Oatmeal
For our six month anniversary, Jill and I spent the weekend at a bed and breakfast an hour west of the city. There wasn't a whole lot to do because a blizzard swept over the area the day before, leaving drifts up to ten feet, but really we weren't that interested in cross country skiing or winter horse-back riding or snowmobiling; we were interested in bed. And the Cock-a- Doodle-Doo had a nice bed, king-sized, with gleaming brass rails and a comfy mattress, not too firm and not too soft, and just the right number of plump but not too plump pillows, and sumptuous cotton sheets. They also had calming pale pink roses buds decorating the walls, and wide but not too wide windows, which afforded fine views of the snow covered fields and forests, or would have afforded fine views had the glass not been frosted up and had it not been dark outside and had we any interest in looking out the windows. We had no use for walls or windows or views. We had eyes only for each other. Not to mention hands, fingers, lips, tongues, and etceteras.

The sun was starting to melt away the window frost when we awoke. Jill used the bathroom and then hopped back into bed and tugged the bedsheet over herself. When I got back from the bathroom I tugged the bedsheet off of Jill. "Ooh, you're so frisky!" Jill exclaimed, opening her arms and legs to my embrace.

When next we awoke, the window panes were almost clear. A crow flying by would have been able to look in and see us naked. Or a crop-duster or a hang-glider or a giraffe, Jill pointed out, giggling. Or a window washer, Jill added, while we soaped each other in the shower.

"Hurry up, honey," Jill said while we were toweling each other off.

"Why?"

"Because breakfast is in ten minutes and I'm famished." She patted her stomach. I patted her stomach. I couldn't resist smoothing my hand lower, into the dark curls of her delta.

"Breakfast," Jill insisted, batting my hand away.

Reluctantly I dressed.

We made our way down to the dining room. We were the only guests. The cheerful hostess said that the blizzard had caused everyone else to cancel. Then, as she poured us steaming coffee, she told us what the choices were. Juices: cranberry, apple, or orange. Buckwheat pancakes, scrambled eggs, blueberry muffins, steel cut oatmeal or all of the above.

"All of the above," I blurted. "Except oatmeal."

"Honey," Jill sighed. "You should have the oatmeal. It's good for you."

I scrunched up my face. "I hate oatmeal."

"I didn't know that," Jill said.

"Our oatmeal is excellent," the hostess said. "Not the instant kind, and we serve it with sliced almonds, walnuts, blueberries, and real maple syrup."

"That sounds so yummy," Jill said. "That's what I'll have."

"Pancakes, scrambled eggs, and orange juice for me," I said. "No oatmeal."

The waitress nodded, a faint smile of disapproval on her lips, or maybe I imagined that, and she set off for the kitchen.

The pancakes and eggs were delicious.

"You're sure you don't want a bite of this oatmeal?" Jill offered. "It's out of this world."

"I told you, I can't stand oatmeal."

"Some bad childhood experience?" Jill asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," I said. I refilled my coffee cup from the carafe the hostess had left on our table, and thought about my oatmeal aversion.

It wasn't childhood, exactly, it was freshman year at college. I was lucky, getting into the new dorms, which were suites for four and included a private bathroom and a kitchenette. My roommates were pretty nice guys not so unlike me, all coming from small towns in the Midwest, all very bright, all very interested in girls, and all virgins. Nerds, I suppose you could say. One of the guys, Josh Franklin, did have a girl friend back in his home town—she was a senior, and on weekends he would go back home to visit her. Invariably, Paul Shreck, who was the boldest of us, asked Josh did he get any, and invariably Josh smiled, an embarrassed sort of smile, and shook his head no. But one weekend, instead of shaking his head, Josh blushed.

"You got some! You dog, you lucky dog. What was it like?"

Josh didn't say anything, but Paul persisted. "Come on, man, tell us, you got to tell us."

Finally Josh said, "It was incomparable."

Kevin, our other roommate, nodded knowingly, wistfully. But Paul wouldn't be satisfied. "Details, man, details. Where were you, your car? Did you wear a condom? Was she tight and juicy? Was she hot? Did she come? How long did you last? Did you come in her? Come on, tell us?"

Josh shook his head. Shrugged. "It was beautiful. Like a dream." Then he turned away.

"Are you sure you didn't just dream the whole thing?" Paul said. "Was her pussy like a pot of hot honey? Or more like a bowl of oatmeal?"

I had to laugh. Kevin, too. "Like he's ever fucked a bowl of oatmeal," Kevin said.

That gave Paul the idea. "We're all science majors," he said. Actually Kevin was in math, but I was in chemistry and Paul and Josh were both in physics. "We can be scientific about this." And he proposed the experiment. It fell to me to swipe some glassware and thermometers from the chem labs. Kevin went to the store to buy the chocolate pudding and milk, the tub of honey, and the oatmeal. Paul said he'd take care of the blindfold and the sound effects—a file from the Internet, I later discovered, of a sultry-voiced woman crooning, "Oooh, baby, your big dick feels soooo good in my tight, hot cunt." Josh reluctantly went along with the plan.

The next evening I warmed up the honey, cooked the oatmeal, and boiled the pudding. We had decided that these should be exactly 100 degrees, because Kevin did allow that his girlfriend was hot, but we didn't want to scald him. While Paul blindfolded Josh and stuck an iPod earbud in his ear, I made sure the oatmeal was to temperature, and scooped it into an Erlenmeyer flask, filling it to the brim.

"Show time," Paul said, and, reluctantly, I thought, Josh lowered his trousers and briefs. Not surprisingly, he didn't have an erection.

"Now what?" Kevin said.

"Give him the flask," Paul said to me, while pushing the button on the iPod. "Fuck her," he said to Josh. "Fuck her before she gets cold."

Josh lowered the flask to penis height. His foreskin touched the rim. The instant the head of his penis penetrated the oatmeal, it lurched forward, expanding rapidly. Abruptly, Josh shuddered and jerked. He was still ejaculating when the flask fell from his hands and crashed onto the floor.

"I guess that answers that," Paul said, while Josh hastily yanked up his pants and hurried out of the kitchenette. Paul and Kevin followed him, presumably to offer comfort. I mopped up.

"All gone," Jill said to me. She set the spoon back in the empty bowl and lasciviously licked her lips. "Too bad for you. You had your chance."

I took a sip of tepid coffee, and then I told her, not leaving anything out.

"He jizzed in the oatmeal?" Jill laughed. "Oh, the poor boy." More sputters of laughter. Then she gave me a naughty look.

"What?" I said.

"So you never got to try the chocolate pudding or the honey?"

I shook my head.

"I have an idea…" she began, getting up from the table, taking my hand, leading me up the stairs. "When we get home…"

"Oh, no," I said.

"Oh, yes, darling. You're a scientist, after all, and I'm a scientist's wife. Honey, pudding, and maybe oatmeal for dessert. But for right now, you're going to need, what do you call it? A control. Plus I could use a little cream in my oatmeal."

story by Mat Twassel