Life is a Soap Opera Act 02

Gabriel stepped into the bedroom. The candles were still flickering. He set her down on the edge of the bed.

Both shed their robes. Bailey reached out and pushed his boxers down over his hips. Her mouth began to water.

Falling on her back, Bailey's eyes lingered on Gabriel's body. His shoulders were broad and strong. His arms muscular. His stomach free of the middle age paunch that most men sported. And his handsome face.

His smile made her heart melt and her knees weak.

Gabe crawled into bed next to her as she pushed the sheets down. He leaned over and kissed her gently.

Her nipples grew hard instantly as his hand cupped her breast.

She tilted her head back, letting Gabriel control their pace and intensity. Her hands roamed his body. He explored her as well.

Knowing that they were going to make love seemed to take some of the tension off the two. Both knew that they no longer had to keep their desires under control. They were free to give themselves fully to one another.

Bailey relished the feeling of Gabriel's body pressing against her. Her heart began to pound a little harder.

"Make love to me," she said softly. "Please, Gabriel."

Gabe pulled back and looked lovingly at her. She spread her legs as Gabe got on his knees between them.

She could see the passion . . . the lust . . . the love . . . that burned in his eyes.

"You are so beautiful, Bailey Crawford," he said. She loved hearing him say her name.

Her eyes fell from his eyes to his cock. It was hard. For her.

Reaching out, Bailey pulled Gabriel down on top of her. For the first time, their fully naked bodies rubbed against each other.

Bailey's hand went between Gabe's legs and she stroked his hard cock. It felt both natural and a little forbidden for her. She was no prude, but nor was she particularly worldly. His was the first cock she had seen in the flesh. And what glorious flesh it was.

She loved that he was hard for her. She loved that she could use it to tip his considerable self-control.

After years of masturbating to fantasies of boys and men, Bailey finally had a real live cock in her hands. During their two month separation, she realised that Gabriel MacKenzie was the perfect man for her. Not because he was handsome and wealthy. Not even because he was polite and kind.

They connected. Despite the differences in their ages and their backgrounds, she felt as if he were a kindred spirit. He knew how she felt. He was a fellow introverted, ugly duckling when compared to his brother. He knew what it felt like to be ignored—invisible—and how much it meant for someone to pay attention, even with a simple gesture such as holding hands.

Gabe's lips left a trail of sloppy kisses across her cheek. He nibbled on her ear. She stroked him, drawing a gasp.

She squealed with delight as Gabe sucked on the side of her neck and bit her collarbone.

He was on his knees in front of her. She felt him take his cock in his hand and cried out when he brushed it against her clit. "Do that again!"

"Do this again?" he teased. A chill ran through her body.

Her sex pulsed with desire. She could feel the blood flowing into her swollen labia.

"I love you, Bailey," he whispered in her ear. His weight pressed down on her. Her breasts were mashed flat against his chest.

She spread her legs in anticipation.

The head of his cock paused at the entrance to her pussy. Gabe was tumescent, the largest she had ever felt.

Bailey bit her lip as he pressed forward. Her maidenhead held for just a second, then gave way as Gabriel entered her.

She cried out as he filled her with his length. His girth caused her eyes to tear up.

"No, Gabe," she sobbed and he pushed forward with his hips. "Don't stop . . . please . . . don't . . ."

When he was fully inside her, he paused. She managed to open her eyes enough to see the concern on his face.

Her body was covered in sweat. The searing pain receded as her sex stretched to accommodate him.

Gabe kissed her face gently and whispered soothingly in her ear.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?"

She could only nod. The pain was slowly replaced by pleasure. Her pussy was raw after this first invasion.

He slowly began to move inside her. Grinding his hips in a small circle, Gabe explored the limits to her tolerance.

His eyes met hers. She lost herself to his loving smile. She gave herself to this man. Her lover.

Bailey began to grind her hips against him. They slowly began a dance with their bodies, trying to anticipate which way the other was going to move.

Her arms pulled him down and she kissed him deeply. The maddening lust was gone. Instead, they made love slowly and gently.

The sex between her legs throbbed, and not always in the good way. But she knew that he would never hurt her. That the discomfort would soon give way to ecstasy.

"Cum inside me, Gabe," she whispered in his ear. He drew in a deep breath and the look of concern returned to his face.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes . . . It's okay," she replied. "You won't hurt me."

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as he pulled back and thrust slowly back into her.

"Again," she said softly. "Again!"

Bailey's head began to spin as she felt her lover gently pick up his pace. He didn't last very long, but that didn't matter to her.

She heard him grunt and her hands went to his face. His mouth enveloped hers and their tongues dueled.

"Oh, god, Bailey!" he moaned. "I'm going to cum . . . I'm cum . . . I'm cumming inside you!"

With one final stroke, Gabe buried his cock inside her and she felt her pussy flood with warmth.

Gabriel collapsed on top of her. His breath was hot against her neck. She kissed him gently on the cheek.

"I love you, Gabe MacKenzie," she pulled him close.

He didn't respond for a long time. Instead, he kissed her shoulder and her neck. She giggled with delight as he nibbled right behind his ear.

She felt so content right there. In that moment, she was closer to him than she had been to anyone else in her life. Their lovemaking wasn't the thing of fairy tales or fireworks, but she would have it no other way. She was with the most important man in her life.

In giving herself to him, she realised that he was giving himself to her as well.

They were naked and bare for each other. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

He lay inside her unmoving for a long time before speaking. "And I love you, Bailey Crawford. I love you with all my heart."

Running her hands through his hair, she wished that this feeling would never end.

"Am I squishing you?" he asked, slowly pulling back. Their bodies were covered in a thin sheen of perspiration.

"No, you're okay," she said and pulled him back down against her. Gabe kissed her gently. "I'm a big girl. . . . And you're a big boy!"

"You go on thinking that," he said with a loving laugh. "And don't let Chuck tell you otherwise."

"You'll always be perfect for me," she said giving him one more kiss.

The pair cuddled in bed for a while longer, whispering sweet things in each others's ears.

When their heartbeats had slowed to a regular pace, Gabe pulled back and rolled off to one side. She fell into the crook of his arm.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"For what?"

"For making love to me," he replied.

"All I did was lay there," Bailey giggled. "You did all the work."

"Thank you for letting me have you," Gabe corrected himself.

"You can spend the next fifty years showing your gratitude," she grinned.

"Only fifty?" he asked, and they kissed and giggled some more.

After a few minutes, Gabe crawled out of the bed. Bailey's legs were a little wobbly so he carried her to the bathroom and stood her up in the shower.

They took turns washing each other. Before they were rinsed clean, Gabe shut the shower off and filled the large jacuzzi tub, a luxury for any New York apartment.

She lay back in his arms under the warm water, reveling in the feel of his body against hers. He held her for a long time. Neither spoke; they simply wanted to be close to one another.

Bailey loved the feel of his strong arms around her. She dozed off in the tub, held by the man she loved.

Gabe roused her a few minutes later. They dried off and he put a bathrobe around her shoulders. While she went into the kitchen to fetch something to drink, Gabe hastily changed the sheets on the bed.

Returning with a cup of hot tea, Bailey stood at the door and admired her handsome lover.

The votives had nearly burned themselves out. The pair shed their robes and climbed back into the bed.

Gabriel pulled the comforter around them and Bailey fell asleep in the arms of the first love of her life.

******************

"Does she even know how pretty she is?"

"She doesn't have a clue, Rose," Gabe said. Together they watched Bailey talking and laughing with Teri. The young woman was glowing; it probably had something to do with all the sex she and Gabriel had earlier in the day, but she truly was a beautiful girl.

"And you say her sister is prettier?"

"Drop dead gorgeous." Gabe took a long pull of his margarita. "It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy for Bailey. Her sister doesn't have to try; April can wake up and put on a sack cloth and still turn heads. So Bailey never got noticed. Low self-esteem led to body image issues and that led to some weight gain and then she was in that vicious cycle."

"Kind of like you."

"Very much like me," he said thoughtfully. "They're built differently and it takes a while to understand that just because she doesn't look like Jessica Alba, that doesn't mean she's not pretty."

"Maybe a change of scenery would be good for her," Rose suggested.

Gabe started to respond, but stopped. "I don't know that she'd leave her family."

"Not even to be with you? Or get away from her sister?"

"Getting her to split up with her sister would be like pulling teeth," Gabe said. "It was hard enough to get her to come up for this weekend by herself."

"You'd think they'd have sibling issues."

"Not those two," Gabe shook his head. "April and Bailey are inseparable. If it were me and Michael, we'd be at each others's throats twenty-four/seven, but they still share a room at Mom's house. I've got two empty bedrooms and they're both sleeping a queen-sized bed in the upstairs bedroom. It must be a twin thing."

"So what are you going to do?" Rose finished off her drink.

"I have no idea. Ask me on Monday."

Gabriel topped off Rose's glass of wine and went back to where Bailey and Teri were sitting. A dozen or so other people mingled around the deck. Some more people were inside the house. The party was Teri's idea. Ostensibly, the purpose was to celebrate Gabe's return to the show, but really she wanted to introduce Bailey to Gabe's friends and let her see a little bit of the world he lived in.

It meant a lot to Gabe that his friends liked Bailey. In hindsight, he realised that they had been trying to warn him about Jeannie for years; he was just too boneheaded to see the light until it was too late.

They all seemed to come away impressed with his new girlfriend. She was smart without being arrogant. She was friendly in a way that was refreshing to the brusque and hardened New Yorkers. They also liked that she didn't seem to be awed by Gabe's celebrity, nor was she obsessed with his money.

He knew she was afraid of what they would think of her. After all, she was seventeen years his junior and fresh out of high school. She was also—in her mind—overweight and pudgy, from a family that was poor and unsophisticated, and she thought of herself as a little too country for these "city" folks.

Gabe knew she didn't have to worry. People are people, and the ones from New York went to work to make a living just like the ones from Washington County. It helped that many of them were transplants who moved from Iowa or West Virginia or Mississippi to the big city following their dreams. Like Teri and some of Gabe's other close friends, they were from small towns just like her. Heck, even he wasn't a native New Yorker. Gabe called a bunch of places "home" during his lifetime. Some were small towns, some were big cities and the rest were in between.

Sitting down next to Bailey, he listened to the tail end of another embarrassing story about himself.

"—so there we are, covered in mud and Gabe says, 'I wanted doughnuts . . . not the whole chicken'!"

The people around them erupted into laughter. Bailey giggled and looked lovingly at him.

"I see my 'friends' are doing everything they can to embarrass me," Gabe grinned.

"I just want her to know what she's getting in to," Teri said with mock defensiveness. "She thinks the sun rises and sets around you and we just have to correct that."

"You let her worship me, Teri—"

"You mean the way my kids do?"

"—Because the sooner she finds out the ugly truth, the sooner she'll take off with half my stuff," Gabe snorted.

"The only way I'm leaving you is if you cheat on me," Bailey shot him a wicked smirk. "And then I'm taking all your stuff."

That drew a hearty laugh from Teri and the others.

"You're going to fit in nicely around here," Rose said with a friendly smile. "We wouldn't let just anyone move in on our Gabriel, now would we? Not after what that bitch Jeannie did . . ."

Bailey's eyebrow shot up. Gabe could tell she wanted to ask more, but she would be content to have that conversation in private.

"It's too bad Ariel left for that prime time show on that other network," Rose continued. "She could tell you some stories about Jeannie that would make your skin crawl . . ."

The group piled on with the sort of catty vindictiveness that you'd expect to see on a soap opera, not from its actors off camera. Gabe appreciated his friends coming not only to his defense, but trying to make Bailey feel better about herself and welcome her into their circle.

For the remainder of the night, Gabriel sat close to his lover. They held hands and kissed. The others looked on jealously.

Being around his friends, Gabe loosened up. Having a few drinks in him didn't hurt either. After a while, they got to singing and acting out scenes from plays and TV episodes long passed. Bailey joined in the fun and Gabriel found out she didn't have a half-bad voice herself.

Part way through the night, he found her panties hurriedly stuffed into the pocket of his pants and a shy blush on Bailey's face to match.

They left the party in a cab that took them from Chuck and Teri's house in Brooklyn back to his Upper West Side apartment.

His head was swimming, partly from the alcohol. Partly from being in love.

They got through the door with most of their clothes on. Teri had introduced Bailey to her friend Captain Morgan, and the two hit it off right away. Like Gabe, she was an affectionate drunk.

Falling into bed together, Gabriel and Bailey made love until they fell asleep, exhausted.

*************

When Gabe awoke, he was alone. The sun was up and Bailey was nowhere to be found. He slipped on a robe to ward off the morning chill and padded out to the living room. The hardwood floors creaked as he followed the light. Bailey was sitting on the couch, her chemistry textbook in her lap.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked.

She looked up and flashed him a loving smile. She had her reading glasses on and her hair pulled back. Her robe hung over her shoulders but he could still see traces of her voluptuous curves.

"No, thank you," she replied, putting her pencil down. "Are you hungry? I can make you breakfast."

"Do we have time?" Gabe looked up at the clock, a frown on his face. "We've got to get you to the airport soon."

"I know." There was a resigned look on her face.

"Why didn't you wake me earlier?" he asked. "I'd hate to sleep through the morning before you left."

"You looked so peaceful," she said softly. "I didn't want to disturb you. I watched you sleeping, you know."

Gabe blushed, wishing he had woken up first so he could wake her with a special kiss.

"I'm sorry I left you alone in bed," she continued. "But I've got this chem test tomorrow . . ."

"That's okay, sweetheart," Gabe sat down next to her. She put her book and binder away as he took her in his arms.

They held each other for a long time before Gabe led her back to his bedroom and they made love one more time. Then they showered and dressed and he took her to the airport.

There were tears in both their eyes as she left him to go through airport security before catching her flight. She promised to call as soon as she landed and he promised to come to her house for Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks.

All the while, Gabriel's heart fluttered with a mixture of desire and love. He had fallen for Bailey, and fallen hard. She was everything Jeannie should have been. When she was gone, a part of him felt lonely. But he knew it wasn't for long and it definitely wasn't permanent.

Until he saw her again, whenever he wanted to feel her presence, all he had to do was think back to the meandering doodles in the margins of her chemistry folder he had seen by accident. In her flowing, bubbly teenage handwriting, she had written over and over . . . in anticipation of their future . . . as if taking it for a test drive . . . her new signature.

Bailey Crawford MacKenzie

********************

Joanne surveyed the work going on in her kitchen. Though small and cramped, it was cozy and familiar. Throughout the day, relatives arrived, all of them bearing food.

Everyone who wasn't helping either got out of the way or soon found themselves with a task to complete. It was a finely choreographed dance that everyone seemed to know by heart. After all, they had been gathering like this for as long as anyone could remember.

The men were either in front of the television watching football or out in the garage shooting the shit and telling lies about the 8-point bucks they had just barely missed since gun season opened. The women watched the kids and prepared the food.

When they turned twelve, April and Bailey were initiated into the Thanksgiving task of helping make supper. They had jobs to do, especially since it was their family's turn to host the meal. Aunts and uncles and cousins and everyone else would be coming by for the large family gathering. In their family, the Thanksgiving meal was a bigger deal than Christmas since many people traveled in December.

Both girls were superb cooks, having learned at the hands of their mother, aunts and grandmothers. Joanne saw to it that Bailey was given some of the more important tasks, such as basting the turkey, both because she was the celebrity of the family and because Joanne had a hunch that there might not be too many more Thanksgivings with her around.

Since meeting Gabriel, Bailey seemed to step out of her sister's shadow. She moved and spoke with a new confidence that could only be attributed to her beau's affection. Gone was the shy, insecure young girl. In her stead was a vibrant, beautiful woman.

Where she had been happy lingering in the background before, now Bailey didn't mind being in the spotlight. Especially as the family asked about her famous boyfriend. News of the romance had spread like wildfire throughout Washington County. It wasn't so much a scandal as it was a fairy tale come to life.

Gabriel had come back for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Joanne knew he and Bailey were sleeping together. In fact, she encouraged it. She saw in her daughter the same feelings she had for Andy all those years ago. She knew it was right.

Once, Joanne's sister had asked if she had any reservations about Bailey seeing someone who was twice her age.