Waking Amy
Amy, #1
by Julieann Dove
Publication
date: February 23rd 2016
Genres:
Adult, Contemporary, Romance
She had
no idea she was sleepwalking through her life ---until she met him.
BLURB
Amy Whitfield is blindsided when
she comes home and finds a note on the fridge from her husband, Wesley, stating
that after four years of marriage, he’s leaving her. Amy was in the midst of
trying to spice things up, to bring life back to their boring marriage. It
seems now that she was too late.
As Amy sits with her head between
her knees, trying to figure out what to do next, a call comes from Mercer
General Hospital. The ER nurse is telling Amy’s answering machine that Wesley
has been in a car accident.
When Amy arrives at the hospital,
she finds her husband in a coma. The doctors say there is no sign of brain
damage, and Wesley will eventually wake up. Relieved, Amy sees this as her
second chance: the chance to get it right this time. To channel the girl Wesley
won’t leave when he regains consciousness… She just needs some help to pull it
off. After all, she was voted girl most likely to die a virgin in high school.
Amy would never figure on getting
that help from Mark Reilly…Wesley’s doctor! He’s a non-committer,
too-cute-for-his-own-good bachelor, and completely the guy Amy begins falling
for. It’s a race against time to see who wakes up first—Amy or her husband.
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
week. 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.
Author InfoJulieann lives in Virginia, yet longs to live everywhere else. It doesn’t come as a surprise that along with her gypsy soul, comes an active imagination. That’s why she loves to write and invent worlds and people, so that she can formulate their happily ever after. Hobbies include cooking new recipes, sewing, and spending time with her cute boyfriend/husband and five fabulous children. Vacations happen in Nantucket or the Carolina beaches—anywhere there is inspiration for her next book. One day she hopes to travel to Italy, drive one of those little cars around the countryside, and speak the language fluently!Author Links:
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