Daybreak Coitus (takes place after The Great Gatsby)
"Howard," he turned away from her, "I see you were successful in your plan to be childless in order to rediscover the joys of coitus at daybreak."
Even before he was awake, Sheldon knew what it was. The heavy pushing between his shoulder blades, the vice grip on his waist. Amy. As his eyelids fluttered open (6:25 exactly), he didn't need to look down to see that all the blankets were spilling off of his side of the bed. Amy was cold.
Carefully, trying not to wake her, he rolled on his back to pull some blankets back over her. Her hands loosened from his waist, and she mumbled into his chest as he rolled all the way over to hold her closer and warm her up.
Saturday morning.
Before Amy, Saturday morning was an unwavering series of events. He would set his alarm to wake up even earlier than his natural time, get up, and eat cereal in his spot while watching reruns of Doctor Who. After Amy, all hell broke loose.
At first, Amy's presence in bed had not been a major change. He would extricate himself from the Amy-is-cold-and-burrowing-into-my-back position, leave her to sleep in on her own, and watch Doctor Who. But then, sooner than he expected . . . well, he found a much better ways to spend his early Saturday mornings than Doctor Who. Even after the novelty of finally putting his morning erection to use had faded, the sheer enjoyment never dulled and he almost always tried to start some sort of alternative Saturday morning activity. Doctor who?
Daybreak coitus.
Sheldon discovered that daybreak coitus was different, very different, than coitus almost any other time of day. It could be a lot of things at those other times, but it involved words like steamy and sultry and torrid. Yes, it could be soft and slow and subdued, too, but it wasn't the same. In the morning, it was quieter and more tender and delicate. It was just as warm and as comforting as the blankets that wrapped them.
Then everything had changed again, first by the force of Mother Nature and then by the force of a baby, and daybreak coitus was elusive. Most of the time, a child on a very rigid schedule was a wonderful thing. But on a Saturday morning, when Sheldon would have preferred to make warm love to his wife and fall back to sleep with her, it was not a wonderful thing.
The best that could be hoped for is that Ada would sleep until seven, before he was forced to sooth her cries with a clean diaper and deliver her to Amy for her breakfast while he showered. This was the new ritual. He would let Amy fall back to sleep and he would take Ada to the living room with him. They would watch Doctor Who together; or, rather, lately, he would try to watch Doctor Who while Ada jabbered incessantly and chewed and drooled on her toys.
Sometimes, when the jabbering became fingernails on the chalkboard of his mind, he would retreat into a memory. A memory, more often than not, of another Saturday morning.
After the earthquake, living in Leonard and Penny's guest room, Sheldon had initially insisted on absolutely no sex when the other couple was at home. What if they were overheard? He remembered with disturbing clarity how embarrassing it had been to lay in his bedroom while coitus was taking place next door. They would only do it if they were certain that Leonard and Penny would be gone for an hour at a minimum, so that absolutely no trace evidence of their activity remained. If Amy was frustrated by his decision, and he suspected she thought it was overkill, she at least kept it to herself. Mostly. There was that one Book Club Night . . . But then Book Club almost always put Amy in the mood.
And then there was the other thing, the thing Amy had insisted was not a project or an experiment or a task with a completion date, that it was just something they were going to let happen if it was meant to be or some other hippy-dippy nonsense. But, no matter how often Sheldon tried to force it to the back of his mind, the two things combined to make sex strange at first, not the smooth ebb and flow they had perfected. First, it was the planning. The Hofsteders are going to a movie on Thursday, the 7:10 showing, so at 7:15 Thursday, Amy and I will have sex. And then there was the other thing, the knowledge constantly on the edge of his brain that this wasn't just about loving Amy anymore or just because it felt good, but because they were actually attempting to create something. What if they didn't succeed? What if they weren't doing it often enough? Weren't some positions better for this than others (of course there were, he had researched it without admitting it to Amy)? What if there was something wrong with him?
He wasn't sure he believed Penny had been given a free night in the hotel less than ten minutes from their house by the movie studio. But he kept his mouth shut as it meant that he and Amy had - at last! - sixteen uninterrupted hours alone. They had a fabulous evening doing all the things they loved to do without Penny or Leonard making fun of them, and that night, well, it was very, very steamy indeed. But it was still strange, despite its bone shaking pleasures. Planned and with a purpose.
The next morning, still alone in the house, it was the warmest and most comforting it had been since the earthquake. It was spontaneous and soft and slow and tender. Still groggy from sleep, The Project had truly stayed away from his mind. They had ebbed and flowed like the most serene ocean tide. He had brought Amy close to the edge twice before he came into her, and, once there, he concentrated on sending her spiraling, at last, at the same moment he did. It was, in a word, sublime.
As both of them were geniuses, it had not taken long at all to do the math. It was that weekend they had conceived Ada. There was no way to know for sure which time. Scientifically, of course, it was neither. The perfect half of Amy had already been journeying for a few hours. And the perfect half of him would journey for a day or two more. So technically, scientifically, it had happened sometime in the middle of Sunday, probably, while he was on his computer and Amy was reading. But to Sheldon, always, it was that Saturday morning.
He waited with almost-bated breath the current Saturday morning, holding and warming Amy, until he knew it was after 6:30. Please, please, please, let Ada sleep, he prayed. Even though the night prior was Book Club Night, poor Ada had been fussy and inconsolable, the pain of her budding teeth keeping them both occupied. For once after Book Club, Amy was not in the mood.
Finally, when he was certain enough time had passed, he started the circles on Amy's hip until she woke up. Then he kissed her sleepy face until she was fully conscious, and she worked her hand into his pajama bottoms.
"Slowly," he whispered between kisses. "Very slowly."
Amy's hand travelled to the buttons on his pajama shirt, instead, and she slowly, very slowly, undressed him. He slowly, very slowly, lifted her nightgown up, working his way up with his lips: her legs, her thighs, her hips, her stomach. He buried his face between her wonderful, full breasts.
"Mmmmmm, just a little bit there," she whispered.
He moved on, taking her night gown off, kissing his way back up to her lips. They kissed slowly, softly, almost timidly, and even when his tongue met hers, he harnessed it with gentleness. Moving on, he did the same to her earlobe and her collarbones. He moved back to her lips, drawing her pleasure out of her, slowly, very slowly, circling his finger where she liked it. He breathed in every little pant she gave out. Right when she was on precipice, he pulled back, resting his palm on her stomach. He took in her little moan of frustration, too.
"Slowly," he whispered.
And then his fingers were inside of her and she spread her legs wider for him, and loved her there, slowly, very slowly, pushing gently until she was at the very edge once again. He withdrew.
"Sheldonnnn," she moaned.
"I want to do it together," he whispered.
Amy smiled softly at that and took him into her warmest of embraces, and he thought he might die of happiness there. He pulled back slightly, to make room for his hand, but she slid hers in instead.
"I'll do it," she whispered. "You just enjoy."
He remembered the first time Amy had done that, how alarmed he had been. Surely that was on the list of activities that were too personal to share, even with one's spouse? But, as startled as he was, he had to admit it was fascinating. And it rapidly became highly arousing. He couldn't explain it, it seemed counterintuitive; should he be offended, was it a critique of his skill? But, no, he quickly understood when she said the same thing to him she did that current morning: "You just enjoy." It was a gift from Amy.
So, Sheldon nodded softly in gratitude and started the easy and quiet pace again. "Very slowly," he whispered before kissing her.
She understood him, he knew, and he could feel her hand fluttering in the same unhurried manner he was enjoying, alternately kissing her and breathing into her hair. It was even better than he remembered, and he was lost in her - the feeling of her, the sounds she was making, the way she smelled, the looks crossing her face as she worked with him to bring herself pleasure. She pulled away from his lips to take her breaths, and he rested his forehead against hers, until he heard the first note of her cry. He let himself go, feeling her pulse around him as he released into her.
The sun had been up for a good forty-five minutes by now, if not longer. But at that exact moment, it broke over the horizon and a few tiny shafts darted around the blind.
Saturday morning, daybreak coitus. It was sublime.
AN: Thank you in advance for your reviews!