I’m often distracted in meetings.
My department head, Thomas, enjoys the sound of his voice so much that it seems like every week, he schedules a series of meetings designed to waste hours of my busiest, most productive days just so he has a forum to talk about, around, and through things that could have been an email or a memo or shared with his therapist. So, yes, I usually multitask through every meeting, but I make sure to record each of them for later listening anyway, to catch the tidbits of actionable items I might have missed while zoned out. And thank God because there is my regular ‘I have five contracts on my desk ready for review right now’ level of distraction, and then there’s ‘I’m going to meet Jourdan for the first time in thirty-two minutes, and I can’t get a grasp on my emotions about that’ distraction.
On the one hand, I’m excited. Actually, it’s both hands. Ever since I put our afterwork drink into my calendar, it’s like I’ve been holding two bright balls of pure joy in one hand. But I’m also every kind of nervous, and I have been all day. I’ve been so full of the jitters that I actually drank decaf coffee this morning because I couldn’t handle my own excitement plus a caffeine high. That sad cup of coffee was so unlike me that my assistant had asked if I was okay when they brought it to my desk. But that’s a good thing, really. My therapist tells me each week that it’s okay to discover new facets of myself. It’s good to realize that I’m more than I thought I was, different than I assumed I was allowed to be. It’s perfectly fine for me to realize that who I will be doesn’t have to be who I am right now because I’m sure not the same girl I used to be.
The weight and hang of my breasts attests to that if nothing else does.
But this is all a roundabout way of saying that I used to think I was straight. Very straight. Wilding out freshman year with the boys’ soccer team straight. Drinking my husband’s come like a daily protein shake straight. Every woman fantasizes about being with a girl when they’re high and feeling themselves, but that doesn’t mean anything straight. Now, I’m not so sure.
The problem is — the thing that’s had me excited and nervous all day — is that I don’t really know.
I know I love the way Darren kisses me, the way his beard abrades my cheeks and thighs, the way it feels when he pushes inside me, rough and fast or deep and slow, the way he groans my name in that deep timbre right before he spills inside me. I know those things to be very true. But all day, I’ve been wondering about how kissing Jourdan might be different, how touching her body might make me feel. Every night for weeks, I’ve been trying to imagine crawling between her legs like Darren crawls between mine. I wonder what she’ll taste like when I lick myself from Darren’s tongue.
I wonder, but I don’t know anything, and I hate that. I’m the kind of person who prides herself on knowing things. I do the research, I record, I remember. But these weeks of not knowing — of never being really sure if what I was feeling was a fantasy or a sprig of something more — have been torture. Okay, I’ve been horny but also very tortured; the two can coexist.
What I have discovered is that, straight or possibly something more, there are some things that I like very much. After each of their dates, I’ve been hanging on Darren’s every word about the time they spent together; what they talked about, what she wore, how he touched her, how she touched him. I quickly and desperately became the receptacle for every one of his fantasies about her because they fed my own, giving me material to construct something I’d never experienced before. I created a fantasy version of Jourdan in my head, mostly so that I could recreate myself. With my eyes closed and my fingers between my legs, it was easier to not feel nervous; I could press my lips to hers, strip her naked and taste every inch of her without wondering if I was doing it right. It was easy to make myself come all these weeks while letting Darren do the heavy lifting. But none of that has been as real as this afterwork drink will be, and I know it. My stomach is in knots.
My cell phone chirps with a calendar notification. It’s time for me to leave.
I gather my phone and tablet. I look up at Thomas. He knows I’ll be leaving this utterly pointless meeting early, but he actually looks sad when I nod at him and rise from my chair. I frown and shrug, pretending to be sad as well; whatever it takes to stroke his ego. I walk toward the door and nod at my assistant, Avery. They hold up the digital recorder to let me know they’re on it, and I give them a thumbs-up before I duck out of the conference room.
The trick with leaving my job early is that I have to leave immediately. No lingering. No stopping to check my voicemail inbox or dropping off paperwork at the secretary pool. Hell, sometimes stopping by the bathroom can be a mistake, so I rush to my office, grab my purse, and book it toward the bank of elevators. I’m a jittery mess while I wait for one heading down. I have one eye on the digital screen recording the elevators moving at a snail’s pace through the building, and the other watching the glass doors that lead into the marketing and public relations firm where I work. I decide when the elevator is on the twenty-fifth floor that if I see anyone even heading toward the door as if they might be looking for me, then I’m going to book it to the stairwell, heels be damned.
It might be drastic, but I don’t care.
Finally, the elevator door opens, and I dash inside the empty car. The elevator door slides closed, I exhale loudly into the empty car, and then my phone chirps with a text from Darren.
“Are you on your way?”
“Yes. But I thought Stephen was going to call an emergency meeting and stop me.”
He sends a laughing emoji. I swear I can hear his laughter in my mind, and it soothes me.
“I’m scared.”
It doesn’t hurt me to admit this to Darren of all people because I know he will understand; that’s why I married him. But I gave him so much shit when he was meeting up with Jourdan. I realize now that I could have been a little bit nicer to him, and I’m preparing for him to give me everything I gave back. But that’s not Darren.
“It’s okay to be scared. Don’t feel bad about that. And remember that you can always decide that this isn’t for you. That’s okay as well. Just know that I’m always going to be here.”
Yeah, that’s why I married him.
We let Jourdan choose the place as usual.
At first, it was our way of putting her at ease, reminding her that she had power in this situation. So much power she doesn’t even know. But somewhere along the way, we realized that it made more sense to let Jourdan choose the locations for our dates because she knows so much more about this place.
Darren and I have lived in this town for over a decade. We moved here when he got his first job teaching at the school where he’s now the principal. It wasn’t our ideal kind of city, but it was affordable on his salary alone until I found a job, and soon enough, we settled into a life. And a routine. We have our favorite spots in the city for brunch and fancy dinners with friends. The boys have their favorite parks and arcades in our neighborhood. We’ve settled into a comfortable semi-suburban bubble, where we didn’t need to go to new parts of the city because we’d carved out the contours of our world so neatly. Besides we don’t have the time to explore, anyway.
But over the last decade, the city had been constantly changing around us, and even our favorite spots have become relics as new people and shops and traffic routes move in, the new jeopardizing our familiarity with the old.
Jourdan sees the city differently. When we ask for a place to meet, she always has a list of places so new they don’t even have a website. Or, when we recommend a new place, she’s usually the one to inform us that whatever place we used to love three years ago is long gone. She’s enthusiastically interested in everything, and it’s hard to express how invigorating that’s been for Darren and I. Sometimes, her excitement about a new album or movie she’s seen makes me feel as light as when she’s talking about every sexual thing she wants to do with us.
Me.
When I step into the cute tapas bar that apparently opened three days ago, the energy of this place zips up my spine. The music is loud and pulsing, and even though it’s nowhere near five o’clock, the afterwork crowd is mixing with what looks like a younger, freer student group from the local university. I feel out of place in my business suit and expensive but still sensible heels. I feel like I’m older than my age. Now I understand what Darren was saying after his dates with Jourdan. But he survived that, and I can survive this.
Can’t I?
“The paella won’t kill you,” she whispers against my ear. Her breath is feathery soft; she smells like mint and vanilla. Her arm brushes mine.
Jourdan moves in front of me, and I get it. Why Darren left the house before their dates with a nervous but excited air surrounding him — much like the cloud I’ve been in all day. I get why he would sometimes pace around the room, trying to use up some of that energy, only to come back as if there was nothing but pure lightning in his veins. I don’t know what it is, but even after just a few seconds in her presence, I can see what he saw in her.
What we’d hoped we’d see in someone.
“I mean, unless you’re allergic to seafood. Fuck,” she says, eyes wide and her hands tight around my forearms. “Are you allergic to seafood?”
I like the way her eyes widen with worry. Her grip on me. Her pretty purple-painted mouth. I like Jourdan, and not just through the computer screen or in her text messages. I can feel the reins loosening from whatever we’d been building online, confined through our laptop and phone screens. It was great, but now that we’re standing in front of one another, the possibilities for the future feel expansive.
“You’re amazing,” I breathe.
“Obviously. But are you allergic to seafood?” she asks.
I don’t answer fast enough.
She keeps one hand on me and pulls her phone from the fanny pack thrown over her torso. The phone rings on speaker, and then I hear my husband’s voice.
“She’s on her way,” he says instead of hello.
Jourdan laughs. “Don’t worry. I have her.”
Her eyes shift to mine because she feels the shiver that runs through me at those words.
“Is she allergic to shellfish?” Jourdan asks.
Darren is at a loss for words. “I didn’t expect that question,” he finally manages.
“And I didn’t expect that to be the reason I called you,” she says, whispering those words. I think whatever reason she was hoping to concoct to call my husband was a thing they talked about, maybe a thing they whispered to one another while they got each other off, maybe the thing that got him so hard and hot he’d taken me in the kitchen while dinner was cooking.
It’s a possibility. It’s all a possibility.
“Is she okay?” Darren asks as if her question has finally registered to him.
“She’s fine, I think,” Jourdan says, “but she’s not saying much, and I just realized that I didn’t even think to ask if she was allergic to seafood or nuts or like…I don’t know. What are other things people are allergic to?”
Darren chuckles. He’s enjoying this. I’m never going to hear the end of this, I know. He’s kind, but he’s not oblivious. “Can you give her the phone?” he asks.
Jourdan nods and hands her phone to me. I hold it in my open palm, and she turns the speakerphone off. I put it to my ear. She smiles shyly at me.
“I know you’re nervous,” Darren says, “but Jourdan is a good person.”
“I know that,” I say.
“But that’s not the problem.” It’s not a question, and I appreciate another reminder that he knows me so well. “Okay, here are the rules.” I exhale in relief at those words. “You can flirt. You can kiss her, but nothing more than that.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Are you sure?”
Jourdan bites her bottom lip, and my breath hitches.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Let me talk to her,” he says. His voice is a deep, raspy rumble.
“Okay,” I whisper in a tone that, for whatever reason, makes Jourdan smile.
She takes the phone from my hand and brings it to her ear, and that smile widens immediately.
I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy watching a woman be as affected by my husband’s voice as I am. I had no way of knowing that it would make a burning desire ignite in my gut, but I do now. While Jourdan listens to my husband, I steel my nerves and take a step I’ve only dreamed about for the past two years but also longer. I reach a hand out to Jourdan. She’s wearing an adorable playsuit with a discreet slit at her waist. My index finger slips inside that opening in the fabric.
We make eye contact. She smiles. My breath hitches again.
“Yes,” she whispers to my husband. “Don’t worry. I’ll send her home happy and wet for you.”
“Fuck,” I groan.
Jourdan throws her head back on a laugh.