5.

Later that evening Derrick read in bed while Vivian surfed the web on her laptop, looking at ads on Craigslist for possible jobs. She hoped to find something part time or a telecommuting gig, as she really wasn’t ready to return to the 9-to-5 grind—especially since their next step in starting a family hadn’t yet been decided. She quickly lost interest in the job search, though, and began to entertain herself by looking through the personals.

“Honey, listen to this one,” Vivian said. “‘Daddy seeks baby for OTK.’ Wait, what’s OTK?”

“Are your reading internet ads again?”

“How can I not? Do you know all the people we could be fucking now if we weren’t old married people? Actually, there are a number opportunities here requesting old married people.”

“Stop reading that shit,” Derrick said.

“Why, it’s not illegal? What’s OTK?”

Derrick was growing annoyed, “I don’t know. Quit reading it.”

“It’s fun, Derrick. Jeez. Listen, he says, ‘Generous daddy looking for a baby to spoil and spank. Just be pretty and nice.’ And he uses a dollar sign for the letter ‘S’ in his ad. Isn’t that hilarious,” Vivian said. “Is that internet code for saying you’ll pay for sex? Would he pay to spank me? Honey…this could be good side money.”

“Knock it off, Viv.”

“Oh…he’s got a pic.” Vivian clicked on the ad and her eyes widened and she cringed backward into her pillow, pulling her sheets up to her neck in mock terror. “Jesus Christ, look at that thing!! He doesn’t want to spank Baby, he wants to impale her.”

“Jesus! Cut the shit, Vivian. Get off the personal sites, it’s pissing me off.”

“Jeez. Fine,” she said as she returned to the homepage. “Why are you so pissed? It’s not like you found me in the corner writing down Daddy’s phone number. I’m just playing.”

“It’s inappropriate,” he said, not looking at her.

“Square,” she said.

Vivian began her search of the non-sexual sections of the website, looking at all sorts of offerings for yoga and jujitsu classes, book clubs and scrapbooking meets, baseball memorabilia sales and the like, before she came across an ad for an online auction being hosted by an internet parent support group.

“Christ,” Vivian said out loud and when her husband didn’t bite, she continued, “Can you believe this? An online parent support group—what the fuck is that about? I mean, just be a parent, people. Am I right?”

“Yeah, really,” Derrick agreed, not looking up from his book.

“I mean, you’re probably not going to need ‘support’ if you spend a little less time online looking for it and a little more time parenting,” she continued her rant. “Why do parents today spend so much fucking time analyzing their parental roles? Just go be a mom or dad to your kid, you know?”

“Mhmm.”

Vivian looked at Derrick and could see he was not interested in debating the worthiness of an online parent support group. So she read it to herself:

Parents!!! Are you tired? Worn out? Frustrated? At a loss? Do you need to talk to other people who know what you are going through? Well here’s your opportunity to do that!

USAParentsconnections.com is a website devoted to everything about being a parent. Our website compiles all the top information in parenting resources, and provides more than a 100 different message boards dedicated to a variety of “hot” parenting topics as well as a dozen different chat rooms so that you can talk “live” with other parents, just like you.

“Why is that ‘chat rooms’ always sounds dirty to me?” Vivian asked. “Like the only kind of chat you can have online is sexual?”

“Huh,” Derrick said. “Oh. Probably because you’re a dirty whore.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.” She said and then wondered, “What do you think goes on in a ‘parenting chat room,’ anyway. Riveting conversations about rashes and getting shit stains out of baby Gap denim? Or maybe it’s a bunch of women bitching about their kids and husbands, like my mom used to do on the phone, just these people type it instead of say it.”

“Probably a little bit of all of that, honey,” Derrick said, humoring her.

“Well, I think these people should stop worrying so much online about the trials of being a parent and trying to just enjoy it in real life,” she said, as she shut the lid of her laptop and put it on the bedside table before sliding down under the covers and turning toward Derrick. She laid on her side, staring at him and waiting for him to put down his book. When he continued reading, glaring at her playfully out of the corner of his eye, she reached under the covers to find another way to get his attention, a method that worked instantly. Derrick dropped his book and pulled her close to him, kissing her mouth and neck.

“Derrick,” she mumbled into his kisses. “Derrick? Wait a second.”

He pulled back to look at her, “Yes?”

“Do you think that will have an advantage? Do you think because it was so hard for us to have a baby that when we finally do get one, it will make us better ones? The kind who never take for granted the gift we were given?”

He kissed her nose and said, “Nope. I’m pretty sure the little fucker will get to us, too.” He climbed onto of Vivian and started kissing her more aggressively, interested not in talking about babies, but possibly making one the old fashioned way. Beneath him, when she was able to come up for air, she said, “I bet you’re wrong.”