Also, here's a pandemic quickie ❤️🦠

"Ana, please give it to me," I say as my wife stands at the foot of our bed, withholding what I desire most. "The world is in chaos. This virus is out there. I need to do it before it's too late."

"You've lost your mind," she says, with a quick back step and a straightening of her blouse.

"That doesn't stop me needing what you're preventing me from holding." I pull at my hair and nearly bald a patch.

"You've held it constantly," she says, with a quick sidestep of my sly hand. "You've pressed it and stroked it and shot it off like 17 times already, and it's only 7 am."

"This isn't that unusual. I do all of that three times a morning as it is. You just aren't fully awake yet."

She gives me an eye roll, which just makes me want to shoot it off all the more.

"Christian," she huffs. "I went along with all this when you wanted to do it on the coats and hats. I closed my eyes during that weird episode in the pantry with the plastics and canned goods, but now our whole property smells."

"It's supposed to smell afterwards! That's how you know it all worked."

After a one-two play, she makes a dash for the property intercom button at the right of the doorway.

"What are you doing?" I ask. "Are you calling Gail? Because you know Gail will be on my side! She's in charge of all that with Taylor. And believe me she does way more than me and enthusiastically all over the place."

Ana smirks as Taylor answers.

Taylor?!

"Taylor, could you come to the master suite. I have something I need you to hold tight for me," Ana says, with an emphasis on tight and that siren grin. My jaw cements to the floor.

"Right away, Mrs. Grey," Taylor says, his hairy limbs practically reaching through the speakers for a feel.

Fucker.

"This is your plan? To give Taylor what's mine?" I ask and I see a tick of her smile. "Well, well, well..." I punctuate the trifecta with a dramatic ha-ha-ha. "That's highly ill conceived because you know he'll never take it. And if he does, he'll give it right back to me."

"Why would he do that?" Ana asks.

"What do you think I pay him for?"

Taylor arrives... right away. I swear that fucker has a jet pack for toes.

Ana turns to him in the doorway, with her lashes batting and a flip of her locks, so blatantly flashing her goods all over the place. His eyes lock on what she's stroking. I know he's trying to look away but the fucker is too weak. He's been to war and other killing activities but Ana's dance of seduction proves too much as she thrusts it all right to his chest.

"But, Mrs. Grey..." his voice shakes. The fucker falling to his sin.

"Take it," she commands.

His gorilla fingers shake, knowing full well the knife he's putting in my back, but he still takes hold of what's mine.

The hurt.

The indecency.

The outright betrayal.

"Noooooo!" I call out as I pummel between them. "Not my can of Lysol disinfectant spray!"

Unfortunately, I don't see the third air purifier I had set up in the room, and after a brief tangle with my ankles, I fall to the floor with my can.

My can!

"Christian, you have gone overboard with all this," Ana says, shaking her head as she and Taylor shadow over me.

"Ana, there is a crisis out there," I say, scrambling to my feet. "A pandemic! And it's not like the normal, weekly pandemics I talk about, this one is backed up by news and countries."

"I get it, Christian. And of course, I know, we need to be safe—"

"Safe is clean!" I say, waving around my beautiful cylinder. "I just need to make sure our house is disinfected properly." I snap a look to Taylor. "Speaking of which, do you have the wipes?"

"Yes, sir."

"The hand sanitizers?"

"Many bottles, Mr. Grey."

"Did you get the hazmat suits?"

"Yes, sir. Even Chester's."

"Hazmat suits?!" Ana asks.

"Only if it's absolutely necessary and primarily for Elliot," I say.

Taylor is now oddly eyeing my can. He's probably fantasizing it's a bomb. Or, maybe he just likes to annihilate things and mowing down germs is an approved activity. 

"Did you get the toilet paper?" I ask him.

"1776 rolls, sir."

"Where the hell did you get 1776 rolls from?" I ask. And somehow I don't think it's a coincidence that the number of two-ply matches up with the birth of our nation.

"I've been a collector, Mr. Grey," he says and I'm smart enough to leave it at fucking that.

My phone buzzes. It's a text from Mia.

Is this mask cute?

A photo pops up. She's got some pink rhinestone scarf wrapped around her head. She looks like someone who would hold people up at Dolly World.

This is no time to be cute!! I reply. This is a time for action!

She sends me two diamonds and a middle finger.

"Oh, I have to speak to Gail! They'll all be here before too long," Ana says, referring to all the family and questionable tag-a-longs we've invited to quarantine with us. And I use the term invited in the loosest possible way. More like they're just showing up and I didn't think it was a good look to beef up perimeter security on family. "We'll need to set out the good china, get the linens ready and finish the pies."

"Pies?" I ask. "This isn't Thanksgiving. It's a pandemic. Let them eat canned pumpkin. It goes with the theme."

She rolls her eyes again, grabbing the Lysol can from me and securing it under her arm.

She's always got me by my cylinder.

"Who's all coming anyway?" I ask.

"Your parents, Kate and Elliot, Ray, Mia, Jose..."

"Ahh yes. The photographer. Because we may want to semi-professionally document the end of the world."

"He and his father are very excited," Ana says.

"Of course they are!  A billionaire's paradise for months while the rest of the world burns."

Taylor's phone buzzes.

"Mrs. Grey, we have word your mother and step-father have landed on the jet," he says.

"Thank you so much, Taylor," Ana says. "And please make sure she social distances at the airport. You know how friendly she gets when she flies."

Friendly? More like how much of a liquor bill I'm going to get from the in-flight services.

"You know they could've self-isolated in their perfectly good home we built for them in Georgia," I say.

"But it's so far," she says. "And Bob is high risk."

"How is Bob high risk?" I ask.

"He's had various medical issues in the past," she says.

"Medical issues? He twisted his leg on the golf course, like 7 years ago, and suddenly it's a preexisting condition," I say. 

She admonishes me with a look.

"Daddy!" Phoebe flies in. She and Chester are wearing matching pink satin, faux fur trimmed capes that would go remarkably well with Mia's mask.

Why do I think that's a vision of the future?

"What is it, Princess?" I ask as Chester looks at me and starts to expose teeth. He isn't smiling. You know, I never would've imagined I'd be under constant threat from a hamster wearing polka dot boxer shorts and go-go boots.

"Since there's no school, could I paint yours and my baby brothers' faces?"

"Paint our faces? How?" I ask, and I notice Chester has purple fur cheeks with strawberry stickers.

"I want to make your cheeks look like butterflies with sparkledly eyes," she says. "Like the most beautiful-est in the world. I got some really ex-clooosive glitter gloss that goes with your hairs."

"What about Boone?"

"I could color his feathers."

Of course. That turkey will have a better color job than all the women in Seattle.

"Well, that has to wait because there is definitely school happening," I say. "They have that online program." The one I funded. I swear, we pay thousands and thousands a year for them to color and make macaroni art and they couldn't figure out how to video conference. I had to get GEH to set up a full system. Now, NASA has nothing on Kreative Kidz Academy.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Christian," Ana says, and for the first time today she looks contrite. 

"Tell me what?"

"Dad!" Teddy says, barreling in. Somehow his friend, Fritzy, is with him. Doesn't this kid ever go home? "You'll never guess in bajillions of years who's here to stay with us while the world farts and explodes."

"I can see." I look down to his friend. "Does your father know you're here?"

"Yeah," he says with a laugh. "He'll be over later. He has to say goodbye to the girl."

Of course.

"No, Dad!" Teddy says. "Downstairs right now!"

"Is the family here already?" I look at my watch. It's too early.

"Christian," Ana says, biting her lip. "I forgot to tell you... who needs to quarantine with us."

She doesn't have to tell me. I hear that laugh. It echoes from downstairs, all the way up the beams and bannisters to my crying eardrums.

Oh God.

"Tilly?!" I say.

Ana, as an offering of peace, hands me back the Lysol.

"And her mother," she says.

I clench my fists and shoot off my can. But, this time, it doesn't get rid of the germs.