Warning(s): Explicit language, mentions of drug abuse
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NIKKI
"My wife doesn't tell me she's having an important surgery done, no, no, she just tells her girl friend Sharise who tells Vinnie and I'm the last one to fucking know about it." I tell Amber.
"I didn't wanna stress him out." Vivian insists, raising her brows.
"No, you just don't wanna keep me in the know just to piss me off." I argue.
"Nikki, go to hell." She tells me.
"You're not talking to him like that in here," Amber scolds her. "Just like he's not talking to you like that. We aren't doing that anymore. That was the issue last week. I didn't stop you two from talking trashy to each other and it got you where you are right now." She states. "Vivian, why didn't you tell Nikki about your procedure?"
"I didn't even tell the father of my kid I was having it done--I'm just a private person." She tells her.
"Duff doesn't even know?"
"No, he doesn't, and he's not going to." She looks at me.
Note to self: call Duff when she leaves.
"Why haven't you him?" Amber asks her next.
"Because I was freaking out over it enough as it was. I didn't need more people freaking out over it." She says. "So I just told Sharise because she was the one driving me home from it."
Amber just raises her brows and thinks for a second, her lips pursed.
"You see what I have to deal with?" I ask as I motion to Viv.
"Nikki, please." Vivian rolls her eyes.
"And she wonders why I won't fuck her. She doesn't deserve it at the moment." I add.
"Your dick isn't made of gold, Nikki, it's some trophy I should have to earn--especially when you clearly have no qualms tossing it around like a hot potato from one pussy to the next."
"That's not how you were acting last week." I argue. "
"But you won't fuck me because I'm not Vanity." She says back.
"I won't fuck you because the thought of screwing a pregnant chick makes my skin crawl." I admit.
"You'll go down on me while I'm on the rag but me being eleven weeks pregnant--barely showing--is where you draw the line?"
"Right, sorry, 'I won't fuck you because the thought of screwing a pregnant chick makes my skin crawl when she's pregnant with a baby she cheated on me to conceive,' there, that's better." I correct myself.
"At least I know the lovechild I have, exists. Do I even wanna think about the girls you've probably knocked up across the globe the last several years?" She accuses me.
"Unlike you, dear, I know how to fucking use condoms." I cut back at her.
"Gee, can't imagine where I learned to hate condoms in the first place." She sarcastically adds.
"Fuck if I know, you were telling me to take the damn thing off the first time we even had sex, little miss, 'I'm a virgin', 'this is my first time,' which looking back now is so obviously bullshit." I scoff.
"I was until you fucking corrupted me."
"My apologies, I didn't realize I was creating a cum monster whose main ambition was to procreate."
"And I didn't realize I was creating a codependent junkie." She doesn't hesitate to throw back at me and we're both silent just enough for Amber to cut in.
"I am going to give you two homework." She says, sighing, glancing at the clock.
We're out of time.
"I want you two to write each other a letter, one that doesn't involve putting one another down, and I want you to pick a time--any experience or memory with on another--that you consider the happiest you've been with each other, and I want you to mail them to each other, and next visit you'll read each other's letters back to one another to remind that person what they wrote. Sound easy?"
We just look at each other, not saying a word.
I didn't want to waste my time writing something for her that she'd just rip up without reading, and I knew she would, and I could see she didn't want to do that, either.
I'm great at song writing...but love letters?
I think back to the last love letter I wrote for Viv...the one in the back of her Bible I gave to her.
It kind of hurts that one of the last physical confessions of love I gave to her was practically a suicide note.
I close my eyes and groan, rubbing my forehead.
Fuck.
I try to think back to my happiest time with her over the last years.
Like flicking through the index of my mind--as best as I can, at least…
I let out a heavy sigh as I flip from channel to channel, chewing my gum, getting frustrated when I can't find anything interesting to watch.
"Are you gonna find a channel and stick to it or are you gonna keep flipping through the same channels and expect programming to change in a matter of seconds?" Vivian asks in a borderline snap, getting aggravated with me.
I just roll my jaw and turn the T.V. off, tossing the remote onto the coffee table.
"I didn't say turn it off, Nikki, you can watch T.V., just pick a channel and stick to it." She sighs, her Bible still in hand, the pad she's using to take notes in, in her lap.
"No. You just read your shit in peace and quiet. Sorry for the interruption." I reply, passively.
"Nikki, turn the T.V. back on and watch it."
"I'm good." I state.
"Ugh, you are such a whiney baby." She mumbles and I raise my brows, looking at her.
"I'm a what?" I ask, and she looks at me.
"A whiney baby."
"A whiney baby?"
"Yeah." She says it surely.
I'm grabbing her socked foot that's in my lap, making her squeal, her Bible and notepad falling in the floor when she kicks at me as I start tickling her foot.
"Nikki, stop!" She laughs out, sitting up and trying to fight me off of her.
"No, I'm a whiney baby remember?" I remind her, letting her foot go, getting on top of her, my hands moving to her waist, making her laugh again, trying to push me off of her.
I lean down and kiss her exposed neck, and stop tickling her, instead wrapping my arm under her, pulling her against me, settling between her legs.
She sighs and kisses me when I lean down to her.
Once we pull away for air, I run my thumb over her lip and she blinks up at me, slowly.
I can tell she's thinking, "what the hell is this? What are we doing? We aren't dating, we're not just friends, though, so what are we, Sixx?"
I don't know, either.
I'd tell her that but I don't want to freak her out or something.
I like her, a lot...more than a lot…
"What is it?" She asks me, and I realize I've just been staring at her.
"I, uh...I'm not really seeing anyone else anymore, you know?" I say, hoping she gets the hint, and she raises her brows a little.
"Oh." She replies.
"Not that it's a big deal or anything." I add.
"I wasn't thinking it was." She shakes her head a little...but I can practically see her doing little mental cartwheels and screaming out with joy.
I just smile at her, kissing her again.
I wrinkle my nose at the memory, not quite sure if that's when I was at my happiest with her.
I just decide to keep digging through more of my memory--what's left of it, that is--until I'm grabbing my pen, and writing away at the paper.
"Shhh, shh, you're gonna wake her up!" Vivian whisper yells at me as she holds a sleeping Skylar, the little baby wrapped up in a thick blanket, pacifier in mouth, knocked out cold.
"It's nearly 5:00a.m., what the hell are you doing up?" I ask her, trying to talk straight after a night of booze and blow.
"She hasn't slept since midnight. I've been trying everything but she just dozes for a few minutes and then wakes back up and whines." She explains.
She looks tired...exhausted, really.
"You want me to hold her and you go to bed?"
"She doesn't like you, the second she gets the feelings you're holding her, she'll wake you screaming." She reminds me.
"She likes me." I argue.
"Nikki, she purposely pees on you anytime you change her diaper, she gets antsy when you hold her--not to mention the amount of times you weren't paying attention and put her clothes on backwards or inside out and she pitches a fit."
"Hey, trying to dress a squirmy kid is military-grade patience training. If you try to perfect whatever it is she's wearing, she gets irritated and just wants down and starts moving around more and making it more difficult to get some clothes on her." She just chuckles a little and gets quiet in the light of the little reading lamp, her eyes closing slowly.
"Viv,"
"Hmm?"
"Go put the baby in the little crib thing Sharise brought over and go lay down." I tell her, quietly.
"I'm fine where I'm at." She insists, but I know she's not.
I take the chance and gently pick Skylar up, causing Vivian to say, "Nikki, don't wake her up," and I carefully make sure not to wake her as I carry her to the guest bedroom and put her in her playpen on her back like Sharise drilled into mine and Viv's heads to be sure of.
She doesn't wake up, and when I get back to the living room, Vivian's asleep in her chair, cuddled under the blanket she had Skylar under.
"Alright," I nudge her awake and she hums, furrowing her brows. "C'mon," I say to her, and she reaches her hands out. "What is it?" I ask her.
"Can you carry me?" She asks and I sigh out.
"Yeah, baby," I don't tell her, 'no,' despite not knowing whether or not we'll get to the bedroom because I'm tired and I know she obviously is, too, and she's not light as a feather--which will just make me more tired by the time I head to the bedroom.
I scoop her up and make it to the bed, only nearly dropping her once due to losing my footing--which that's not her fault. That's just the evidence of my night out.
When I lay her on the bed and pull my clothes off, crawling in beside her, she's snuggling up to me under the covers.
"You smell good." She mumbles to me.
"I don't know how. I smell like cologne, sweat, and booze." I mumble back, my eyes closed.
"You smell good." She repeats it.
"You do, too." I reply.
"I showered. You should try it some time." She says.
"Okay, Sixx, don't make me whoop your ass at five in the morning." I tell her, keeping my eyes closed, and she giggles, pressing her lips to my cheek, and my jaw, her nails trailing down my chest to my abdomen, deliberately running over the trail of hair leading down to my…
"It's five in the morning." I groan out, biting back a moan when her hand wraps around me, another kiss being pressed to my cheek.
"We can be done in a couple minutes." She tells me.
"I thought you were tired." I reply, trying to wake myself back up being that a certain part of me is up and alert. I rake my hands down my face as she straddles me, before looking up at her. "You're like those spiders that wait for the males to be vulnerable then they fuck 'em and kill 'em." I add, despite my hands running up her thighs to her waist…
"You always complain about early morning sex but then by seven o'clock you're the one not letting me tap out." She reminds me.
I just grab her hips and push her off of me before getting on her, making her laugh before my mouth catches hers, my teeth bitting at her lip before my tongue smoothes over it, making her moan softly.
By the time we're finished and satisfied, I'm getting off of her with deep breaths, the both of us gasping for air, covered in sweat--even our hair.
We don't hear Skylar down the hall which is a good sign that she's still asleep.
It's weird having a baby in the house. I know it's temporary, until Vince and Sharise get back from their little Florida getaway, but it's odd taking care of someone else aside from Vivian.
I wonder what it would be like if Viv would've actually been pregnant when we got married like she thought she was.
We'd have a two year old by now.
How fucking bizarre would that be raising a kid in this life at the moment.
Sure, Vince is doing it, but that's because Sharise is solid as a fucking rock.
I'd take a bullet for Vivian--fucking die for her--but she's not solid like that, not right now, at least. She used to be.
I mean she's still sober as shit but sobriety doesn't help much when you're wired even though you don't have a drop of anything in your system.
Look at me, like I'm one to be talking about dependability.
I look over at her, she's passed out, damp red hair across her pillow, covers pulled over her shoulder…
I reach over and run my fingertips across her cheek, the palm of my hand moving up to smooth over her hair as rays of sun start to filter through the small parting in the blackout curtains.
I'd love to have a kid in a couple years--maybe even within the next year--it just depends on the band, whether we're where we need to be by then or not...whether me and Viv are where we need to be or not, too.
Which as of right now, we're great.
We're more than great.
We haven't argued in two weeks.
Two fucking weeks.
Who the hell goes that long without arguing? Certainly not us, but here we are.
We weren't fighting as much because we were having sex like bunnies. I'm talking at least twice a day--Twice. A. Day. For two and a half weeks.
Looking back, I know it's because she was in the wake of a miscarriage, I was in the wake of Vince and Razzle's tragedy, we were both craving a quick fix and I guess sex is how we were illusioned into believing we were healing.
In reality we obviously weren't solving anything, just brushing it under the rug, but it was honestly the happiest I had been with her for our marriage.
It was peaceful. We weren't at each other's throats. We weren't at war. We looked forward to seeing each other and spending time with each other, and it was the closest we got to being how we were when we were just dating...so that, for me at that time, was the happiest I remember us being.
The next day I'm taking my enveloped and stamped letter down to the mailbox in the hall near the recreation room, passing by Amber on my way, seeing her nod at me in acknowledgment before I'm halting myself and coming back to see her.
"Hey, Doc, I need a word." I tell her.
"Can it wait, Mr. Sixx, I'm running late for a meeting?"
"I wanna know why having sex with my wife is a bad thing?" I ask, and she stops and looks at me.
"It's not. Nobody said it was." She tells me.
"You told me it might jeopardize our progress if we move too fast."
"Because it very well could. You both have co-dependence intertwined in your sex lives." She explains.
"Well, I don't know if you've been paying attention to the last couple sessions but my wife has needs right now. And not having sex with her right now is jeopardizing our progress because she thinks something's wrong with her."
"But you've told me, and her, you don't desire her because she's currently carrying another man's child."
"I've been thinking about it and I told her I'd work this out with her and how I've acted towards her is kinda contradictory to that." I admit. "And I can't go home and screw her into next week because you've got me paranoid about messing things up, now."
"Have you told her my opinion on sex in your relationship as of now?"
"No."
"Well, then, tell her about it and I'll take the blame for it."
"I don't want you to take the blame for anything, I want you to 'ok' me banging my wife."
"If you want to, 'bang,' your wife, then you can do that. There's not a law in the universe barring you from getting intimate with her."
"Sure as shit feels like it." I argue.
"Tell you what, you talk to her about it--tell her my opinion--and we'll touch on it in the next session." She suggests.
"Pun intended?" I ask and she furrows her brows, looking unamused.
"...Okay, nevermind." I mumble.
"I'll see you Friday for your session with the boys, have a good day." She tells me, giving me a nod before walking away.
I just shake my head a little, irritated, and drop my letter in the mail box, heading to the payphone to try to call Vivian.
"Hello?" She answers on the second ring and I clear my throat.
"H-Hey, it's me," I say, and she's quiet for a moment.
"Hey," she finally answers and I let out a breath of relief.
"Do you wanna visit tomorrow? I need to talk to you about something." I tell her.
"Is this where you tell me you're filing for a divorce afterall?" She asks and I rub my lips together.
"No, Viv, it's not. It's about our sex thing." I struggle trying to define it.
"Can we even have a sex thing if we aren't even having sex?"
"Ha. Ha. Smartass." I state. "Seriously, you wanna come?"
"More than you know." She replies and I can't help but laugh.
"Pun not intended." She adds. "I'll be there around nine o'clock, if that's okay? I have another appointment to check on the baby since the surgery and then I'm gonna try to go shopping for some decently healthy things because I'm gaining too much weight at the moment."
"You're pregnant--that's your excuse to eat whatever the fuck you want, when you want it, isn't? Like a chick liberation thing or something."
"I'm eating too much junk, I don't want to pop out a fifteen pound baby. My pussy will rip to my ass." She says and I get a horrifying image. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, Nikki, I gotta go."
"Alright, see you then. Bye, baby."
"Bye." She replies softly before hanging up.
I pick at the inside of my lip with my teeth, another thought coming to mind...and my eyes shift to my pinky ring on my right hand...the same one I'd proposed to Vivian with back in '83