Dirty Read online

  “What’s wrong,” I asked him after listening. “Tell me, Chaddie.”

  He didn’t say anything for so long I thought we might have been disconnected but for the sound of his breathing. “I’m down, Elle. Just a little down.”

  “Oh, Chad.” There wasn’t much more I could say. Words couldn’t replace a hug, no matter how heartfelt the empathy in them. “What are you doing about it?”

  That roused him enough to chuckle a little. “Same thing I always do. Drown my sorrows in hot fudge sundaes.”

  It was better than in alcohol, which Chad never touched. “What’s Luke say about it?”

  Chad didn’t say anything again after a moment. “He doesn’t say anything about it. I don’t tell him.”

  “He’s got to know,” I told him gently. “You live together. He can’t not notice.”

  “We don’t talk about it,” Chad said. “Luke’s happy all the time. I don’t want to bring him down. I don’t want to bring you down, Elle. I just need to get through this.”

  “You don’t have to do it on your own.”

  “Forgive me if your advice doesn’t really mean a whole lot,” Chad said more snidely than I’d ever heard him speak. “Miss Island Unto Herself. Tell me something, big sis, when’s the last time you cried on someone’s shoulder?”

  We went back to silence after that. I waited for him to apologize. He didn’t, and after a minute I muttered an affronted goodbye and hung up. Sometimes, even when you know someone else is right, it’s easier to be the angry one than it is to admit they’re telling the truth.

  I’d been invited to home parties before. Candles, cooking equipment, jewelry. I didn’t ever go, though I was always polite and ordered something from their catalogs. Just because I didn’t want to spend my time sitting around the living room of someone I didn’t know giggling about products I didn’t like didn’t mean I wasn’t smart about the way women work. Helping them out with their home parties engendered good feelings, and I usually ended up with a bunch of things to give my mother for Christmas and her birthday.Marcy hadn’t invited me to buy measuring spoons, earrings or dip mix. She hadn’t let me get away with flipping through a glossy brochure and writing a check, either. She’d insisted I attend her home party, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to turn her down.

  Uncertain of the etiquette about these sorts of functions, I stood outside the door to her apartment for a full minute debating if I should knock or try the knob. Two women appeared in the hallway behind me and saved me from having to decide.

  “Ooh, you’re here for the toy party?” The taller one giggled.

  The door opened. Marcy squealed. The other women squealed. I allowed myself to be dragged forward, hugged, my ear squealed into, my hand filled with a glass of wine, my rear end seated in a chair. Marcy passed around snacks. The women chattered. I sipped my wine without saying much. I didn’t know anyone but Marcy and didn’t have much to say.

  I haven’t been locked in a cupboard for my whole life. I know what sex toys are, even if I’ve never owned one. And even though my tastes in lingerie run to simple, lacy garter belts and pretty panties instead of leopard-skin thongs and stockings with holes, I have seen items of that sort in the stores.

  I thought I was prepared for this party, my pen in hand, the order form in front of me. Three minutes into the hostess’s spiel, I knew I was in over my head. By the time she passed out the penis pencil toppers, I was hoping I’d get out of there without thoroughly embarrassing myself.

  I shouldn’t have worried. Marcy, for all her bluster about sex, squealed and covered her face when the hostess pulled out the first item, and there were many other women there who blushed or peeked out through their fingers, too. Obviously the King Dong with detachable vibrating bullet wasn’t something they saw every day, either. I relaxed. I wasn’t as backward as I’d thought.

  “Now, ladies,” said the hostess, passing out pink papers to each of us. “It’s time for Twenty Kinky Questions! And I’ll be handing out some prizes, so be honest!”

  We all laughed and bent over our pink surveys, which wanted to know how many partners we had, where the craziest place we’d ever made love was, if we’d ever slept with more than one man at a time. We were supposed to list our celebrity crush, if we’d ever cheat on our significant others, our favorite sexual position and more.

  Dutifully, I filled out all the answers, being less than honest, though the hostess had admonished us to be truthful. There were simply some things I wasn’t going to admit to a roomful of strangers. Not even for a free set of fur-lined handcuffs.

  After demonstrating all the products and displaying all the lingerie, the hostess retired to Marcy’s kitchen table to take orders while the rest of us replenished our wineglasses and giggled over pink plastic phalluses. I had a handful of cheese cubes in one hand and my wine in the other when Marcy cornered me.

  “So. What are you going to buy?”

  I showed her my order form, printed neatly with my penis-topped pen. She looked it over and took my pen to scribble something else on it, jerking the paper away when I tried to protest. With full hands I couldn’t grab it back from her.

  “Marcy, what are you doing?”

  She giggled. “C’mon, Elle. All you got was the babydoll nightie! In white! Don’t you want it in red, at least?”

  “Absolutely not.” I finished the cheese and grabbed at the order form. “No, Marcy.”

  “I’m getting the Deluxe Rodney Rabbit.” She smirked. “I put you down for the Eager Beaver.”

  I looked at the paper. “Marcy—”

  “C’mon,” she teased. “Every woman should have a good vibrator. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll buy it. My treat. Consider it my contribution to your good health.”

  I didn’t want to laugh, I really didn’t. But she always made me, anyway. “I can take care of my own good health, thanks. And not with the Eager Beaver. I don’t want to go to bed with wildlife.”

  “No?” She grabbed up the catalogue from behind me. “How about the Silver Bullet?”

  “Do I need to worry about werewolves?” The wine had loosened my tongue.

  Marc looked up with a grin. “The Mermaid? She’s waterproof.”

  I looked at the picture. “Nothing with a face on it. Geesh.”

  She was cute, that Mermaid, with her smooth tail and flowing hair. Marcy flipped another page and let out a triumphant cry. She stabbed the page with her finger.

  “That’s the one for you.”

  I looked. “Blackjack?”

  “You’ll be screaming hit me baby, one more time, with the Blackjack. Made of smooth, contoured silicone and using our patented vibro-sleeve technology, the Blackjack is guaranteed to hit all the spots that count. Silent and discreet, the Blackjack enhances solo play or lovemaking.” She giggled at the advertising copy.

  “Clever,” I said, looking at the picture again. Unlike the other cutesy vibrators, the Blackjack was about three inches long, shaped like a cigar, plain black. “Very utilitarian.”

  Marcy laughed and nudged me, her eyes shining. “Get that one.”

  I hesitated. “Marcy, I just don’t…”

  “Elle,” she interrupted. “For fun. C’mon. Try it.”

  I looked around the room at all the other laughing ladies holding up slinky animal-print nighties and getting out their checkbooks. I looked again at the picture of the Blackjack. Then I looked at her.

  “If one word of this gets out around the office—”

  “It won’t. Cross my heart.”

  I sighed. She’d won me over. I couldn’t resist the allure. Marcy crowed and squeezed me, spilling wine down the front of my blouse.

  “Here’s to my good health,” I told her as she bounced.

  My cell phone rang, and she gave me another squeeze before leaving me to answer it. “Kavanagh.”

  “Kavanagh, Stewart here.”

  Dan. I crumpled the order form in my hand as if he could see it. I let out a str