My Husband, My Roommate: Episode 2 Mission Rock San Francisco

By Emas de la Cruz

In the first episode of the My Husband, My Roommate -- CareFront, we were introduced to a healthy couple that learned lessons about Sugar Skyping and intimate communications and sharing as the wife travels away from the husband and kids she very much adores. Only through the distance do they all come face to face with the promises that technological intimacy offers. In this second episode, another couple struggles in a much harsher and confrontational way with what is happening as interactivity and communication access is surrounds their hurting relationship. Mission Rock takes place in the emerging Mission Bay region of San Francisco -- a neighborhood area in the midst of a truly exciting building and community redevelopment transformation. Katina (also known as Kat), an entrepreneurial retail owner, and her more traditional sexy law enforcement husband find themselves in combative situations as they each begin their separate understanding of what these computer advancements offer to their lives. The series shares characters with Episode 1 and future episodes as readers experience the many layers of sexiness and frustration as love goes digital and wireless!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emas de la Cruz
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310810794

Emas de la Cruz

Welcome to the first book in a series of publications relating to how modern relationships, married or otherwise, are learning to make use out of technology, computer and virtual accessibility and the promises of digital interactivity. My Husband, My Roommate is our effort to use the skills we have developed over the years to share our experiences in relationships and across generations and cultures. We have created a special "username" as our author tag, in part because this offers some of the mystery and feeling of safety and security in interacting with the world (and virtual universe!). The authorship tag is actually composed of our initials. The EM of EMAS is one of us; the other is AS. de la Cruz is a family connection. EM is a digital photographer with a passion for images and artistry. AS is a long-term writer of nonprofit, small business and social and economic justice materials. Increasingly you will see more from our talents in the works that are forthcoming! Enjoy the opening story in this process of learning, sharing and loving ... on the Carefront!

Book preview

My Husband, My Roommate

EPISODE 2

MISSION ROCK SF

Copyright 2014

Published by EMAS de la Cruz via Smashwords.com

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it -- or if it was not purchased for your enjoyment only –- please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting our hard work.

MISSION BAY/MISSION ROCK: San Francisco’s downtown and tourist areas are well known. A few blocks south and across a channel is an area commonly referred to as Mission Bay. Within that region are smaller neighborhood and historical concentrations. Mission Rock, sort of a shipping-oriented Alcatraz Island, is one such element. Then, further away from downtown is a portion called DogPatch, which houses many local stores and businesses. Between the two is the heart of this new development region that is quickly becoming the home of upper-end, high-class and high-tech complexes, as well as new sports and affordable housing center – convincing some that this general area will soon be the best ever reflection of the true spirit of diversity and innovation that so characterizes San Francisco.

Vanished Waters is a contemporary book that traces the working and minority class history of this area. In that book, writer/commentator James Roxburgh is quoted with an extraction from his 1933 publication, the South of Market Journal. He offers an 1875 snippet of the feel and directions of the district – a summation that remains remarkably at home today. If you are in the mood for a less touristy walk about the future, we provide you their map:

Go up Third Street south to the end of the street, then walk west half a block to a little street between Third and Fourth, and you will see a railroad drawbridge (a swing bridge), which is opened or closed by one man with a hand-powered windlass. You can cross this bridge unless some vessel is coming up the Creek. There is another drawbridge a short distance further west, known as the Fourth Street Bridge, which may also be open when you arrive, but by waiting a few minutes you will be able to cross.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Characters & Places – Mea Culpa

Chapter 1 – Disconnect

Chapter 2 – Nuevo Potrero

Chapter 3 – Girl Programming

Chapter 4 -- CoffVVV

Chapter 5 – Digital Intimates

Chapter 6 – Hands On

Chapter 7 – Men Tech

Chapter 8 – Walking Farra

Chapter 9 – Rock Hard

Chapter 10 – Digital Tools

Chapter 11 – Moshie Moshie

Chapter 12 – Morning After

Chapter 13 – Of Boys & Men

Chapter 14 -- Before

Chapter 15 -- Surround

Chapter 16 -- Bespoken

Chapter 17 – Aperitif

Chapter 18 – The Trinity

Other Books – Episode 1

About the Authors

Connect with EMAS

SAMPLE OF COMING BOOKS

Publishers To Be

Acknowledgements

Episode 2 of My Husband, My Roommate begins to dig deeper into some of the private, intimate and sexual lives of the characters we’re creating. This means that in a way even more of the story is drawn from real-life people or characters that we know.

Once again, we’ve opted not to share who they are. Suffice it to say, even the most similar of actual people are nowhere near as bad or as good as we’ve made them out to be at least in regards to their use of or fear of technology. Though we do hope they learn to do better either way!

Thanks to the others of you who have helped us conceive of the project.

We’re reserving the remainder of the space on this page to say thanks to the professional agents, editors and commentators who provide us guidance and support in the future. At this point though we’re still just waiting for your agreement to be part of the project.

Characters and Places Mea Culpa

In addition to thinking about – if not naming – those whose personalities and foibles made the book possible, there is also the realization to be had that the story occurs … someplace. This one has that benefit too.

As the title indicates, Mission Rock is set in San Francisco. And more specifically in an area called the Mission Bay. Mission Rock is also real, or was at one time. It used to be a small rock island near what is Pier 50, a block from the San Francisco Giants’ stadium. It has a fascinating history of its own that could be just as stuffed with criminals and ne’re do wells as Alcatraz Island. For some reason that business leaders and capital takers of the time prefer not be known, this story remains much too quiet.

The story takes place in the Red Creek, a bar and restaurant. As far as we know, no such place exists. The same is true for DogPatch Fashion – though DogPatch the neighborhood is sure enough real and worthy of a visit. Other restaurants, the Espirit Café and the places visited are mostly a hodgepodge of real and imagined opportunities.

A final note on the clothing and fashions identifiers: We opted to use some real names of local and national designers and styles. This is because people have usually great mental references associated with these names, many of which have become preferential identifiers … at least for the well-adorned. In no case should the fact that we’re using them indicate that the companies support or endorse this story. We just think it’s nice to offer a deserving plug. They might like to be connected at some point – in which case we’d love to chat -- but at this point we offer the references without any intention of harm. (Email us: [e-mail]!)

All this being said, we still must return to the inevitability of repeating what the lawyers like to hear:

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places and incidences are either products of our imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

Chapter 1 – DISCONNECT

Stone hard and cold. My foot rubs gently up and down, providing a substitute for the satisfaction I crave. It’s warm and stuffy in our bedroom; humid with the dirty dampness that I so miss from two warm bodies pounding and caressing the juices of passion out of each other.

I’m sweating, twisted and buried in the weight of our blankets. I feel trapped within his grasp, a prisoner tied down and being ravished to the point where my captor can no longer keep his angry love hard enough to pound.

Alas, it goes way.

The darkness settles around me instead. I’m awake now. A breeze nips at the dangling shade, jolting me back to a sadder sense of reality. He’s here but I’m alone, trapped in many ways. His morning routine for work begs for him and he answers it willingly. God knows what satisfaction comes from showering alone when I’m here and wanting him all the more.

My foot touches and rubs – a cool desire, a cold fantasy. A wall: hard and cold.

Too early to want so badly; too damn late to care.

*****

Her tap tap tap set something bubbling in me again. Two hours later. I pushed the thought of passion away as quickly as I can clear my awakening brain.

Don’t go getting all excited for this; not for this Katina, I said aloud, slowly opening my eyes for a second time this morning.

The room was bright yet uninspiring. The day light breaks past the shade and our closed tight curtaining. It feels barren and cold.

Tap tap tap. Rosie’s reach out to me: she wants my loving attention. She looks up at me with her desiring eyes, her paw seeking to garner my attention. It’s her time, and she will not be put off – definitely not ignored. She wants out. And what Rosie wants, Rosie gets.

Lucky bitch.

I push away the bundled blankets, making a barricade between me and the wall I sleep next to. I think again of what it does to get me going when my need arises – but not now, not in the brightening of the day. My drive has passed and I have no interest in restarting it for my solitary pleasure.

Tap tap tap. Rosie’s in need.

I push Rosie’s paw away and drop mine to the floor. All right little one. I’ll let you out. Go run around and pretend we’re doing some exercise together. I don’t want none of that shit this morning. Who cares if I’m fat?

She danced and twirled her way to the back door, trying beyond reason to get me to look at the day as more than a bad excuse to get out of bed. I slid the glass open and looked out at the 10 x 10 walled in Outdoor Extension, as the realtor described it when she was deeply engaged in the unnecessary pushing of us to buy this place. There was no need; we had decided on submitting a bid for it right after we saw it. And part of the reason was because of the outdoor deck enclosed area for sure – even though in the few months we’ve lived here it has already become more of an unadorned storage area.

Rosie was happy because we had somehow managed to develop a path around the edges and encircling some boxes, basically unintentionally providing her a doggy track, which is a hell of a lot simpler than either having to actually take care of the piles of junk -- or for that matter then having to take the dog out on days like this. Rosie likes the result; and I get to put off having to face my early-day disgust.

7:30 am on my day off.

I’m up already. After she ran for a moment, Rosie found her spot and scrunched her back. Good girl, I said, like she needed an incentive. I’ll clean it up later, I promise.

As if she cared.

Coffee first. I could see that the timer had turned the pot off, having used up the two-hour warming limit. Clearly Edwardo had pressed the brew button at 5am, his anointed time. He had undoubtedly gotten his cup and a half precisely as his routine demanded – the half being a second helping that he righteously poured but never really touched. No doubt he had set it aside while putting the finishing touches on his work outfit – grey or black suit, white shirt, too thin of a barely patterned tie.

He always left – HAD to leave – day in and day out at exactly 5:45. Which left the coffee dredges hugging the pot for me. Lukewarm and thickening as it cooled. If God ever asked I’d likely tell her that I don’t like coffee and don’t see how she could have come up with the idea of such a substance to get us moving. Still, as I’ve told others of my philosophy on this subject many times: if we’re going to drink the muck of the Earth it should at least be no better than the dirt itself – thick and warm at best. At best complaining about it was my excuse for a morning ritual when I wasn’t getting anything else.

*****

After pretending to watch news on my iPad for a while, I decided I needed to run some whether I wanted to or not. Since I had already tricked my bitch into doing her pooh-pooh in the back area, I wasn’t feeling so bad at letting her stay home. I was feeling the need to run down to the Mission Rock area and toward downtown San Francisco. Rosie liked the area too, but there were a few too many dog-walking and running restrictions that I didn’t feel like dealing with today – a strange reality given that the area where we live is called DogPatch. Dogs are more than welcome, the rule-makers had previously told me, but only if they are well-heeled minder-mutts that do as they are told. Rosie wasn’t so good at following such expectations, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to make her. I’m not in the mood to put on such a pretense, assuming Rosie would listen anyway, which I seriously doubt.

I like my bitches to do whatever the hell they want to do just like I like my men to ….

Oh, right, Kat! Get a grip I said aloud.

I pushed off after my stretching and started jogging down the hill from our Glasstower Live-Work complex, just above Third Street, the main thoroughfare. The freeway noises behind me tugged at my intentions. Going up the hill was my alternative path for when I wanted a deep and to-the-point workout. I like running that way but the hills are more of a challenge – and the industrial look sometimes more depressing -- than dodging the construction vehicles and lines of cars waiting to deposit their high-tech workers into the fields of office cubicles that were filling in the flatter lands of the entire Mission Bay.

Plus the slap of fresh Bay air’ll do me some good.

The route that I decide to take runs me through the commercial areas and around some of these new buildings; and because I abandoned Rosie I’m able to go through their grassy enclosed areas that were planted to give the build’s minions the feeling of having an escape from their matrices. There was still a goodly amount of weed-filled lots and roughage along the waterfront. The developers of the sites wanted their residents to feel less like they had moved in too early.

Once I get through the green squares – which are admittedly astoundingly gorgeous and laced with art that I keep promising myself to stop by and really look at – I had a few blocks of unrefined industrial sidewalks before getting near the San Francisco AT&T baseball stadium and ultimately the streets leading to the jam-packed downtown. I can see that the area is full of tourists, most of who came to see the stadium and had no idea and little incentive to following some of my path into the Mission Bay either to Mission Rock or to the ‘hoods like DogPatch. So far these areas weren’t getting much attention. Which was in part why I liked to run this way on bad mornings. Even sweaty and decked out in pretty worm exercise adornments, it provided me a sense of superiority to know that I was running through groups of people who had no idea what they were missing. The Mission Bay was still the step-child of the City that knows how – only few people had figured out what treasures lie in these new pastures.

Today the arrogance fit me beautifully.

I was just hoofing it over the drawbridge by the baseball stadium when I was surprised. Ahead of me I saw a friend wandering down the street, most likely heading toward her West Coast office. I was surprised to see her since I thought she was still on vacation with friends.

Tory! Tory! I yelled, pulling my iHip earbuds out. Tory!

She doesn’t answer so I jog up behind her and reach over and tap her shoulder; she too is listening to something.

Tory, I say as she recognizes me.

Oh my God she exclaims, tugging on her wires. Oh my, Kat; what are you doing here?

I catch my breath for a second, holding her off with a gesture before pulling her in for a hug. Just running, I exhale, excuse me I say again, brushing some sweat off my face. Sorry I’m so messy.

Tory says goodbye to whomever she was talking with and radiates a nice welcome.

"I can’t believe I just ran into you. But then again I