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It’s heartbreaking, and I’m sure Caroline wishes she could go back and put off having kids until she had more seniority built up at work.
When I fall in love, I want to make nurturing my relationship with my husband and spoiling any children we’re lucky enough to have my top priority. But I can’t do that right now. I’m focused on my career. If I don’t break through to the next level soon, I could be stuck doing mindless color pieces for small-town news stations for the rest of my life.
Or until I age out of being the cute girl reporter…
The life cycle of a newswoman’s career is still much shorter than that of a newsman’s. Just ask that Canadian reporter who was fired after she let her hair go gray during the pandemic. Gray on a man is “distinguished and wise.” Gray on a woman means “old news,” and old news is always bad news.
I hope the world is a different place by the time I’m in my fifties or sixties, but in the meantime, I have to live and work in this world. I have to push hard for professional success while I’m young.
Which means I can’t afford to fall in love.
Which means I should go straight to the stinky food court and drink coffee alone—do not go to the swanky lounge with Bear, do not eat yummy food or drink wine or fall any further under his spell.
My lips turn down and the elf in the reflection suddenly looks very sad, indeed.
“Well, tough,” I tell her, this weak version of me who wants to play with fire. “Sometimes right choices are painful choices.” I scratch at my bottom again, emitting an angsty groan as the tulle slides between my thighs, reminding me that chafing is more than a backside-focused issue.
Time to change into something more comfortable. Surely, my resolve will be stronger once my outfit isn’t an instrument of torture.
Bending down, I open my suitcase on the bathroom floor, planning to extract my clothes before retreating into a stall to dress. But when I part the zipper and flip open the top, it isn’t my cozy red sweater or comfy travel jeans I see.
It’s…
I slam the suitcase closed again, my cheeks burning.
Surely, my eyes are playing tricks on me. Why would anyone board a plane with a carry-on full of…
I open the lid a few inches, but the contents have not transformed into my clothes, toiletries, and reading material. The suitcase is still full of giant, sticky-looking purple dildos with disturbingly realistic, vein-covered balls bulging at their base.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a penis. So long I’ve started to miss their ugly breed of cuteness. Penises are weird looking, for sure, but they’re also fun and eager to play…kind of like puppies.
But these penises are nothing like puppies. They look like what Barney the purple dinosaur would be packing in an X-rated film. And they probably cause cancer. That plastic looks way too sticky to be safely inserted into a warm, moist environment.
PVCs can cause irreversible reproductive damage. I did a story on them last year—a story my boss gave to Caroline to report because he didn’t think anyone would take a “freckled-face redhead” seriously when it came to their sexual health.
For a moment, I’m tempted to toss the dildos in the trash to save the vaginas of the innocent, but the law-abiding person within can’t bring herself to dispose of another person’s property. After all, they might be using these dildos for some other purpose than actual dildoing. Like an art project or a puppet show. Add a pair of googly eyes and a jaunty hat to one of these bad boys and he’d make a pretty convincing—albeit repulsive—puppet.
I close the case and zip it up, sighing as I realize this continuing fiasco means I’m stuck in elf gear for the foreseeable future. There are shops in the airport, but I’m not about to drop hundreds of dollars on “I Love St. Louis” leggings and a sweatshirt. I’ll just have to hope that glass of wine in the lounge is enough to take the itchy edge off.
Better if it doesn’t. The more you’re distracted by chafing, the less mental energy you’ll have to obsess about how much you want Bear to touch you again.
“Good thinking,” I mutter aloud, giving my reflection one last firm look in mirror. Then, I head outside to face the biggest threat to my career-focused life and the sexiest, kindest man I’ve ever met.
It’s a damn shame the two are one and the same.
Chapter Four
Bear
The lounge is packed, every couch and plush chair occupied by someone whose flight has been cancelled or postponed. I’m sure we’re all hoping to be rebooked before it gets too late, but the number of pillows and blankets spread out on the blue velvet furniture gives testament to the fact that many of us expect to spend Christmas Eve in the St. Louis airport.
