Secret Valentine

"Guess you want to stay, huh."

He folded his hands, prayerfully. "Please, please, please. I promise to be good."

"What do you think, Amy?"

"Only if he still reads to me."

"I will. I will!"

"I guess you can stay, then, until you can get around better. I'm going to go make dinner. Baby, go use the bathroom and wash up. Then tell Jacob what happened in daycare today while I am busy in the kitchen."

It wasn't so much the tales of daycare that interested him. It was that she just crawled into his lap and started talking, as if this was an everyday thing.

This was entirely new to him, this warm, trusting little person in his lap. She talked about her friend Jordan, about the smaller kids who needed time outs, and so on.

He didn't notice Melanie, watching them together from the doorway. "Dinner!"

Amy slid off his lap and went for the table. Jacob, now transferred into his wheelchair, rolled after her.

"Melanie, I would like to make dinner tomorrow. Is that OK?"

"You're kidding. Of course it's all right. Anything in particular?"

"Nope, it will be a surprise."

"That's fine, but I need to caution you, strongly. The palate of the unsophisticate is highly intolerant of powerful amendments, such as those from our francophone northern neighbor."

"I see. So, with the flesh of the bovine beast—"

"That's right, just a little salt, no pepper."

"Fear not, gentle lady. I shall remember my audience in all things."

He turned to Amy. "What do you like to do after dinner, Amy?"

"Books!"

"Books? How old are you?"

"I'm four. Four years old. Didn't Mama tell you?"

"That's what she said, but I wasn't sure. You seem pretty smart, for being four. But why I am I doing the reading? Shouldn't you read for yourself?"

"I can't read!"

"Oh, yeah? What does this say?"

Jacob pulled out a pen and wrote AMY on a paper napkin in large block letters.

"It says 'Amy,' that's my name."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I, I,"

"Yup, you can read your name. Can I teach you some more words to read?"

"Mama?"

"Sure. But what do you say?"

"Thank you, Jacob. Right now?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Um, clean up?"

"Well, yes, but first I thought first we could have dessert."

"Oh, YEAH!"

"Jacob, I didn't get us anything."

"It's from my place. Look in the freezer."

"Oh, I see. Amy, would you like some ice cream?"

She folded her arms and said, "Mama!" crossly.

Jacob looked at Amy and said, "Stupid question, right?"

"Uh-huh. Thank you, Jacob."

Amy and Jacob, post ice cream, spent an hour on her name, and letters, and how they worked. He showed her "MY" and "AM" from her name, and two more words "TO" and "TOY"—and finally, Jacob wrote down this:

BRING MY TOY TO AMY.

She was getting really tired, but when Jacob explained the first word was "BRING" and she could read the rest for herself, she giggled, and then screamed, and carried on.

Now I know how mothers feel when their daughters graduate from Harvard Medical School. Amy is FOUR!

Later, finally, the adults were in bed together, cuddling.

"Jacob, for what you did tonight, I have no words. Except, thank you. This has never happened to me before. My daughter has become attached to someone else."

"That's not true, I'm just the new shiny thing. You will always be her Mama. And, if I'm really, really lucky, I will always be your Jacob."

"For somebody who is so shy, you sure talk pretty. I guess Ginny taught you how to cook, since you're doing dinner tomorrow. Anything else you are skilled at?"

"Cunnilingus."

Melanie buried her face in the pillow, howling with laughter. After she settled down, she eyed him, skeptically.

"That was a joke, right?"

"Not in the least. If you can rotate around in the bed for me, I'll demonstrate."

She rotated, he demonstrated, and her orgasm was epic.

"Jacob! Oh my God! If I knew you could do that, I would never have left the bed this morning. Which reminds me, I've been thinking all day about that fucking tree trunk I was holding this morning. Let me see it.

"Oh, wow. Jacob, that is a mighty oak. But, I'm so tired from my awful job, making dinner, and that monster come that I just had, I just want to close my eyes right now.

"But tomorrow night, after Amy goes down, will you please let me fuck your brains out? I promise, it will be worth the wait. For both of us!"

She kissed the tip, rotated back so her head was next to his, and kissed him passionately.

"Oh, yeah, besides the incredible sex we are going to have, I'm going to teach you how to kiss me—the way I like it. Reading for Amy, kissing for you, and pussy licking for me. I'll see you in the morning, my sweet, sweet man. Good night."

Jacob was tired, too. He was only a minute or two behind her, and they were sleeping soundly together.

Chapter 20: Sunday Morning.

Sunday, February 12, 2023, 9:05 a.m.

Amy crawled on the bed, on top of the blanket covering Melanie and Jacob. She was upset and tearful.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"I checked the clock, it's after 9:00, don't be mad at me!" Then she was weeping. "Mama!" she wailed.

Melanie raised up and took hold of her daughter. None of them, not even Jacob, noticed that the movement exposed her breasts.

Asking again, "Baby, what's wrong?"

It was hard for her to speak, between the sniffles.

"When I woke up, I remembered what you said, Mama, about Jacob. You said, when his ankles got better, he would be leaving. Mama, I don't want Jacob to leave! I want him to stayyy!"

"Oh, Amy, baby, don't cry. I want him to stay, too. Should we ask him?"

"<Sniffle.> Uh-huh."

"Jacob, do you want to stay with us, with Amy and with me?"

"I'm staying. Amy, can I give you a big hug?"

Amy and Jacob cuddled, while her tears and snuffles slowly subsided. When she was calm and quiet, Melanie spoke to her.

"Baby, go out to the kitchen, please. I'm going to put some clothes on and get your breakfast. And then I want you to watch a movie while Jacob and I do some more talking. OK?"

Amy agreed and left for the kitchen.

Melanie had ignored the frowny face on Jacob when she said, "put some clothes on." She said, "Just hang on, willya. I'll be back in 15 minutes with your pancakes."

When she returned after breakfast, after locking the bedroom door, "I guess we need to talk. You're serious, you want to stay with us?"

"Do cats climb trees? Of course I do, Melanie. I have no doubt about that. But there are some things we need to discuss, all right?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"There's a lot, so bear with me. Remember, I've been stuck in bed for hours at a time to ruminate on things.

"First, my apartment is much bigger than yours. I want you and Amy to move in with me, instead of what we're doing here. Your unit is only two bedrooms, one bathroom. We will make my third bedroom just right for Amy, with places for her to read and for her library she will be building. We'll make the main bathroom safe for her to use. My second bedroom is my office, and the master suite and its attached bathroom has lots of free space for your clothes and things.

"You must have noticed my updated kitchen, and one thing you probably missed: I have my own washer and dryer too. No more hauling laundry around the complex. We don't need to be paying two rents when we are living together.

"Second, I want you to quit your job. No, hear me out. Your job is awful, and it oppresses both of you for little reward. It's not that I think you shouldn't work. I just want you to have a better job; a job which pays well, has benefits, and doesn't leave you exhausted and feeling like crap every evening. Actually, I suspect those assholes you work for might be wanting to fire you anyway, just because of the time you took off for me.

"Believe me, you'll be better off. And, trust me, I have good connections for getting you hired at a much better place. Hell, any place would be better. You already told me you have a 2-year business degree.

"Third, I would ask you to consider me as your part-time care for Amy. She does benefit from being over at Northeast Daycare, for her friends like Jordan and for the structured activities. But it doesn't have to be every weekday for her. She could be staying here with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays, perhaps. Or she could be at daycare on those two days, and home with me on the other three weekdays. Up to you.

"Fourth, this would be almost painless for you but would be a big financial improvement. I'm making some safe assumptions here: you have one ordinary credit card that is maxxed out to your credit limit and has an interest rate between 21 - 32% annually. All you can do with it, really, is make the minimum monthly payments. I don't know your specifics, but I'll use a typical example for people with this kind of credit card. At these very high rates, a $4,000 balance will end up costing you almost $12,000 in interest and take at least 25 YEARS to pay off with minimum payments of 3% ($120 a month). That little piece of plastic is financial cancer. It's robbing not only your future, but Amy's, and I can't stand to think about it. Wrecking your Honda would be far less expensive. Remember, I do finance for a living, and I said this would be almost painless.

"Here's how it works: I'm going to loan you the amount of your balance on the card, so you can pay it off. The interest rate for MY loan will be 2%, and the minimum payment will be set to 2%, that's $80 a month on a $4000 balance. Life of the loan, your interest cost would be about $310, not $12,000. Between individuals, I just need to be reasonable with you, so I won't have any issues with auditors or the tax people. These loan parameters would be deemed reasonable.

"Now, why would you do this? Because it will save you and Amy thousands of dollars that would otherwise go to your greedy bank. Because it makes your monthly payment a whole lot less, and the interest I collect from you is less than $8 a month, instead of around $90 to the bank. Because, if we have a falling out, you don't have to keep making payments because I get a tax advantage for writing the debt off, and of course I wouldn't pursue you for such a vanishingly small debt in my portfolio. Because once you have a better job, you will probably have the whole debt paid off in six months anyway because of your higher salary.

"Why would I do this? Imagine a leaky pipe, where the drip is causing a rusty, moldy, smelly, and ever-increasing failure in your bedroom wall. Like I said, I do finance for a living. And your credit card is that leaky pipe, which I can fix for good in about ten minutes of work. You're not getting a gift, you're just getting a much better deal on credit from the Bank of Jacob.

"Melanie, every day, every hour that I'm with you is precious to me. Will you consider these four ideas?"

He looked at her, hopefully, and took heart from her small smile.

"There are considerations before I can accept. If I give up my terrible job, I'm going to be having a lot more energy. I'll be making more sexual demands on you, for sure. If you have more hours with my daughter, teaching her to read, she's going to be ahead of the other students when she goes to public school. Her teachers might complain. If I have a better job with more income, and we're living together in a binding relationship, I might have to give up my ancient little Honda and get something bigger and safer, with more room for your ankles. Maybe an SUV. That's going to cost you, Jacob, since nobody's going to offer me a vehicle loan for thirty to sixty grand.

So, I need you to consider this carefully. I'm going to give you five seconds to make up your mind. Four. Three. Mnph!"

Jacob had his arms wrapped around her, tightly, and was smothering her with enthusiastic, if clumsy, kisses.

He held up one finger. "YES!" he added, aloud.

Melanie pulled back and looked into his eyes.

"Wanna fuck?"

His finger went up, once more. She pulled off her clothes. He was already rising to full erection, so she added a generous slobbering to his cock and gleefully hopped on for her new favorite ride.

Jacob was mesmerized by her big tits bobbling in front of his face as she rode him. She looked down and saw this, so she grasped her whole breast and pushed the nipple into his mouth for suckling. In response, his cock literally jerked inside her body, and she ground down against him more firmly, for more pressure on her clit.

His hands were on her ass cheeks, kneading and squeezing, and pulling down with her thrusts to increase her excitement and leverage. In the midst of this action, he was able to switch to her other nipple,

When he felt that she was near, he used his fingertip to add pressure on and around her asshole. That was it! She climaxed, shaking with the intensity, then fell forwards so she could recover in his arms.

I never knew having sex could be this great! Jacob is not leaving my bed, not ever.

After a couple of minutes, she rose up and asked, "Time for you to come: in my mouth, on my tits, where?"

"If you put your pussy on my face while you suck me, I will come immediately!"

And that's exactly what happened. But then, he couldn't stop, and he licked and sucked until she came again, leaking her juices right into his open mouth.

Lying there, both of them satiated and sweaty, he couldn't resist saying, "You know, over in my place there's a bathroom connected to the master bedroom. So we can wash up after sex and not be sneaking naked down the hall, like you have to do here."

"Yeah, that's true. But I think, living together, we have to let Amy see you naked, and explain the whole penis thing. It's just part of being a family. A family! Oh, Jacob!" Overcome with emotion, she switched around and rolled on up on top of him to plaster his face with more kisses.

Soon she realized he was hard again, between her legs, so she reached down and pushed the head back into her wet pussy for another round.

Afterwards, Melanie left the bedroom; she needed a quick shower. Amy's movie wasn't quite over yet. But when she finished showering and left the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel turban, Amy was standing there.

"Mama, you're still naked, and it's almost lunchtime."

"That's right, Amy. Look, you go pee, wash your hands, and then come to my bedroom, OK?"

While her daughter was occupied, Melanie hurriedly cleaned and dried Jacob's midsection and face with her damp towel. When Amy appeared, they were both laying exposed (above the waist) on the bed.

"Amy, because we're going to be all living together, we have to get used to some new things. You know Jacob is a man, not a woman. The regular way people are identified as men, is because they have a penis. You probably have seen one, it's a little tube for peeing in front of where their legs meet. And, usually, boys and men can pee standing up, because they can aim using their penises. I want you to know, in case you see Jacob coming out of the shower naked like I just did."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Why are you telling me this, Mama?"

"Because, you might accidently see him naked at other times, that's part of living together, as a family."

"Jacob is my family?"

"Yes, he is."

Amy literally squealed and climbed up on to the bed and on to Jacob to hug him. "Yay!"

"Oh, sorry, Amy, one more thing. The penis, and the parts next to it, they are really sensitive. If you run into it, or put your knee on it, he would be in a whole lot of pain. I want you to be careful with him, just watch out that you don't accidentally hurt him down there."

Jacob added, "Amy, if you're careful, and I'm careful, there won't be a problem. OK? But if you don't want to hug me anymore, I will be very very sad."

"Don't worry, Jacob. I will be careful with your peenus. I'm hungry! Will you two please get dressed, so we can have lunch?"

Chapter 21: Sunday Evening, Planning.

Sunday, February 12, 2023, 9:15 p.m.

With her daughter settled into her bed, the adults were stretched out in the master bedroom.

"I'm glad to be finally out of that wheelchair and ready for bed, it's really hard on my butt. I'm going to buy a better one, and then we can return this one to the hospital and get your deposit back.

"Melanie, did I convince you to quit your job tomorrow?"

"You did, and I'm leaving Amy here with you while I get finished with them."

"That's great! So, after you do that, I have a request. Tuesday is Valentine's Day. I want to have a special evening with you Tuesday night, including a fancy romantic dinner at this exclusive restaurant I know. Do you think you could arrange a sleepover for Amy, with one of her friends?"

"Well, yeah, Jordan's Uncle Dan would be pleased to host her overnight. But you don't need to spoil me at some restaurant."

"I absolutely do. Remember, I was thinking of you and Valentine's Day back in mid-January, when I left you that first small card and the chocolates. I would be awfully disappointed if you turned me down."

"OK, so long as you understand it's not required, as far as I'm concerned."

"So, part of my request is that tomorrow, after you're done with your ex-employer, you take the debit card and go to Nordstrom. Tell them you need a special formal gown to impress your boyfriend Tuesday night, and you can spend up to $2,000 on it. And after that, get some shoes to go with the dress. Nordstrom is very well known for their shoe selection, and you should be able to get something that fits comfortably but looks elegant. And finally, let them find you a purse or bag of some kind that also works with the dress and shoes."

"You're not serious, are you?"

"I am completely serious. Your boyfriend would be impressed if you wore a potato sack, but Nordstrom doesn't need to know that. Let them earn their commissions, on my dime. Now, do you have jewelry for your ears and neck?"

"Nothing that would go with a $2000 gown, or even a $200 gown. My ears are pierced, though, as you know."

"OK, before Nordstrom, first go into whatever jewelry store is nearby, it doesn't matter which one of them you pick. (I understand they all share the same suppliers.) Tell them your budget is $1500, and you need to decorate your neck and your ears for the big day on Tuesday. Have them show you options and pick what you prefer.

"Then, when you go to Nordstrom afterwards, they can coordinate your gown with the jewelry. Also, when you walk in bejeweled, it will show them that you are a serious customer and they need to respect you properly."

"Jacob! This is all too much! You can't spend this kind of money on me."

"As I have said many times already, I have a whole lot of money. What I need, is a whole lot of Melanie. You have to believe me when I say, these amounts are absolutely trivial when you have as much socked away as I do. I could spend ten, twenty, forty times as much as this, if I believed you would accept it.

"I'm trying to navigate that balance, so that you and I can enjoy a special night together in an elegant setting. I want you to be relaxed, and not self-conscious about how you are presenting yourself. So please, for the next two days, let me make everything special. Please. Get yourself some sparkles a nice gown, and shoes. Let me do that, so that this Valentine's Day is special in every way."

"Jacob, all these days are already special, just being with YOU. I could be wearing a t-shirt and shorts and if you're there with me on that day, the drive-through lane at Burger King would be my Tunnel of Love.

Alright, that was pretty cheesy. But look at him, he believes it. He loves me. And I love him. And he would take me to Burger King, if that's what I asked him for. After all, with him in my bed, it is the home of the Whopper.