Free Cutting Teeth: A Novel by Julia Fierro Page A

jean leggings the mommies loved to wear.
    Rip often felt as if he were living a kind of fantasy, the setting for a clichéd porn. Like when Tiffany, the extreme-domestic goddess in the group and (let’s face it, Rip thought) the hottest mommy, had invited Rip and Hank over so Rip could help her can the blueberries they’d picked upstate. While Billy Holiday had crooned, and Hank and Harper built snowmen with homemade playdough, Rip held the mason jars as Tiffany poured the jam that slid, almost seductively, into each hot glass container. He had watched Tiffany’s braless breasts quiver through the thin cotton tank top, smelled the nectar covering her hands, her slender forearms, staining her puffy lips. He’d felt a compulsion to taste her, and felt certain, in the way she let her tongue slide over her bottom lip, the way she let her long hair tickle his cheek as she bent to screw on the jar tops, that she too wanted him to slip his hand over the breasts he had seen so often.
    Breasts, breasts, and more breasts, it had been four years of nipples, all shades of pink and brown, erect and glistening, fresh from a satiated baby’s mouth. Only Leigh was so modest as to breast-feed with a swaddle blanket shielding her. He’d known Susanna’s breasts (small but perfectly shaped), Nicole’s breasts (large with wide, purplish nipples) and Tiffany’s, his favorite, full and white, almost translucent, a network of blue-green veins radiating from her petal pink areolae. Tiffany had zero qualms about unleashing her breasts for Harper to nurse anywhere and anytime, and Rip had seen them enough to memorize them, to think of them as old friends. These weren’t women to hide themselves. These were the daughters of the daughters of the feminist revolution, after all. They’d taken monthlong prenatal breast-feeding classes, they’d given up trying to hide a wriggling baby under their fifty-dollar hooter-hider nursing covers, and Rip could see in their eyes and in their relaxed smiles, a gratitude toward him, for giving them permission to let their breasts roam free.
    The mommies thought of him as Mama Rip. Diaper-changer, boo-boo kisser, nose-wiper, playground pal. A sensitive shoulder to cry on when the monotony of motherhood felt like just too much. How little they knew about how grateful he was for their breasts.

 
    strings attached
    Leigh
    The room hummed with the business of children. After a glass of white wine, Leigh felt as if the noise in the room had elevated. The revving of toy cars and the clatter of plastic blocks. The jabber of half-formed language and shrieks of fury in the never-ending battle of toy sharing. The giggling chatter of the mommies and the sobbing that followed a boo-boo; all of it plucked at the growing pain behind her eyes. Mommy! Mama! Mommy! Mama! Mommeee!
    Wine was poured, Brie and crackers nibbled. Leigh smiled and nodded appropriately as the mothers alternated between admiring the children in the moments they behaved ( Look at them. They’re so cute! ), and critiquing them when they fussed ( It’s a good thing they’re cute ).
    Hank was crying again, rubbing at his swollen eyes with fleshy fists.
    “There’s still sand in my eyes.”
    Grace looked around the room, caught Leigh’s eye, and said, “He has a hard time at the beach. Everything’s so intense.”
    Leigh nodded; there was a hint of a question in the woman’s stiff voice, a silent plea for commiseration.
    “Yes,” Leigh said. “It is a very sunny day.”
    Then she caught sight of Chase creeping closer to Hank. Chase’s head was tilted, as if mesmerized by Hank’s despair. Leigh started to stand, to intervene, but the weight of the baby in her arms pulled her back, and just as she was about to call for Tenzin, Chase backed away.
    “Yip, yip, yip!” he sounded off as he galloped around the room.
    “Give people their space, Chase. Honey,” Leigh said.
    Chase continued to race around the room, skirting the other children. It