How Long You Should Wait to Have Sex: a Novel (27 page)

He angrily grabs a vibrator out of the box, “This is what you guys are doing all day?”

“He’s a sexologist,” I explain, defensively, “it’s just part of the job.”

“So why are we waiting? I thought it was because you considered sex sacred. Or important. Or maybe because you were just one of those girls who’s a little squeamish about it, because you’re innocent. I was trying to respect you. But you’re out making dildos for a living!”

“I don’t normally work with sex experts. He’s just one client.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that you’re dealing with this guy’s giant cock all day, while you’re completely avoiding mine?” John’s perpetual smile has disappeared, and I fear it may never come back.

“We don’t have to keep waiting,” I let out, “we could get married.”

“Is that what this is? Some elaborate manipulation to get me to marry you?” John looks completely betrayed. I don’t think I’m manipulating him, though. I mean, not in that way. Sure, I’ve manipulated him a bunch by setting back time, but he doesn’t know about that. And I just want to know that he’ll be there for me, even after sex.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you,” I say, desperately wanting him to understand my intentions, “I just want a guarantee that you won’t run away after we do it!”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know! WHY DO YOU?!” I’m not sure what gave me the courage to ask him what I should’ve asked him from day one. Maybe it was his level of outrage that I would suggest such a thing. Maybe it was my level of exasperation at how he keeps bolting after sex. Regardless of my reasons, John has no idea what I’m talking about.

Maybe it’s time to explain…

“John, we’ve had sex together. Lots of times. You just don’t remember any of them.”

“And how exactly would I forget something like that?”

“Because I have this weird ability, where every time I sleep with you, I can just wish I didn’t, and time rewinds until before I did. So it’s like it never happened. I know it sounds crazy…”

I have to admit, I didn’t realize quite how crazy it would sound until the words came out of my mouth. Or, for that matter, until John’s eyes came out of his face.

I don’t even know why I had to tell him this. I mean, the smarter thing to do would’ve been to just convince him to have sex with me, and make it all go away. But—and this part I find myself saying out loud—

“I’m tired of trying to fix myself, just to get you to like me.”

John’s jaw has basically dropped to the floor. He looks both disgusted and perplexed.

“I really wish you had told me how insane you were before I got you this.” He pulls the little jewelry box out of his pocket. It’s the one I’d seen before with the blue velvet and the red silk. And when he opens it, there are no earrings that don’t match my eyes inside. There lies a ring. A really nice diamond engagement ring.

I can only think it didn’t match my eyes, last time, because I had just had sex with him.

~

No matter which way you slice it, break-ups are hard. But not much makes them harder than when you needed a ring to keep your job, and your boyfriend had actually bought you one. Sure maybe it was only because he couldn’t wait any longer to have sex, but whatever his reasons, he was ready to spend the rest of his life with you… Up until the moment when you broke up anyway.

Henry has called me into his office, and I’m pretty sure I know why.

“John did get me a ring,” I plead sincerely, as I enter Henry’s office, “and then we got into a fight, and broke up. I swear! But I have some good news!”

“Close the door,” Henry commands. I do it. He settles in and goes on, “I discovered an amazing publicist while you were gone, Samantha.” Why is he telling me this? Am I supposed to feel threatened? “I was watching late night TV,” he goes on, “and there was this sexual self-help author—virtually unknown—yet he was on every station! I was impressed, so I called around to find out who repped this guy. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I found out it was you.”

“I know! Isn’t it great!” I do my best to deflect his souring tone. Plus, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished with Marty.

“You know how I feel about loyalty, Samantha. Engaging in side projects, on company time, is a direct betrayal of our agreement.” Whoa. He’s really serious about this.

I jump in with my good news, “But no—I didn’t take a dime for it. It started out as a favor to a friend, and I was planning to tell you about it, as soon as—“

He doesn’t let me finish before interrupting, “—But you didn’t. Trust has been broken.”

“No! I was going to tell you today! We just had a deal where he had to hit a certain financial marker to trigger payment, and he hit it on Friday. I was always planning on sharing my profits with you when they came. Today was my big day to break the good news to you.”

“I don’t care, Samantha. You went behind my back, and you lied to my face. I’ll miss what we had, but you have to pack your things.”

Harsh. That’s two breakups back to back for me. And one of them includes the loss of a job. I wonder if I could still have sex with John and do this all differently? Could I go far back enough to fix this? And more importantly, would I want to? I’m so incredibly mad at John, just for being who he is.

There’s only one person I feel like talking to right now, and that’s Marty. But I can’t talk to him because he doesn’t know of the great intimacy we’ve shared, and ever since the airplane conversation, it’s just awkward between us.

So I call up Lacey.

~

When I get to her house, she’s excitedly getting ready for a date.

“You really can fix anything!” she exclaims as she lets me inside, and I follow her upstairs to watch her finish doing her makeup. Lacey lives on the top floor of a duplex. “How did you get Marty to finally call me?” she continues. And here I thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

“I didn’t,” I admit, thoroughly confused.

“Well, either way, your boss was a fool to fire you. But at least you still rep Marty!” Then she starts rambling, “Do you know what he said, when he called me? He said that now that he has money, he finally feels deserving of a girl as pretty as me!” Lacey giggles. “So that’s all it was! He just didn’t think he deserved me. Men are so weird.”

I nod, forcing a sympathetic smile for her and holding back the disappointment I feel for myself. It’s only fair. He was always her guy.

Meanwhile, she’s still talking, “And I’ve always wanted to date a best-selling author!” She looks at the time, “Oh my God, he’s going to be here any minute! How do I look?”

She looks great, as always. But I’m just realizing that I don’t want to run into him. I feel crappy enough without him having to know about it. Lacey’s not the type to notice, but Marty will be able to feel my drained energy within seconds, no matter how hard I try to act happy for them. He’s very astute, and particularly in touch with me. Oh God, I don’t even wanna think about how well he knows me, or how well he gets me. That’ll just make it worse. I have to get out of here.

“Hey, I should get going before he gets here,” I grab my purse. “Have fun tonight!” I hope she didn’t notice the crack in my voice. I really do want her to have fun. This is what she’s been waiting for. And I guess it is her turn. After all, I’ve just had almost nine mostly amazing months with John. I shouldn’t be such a boy-hog. It’s ugly and rude.

I open the front door to leave, and there he is, ringing the doorbell, right on time.

“Oh, hi!” I exclaim, not able to stop myself from smiling when I see him. I’ve missed him over the last few days, and he really has been the only person I've wanted to share all my recent defeats with. He looks more uncomfortable than happy to see me. The tension we had left each other with has only gotten worse.

“Hi,” he replies, completely taken off guard by the sight of me, “I’m—you’re here. Um, that’s weird, because I’ve been meaning to call you, actually.”

Well that’s music to my ears.

“Yeah? What’s up?” How’s that for casual?

Marty looks up the stairs beyond me. I turn to see that Lacey is there, waving.

“Be one second!” she yells down, before running off.

“This isn’t really the time or the place to get into it,” Marty says quietly.

“Should we just talk before we shoot those instructional videos next week?” I suggest.

“It’s about that,” he sighs deeply, looking like he was about to inform me of a dear relative’s passing, “I don’t think I can work with you anymore.” The shock and fear must be visible on my face because he decides to clarify, making it worse, “I mean, I can, but I don’t want to.”

Make that three breakups and two job losses. Anyone else wanna line up to kick me while I’m down?

“Oh,” I say, trying my damndest not to cry, “Why?”

“We should talk about it later. I just wanted to let you know as soon as possible, so you could schedule other things. I know you have a lot of clients to coordinate.”

“Yeah. Tons…”

I need to get out of here before either of them sees me cry and I have to explain why, “Ok. We’ll talk later, then… Bye.” I make a mad dash for the other side of the door jam, so I can get to the street, out of view from this building and let myself wail hysterically.

Chapter 31

I don’t know if it’s because I think it will make me feel better or worse, but I decide to call Lacey to find out how her date went. Part of me doesn’t want to know if it went well, but another part of me wants to be a big enough person to live vicariously through her joy, knowing that if I can’t be happy, at least I created the scenario in which my two best friends in the world can be happy—even if it does have to be with each other. Another advantage of knowing how it went is that then I can stop making up stories about it in my head. It’s bound to be less painful than the things I’m inventing and visualizing. And sometimes, just knowing the truth, forces you to accept the reality of a situation, as it is. And that can help you move on from it.

I know that hearing about it is going to suck at first, no matter how it went, but the suspense is killing me, so I call her. Several times. Why am I calling her so much? Probably because for some reason, she’s not calling me back!

A week goes by. I leave another message.

“Hey Lacey, it’s me. I was thinking about checking out K-Bar again, tonight. I mean, unless you and Marty are an official item now, and you don’t feel like going out anymore? Ha-ha. Honestly, I don’t really feel like going out either, but I was gonna force myself. And K-Bar went so well for us last time. But call me back either way. I want to know what’s going on with you.”

She is definitely avoiding me. I meant what I said though, if something is going on with her, she should tell me about it, so I can fix it. Maybe I should just go to K-Bar by myself. Yeah, that wouldn’t be awkward; I can picture the conversations now:

“Who are you here with?”

“Nobody.”

“Where do you work?”

“Nowhere.”

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Nothing.”

“Wow! How could a great girl like you be single?”

I call Lacey again throughout the week, basically begging her to talk to me and be my friend.

“Fine, don’t tell me about your date with Marty. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about why you’re mad at me. Just tell me something! I miss you. I really need to talk.”

If I had left that message on a guy’s voice mail, I would probably feel really stupid about it, but that’s one of the great things about girlfriends. You can be totally emotional with them, and they actually appreciate you for it. That said, this latest message still did not elicit a call back from Lacey, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to reduce myself to pretending I was worried about her well being, and ask her to, “Please call back and let me know you’re okay.” It’s a good trick, that always gets a call back, but it’s desperate.

I accidentally see myself in the mirror. What a hot mess, I am! My hair is a complete rat’s nest, which shouldn’t surprise me in the least since it hasn’t been washed or combed in over four days. My pajamas have food stains dripping down them. My general sense of loserness has made it so that I’m not able to eat much lately, but when I do eat, I do it very poorly. Drinking happens more often, and has created a proportional amount of spillage on my chest. I’ve tried to restrict myself to water, vodka, and similarly clear beverages for this reason, but my mouth gets bored, and I find myself reaching for the cranberry juice and hot chocolate, which inevitably end up on my front side. I have a drinking problem. I really have to learn to do it right.

I consider putting on makeup just to avoid the shock of seeing the dark circles that have formed around my sad-looking eyes, and the red blotchiness that has built up from blowing my nose as I cry, but makeup without showering seems erroneous, so I skip the whole thing.

My energy has been sapped, and even walking from the bedroom to the kitchen to get something to eat, drink, or spill on myself seems like hard labor. It’s been eighteen hours since my last meal, so I decide to get some nuts. The idea of chewing them seems tedious, but at least they don’t stain.

On the way to the kitchen, I trip over that giant box that I left there in the filth pile I call a living room, stubbing my toe. I jump around holding my foot, and cursing them all! That stupid box that caused my breakup with John. That annoying box that caused me to miss out on my ring, and lose my great job. That teasing box that sits there in my home, filled with vibrating replicas of the appendage that gave me the most pleasurable sexual experience of my life…

Fuck it, I’m calling Marty. As soon as I find the ability to walk again, or the energy to dig up my phone from this mess I’ve left everywhere. Last time I used it was to call Lacey, but who knows where I threw if from there. I’m just angry enough to figure it out, while still limping from the pain in my toe.

Find it! Dial! Get his voice mail! Leave a message!

“Hi, Marty, I never heard from you about finishing that conversation, and—whatever. I just wanted to let you know that those sex toys arrived, and I have them at my place. They’ve been here for a while actually, and I was gonna tell you when you called, but you never called, so… Yeah. This is Samantha, by the way.”