Narcolepsy (A Love Story)

20: Abby

When I woke up, forcing myself to the surface, Blake was still in the shower. The medication made it easier, anchoring me here, helping me drag myself back out, and I wished I could take more of it, more often, but after eight years on it, I was at the maximum dosage. And since it was prescription speed, it wasn't exactly good for me.

Thus the office job with a rigid schedule rather than my normal contract work. There were new drugs available now but my neurologist wanted me to have another sleep study before he was willing to experiment, and since I wanted to eat at least once a day for the next year, I needed health insurance. Good health insurance. It's a dance I've done before, balancing my stress and anxiety levels that stem from working in an office outside of my natural sleep/wake cycle, and I can only keep it up for so long before it starts to become unmanageable. A couple months at most before I start having episodes all the time because I'm not getting enough regular sleep, because I'm conforming to a schedule that is unnatural for me and using medication (amphetamines) and caffeine to force my body to comply. The increase in sleeping "off-schedule" makes me constantly anxious about when and where it might happen — which only makes it more likely to happen — and how the people around me might react. Because I can explain narcolepsy until I'm blue in the face but most people just don't listen, they are uncomfortable talking about medical issues and tune me out, or they think it's a joke. Or, and this is the situation that most bothers me, they realize what it says about my sex life and either want to hear about it in detail, or experience it first-hand.

I wish I was kidding. I wish I'd never had to frame a polite response to "You have narcolepsy? That's the coolest disease ever! I'm kind of obsessed with it!" Or the not-whispered-at-all question "do you fall asleep during sex?" in the middle of a room of fellow programmers, none of whom were wearing headphones. But the one that usually fills me with a salty slurry of anger and contempt is "maybe that's what I have, I fall asleep in front of the TV like every night?" No, that's not what you have. What you have is a boring, unfulfilling life lived on a dictated schedule that doesn't work for your body, so you have trouble waking up, trouble falling asleep when you try to force yourself to, trouble staying awake when there's nothing to stimulate your mind or body, you don't understand how to use light and dark effectively, you end up using chemicals to simulate wakefulness or force sleepiness, and in-between you're just tired. End rant. For now. Because it's kind of making me tired and I have much better things to tire me out right now and he has just turned off the shower.

I decided to stay where I was with one major exception: the bra and panties I was still wearing had to go. Once they were off, I carefully replaced the coil of sash and waited. It was only a few minutes before the bathroom door creaked open and I heard Lucy start in on him.

"Were you waiting for me outside the door just to bitch and nag, Lucy-bear?" I was going to need to ask him where that name came from. "You know I am getting married tomorrow, but it isn't to you, so only one nagging female is technically required." I sat up, looking for my underwear. He was soooo cut off. "You'll need to work a schedule out with your mother if you plan to keep this up." For forever. Cut off permanently.

He walked through the bedroom door just then, an indignant Lucy trailing after, with messy wet hair and water drops clinging to the smooth, muscular planes of tanned skin, wearing only a towel hanging loose and low and showing off his six-pack and Adonis belt. Figures the Adonis would have an Adonis. "I'd be willing to forget everything you just said to my cat," I said, abandoning any thoughts of putting any clothing on, "if you drop that towel and introduce me to your apa-whatever and dido piercings."

"Fuck me," he breathed out, stopping in his tracks and staring transfixed at me kneeling naked on the bed. I'd never felt beautiful until that moment. The way he was looking at me, the way the towel was tenting up... I felt like a goddess. He slowly licked his lips, eyes glowing as blue as Paul Atreides hooked on the Spice, and all the blood in my body abruptly flowed south leaving my brain just shy of thinking references to sandworms would be sexy pillow talk.

"That's the idea," I cooed, reaching out my hand to him. I'd broach the subject of sexy Dune cosplay later.

"You...you have no idea how much you're killing me right now," he managed to grind out between clenched teeth and rigid jaw. "But we only have two hours before we have to leave for the airport, and we need to stop by my place too. You need to shower and pack, and we both need to eat something — oh god, do I need to eat something — shit, what was I saying?"

"That you are withholding sex from your soon-to-be nagging wife despite promising me a reward that I earned, goddammit."

"Soon to be nagging, or soon to be wife?" He asked pulling on his jeans before dropping his towel.

"Keep talking and it won't be either." My threat was weak and we both knew it. Knowing he was going commando was doing funny things to my brain. He smiled to himself while continuing to dress and I threw my underwear at him. It was the only quasi-projectile within reach. He grinned even wider — if I had been wearing those panties, they would have melted right off — and shoved them in his pocket.

"Thank you for the wedding present," he said, pulling on his shirt.

I'm not usually one for such things, but I found myself in a full-blown pout. A newly kickstarted libido, a high dose of amphetamines, and getting cockblocked by my own boyfriend — I wasn't even used to calling him that and I was about to call him husband? — my frustration knew no bounds. I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye, a sly smile lingering on his lips, and he finally gave up and came over to me after my third dramatic sigh and cupped my face between his giant, sexy paws. "Baby girl, Abby, my love... I need you to get out of bed and get ready to go, we can't miss this flight. If it was any other reason, I'd have you spread out like Thanksgiving Dinner and be feasting for hours, but this can't wait. Please?"

I'm pretty sure I was gazing up at him with the most glazed, moony expression a person could achieve, an "I'm helplessly in love and isn't my guy just the dreamiest?" kind of look, because my brain was currently made up of whipped cream, unicorns, and giant pink hearts that squirted glitter. I'm such a freaking girl.