by Anne Marsh
“She went to Bali.” Lola dumps some stuff into my cart. “When she came back, she re-created her hotel room because she’d had such an awesome time. Most people take photos or buy a T-shirt. She bought a Balinese bed. In Bali. It required a shipping container on a cargo ship to bring it back to San Francisco.”
“So?”
“She could have bought a cheaper, look-alike bed here, but she wanted the real deal. A Bali bed from Bali. Maple is an overcommitter.”
And again...so?
Lola sighs, so clearly I’m the problem here. “She’s all in when she loves something—or someone. Her bed is the biggest, most ginormous, out-of-place bed I’ve ever seen crammed into a studio. She had to drag it up the stairs one piece at a time. She didn’t quit.”
“Is that the kind of bed with posts?” I mime the sticking-up bits. “Because if so, I want one of those. Think of the promo shoots I could host for Kinkster, with tied-up people.”
Lola groans. “Never mind. Don’t share your dirty thoughts with me.”
“Right. No talking business.” I save the cart to look at later.
Lola waves toward the ocean. You can’t see it until you’re leaning over the edge of the minicliff where my house perches, but there’s a staircase to a private beach. “Are you coming down?”
“Maybe later.”
Lola sticks her tongue out at me. “Rapunzel.”
She darts out of the house so that she can have the last word, disappearing down the staircase to the beach. She’s the silver lining to a bad piece of business for Dev. When his hookup stole his software and illegally posted it on a freelancing site for five bucks, Lola bought it. Dev went rampaging after her of course, determined to exact vengeance, but then he fell in lust—and now he claims to be in love. Jack’s been off the market for years. Out of the three of us, in fact, I’m the only single guy left.
She’s right. It’s funny. I’ve always been happy hooking up before. I’ve never wanted more. And I don’t now, I tell myself. It’s just Maple I want. I kind of, sort of want to know more about the nonnaked parts of Maple, the parts she’s never, ever shown the world.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Max
ADRIFT IN WONDERLAND, Alice chose to believe in five impossible things before breakfast.
I’m an engineer.
I believe in facts.
Fact #1: Maple has never asked me to text her. Not once in the twelve days since I met her.
Fact #2: Maple has never texted me herself—and she has my number.
Fact #3: I suck at texting.
Fact #4: She just broke up with her long-term, rat bastard boyfriend and she deserves the unicorn of the dating world.
That unicorn would be Mr. Perfect, a Ken doll and happily-ever-after rolled into one hot, muscled package that adores her, her family, her pets and every quirky thing about her. In other words: not me.
All I have to do to remind myself of my inability to string together words is scroll through my non-work-related texts from the last week. There aren’t many—a pizza coupon and a reminder to put out the trash cans on Tuesday for pickup. Am I up for tacos? Yes. Surf Saturday? Where? I prefer communication to be both short and clear. Why waste time when you could be doing instead? Instead of taking a girl out for dinner and then forcing myself to engage in small talk, I hook up.
Still, I can’t stop myself from imagining what Maple might be doing right now. In fact (har har), I don’t even have to imagine her because I have the video of her dancing in the club saved on my phone. I replay it for the seventeenth time because watching Maple move is making this my favorite Sunday morning ever. I know by heart each dip her body makes to the music pounding around her. The way her hips find the beat and her arms rise as she turns. Something started between us when she exploded into my office a week ago. She may be ignoring the chemistry between us, as if the lack of words can put out what we feel or make us into friends or fuck buddies or some other neat label. Somehow my fingers fly over the screen, pulling up her contact info and tapping out two little letters: Hi. As soon as my thumb slides off the send button, however, I know I’ve made a mistake.
Hi? Why don’t I just text hey while I’m at it?
Embarrassed, I stare down at my phone, mentally willing Maple’s cell phone provider to have some kind of catastrophic server meltdown that will erase her messages from the last sixty seconds. The odds of that happening are low, so I’m weighing the odds of hacking in when my phone pings.
What’s up?
Okay. That’s a question and a question deserves a response, right? Not much. Lying on couch.
A long pause follows, during which I suspect she’s lost interest, but then she types back: Pretty tame for a billionaire?
Gave the private pilot the night off, I text back.
She responds almost immediately: You have a private plane for real?
Timeshare.
This time the pause stretches out until I get tired of waiting for her response. Fuck taking turns. Does my partial plane ownership mean you no longer respect me?
I haven’t checked my personal Kinkster app in a while. I pull it up while I wait for Maple to respond. I have 312 hookup requests, but strangely I don’t feel like looking at any of them. Or maybe it’s an abundance of riches. Or laziness.
Is it possible to be too lazy for sex?
The ping of an incoming text has me drooling like Pavlov’s dog.
Does that mean you get tipped out a third of the way to Paris?
I grin down at my phone.
Come with me and find out?
There’s a pause, and then: HAHA. Goodnight Max.
* * *
One text leads to another, and then somehow over the next two weeks we fall into a pattern. I don’t know what’s happening between us. We’re not hookups. Are we friends? Maybe. I mean, clearly we flirt and give each other shit. She’s funny. She teases me about her star status in the hookup world even though I know she’s still worried about her professional reputation.
Plus, it’s good to not be the odd man out anymore. My friends have all paired off, and while I don’t want happily-ever-after, I’m not a fan of awkward, either. Dev and Lola. Jack and Molly. That just leaves me. Do I want to hang out with Maple?
Maybe. I mean, she’s sexy as hell and I’d get naked with her in a heartbeat. Maybe.
Because I don’t want her to stop texting me, either, and that’s what happens when two people hook up. Maple’s on a man diet, or so she assured me. She’s just barely broken up with Madd and now he’s begging her to take him back, making promises and doing the woo. I could tell her that once an asshole, always an asshole, but she doesn’t want to hear that right now. That’s another reason I haven’t hit on her, not really. Madd’s holding out the fantasy of their perfect future together, and believe it or not, naked, spread-eagle me isn’t such a tempting counter offer that she’s rushing over to my place to drop her panties on my floor and rip my boxers off with her teeth. I figure there’s always tomorrow or next week—whenever Madd shows his true colors.
In the meantime, I get free decorating advice because it turns out that Maple really likes furniture and she’s willing to choose non-Balinese pieces. She also adores pillows and pictures and a million other pieces of crap, the absence of which marks me as a total barbarian. I spent a weekend making mood boards, which is way less kinky than I’d hoped. The best part about it was Maple’s snort-giggle when I asked her if a mood board was the Christian Grey, X-rated version of pin the tail on the donkey. FYI? Totally not. Drawing my favorite sexual fantasies on a piece of poster board with a handful of crap markers would have been cake.
I am acquiring a houseful of furniture, though. Maple has an unhealthy love of floral prints and faux fur. Leather also has to be of the faux variety because sitting on dead animals is inhumane. Today I’m considering a vegan le
ather couch to replace the hand-me-down in my living room. In the plus column: ninety-six inches long, twelve inches of Roomba-approved clearance between the bottom and my hardwoods, and the color of a high-end Cuban cigar or an apple-cider doughnut. In the negative column?
Max: Legs look like gold paper clips
Maple: Hairpin legs
Max: WTF?
Maple: Very trendy
Max: On a scale of 1 to 10, my give-a-fuck has achieved negative numbers
Maple: Think of how impressed your hookup will be ;)
Max: More worried about banging her on the couch. Too slippery? What if we break it? Think I should buy two in case there’s an accident? Do you want one for your place? I owe you.
Maple: TMI and no thank you. I have a big bed.
I ask for pictures but no go.
* * *
Maple is an early morning texter. Not the predawn hours when normal people are coming home from a wild time out at the clubs and bars or getting up to get ready for work because when you live in California, you’re going to spend hours commuting to the office. And before you go getting all judgmental, I’ll just point out that I’m usually up all night coding. Sue me if that means I like a nap at seven or eight in the morning.
Still, when she hits me up, three weeks after we started texting, I don’t see it coming. Partly this is because I’d just gotten vertical on my bed, pillow over my head, because I’ve just committed a huge check-in and there’s not enough Red Bull in the world to keep me up. I’m crashing hard when a herd of demented bumblebees erupts a few inches from my head.
Shit.
I grab my phone.
Maple: How’s your day going?
Max: Maple?
Maple: You forgot my name already?
I can feel the stupid grin stretch my mouth. Not that there’s anyone here to give a damn if I look stupid. She’s so cute.
Max: Right. Oak. Crepe Myrtle? I’m in bed.
I snap a picture of myself. Not that kind. I know better than to send Maple crotch shots. If she wants to see my dick, she’ll ask. I send her a perfectly lovely shot of my head. Yes, the big one. My hair’s sticking up on end, my jaw’s rougher than a cornfield after mowing and I’m naked. Not that she can see my goods, but I stripped off before dropping into bed and not even for Maple am I getting up to find a shirt.
Maple: Lazy bastard. They made me wear pants with buttons today at work.
Since she’s working, I suppose taking her pants off isn’t an option.
Max: What’s up where you are?
Maple: Wanna buy a blender?
She sends me a picture. Score. It looks like she’s standing in some kind of conference or exhibition space. There’s a ton of people around her selling crap and networking as if their lives depend on it. That’s just background music, though. Maple’s front and center, beaming at me. I take in her goofy smile, the tight white T-shirt with the name of a nutrition drink company scrawled over her tits. Must be one of her influencer gigs and I briefly wonder how much they’re paying her. Whatever it is, it’s not enough. Her phone’s aimed over her shoulder, which means I can’t see her ass in the picture, but I imagine it just fine.
Max: I’ll take a dozen
Maple: I need an honest guy opinion, okay?
Max: Hit me
Maple: Madd wants to meet for drinks tomorrow night. Bad idea to go?
Max: Don’t want to be a dick about this but—
Maple: Uh-huh
Max: No, seriously. I’ve got one, he’s got one, and that gives us a special bond, if you know what I mean.
Maple: Be serious?
Max: Delete and block. He’s playing you and it’s not the kind of game you’re gonna win. He wants a hookup. He wants your panties on his floor because he’s either got nothing better going on or he’s got nothing.
She goes silent after that. I try shoving my pillow over my head, but my brain’s awake and there’s no going back to sleep now. Since I don’t feel like getting up and adulting just yet, I take advantage of my naked, happy-to-see-Maple state and fist my dick. Whacking off alone in bed isn’t my first choice but Maple’s working and there’s no one else I want to call, so I keep my hand beneath the sheet and get busy. When my phone vibrates, I groan.
Max: Interrupting, Palm
Maple: You know anything about Madd’s sudden purchase of not one but two Mexican timeshares? He says he’s locked out of his online banking app so he can’t shut it down.
* * *
Maybe it’s because I had so much fun texting Maple about blenders earlier today, but tonight’s dinner meeting is excruciating. It’s like a hookup gone bad where you know before the main course ever arrives that you’re cutting the night short and nobody’s scoring. The guys pitching me are eager and they’ve mastered all the right buzzwords, but the deal they’re pitching isn’t one I’m interested in. In fact, it’s safe to say I’m bored, so when my phone buzzes, I look down discreetly. I have a message from Maple: What are you doing?
Dying, I promptly type. Business dinner. Send naked picture immediately to salvage day.
And even though I’m a firm believer in going for what you want in life, I’m surprised when Maple actually does send me a picture. She’s ever so slightly sweaty, mostly undressed, and there’s a railing behind her that I’ve learned is called a barre (preferably in a French accent). She’s wearing pink tights and I swallow. It’s not as if she’s naked, but... Fuck. Me. Pink toe shoes peek out beneath an enormous pair of wooly leg warmers. The black cotton of her leotard skims her breasts, hugging the curves. She’s leaning forward on her elbows, legs spread wide as she stretches, the phone held out in front of her. Better yet, since she’s in a studio, the wall behind her is all mirrors and I can see the heart-shaped peach of her ass. A mischievous smile lights up her face. Fuck, she’s gorgeous.
Hot and sweaty Friday night fun, she types.
I can’t resist. No hot date? Is this me-time?
Her reply is almost instant. Sex right now would be awesome. I need a boyfriend stat.
My dick tents the front of my Armani dress slacks, demanding we go help her out with her abstinence problem. I excuse myself from the table. Hiding out in the men’s room seems too clichéd, so I head outside to the restaurant’s private terrace. Forty stories below, San Francisco lights twinkle around me. Those stupid rosemary balls on sticks and other perfectly manicured plants line the deck. I feel like I’m in a zoo but I take a picture anyhow (of my face because I’m not stupid) and send it to her.
At your service.
We’ve flirted with each other the last couple of weeks, our teasing veering between the dirty and the playful. Sometimes it’s the kind of shit friends give each other, while other times I don’t know what we’re doing even if I want to do it all the time. I can almost feel her laughter shaking her phone. Maple loves dirty puns, bad jokes and having fun. I bet she fucking rocked that stage and lit up the room. I wish I could have seen her dance in the theater. I wish she were here. I wave off the waiter who approaches me.
Have a drink with me, I write back. To myself. Because even though she hasn’t responded to me, I’m all in. I text her directions and wait. I may or may not be holding my breath. I’ve hooked up dozens of times through Kinkster, but that was easier. I didn’t care about the women reading my texts; I just cared about having sex.
This is Maple and she makes me wait long enough that I suspect she’s actually seriously considering my invitation. Haha. People will think I’m after your money.
I type back: My dick’s even bigger than my bank account. I’m sure you can prioritize correctly.
Of course she’s not going to let that go. Ask Guinness out then and go for the world record.
Right. I’ll get right on that. I fire off: Record is 13.5 inches. How do you think they measured that?
; I love numbers. Yes, I measured my dick when I was twelve. And then again when I was fourteen, sixteen and seventeen. If your boner clocks in at less than three inches, you’ve got a less-than-average problem—so I have nothing to worry about.
Maple’s still going to give me shit. She types: Pfft. That’s the official record. Unofficial guy in the UK is claiming almost nineteen inches. He can’t work because his dick is so huge. He might actually get Disability.
I make the mistake of googling this, thus burning the images of a pants-less guy with his massive schlong covered in what looks like panty hose into my brain forever. Def a future as a porn star there. I reply, You’re right. I can’t compete.
Maple sends me a smiley face emoticon. Emoticons are tricky. They’re not, as I’ve pointed out more than once, actual letters. They form no words. It’s an interpretive dance where you can’t hear the music and I hate the ambiguity. Is she smiling because she’s imagining my dick? Or is she being sarcastic because she wouldn’t be getting off on a foot and a half of panty hose? Maybe she’s just in a random good mood. Or messing with me.
I take a stab at answering anyhow. No boyfriend doesn’t have to mean no sex.
I’m sure this has occurred to her, but I feel the need to point it out. While I wait for her response, I abandon the pitch guys, settle our check and catch the elevator. It takes fourteen seconds to descend forty floors, and most of that time I spend imagining exactly what Maple could be doing with her boyfriend. Or to him. For him. Then I swap the pronouns around because I’m an enlightened kind of guy. I could do her. I know her feet get tired and ache. She claims that’s the dance tax, for slamming them into the stage floor over and over again, but I don’t think TLC would hurt. I’d be happy to rub them.
Or do other things.
There is a time and a place for a nonsexy, it’s-all-about-you-babe massage, but personal experience says that it’s also foreplay. Don’t lie. You know that when you’re naked and oiled up and I’ve rubbed all the places that hurt and the tension’s leaking out of your body like helium from a balloon, you’re going to start thinking about other things.
