Amanda

It’s Monday.

Our home looks like the set for Extreme Home Makeover, except there’s no bus to move and all of the workmen act like I’m invisible as I wander downstairs after waking up naked in an empty bed.

I throw on clothes and am down the stairs when I spot my husband.

“What is going on?” I ask Andrew, who is huddled over blueprints with some guy who looks like he runs a union hall in South Boston. Tight eyes, distrustful look, goatee, and an intensity that makes it clear you want him on your side.

Andrew breaks away, kisses my cheek, and gives me a saucy half grin. “Just like you wanted. Here we go.”

“Here we go what? We barely talked about what we wanted!”

“We did,” he says, suddenly defensive. “In bed,” he whispers.

“What I want in bed has nothing to do with tile colors and three-season sunrooms!” I say. Loudly.

“The guys aren’t working on anything like that,” he hisses as a few workmen suppress smiles. “We’re putting in new backup systems.”

“Backups for what?”

“Power outages. Acts of God. Hurricanes. Bomb cyclones that leave six feet of snow.”

I snort. “What, no alien contingency plan? Got a blueprint for a universal extraterrestrial language translator in there?”

Andrew reddens and avoids eye contact.

I frown. “Andrew?” I grab his arm and pull him aside, his muscles tense. “What are you doing? This isn’t how I envisioned remodeling and spending our honeymoon. For one, we didn’t have sex that second time this morning.”

He looks at the clock. “It’s only 7:53. Plenty of time for that.” He grabs me at the waist and pulls me close, trying to divert me with a kiss.

It works.

“We’ve got the geothermal heat unit figured out, and when we redo the gutter system and the roof, in addition to the solar panels, we’ve got an evaporation system set up for clean water collection. Storage is next,” he says to me.

“All that in the first hour of work?” I’m stunned.

“I’m efficient. Two weeks of my focused attention is like five years of a normal human being’s time.”

“Efficient and humble. I love that in a man.”

“You’d better, because you’re stuck with me forever.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

I get a pat on the ass in response.

Andrew’s testosterone creds fully established, I try to get him to use his big brain for a moment. “What, exactly, are we looking at?” I ask him, pointing to blueprints in his hands.

We’ve been together long enough for me to notice patterns in how we interact. I don’t just mean how we argue, or how we make love, or the way we track each other’s moods. I’m not just talking about how we stay connected when we both travel too much (hint: Facetime and nudity), or how we make major life decisions.

One pattern is this: after a while, the other person becomes an assumption. Not quite taken for granted. That’s not what I mean. It’s more that the fabric of life includes your person. Just like a couch has a certain expected tactile feel to it as you sit down on it year in and year out, life with my husband takes on its own texture. I turn to him for companionship, for love, for sex, for life-decision making. For fun. In pain. In sadness. He’s not in my DNA, but he’s the closest thing to it.

So as all these workmen turn our home into a functional anthill, with worker ants buzzing everywhere, doing whatever needs to be done in service to the queen (hmmm... I’m loving this analogy suddenly), I know that asking about the blueprints will engage him, but won’t threaten.

“Underground water storage. And the bunker,” he elaborates.

“Bunker?”

“Underground place to stay for a short time in case of a major catastrophe.”

“Andrew, living underground in a bunker is the very definition of catastrophe,” I say, laughing.

He doesn’t even smile.

“You’re serious? What? You’re building a bomb shelter like some tin-foil hat guy?”

“No. I’m being prudent as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who needs to build anti-fragile systems that protect me, my family, and my company.”

He’s gone full caveman, hasn’t he? Full billionaire caveman.

“That’s your idea of remodeling? You sound like a crazy prepper!”

“You know about preppers?”

“Of course I do! Shannon and I used to watch those nutso-prepper shows on the National Geographic channel.”

“Nutso preppers?” He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me a look that invites me to explain. My mouth goes dry. His eyes are amused but there’s a guardedness to him. Long gone is the man who was sweaty and naked with me in bed a couple of hours ago, promising a second round shortly.

In his place is this questioning CEO who looks like he’s running a construction site instead of remodeling our family home.

“Yes, nutso preppers. Are you planning to store five years of food in the basement? Put lead-lined concrete walls in a bomb shelter, with a zig-zag entrance so the radiation is less? Are you stockpiling ammo and buying fish antibiotics by the case?”

“Fish antibiotics?”

“When your doctor won’t give you a prescription, it’s how preppers build their medical war chests,” I explain.

“You and Shannon really did watch those shows.”

“I told you! And most of those preppers are crazy. Like, clinically crazy.”

He nods. “Stupid, too.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I backpedal.

“The whole point of prepping, Amanda, is to be ready for a true emergency. In a scarcity situation, you don’t want to be a target. Stealth prepping is where it’s at.”

I look at the cattle herd of men–and a rare woman in a hardhat–coming in and out of the house and yard.

“Stealth?” One raised eyebrow makes my point about his hypocrisy.

“They’re just putting in systems. None of the bigger engineering work is a tipoff that we’re prepping.”

“So you admit it! We are prepping! Or, I mean, you are.”

“I am.”

I do not know what to say to that.

“How far are you planning to go?”

“All the way, baby.” Did he just... wink at me?

“Andrew!”

“It’s not really prepping,” he says in that aggravatingly reasonable tone, as if I’m the unreasonable one. “I am not planning to store five years of food in a bunker.”

“Good.”

“Six months to a year is enough. I’m a mobile prepper, anyhow. No farm in New Zealand for us.”

He’s speaking another language, right?

“You don’t make sense.”

“I might not make sense, but I can make love.”

“We just did,” I say under my breath. “Two hours ago. And you said we’d do it again.”

His hand touches my hip. “You’re still standing.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m not doing my job.” He caresses my ass. One of the workmen sees it and smirks.

“Andrew!”

He takes my hand and leads me back upstairs, nodding at some guy who rolls up the blueprints and marches off, a sense of purpose in his step.

“You said last night that my entire job on this bizarre honeymoon was to make sure you couldn’t walk straight,” Andrew whispers in my ear as I blush.

But I don’t stop walking.

“I was kidding!”

“I wasn’t.”

By the time we reach our bedroom, my pulse is banging against my skin like deal shoppers on Black Friday at the doors of a Walmart before opening time. Andrew flings open the door...

...to find a team of electricians re-wiring something in the walls.

“Sorry. You need, uh, this room?” One of the guys, a ginger with freckles and safety goggles covering his eyes, asks the question, his buddy snickering at the implications.

Andrew slams the door shut and moves on to Declan’s old room.

Which is filled with the window-replacement team and a group of painters stripping the old striped wallpaper off the west wall.

Another slammed door, and a look of anger driven by frustration.

“I can’t believe this,” he mutters, then gives me a surprised look. “And you’re having the wallpaper removed?”

“You said I could make all the decorating decisions. Declan’s room looks like Ralph Lauren’s time capsule circa 1991.” She sniffs. “Smells like it, too. How much Polo did he wear when he was a teen?”

“Too much,” Andrew says, eyes skittering back to the door. “But — you’re redoing every single room?”

“Isn’t that the point of remodeling?” I can feel my temperature shift, just enough to move out of sensual mode and into pre-combat, complete with hands going to my hips.

“I think you’re right,” he says, blinking hard, processing the reality. “Strip it down to the bones.”

“Wanna do that to me?”

“I like your flesh too much,” he murmurs, the mood shifting decidedly back.

“How about the treehouse?” I joke.

“If it comes to that, we’ll do it,” he says, pinning me to the wall in the hallway, his searing kiss making me ready to climb on him right here, on the runner, and just go at it.

Someone clears their throat.

“Mr. McCormick?” It’s Gita, the lighting designer. She’s tiny, under five feet, and has clever, ever-watchful brown eyes under bangs cut so sharply, they look like a ruler made of hair. “We have an amp issue.”

“I know I’m amped up,” I say under my breath.

Andrew releases me and snaps at her. “Deal with the electrician.”

“He needs permission to increase the budget.”

“Permission granted,” he barks as we tear toward the stairs, my legs working overtime to keep up with him.

“Where are we going?” I gasp.

“Treehouse.”

“I was kidding!”

“I’m not.”

“Why not the Tesla?” I ask as we head outside.

“You’d do that?”

“I’m being sarcastic.”

“I’m close to dragging you to the office.”

“You promised you wouldn’t work on our honeymoon!”

“It wouldn’t be for work,” he says through gritted teeth.

My turn to do the yanking.

I grab his hand and pull him to a small shed at the edge of the property, close to the treehouse. It’s unlocked, so when I push the door open, we get instant access. The shed is filled with a riding mower, weed whackers hanging neatly from hooks on a huge pegboard, gas leaf blowers, empty flowerpots–all the assorted items you’d expect in a garden shed.

“You want to have sex in the shed?” he asks, agog.

“You proposed to me in a garden closet at Connie’s restaurant. You don’t get to suddenly have standards, Andrew.” Rushing, I undo his belt and free him, reaching under my skirt and pulling off my panties, the sudden push of cool air making my pulse quicken, body begging for his touch.

His mouth is on mine as we back into a giant stack of bagged mulch. It smells like cedar and dirt.

“This is why I love you,” he says between hurried kisses as I lean back on the mulch and angle my leg, guiding him in. Foreplay has become a luxury, one my billionaire husband can’t afford right now.

“Because I invite you to have sex on a pile of mulch bags?”

“Because your mind is as flexible as your body,” he gasps as he enters me.

We’re quick and dirty, with an emphasis on the dirty, as Andrew’s strokes deepen, my legs wrapped around his waist, his shirt still on, our clothes removed just to the point of functionality. As he goes deep, my fingers curl hard against the plastic and one fingernail breaks through, sending a ragged spill of mulch down our right side.

Elegant? No. Hot? Yes.

Needed? God, yes.

We finish together, a surprisingly mutual moment with mouths open against each other, the memory of how to kiss stripped boldly away by the carnal pleasure of parts further south. His arms are hard and tense next to me, his ass tight and forceful, my own limbs lost in the long release only he can give.

As his breath heats up my ear, our long, jagged exhales making it clear frustration has been replaced with relief, he laughs.

And falls out.

Without collaborating, we simply pull apart, the tiny shed’s air flow close to nil. My shirt sticks between my bra cups, and Andrew’s forehead is slick and covered with sweat-soaked hair.

“I own a nineteen-room mansion in Weston and the best I can do is screw my wife against a few cubic yards of mulch in a garden shed.”

“It’s better than not screwing your wife at all.” Three tries later, my shirt tucks into my skirt properly. I am about a quarter cup of sweat away from winning a wet t-shirt contest.

“You, my dear, are perfect for me.” He kisses the tip of my nose.

And cups my wet breast.

Our hearts slam against each other as he kisses me again, the scent of sex filling my nose, mixing with cedar.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he tells me, showing me the same sentiment with his hands.

“Good thing there’s plenty of me. That’ll keep you busy for five decades or so.”

Tap tap tap.

“Hey, Andrew? We’ve got a grading and drainage issue we need to clear with you,” says Brandon, one of the crew leaders.

Andrew’s hands leave my body, tongue rolling in his cheek, eyes disillusioned.

“Whose idea was this honeymoon?”

“Do you really want to go there?” I warn.

He opens the door, hand already outstretched for a shake, before I can say another word.

Andrew

It’s not my fault I’m watching porn right now.

It’s not.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Every guy says that. But I’m serious.

Okay. Fine. Every guys says that, too.

But I really have no choice.

No, it has nothing to do with being constantly interrupted all day by work crews asking questions or doing work near our bedroom.

And nothing about my experience with Omar and Deke is making me buy a private island, or hire my own army, or program sexbots to give me blowjobs. But those assholes have my mind looping around this idea of personal safety and my family.

I need to make some decisions.

And not shallow ones, like beadboard vs. shiplap.

While Amanda’s asleep in bed, I go on some personal protection sites to learn the basics about guns and ammo. Dad has a few antique rifles here in a gun safe in the basement, more for show than shooting. He took me, Declan, and Terry out to shooting ranges occasionally when we were younger, a rare father-son bonding experience that always seemed to be more about Dad’s ego than function.

Hey, it was something.

I start browsing online, going first to the basics about home safety and personal protection. Gerald, Lance, José, and the other security guys on Anterdec’s team could answer all my questions, but I don’t want to ask them. Not because I don’t like feeling ignorant around my employees (I don’t, but that’s a separate issue), but because the very nature of being prepared is rooted in not talking about being prepared.

The more I tell people about what I’m doing, the more people know.

And when the shit hits the fan, you don’t want people knowing, because they’ll show up at your doorstep.

Hence my online question, which brings me to YouPorn after about three minutes of searching.

Surprised? So am I. All the blogs I’m trying to read are ranting about not being allowed to upload videos to YouTube. Gun instruction videos, prepping videos about weapons–you name it. Many of the blogs have videos.

All pointing to YouPorn.

From what I can gather, either YouPorn is the only place willing to host these particular gun videos, or a large group of thousands of male, heterosexual bloggers has decided to create fake drama and convince their significant others that they have no choice but to be on YouPorn.

Either explanation is feasible.

“Here goes,” I mutter to myself as I click on one of the videos.

And regret it instantly.

Rubbernecking infuriates me when it happens on the Mass Pike, but after three minutes of watching a guy with a naked woman demonstrating gun modification techniques, I’m starting to understand why people rapturously watch trainwrecks.

“What are you watching?”

I slam my laptop screen down as I turn to see Amanda in the doorway of my home office, her bathrobe open, eyes puffy with sleep. They fly open in alarm and she walks fast to my desk, reaching for the laptop.

I cover her hand with mine on the silver top.

Panic floods her features. “What are you watching, Andrew?”

“Porn.”

“Oh.” Relief fills her body, muscles going loose. “That’s all?” Her hands move to my shoulders, fingers massaging tense cords. “You don’t need porn. You’ve got me.”

“I know. It’s just, uh...” Shit. How do I lie my way out of this?

“I mean,” she stumbles, “porn’s okay. You can watch it if you need it. Do you, uh, need it that much? I thought I was satisfying you in the bedroom.”

Double shit.

“No, no, of course you satisfy me, Amanda. Our sex life is incredible. You are everything I could possibly want.”

“Then why the porn?” Dragging a chair over, she sits next to me. Our eyes meet.

She’s grinning.

“I have an idea. Why don’t we watch the porn together?” One finger slides suggestively from my wrist, attached to the palm that is flat against my laptop lid, her nail running in a trail up my arm, making every hair on my body stand up.

Along with my cock.

FWEEP! FWEEP! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! IT’S A TRAP AGAIN!

She looks down at my lap.

“Oooooo. Nice. Whatever you’ve been watching already has you hard. Now I’m extra curious.” She reaches for the laptop and begins to open it.

My forearm says otherwise.

Scowling, she catches my eye again, just as her other hand goes to my thigh. My very tense, hyperaware thigh, her fingertips brushing the inside, a hint too close to the action.

“Andrew?” Her voice goes soft. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. You can share any fantasy with me.” The laptop has become a talisman, a trophy, an artifact of an ancient race. It holds the key to everything in my relationship.

I cannot let her see what I was watching.

Lips suddenly find mine and she’s kissing me, her hand sliding up my leg to touch parts of me that are so wanting. I suck air through my back teeth as she wraps her hand around me, my hands suddenly in her hair, our bodies going from near-zero to one hundred in seconds.

Amanda pulls back, looking up at me from under her eyelashes. “I have fantasies I’ve never told you before, you know.”

This just went from bad to worse.

Conflicted, I freeze, unsure what to do next. If she knows what I was watching, she’ll be apoplectic. If I don’t show her, she’ll think I’m too inhibited to share sex fantasies.

This is the ultimate double bind.

A double bind with her hand all over my erection, begging me to let her spill her most erotic ideas.

And to fulfill them.

“Uh huh,” is my romantic reply.

Hey. You think you could do better in the same situation? Go ahead and try.

The fine skin around her throat moves as she swallows, the skin at the top of her chest flushing. Her tongue peeks out between her lips and licks, just once, before she opens her mouth and says:

“You go first. Show me yours.” She squeezes, her hold perfect. “And I’ll show you mine.”

I move, lifting my hips up so I can undo my belt and pants. I realize too late that’s not what she means.

Lifting the laptop screen, she looks at it as the connection re-establishes.

And shows Big Bubba standing there with a naked woman at his side while he loads a semi-automatic, describing every step of what he’s doing.

The video plays:

“Now, you need to lubricate your slide rail, and while my woman is nice and wet, that ain’t gonna do me no good here. Honey, go and make me a sammich,” he says as the naked woman kisses his cheek and hip-walks her way out of there in high heels.

And nothing else.

“You–this is the kind of porn you watch? You fantasize about me walking around naked while you play with your gun and order me to make you a sammich?” Amanda gasps.

“No, that’s not my fantasy,” I start to explain, squirming. “But now that you mention it, that sounds kind of appealing.”

She whacks my head as Bubba caresses the barrel of his Browning BDM 9mm and aims it at a target.

“You’re watching porn videos with guns involved? Like Duck Dynasty meets the Bunny Ranch?”

“It’s not like that.”

The naked woman delivers Bubba his sammich and starts feeding it to him, one bite at a time, wiping his beard and chin between bites.

“It’s exactly like that, Andrew. Come on! This is gross! It’s glorifying violence and... ew. Did she just reach between her legs and use some of her–is she lubricating the barrel?”

I turn away from the screen.

“Amanda, this is not what it looks like.”

“It looks like my husband is watching gun videos on YouPorn.”

I concede that’s true. “Yes, but–”

“Because my husband has a sexual fetish and masturbates to Bubba stroking his gun shaft.”

“What? NO! Why would you think that about me?”

She points to the screen. Bubba’s woman is licking the side of his gun like it’s a popsicle.

“This is just click bait,” I try to explain. “There are more serious videos here.”

“Like that one?” She points to the right side of the screen, where a video titled “Blow your target while blowing your wad” is on the Trending list.

Sigh.

I reach for the touchpad and kill the video, then initiate a quick search to prove a point.

“I want you to look at something,” I tell her as the search ends and the screen fills with stills of videos, all about guns.

“You want me to watch more gun porn? No. I refuse.”

“You offered to watch porn together.”

“When I thought we’d watch a nice threesome video together! Or discover that you like outdoor exhibitionist sex tapes! Or German puppy play!” Her face reddens. “Not that I’m into that.”

All of my explanations for why I’m watching secret gun videos on YouPorn just went out the window as the image of my wife dressed up as a sex-fetish puppy won’t leave my brain.

I have one word in response.

“Ew.”

“Ew? Did you just say ew, Andrew?”

“I did.”

“Says the man who is turned on by guns.”

“No. Not turned on by them. Watching the only available instructional gun videos online for certain add-ons to weaponry.”

“On YouPorn?”

“Yes.”

“You’re telling me there’s no other place where people can watch gun videos on the entire internet?”

“Not since YouTube banned them. And besides, I’m done. You walked in on me as I started watching this. It’s not a thing.”

“How do I know it’s not a thing?”

“Because you have my word.”

She squints. She pauses. She sighs.

“You don’t believe me?” I finally ask as this conversation takes a dangerous turn. Being caught watching Bubba on YouPorn is one thing. Not being believed sets my senses on fire.

“Of course I believe you. You’ve never given me reason to think you’d lie to me. But why, Andrew? Guns?”

“Are you anti-gun?”

“I’m not pro-gun. Not anti, either. I guess I’m neutral. Never thought about it. Now I have to, though, huh?” She casts a troubled glance at my closed laptop. “Are you buying guns?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you already own a gun?”

“Yes.”

“Here? In the house? There’s a gun in the house?”

“An antique. Dad has it in a gun safe, inside the larger safe.”

“There’s a safe? You never told me!”

“I didn’t even think about it until now.”

“Show me!”

“Show you... the safe? Or the gun?”

“Both.”

“Why would you want to see the gun?”

She points at the screen. “Why are you looking at gun videos?”

“Because being properly prepared means being properly armed. When the zombie apocalypse happens, you need to be able to shoot their heads off,” I joke.

I expect an argument. Instead, she cocks her head and says, “That has a certain logic to it.”

“It does?”

“And if there’s a gun safe in the house...” She frowns.

“I know what you’re thinking. Kids, weapons–but Dad always secured his guns.”

“Guns? As in plural? James has guns?”

“The antiques, and one handgun, but Dad took the handgun when he moved.”

“Why on earth would James have a handgun?”

“He told me it’s because he grew up in Southie, and when he started his business some of his buildings were in really unsafe neighborhoods. He got in the habit of packing.”

“That makes sense, too.”

“I have to admit, Amanda, I’m surprised you’re not freaking out more.”

“I’m more freaked by the gun video than I am by the gun itself.”

“I was just starting the video. Just watched a few seconds of it. Was about to turn it off just as you walked in.”

She squints at the screen. “That says you’re at the three-minute mark.” Judgmental, accusing eyes meet mine.

Damn her farsightedness.

“It was more informative in the beginning. Then it deteriorated into nudity and stupidity.”

“You make it sound like an oopsie. This is not a wrong-click error, Andrew!”

“It’s pretty close.”

“You know what?” she asks, setting my amygdala on alert. I am now being hunted. When a woman says, “You know what?” in the middle of a heated argument, you’re prey.

“What?”

“You’re worried about guns.”

“Not worried. Just scoping out the scene and thinking ahead.”

She waves her hand. Uh oh. “You know what?” and a hand wave means that whatever’s coming next is bad.

“I think you’re onto something,” she says.

“You do?”

“I do.”

We nod at each other for longer than we should.

“So,” she says with a long sigh, “tomorrow I’ll schedule us for classes.”

“Classes? For what?”

“If guns are that important to you, I think I should actually shoot one.”

“Excuse me?”

Her smile widens. “We’re taking a Massachusetts gun-safety class.”

Wasn’t expecting that. “We’re what? You want to waste an entire day of our honeymoon on that?” I look at her hands, reconsidering on the fly. “Have you ever fired a gun?”

“No.”

“Ever held one?”

“No. Which is precisely why we’re taking a class.”

“We?”

“Do you have a license to own firearms?”

“I do.”

“When was the last time you took a safety course?”

“A while ago.”

She shrugs. “I can go alone.”

The image of her alone in a room that is ninety-five percent men, with most of them likely heterosexual and all of them on a testosterone kick of some kind, makes me rethink.

Fast.

“I’ll join you. Need a refresher course.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then it’s settled. You’ll never, ever watch gun porn again.”

“I wasn’t watching gun porn!”

“Then giving it up will be easy.”

“You’re never, ever going to stop making fun of me about this, are you?”

“Do you still hum the Mission: Impossible song whenever Declan enters a room?”

“Yes.”

“That’s petty.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I love petty. You might call me the Petty Queen. My middle name is Petty.”

“Your middle name is Hortense.”

“You love pointing that out. You know what I love, Andrew?”

“Torturing me?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I love that we’re both reasonable.”

“That’s what you love?”

“Reasonable human beings are in short supply.”

“Then I’m glad I married one.”