“Captain actually,” Emory said.
“Right. The captain of the team.”
“Dad,” I said.
He made a face and went back to the paper.
Emory grinned at me. “Glad you’re home?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I am. Despite my father being a major ass.”
“Major Ass. Is he in your squad too?” Dad asked.
“Roger, that’s enough,” Mom said harshly.
Emory smirked at my dad. “I know you’re not buying any of this, sir, and I don’t blame you. But I hope one day you’ll understand and know that this is all for your protection.”
Dad stared at Emory, clearly surprised by his sincerity. “Well, okay then,” he grumbled and went back to his paper.
Just then, I got a whiff of something from Mason. “Uh oh,” I said. “I think Mason needs to be changed.”
“Why don’t you take Emory and show him how to change a diaper?” Mom asked.
I glanced at him. “Want to learn?”
He made a face but nodded. “Yeah. I’ve always wanted to play with baby poop.”
Dad snorted as I headed up the steps, Emory on my tail. As we got to the top of the landing, I turned toward him. “Sorry about that,” I said.
“What, your father?”
“Yeah. He can be a real ass, but he’s a big teddy bear.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’d be shocked if he weren’t skeptical.”
“Still, he doesn’t need to be a dick about it.”
“He’s just threatened; that’s all. I’m a strange man saying strange things around his family. You’d be protective too if you were him.”
I nodded. I hadn’t really thought about that. Dad didn’t seem like a protective person, but he had always been there for me. He really didn’t know Emory beyond what I’d told him, and most of that wasn’t very flattering considering Emory had disappeared after getting me pregnant.
In Dad’s mind, Emory was the enemy, not the terrorists. The idea of terrorists was way too impossible and abstract for him to comprehend. Dad wanted to protect me and Mom, but in his mind it wasn’t from the terrorists. It was from the strange man named Emory.
“Come on,” I said, and led him into the nursery. “Ready for this?”
“I’m always ready,” he said.
I felt him standing so close to me as I put Mason down on the changing table.
“First, you remove the clothes, like this. See? Easy. Slides right off.”
“He’s squirming a lot.”
“Babies like to move around. We don’t exactly sit still either, you know. Next, the diaper comes off.”
“I’ve seen some gross things in my day, and this is definitely up there.”
“Yeah. It’s not pleasant. Okay, can you put it in that little thing over there?”
He nodded and put the diaper into the disposal unit.
“Okay, now we wipe. Easy. Cleans right up.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“He’d probably prefer a clean butt to a dirty one. Right, Mason?”
Emory stood behind me as I finished wiping Mason off and then took the dirty wipe and threw it out. I finally finished by putting a fresh diaper back on Mason.
“There we go. All changed. And now we wash our hands.” I put Mason into the crib and then we both went into the bathroom.
I was very, very surprised that Emory had actually stood there and seemed to be paying attention. I’d mainly expected him to make sexual jokes the whole time, but instead he looked like he wanted to actually learn how it was done.
I didn’t know what that meant. Maybe he planned on changing diapers, or maybe he just realized that if we were going to spend a lot of time together until this whole terrorist thing was resolved, then maybe he should learn.
“You know,” he said as I cleaned my hands, “there’s nothing sexier than a woman changing an infant.”
I couldn’t help but smile. It hadn’t taken him long to revert back to the jokes. “Oh really?”
“Really,” he said, standing close behind me. “Watching you work got me fucking hard.”
“I’m sure it’s not difficult to get you hard.”
“For you it’s not. All I need to do is think about that delicious, tight fucking pussy and I’m ready to go.”
I finished washing and dried my hands, and then Emory stepped in.
“Maybe we should talk about last night,” I said.
“Unless you want to tell me how dripping wet your cunt is thinking about it, I’d rather not.”
I frowned. “I don’t know, Emory.”
Suddenly he stood up straight, his eyes narrowed. “Did you hear that?”