Page 10 of Rowan’s Renewal (DKAG Summer Shorts #6)

W e eat breakfast in the resort’s restaurant, and are informed that it is, as the concierge promised yesterday, on the house.

Like at dinner, Aaron and I chat easily about our interests —from our mutual preference of pineapple juice over orange juice, to deeper topics like the local charities we both support back home— and I can’t help but think I must be in a coma or something.

Aaron is too perfect.

“So,” he says, wiping the mouth I kissed earlier on his napkin, “the weather looks perfect for some time at the beach today. What do you think?”

The hotel’s restaurant is located on the ground floor of the main building, right at the back.

Like the place we ate last night, it has a deck that stretches out, overlooking the sand dunes of the beach and the rolling blue-green ocean beyond.

We’re sitting on the deck, the salty breeze ruffling our hair, and I sigh as I take in the pale blue, cloudless sky.

“It is a gorgeous day.”

Aaron snorts. “You sound so disappointed by that.”

Squirming in my seat, I shrug. “I’m not outdoorsy.”

He reaches across the table and takes my hand, giving it a squeeze. “Is that out of choice? Or have you been limiting yourself because of your condition?”

“A bit of both, I think. I’ve been like this,” I gesture vaguely over my body, “since I was nineteen. It’s ingrained now.”

He frowns. “Nineteen. That’s rough.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not dying from prostate cancer, so…”

Sitting back in his seat, Aaron issues a low whistle. “At nineteen ?” he repeats. “That’s so rare.”

“I know. So were the complications from surgery. But lucky me, I got it all.”

“I’m so sorry, Ro.”

I wave him off. “Don’t be. I’m alive, I’m otherwise fully functional. Things could be worse.”

“That might be true, but you’re still allowed to be upset about it. To acknowledge that it’s still unfair.”

Pushing the scraps of my meal around on my plate, I shoot him a little smile.

“I appreciate that.” Sitting back, I nudge my plate into the middle of the table.

“Honestly, the incontinence wouldn’t be as unbearable if I didn’t also have to deal with the ED.

That’s what really ends up being the dealbreaker in most of my relationships.

Men take it as an affront that I can’t get hard for them, or on the off chance I do, when I come it’s… kind of anticlimactic.”

“I know you’re not going to just take my word for it, but I’m not like that. I understand it from a medical perspective, which helps, but intimacy doesn’t always have to be about sex, either.”

He’s so earnest as he says it, it makes my stomach flip-flop.

“I still get enjoyment out of kissing and frotting and stuff, though. And making my boyfriends come, even if I can’t get it up.

But, in the end, most guys I’ve dated seem to think that they can ‘fix’ my ED by being good in bed, and when it doesn’t happen… ”

“They get frustrated, and their egos take a hit,” he finishes for me, nodding. “Again, I know this sounds like lip service, but I’m confident in who I am as a lover and as a Daddy. It’s not going to scare me off if I can’t get you hard.”

I really, really want to believe him. But he’s right: I’ve heard that spiel before. Still, he’s the first man to actively involve himself with my incontinence struggles, so maybe he’ll be the first to genuinely understand my erectile dysfunction as well.

If he is a figment of a coma fantasy, he definitely will.

“So…” he prods as I try not to chuckle at my silly thoughts. “The beach?”

My stomach flips again, this time with nerves.

“What do you want to do at the beach?”

Aaron’s pearly white teeth glint as he grins. “Well, we can hire all the equipment, right? So…what do you think of hiring a jet ski first, then maybe one of the kayaks?”

I bite my lip. “What if I need to go ? I mean, while we’re on the jet ski or kayak?”

“Pee in the ocean or the river,” he says, like it’s a simple solution. “We can even jump overboard to do it.”

“We?”

“I’ll pee in solidarity with you if it helps.”

The flippant response startles a laugh out of me. None of my exes have ever been so casual about it. It’s just one more thing that makes me feel like I’m going to get far too attached to him too soon. As if I’m not already.

“So, what do you say? Want to give some watersports a go?”

I arch an eyebrow, remembering what he said about his kinks yesterday. “Just so we’re on the same page,” I tease, “this time you are talking about snorkels and stuff?”

His smirk is devilish. “For now, baby. For now.”

***

Being on a jet ski is actually a lot of fun. I cling to Aaron’s red, neoprene life jacket, pressed up against his back as he drives the machine over the water. We bounce as we go over gentle ripples in the current, and I close my eyes, enjoying the wind and water spraying around us.

The sky above us is still clear of clouds, and the water around us is a deep, dark blue.

I can’t see more than a foot or two into it when we slow down, but it doesn’t scare me like I thought it might.

There are other boats and jet skis out on the water, but they are so far away that the people on them look like ants.

It’s more peaceful and private than I thought it would be.

We’ve hired the jet ski for two hours, and the resort is now a speck on the horizon with how far we’ve traveled from the shore.

Aaron slows down, then turns the engine off so we can take pictures of the coastline and of the straight blue line of the ocean where it meets the sky, stretching out into forever.

We rock gently as we sit and take it all in, and I’m starting to realize that this is the kind of thing I’ve been letting myself miss out on over the years. It’s a bit sad to wonder what other kinds of fun I’ve deprived myself of.

“You okay, Ro?” Aaron asks as I fall quiet, my thoughts making my stomach churn unpleasantly.

Or is that my bladder twinging?

I’m kind of paranoid about that.

“Just…I don’t know. Wondering how much I could have been doing all these years, I think,” I confess quietly, painfully aware of the fact that I’m not wearing any kind of incontinence protection right now.

It’s just a pair of borrowed cotton underwear under my swim trunk shorts, which feels so strange after twenty-odd years of the disposable pants.

I feel almost naked like this. Definitely exposed. Risky.

He half turns, craning his neck so he can look at me over his shoulder.

His hair is wild from the wind and salty sea spray, and his cheeks are flushed from the same, and likely also from the sun.

“Well, we’re going to do as much as we can this week,” he tells me decisively.

“And, regardless of how the Daddy trial ends, when we get back home, we can hang out and do fun stuff together there, too. Even just as friends, if that’s what you want. ”

I wish I could tell him that he can’t make these promises. That he might be the one to realize that I’m too much effort with very little payoff. But the words get stuck in my throat and I just nod.

“I’d like that,” I say, and it’s not a lie.

I would like that.

Too much.

He smiles. “Me too.”

We sit in silence for a few beats, and the water around us laps at the sides of the jet ski. It’s a really relaxing sound…until it isn’t.

All of a sudden, the urge to go strikes me, made more insistent by the wet lap-lap-lapping around us. I inhale sharply and try not to panic.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron asks.

Releasing my hold on the handles on the sides of his lifejackets, I grip myself over my shorts. “I’ve…I’ve gotta…”

“Do you feel comfortable going over the side?” he asks calmly, scanning the horizon, presumably for any oncoming vessels. “Or do you want to get in the water and go?”

“But then I’ll be all wet when I get back on the seat.”

He shrugs. “They’re waterproof, baby. They get wet from people doing tricks and stuff with them.”

I squirm, feeling my body begin to make the decision for me.

Really disliking the sensation of dampening cotton around my crotch, however light it might be, I scramble to my feet, turn, and jump off the back of the jet ski and into the cool ocean.

The water around me soon warms at the same time as the skin on my cheeks does while I tread water, trying not to think about how scary it is being out in the middle of the ocean like this with no land for miles.

“That looked like fun,” Aaron grins at me. “How’s the water?”

I paddle awkwardly over to the back of the jet ski, hampered by the life jacket which is simultaneously making me feel super buoyant in the endless ocean. “It’s a bit cool,” I answer, “and I don’t like the sticky, salty feeling on my skin.”

“You prefer swimming in pools?”

“I haven’t really swum since my teens, but…yeah.”

There’s a flicker of empathy in his dark eyes, but he nods. “I prefer pools, too.”

It doesn’t take me long to find the fold-down step at the rear of the machine, and I hoist myself back onto the seat with a little bit of effort. With how hot the sun is, I don’t feel cold, despite being drenched from head to toe. I also feel liberated in a way I can’t ever recall feeling.

“I can’t believe I jumped into the ocean,” I say as I get myself situated behind Aaron again, after checking that he doesn’t mind me getting him all wet. “What if there are sharks out here?”

“Well, I feel like there might be,” he answers, “but you weren’t in there long enough for them to take a nibble.”

I pause, my heart thumping. “Are you joking?”

“I mean, sharks live in the ocean, sweetheart. And Australia’s kind of notorious for its deadly wildlife.”

I look back into the dark depths and swallow. “Maybe next time I’ll just pee over the side.”

He chuckles before he presses the button to restart the engine.

Then we’re off again, bouncing over little waves, and by the time we make it back to the resort, the wind and sun have mostly dried me off, and my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing.

I can’t ever recall feeling like this before.

I’m almost afraid that this really is a coma dream.