Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) (4 page)

“Would you like to see my place?”

“Sure,” Gina said, hiding the smirk that was trying to come out on her face. “Let me run to the little girls’ room, and I’ll meet you outside.” Gina staggered to the bathroom and pulled a notepad from her purse. It was handy to have in case anyone wanted her phone number at the bars. She quickly scrawled on the pad and returned to meet Annie.

Sorry-Assed Chick

F
rom across the bar, Linda saw Gina leaving with Annie. Now, that was a new one. She’d seen Gina take off with a guy once or twice but never with a girl. Linda had a short but feminine haircut and her hazel eyes were a nice match to her light brown hair. She was about five feet four and maybe ten or fifteen pounds overweight. You certainly wouldn’t call her fat, but she was by no means thin either. She was standing just off the dance floor, pondering the situation, when a petite, middle-aged woman came up to her.

“Hi. This is kind of weird, but I was wondering if I could ask you something?” the woman inquired.

“Sure,” Linda replied.

“Well, you see, I’m not gay, but I lost a bet with my husband. See him over there?” the woman said, pointing to a man, who then smiled and waved at Linda. The woman continued. “Like I said, I lost a stupid bet and agreed to let him watch me . . . well . . . you know . . . ‘do it’ with another woman.”

“I see,” Linda said, bewildered. This was one sorry-assed chick!

“I guess I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping a girl out?”

“Oh, this is a joke. Did Gina put you up to this?” Linda asked.

“No, no, I’m quite serious. I’m cute. Don’t you think? You could do much worse. It’d be for only a couple of hours.”

“What would be for only a couple of hours?”

“Just a little lesbo action to please my husband.”

“What are you? Some kind of freak! What on earth makes you think I’d go anywhere with you and your buffoon husband? Is this what you two do for fun? Go to lesbian bars and pick up chicks?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought . . .”

“Honey, you need some serious help. You know there are people who can help you and your so-called husband,” Linda said, annoyed but starting to feel sorry for the woman.

“Yes, I know. But some hookers can be really nasty, not to mention expensive.”

“No. God! Not hookers. I mean a therapist or a counselor or something.” Only Linda would start giving sound advice to a woman who just asked her to have sex in front of her husband. Linda was constantly trying to help the downtrodden. She surmised that this woman certainly had issues, and that her husband, who must have had major issues of his own, was taking advantage of her.

“We can’t afford a hooker. How we gonna afford a therapist? Look, you’re a sweet kid, but I don’t have time for chitchat. I gotta find me a woman.” With that, the woman stepped away from Linda to continue her search.

“Ma’am,” Linda called, feeling a genuine concern for the woman. “Here is the number for the Whitman Walker Clinic.” Linda handed her a card from the clinic where she volunteered once a week. “They have all kinds of counseling programs at little or no cost. Think about it.”

The woman took the card and said nothing before walking away.

Linda watched her go. She pitied the woman, and the whole incident made her feel a little sorry for herself as well. She was so
over
the singles scene. She was tired of smoky bars and lesbians with attitude. Linda would sometimes give Gina a hard time for always harping on the fact that she was alone. Linda always told Gina that she didn’t need to be in a relationship to be fulfilled, and Gina needed to learn to make herself happy. Linda only wished she believed that herself. She didn’t think of herself as desperately trying to find a partner, and she certainly was more content with her life than Gina was with hers, but Linda still longed for someone to really share her life with—someone to lie on the sofa with and watch
Xena
or kiss good night before turning out the lights and going to sleep. That someone had to be out there somewhere but, Lord knows, Linda hadn’t been able to find her.

There was Karen, who Linda dated the year before. Karen was great except for the small problem she had with shoving cocaine up her nose on a regular basis. And then there was Julie, who Linda dated a few years earlier. Linda was totally in love with Julie. Only problem was Julie was not totally in love with Linda. Julie liked Linda and enjoyed being with her, but the chemistry just wasn’t there for her. Even though Julie wasn’t in love with Linda, Julie was in love with having a girlfriend. Linda sensed this all along, but it was only after six months that she brought herself to end it with Julie. It was the hardest thing she ever did. She had been deeply in love with Julie, but she had needed someone to return that love—she
deserved
someone to return that love.

Now, standing in a hazy lesbian bar, deflecting advances from a bizarre woman, a meaningful love life seemed more hopeless than ever. She didn’t know where Gina had gone, or if she’d be back, so Linda decided she would grab a cab home. Gina was a big girl and could take care of herself. Something was vaguely familiar about the girl she saw Gina leave with anyway. Linda figured she must have been someone Gina knew, so she really wasn’t worried.

Linda passed the strange woman who propositioned her on the way out of the bar.

“I hope you get some help,” Linda said to the woman with a comforting smile as she walked out the door.

Maybe I should get some too, she thought, laughing slightly to herself as she hailed a cab to head home.

Cheap Wine, Lucy, and Sex

“I
’m downstairs,” Cheryl yelled into the intercom at the entrance of Peter’s building.

“Okay, just a sec.” Peter buzzed Cheryl into the building and hung up the phone. He had just put on a pair of loose exercise shorts. The ones that hung off his body but still highlighted the merchandise. After he buzzed Cheryl in, he shoved the Backstreet Boys video under the sofa. He’d been working out to it earlier that day, and, as thirty-year-old straight men were forbidden to enjoy the Backstreet Boys, he wanted it out of sight. He took off his shirt and threw it in the clothes basket. He knew he was looking pretty fine. Two hours at the gym every other day was really starting to have results. He glimpsed in the mirror and saw a very attractive tall man with dark brown hair and green eyes, features he inherited from his Italian mother. He flexed just a little, although lately he really didn’t even need to flex. His chest was cut and his arms seemed to bulge just fine, even when he was relaxed. Recently, he’d taken to getting his chest waxed. Why build the buff body and hide it behind a hairy chest?

He never looked better in his life. There were days when he’d spend several minutes looking at himself in the mirror. He didn’t necessarily do it out of arrogance or narcissism. It was more to admire the way he was able to transform his body from the puny kid he once was. He didn’t grow to six feet until he was seventeen and was small and scrawny most of his young adult life. He’d never forget high school—hiding behind the fat girl he sat behind in history class to avoid catching the gaze of Gus Rodman, the class bully. Every time she moved or adjusted positions, Peter would reposition himself and use her as a shield of sorts. If he could avoid Gus’s gaze, maybe Gus wouldn’t pay any attention to him.

He never did anything to Gus, but for some reason he singled Peter out and insisted on picking on him. Peter had suffered from severe asthma and allergies as a kid. He wasn’t always able to participate in gym class and occasionally had wheezing attacks at school. Gus always called him Sickly Peter or sometimes just called him Afflicted. “Hey,
Afflicted,”
he’d call to Peter, and then start making fake wheezing noises. “Call my mommy, I’m afflicted,” he’d say. To this day the word “afflicted” sent chills down Peter’s spine.

Looking in the mirror reminded Peter of how far he’d come over the past ten years. He’d learned to manage his allergies, and his asthma virtually disappeared over the years. The scrawny kid was history, and as far as Peter was concerned, he’d never resurface again.

As Peter quickly ran a comb through his short hair, Cheryl knocked on the door.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Peter opened the door. “Hey, gorgeous. What brings you to these here parts?” Peter said with a fake cowboy accent.

“Well, don’t we look comfortable. Always run around half naked when you’re expecting company?” Cheryl replied in reference to his shirtless body.

“I can run around completely naked if you like.”

“Maybe later. Got any beer?” Cheryl said, making her way into the living room. Peter watched her approach the sofa. At five feet five, she was quite a bit shorter than Peter, with light brown skin, and extremely short, curly black hair.

“No, but I have some wine. Interested?” Peter asked.

“Sure.”

Peter went into the kitchen and got some wine out of the fridge. He ripped off the $5.99 label, unscrewed the cap, and took it to the sofa. Cheryl had found a rerun of
I Love Lucy
on cable and was laughing hysterically. “God, I can watch them over and over again and they still make me laugh. Isn’t it weird how Ricky always calls Lucy a crazy redhead when her hair looks blond on TV? Guess red just doesn’t show up on black and white, huh?”

Peter gave her the same look he always did when she said stuff like that. Cheryl took it to mean aren’t you just a cutie pie. What the look really said was what a fucking box of rocks. Don’t speak, honey, just sit there and look pretty.

It wasn’t that Cheryl was stupid. She was actually quite intelligent and pretty successful, in her career anyway. She just had this habit of saying whatever came to her mind, regardless of how it sounded. Sometimes Peter found it charming, and sometimes it got on his nerves. He really was fond of Cheryl, and they had a good time together, but there wasn’t any real chemistry between them, at least not beyond the strong sexual attraction. There was so much he liked about her—she was pretty, fun, and quite a chef. She was always taking some sort of cooking class or watching the Food Network to pick up new culinary skills. She whipped up some pretty impressive creations for Peter from time to time. It was a wonder she managed to stay so thin when she was such an excellent cook.

As Peter sat down next to Cheryl, he thought about how tired he was of their routine. They had to sit and watch television for a while, or sometimes a whole movie before the action got started. This way it didn’t appear that they were just meeting for sex. He guessed it allowed her to save face.

Peter sat on the sofa next to Cheryl. He leaned back against the arm of the couch, and Cheryl laid her head on his chest. He was surprised when she softly kissed his chest and slid her cheek along the stubble coming from between his nipples, letting it lightly scratch her face. Peter was usually the one who made the first move. After all, she was supposedly over there only to talk.

“Aren’t we forward this evening?” Peter said. She had caught him somewhat off guard.

“Sorry. I see you got your chest waxed again. You’re turning into a regular muscle head.”

“Yeah, I need to do it again. Get rid of this stubble.”

“I kinda like it.”

She began licking his chest with her tongue, running her tongue along his cut pecs and occasionally sucking on his nipples, trying to get them hard, so she could nibble on them. She knew this was his weakness and drove him crazy. It did, in fact, drive him crazy, but not the way Cheryl thought it did. He was usually wincing from the pain and wishing she would cut it out. But he didn’t feel comfortable telling her this. She might think he wasn’t man enough to take a little pain. Cheryl continued to follow the prickly hairs down to his navel and eventually slid her tongue under the elastic in his shorts, where the hair immediately thickened. With that, Peter quickly removed the shorts and lay back in position.

Obligations

I
t was after midnight, and having had quite a bit to drink at Penelope’s wedding, Shirley was exhausted. After Gina dropped her off, she settled in front of the TV for the rest of the day and was just about to get in bed when her pager went off. She checked the number. Delighted to see it was from Collin (she hadn’t heard from him in over a week), she picked up the phone to return his page.

When she first met him at the restaurant where she worked nearly a year earlier, she knew he was bad news. She spotted the wedding band right away but wondered why he was dining alone on a Friday night. A nice smile during his drink order, a little body contact while she was serving his food, some flirting during dessert, and, before she knew it, he was waiting for her when she finished her shift. Gina repeatedly asked Shirley to send him packing or, at a minimum, to not expect anything more than a fling, but Shirley ignored her. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger. Fifty was only a few years away, and she didn’t feel like she could be too choosy. As she always told Gina, “As your ass starts to sag, so do your standards.” Collin would have to do for now.

“Damn,” she said, remembering that her phone was disconnected. She wasn’t going to be able to pay the bill until next week unless she asked Gina to lend her the money. Wondering if her old roommate’s line might still be connected, she grabbed her phone from the socket in her room and took it across the hall into the recently vacated bedroom.

“Hey there, it’s Shirley,” she said, sitting down on the floor.

“Hello, gorgeous. Busy?”

“Never too busy for you.”

“In the mood for a little company tonight?”

“You mean this morning. It’s after midnight.”

“I’d like to come over and see you,” Collin said.

“I hope you want to do more than just see me.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

“I’ll see you in a half hour or so?”

“I’ll be there.”

Shirley hung up the phone and jumped in the shower. After drying her hair and putting on her makeup, she slipped into a silk robe (okay, polyester, but it was silk to Shirley). She was dabbing on a little perfume when Collin knocked on the door.