Can't Help the Way That I Feel

by Lori Bryant-Woolridge

  Three months before the party, I had reconstructive surgery, and tonight I was alive and well and standing at the top of my staircase dressed in a boob-busting outfit that put the sin in sensuality. It was so not me, being a woman whose daily uniform consists of jeans and white silk tops of varying styles, but Jasi had insisted the attire went with the theme. And that night, after my afternoon of unintentional, mind-blowing self-service, it definitely fit my mood.

  “Ladies, raise your glasses to Livia Charles and the twins, Boobie and Licious!” Jasi called out.

  Apparently having a friend with cancer makes one crazy.

  I heard my musical cue, the tacky beat of a stripper’s snare drum (another of Jasi’s bright ideas), sucked in my cheeks and stomach and started my sorry interpretation of the supermodel walk—that awkward pony strut that Naomi Campbell makes look so ridiculously sexy. With my counterfeit golden gait, I proudly sashayed my nubile young breasts, followed by my much less perky, almost-fifty behind, into the roomful of nine cheering friends.

  “Well, isn’t she a showboating fool today,” Caroline chimed in, laughing as I made my descent. “You’re awfully frisky tonight, Missy.”

  “Yes, she is. Did you get some today? Did you already break in the girls?” Jasi called out.

  Through the catcalls, whistles and applause, I managed to get down the stairs and into the living room without tripping. I did a couple of runway turns and then fell to the couch with a burst of laughter. Immediately, the women pounced. I had more fingers and hands poking and prodding my breasts than a stripper at a bachelor party. The consensus was that the twins not only looked great, but felt close enough to the genuine thing for me to be immensely proud of them.

  “Time for gifts,” Suzette announced as she led me over to my appointed guest-of-honor chair and proceeded to further embarrass me by tying a pink bra under my chin. The cups were decorated with streamers and ribbons and formed twin peaks on my head. I looked like some kind of sorry medieval advertisement for Victoria’s Secret. I left it on long enough for them to take blackmail pictures, and then, amid a chorus of boos, removed it and stuffed it under the chair.

  Did I mention that I am not spotlight material?

  “We felt the girls needed adornment,” Jasi declared before handing me a small black gift bag.

  I reached in, shaking my head in anticipation of the sick joke I knew awaited me. Crazy Jasi did not disappoint. To her delight and that of my other twisted friends, I pulled from the bag a pair of red tasseled pasties and matching sheer red thong.

  “If you’re going to have stripper boobs, you need the right outfit,” she said, amid everyone’s laughter.

  Moving on….

  Suzette’s gift was a racy demi-cup concoction of sheer black lace adorned with pink bows. For the next fifteen minutes, I opened box after box containing beautiful bras (and most included matching panties) of varying styles, colors and fabrics but with one recurring theme—all were the extreme opposite of the sensible basics that currently occupied my lingerie drawer, the sexier the better.

  “Game time,” Jasi announced as Caroline and Suzette cleared away my gifts and brought out a fresh round of my favorite cocktail—rosé champagne.

  I groaned as I accepted pen and paper with a wry smile. This was bound to be interesting if not totally embarrassing.

  “Okay, Livi, pick one from each pair. Lucy or Ethel. Polish or Italian. Leather or lace. Battery or solar. Brangelina or Tomkat.”

  I wrote. The others drank and watched.

  “Okay, now answer these,” Jasi continued. “The room I hate to clean most is blank, and why? My favorite place to shop is…? And lastly, pick one: Beyoncé or Jay-Z?”

  I quickly jotted down my answers with little consideration. Better to get this over with as fast as possible than dally over an answer that in the long run didn’t really matter.

  “Now let’s see what we’ve learned about our lovely Livi,” Caroline said, taking my answers. “I’ll just substitute a few words here and there to make things more interesting.

  “Hello, my name is Livia. You’ve met the twins, Boobie and Licious, and now I’d like to introduce, Ethel,” she said while Jasi gave my crotch the game-show girl, double hand point.

  The female roar rivaled that of a Denzel sighting. I cringed. First of all, anyone who knew me would know I’d never name my body parts, especially my vagina. That was like putting clothes on a dog—cute but pointless. And secondly, if I were to name it, you could bet it wouldn’t be a moniker that sounded like Grandma’s coochie.

  Caroline continued.

  “My ‘sausage’ of choice is Polish because Ethel likes her kielbasas big and wrapped in lace. I prefer my sex toys solar operated, and the idea of a threesome with Brangelina turns me on. I hate having sex in the bathroom because it’s messy and you have to do it every week, but I’d love to lick Beyoncé’s ice-cream cone while Jay-Z watches.”

  This time the spontaneous tingle in my panties caused me to smile. Caroline’s joke brought the hot thrill of my pseudo- group sex scene rushing back into my mind. For a hot second, Coco and Beyoncé were one. I felt the release of arousal and crossed my legs to stop the wet heat from spreading through my body. This was all too confusing. I am definitely a hundred percent penis girl, but ever since today’s matinee, girl-on-girl action topped the hot meter. The flush must have showed on my face because the next thing I knew, Jasi was calling me out.

  “Livia, are you okay? Looks like the thought of tasting Beyoncé’s ice cream has you all hot and bothered. Look at her smiling. Livi, are you turned on?”

  More teasing howls. I buried my head in my hands. Yes, it was a joke, but talking about my sex life in public was embarrassing. Hell, the ex and I had rarely talked about it in private. That’s why I’d decided not to tell Suzette, Jasi and Caroline about what had happened that afternoon. I didn’t want to be teased about it or have it come up at some inappropriate time. I wanted to keep it private, my own delicious secret that I could pull up and savor in the privacy of my own fantasies.

  “Move on,” I insisted, blaming my pinkish tint on the champagne.

  “Livia, you are such a prude,” Suzette teased. “Don’t you dare waste that fabulous new rack of yours on baking cupcakes day and night. Promise you will take the twins out on lots of playdates.”

  “In other words, it’s time for you to really do the whole la dolce vita thing,” Jasi chimed in. “And that includes taking your no-sex-havin’ self out to the club and getting into all kinds of yummy trouble. I’ll bet you’ve never had a one-night stand, have you?”

  I shot her my practiced, slit-eyed, you’re-kidding-me, right? look.

  “Come on, Jasi, Livia doesn’t even own a vibrator. Do you think she’s going to have sex with a man she just met?” Suzette asked.

  “When and where does she meet any men? She’s always up to her armpits in flour. We have to start her off slow,” Caroline added.

  “You need a fuck-it list,” Jasi announced.

  “A what?” I asked for all of us.

  “A fuck-it list—like a bucket list—but instead of being about sky diving or climbing Mt. Everest before you die, it’s a list of all the sex stuff you’d like to try before your pussy dries up,” Jasi explained.

  The squeal of approval nearly shattered my chandelier.

  “Girl, let those fabulous hooters be the start of a new, sexy, sensual you. Promise that before your next birthday, you’ll put on one of those pretty new bras you just got and let some sexy, handsome stranger peel it off of you while the night is still young and the bubbly still cold.”

  “That’s right. Preach, Jasi,” Caroline said as she stuck out her left hand and crooked her little finger. The blue diamond ring that she, Suzette, Jasi and I all bought and wore as a sign of our lifelong friendship sparkled in the light. “Pinky swear right now in front of all the women here whom you love and who love you back, that before your fiftieth birthday rolls around, you will have compiled you
r fuck-it list with at least ten entries of those deep, dark sexual fantasies you keep safely locked up in your imagination, and made them come true.”

  “Ten?” I asked in open-mouthed disbelief.

  “Let’s get real,” Suzanne interrupted. “Make a list of ten and fulfill at least one.”

  I hesitated. We were all pretty serious about the pinky swear. Once given, there was no taking it back. I took in a deep breath and let out a noisy exhale before extending my hand. Nervous excitement bubbled up from my toes and through my body causing a wide but shaky smile to break out across my face.

  What the hell! Cancer makes you bold, right? Plus, in reality I’d already fulfilled my promise. None of these women could argue that getting off in the hallway of a stranger’s house while watching a sexy thigh in a yellow leather chair masturbate to the celluloid sight of an interracial couple of lesbians did not qualify as a genuine act of sexual outrageousness. Knowing I had them beat, I laughed aloud, reached out and hooked my diamond-encircled little finger into Caroline’s.

  “I swear that within the next six months I will find some, as Jasi says, yummy trouble to get into.”

  “To Livia!” Jasi exclaimed as everyone picked up her champagne flute, “as she works to find her inner freak.”

  I raised my glass with the others, annoyed that I now had to do something to fulfill my promise, when I already knew that my inner freak did indeed exist. Two questions remained, however. One, could I coax her out again or had she packed up her marbles and gone home for good? And two, did I even want to come out and play again?

  The Fuck-It List

  Suzette, Jasi and Caroline had done such a great job of cleaning up after the party that there was nothing left for me to do but pour myself another glass of champagne, gather up my lacy loot and take myself upstairs to unwind. This had been a crazy-ass day and I needed some quiet time to wrap my mind around everything that had happened. I wanted to review (and revel in a little bit) my behavior at my client’s home, but the echo of female voices filled my head with an incessant barrage of unsolicited commentary.

  You’re such a prude...your no-sex-havin’ self…yummy trouble…one-night stand…doesn’t even own a vibrator…start her slow…you’re such a prude…prude…prude…

  Wait a minute. Prudes don’t do what you did this afternoon, a voice from deep down within chimed in.

  Ignoring the voice, I slipped out of my rhinestone-encrusted halter dress and into Jenny’s gift of a velvet balcony bra. And in yet another atypical move, I padded over to the mirror for a head-to-toe inspection. For me, the large mirror was merely a feng shui decorating move. I never looked at myself in a full-length mirror with more than a passing glance while fully dressed, so standing in front of one seminude was a rare happening, and doing so completely in the buff a non event.

  But tonight I wanted to see…well, me.

  Even knocking on the door of my fifth decade, the demigods in charge of aging had been kind. My face was relatively unlined and despite a few little age spots around my eyes and a couple of pores on my nose that you could plant tulips in, it kept secret my true age. Every feature of my youth—my pouty mouth, pug nose and almond-shaped brown eyes—still hung together in a pleasing, deserves-a-second-look mosaic and now their collective beauty was highlighted by the wise glow that comes with life experience. My shoulder-length hair, still untainted by gray, was full of healthy layers that framed my face like mahogany fingers.

  I did a slow pirouette in the mirror. Dressed as I was in a hot bra and my usual Fruit of the Loom granny panties, the visual before me was definitely a tale of two biddies: hot chick versus old babe. A classic good news, bad news scenario. The good news was my bust, which, showcased in this up-and-at’em, fuchsia-colored bra, was freakin’ spectacular. The new girls were perky and upright, and because I had the best plastic surgeon on earth, looked totally natural and not like someone had super-glued half a cantaloupe on each side of my chest.

  The bad news was also my bust. This set of knockers looked out of place on the rest of my nearly half-a-century-old body. My new boobs were now part of a premenopausal, size-eight torso that on any given day fluctuated to a size ten just because it felt like it. I dropped my drawers to the floor, turned to inspect the rear view and cringed. From the front, I was a hot-tie; from the back, a total nottie. My breasts no longer drooped, but my cellulite-kissed butt sure did. Definitely too much time had been spent taste-testing cake batter and not enough doing crunches.

  Note to self, I thought, add a gym membership to your “fifty and fabulous” birthday list.

  I was soft. A comfortable, rumpled bed at the end of a hard day kind of soft, but soft nonetheless. But you know what? My friends didn’t lie. I was still kind of sexy. And as a compliment, I blew myself a coy and campy kiss, which made me laugh. And then for some unexplainable reason, I started imitating the looks of erotic bliss I’d seen this morning on the wall of Naomi Maddox’s den. I slowly licked my top lip like I’d seen Coco do and released a seductive ooh. I closed my eyes and with open, welcoming lips, let my head fall back with an aroused moan just like Nilla had done while Coco had sucked her nipples. Before I knew it, I was in the throes of a hot and heavy When Harry Met Sally meets Debbie Does Dallas display of faux-orgasmic delight. Feeling silly and spent, I climbed back in bed, confused by my feelings.

  The orgasm might have been fake, but the desire it stirred up in me definitely was not. I was horny. Again. Still. And not just your run-of-the-mill horny, I’m talking Maxwell, “Til the Police Come Knocking” horny. Barry White, “Deeper and Deeper” horny. I was craving sex tonight more strongly than I had ever craved it before in all of my copulatory life. And this wasn’t longing that stemmed from two years of mere lack. This was different, more raw, more urgent; less quick fix and more long-term satisfaction kind of desire.

  You had sex for years but never with any real passion, my inner diva announced.

  Jasi and the girls were right about me. I was a no-sex-havin’ so-and-so whose vagina should be named Ethel for all the action she got. But I didn’t want to be an Ethel anymore. I wanted to feel hot and sexy now and always, just like I had all day after bringing myself to orgasm within earshot of a stranger. I wanted a bold, confident, bad-girl vagina. A vagina named Suzy, Lola or Sadie—a vagina that was powerful and sexual and knew what it wanted and took it.

  Start with the fuck-it list, I decided. A list that would fulfill my promise to my girlfriends and at the same time set my inhibitions free.

  Purposefully, I sashayed down the hall to my office and sat Ethel down. From the drawer, I pulled out the pink-and-black flocked journal Caroline had given me for Christmas. It seemed an appropriate journal for this particular inventory. I thought for a moment and quickly realized that first things being first, I needed to make two lists—both personal, but one more defining than the other. I pondered for a bit and then, under the heading of Livia’s Sexy Sidekick, added names that in one word, exuded sensuality and sexiness.

  Livia’s Sexy Sidekick

  4. Quincy

  Lola I liked a lot. I thought of the song, “Whatever Lola Wants,” and while partial to the message, it sounded way too cliché, so I eliminated her. Tina, my inspiration being the incredibly sexy and timeless Ms. Turner, didn’t quite do it either. I didn’t have that raw, smoky sensuality and no matter how hard I tried, never would. Suzy sounded way too sexy girl next door. Trixie was too “The Honeymooners,” and Sophia, while it conjured up the hot, molto sexy Italian legend, sounded too sophisticated for me. I needed a handle that, when called, felt familiar, but spoke to a different part of me. The sexy, adventurous part of me.

  It took me twenty minutes, but after careful consideration, my vagina had a first name—it was Q-U-I-N-C-Y, and I had a whole new attitude. Quincy sounded like a modern, fun, adventurous and mischievous lover. Everything I desired to be.

  It was getting late, but I wasn’t sleepy. I decided to move my required list-making task to the bat
htub. I drew a warm bath, adding green tea-scented bath salts to the water. The hot water, mixed with the salts, released a calming, steady stream of earthy smelling scent into the air. With candles ablaze, Michael Bublé singing in the background and a fresh flute of champagne sitting on the edge, I sat back and relaxed into the water, surrendering my hang-ups and unleashing my imagination for the task ahead.

  Drying my hands and picking up my journal, I titled this list: What Would Quincy Do? But once that was done, I had no idea where to start. I quickly drained the glass of champagne and let the buzz go to my head to pry loose whatever sexual fantasies were there hiding behind a lifetime of appropriate and ladylike behavior.

  I thought about conversations I’d had about sex with my friends, about sex scenes in movies and books that I’d enjoyed and that had turned me on. Fueled by champagne and pent-up frustrations, I let that inspiration move my pen. And before I knew it, Quincy had quite a fuck-it list awaiting her.

  There were nine action items on my WWQD list, and one to go, but the now tepid bathwater was killing my champagne buzz and slowing the creative flow. I put the journal down and turned on the hot water, making a sensual game out of directing the warm water over my shoulders and bosom. The strong cravings I’d felt earlier, strengthened by my concentration on erotic ideas, were back with a vengeance. I needed relief. And with no man in sight, that left the job up to me.

  With Michael Bublé’s sexy Rat Pack voice begging me to tell him, “Quando, Quando, Quando,” (when, when, when) in the background, I reached for the bottle of sesame body oil. I tipped it slightly over my body, letting the warm oil drizzle down the full and fleshy mounds on my chest. For the first time since my surgery, I manually inspected my breasts with carnal intent, experiencing their nubile firmness with proud excitement. Did my natural set ever feel this firm or look this sexy? No longer incubators of disease, they were brand-new and more-lethal-than-ever weapons of mass seduction. And for the first time, they felt like a true part of me. As the earthy scent seduced my nasal passages, I cupped my breasts with both hands, gently pushed them together and watched as one thick fragrant drop traveled down my left breast and hung clinging to its tip. I captured the drop on my fingertip and slowly massaged it into the nipple, feeling the slightest bit of sensation. I pinched harder, applying more pressure as they began to swell under the slippery smoothness of my oily fingers. They were definitely not uber-sensitive as they’d been before surgery, but in my book, any sensation at all was a good thing.