Dare To Be Wild (3 page)

Moving on.

Aleesa's gift was a racy demi cup concoction of sheer black lace adorned with pink bows. Katie Mullane skipped the brassiere giving and instead brought a travel lingerie bag. Barely appropriate for the theme, but still useful. The better gift was that her player-hating behind departed right after Livia opened her present.

For the next fifteen minutes, Livia opened boxes and gift bags containing beautiful bras (and most included matching panties), of varying styles, colors and fabrics, but with one recurring theme— the sexier the better and the extreme opposite of the sensible basics that currently occupied Livi's unmentionables drawer.

That was, until Lena's gift.

Inside a beautifully wrapped box, and in a complete departure from the colorful potpourri of satins and lace she'd been given, Livi's eyes were greeted with the familiar, though bland, color of oatmeal. With cups big enough to carry a set of bowling balls, was the ugliest, old lady bra she'd ever laid eyes on. Livi held it up by the straps and howled, “This belongs on a damn swing set!”

“I thought it was important to remind you what the rest of us will be wearing ten years from now. When you and your new bouncin' and behavin' hooters are sliding out of bed and still slipping into all of your pretty bras, we'll be lifting our ‘swing low,
sweet chariot' titties into this charming number,” Lena replied with a crooked smile.

“Sorry, but don't blame me. They don't sell Grandma's saggy breasts at the boobie store.”

“Game time,” Jasi announced as Lena and Aleesa cleared away the gifts and brought out a fresh round of Livi's favorite cocktail—white wine spritzers.

Livia groaned as she accepted pen and paper with a wry smile. Jasi knew how much she hated the typical party and shower games, so Liv was sure there would be some kind of skewed twist on it. She took a deep breath. 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 pearls. Battery or solar. Brangelina or Tomkat.”

Livia wrote. The others drank and watched.

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

Liv quickly jotted down her 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,” Lena said, taking Livia's answers. “I'll substitute a few words here and there to make things more interesting.

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

The female roar rivaled that of a Denzel sighting. Livia cringed. First of all, anyone who knew her would know she'd never name her body parts, especially her vagina. That was like putting clothes on a dog—cute but pointless. And secondly, if she were to name
it, you could bet it wouldn't be a moniker that sounded like Betty White's nearly ninety vadge.

Lena continued.

“My ‘sausage' of choice is Polish because Ethel likes her kielbasas big and wrapped in leather. 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 her panties caused Liv to smile. Lena's joke brought the hot thrill of her pseudo-group sex scene rushing to mind. For a hot second, Coco and Beyoncé were one. Livia felt the wet release of arousal and crossed her legs to stop the heat from spreading through her body. This was all too confusing. She was definitely a 100% penis girl but ever since today's matinee, girl-on-girl action topped the hot meter. The flush must have showed on her face because the next thing she knew, Jasi was calling her 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. Livi buried her head in her hands. Yes, it was a joke, but talking about her sex life in public was embarrassing. Hell, the ex and she had rarely talked about it in private. That's why she'd decided not to tell Aleesa, Jasi and Lena about what had happened that afternoon. She didn't want to be teased about it or have it come up at some inappropriate time. Liv had no idea what came over her. She could only chalk it up to some kind of extreme nutritional deficiency (according to her friends, vitamins s.e.x. should definitely be a recommended daily requirement), akin to the kind that makes you do crazy things like eat dirt or dry wall.
Dearth aside, her actions today were so out of the norm that Livia knew they would never be repeated. Therefore, she wanted to keep them private, her own delicious secret that could be pulled up and savored in the privacy of her own fantasies.

“Move on,” Livia insisted, blaming her pinkish tint on the champagne.

“Cuz, you are such a prude,” Aleesa teased. “Don't you dare waste that fabulous new rack of yours on baking cupcakes day and night. Promise you'll take the twins out on lots of play dates.”

“That's right. And you better dress them up in all this new stuff,” Lena insisted. “Don't suffocate those beauties in those tired old lady brassieres and sports bras you usually throw on.”

“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?”

Livia shot Jasi her practiced, slit-eyed, you're-kidding-me-right look. Jasi already knew the answer to that question, as did nearly everyone in the room. Livia was a virgin the day she got married at age twenty; spent twenty-five years with a husband who'd exhausted his bag of sexual tricks about three years into the union; had been divorced four and fighting breast cancer nearly two. When the hell was there time (or the desire or courage) to have a freakin' one-night stand? Even if she wanted to, which she didn't. Good sex was hard enough to come by with a mate, let alone a perfect stranger.

“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?” Aleesa 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,” Lena added.

“I tried to hook her up with an eHarmony membership, but
between the mad texters, white thrill seekers, and young boy toys, she couldn't hang,” Aleesa recapped.

“She gave up too easily,” Jasi chimed in.

So much for not hanging your private sex life out on the line flapping in the wind for everyone to witness. Was it any wonder that Livia refused to let these blabber mouths in on her secret?

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

“A what?” Livia asked for all of them.

“A fuck-it list—like a bucket list—but instead of being about skydiving 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 the chandelier.

“She's got a point,” Aleesa said. “This should be easy for you. You're always making those damn lists.”

“Girl, let those new fabulous hooters be the start of a hot, new, sexy you,” Jasi continued. “Promise that before your next birthday, you'll put on one of those pretty new bras 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,” Lena said as she stuck out her left hand and crooked her little finger. The channel-set blue diamond band that the four of them bought after Liv's diagnosis and wore as a sign of their lifelong friendship sparkled in the light. “Pinky-swear right now in front of all the women here, who you love and who love you back, that before your fiftieth birthday rolls around, you will have compiled your fuck-it list with at least ten entries of those deep, dark, sexual fantasies you keep safely locked up in your imagination.”

“And make them come true!” Lena added.

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

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

“Three,” Jasi countered.

“Two,” Lena compromised.

Livia hesitated. They were all pretty serious about the pinky swear. Once given, there was no taking it back. Her birthday was in less than six months and she didn't want to promise her girlfriends, or herself for that matter, something that she couldn't live up to. Liv took in a deep breath and let out a noisy exhale before extending her hand. Nervous excitement bubbled up from her toes and through her body, causing a wide, though shaky, smile to break out across her face.

What the hell! Cancer makes you bold, right? Plus, in reality she'd already fulfilled half the 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 sight of an interracial couple of lesbians, did not qualify as a genuine act of sexual outrageousness. She could come up with one more simple act of lust and be done with it. Knowing she had them beat, Livia laughed aloud, reached out and hooked her diamond encircled little finger into Lena's.

“I swear, within the next six months, that I will make my fuck-it list and find two situations of, as Jasi says, yummy trouble to get into.”

“And tell the rest of us about it,” Jasi added.

Livia shot her the look again.

“Well, then what's the point? I mean, how we will know if you don't give us a full report,” she said, her eyes including the rest of the group.

“She's right,” Aleesa and Lena concurred.

“Okay, okay, okay. And I promise to give my report to Jasi, Aleesa
and Lena, which I am sure they will promptly share with you,” Livi added, turning to include the rest of the guests. She'd purposely left out the word, “full.” After all, it was her list to share or not.

“To Livia,” Jasi exclaimed as everyone picked up their champagne flutes, “as she works to find her inner freak. Own it. Work it. Use it to grab all the happiness you can and above all, take no prisoners and make no excuses.”

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

A
leesa, Jasi and Lena had done such a great job of cleaning up after the party that there was nothing left for Livi to do but pour herself another glass of champagne, gather up her lacy loot and go upstairs to unwind.

She walked into her room, kicked off her shoes and plopped down on the queen-size bed. Livia loved her bedroom. After the divorce, she'd totally redecorated, turning it into a private sanctuary. It was her sensual oasis, full of soothing earth tones, glowing scented candles, touchable textures and pleasurable sounds—a great space specifically designed for one to relax and reflect.

And tonight she was in a reflective mood. This had been a crazy ass day and she needed some quiet time to wrap her mind around everything that had taken place, particularly that morning. Livia wanted to review (and revel) in her behavior at her client's home but the echo of female voices filled her 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.

Her best friends' statements repeated themselves over and over like a bad hotdog. Liv couldn't disagree with them; technically, they spoke the truth. And their comments, insensitive as they might have sounded, were wrapped and delivered in true love. But still, was tonight really the time and/or place for their onslaught?
Tonight was supposed to be about celebrating her life and good health, not highlighting her sad, hide-and-go-seek sex life.

Livia glanced over at the pile of lingerie, her eyes settling on Lena's Queen Kong brassiere. It looked strangely out of place among the colorful purveyors of seductive suggestion. Each, with their CFM qualities, belonged on the chest of a sexual predator, not a divorced cake baker whose taste in over the shoulder, boulder holders ran toward the boring and sensible.

Jasi, not just certifiably insane but extremely organized as well, had placed adhesive dots with the giver's name on each item so Livi could write thank you notes. She inspected them, one by one, realizing that each represented the giver's taste much more than her own, but through each, a snapshot of who she was, or more accurately who she wasn't, began to develop.

She slipped out of her rhinestone-encrusted halter dress and into Jenny's gift of a velvet balcony bra. And in yet another untypical move, padded over to the mirror for a head-to-toe inspection. For Livia, the mirror was merely a feng shui decorating move. She never looked at herself in a full-length mirror with more than a passing glance while fully dressed, so standing there semi-nude was a rare happening, and completely in the buff a non-event.

Even knocking on the door of her fifth decade, the demi-gods in charge of youthful aging had been kind. Liv's perpetually tan complexion was relatively unlined and despite a few little age spots around the eyes and a couple of pores on her nose that you could plant tulips in, it kept secret her true age. Every feature of her heart-shaped face—pouty mouth, narrow 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. Her golden brown halo
of hair, highlighted blonde to hide the gray, was full of healthy, spiral curls that framed her face like honeycombed fingers.