Stacy swallowed hard, put a check mark over the word “soon” and returned the pad to Taylor. Stacy dared to look at her behaltered, braless colleague. Taylor was grinning coyly, circling Stacy’s check mark over and over again until the ink on the pad was thick and blotchy. Okay, thought Stacy, here was some new information to process. Could Taylor have sworn off men because she preferred women? Was she a New Lesbian? More importantly, would a girl-on-girl fling (not that she’d ever had one, or had ever wanted to — but she was in no position to be picky about the age, quality, stability or gender of her dates) would qualify as a de-revirginating event?
“Stacy!” barked Fiona. “Price list!”
Fumbling for her printout of proposed prices, Stacy felt her ears go hot. Their temperature didn’t return to normal for the goodly part of the hour. The meeting continued, sustaining its keen tension, for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing much was achieved except the brutal assigning of tasks. As Stacy limped (not that word) back to her office, she counted 37 items on her To Do list, from the commonplace (negotiating with importers, hiring models) to the creative (composing sexy names for each chemise, babydoll, G-string and teddy in the line). Most likely, for her composition, she’d stick to the Fiona-preferred vocabulary list, including words like Enchantress, Huntress, Risqué and Savage.
But no more fabrics and finery tonight. She was exhausted from the unswerving stream of Fiona’s disapproval. Stacy quietly tossed lipsticks and Altoids into her straw purse. She started to shut down her iMac. On the desktop, on a Stickies memo, was her other, personal To Do list. At the top, in red, all-cap letters: V DAY, JULY 23. Was she too tired and beaten down to make a call? Was it emblematic of her sorry sexual situation that she was always too tired and beaten down at the close of the workday? Not today, she vowed.
With renewed vigor (forced and contrived, but it was the best she could do), Stacy reached for the phone. She dialed an old number from memory.
Ring, ring, ring. She almost hung up, but he answered with a groggy hello.
She said, “Brian?”
“Stacy?” he asked, surprised.
“Are you sleeping?” It was only eightish.
“This is so weird. I was just dreaming about you.”
They’d been happy — thoughtlessly, comfortably — in their early days. The familiar sound of Brian’s voice made her heart tight. She said, “I miss you.” At that moment, she felt a genuine tug for what they’d had when it was good. It was never true love. But they’d had tenderness. She wanted to sit in his lap, lay her red head on his shoulder and cry with great sobbing gasps.
He asked, “Are you okay?”
She remembered this about him: He was sensitive. He knew her well. He could intuit exactly what she was feeling. Just to be sure, Stacy took a deep breath and said, “Brian, I’m horny.”
The phone was silent for a moment. Then, he said, “You’d better come over.”
Stacy stood outside Brian’s apartment on West 72nd Street filled to the collar with nostalgia. This corner, this building. They’d never lived together, but she’d spent several nights a week at his place for three years straight. Memories flooded her senses: the smell of the Papaya King restaurant across the street; the sight of his name on masking tape by his buzzer; the cool marble walls of the lobby; the clicking sound of her heels as she walked toward the elevators; the taste of lipstick as she reapplied while standing on the other side of his apartment door. It was as if the year hadn’t floated by without him. As if she were arriving, cranky and tired after work, as she had hundreds of times before.
Before she had a chance to knock, the door swung open. Brian grabbed Stacy by the wrist and lassoed her in his arms. His embrace was like riding a Lifecycle. She sank into his beefy chest, smelling his shirt.
She said, “You smell nice.”
“You like?” he asked. “It’s eau d’Clorox.”
She pulled back and gave her ex the once-over. He’d put on a few pounds. And he desperately needed a shave. His hair was too long and his shirt had coffee stains. “You look good,” she said. “Good enough to eat.”
“You want dinner?” he asked, jerking a thumb toward the small kitchen off his living room. “I can scramble some eggs. Burn some toast, just the way you like it.” Brian’s cooking skills had never progressed beyond breakfast.
Stacy shook her head. “I said I was horny, not hungry.”
“Easy, girl,” he said, beaming the goofy grin she’d fallen for on the night they met, at a bar a few blocks away, at last call, when she was as close to blind drunk as she’d ever been (never, she promised herself after that hangover, would she underestimate the punch of a Kir Royale). In the morning, she could barely remember what had happened, and had no idea how she’d wound up in a foreign bedroom. To her great relief, she looked under the sheets and found herself dressed. She’d been wearing a complicated wrap shirt from Banana Republic. She didn’t believe a straight man — certainly not the preppy all-American guy holding two cups of black coffee and smiling sweetly at the foot of the bed — could figure out how to take off the shirt and put it back on again with the strings forming a perfect bow at her hip. She accepted the coffee. It went down far easier than Brian’s mortifying description of her behavior the night before. With gratitude for his generous and chaste protection, Stacy asked Brian to get into his bed with her. They slept for several hours. When they woke up, they showered together and made plans for their first real date.
“Do you remember the night we met?” she asked him now, four years later.
Brian nodded and then sneezed loudly. He pulled a used tissue out of his pocket and blew hard. “Summer cold,” he said. “I’m on the last legs. I’m not contagious at this point.”
Stacy made a practice of avoiding sick people. When stricken with a cold, she became a sniveling mess: her nose doubled in size from inflammation, her eyes teared, her hair went flat and greasy from neglect. She would OD on echinacea and vitamin C, but the germs in her body would cling to the cushy life inside Stacy’s membranes, causing any sickness, minor or major, to last and last. The phlegmy flavor of a cold would stay fresh in her nasal cavities for weeks. She hated getting sick. As she watched Brian wipe himself clean of visible sneeze residue, Stacy knew with the certainty of the damned that he’d left millions of undetectable germs behind. And if she were to kiss that mouth, they would step across his tongue and onto hers, only too happy to settle there, build a colony and multiply until they’d seized control of every mucosal cell in her head and chest. But, on this day in July, Stacy was willing to risk the delicate, thin skin around her nostrils, the luster of her hair, and the freedom of movement without a Kleenex plastered to her face. She would make that sacrifice.
“I haven’t had sex since the last time we saw each other,” she confessed.
Brian cocked an eyebrow. “I’m surprised,” he said.
“It’s been nearly a year,” she said, poised to launch into an explanation. After all, it was impolite to show up at an ex-boyfriend’s door and expect sex without first explaining why.
He sat down in the middle of his living room couch (really a scratching post that seated three — Brian let his cat do anything, which was just one more reason Stacy couldn’t have lived with him). Brian leaned back, and crossed his legs. Great legs, made for flat-front khakis and Timberland boots. She pictured them naked, remembering the muscles bunching and relaxing as he walked around the apartment in shorts. Stacy moved toward him. Just a step. Before she could get any closer, a 20-pound marmalade cat leaped onto the couch and hissed protectively.
“Batty! Darling! How I’ve missed you,” she said to the gigantic orange tom who stole food off dinner plates, sprayed weekly in each corner of the apartment, spilled his water on the kitchen floor, and due to improper feeding, suffered from what the veterinarian politely referred to as gastric insult (more of an insult to the humans who lived with him).
Knowing her true feelings, Batty greeted Stacy with a violen
t spit and settled solidly on Brian’s lap as if intentionally blocking her access. Stacy smiled, tight-lipped, and sat down anyway. Brian said, “He’s lost some weight. I have him on a new diet. Three cans of tuna fish and twelve ounces of Evian a day.”
“It’s working wonders,” she lied. “Kitty low-carb. Best-selling diet books have been made of less.”
Brian pushed Batty away and leaned toward Stacy. Her heart started pumping again (if nothing more, these erotic stops and starts were salubrious for her heart). He said, “Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Your extreme horniness and how it’s brought you to me. Go on.”
Saying that grating H-word had a salacious effect on Brian. Stacy was well aware. That’s why she’d used it. “Do we have to talk about it? Can’t we do something about it instead?”
“But I’m sick,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Stacy Temple?” he asked.
The question stopped her from lunging. What had she done with Stacy Temple? With painful recognition, she saw herself as an automaton whose awkward groping for passion and affection had brought her right back to the man she’d rejected because all he ever wanted was passion and affection. She’d miscalculated terribly a year ago. He was a sweet, kind, handsome guy who loved her (once). Sitting in his warm presence, despite his slovenly appearance and runny nose, Stacy couldn’t understand why she’d broken up with him. If she sufficiently humbled herself, maybe he would love her again.
“I should have paid more attention to you, Brian,” she announced. “I can’t believe I let you go. I want another chance.”
“Stacy,” he started, “a lot has happened.”
“A lot has happened to me, too. That’s why I’m here. I’ve learned painful lessons, and I want to correct my mistakes.”
She leaned in to kiss him. He hesitated for a moment. Stacy feared she’d pressured him, or that he didn’t want her (impossible — he’d always told her she was his ideal). After she’d nibbled on his lips for a few seconds, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. The familiarity of his hug nearly made her cry. It felt safe, comfortable, easy. She needed a dose of easy. And she’d really meant what she said. If he’d have her back, she’d be stupid with happiness about it.
With a graceful reshuffling, Stacy put one leg over Brian and straddled him on the couch. She deftly lifted her dress over her head and sat upon him, nude save for her mules and underwear (on this day, she’d had the foresight to put on one of thongs.com’s most popular bra-and-panty sets: the pink lace Maid in the Meadow).
“God, Stace. Your body,” he said, and then began kissing her on the bra, burying his face between her breasts. He resurfaced to sniffle and wiped his nose on his sleeve. But Stacy wasn’t horrified. She’d take him sick, coughing, oozing. And he’d take her just as she was. Under his khakis, he was granite (reliable, predictable Brian). A powerful hard-on cloaked in cotton. Nothing could have been sexier to Stacy at that moment. She put her hand on the outline and pressed.
Brian lay back on the couch, pulling her on top of him. Mad kissing and feeling up. He put his hands inside her Maid in the Meadows for an ass grab. Stacy imagined an ice field cleaving, huge pieces of glacier breaking away and falling into the dark sea. Her year of abstinence and the weight of it sank out of reach. A lift, that was what it was. A lifting of repression and denial. She bobbed on top of Brian as if he were a life raft.
She struggled with the top button of his pants. They were decidedly tighter than she’d remembered, or she was out of practice. She had to sit up as he lay beneath her and work on it with two hands. Just as she’d sprung the button and moved to the zipper, a flash of orange flew by her eyes. Fur and unsheathed claws scrambled across Brian’s chest and her bare thighs.
Brian screamed; Stacy screamed. She looked down at the rips in Brian’s shirt and then at the four deep scratch marks on her legs, first white and then the slow surfacing of red blood.
Once Brian and Stacy recovered from the surprise of Batty’s sneak attack (the hurt came seconds after), she couldn’t understand why screams still filled the apartment. Brian seemed perplexed, too. The two of them turned toward the sound.
There, in the doorway, stood a woman. She was short and fair, with a blonde pageboy. She was cute, in a pug-nosed, preppy kind of way. She wore an “antiStacy” outfit — chinos and a mannish blazer over a cobalt blue Oxford shirt. Her hands reached to cup her cheeks, and she dropped a stuffed backpack, blue, on the floor. For a deluded second, Stacy thought she was screaming in pain from dropping such a heavy bundle on her foot. The shrieks were prolonged, ear piercing. This woman must have had some vocal training to sustain the volume. Brian pushed Stacy off him (causing her to tumble clumsily against the opposite arm of the couch).
He blinked and said, “Idit!”
Idit? Was he calling this woman an idiot? Before Stacy could hazard a guess, the small woman with the large lung capacity picked up the backpack and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.
“In my apartment!” she yelled before running out the open apartment door, slamming it as she left.
Her apartment? This had been Brian’s apartment for ten years. Who did this woman think she was?
Brian filled her in: “That was my fiancée, Idit Sholanstein.” He put the backpack on the couch between them.
Stacy used a pillow to cover her near nakedness. “Your fiancée,” she said, grappling with the news. “I practically begged you to take me back.”
“You’re my dream girl, Stace,” he said. “Idit wasn’t supposed to be home until late. I guess I should go after her.” Brian turned to look at Stacy, waiting for a cue. She had a choice here: She could 1) send him after his fiancée (the right thing to do), or 2) seduce him, ending her problem and his engagement in one swoop. But then she’d have to be his girlfriend again. From her new place on the other side of the couch, that suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. She looked squarely at Brian, whose eyes were searching her face (and examining her body) for direction.
“I’m not sure I want a relationship right now,” she said, fumbling. “I meant it when I said that I did, but now I’m not so sure.” She picked up her dress and put it on. “If only Idit had come in ten minutes later,” she said mournfully.
“I do love her,” said Brian. “But one look at you…”
“We went out for three years and never got close to being engaged,” she said. “How long have you been with Idit?”
“We met at vavoom.com, right after you dumped me.” Brian, formerly an engineer for Volvo America, worked as a designer for the simulation shareware game site. “We started as friends. I was depressed after our breakup. Idit comforted me, took care of me. I can’t imagine what I’d have done without her. She proposed to me. Last week. Bought herself a ring. The reason I never asked you to marry me is because I knew you wouldn’t have said yes. And I also know that you don’t really want to get back together with me. You just want to get laid. And I was up for it. I still am.” He pulled Stacy into his lap. “Idit will come back. I’ll make it right. But she has nothing to do with unfinished business between us.” He put his hand between her knees.
Could she go through with it, now that she knew he was engaged? A moral dilemma. She didn’t need the bad karma, that was for sure. But his fingers felt lovely on her skin and she did have this revirgination problem. If he was willing to compromise his engagement, why should she worry? Was it her responsibility to keep him in line? She wasn’t cheating on anyone. She didn’t even know this Idit.
Before Stacy could sink into Brian and his moral decline, Idit saved her own life. She slammed back into the apartment, picked up Stacy’s bag, pulled Stacy away from Brian, dragged her out of the apartment, down the hallway, into the elevator, out onto the street and halfway down the block.
As they neared the corner of 71st Street, Stacy shook herself loose. Her dress was sticking to the tacky blood on her thighs from that vicious ca
t’s attack. Her arm was smarting from Idit’s military grip (Stacy bruised easily; she was sure she’d have an unsightly mark in a few hours). And she very nearly broke another heel.
Idit, arms crossed over her mannish outfit, said, “I picked him up, cleaned him off, and carried him on my shoulders for nearly six months until he got you out of his system. He’s mine, and you’re not going to come along a year later and ruin everything I’ve been working toward.”
“I’m sorry. He didn’t tell me he was engaged,” protested Stacy weakly. Idit stared at her with unbridled hostility. “I know that apologizing won’t do much good. But I am genuinely sorry. Nothing happened. We’d only just started…”
“I’m glad Batty had the sense to try and stop you.”
Hateful cat, thought Stacy. “May I…look, Brian is just confused. We, uh, it just happened.”
“I don’t care what you did or why you did it,” said Idit, with the precision of a scalpel. “I want to get married. Brian is going to be my husband no matter who he sleeps with. I’ve been working for this, and I’ll achieve my goal.”
That sounded strangely cold and impersonal. Stacy felt a swell of protectiveness for Brian. “You love him, of course.”
“Yes, yes, I love him. I chose him,” said Idit. “And I believe that he loves me. But even if he doesn’t, he sees enough good in me or what I do for him that he’s agreed to spend the rest of his life as my husband.”
“Forgive me for saying, but you don’t seem like a terribly warm and tender sort. Brian needs a lot of cuddling and hand-holding.” The reasons Stacy had to end it with him, she thought.
“Forgive me for saying,” countered Idit, “but I’m not inclined to show my warm and tender side to the woman who just tried to seduce my fiancé. And you don’t have to worry about Brian. I know exactly what he needs.” She turned on the flat heels of her Hush Puppies and headed back toward her future. She was about 10 feet from Stacy when she looked over her shoulder and said, “We’ll never see each other again.”
The Accidental Virgin Page 6
