Love.com (5 page)

Emily realized this obsession she was developing for Ian was unhealthy when she accomplished nothing the next hour but mental masturbation, growing irritated by the alarming sexual awareness as never before.

She glared at her ragged, chipped nails, disgusted to see she hadn’t bothered to paint them to return to work. When was the last time she even shaved her bikini line the last six months? Did she still have a bikini line? She cringed to know African tribeswomen were better groomed than she. Tears filled her gaze to know she’d let herself go. Not a particularly vain woman; she’d never dwelled on her appearance before today, reminded she wasn’t up to par the instant she met Ian. What was it about sexual attraction that brought out such shallow observations?

Emily knew her eyes were her best feature. They were large and fluctuated between pale blue and gray, depending on her moods. Eddie always said she had bedroom eyes. When she tried, she could actually achieve a modest level of prettiness with the use of cosmetics.
Her hair was shoulder-length; a dull, drab brown; straight and resistant to curling. She wore it in a modest bun her first day back. Before she gained so much weight, she had a cute figure and never needed to exercise. Boy, those days were over! She sported a 75R14 around her waist. She shifted in dismay in her chair to realize she was pathetic.

After playing nursemaid the last eighteen months
; she forgot how to apply eyeliner, much less saw the need for it. She felt the need for artifice the minute she developed this icky crush. Now all she wanted to do was roll in a vat of paint, just to cover up what was underneath.

Ian made her feel things she didn’t want to feel so soon after Eddie died
. Then, to find that awful letter that made her whole life a ridiculous farce quadrupled her misery.

Emily
sighed, her eyes seeking him despite her best effort to ignore this impossible attraction. He didn’t know she was alive, yet he reeled her in as effortlessly as a magnet. She couldn’t help herself from watching him, thinking of him, and wanting him.

Ian
was back in his own office now, on the computer, a Blue-tooth device in his ear. She watched him through his open blinds; a sigh escaping her once more. What was it about him that made him irresistible to her? There were other men in the department who were just as attractive. He had something; a certain aura. It riveted a woman at once. It was a carnal knowledge this man knew how to please a woman.

Maybe it was because he was seemingly unattainable
that made him so desirable to her? Whatever it was; she was no better than the rest of the women in the office, panting after him without a hope in hell of getting anywhere with it.

“Forget it
. He’s a swan and you’re a duck,” Emily whispered to herself in an anguished whisper; even as her eyes hungrily followed him to the water cooler despite her determination to ignore him.

“How was
your first day back?” Emily wrinkled her nose as she answered her cell phone, knowing it was Joan by the ringtone. Superfreak by Rick James fit Joan to a tee.

For s
ome reason, she didn’t want to share her new crush with Joan. Another stab of guilt filled her to withhold such girlish secrets from her best friend. Joan would have enjoyed hearing about Ian. Emily didn’t want to share him with anyone. She didn’t want to admit, even to Joan, how desperate and awful it was to have this absurd crush on her new coworker. She wasn’t foolish enough to say it was love at first sight. But having never experienced that phenomena; she was clueless what was fuelling these ongoing fantasies of him.

“
Probably as bad as you could have expected,” Emily said and sighed tiredly as she pulled into her driveway. “I’m not used to getting up this early anymore. Gotta get to bed early tonight.”

“You can as soon as we get back from the gym,” Joan replied without missing a beat. “John has a gold membership
at the country club. That allows me to bring a guest with me. So no more arguments you can’t afford this.”

“I’m too tired. Not tonight
.” Emily wanted to do anything but go to the gym. She’d rather have a root canal than work out right now.

“
You’re not getting out of this, Em! I even bought a new work-out outfit!”

“I’m tired, Joan. Can we please do it tomorrow?”

“No, because you’ll be too tired tomorrow too, Em, and the next day, and so on,” her friend grumbled. “You said you would do this with me last night.”

Emily couldn’t argue she
definitely promised to go with her best friend, feeling a motivational burst encouraged by several glasses of white wine the night before. The alcohol gave her a sense of hope she might actually achieve some great result by working out. As overweight as she was, she felt miserable today. Her stomach growled alarmingly. She skipped lunch and spent the whole hour lusting after Ian the Unattainable. Now she felt like pigging out on cookie dough, changing her underwear, and skipping the gym altogether.

“Fine, I’ll go,” Emily snapped
angrily; aware Joan was like a yapping little dog when she wanted her way.

“You won’t regret this
.” Joan sounded smug over the phone. “Your thighs will thank me.”

“I can’t even see my thighs over my stomach
. Tell them I said hello,” Emily countered rolling her eyes. “You really are a heartless bitch. Do you know that?”

“Yeah, but you love me
anyway.”

“Yeah, way more than my thighs ever will.”

Hours later, Emily huffed and puffed, sweating profusely and swearing she pulled a groin muscle. She got off the treadmill. Joan wasn’t buying it. She made sure she followed through on her promise to give working out a chance. Sweating publically was never something that ever appealed to Emily. She was self-conscious of being watched. Joan assured her gyms loved fat people.

When they retired to the sauna
later, she was sure she pulled a groin muscle, wincing as she sat on the wooden bench. She sat next to Joan wrapped in a towel. She felt drained, both mentally and physically. Joan passed her a plastic bottle of water, a gloating expression on her face.

“Do you feel the burn or what?”

“I feel like I was tortured!” Emily snatched the bottle of water, chugging it down and glaring at her smirking friend. “This sucks! I hurt everywhere! I will probably walk with a limp tomorrow.”

“It
’ll get better, trust me,” Joan assured her, refusing to buy into her pain.

“It can’t get
any worse,” Emily muttered and wiped the sweat beads from her forehead. Now she felt like she was being cooked; slow-roasted in her own juices.

“You’re
gonna hurt the first few days, Em. You haven’t used some of these muscles in a long time.”

Emily was focused on one muscle in particular she hadn’t used in a long while
. Her lower unit seemed to have a mind of its own now, clenching and unclenching whenever she thought of Ian. She refused to tell Joan about her new fixation, fearing her amusement.

Emily knew
that wasn’t the reason she didn’t tell Joan. Telling Joan would no doubt elicit a lecture about grief and end with her going to seek therapy. She refused to categorize these feelings as something triggered by Eddie’s death. How could something that made you feel so good be crazy or imagined? She was determined this secret desire for the Ambidor rep remain her own private torment.

“I might be able to walk out of here
without the use of a cane,” Emily said sourly, making a face. “I don’t think gyms like fat people, like you said. I think they act like they do, but they secretly hate us!”

Joan giggled and shook her head. “You made the first step, Em. You’re doing something positive. You need to start
with a healthy diet. Lay off the cookie dough. You know, you can get worms eating it raw?”

“That’s a total lie!” Emily looked grossed out
to the extreme.

Joan giggled. “Alright it’s a lie, but that’s what I tell the girls when we bake cookies so they don’t eat all the dough. Just find a new love for carrots.”

“I hate carrots,” Emily replied moodily, closing her eyes as she leaned back on the bench. “But I love me some cookie dough.”

“See the prize, my friend.”

Emily did see the prize, but it wasn’t a new wardrobe like Joan babbled on about. She imagined Ian as the prize to be won. In her fantasy, he looked at her with real interest for once, his blue eyes filled with desire. Her heart raced in her chest to imagine him beckoning to her, his smile definitely naughty.

“
Oh, I can see the prize,” Emily whispered, grateful for the dimmed lighting so Joan wouldn’t see her dreamy expression.

“You can do this, Em,”
Joan said encouragingly, squeezing her hand.

Emily was lost in the throes of her sexual
imaginings, no longer listening to Joan. Ian was reclining naked on black silk sheets; his perfect physique making her mouth water to imagine how good he must look under his clothes. The reality had to be better than this. She was convinced of it. Somehow he developed porn star proportions, making her wince, reminded by her sore groin
that
wasn’t appreciated. Try as she might, his outlandishly huge penis stayed within her fantasy. Just when she was about to join him on the bed, the door to the sauna creaked open. A pair of elderly women entered.

“Are you ready to hit the showers?” Joan got up, tucking her towel around her chest.

I’m ready to hit something
, Emily thought with a mischievous smile, thinking these sexual fantasies were a good thing. Nobody ever got STD’s in fantasies. Nobody ever got hurt, damaged emotionally, and best of all; nobody knew the thoughts swirling around in her head but her. It was a safe means to explore these secret desires; without the inevitable fear of rejection. Even as she said this to herself, she knew she was slipping.

~~~

Emily reclined in the tub. She avoided looking at her own body. The fat rolls wouldn’t disappear overnight as they seemed to have appeared. The warm water soothed her frayed nerves after her first day back at work. The bubbles did their job, but her heart wasn’t in the bath tonight. Her think tank seemed to have no answers for her. The one place she ever felt at peace was filled with images of Ian Sawyer.

Emily opened one eye, glaring at the faucet when the water ran cold over her feet. Why couldn’t you have unlimited hot water? Why did it have to run out? Tears filled her eyes. It wasn’t running out of hot water that was
bothering her. It was her lack of confidence these days; sorely battered in the weeks following Eddie’s death.

The letter haunted her
. Its words forever ruined whatever saintly image she might have retained of Eddie. Good, reliable Eddie was as much a lie as his last words to her.

He
r husband looked older than his thirty-four years of age; his thick, dark hair gone; the once-stocky build wasted away. She was fluffing his pillows in the bed, settling down to read to him from Sports Illustrated. It was his favorite issue.

The swimsuit issue came that day. She was glad to read it to him
; even gushed over the bikini models while he rolled his eyes and laughed weakly at her absurd comments. His brown eyes met hers solemnly then, his smile suddenly fading, looking bleak as the moments passed.

“I wish I could go back,
Emmie,” Eddie had said in a raspy voice, his hand reaching for hers with more strength than he had, alarming her by the torment in his brown eyes. “I wish we had a do-over, baby.”

“Don’t talk like that, Eddie,” she begged him, feeling tears
threaten at his heartfelt words, growing more melancholy as the days passed. “What we had was great. Why would you say that?”

“You deserved so much better from me, Em.” He began to cry then, giving into his anguish to know the sands in the hourglass grew fewer.

“Are you in any pain?” Emily knew he abstained from his pain meds
; wanting to stay lucid in those last days. She reached for the huge pill bottle at the bedside. His hand stopped hers.

“A pill can’t help me now, Em.”

Emily recalled a certain look on his face. He dragged her to him, hugging her like he never wanted to let her go. She felt his thin body shaking. She resolved to call the doctor, knowing he was lying to her about being in pain. He looked up at her, a faint smile on his parched lips.

“You were the best thing in my life, Em. I know that now. Don’t ever forget it.”

The next morning she arrived with his meds and his breakfast to find him dead. She recalled feeling frozen; staring at his immobile features on the pillow, willing him to open his eyes. He didn’t open them. He was gone.

She dialed Joan first
with the news, and finally his parents. The Walker’s had just visited to say goodbye to their youngest son. They expected the worst at any time, but hearing his father’s gruff voice breaking on the phone line snapped Emily out of the fog in her brain.

As soon as the body was removed
by the paramedics, she collapsed into Joan’s arms, weeping until she had nothing left, and still the tears flowed. It was like a dam opened within her heart.