Thinking about how much I missed cupcakes made me cry even harder.
My phone rang and buzzed in my hand. An unknown number blinked up from the screen. I tried to stifle the hiccupping sobs, but I just couldn’t, “Hello?” I sniffed into the phone.
“Hello?” Jake’s deep voice questioned back. What the hell was Jake Ryan calling me for?
“How’d you get my number?” I asked, rudely, sobbing.
“You left me a voicemail the other night after your drunken binge and gave me your number. You told me to ‘call you for a good time.’ That offer still good?” he joked.
The sniffles came out faster and louder. Great. The hits just kept coming.
“Jake, I’m sorr—” I tried to apologize, but the tears were running rampant down my face.
“Hey, hey. I’m glad you left me your number… and the picture… it’s not that bad. Really. It’s got like twelve hundred likes so far. That’s a good thing.”
“That’s not why I’m crying,” I sniffed.
“Damn. Is it my Jag?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but laugh, “Shut up, it’s not about your stupid, beautiful Jag!”
“So…” his voice hesitated, “what’s with the tears?”
“The cheater just called me, because he saw the picture.”
He sighed into the phone, “Was he angry?”
“No! He said that was the girl he fell in love with, and he wanted that girl back!”
“Seriously?” he asked.
“No, Jake. I’m lying. I just like sitting here and crying and making up stories,” I snapped. I ran my hand over my face in frustration. “Damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap, I’m just upset.”
“No worries, I get it. Just do me a favor. Don’t go chasing love and attention and respect. If he isn’t going to give it willingly to you, it’s really not worth having then.”
“What the Hell? Are you quoting inspirational memes?” I chuckled, drying my tears with my fingertips. “I’m not going back to him, Jake, I can’t. I’d see them screwing every time I looked at him. I can’t put myself through that, he’s not worth it.”
There was another small hesitation in his voice, “Do you and Ang need any money?”
“No. Why the hell would you ask me that question?” I asked.
“Chris… How are you paying for this trip?”
“See some wives get cheated on, and they rip their husband’s balls right off and run with them. But me? The 3.5 inches of my husband I took with me on this trip is in the shape of his Mastercard and Visa.”
“Really?” he asked, laughing.
“Really,” I answered.
“He doesn’t realize you’re charging everything yet?”
I laughed darkly into the phone, “Scott never paid a bill in his life. I did everything. The man doesn’t even know which bank is the one that holds the mortgage to the house. In a few months, he’s going to really understand how much he depended on me.”
“Jesus… so what was that Facebook picture about?” he asked.
“Your sister dragged me to a Capper-Crapper-Cum loudly party. And for the first time in years, I decided to participate in the party festivities instead of the usual—locking myself in a bathroom, reading off the Kindle App on my phone.”
“What else happened at this party?” I could just about hear his smile through the phone.
“My memory is a bit hazy,” I laughed. Shit, this man was making me laugh.
“Hmmm,” he hummed into the phone. “I’m on your profile right now, and there’s a few interesting pictures here. There’s even one of some twenty-year-old with his tongue down your throat.”
“Mmmm,” I hummed right back. “I vaguely remember a few hugs, sloppy wet kisses with tongues, a bit of inappropriate groping and flashes of boobs. Jealous?”
There was a small pause on the other end of the phone. Then a chuckled, “Maybe.”
“You wish you were at some Frat party kissing some hot young guy?” I wandered through the gardens onto the patio of the small outside bar, right off the lobby of the hotel. The bartender nodded at me and smiled as I sat down on a stool and snagged a handful of peanuts from the countertop.
“Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” he laughed.
I chuckled along with him as I popped the nuts into my mouth and chomped.
“What are you munching on? Aren’t you supposed to be in some sort of diet competition with Ang?” he asked.
“Shut up, who the hell are you, the calorie police?” I laughed, bouncing my foot along to the beat of the low music on the patio. “And we’re not competing.”
“Ha!” he laughed into my phone. “That’s what you think. Have you met my sister?”
“We’re doing great, stop teasing. We even have a reservation tomorrow for our first pole-dancing lesson for our exercise here in the middle of nowhere.”
I heard his quick intake of breath, “Did you say pole-dancing?”
“Yes,” I said low. “Freaked out thinking about the words pole-dancing and your sister in the same sentence?”
“My sister wasn’t the one I was thinking about.”
Squinting our eyes in the bright setting sun, Ang and I stared at the shabby back-alley shop. Five stories of dark purple cloth-covered windows rose above us. The peeling red letters that spelled out Kinked over the door were the only indication we were at the right address.
A tinkling bell sounded above our heads as we stepped into the shop. The inside was crammed from ceiling to floor with sex toys. Aisles of debauchery-filled shelves traveled maze-like through the store. People milled about in the small passageways, whispering and peeking up under bowed heads and half hooded lashes. We climbed up four floors stocked full of porn, inflatable body parts, and an insane amount of vibrators that if turned on all at once would most definitely get the plates of earth to shift and rotate, possibly causing the greatest earthquake known to man. It’d been so long, that if that happened, I’d sit spread-eagle on the floor, bracing excitedly for the climax of my life.
We passed giant sized dildos, and there may or may not have been at least five minutes of positioning rubbery, floppy dildos at the base of our pelvises and competing in a sword fight. I won. I was positive that at some point another picture would make it to Facebook, but I’d deal with it then. We weren’t there to pick up sex toys, though we left with three bags each. We were there to conquer our next big thing.
The strip pole.
On the last landing of the spiraling staircase at the end of the hallway was an enormous dance studio. A floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall mirrored room would be the host to our basic ‘Booty’ Camp workout, learning how to pole dance.
All along the hallway, we stared starry-eyed at the selection of stripper apparatuses laid out in front of us. Stilettos, sequins, and leather and lace. “This is terrifying,” Ang whispered, tilting her head toward me.
“Absolutely mortifying. But…” I held my finger up and pointed at a stunning pair of silky black panties. “This is my body, and I want to take back control of it, and I want to learn how to move and feel good in it no matter what size I am. Because my size shouldn’t matter if I’m happy with who I am.”
Size doesn’t matter. My new mantra.
“If size doesn’t matter how come none of those dildos come in a three-inch size and crooked?” Ang giggled, pulling down a pair of tassels and raising them over the front of her shirt.
I felt my eyes widen as I nudged her and pointed to the exact same rhinestone cooch stickers that Scott’s hooch wore. “And based on the disturbing popularity of these rhinestone twat stickers, I think I’m going to create a new genre of erotic literature: Jewel-erotica. Obviously there’s some weird unmet need in the world for it.”
Ang shrugged her shoulders, “Dino-erotica, zombie-erotica, it’s all out there. Jewel-erotica might be the next big thing.”
“That dino-erotica sells better than most of my books anyway. T-rex sex must be pretty
animalistic,” I joked.
“Maybe, T-rex sex is the kind of sex I’ve been having. You know, extinct,” Angelisa quipped, making me laugh harder.
“We do hold a large variety of reptilian skin suits. And our biggest fetish products here are the furry suits,” a woman called from behind us.
Well, then. “Ummm. Thanks. I now feel like there’s a whole entire alternate universe of sexuality that I’m not aware of, and it will further scar me from jumping right back into the dating scene again.”
Wonderful.
The woman then pulled out a costume that resembled the Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger character, scaring me into never eating cereal again. “Yeah. That’s grrrreat!” I cringed.
In a back dressing room right behind the studio, Ang and I slapped our slut apparatus on. A pair of four-inch stilettos and a faux leather body suit that promised to not cause slippage on pole. We were both surprised that the costumes—or uniforms—came in our size. But neither of us needed the biggest size, nor the next size down. Apparently, many women much bigger than us were pole-twirling and sexy-girling.
Ang and I had to help each other balance as we walked out of the dressing area. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I wore shoes that high. I’m going to pretend we didn’t fall—twice. Or that it didn’t take us a full ten minutes to stand back up and stop laughing to discover that we were late for class.
Before our lesson began, we were instructed to spray down the pole with Windex. “This shit isn’t going to kill 99.9% of the slippery coochy germs on here. I’m having second thoughts,” Ang giggled as she wiped down the pole next to mine, grimacing like she might contact an SPTD (Stripper Pole Transmitted Disease).
I twirled around the pole, and my hand slipped right off, causing me to stumble forward. I caught myself and jutted my bottom out to make Ang laugh. “Hey, does this pole make my ass look fat?”
The curvy instructor, actually much curvier than I would have predicted, laughed. “Are we finally ready ladies?”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready. All my jiggly parts were stuffed into a skin suit that made me look like a fat-assed walrus, and I was supposed to learn how to twerk and hump myself up a pole. Ready wasn’t the word I would use. “Seriously though, how much weight could this pole take?” I asked, because there was a real possibility of a major construction accident if my twerks took the pole down.
“Yeah… you got mine connected to some support beams—that are cemented down—right?” Angelisa asked the instructor. Then her eyes narrowed on mine, “She’s lost a little more weight than I, so I’m a little nervous.”
“A freaking pound! One. Damn. Pound. And I ate back at least three with that bag of M&Ms!” I lifted my finger and poked it toward her, “And don’t think I don’t know that you’ve been getting me whole milk in my coffee and slipping the fattening salad dressing my way. I’m onto you! You competitive freak job.”
“Ladies…” the instructor warned as Ang grumbled under her breath about how much of I bitch I was for eating M&Ms in front of her. That woman could hold a grudge forever.
“Never mind our stupidity.” I pointed my index finger and waved it in huge circles at myself, “All these curves are dangerous. Will I tear the ceiling down?”
“Not a possibility.”
“And will it be possible to take some filthy pictures to send to my ex-husband? To show him what he’s missing?” I winked.
“Ladies, before we even begin the lessons and exercises. You both need to stare at yourselves in that mirror and tell me, verbalize, your strengths. What makes you sexy?” She strolled between the two of us like a drill sergeant with sex appeal. This woman could strut and accentuate her assets with one sexy swing of the hip and shimmy of her ass.
“Are you serious?” Angelisa asked, her eyes wide.
“Dead serious!” she said, nodding.
“Being sexy is way more than looking sexy. It even goes beyond feeling sexy. It’s knowing how sexy you really are.” She closed in on me. “You’re only as sexy as you know you are. How sexy are you?”
Giggling, Ang said, “Not very.”
Sighing, Sexy Sergeant said, “You ladies need to start focusing on the hot, the sexy, the women I see in this mirror.”
After some very embarrassing confidence and ego-boosting exercises, we were ready to begin the lesson. After telling my reflection how much I liked my boobs and how great my hair was without ever really looking in the mirror, it was time to start grinding on a pole—which was a lot less humiliating.
I couldn’t stop laughing, so I did what I do best—joke around. “I’m dry humping a pole. This is the most action I’ve had all year.” I jumped a foot up the pole and slid down with a loud sharp squeak of skin. Hello, Gravity. “At least I have a pretty face and a great sense of humor,” I quipped.
The instructor smiled and patted me on the shoulder, “You can do this. You can do anything. Just try.”
“Yeah, I figure if the writing gig doesn’t work, I can always set one of these up in an assisted living home for the elderly and hold Bingo/Pole shows. I’m hoping for a huge senior following—seniors with cataracts and glaucoma.”
The instructor laughed and started us out with some stretches. Then, we were told to stand up, grip the pole, and strut around it like we owned it. I took a deep breath, grabbed that fear in the palm of my hand and crinkled it up like it was nothing and blew it away with a soft exhale. Screw it, let’s do it. If the Oxford Dictionary people could put the work twerk in the dictionary, then I could at least try to make my fat ass do it.
An upbeat hypnotic song filled the room and boom.
We were pole dancing.
Booty-bouncing. (Not an earthquake to be felt)
Pussy-popping. (This caused to me come up with an entire series of erotic books.)
Pelvic-rolling. (Shakira ain’t got nothin’ on me)
Twerktastic pole dancing.
“That’s it ladies. Work those asses!” The instructor purred. “Now hold the pole in front of you and squat low.” She did the movements as she called them out. “Get low and pop your booty up and down. That’s it, girlfriends. Pump your pussy in and out. That’s it, that’s real good.”
When all was said and done in the class, I realized the hard part wasn’t the dancing and bending or gyrating. It was watching your own reflection, eye to eye, in the mirror. And learning to feel sexy in whatever skin you’re in.
And, I couldn’t do it.
I wasn’t ready to do that—not yet, anyway.
For the next two weeks, in that small Nebraska town, after class each night when Angelisa soaked in the bath, I shoved myself in the dark hotel closet with my computer. At ten o’clock every night on the screen of my FaceTime App, I’d find Jake Ryan staring back at me, smiling.
“Hey,” he said.
I waved and smiled, brushing the mess of hair out of my face. “Hey,” I whispered, afraid to have Ang hear me talking to her brother. If she knew what I had asked of him, she’d be so upset with me, but he was the only guy I could talk to about this stuff. One, I really didn’t know him. Two, he was safe, because he was Ang’s brother and completely off limits to me even though we innocently flirted (I knew he was just trying to make me feel better about myself and I appreciated it. It was good practice receiving compliments and accepting them from him.). And finally, he was the only single guy I knew; he dated all the time. I asked him for advice on what guys our age wanted and how to date—in your forties. The things I never had to think about since I was married. Was.
I took a sip of water and asked, “How was your day?”
“What the Hell are you drinking?” he asked, mortified.
“Water…” I answered.
“Water? That’s a water bottle? It’s in the shape of a dick—a big, giant dick.”
“Yeah, I bought it at the sex shop,” I said, waving it in front of the screen.
He laughed, “How are the… ummm… dance classes going?”
&n
bsp; “Oh, my God. You’re a grown man, and you can’t say pole-dancing?”
His cheeks actually reddened, and he looked away shaking his head. “Why are you doing all this stuff? What are you going to find doing stuff like this?”
“I’m finding where I put my smile, Jake. My laughter. My fearlessness, because honestly, they’ve been gone way too long,” I admitted. I’d gotten so comfortable with him during our secret conversations. I didn’t care what I said in front of him anymore.
“You going to give all that back to your husband when you get home from this?” he asked, curious and concerned. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, like they typically did.
“Hell no. He doesn’t get any of the new stuff. He gave me the best years of his life, but his best sucked. God, they sucked,” I said, shifting and moving my laptop. “Now I’m on to the best years of mine. But the dance lessons are great. It’s one Hell of a workout. And honestly, it makes me feel… sexy.”
“Yeah? Sexy, huh? I can imagine,” he grinned sexily—the smile reaching well beyond his eyes.
“Can you? Imagine?”
Yeah. He was teaching me how to flirt again. Maybe that was something I should have kept up in my marriage, flirting with my husband.
Twitter: Take the plunge and ride the broken shaft. Pete yanks his meat for feet. Yak splat ain’t all that.
God, it feels so good. Oh wow, it’s… it’s so hard, so stiff. I’m almost there… almost. “Mom, I need you,” Evan bellows from the other room. Sighing, I un-suction the plunger from the hardwood floor, sticking it under my arm as I walk to see what Evan needs, making sure it comes with me wherever I go.
#TripleX Page 17
