This is real.

I’ve been dumped.

Jamey left me. Broke up with me by phone for… a man. Everything below my waist goes numb. I feel like I’ve malfunctioned.

Where is the hotline for vaginas that malfunction so badly your boyfriend turns gay? I start to laugh-cry, because my next project at work will probably be to develop that hotline, and why not?

I’m a fucking expert now.

He sighs. "Aw, C-Shel. This isn't good. Come over. Or do you want me to come to your place? I can bring Thai and we can watch The Colony."

It's 10:30 p.m. I pull on jeans and throw a jacket over my nightie. It's only six blocks to Ryan's. “I’m coming to you. I can buy ice cream on the way. And your apartment isn’t filled with antique finds from my weekends with Jamey,” I sob as I grab my keys and purse and slam my front door.

Fury. Sorrow. Horror. Brokenness. Disbelief. All of it floods me as I storm my way into the convenience store, grabbing ice cream and peanut butter cups like it’s the zombie apocalypse.

It is.

It’s the sexpocalypse for me.

By the time I get to Ryan’s place, I am a live wire. He opens the front door, dressed in a Cal Tech t-shirt and lounge pants.

I fling myself into his arms, drop the bag filled with comfort carbs, and kiss him.

Hard.

RYAN

She tastes like salt and sweetness, like all the soft warmth in the world is concentrated in her lips. We’re clumsy, her lips hard against mine, wet from tears. Her hands grab my biceps, the kind of grip you have on someone you’re pissed at and hold onto because you want them to bend.

At first, I’m stunned, the ice cream pint rolling out of the plastic bag, settling on my bare foot, the cold a tingling shock that contrasts with the warmth of her mouth. God, Carrie’s mouth. My hands go up, like she has a gun pointed at me, then they land on her shoulders, one sinking into her hair, her messy bun coming loose as her lips soften and she starts to really kiss me.

I really kiss her, my mouth screaming yes, finally, holy shit, so many words my lips and tongue need to say. A kiss requires economy of language. You don’t have the luxury of words, so everything I want to say has to come from a suck, a nip, a lick, the parting of her lips as my tongue blindly seeks answers in a new language.

Those hard hands on my biceps loosen, sliding up to the back of my neck, and as Carrie moves up my body, standing on tiptoe to rise up to the kiss, my heart tries to burst in my chest, like a water balloon tossed oh, so gently.

She shivers violently, suddenly, an electric jolt between us like I’ve stuck my tongue in a light socket.

Then she pulls back, eyes wide with alarm, hot with desire that fades so fast I almost don’t even see it.

Panic floods her, followed by her chin jutting up as she says in an overconfident, fake voice, “There. See? I am not a broken vagina.”

And she bursts into tears.

I don’t know what the hell a broken vagina is, but I have a very unbroken cock tenting my pants right now. Desperate, I bend down for the ice cream and hold it right over my crotch.

“I’m sorry,” she babbles as she walks past me into my apartment, flinging herself onto the couch, burying her face in a cushion. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Oh, holy fuck, do it again.

“Done what?”

“Used you to prove that I’m not broken.”

Use me. Use me all you want, baby.

Why does that inner voice suddenly have an English accent?

“You’re not broken, Carrie,” I choke out. As Ben & Jerry’s becomes an ice pack for my dick, I stand in my kitchen, paralyzed.

What just happened?

And how can I get it to happen more?

“Jamey is gay. Gay!” she moans. Like a wounded animal, she’s curled in a ball, panting hard, her face pressed into my sofa, little sobs making her ass shake. Her hair is everywhere, spilling over her shoulders and back.

This is one of those Nice Guy moments.

You know the kind.

Carrie is vulnerable. She feels broken. Jamey dumped her in the worst possible way — and now I really hate Jamey.

But he’s given me an in.

A guy like Zeke would scoop Carrie in his arms and within half an hour be buried balls deep in her, taking advantage of her misery and heartbreak, using it to get into her pants, have her moaning under him, bare breasts shaking as he comforted her until Reverse Cowgirl became a form of revenge.

I am not that guy.

Why can’t I be that guy?

I push my palm against my lips. She’s still on the tip of my tongue, a salty, fresh taste I wish I could eat forever. I wonder what she tastes like in bed.

Damn it.

Not enough ice cream in the world to stop this hard-on, especially if I keep envisioning Carrie naked, spread out on the sheets, hair like the sun, radiating out to warm the world.

“Carrie.” I put the ice cream on the counter and scoop out a big bowlful. Then I get out a bottle of wine. I pour her a full glass and take it over to her along with the bowl, sitting on the couch next to her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did it again!” she wails.

“Again?”

“I picked a gay guy again! What is wrong with me? Why do I do this to myself?”

“You’ve dated gay guys before?”

Her glare melts the ice cream. “Not on purpose!”

I retreat to the kitchen, shove the ice cream in the freezer, and press my hips against the fridge for a second, willing my erection to go away. “No. Of course not,” I say, struggling to figure out what, exactly, I’m supposed to do here.

“You have a penis!” she shouts.

My back’s still to her, one hand on the fridge, the other discreetly holding the object in question, rearranging. I pause.

“Uhhh,” is my intelligent response.

“Penises are what got me into trouble!”

I spin around. “You’re pregnant? That fucker got you pregnant and left you for a gay dude?”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” she screams.

“You said his penis got you in trouble!”

“Not that kind of trouble.”

“Oh.” My cock is still paused, about ninety seconds behind my brain. Usually it’s my brain that’s slower. Down, boy.

“We didn’t have sex often enough for me to get pregnant!” she says with a sneer, a nasty tone I’ve never heard from Carrie pouring out of her. I refrain from telling her it only takes once. I assume they had sex at least once in the two years they’ve been together.