Operation Foreplay (5 page)

“Well, David and I have been hanging out, like, a lot. And the other night, when we were in the city for that gallery opening I told you guys about, well, he introduced me to a few of his friends and one of them made a comment about David going through a midlife crisis to be dating such a boy toy.”

“No.” Siobhan was entranced. Berk’s stories always had that effect on her.

“Yes! Anyway, I blew it off as a joke, but since then, David’s been making strange comments about how I dress, who I hang out with. We argued a bit and then, get this, he said if I was going to surround myself with frat boys and their girlfriends, then he wasn’t sure we were going to work out.”

“What’s wrong with the way you dress?” Siobhan took her face out of her phone for the moment.

“Frat boys and their girlfriends?” I glanced at him over my glass.

“And the beard will fix all that?” Sarah looked perplexed.

“A good beard fixes everything,” I added.

“I, for one, am a bit put off by the fact that he thinks Brian is a frat boy. He is certainly
not
a frat boy.” Caroline crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

“Of course not, sweetie.” He patted her hand before holding his up. “So what should I do?”

“Well, I think,” Sarah began, “if David can’t take you for who you are then screw him. He knew your friends before you guys started dating. He should know better.”

“Right. But I think ever since he turned forty he’s been more about settling down.”

“Did you tell him you don’t want to settle down?” Caroline took a bite of the breadstick and wiped the crumbs off her lap.

“No. And maybe I do. Or don’t. But I guess he just figures since I’m younger or whatever—”

“Bullshit.” I interrupted him. “You and David are great together, but I have to agree with Sarah. He should know better.”

“I guess you’re right.” Berk leaned back as the waiter served our salads. “I’m just so tired of everyone I find having some excuse not to be with me. I’m starting to think it’s me. I mean, I can’t be anything more than fabulous, right?”

“It’s not you.” I speared a pear with my fork and dipped it in the vinaigrette I ordered on the side. “You
are
fabulous. Screw him. Get the waiter’s number and call it a day.”

“I can’t do that.”

“We’ve been watching you two eye-fuck each other since you sat down,” Sarah said.

Berk made a face that told us we weren’t crazy.

“Anyway,” he began, “enough about my issues. Why don’t we give Mel the floor? How did it go last night? What are we calling it? Operation Distraction?”

“Oh, well, you know Mel. How
was
the oily-haired love machine?”

“At least you lasted a week without sex, right?”
I love how Berk gets me.

I stopped mid bite, closed my eyes, and tried to shake away the memory. “I did. And I would like to thank the rest of you for appreciating that fact. And we aren’t calling it operation anything.” I eyeballed the girls. “It went, and then I kicked it right out the door.”

“You mean Jersey Shore Gabe didn’t do it for you?” Caroline laughed.

“No. No, he did not.” I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. “I thought I was going to have to plan a funeral for my vagina.”

“Oh, look who’s pouting. What’s the matter, Mel? Did the big, bad man not perform for you?” Berk teased. “Did he swivel when he should have shook?”

“Did you slip on the grease from his hair?” Siobhan giggle-snorted.

The question gave us pause and we all stopped to stare at her.

“What?” She shrugged. “Sarah told me he had greasy hair.”

“Well, since I wasn’t dancing on his hair, I didn’t slip on the grease but thanks for your concern.”

“It was a valid question, Mel,” Sarah pointed out.

“Shut up. You wanna know how it went? He fucking farted the whole fucking night. Then he farted as he blew his tiny-ass load out of his tiny-ass dick.”

“Ew.” Siobhan crinkled her nose.

Caroline spit bits of her apple walnut salad across the table. “I’m sorry!” She began wiping up her food laden spit with her cloth napkin. “He
farted
? While you were having sex?”

“I’m more interested in hearing about the tiny-ass load that came from his tiny-ass dick.” Berk smiled and tore a piece of bread in half.

“Tiny. Very tiny. And yes he farted. His anal cannon was on full blast last night. Pun fucking intended. Not to mention the giant shit he decided to take less than five minutes after we finished.”

“Oh, honey! Why the hell didn’t you kick him out when you realized it wasn’t going to be good?” Caroline tried to mask her disgust.

“I don’t understand.” Siobhan’s eyes were wide.

“What don’t you get, sweetie?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why did you even bring him home?” Berk interjected. “I mean, we may sleep around, doll, but at least we have standards.”

“I don’t know. I thought, maybe… Hell, I have no idea what I thought.”

“Was the sex good at least?” Berk covered his grin with his well-manicured hand.

“Stop smiling. Hard to have good sex with a dick the size of my big toe.” I held up my foot and wiggled my toes.

“No!” Berk looked mortified. Sarah was laughing so hard no noise was coming out. Caroline had her hands on either side of her shocked face. Siobhan looked like someone stole her puppy.

“Yes. I checked. His dick was actually the size of my big toe. And don’t even get me started on his lack of vaginal dexterity. The son of a bitch couldn’t tell a clit from a freaking belly button. At one point, I thought he was going to remove it from my body and it would lodge in his throat.”

“It?” Caroline asked.

“It. My clit. It almost popped off and shot down his throat.”

“Ouch!” Sarah yelped and her hands flew to her crotch.

“Goddamn right ‘ouch.’ I had to fake it.” I held up two fingers. “Twice.”

“Mel.” Sarah had finally composed herself. “Do you think that maybe you should have called it off? I mean, if you were so miserable, if he was so bad, then why go through with it? We wanted you to find a distraction, not a Vienna sausage.”

“Please.” I waved her off. “A Vienna sausage would have been a welcome substitution. God! I hate fucking foreplay. No one knows how to do it right.”

“I know how to do it right.” Berk smiled.

“But you never have bad sex.” Siobhan tried to make sense of the situation.

Did I mention she lived vicariously through travels of my lady parts?

“Sucking dick and muff diving are two different things.”

“I ate out a girl once.” Berk mentioned it just like he would mention the weather.

The entire table screeched to a halt.

“What,” Caroline managed to squeak out.

“The,” Sarah followed Caroline’s lead.

“Everloving fuck,” I finished the thought.

“What? You never experimented before?” Berk took a sip of his wine.

“Well, yeah, but I never thought it worked the other way around,” Sarah said.

I sat back in shock.

“Other what way around?” Berk folded his hands and placed them in his lap.

“I didn’t know gays experimented with straights,” Caroline whispered.

“Oh, like horny college girls hold the rights to trying something new.” He waved her off.

“Did you like it?” Siobhan asked the obvious question.

“Eh.” He tilted his hand side to side.

“Eh?” I mimicked.

“Yeah. It was weird.”

“Weird how?” Siobhan asked.

“You never experimented in college?” I asked her.

“No. I mean, I kissed a girl but I never did
that
.”

“Not everyone fucks anything with legs,” Sarah pointed out.

“Are you calling me a whore?” I feigned insult.

“Of course not. I would never call you a whore. You’re just more
adventurous
than most.”

I shrugged. “I like to try new stuff.”

“To answer Siobhan’s question, it was like licking the flesh of a—”

“Peach.” I finished for him.

“Yes. Peach. Only slimier and saltier. Actually, more like a shellfish, like a mussel. It wasn’t so great.”

“I don’t know.” I leaned back. “I don’t remember it being so bad.”

“Well, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t know what my point was, but I thought I had one.” Berk rolled his shoulders and winked at the waiter, who was taking the order of the people at the next table over.

“Well, my point is that foreplay sucks. It’s never done right. I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should slow down. Instead of going right for the cock, take it slow. Enjoy the touches and the kisses—”

“Who has time for all that? I know what I like and I like when the man part is inside my lady part.”

“Maybe you should take a break,” Caroline said slowly.

“From?”

“Sex.”

It was my turn to spit wine across the table. Berk joined me.

“I’m sorry, what?” He and I spoke in unison. Peas. Pod. Me and Berk.

“You don’t seem to be having much luck and maybe if you concentrated on finding the right guy rather than the ‘right now’ guy—”

“Are you slut shaming her?” Berk grabbed the bottle and filled my glass.

“She certainly is not, but she does have a point,” Sarah interjected.

“Must I remind you about the time Caroline walked in on Danny tying your ass up, what, a week after you met him?” A bit of wine sloshed onto my lap. Hand gestures and an overfilled piece of stemware aren’t the best of friends.

“Two weeks after I met him. Not the point. Just think about it.”

“I am
not
giving up sex.”

“It was just a suggestion.”

“Giving up sex is not a suggestion. It’s a sentence. Like death,” Berk challenged. “You should know better!” He waggled his finger at Caroline.

“I’m almost thirty, not three hundred. Sex keeps me young,” I challenged. “Really. Look. Sex. I like that shit. And I’m not going to compromise my likes, dislikes, or general behavior because of this so you can take your fabulous idea of abstinence off the table. My vagina would revolt against me if I were to put her on hiatus and I love her and all the good feels she gives me entirely too much to do that to her. I mean, would you deny a blind man the gift of sight? Why deny her”—I actually pointed to my crotch—“a good dicking?”

“You need help. You need to slow the fuck down.” Siobhan laughed.

“Maybe the distraction idea was a bad one. I miss Zac.”

“Zac is married!” Sarah shouted before lowering her voice to repeat, “Zac is married.”

“Soon to be divorced.”

“So he says.” Berk offered.

“So he will be.”

“Then wait until he is,” Sarah offered.

“What do you think?” I asked Caroline.

“Me? I don’t think it matters what I think.” She took a big mouthful of salad to avoid answering the question.

“It does. You know it does.”

She held up a finger, making me wait while she chewed and thought through her next words. “I think you’re happy when you talk about Zac. I also think that if he really is leaving his wife then you should wait. I also think you’re too young to wait for someone who’s been telling you he’s leaving his wife for the past few months. I say you give Jared a shot.”

“Jared? Where the fuck did that come from?” I dropped my fork and it rattled on my plate.

“Jared my brother?” Sarah yelped.

“Yeah. Why not? He’s cute, available. I think he and Mel would be good together.”

“Ha! No. Just no. Not gonna happen.” Sarah held up her hands and waved off Caroline’s suggestion.

“Should I be offended? And besides, Jared is less into commitment than I am!” I threw a broken breadstick at Caroline and laughed. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t know about that,” Berk offered.

“Don’t know about what? Jared? He’s seems to be more into random one nighters than I am.”

“If you say so.” He held up his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

“I do say so. Like I said, I’ll figure it out.”

The truth was I wasn’t sure if I was going to figure it out. Caroline was right. I was mostly happy whenever I thought about being with Zac. And Zac was the man I’d dreamed of my whole life. Powerful. Successful. And the things that man could do with his hands. Just a tiny smirk from him turned my knees to jelly. But he was married and the longer he and I messed around, the bigger that elephant in the room became. I questioned what we were. Of course, I never verbalized that to anyone. I didn’t want a round of “I told you so’s” from my friends. And I really didn’t want to bring it up with Zac; I wasn’t ready to give him an ultimatum.