Waking Amy (Amy #1) Read online

  Waking Amy

  Copyright © 2016 Julieann Dove

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons –living or dead –or places, events, or locales is purely accidental. The characters are reproductions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Cover designs by Corey J. Green

  Formatting by Dallas Hodge, Everything But The Book

  Please be aware that this book cannot be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the author, Julieann Dove, at [email protected], or within the sharing guidelines at a legitimate library or bookseller. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction, sharing, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/) and is punishable by up to five years in a federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to my mother, Vivian Hannah.

  To the world you may be just one person, but to me you are the world. I love you.

  Chapter One

  I’m not a whore, I’m not a whore, I’m not a whore. I repeated the mantra to myself as I white-knuckled the lingerie up to the checkout girl. I tried not to stare at her flamboyant boobs that had somewhat outstretched her garment by three sizes or more. The French inscription that was written on it had fanned out and was barely legible. “She who must be obeyed.” Great. I knew there was a reason I had taken four years of the foreign language—to interpret a shirt such as this. And to think—I learned it because I would one day honeymoon in the city of lights and would need to speak the lingo. Silly me.

  In my husband’s defense, although we didn’t make it there after the wedding, he did purchase me a plastic Eiffel tower for our first anniversary and said he’d take me there when we reached our tenth year. As though getting to Paris was somewhat of a marriage marathon, and this plastic statue was a drink of water on the first-mile stretch. I only had six more miles—er, years—to keep brushed up for the fateful event. I hope he hadn’t forgotten his promise. Years two, three, and four landed me nothing resembling the pact he’d made. Year two I got a pair of earrings that make my ears break out when I wear them; year three, a box of candy; year four, a slow cooker.

  “Would you like a gift receipt?” the tiny cheerleader with the bleached-white teeth asked me.

  A gift receipt? She really thought I was purchasing this for someone else? It wasn’t as though she could see through my blouse and cardigan to my eighteen-hour bra and high-rise Hanes, could she? And did people buy lingerie for other people?

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you, anyway.”

  I kept my head lowered, pushed my hair behind my ear and then continued to fidget with the top button on my shirt. It was safely keeping my blouse pulled together. No need to advertise my collarbones to the free world.

  I smiled and took my bag. I hoped she hadn’t seen my hand shake when I signed the credit card copy. Not only had I never set foot into any sort of establishment such as this, but I usually walked on the other side of the mall to avoid getting too close to the entryway of it. “Devil-wear,” as my mother referred to it, never got you anything but trouble. Strap on that sort of getup and consider yourself a plaything for nothing but evil. Had my mother still been around, God bless her departed soul, she would have loosened up the slack on her judgment. Well, maybe. She came from a very different time, and schooled me in the same manner. My dresses were to fall below my knees, my sleeves to hit over the elbow, and for the love of God, wear only pajama sets at night. That way, the one-eyed monster didn’t get on the scent of anything foul play.

  Of course, I have done all of this. I even stopped wearing skirts altogether once I got married. Pants are the way to go when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned workplace five days a week, nine hours a day—in the winter! And this modest method of living is perhaps why Wesley has been working late at the office three nights a week, going on business trips, and forgetting about important dates—like our first date anniversary. It was two weeks ago. I came home with Chinese takeout and cheesecake with cherry topping (his favorite), and he didn’t come home until ten o’clock. When I asked why he didn’t answer his phone, all he said was that the battery must’ve given way and died. I ended up eating alone and watching a stupid reality show before going to bed.

  I was hoping this little Prada-like Satan outfit would fuel some fire back into our relationship. Either that, or he’d pass out from seeing three-fourths of my body’s skin. That is, if I knew how to assemble it. It had so many straps and pinchy things attached, I might have to Google someone wearing it and go from there.

  I’d actually gotten the idea to ramp things up from the girls at work. I share a table with them at lunch. All they ever seem to talk about is sex. I rarely contribute, as I don’t have an array of things to offer. But today they asked for a donation from me. Tapioca pudding almost choked me as I looked up at the four sets of eyes, waiting for me to hash out what it was like in the “sack” of my bedroom.

  Okay, first off, the “sack” was a dark cherry four-poster bed, ensconced with a Laura Ashley canopy. My remote control rested on my nightstand, where my highlighted TV Guide showed all the upcoming Hallmark premieres. My pink slippers sat beside my bed, and the cotton pajama set I wore for two nights consecutively before washing and changing out laid at the foot of it. I wouldn’t exactly consider my bed a “sack.” And I wouldn’t exactly confess to them that we did “sack-like” things every third Saturday night. If I was in the mood, and there was no pay-per-view boxing on that particular night.

  “Well...we usually have fun about twice a month. Maybe three if we watch a sexy movie.” Did that sound as pathetic outside of my brain? And it was still a lie!

  Heavy gasping swept across the table. I might as well have said that my three-headed neighbor watched while we did it for all the groans I received. Actually, that would have got me off the hot seat. Neighbors watching would have cast my membership into this women’s club. Obviously there was an initiation and sex twice a month wasn’t it. Would I be shunned in the future? Sitting in my car at lunch break, parked in the adjacent lot so that no one could see me? I could always pack tuna sandwiches and lure stray cats to my vehicle.

  “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” Rosa touched my arm as if I had admitted to having an incurable disease. “And, he’s okay with that?”

  I cleared my already clear throat, giving myself a few seconds to retract my statement. The one that carried the weight of a boulder and had landed in the middle of our lunch table.

  “He’s fine. We’re fine. It’s always been fine. Why? You don’t think it’s fine?” I raised my pencil-thin eyebrow. It quivered a little as I awaited the judgment of my overly-sexed peers.

  Sonja’s lip muscles flexed hard before she blurted what was on everyone’s mind.

  “If a man isn’t getting it at home, he’s usually getting it somewhere else.”

  They obviously didn’t know Wesley. He wasn’t the type. From day one, he... Hold on. From day one, he did want it all the time. I wasn’t a big fan of it. It took only seconds and I didn’t get anything from it except resentment. After getting a few shoulders in his face instead of breasts, he slowly gave up and did it only when I initiated it. Was it true? Could he be going elsewhere? No. Not Wesley.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. We have a good relationship. We don’t need to have sex all the time, like every day of the we
ek. There are other components of a relationship. We have a good one,” I repeated.

  “Honey, don’t you want to have sex? You’ve got no children. You could have it in a different room every night if you wanted. Have you ever tried the kitchen table?” Sonja’s eyes danced with the mere thought of it.

  Sonja is probably the most over-sexed one at the table. She is a pretty girl in her mid-thirties, but she keeps herself up, making it seem more like she’s in her late twenties. She does her own highlights, sometimes red and sometimes blonde, depending on the season. Her eye makeup is always painted in bright colors, matching her outfits and meticulously covering the area that stretches from under her eyebrow to the black eyeliner that defines the edge of her eye. She always boasts how many positions she can perform. As if it’s the Olympics, and the more you can do, the more awards you might receive.

  “We haven’t yet made it to the kitchen table—germs and all, you know? But, we’ve done it in all the other rooms with beds.” Thank goodness they didn’t know that all we had was one guest room with a bed. The other room had a desk, and I would never imagine doing anything on that and ruining my collection of porcelain butterflies. It took me twelve months of payment plans and installment shipping for those little babies.

  “That’s it? In the beds of your home? That sounds so sad.” Rosa shook her head and grabbed her gaping mouth. Notice of my dear cat’s death would’ve probably elicited less pity. “You don’t role play or meet in clubs and do it in the bathroom or in the dressing rooms of Target?” Her brow raised as her lips pinched tightly shut. She seemed to be hiding a secret I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. I’ve used those dressing rooms.

  I couldn’t wrap my head around what Rosa was talking about. She was married, with five children. Obviously, there was no lack of physical contact in her marriage, but was I to believe she pushed a cart with her children loaded inside the front and on the sides, parking it outside of the fitting room and asked the oldest to watch the others while she and Daddy went in to “try on clothes”? With each other? Who was she kidding? At least my lie was believable. Now, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether her wrinkly clothes were from lack of ironing or whether Jose, her husband, scored a quickie in the car before he dropped her off to work. She always boasted they had a wonderful sex life. I suppose five children could back that up. I had nothing…nothing but a collection of butterflies in one room and a neatly made bed in the other.

  “Come to think of it, I forgot about vehicles.” I touched my finger to my lips, as if to remember. “Just last week we went to that buffalo wing place by the new shopping mall, and we did you-know-what in the backseat of his Jeep in the parking lot. He couldn’t wait. Said he’d die if he had to eat dinner without tasting me first.” I hoped the flush I suddenly felt didn’t show like a bull’s-eye on my face.

  If they knew Wesley, they would’ve known that was a bold-faced fallacy. Wesley wouldn’t even let me drink a soda in his precious Jeep. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t allow naked bodies sloshing up on the sides of his all-leather interior. But I had read something similar in a book and remembered the image.

  “You better watch out, girl,” Paige said. “If I have sex too much, I have to take the little white pill.”

  The little white pill? Obviously I didn’t have too much sex, so I had no idea what she was talking about. But I nodded, as though I did.

  “The week after our honeymoon, I was miserable. I couldn’t wait to get on American soil and contact my gynecologist. It took me three days to feel normal again.”

  Although obviously getting over some type of malady, Paige still had stars in her moony eyes. She was a newlywed. She and Doug were probably still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship—sex once a week. I was invited to her wedding three months ago and went alone. Wesley was out of town that weekend, but I remember the way Doug looked at her: longing eyes, with love filled to the brim of both of them. I didn’t recall Wesley ever looking at me in the same way. After we were married, it seemed like we bypassed the honeymoon period and moved right toward the golden years of “You sleep on your side, and I’ll sleep on mine.”

  “Guys, we’re really mature in our relationship. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

  “You might want to spice it up before someone else does it for you,” Sonja piped in.

  Somehow I didn’t think she completely believed the wild wing story in his Jeep. I felt my eyes shy away when I told it. I was still fanning myself and repeating five Hail Mary’s under my breath.

  “A man is a man, Amy. They need constant touch and reinforcement that they’re the king of the hill. In all aspects, especially the libido. Even Edith in accounting learned that lesson. She’s now residing in an apartment down by the mall, and Edward has moved on with a girl ten years younger. They sold their colonial home in Bayberry Estates and split the proceeds down the middle.”

  I tried to control my popping eyes. Now that she mentioned it, Edith had looked more pasty these last couple of weeks. As though she’d come to work every day having kept her face in an ice tray the night before. Even her gait was slower and her arms were constantly shrugging. I thought she was just vitamin deprived and needed to make an appointment with a chiropractor.

  “I know you think everything is cool, but maybe you need a teacher to show you some sex tricks. My cousin, Mario, has helped some ladies in the past. I could ask for a discount for you.” Sonja finished up her drink and took her bag to the trashcan.

  I grabbed my trash and followed my sex-proficient friend. The thought of a tall, dark, and handsome Latino coming over to my house to teach me where to place my hands shortened my breath. Of course, then the thought of him reporting back to Sonja and her bringing that nightmare to the table for discussion sickened me.

  “No thanks, Sonja. My marriage is good. What am I saying? It’s great. Maybe we just need to get away from here. He’s working so much. I think we need a break from the rat race.”

  I left the table, feeling insecure with my relationship and as though I was the pathetic un-sexed one of the bunch. I loved Wesley and I intended to keep him, no matter what. I would just have to get used to more looks of condolence than sisterhood high fives.

  The streetlights were on when I turned down Fairfield Avenue. I was relieved not to see a car in the driveway, even though with Wesley’s sudden new travel itinerary, he was seldom home.

  I parked my car and snatched the bag from the passenger seat. The slam of my car door echoed in the quiet street. There were no leaves on the trees to help buffer the noise. Summer hadn’t quite arrived, and it was still chilly in the evenings. Looking both ways, I double-stepped up the porch stairs to the front door. I was more cautious these days since the mugging that took place two streets over from mine. The newscaster on Channel Seven interviewed the victim with one of those black dots over her face. She seemed pretty shaken up. Her voice was crackly and she swayed back and forth while she answered the questions. It seemed as though the perpetrator only wanted money, but he didn’t leave her unharmed. She showed the black and reddish bruises on her arms and said he was carrying a knife. When I told Wesley, he said to just be more careful. As if. Did that mean carry less money, park on the yard beside the porch, or bulk up on protein shakes and wear brass knuckles, should the need to defend myself against a knife-wielding lunatic arise?

  After my jittery fingers jammed the key into the lock and turned it, I made it inside. I dead-bolted the door behind me and began freaking out. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… You would’ve thought this was my first time making love to my husband. It was, sort of. At least, it was something I was consciously planning. Having bought an outfit for it and all. It seemed like every time we did it, it was because we were nearing our next appointed time. Every so often, he’d venture over to my side of the bed to get a tune-up. Like taking your car in for an oil change every three thousand miles. For Wesley and me, it was around every four weeks that one of us needed some type of heavy petting. I n
ever imagined this was what married life would be. But, then again, Disney had a way of always ending the fairy tale the moment right after the princess found her Prince Charming. Someone should carry the story a little further. That way, unsuspecting girls wouldn’t be so blindsided by the next five mundane years.

  As I raced upstairs, I could hear my heartbeat inside my ears. I tried conjuring up my sexy alter ego. Everyone had one, right? I had fifteen or less minutes to locate mine. I dumped the contents of the bag on the bed, and there it was. Less than a quarter yard of red, call-girl material. Did I have enough shaving cream for all the hair that would have to be pruned to wear that eighty-dollar Band-Aid? I started the shower, loaded a new razor, and got down to business. I didn’t even take the extra five minutes it took to fully condition my hair. I figured I’d have to take another shower after we were finished anyway. But not too soon afterwards. I always waited the three minutes it took for Wesley to fall asleep before I got up, showered, and got dressed for bed. I always left him alone to sleep naked all night. He never strayed to my side of the bed anyway. Nothing made him more stone-cold unconscious than sex.

  Ten minutes later, I stood in front of my foggy bathroom mirror, wearing ten strips of bloody toilet paper. I only hoped the blood would soon clot. I didn’t want it to get on the new sheets I’d put on the bed. They were my favorite ones—little daisies with red ladybugs. Had I known I was going to have hanky-panky, I would have chosen the gray-striped ones. They had the tiny dryer balls all over them. I felt as if I were being exfoliated every time I put them on the bed. Now, though, they were tucked safely in the back of the linen closet. I could never bring myself to throw them out. I always figured I’d need them for an overnight guest. Six years living together, and Wesley and I have never had an overnight guest.