Kiss Me Tenderly

It was Sunday, the day that we were driving home, but we were still at the aquarium. Actually, it was more of a science center for kids and an aquarium. But here Alex and I were, staring at fish, surrounded by kids and parents of all ages, in an underwater viewing room that kind of smelled like cheese and feet.
“I think the kids would really like this,” Alex’s warm breath was soft against my ear, the watery light tinting everything around us blue. I turned to him, a smile on my face.
“You think?” I brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, the soft gesture wasted was his bunny soft hair flopped back in his face. Alex giggled and blew it up and out of his eyes. He leaned up, his lips slightly puckered, waiting for a kiss without even asking. I hesitated before leaning in.
Alex was expecting a kiss.
I blew a huge raspberry on his cheek.
“Ew!” Alex jerked away, scrunching up his nose and pouting. He scrubbed his cheek with his (my) sweater sleeve and turned away from me, huffily. “That wasn’t very nice, Jacky.”
The arm I had draped around his waist tightened, scooting him across the worn wooden bench to press even tighter against my side. To every passerby, we probably looked like a normal, gay couple, out on a date at the aquarium, where we had bought over priced café food, watched penguins feed, and Alex coo over all the animals in the entire building while I watched with adoring eyes. But what they didn’t know is that I paid Alex back his morning blow job from yesterday by pinning him to the bed – or any available surface, really – and making him scream.
Twice.
Since we left the hotel yesterday for the botanical gardens, I had made him come once in the shelter house at the botanical gardens where anyone could have heard us (or seen us for that matter), and once this afternoon, before we packed up and checked out of the hotel, when I had, in a fit of sexual frustration, stripped Alex completely naked and then – after ordering him rather sternly not to move a muscle or I’d leave him permanently frustrated for the rest of the week – proceeded to deliver the most mind blowing orgasm he had ever achieved using my lips and tongue.
Only my lips and tongue.
But thinking dirty thoughts about my boyfriend writhing on the now filthy, rumpled sheets in the presence of the underage and elderly was not the best plan of action. Especially if I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that the jeans that Alex had picked out for me were already very, very snug.
I cleared my throat and shook Alex’s shoulder gently. His head slowly turned, his eyes still glued to the slow moving dance that was occuring beyond the inch thick glass. Finally, like cold chocolate syrup, Alex’s eyes snapped from the fish and focused on me.
“Time to go?” he inquired, head cocked slightly to the side and I couldn’t help but dot a small kiss on his nose; everything he did was just absolutely adorable in every way.
We slowly meandered up to the top floor and the exit, Alex making little detours to coo over the tank full of pythons and the albino alligators, to take one last peek at the turtle who seemed obsessed with eating green apples off a stick, whom he’d dubbed ‘Antonio’. For what reason, I have no idea.
We swung our hands between us the entire way, smiling just because we were with the person we fell in love with after a hard fought battle with life and obstacles that had once seemed insurmountable but now just felt like speed bumps.
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We held hands in the car the whole way home.
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When we got to my parent’s house later that night, my mother answered the door, smothering laughter. She beckoned us into the house, closing the door as quietly and unobtrusively as she possibly could. My mom motioned for us to tiptoe into the living room, a finger to her lips. The room was dark, the drapes drawn, the only sources of light were the end credits of a movie and the occasional flash of a camera. The kids were on the floor, pillows tucked under heads, a big green, white and blue checked wool blanket draped on them, the Corgi puppies piled around them, sleeping on, next to, and around the little bodies. Frenchi, my mother’s Corgi, looked up at me forlornly from her place next to the fireplace like, What, those aren’t your pups, those are all mine. Even the ones that aren’t as hairy, walk on their hindlegs and smell kinda funny. Mine. I chuckled, causing her ears to perk up at the sudden noise.
Owen was the first to wake up, probably at the sound of my laughing a little. He sat up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and immediately reached for Alex. His eyes fluttered open and closed, like he was fighting the urge to go back to sleep, all the while making grabby hands at Alex.
“Dad, you’re back,” he mumbled into Alex’s neck, clinging. As Alex moved to sit on the floor, he nudged some of the puppies aside with his toe, causing them to yelp in sleepy indignation, rolling and crawling over each other to get comfortable again. Sassy and Missy both blinked awake and pulled themselves over to Alex, seating themselves half on his lap, half off, hugging him hello too.
I chuckled, getting up off my knees and walking over to my mom.
“So, have they been good?”
“Oh, they were angels, perfect little angels,” ‘Grandma’ Barakat gazed adoringly at the scene in front of her, three children hanging off a man’s every word as he spoke quietly to them. “It’s amazing how well Owen fits into the family, he’s so quiet and polite for a kid so young. Incidentally,” here she turned to me. “Are you going to ask him to marry you anytime soon, young man?”
“Shhhhh,” I hushed her, eyes flickering to where Alex was now listening to each of the children’s stories about what had happened in the couple of days we were gone raptly. “I’ll think of something, it needs to be perfect.” My eyes were drawn back to Alex’s back irresistably, watching him entertain the kids while I talked to my mom. I could feel her eyes boring in the side of my head.
“You know, I haven’t seen you so smitten with something since you met Venetia. And, well, after the girls were born, but that’s beside the point,” she remarked quietly. She leaned against the door frame of the door, waiting for me to say something, anything.
“I love him.” The words slipped unbidden from my lips but a smile spreading across my mother’s face was almost impossible to ignore so I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. “And I will ask him to marry me, I just need to find the best time to ask. And I have to find a ring that’s worthy of him too.” She nodded approvingly but didn’t have any more time to probe any further because Alex was looking at me with those eyes that said wow, I’m seriously so tired, can we please go home now?
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As I was buckling the last child in the car, my mom came rushing out, a small fluffy bundle in her arms.
“You almost forgot this!” she chided, placing Princess Di in Alex’s happily trembling hands. She waved away Alex’s tearful thanks and when he had turned to get into the car, puppy cradled against his chest, she raised an eyebrow at me, lifted her left hand and pointed at her ring finger, looking pointedly at Alex’s head. I snorted.
“Whatever, mom. Bye, love you, thanks for watching the kids,” I thanked her again before getting into the car myself.
As the vehicle purred away from the curb, it wasn’t until the house lights were a faint blinking in my rearview mirror when Alex spoke up.
“What’d you say ‘Whatever mom’ to? I didn’t even hear her speak.” Alex’s hand moved rhythmically over the fur of the puppy, his eyes trained out the window, watching the shadows of the night pass us by.
I bit my lip, trying to hold in laughter.
“Nothing. Don’t worry your pretty head about it, love.”