His zipper area looked a little rumpled but I didn’t see any telltale bulge of an erection. Maybe he wasn’t lying before and he really doesn’t find me attractive tonight. And what the hell are you doing anyway, imagining Charlie Dwyer making love to you? That will never happen.
But other kinds of things might happen.
I shifted my position, as if I was just stretching a little, and let my hand slip a little lower on his stomach.
“Nice move,” he whispered.
I pulled it away. Damn him!
But a moment later, he shifted his position too, lifting his hips a little and tugging on his jeans. Without moving a muscle, I let my eyes wander to his crotch again.
If I wasn’t mistaken, his pants looked a little tighter in the erection zone. I smiled, snuggling in a little closer. If he was getting hard, it was only a matter of time, right? Guys couldn’t just turn that off.
I forced myself to focus on Walter and Pinkman. But after a few minutes, I was so warm and comfortable that my eyes began to drift shut…
When I opened them, the room was dark, the TV was off, and I was stretched out on the couch, a blanket covering me from shoulders to toes. Groggy, I sat up, the events of the previous evening slowly filtering through a whiskey-flavored cloud of confusion. I sniffed and looked around.
No Charlie.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed a piece of paper on the coffee table. No, not a piece of paper—the brown paper bag Charlie had brought the whiskey in. Frowning, I picked it up and reached over to switch on the lamp next to the couch.
A note was scrawled on one side in black ink: Didn’t want to wake you. Thanks for the blowjob, I’ll send you the pics. PS. You snore.
I coughed once in indignation. “I didn’t give you any blowjob!” I huffed. “And I don’t snore!” Flopping back against the couch, I read the note again before tossing it aside, irritated beyond reason and then irritated further that I was irritated. It wasn’t the note, either. It was the fact that Charlie had come over here, tempted me with his whiskey and his cologne and his cuddling, and then kept his word not to touch me. How dare he! Granny panties notwithstanding, I’d been hoping he would find me irresistible in the end. What was wrong with me?
Stomping into the kitchen, I made sure the back door was locked and set the alarm before thumping with heavy heels upstairs to the bathroom, and brushing my teeth with enough force to wear off the enamel. I spit and scowled at myself in the mirror. “What the hell? You either want him or you don’t. Figure it out.”
In bed, I punched my body pillow a few times and stuck my face in it. It seemed like it should be that easy—did I want him or not? But it was more complicated than that. I did want him. Sexually, I wanted him six days to Sunday. Sixty-nine days to Sunday, in fact, and I wasn’t even a sixty-nine kind of girl.
Confession: I was, of course I was. I’d just never acted like it in real life.
But I’d do it with Charlie. In a heartbeat. And were there other numbers? I’d do those too.
Why was that? Why should I want to do things with him that I’d never done with my exes, for whom I’d had genuine feelings? (I sometimes thank God for this. Bad enough I gave a future priest a few blowjobs. Wonder how many Hail Marys he had to say for those.) Was it because I wasn’t afraid of what he thought of me? Because I wasn’t worried about being his—or my—idea of the perfect girl? Because I hadn’t seen his mother in twenty years?
Maybe it was. I turned onto my side and wrapped my arms and legs around the pillow. Maybe my attraction to Charlie made more sense than I’d realized. Maybe sex with him was more intense, more fun, more satisfying than anything I’d ever experienced precisely because we weren’t right for each other. I didn’t have to hold back because A) I wasn’t at all worried about having to make a commitment; B) I wasn’t concerned about sitting across from his mother at Christmas dinner knowing I’d been sitting on her son’s face the night before; and C) I didn’t mind that Charlie bossed me around during sex, made demands, and wouldn’t take no for an answer—in fact, I loved it, because he knew what I secretly wanted without even having to say anything. It was like magic! And if he was closed off emotionally, I didn’t have to care.
In other words, I wasn’t my mother. I didn’t have to worry about Charlie’s darker side because I wasn’t going to have any future with him. That was freeing, perhaps even freeing enough to allow me to fool around with him some more. We weren’t hurting anyone, right? We were two consenting adults. And as long as we understood one another, what was the harm? Good girls could have good sex with a good friend, couldn’t they?
I squeezed the pillow tighter and shut my eyes. All right then. No more granny panties.
I wanted him to want me again, but delicately hadn’t done it.
Maybe it was time for direct.
#
The next morning, I slept in, waking when my phone buzzed with a text around ten. Before I looked at it, I swore to myself if it was Charlie I was not going to respond to it right away. He needed to chase me a little.
But it was Mia.
Can you guys come over?
Coco replied first. Test???
I have one, but I’m scared, Mia answered. Come over, I’ll tell you why.
I’ll be there in half an hour, I told her.
Coco said the same, and I jumped out of bed. My heart was racing—I don’t know how I knew that test was going to be positive, but I just knew. I couldn’t help smiling as I got dressed. Mia was going to have a baby. Coco was getting married. And as for me?