Cheaper Than Free: An Anniversary Story (The Dance A/U Sequel)

More Important Than Freedom

Pacific Palisades, California
Sunday, November 26, 2022
(10:30 am)
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"My old man, he's a singer in the park...he's a walker in the rain, he's a dancer in the dark...We don't need no piece of paper from the City Hall keeping us tied an true..."

Stevie was in the bathtub, completely zoned out and surrounded by bubbles that were almost pink and smelled like coconut, eyes closed, listening to Joni Mitchell singing a song she'd heard her sing countless times in the past fifty years since she'd run out with Robin to buy the Blue album and committed it to memory. The amount of times she'd played the song currently on in the bathroom this morning, "My Old Man", she thought, was unbelievable. She'd sung along to Joni in tears, in smiles, in both...over Lindsey...since 1971. She was reminded this morning, because of the time of year, of the argument they'd had in 1997, while she was pregnant with Amber, about getting married, making their love legally binding. The fight had ended with them crying together as their baby girl moved in her belly, and she smiled at the memory as she sang along.

"But when he's gone, me and them lonesome blues collide...The bed's too big, the frying pan's too wide..."

Lindsey had spent much of the fall - as had she - around the United States on solo tour. His European tour had been cut short due to health issues, a statement that had come only after Stevie had tearfully begged him from FaceTime on Karen's iPad in her hotel room in Northern California to follow his cardiologist's orders after some mild angina in Germany. His 2019 heart attack had frightened Stevie to her core, made her suddenly very aware of their mortality in their seventies, and still, nearly four years later, she made a point of covering his chest with little butterfly kisses whenever they made love to "kiss it and make it better." She still remembered the first time they had been intimate after his triple bypass surgery, how tentative and shy she had been, until finally Lindsey had told her she was worried about him for nothing.

"It's not NOTHING, baby, it's EVERYTHING!" Stevie was lying on her side under the covers, and she was naked. Lindsey was naked as well. He'd slowly undressed her while his lips had traveled all over her body along with his hands, whispering how much he'd missed tasting his sweet girl. Now Stevie was frightened, not sure if he should continue despite his doctors telling him sex was now completely safe.

"I don't mean 'nothing' like it's not important," Lindsey explained. "I mean you have nothing to worry about, angel...it's perfectly safe. I'll go slow, I promise...and I swear I'll stop if anything feels funny..." He was holding her hand, and he brought it up to his heart, covering his scar with their joined hands. "I just love you so much, baby, and I'm so happy to be alive and well and home here with you in our bed...the only place I want to be in the whole world right now is inside you, Stephanie...I miss you so much, miss touching you and tasting you and being inside you...feeling how warm and wet and tight you are...baby, please..."

And in the end, she had relented, begging him to please take it slow and not over-exert himself. He had agreed and he'd kept his word...and what had come of her pleas to take it easy had been one of the most amazing, beautiful, all-consuming nights of lovemaking they'd ever shared, almost fifty years after the first time. He had begun by holding her close as they lay side by side, facing each other, starting out slowly and tentatively more for Stevie's fears than his own. After a few minutes he'd rolled over on top of her, whispering, "See, angel? I'm not going to break...it's fine, baby, it's incredible, actually."

Stevie couldn't hide her tears as she said, "It really is...oh baby...how I've missed you..." She was reaching up to take his face in her hands to kiss him, and somehow they managed then to switch positions, Stevie climbing on top and moving with the grace of a ballerina and landing down onto him again and again at an agonizingly slow, teasing pace, dragging a finger gently down his cheek and across his lips until he kissed it. Lindsey pushed himself up from the pillows and sat upright, wrapping his arms around her to hold them together in place, thrusting up into her, moving faster now. Stevie had buried her face into his neck and was whimpering...those little whimpers he'd missed so much, and he knew this wouldn't last much longer.