our children alive) so that we might be able go on a date (get drunk and avoid all parental responsibilities) for our anniversary.
Things were going well. We’d figured out a new little beach routine where Ken and I would put the kids down for a nap every afternoon, give his parents the old two-finger salute, and take a long walk up and down the beach together, meaning that I would walk five or ten feet, stop to take pictures, then walk five or ten more feet, and Ken would putter along behind pecking at his phone, trying to find out the property value of every interesting-looking beach house we passed.
This one is my favorite…for obvious reasons.
Only, on this particular day, just as we made it back to our little turd of a beach cottage, Ken took a jackhammer to our comfortable silence.
“So, I was thinking about fucking you on this beach tonight for our anniversary.”
Record scratch.
Wha—
Whipping my head around, I immediately began analyzing Ken’s facial features for any sign of humor, some tell that he was just fucking with me. There were none. His eyes were masked behind dark sunglasses, and his mouth was set in a determined line with just a whisper of an upturn on one side. When I replayed his sexy words in my head, Ken’s voice sounded husky—not playful, not even close.
Not only was Ken serious, I think he was actually daring me.
A heat blossomed in my belly that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on us, and my face erupted into a supernova of enthusiasm. Drunk with glee, all I could do in response was nod and smile and clap vigorously.
It reminded me of how the Little Mermaid, rendered mute by Ursula the Sea Witch in exchange for a pair of human legs, reacted when Prince Eric finally guessed her name. As a child, I always identified with the Little Mermaid because we were both rebellious redheads who liked to sing and collect shiny objects, but now, I find myself identifying with her on a whole new level. I, too, am on a quest to make a certain square-jawed, blue-eyed prince love me back. And like Ariel, I tend to become ridiculously excited whenever he pays me even the slightest amount of romantic attention.
I couldn’t believe the acuity of Ken’s sexual intuition.
Seriously, who is this man?
I’d always wanted to have sex on the beach, but had never dared to bring it up to Ken because I knew he would just shoot it down as being impractical and exhibitionistic and illegal. Which would have left me with no choice but to give him a purple nurple to mask my hurt feelings, which would have, in turn, emboldened him to give me a retaliatory purple nurple. Only, that would have ended disastrously because my nipples would have been full of milk, and then I’d be all like, Who the fuck is going to clean up all this breast milk, asshole? And there, now I’ve managed to call Ken an asshole on our anniversary again, and now no one is getting beach sex or regular sex, for that matter. And also, the owners of this dilapidated death trap are probably going to keep our deposit because they can’t get the putrid sour milk smell out of their carpet.
But happily, none of that had to transpire because Ken is evidently a goddamn mind reader now!
I figured Ken, being the Blah, Blah Financial Money-Stuff Person that he is, would’ve had some kind of logistical plan formulated already, but when I regained the use of my larynx and asked him where, exactly, he thought we should do the deed, he just shrugged and waved a hand in the direction of the vast sandy expanse between us and the ocean.
Out there??
No, no, no, no, no.
I couldn’t have sex out there. I’d never climax in a million years if I were that exposed and vulnerable.
Now, I have to admit, a little bit of danger is fun, and when I was eighteen, I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye, but if you’re fucking out in the open on a residential beach at the age of thirty-two, you’re basically saying, You know what? This whole responsible adult thing just isn’t for me. I’d really appreciate it if someone would kindly ask the Department of Child and Family Services to come relieve me of my children.
No, no, no.
We needed a plan. Dragging Ken away from our rape shack on stilts and back onto