Chapter Seventeen: Just Dad
Dim lights lit JC’s path through the house. One of the perks of being a husband – one of the bountiful perks of being Lisa’s husband, he though, smiling to himself. He tried not to pull a lot of late nights at the studio. He didn’t like missing dinner or bedtime with his kids. Dinner was a noisy affair as each child regaled him of his or her activities of the day. Then there was the quiet time after they had gone to bed to spend with Lisa, snuggling and talking or making love. Nothing ever was so bad coming home to Lisa and the kids couldn’t make better. JC Chasez was content and happy as a family man.
As he did nearly every night when he’d missed bedtime, he looked in on each child. With the remodel, the main wing of the second floor bedrooms were clustered with two bedrooms joined with a mutual bathroom. If they did have the extra children, the guest bedrooms would be forfeit. Six kids…It boggled the mind. Luckily he could afford it, he mused.
First was Scott’s room. Just watching his first born made his heart swell with love and pride. Scott seemed to be truly his father’s son. He enjoyed many of the same things JC had as a youth. Scott loved music. He’d picked up guitar and piano quickly – one of the few children his age who enjoyed music lessons and in fact had asked for them. And Scott had the voice of an angel when he sang. Scott was JC’s little man, always looking out for Lisa and his younger siblings when his father was absent on rare trips away. He took being a big brother very seriously – and being Digger’s big brother could easily be a full time job!
Scott had found out the truth of his parentage. Coming across pictures of JC at the same age, the boy had begun to wonder. It didn’t help when Scott and JC were out together, people constantly commented on how much the son resembled his father. There was little escaping that fact. One night, he had come to his parents room and asked. Since JC and Lisa had agreed to give their son the facts if he should ask, they told him the truth. Yes, JC was Scott’s biological son, but Greg had loved him so much he thought of Scott as his own. And yes, Lisa and JC had loved each other when he was conceived. Scott seemingly accepted the news and didn’t question them further at the time.
Digger was next. No one had ever described Digger better than Greg had: Digger was Digger. He was charming as he was mischievous. He never meant to get into trouble and he wasn’t malicious by nature. He was simply so curious about his world and the people in it, he couldn’t help but forge ahead with new adventures, never thinking of any consequences. He was adorable without smugness, so it was difficult to remain angry with him for long. With his quick smile, big blue eyes, and curls, Greg Junior was going to break a lot of female hearts one day.
Then came Krista, JC’s princess. She was more like her beautiful mother every day. She was sweet, smart and a born nester, just as Lisa had been. She naturally played mother hen to Digger and Bess. JC made ‘dates’ with his oldest daughter, so he could spend one-on-one time with her. It didn’t matter whether it was for ice cream, a movie, or a trip to the museum. Krista thrived and grew more confident with JC’s individual attention.
JC’s smile grew tender when he looked in on little Bess. His baby doll. It had taken some time, but she no longer sucked her thumb. The habit had been a product of her anxiety over Greg’s illness and eventual death. Bess now felt secure in her world again. And with that sense of assurance, the most sensitive and empathetic of the four children had bloomed like a lovely flower. She still tended to be shy though she was no longer clingy or frightened. Bess had also found her tongue – and not only in the presence of her beloved grandfather. If you gave her the right topic, she could out talk her more extroverted twin. Coming into her own, Bess was no longer the ‘other’ twin.
The most recent development had been the dropping of the ‘C’. JC was plain Dad or Daddy now. Scott and Krista had asked him if it was okay – and he couldn’t have been more touched and proud.
Ah…the master suite…Lisa…What could he say about his wife? She was more than he expected. As Greg had said, she was not the Lisa she had been in their teens. She’d experienced a lot of grief first hand: the death of her parents; her first pregnancy and the fallout; her accident and blindness; Greg’s illness and death. Any one of those things could have made her bitter, defeated and closed. Her tremendous strength of spirit had sustained her. Lisa was loving and giving. Sweet and gentle. Strong and loyal. Teasing and sassy. Sexy and provocative. She had a light-hearted giggle that never failed to put a smile on her adoring husband’s face. And despite the fact she couldn’t see with those big brown eyes of hers, all it took was a certain look from her and JC was totally under her seductive power.
Once Lisa had challenged JC to twenty-four hours of blindness. Just an average day after which his admiration and respect for his blind wife grew a hundred fold. He’d tripped, knocked things over, and was generally frustrated. He’d made a mess out of eating. One of the most amazing revelations had been with the children. Not one of them made fun of him or teased, not even Digger. If anything they sought to assist and guide him. He had some fantastic kids!
The two things he found more appreciation for during the ordeal were music and sex.
He’d always believed he’d heard everything. Not true. With the blackout mask in place and headphones covering his ears in the studio, the only sense he could rely on was his hearing. He found nuances and little things he’d failed to hear previously. He believed he could be a better musician and producer following the experience.
Making love was profoundly different to him and for him. He had to rely on more than his eyes – and found sight had made him rather lazy and unappreciative of the wonders of the act. He hadn’t paid enough attention to the different textures of Lisa. The satiny softness of her skin, the silk of her hair and the velvet of her lips he’d noted before. The varied textures of her breasts he’d never realized: the satin globes, the crinkling of her areola, the feel of her nipples changing with the level of her arousal. The dewiness of her flesh signaling she was ready. He’d learn to recognize the very scent of her arousal. The tastes of her: her mouth, her skin, her womanhood. He truly heard her this time, from her soft purrs of approval to the gasps of surprised pleasure to her final cry of completion – it became new music to his ears. Until that night, he’d never stopped to think about all the little things about making love leading to the final big bang.
His awareness of Lisa was only part of it.
He noticed a difference in how he perceived the act. Every caress, every stroke and every lick from Lisa made his flesh and nerves endings ripple with excitement. Her fingertips were feather-light. Her tongue with its subtle texture and warm wetness. The coolness left by damp skin. Her warm to hot breath. The erotic feel of her hair trailing across his flesh or straining manhood. The light scratch of her fingernails or the exquisite feel of her nails in his flesh when she lost control. The way she clenched around him like a hot, wet, velvet fist and milking the last of him in her final spasms of ecstasy. And he made more noise than he realized. The moans, the groans, the grunts, the panting – even the sound of his own pounding heart echoed in his ears. It was a cacophony of sensation he’d missed. And he had a new appreciation for how Lisa experienced love making. He wouldn’t choose to be blind, but he had no objection to an occasional blindfold in the bedroom.
Obviously Lisa had tried to wait up from him; she had fallen asleep with her earphones on. Sitting next to her on the bed, JC carefully removed them, trying his best not to wake her. He wasn’t successful as brown eyes blinked open.
“JC?” She made his name a sex purr.
“Go back to sleep, honey.”
She gave a little yawn and stretch. “What time is it?”
“Late. Or early, depending on your point of view.”
“It went well then?”
He stroked her sleep tumbled hair affectionately. “Yeah, they really seem to appreciate my input.”
“I’m glad.” Lisa ran her hand up his tee shirt-clad chest. “There are a lot of things to appreciate about you, Mister Chasez.”
He grinned. “Are you wearing socks, Missus Chasez?”
“No.” She shook her head and giggled. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t go get some out of your drawer.”
“Now don’t turn those wicked wiles on me.” He rose and began to undress for bed. As always, she’d laid his pajama bottoms out for him.
“Why not?”
“You need your sleep.” She’d been tired the last week or so. She claimed she was fine but he was concerned.
“JC Chasez, you are beginning to sound like an old fuddy duddy poop of a husband,” she taunted.
JC chuckled, ignoring her jibe, and slid beneath the sheet with her. “Sticks and stones…” He reached to snap off the light and met her in the middle of the bed. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi.”
“How do you feel tonight?”
“Sweetheart, I’m fine, I promise.”
With his arm around her, he shifted so her head was on his shoulder. “And you’d damn well better stay that way for the next seventy years or so.”
“Jeeze…demands, demands.”
Reaching down, he swatted her rump playfully. “We are in a bratty mood tonight?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m not,” Lisa quipped.
“Okay, I’m rolling my eyes now…”
“Bully.” Maneuvering up with one arm on his chest, she kissed him lingeringly until he was sure steam was rolling off of him.
So much for noble intentions… “Lisa…”
“I have warn you about something.”
She was toying with the medallion at his throat. JC had come to learn she did that when she was concerned about his reaction to something she had to say. Was something wrong? Oh, God, not Lisa! He sent a prayer up to heaven. “Lisa, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together,” he assured her quietly.
“Well, we can’t exactly share it…The thing is you may not like this…”
If something was wrong with her, he sure as hell wasn’t going to like it! “Just say it, Lisa!” he demanded at her hesitation, worried about what was to come.
“Okay…” Lisa sighed. “I’m very horny when I’m pregnant,” she announced in one rushed breath.
It took him a moment to assimilate what she had said. “You’re horny…”
“Uh-huh. With or without the benefit of socks.”
“Because you’re pregnant…”
“You got it, big guy.”
JC thought some more. “We’re gonna have a baby…”
“Yes, that is usually the end result of being pregnant,” she stated smartly. “Well?”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I know we probably should have waited…But we’ve never used any birth control and I tend to
be fertile—“
“No shit?” JC taunted. Was she ever!
She stuck out her tongue. “Smart ass.”
“Honey, you still haven’t told me how you feel about being pregnant,” he reminded her quietly.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Lisa decided to tell him the absolute truth. “I am thrilled.”
JC smiled. “I am too, honey.”
“You didn’t much sound like it a second ago.”
“I didn’t want to go all macho caveman on you if you weren’t happy about it.”
“I want to have your baby.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled then to the side to lay face to face. JC kissed her softly. “I love you, Lisa. I love our kids – and I love our new baby.”
“You’re a wonderful daddy.”
“It was kinda trial by fire.”
“Tempered in fire steel becomes stronger,” Lisa repeated a quote she’d heard at one time. It so fit JC. He hadn’t run from the overwhelming tasks that had been put before him. He took them on, made his mistakes, and still struggled to grow into the roles of father and husband. As he’d said, he ‘owned’ it. Lisa was proud of all he was – dependable, sensitive, loving and loyal.
“Fuck…”
“What?”
“Father of five before I’m thirty…Fuck…” JC said it more in awe. Him? It didn’t seem possible…
“Ready for all the fun? My late night cravings and moods swings…Diaper duty…Middle of the night feedings…Colic…Potty training…”
“No…But I’ll handle it. We’re partners in this.” And he realized with a blind wife, he would be have to be even more involved than the average father.
“Have I told you I love you?”
JC pretended to think a moment. “Hmm…Nope. Not today you haven’t.”
“How remiss of me.” Lisa put her arms around his neck and whispered, “I love you,” against his lips.
When they next came up for air, she asked, “I did tell you that I am a horny pregnant lady, right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned it.”
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
Grinning, JC said, “I’ll let you know if it starts cutting into my work time, honey.” His hands went to the front of her gown. “Let’s get naked and I’ll take care of horny.”
“For tonight anyway,” she remind him wickedly.