Disclaimers are the same as always ... nothing but fun and a little frivolity

Authors' notes ... Lester and Morelli are dominant in this chapter ... pillowtalk is all important

If Handcuffs Could talk

third outtake, the pillowtalk edition

a collaboration between Kevan and Alfonsina.d

Morelli

There's nothing better after sex than snuggling for three to five minutes before I'm dead to the world. Solid sleep in a bed that's soft, plenty of pillows, and amazing sheets, you just gotta love it. My priorities have recently shifted. Then again, so had I. Now in my top ten things to do in bed was listening to Lester's heartbeat slow to its normal cadence. Strong, steady, reassuring. It reminded me of the white noise machine my folks used to have. It drowned out everything except peace and constancy.

Normally, the bed was for sex and sleep. Cuddling was usually for about two minutes and it wasn't something either of us craved or needed.

With my index finger, I traced my favorite tattoos on his chest in a rhythmic pattern. It looked like a rollcall list, but in fact, it was the list of his children's names. He kept them as close to his heart as he could. There'd been stories about each kid. That he'd put his life on the line for any of his children was a given. That he'd taught them to be true to themselves, find joy, and have good relationships with each other was very powerful. These names, these people, all of them boys, were his biggest point of pride and determination. I was proud of the relationships they had with him and with each other. It was so different from how I'd been raised and how my father felt about me or my three brothers. I wished it had been more like that with my own uncles and my dad. But you can spend forever trying to rewrite your history, it doesn't work. It never has.

Months ago, before I knew they were his children, I'd wondered if they weren't his previous conquests or the names of loved ones he'd lost. I knew there'd without a doubt been more conquests than these six, but I was jealous anyway. At one point, I asked if I could be put on the list, too.

"No way," he'd said. He'd dropped a kiss on my nose. "You do know that's the fastest way to end a relationship, right?"

The fastest way I'd ever ended a relationship was being hard of listening to the person I was with. Of not paying attention to their cues, their needs, their interests, of imposing my needs, wants, and desires upon them. Of being closed-minded. You might even say, just being myself.

That I had been caught in bed with someone else, more than once, was another way to kill a relationship pretty damned quickly.

It hadn't occurred to me, but the relationships outside of our blood families can change and sometimes those "perfect" relationships fade, change, or dissolve.

"True." I remained a little jealous, but I understood. The more time that passed, the better I understood or at least tried. No matter what happened, his sons would remain his sons. They would always come before me, be the first priority. That was important. That was good. That was fucking humbling. Sometimes it's good to be humbled, the rest of the time it sucks.

Recently, I'd been brought into the lives of all of his children, just a couple at a time. Eventually, we all got together to do a picnic at the park and play hoops at a Rangeman family day. Luckily for Lester, and for me, too, the kids all lived within 25 miles so everyone could be included in whatever activity. When you have multiple divorces and use the same divorce attorney each time, there are things that get written into the decrees, for us this meant the locality of the kids. I'd even mediated between him and a couple of the ex-wives. I was better at being with the kids than the ex-wives. Then again, he'd never introduced any of them to the man in his life.

Things got better with a couple of the wives when they needed work done on their homes and instead of just calling a handyman to do the work and presenting him a bill, the two of us went together and did the shortlist of chores. The boys got to participate in the tasks and learned that teamwork is for more than just the playing field. They learned about problem-solving. They also learned that pizza and beer (specifically root beer) was a good reward for a job well done. It fostered a better relationship between all of the boys and me. There'd even been jokes about how we had enough kids to have our own basketball team, the youngest would need to ride the bench for a while or be carried around on someone's shoulders.

"What are your favorite colors?" I asked.

"Depends, why?" he yawned. When he yawned, he always stretched and he stretched everything. His body moved and rippled like a cat. He wasn't trying to show off, but the less he tried to show off, the more he showed. God, I was in trouble. Then again, I kind of liked this kind of trouble.

"We need shirts to identify us as a team?" At the time, I wanted it to identify us as a united family, one that we chose ourselves. That it came out as a question, well, wanting to feel like a family felt very vulnerable. I'd been rejected enough by Steph that I kept a lot of my cards close to my chest. If it came out like a question, I wouldn't feel so craptastic if he shot it down.

"The boys all like different colors," he said. "I like anything with a lot of color. There haven't been a lot of years without food landing everywhere or being united and whole."

"Do you like tie-dye?" It was clearly time to distract him, so I blew on his nipples.

"What are you getting at?" His finger went under my jaw to close it. Guessed it wasn't time to distract him quite yet.

"Never mind." I yawned, but instead of stretching, my body compresses into a ball. "Go to sleep."

Xoxoxo

It seemed like Lester and I were almost always on the same page, mostly. We'd been raised working class. We had scary grandmothers. His grandmother was scarier than mine. I don't know what was worse, not knowing when the evil eye was going to be cast or when I would need to duck to get away from those fucking bamboo spoons. We were both fiercely protective of what we deemed to be ours. And we both agreed that sex was a great reward, celebration, bonding experience, and exercise.

After another night of pizza, teenage and tweenage boys, and a quiet round of snuggling, I was chatty. Again. Seemed like I had been taken over by the spirit of Steph. Blathering at night, in bed, keeping people awake. Shit. Everything I had hated about my relationship with Steph I seemed to be doing with Lester. Shit. Shit. Double shit.

I'd enjoyed playing with nipples on women, but Lester's were so much more fun. I appreciated them so much more. Yet again, I ran my fingers across his nipple until it pebbled. He has the most exquisite nipples, and so responsive. Lester gently held my wrist so I couldn't play with his nipples anymore. We'd both been a little too enthusiastic with the handcuff play two nights ago. The bruises on my wrists would be deep and wide, totally worth it. We'd have to move to Velcro restraints that were wider if they were going to remain part of our regular activities.

"I thought we were going to sleep," he said. "I'm actually tired. It's been a long day. Who knew you'd give your cousin's discount on paint to Polly. Now all of us are going to have to give up the next month of weekends painting the inside and the outside of her house."

"Come on," I said. "The boys will talk to you about stuff if you are doing something together. I mean, stuff about their moms or stuff going on at school. It doesn't feel so judgy if you are actually doing something as opposed to talking over dinner."

He sighed, he wiggled his hips to get more comfortable on the bed. And he moved my hand from his nipple down to his bellybutton. His bellybutton was a work of art. It was long and shallow. It looked kind of like my grandmother's salt cellars. I wondered if he'd let me pour salt in it so I could use it to salt celery stalks in bed. Idea? Hmm. Hey, there's all kinds of eating in bed if you put your mind to it.

His mind and his mouth might be tired, but Mr. Happy was struggling to wake up.

"I was just thinking," I said.

"That's never good." His yawn was contagious. This was a blatant hint for me to shut up and get some shut-eye. I never have been good at taking hints.

"Actually it is." I dropped a kiss on his neck. "I want more." Usually when I wanted more, it meant I needed to spend more time at the gym to work off whatever more I had consumed or to get my frustrations out of my system. This was a different kind of more.

"Joe, I need to get up in an hour. I've been shorted about twenty winks of my allotted forty." We'd used most of the night massaging sore muscles amongst other things.

Looking at his cock, he was almost up now. He made me insatiable. And I still needed to spend more time in the gym because now it was to keep up my endurance and stamina. I've never liked the gym and now it seemed more necessary than ever.

"I know. I've just wanted to say this for a long time." I rolled on top of Lester to ensure I had his full and complete attention. "My family is traditional Italian. Complete with a grandmother who likes to give the Evil Eye, to a mother who never thinks I should have started a family a long time ago. She's begging for grandchildren. And sisters who are always trying to fix me up with someone, anyone, to make more Italian babies." I took a thoughtful kiss. This man had opened my life, broadened my horizons, and was about as perfect as possible. Well, perfect for me.

Lester nodded. His mother didn't nag him about grandchildren because all by himself there were plenty of those, but still wanted to treat him like he was twelve. He got nagged about not cleaning his plate, helping with the dishes, and brushing his teeth. His grandmother thought no one under the age of seventy was exempt from her wooden spoon discipline. At least her spoon system of discipline doesn't leave a long-lasting mark.

"So, what I thought I wanted for a long time was a house near family, and I have that. And I thought I wanted someone who I was crazy about who could sometimes make me crazy. It turns out that I have that, too." He raised his eyebrows. "And you don't take over the entire medicine chest or all of the space in the closet."

He smiled up at me. He's never had his teeth bleached, but his smile had a glow about it. I kissed him before he could say anything.

"I also wanted to fill the house with kids. All ages, all sizes, mostly rambunctious," I said. "So far all I've filled it with is a smelly dog that would let in any burglar and some ugly, mismatched, used furniture. Some days I think the house looks like the set from the old sitcom Roseanne." Time for the deep sigh. "I no longer feel the need to be in a traditional family. Hell, if I can love the dog, I can love someone else's kids. I actually do love someone else's kids."

Lester smiled and nodded. He wiggled and twitched. God, I loved that particular twitch.

"Get to the point, Morelli," Lester said. "I'm awake against my will and I'm up for a little more fun if you'd just hurry the hell up."

Normally when I'd attempted to have this discussion with Stephanie, it wound up being a yelling match. It was never a discussion where things worked out well. Maybe I never presented my wants to her correctly. Maybe I never realized how flexible I could be. Maybe I was never really in love.

"I don't think being with you completes me." I kissed him deeply. "I'm pretty much complete. And you are very much complete. Hell, you are the entire package. And you have one hell of a package."

"Get to the point, Morelli," he said. "Just say whatever it is you want to say."

"I'm tired of never sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. I'm tired of never knowing which fridge I need to fill. I'm done living out of a gym bag. Look, I love Ella, but I want to do my own laundry while I'm drinking beer and watching the game. I want us to be responsible for us, laundry, most of the meals, and all."

Lester struggled to get out from under me. I couldn't blame him.

"Got it, I'll go," he said. His voice couldn't have been any lower when he said, "Everyone loves Ella. It's Un-American not to love Ella. She´s like part of the furniture at Rangeman. She knows how to wrangle a bunch of us. She's like an unofficial denmother."

"I'm not done yet."

"Get to the fucking point. And I love Ella."

"This is the same problem I always had with Stephanie. It's not about Ella, I want to be responsible for some of my own domestic chores."

"No shit." He was scooting us both out of the bed since I wasn't going to get off.

"What I'm trying to say is I want permanence. I want you and all of your mismatched baggage to be here under my roof with me. Or if you hate my house, which is paid for by the way, and you wouldn't have any extra bills that way, I could or we could buy something else. Or you could add more money into the boys' education funds. But I want you with me as much as possible. I want your kids to have someplace they can come and hang out, do things with both of us, be my family. I want fucking family vacations. Damn it I want to drive a van and go camping with all of you. I want the whole Burg dream with my dream man."

He took a deep breath in and blew it out slowly. "I'm not willing to marry again, too messy and too expensive."

"Doesn't matter to me. I just want you and me together. If you need to spend time with a woman, we'll talk about it. I'm more open-minded than I thought. I don't miss fucking women. You give better blow jobs than anyone I've ever been with." That was one confession I never thought I'd make, but his mouth was magical.

"There's another problem," he said.

I rolled off his body. He was a little too distracting under me when all I wanted to do was bury myself in him.

"What?" I'd expected him to be a little pissy, but I hadn't planned to be rejected.

"So you know about the wives' names, right?"

Who could ever forget Paula, Polly, Pauline, Paulette? He'd pretty much collected the whole set. I gave him a terse nod. "Sure."

"It seems that I can't make even a short-term commitment to someone who doesn't have Paula or a derivative of that name. I don't know how or why, but it's a thing I have."

"So, does it have to be a first name?"

"Why?" he asked.

"We know a lot about each other, but you've never read my driver's license have you?" Ever the juvenile, I crossed my fingers hoping he hadn't.

"No, why?" He definitely sounded like he needed a little more sleep and a little less talk.

I leaned across his body and plucked my wallet off the nightstand. After I flipped it open, the license was extracted. I showed it to him.

He grinned. It wasn't the one he flashed when he wanted sex or when he wanted me to do something. It was the full happiness grin he gave when he was proud of his kids. "I always did think you were perfect. I just couldn't get beyond the name thing."

My middle name had been Anthony, just like more than half of my cousins. If you ever shouted Anthony Morelli and more than five of us were in the room, four of us could potentially answer. After Brett told the world about all of the wives' names, I thought about it. Whenever I signed all of my initials to something, I was JAM. Lots of times I was in a JAM, too. But I wasn't committed to my name or my initials. Somehow to be Joseph Paul Morelli satisfied something in me. JPM felt much better. Two months ago, I had my name legally changed to switch the Anthony out to something that was more reflective of our relationship. No one else needed to know.

"Are you still tired to fuck, Les?"

"Joseph Paul Morelli, definitely not too tired. Who needs sleep?"

"Ten minutes ago, that was you." Now that we talked, I was ready to sleep.

"When do you want me to move in? And when are we going to redo the bedrooms for the boys?" he asked. He looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. "We might need some bunkbeds and maybe put an extension on the house."

"My cousin is a contractor, we'll start by talking to him about the permits and building an extension." And I'd need to do some overtime to build a cushion. Plus I'd need to talk to my other cousin down at the credit union to figure out some financing. After we figured out how much the HELOC was going to cost, and the bunkbeds, and the extra bathroom, then I'd figure out about some cheap family vacations.

"Morelli, are you still with me? Do you want me to move in? If yes, when?" Lester was sounding more awake and less horny.

"Sorry, I was just thinking about what we need to do to put everything in motion. And you can move in whenever you want. You could even do it as soon as you can get time from work," I said. "Or after you scream my whole name in ecstasy."

"We can do that," he said. "Handcuffs or no handcuffs?"

"Yes. Both." I took a deep breath. "Good. Oh and the minivan is getting delivered here tomorrow."

Thanks for reading, reviewing, and not minding too much that this series of outtakes just kind of wanders ... Alf.