers me. I guess I wanted something more from him. I guess I wanted him to get in my face and hate on me for what I did to him. Maybe I even wanted him to admit to my face that he was still in love with me and beg and plead for me to take him back. But he barely even reacted to anything that I was saying. It’s as if he just shut down. Like he just became the same Sid that he is in post game interviews or at press conferences.”

“Maybe he does it to protect himself,” I reason, and drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Maybe he does it so that it doesn’t hurt more than it already does. Or so that people don’t realize just how much shit bothers him.”

“Maybe,” she agrees. “I guess I just wanted him to react. I just wanted him to either do something or say something that let me know that he’d been as invested in me as he always used to let on that he was. That what we’d had and what we could have had actually meant something to him. I don’t know…” she sighs and nuzzles the side of my neck with her nose. “…maybe I’m just being ridiculous; maybe I’m just hormonal and acting irrational and expecting too much out of people. I guess I just wanted to close that chapter of my life in a certain way and I feel bad that it didn’t happen the way I’d wanted it to. But now of that matters now, right?” she inquires cheerfully, and raises her head to look at me. “It doesn’t matter how it ended, just that it did. All that matters now is me and you. No one else has any bearing on our lives anymore.”

“Well I wouldn’t go that far…” I say, and moving onto my side, use the weight of my body to push her onto her back. “I think that there’s two little beings that have a huge bearing on our lives,” I tell her, and lay my large, strong hand over the slight swell of her stomach. “Amazing, don’t you think? That we managed to do this together? That despite all the shitty things we did and the people we hurt, God gave us this chance?”

“Please don’t go all sappy on me,” she pleads. “I don’t think my hormones can take it.”

“We did this, Emma-Leigh…” I stroke her tummy softly. “…we created a life together. Two lives. C'est incroyable. Nous ne méritions pas cela.”

“Oui, nous avons fait,” she disagrees, and placing her hand over mine, entwines our fingers together.

Pressing my lips against her brow, I rest my chin on the top of her head and close my eyes.

For the first time in nearly eight months, it finally seems as if there’s nothing standing on our way. All that matters now is us.

And our babies.