2. Completely Carl
1983 Words
Carl tiptoed his way into the larger bedroom of their suite and heaved a sigh. It was much easier putting Dora down for a nap, but Mason had wanted to go to “the b***h”, which was his 5-year-old way of saying “the beach”.
He supposed it was close enough. Walking on the hot sand certainly was unpleasant enough to be a right old b***h.
“Are they down?” Violet whispered when he closed the door softly behind him.
“Yep. Finally.” He released a long breath. “I swear to Christ, Nate’s idea of giving Mason a little bit of Benadryl before he hits the hay isn’t sounding like that bad of an idea these days.”
Frowning, Vi quirked her head at him. “Number one, my dear brother has the parental instincts of a brothel madame. Number two, he was totally f*****g kidding when he said that.” She paused. “At least I hope he was.”
Carl spread out on the bed and relaxed, closing his eyes a moment before Violet slid into his arms to rest her head on his chiseled chest. As far as he was concerned, she could live there. He had the hottest Dad-bod of all his friends, in his humble opinion, and he didn’t mind flaunting it. It was part of the reason he’d agreed to visit Hawaii in the dead of summer during the heightened tourist season. It didn’t help that the airlines were offering such low rates after a historic low a few years before. After the hysteria of a worldwide pandemic had spread back in 2020, he’d been lucky enough to keep afloat and was thankful for a little nest egg he’d squirreled away and some ensuing good financial investments in the stock market. It had plummeted for a while, giving him the opportunity to buy the lower-priced shares at pennies on the dollar. The investments paid off when the market started thriving once a vaccine had become available and the world started to open back up and become what was considered ‘normal’ again.
He was wealthier than ever now, and was seriously starting to think about expanding his family. If Violet was agreeable to it, that is.
Figuring he could start to f**k her into agreeableness, he started with soft, slow caresses of the arm she rested on his firm chest and kissed her fingertips until he felt a series of goosebumps rise along his wife’s skin. It brought a smile to his face that he could still garner such a reaction just from his gentlest touch.
That s**t never got old.
“Baby?”
Violet grunted quietly. He’d have bet his left testicle that her eyes were closed.
Well, maybe an arm or a leg instead. Having only one testicle would certainly put the kibosh on the subject he wanted to bring up with Violet.
“I was thinking of us having another kid. You wanna?” He gave her a slow and lazy tone, but still, Violet’s eyes shot open at the suggestion before he could blink.
Or even open his shut eyes.
He’d been testing the waters when he suggested that, and if the tension in her body was what he had to go by, the waters were cold—Arctic even.
“What? Really?”
Violet sounded only startled, and he opened his eyes to peer into hers.
Shocked, yes. Appalled—not in the slightest.
“Sure, why not?” He pulled her in closer, settling his lips to hers before puffing more air against them as he spoke. “We have a huge house, I’m fathering like a boss, I love seeing you pregnant and glowing, and—most importantly—we do some pretty good work in the kids department. My genetics are stellar, baby girl.”
She punched him lightly in the gut, causing him to wheeze in a breath melodramatically. “You just like it when my t**s grow to massive proportions, don’t you? Admit it.”
He wouldn’t lie, but he shrugged offhandedly and cupped his junk in case Violet aimed her next punch there. “I didn’t hate it.”
She scoffed disgustedly and tried to pull away. Carl wasn’t having that and drew her right back in, toppling her over him so she was forced to straddle his hips. His hands came down, locking her there as his erection grew and rubbed her in all the right places.
“Carl,” she whined.
“Shh, baby. What’s my name?”
Fuck. He was so going there.
She groaned, but submitted dutifully.
“Daddy.”
He growled. “That’s right, kitten. Daddy. Not just to those two little rug rats in the other room, but right here, right now. Always.”
She repeated his last word and let him take her mouth in a needy kiss. It grew like a forest fire with its heat, and he’d let it boil him alive every time if he could. Singe his skin, too.
Violet was flipped over as the length of his c**k ground into her hot center, pulling the desperate little moans he liked so much coming from his woman’s mouth. He lived for them at times like this when his kids were asleep, hopefully for at least an hour as he gave her a good—
Knocking.
But where?
“You hear that?” His head lifted to see if it was the walls in between suites or just his imagination.
But there it was again.
“Hear what?”
Violet was either too high on his thick c**k rubbing against her to hear it, or she was lying and hoping it would go away if they ignored it long enough.
“Knocking.”
“Knocking?”
“Yeah, you know—what happens when knuckles meet with wood repeatedly.” He got up, straightening his shirt as he tried to wipe Violet’s lipstick from his face. “Coming!”
He leaped into action and made a pitstop in the gigantic bathroom to check out his face. His hair was messed up, but he wasn’t about to give the person who was knocking any kind of show about fixing his do. As long as he didn’t look like he was cleaning up from a drag show, he was good.
A wipe of a Kleenex later he was presentable, stalking toward the door and about to rain hell down on whoever—
“Oh. Hey, Harry. I see you got in. Aloha, or whatever. Where’s your lei?”
Thank God he’d lost the last of his erection while walking away from the bathroom. Nothing like giving your father in law a sneak peek at what he’d stumbled in upon.
“Carl, my boy.” Harry was already a little tipsy as he’d sloshed back a bit more of his drink on the way over to his daughter’s hotel suite. “Violet here? I wanted to get away from her mother. That woman almost killed us on the way over here. I swear we’re going to have to have double ceremonies. One matrimonial, the other fugue-like.”
“Babe, your dad’s here!” Carl called out, giving Vi ample reason to get tidied up in a hurry. Thankfully, they’d both had their clothing still on when Harry had decided to visit.
“Daddy?”
It definitely didn’t have the same tone from before when she was moaning that word in Carl’s ear.
If that wasn’t enough to deem him completely flaccid by now, nothing else would.
Carl could hear Violet scrambling from the bed, muttering to herself. When he thought she was nearly done having a mini-panic attack, he smiled and invited Harry and his booze through the door.
Violet came waltzing out of her temporary bedroom looking flushed and a little sleepy. It was either an excellent bit of acting or the haze of lust was darkening her usually bright blue eyes.
She strode up to her father and gave him a big hug hello before encouraging him to take a seat in the living area. Once they were all settled, Carl went back to what Harry had mentioned earlier.
“So, Mattie’s planning your wake. What did you do and should we expect a Brady Bunch-style sitcom type of situation where there’s evil voodoo dolls intent on our untimely deaths?” His words were clipped, and he settled an ankle over his knee as he pulled Violet into his side.
“I think it was a tiki statue, actually, but no—I don’t think we’re going to set off a curse upon anyone anytime soon.”
“What happened?” Violet asked as she laid her head on Carl’s neck with a yawn. “I mean besides the dangers of flying economy and not first class.”
Harry scoffed haughtily. “Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. At least your mother’s petite enough to have fit in the seats. I thought I’d have to walk out of the plane with knees to my shoulders I was so damned cramped.” He tossed back the rest of his drink and looked longingly at the remnants of the ice cubes that rattled around. “She rented a Mini Cooper. Yellow. Smaller than your brain during a board of directors meeting, Carl.”
His son in law let the weak stab slide off him, knowing all too well he had a tendency to get side-tracked during those so-called meetings. The were dull and lasted entirely too long for his tastes.
“So, you’ll be a little squashed in the car should you go anywhere,” Carl replied instead. “Don’t need a car to hit the beach, and the hotel has all the spa services you could hope for. Stick around here. If you decide to take a hike or go visit a volcano—” He shrugged, doubting that Harry would do something as death-defying as that. “—you can come along in one of our cars. Vi and I are planning to go on one of those Segway tours of the jungle if you want to come along.”
Carl also knew Harry probably wouldn’t have loved that idea either, but it was only polite to ask.
Plus, the vision of Harry in a loud Hawaiian shirt and shorts rolling along a jungle path amused him to no end.
The older man looked at him like he’d asked him to partake in an act of cannibalism instead of a tried and true tourist activity. “No thanks. I’ll stick with Mathilde’s idea of a holiday and recreate on terra firma instead of one of those odd contraptions.”
Carl could swear he muttered something about Mattie trying to kill him if he got on a scooter, too. She was barely able to handle the most common vehicle known to mankind.
“How did she try to kill you? By squishing you to death?”
Violet watched as her horrified father’s face slid to his more usual repose—bland and sardonic in equal measure. “She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes on the road. Kept veering out of her lane when we were driving over from the airport. Nearly sent me into cardiac arrest when those surfers almost plummeted off the cliffs.”
He may have been playing it up a bit.
“Was she looking at the ocean?”
Carl could feel Violet’s smile against him and joined her in a grin.
“Dolphins or sharks or something.” Harry waved his hands as if it were utter lunacy to want to get a peek of the denizens of the deep. “I mean, she could at least wait until we weren’t driving. The damn dolphins will still be there. It’s not like they could walk up on the sand and have a bloody afternoon cocktail in an effort to get out of the vastness of the sea.”
He continued on his sloppy rant for a few more minutes before finally winding down. The whole time he was venting his spleen, Carl and Violet had a hard not laughing, especially when he mentioned running off and becoming a surfing instructor. How he’d missed his calling.
Both were sure he couldn’t tell a hang-ten from a hang nail.
They were inevitable interrupted by the soft wail of a child, and Violet was certain it was Dora. She always responded badly when waking up in a strange place. She excused herself to soothe the weeping child, and Carl and Harry sat in amiable silence in the mid-afternoon quiet.
“Didn’t interrupt anything when I came over, did I?”
Carl almost blanched, and he looked at Harry to see if he suspected anything. “No, why?”
Harry shrugged his shoulders in reply. “Just figured you’d be the same as Mathilde and I once the kids were small and asleep for a nap. After all, my generation invented the term ‘nooner’.”
Christ.
- Writer
