I noticed they’d put the medical bag that Tami had put together for me when we’d been in New Orleans in the back of the VelociRaptor. Fritz had been impressed when he found it. He planned to get a similar setup for all the LA cars that Rita used.
◊◊◊
When we were done at the dojo, Fritz took Cassidy and Brook home. I invited Halle and Fritz to stay for dinner because Rita was in LA, working on the film. We walked in to Little David having a meltdown.
“Oh, thank God,” Dad said.
“What’s wrong, Little Guy?” I asked as I picked him up out of his high chair.
He wouldn’t stop fussing, so I blew in his face. That startled him, and he stiffened up, and his eyes got big.
“What did you just do?” Peggy asked.
“Blew in his face. I do similar things to Duke to get his attention,” I said as I bounced him around and looked into his eyes.
He relaxed and laid his head against my chest.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Little David knocked his bottle off the tray, and it landed on Duke. Duke about knocked over the high chair getting away,” Dad said.
“Is Duke okay?” I asked.
Mom just shook her head. When I was little, if I heard a story where there was an animal involved, my first concern was whether the animal was okay. Dad still shared the story where he told me how a bull had gotten out, and when they tried to catch him, he’d attempted to stomp a farmhand. Dad would use a little boy’s voice—“Was the bull okay?”—to describe my antics.
I found Duke in the living room with milk all over his back. I used a washcloth to clean him up. As I did that, he gave Little David puppy kisses, which made him giggle. I then had to get another washcloth to clean the dog slobber off Little David. Both of the babies now seemed to be okay.
I tried to put Little David back into the high chair, but he needed me, so I ate my dinner with him in my lap. He was happily babbling up a storm. Then I heard “dada.” Dinner was soon forgotten.
“Did he just say ‘dada’?” I asked.
“Dada,” Little David said again, clear as day.
“Yeah, I’m your ‘dada,’” I said and found I had tears in my eyes.
I’d never even thought about how much Little David meant to me. He kept saying, “dada.” I realized it could just as easily have been ‘yaya’ or ‘baba.’ He had no idea what he was saying, only that when he said “dada” to me, I made a big deal out of it. It tugged at my heartstrings to have him call me that. I knew at that moment that he was as much my son as my own would be.
Peggy took him from me so I could eat. She put him on the floor with Duke. We’d given up on the playpen because Duke would hop in with him every chance he got. He was super gentle with Little David, and it was common to find Little David curled up having a nap with his furry friend. I took a lot of pictures of the two of them together.
◊◊◊
After dinner, Halle followed me to my apartment to practice our lines. Acting was her craft, so she took it seriously. I was glad she had a professional approach because it caused me to crack down, too. Memorizing the lines was the easy part. She and I broke down each scene and talked about how it should be done. Typically, the director would do that. Halle told me that Mr. Dutton had let her do pretty much whatever she wanted, so I bowed to her lead and did what I was told.
We were deep into Act I when she got a text.
“Crap,” she mumbled.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at the time.”
It was 11:30. Where did the last several hours go?
“Send Fritz a text back to bring you clothes in the morning,” I said.
“How did you know it was Fritz?” Halle asked.
“Who else would it be?”
“Oh,” was her witty response.
Then her brain kicked into gear and realized what I’d just suggested.
“Oh, you’re going to get me into trouble.”
“Halle, what do you want to do?” I asked and waggled my eyebrows at her.
She looked down at her phone and sent a text. One came back, and she responded to it.
“Pam, Brook, and Zoe are going to kill me. I feel like you’re corrupting me,” she admitted.
“Hang on. The only way they’ll find out is if you tell them. So if you end up dying, it’s your own fault. Secondly …” I said and then pulled her in for a passionate kiss.
Of course I would corrupt her, but she wanted to be corrupted. Halle became quite a vocal and active participant in her corruption. I took my time to worship her body. She wasn’t like Brook, who was much more athletic and rowdier in bed. Zoe was like a kid in a candy store who had never had any before—she wanted to try every kind. Pam was my surfer-mama who was fun to be with.
Halle was the queen of passion. She took her time and let things build. There were long, lingering kisses and endless little butterfly pecks all over my body. We both simply indulged each other and worked to bring enjoyment. We found ourselves in a sixty-nine position, and she was lavishing my package with licks, kisses and little sucks. Halle never took me in her mouth. She used her fingernails to tease me right where my sack met my body. She about drove me wild.
I finally had had enough and attacked Halle’s sex.
