Chapter 28

Dan 2.0’s turn:

Little darlin’ doesn’t take ‘no’ very well. I told her ‘no’ when she wanted to be one of our two first pilots to train on the new airplane and to train on one of the bizjets we bought. We actually bought the company, but you can’t have something that flies and then tell Cindy and Nikki they CAN’T.

Nikki’s pregnant for the second time. I am proud to be one of those men who sees his pregnant wife and is proud of her, happy that she chose him to reproduce with. I’m also nervous because of the miscarriage on her first pregnancy and I don’t want my darling wife to suffer through that again.

So I’m protective, okay?

Now there’s this new airplane in Colorado and we have only TWO in the company who can fly it. Naturally, one of them is MY Nikki.

I tried saying ‘no’. She took me by the hand and dragged me into Doctor Paranam’s office and asked if there was any medical reason she couldn’t make the trip. I lost. Little darlin’ has a way of soothing my bent manhood. Straightens it right out, she does.

When you think about it, there are a lot of guys out there with wives that crave certain things. Mine craves flying. It could be a lot worse.

Nikki. Dominique Domingue Granger, MSEE, PhD, ASMEL, and something that is a creature of a curious rift in the time-space continuum. There are nights I’ve lain awake trying to figure out what I did to deserve her. She’s just been THERE. After a hurricane – there. Out of high school – there. Engineering degree – there. Doctorate – there. Key player in an emerging robotics field – boy has she been there.

Don’t get me wrong. If we were JUST 3Sigma Engineering, doing power systems and control stuff, we’d be happily successful. Happy. Successful. Great relationships with a lot of clients, a reputation that has people calling us.

But none of our clients is a Google or related to the Department of Defense.

One does not expect to acquire a teenaged wife, then watch her act like life’s one big hobby, ignoring bank accounts totaling seven figures because she can fit in well with an eclectic team of adepts and make newer and greater things happen.

Right now she’s over there petting the cat.

“What’re you thinking?” she asks.

“That I’m the luckiest guy on the planet, and I don’t know why...”

“Because of me?”

“Yes, you...”

“I’m pretty lucky myself, baby,” she said. “Maddie was telling me about some of the kids that were in school when we left.”

“Bet none of ‘em’s got a million bucks in the bank.”

“No, but a couple of ‘em are beating the daylights out of you and me in the ‘parenthood’ stats.”

“How’s Maddie doing?”

“Her and Beck go back and forth over how to manage a branch office’s records, but Beck tells me that there’s nobody she’d rather see in that position.”

“Good,” I said. “Maddie’s a good one. What’s she say about working with Bill Simon?”

“Says he reminds her of you and the other guys – serious about business. And Haley and Deena drop by sometimes and use the office as a study base...”

“I seem to remember that happened here, too,” I said.

“Yeah,” my Nikki smiled. “Amazing how the world changed so much for us, isn’t it?”

“She says they’re a loving family. Thought it was odd that he has a sixteen year old wife and a fourteen year old daughter who’re best friends, you know...”

“That’s something I can’t imagine,” I said. “Of course, that other engineer we tried to get...”

“Dave Johnson,” she said. “And Carlita the forest pixie – tropical version of Cindy – and Brindy, the standard brown-haired girl. I know...”

“Well,” Dan said, “It seemed to work for them. And in this day and age, they have a loving, if unconventional, relationship, right?”

“Like Jenn ‘n’ Laci?”

“Yeah. Them, too. I find it difficult to start stuffing morality into a situation where the occupants seem so committed and happy and stable.”

“I dunno if Kim and Tim weren’t a catalyst for Jenn ‘n’ Laci,” Nikki said. “They went to California to get married after Tim ‘n’ Kim’s wedding. And then there’s me and you...”

“Or Dan Richards and OUR Alabama pixie. Or Ed and Dana. Or...”

“I know,” Nikki said. “You exploited me sooo bad. I’m abused ... Just cling to you so you’ll provide me with a place to stay in return for sex...”

“Lots and lots of sex,” I laughed. “I provide you with a pretty good place to stay...”

“Speaking of sex...” she grinned. “You sure you still like doing it? I mean, me starting to show pretty good...”

“Who was unconscious last night?”

“Both of us, I think,” she giggled. “So I’m guessing that a baby bump doesn’t slow us down...”

“Hasn’t slowed me down,” I laughed. “And I’m sure you’ve gotten a PowerPoint on sex during pregnancy from Susan and Tina...”

“And explanations from Johanna and Mizz Donna,” she laughed. “Consensus is that vaginal sex ends a week before the delivery date, but Susan says that they slipped because ‘Jason looked sooo lonesome... ‘.”

“Lonesome? They LIVE together...”

“Yeah ... Okay. I think that Susan is the fulfilment of everything Jason wanted in life...”

“I know how he feels, princess.”

“Am I too big ‘n’ pregnant to sit on your lap?”

“Never...” I sat the recliner up, got her in my lap, then kicked back. This is what I relish ... crave ... Those years of living alone, now I realize what I missed, but I really started living when she and I admitted that we loved each other, two weeks into meeting in the aftermath of a hurricane.

Now it’s matured a bit, and that’s ‘matured’ as in properly aged cheese. Or wine. Or steak. It’s even better.

She still affects that short, sassy hairdo, a rather popular look among the women in the community. Each of ‘em’s a little different, but Nikki’s is pageboy short, jawline, and it’s that thick, dark ‘Cajun girl’ brown. She knows that the bit of her neck that shows is a target for me. Still. She squeals when I do that. Still.

And she’s a magnificent, energetic, enthusiastic lover. Still. Baby bump’s playing havoc with her balance though, I only die a nine hundred ninety-nine deaths during lovemaking instead of the previous thousand ... And I am a big fan of resurrection.

My hand’s resting on that sweetly curved ass of hers.

Giggle. “You just thought about sex, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I felt it move. You’re soooo obvious.”

“Only to you.”

“Keep it that way. I don’t think I could share you like Carlita and Brindy share Dave.”

“I don’t think I could take care of TWO of you, princess. Last night...”

“We stay pretty active,” she smiled. “And last night was a part of an integrated exercise regimen. You have to stay healthy. You’re gonna have a son to raise.”

Yep. Baby boy in the hopper there. Miracle of modern technology that you can find that out a few weeks into pregnancy. So we know ... No, we haven’t named him yet. Early on in that discussion, I stated opposition to ‘Daniel’. Entirely too many Dans running around here already, and I listen to the verbal gymnastics involved over Big Stoney and Little Stoney. So we’re exploring options.

One thing, though ... she already alluded to it when she got into my lap. Making love hasn’t slowed down a bit. I don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t get into the same bed with her at night. Both of us have to travel from time to time, and our schedules or transportation limitations often preclude us from traveling together, so there are nights...

A lot of those nights, if she’s the one out of town on an academic or robotics thing, she’s sharing a room with one of the others, often Cindy, sometimes one or several Munchkins, so our night-time phone call stays PG-rated. Actually, ‘phone sex’ left both of us unresponsive.

“It’s not the same, baby,” she says. “Talking to you while I’m doing myself ... It left me flat. I’d rather just talk and tease and then when we get together, we just explode...”

I feel the same way. Ever since she hit my bed the first time, there’s nothing that I can do that is even a pale imitation. And I’ve tried. So I just save up for when I get home. Two nights away guarantees a deluge for the first one. Those are memorable.

Like the one time – I knew that a guy’s on a hair trigger after it’s been a while, but so was my decidedly female partner. I always worry that I’m gonna come too fast, and she’s not going to be satisfied, and I need to get that out of my head. First, if I do just explode before she does, then there’s afterplay, and that never fails to bring her along. Second, she’s usually equally aroused.

I don’t go unconscious. Nikki sometimes does. So I’m holding her atop me, her breathing still a bit rapid. I feel juice starting to drain out of her, flowing down over my balls. Little kisses because she’s everything to me. A deep breath and “Maybe we could arrange for you to stay gone two nights a week just for the catch-up sex ... Dan ... Memorable.”

“If it was only about sex,” I answered. “But I miss my Nikki in so many other ways...”

“I knowwww,” she said. “But I’m STILL having aftershocks...”

So that part’s better than a normal man has the right to expect.

Work? Oh, yeah, I still do that, too. I have a stack of projects on my desk. Principal engineer. Working through things, trying to line ‘em up and space ‘em out because several of them are for engineering AND construction and we have finite construction resources. In fact, a couple of guys who’d been workers on earlier projects were now construction managers in their own right.

Bill Carmody’s hand is all over that, because, to a man, they’d come off HIS jobs.

Same with Jason. Field service technician Jason was now Jason, electrical engineer, but he was the manager of our field service group, with a constant load, always on the lookout for talent, and pushing promising technicians into leadership slots.

I don’t mind the stress. It’s mine. I try to shelter Nikki, though, but she’s off doing her own thing with the robotics bunch.