Emily
EMILY’S BOSS, LINDA, had made her life a living hell in many different and inventive ways, but she had to give her credit for one thing: if Emily had not been working for Linda, she might never have met David.
Three years earlier, Emily and Linda represented ClearDrop at SourceCon, a start-up expo in San Francisco. At Linda’s request, Emily stood at the ClearDrop booth for four hours in her uncomfortable beige heels and pencil skirt. Linda sat on a swivel chair behind her, chatting on her Bluetooth with a friend, who, she claimed to Emily, was also a prospective client.
Linda gave Emily an hour-long lunch break, which meant she was feeling especially generous or happy that day. As soon as Emily found out she’d be getting an hour for lunch, she started checking her phone every few seconds to see if time had started going by faster. She could feel her stomach gurgling under her skirt. Luckily nobody else could hear it. The room was abuzz with chitchat, as well as the loud laser-blasting sound coming from a virtual-reality booth.
Emily had been instructed to speak to every single person who came by, even if they seemed irrelevant or weren’t interested in PR. That meant she spent about twenty minutes talking to a visor-wearing German tourist who seemed to speak minimal English, but was inexplicably interested in ClearDrop’s history. A few people drifted by, looked at the booth’s logo, stole a few mints from a bowl on the table and briefly made eye contact with Emily before walking away.
It was so easy for her to feel horrible about herself at these events. Most of the companies had hired “booth babes”—attractive young women in heavy smoky makeup, minidresses (or alternatively, irrelevant sexy nurse costumes). They were hired to stand in front of a company’s booth to lure the type of men who believed they had a chance with women who were paid to stand there and talk to them. Emily couldn’t tell why she was so jealous of these girls—it wasn’t as if she had applied to become a booth babe and been turned away. The requirements weren’t even that strict: young, thin, long straight hair. By those standards, she qualified. She envied them nonetheless. Maybe she envied how confident they all seemed. If she were paid to look good all day and lure weirdos to a cloud-computing booth, there was no way she could ever doubt her attractiveness again.
When noon finally arrived, she waved goodbye to Linda, who was too deeply involved in her conversation about newborn Harper’s math abilities to really notice. Emily walked away from the ClearDrop booth toward the neon-green LifeSpin booth, where techno music played, and where she suspected they were handing out free food or drinks. If she could get a free snack and not have to shell out thirteen dollars for a tiny sandwich at the expo café, she’d feel slightly better about the entire experience.
That was when she saw a man who stood out in the sea of people—handsome, brown-haired and bright-eyed in his blue button-down shirt and slim-fit jeans. His ears were a bit too big for his face, which made him just approachable enough. He had his hands in his pockets as he talked to a waxy-looking, muscled male trainer at the LifeSpin booth. The trainer, whose name tag read Zxon, was showing him a bottle of NaturBuzz, turning it over to the ingredients label.
“You see, man, NaturBuzz is all natural. That’s why we call it NaturBuzz. These ingredients are so pure you could inject them. Not only does it provide energy without the crash, but it helps build muscles better than a protein shake. And all of this for just ten calories a bottle.”
“I’m skeptical,” the man said, smiling and bringing the bottle closer to read the ingredients. “I’ve been a protein shake guy for the past...oh, I don’t know, ever since high school.”
“Never too late to make a switch,” Zxon said. “Believe it or not, I used to eat lectins.”
The man looked up from the bottle and saw Emily, unflatteringly standing next to a LifeSpin booth babe. The babe was wearing stretchy, lime-green microshorts and a black sports bra with beat-up black leather pumps. She had an extremely dark tan and black hair that went down to her waist.
“Can I help you?” Zxon asked, turning to Emily.
“Oh, sure. Are you handing out energy drinks...Zee-son?”
“It’s pronounced ‘John,’” he said. “And I sure am! I was just giving a demo to David, here. It’s David, right?”
David nodded.
“Come on over, girl!” Zxon squealed. He handed her a bottle of NaturBuzz.
“This bottle is ergonomically designed. Did you know that with ordinary water bottles, your hand begins to develop tears in its ligaments and muscles, and it can actually impede your lifting?”
“Oh, I don’t lift,” she said.
“You’re about to start. Judging by your booty, or lack thereof, you could really benefit from my PowerSquat class. Here’s my card. I can do a free training session and body-fat measurement.” Emily winced, but took his card.
“You don’t need a body-fat measurement,” David said. “You’re probably, like, seventeen percent.”
She smiled. “Very precise. Is that good?”
“It’s in the athlete range. For women. For men, you want to be between five and ten percent.”
“And what are you?”
“A lady never tells,” said David, in a goofy high-pitched voice. She laughed. It wasn’t that funny, but he was cute.
“So—” Zxon looked for Emily’s name badge “—Emily. If I told you that you could have a three-month free membership to LifeSpin, would you take it?”
“Totally free?”
“Totally free. All you have to do is spin our wheel, and if your arrow lands on ‘Three Month Free Membership,’ we’ll see you at LifeSpin!” Zxon pointed to a large carnival wheel with different sections of the wheel indicating different prizes, including “One Free Bottle of NaturBuzz” and “One Free Week of ColonWipe.”
“David failed the challenge,” Zxon said. “Maybe you’ll have more luck. But even if you don’t, $150 per month is a steal for what we offer at LifeSpin.”
“That’s a little much for me,” she said.
“That’s why you’re spinning the wheel! Give it your best shot!”
She wasn’t sure how important it was for her to be part of such a trendy gym. Her at-home yoga videos seemed to be doing the job just fine. But, as her freshman roommate Maria had reminded her, she had a “white girl ass.” Maybe it was time for something a little more intense. She remembered, with some nostalgia, when people were satisfied just pressuring women to be thin. Now they had to have giant asses, too?
Emily spun the arrow, watching it go past the “Three Free Months” section again and again. Finally, it landed on the orange section entitled “Fifty Squats.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“It means y’all gotta do fifty squats, giiiiirl!”
“For what reason?”
“Just for...fun!”
“I thought all the sections were things you win.”
“Maybe you can give her a deal on a membership,” David said. “I’d sign up too, if I could get a lower membership fee. Is the price negotiable?”
Where were all the men like David hiding? Places like LifeSpin, she supposed. Suddenly, cost barely mattered anymore. She would be seeing this handsome stranger every day. All of her single friends complained that they had to move to another city to rid themselves of San Francisco’s horrible “man problem.” The stereotype was that men were either good-looking douchebags, engineers who didn’t bathe or stoner losers. Maybe David would turn out to have his own skeletons—Madonna-whore complex, micropenis, balloon fetish—but for now, he was perfect. She had to make sure they both joined LifeSpin.
“Look,” Zxon said. “I like both of you guys, so I’m going to cut you a special deal. If you both sign up now, it’ll be just a hundred dollars a month each.” David smiled at her.
“We’ll do it,” he said.
“We will?”
“Sure. I’ll be your workout buddy if you want. And besides, it comes with five free bottles of NaturBuzz.” He took one of the sample bottles at the desk and tossed it to her. Thankfully, she caught it. She was so terrible at sports, she was shocked she was even able to catch a bottle from a few feet away.
“How much do they cost normally?”
“Nine bucks a bottle,” Zxon said. “But let me tell you, NaturBuzz replaces your coffee, your toxic energy drinks and even your protein shake. So it’s actually ridiculously cheap for what it is.”
Minutes later they were signing the gym membership agreement on an iPad, and Emily was plugging her phone number onto the screen.
“You actually need to type your number again,” David said.
“What, did it not go through?”
“No, I’d just like it if you typed your number into my phone too. So we can be workout buddies.”
She laughed. “Smooth.”
“Wait, I’m not being creepy, am I?” he asked.
“No, of course not. Well, a little. Appropriately creepy.”
“That’s what I was going for.”
* * *
“I’m just saying, you can’t compare the basketball David and I played to your team in San Mateo, Mark. It’s public versus private, East versus West. Apples and oranges.” Kevin put down his plastic fork, which was coated in General Tso’s sauce. The Glass family had ordered in Chinese food to celebrate the arrival of more wedding party members: Kevin, Mark and Gabrielle. Jennifer was invited too, but had declined because she had just applied self-tanner and it was supposed to rain that night.
“Sorry, man, I just can’t take Connecticut basketball seriously,” Mark said, shaking his head. “Connecticut doesn’t even have an NBA team. The Bay Area has the Golden State fucking Warriors! You’re telling me there’s a baller in Connecticut who holds a candle to Steph Curry?”
Emily couldn’t help but notice how attractive all of David’s friends were. Was it just a coincidence? They were all good-looking in different ways, of course. Kevin was blond and boyish, David was dark-haired and chiseled, and Mark was black with a shaved head, a few inches of height on both the other men, and modelesque bone structure accented by a sharp pair of hipster glasses. She wondered if her friends’ appearances were a good way to gauge her own attractiveness. She hoped so, since she thought Jennifer and Gabrielle were quite pretty, but she also felt she had too few friends to have a reliable sample size. The only reason David had just two friends in his groomsmen party was that Emily only had two girlfriends and didn’t want the bridal and groomsmen parties to be embarrassingly uneven, further highlighting her social ineptitude.
“There are plenty of great tri-state area ballers!” Kevin insisted. “And fuck San Francisco—at least we have seasons.”
“You guys,” David said. “Jesus.”
“You have a very oppositional streak, Mark,” Marla said, with a slightly flirtatious smile. “No wonder you’re a lawyer.”
“He’s a doctor,” Emily said.
“What do you do, Mrs. Glass?” Mark asked.
“Dr. Glass, dear. I’m a psychologist.”
“Oh, right! I think David told me. And you, Mr. Glass?”
“Also Dr. Glass. I’m a professor.”
“Oh. What’s your field?”
“Asian history and religion. By the way, when you mentioned the Golden State Warriors, that reminded me of the Golden Warrior of Almaty in Kazakhstan. Are you familiar with it?”
“No, not really.”
“It’s a statue of a Scythian warrior that was recovered from a kurgan, or burial mound. It’s sometimes known by its Russian name, Zolotoi Chelovek. I wrote one of my more famous articles about it. If you’d like to know more, I should have a copy of it around here somewhere—”
“Dad,” Emily interrupted. “Why don’t you tell Mark and Kevin about how you used to play basketball in high school? They’d love to hear about that.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” Steven said, taking a bite of chicken, oblivious to the sauce dripping down his chin. “I was on the team, but I never got to play. I’m five foot nine—there wasn’t much demand for me.”
“How tall are you, man?” Mark asked Kevin.
“Six-two, you?”
“Six-three. How about we find a court around here and play sometime this weekend? East versus West, the ultimate showdown.”
“Sweetheart,” Gabrielle said, putting her hand on Mark’s. “Not now. I don’t want a repeat of the ‘Pluto isn’t a planet’ disaster.”
“Pluto isn’t a planet,” Steven said.
“Oh yes, we know,” Gabrielle said. “My mother, unfortunately, didn’t believe us, and the first time Mark met her, he debated her about it until she stormed out of the room.”
“Oh, come on, babe, she didn’t storm out. And that’s not at all the same thing as a friendly competitive game of basketball.”
“For you, ‘friendly’ and ‘competitive’ are often mutually exclusive. You get way too worked up and you need to win everything.”
“Emily used to have a thing about planets,” Marla said, a smile creeping across her face. “Has she ever told you guys? When she was sixteen she saw some alien movie and she was convinced that they were planning an invasion. She said, ‘Just because there’s no proof of aliens doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’ I mean, I always knew she struggled with her fair share of irrational fears, but I was afraid she was going full-on tin-foil hat!”
“Yes,” Steven said. “That’s crazy but all the people in the world who think a giant bearded man controls their lives are totally normal.”
Gabrielle giggled. “Emily, is that true? Did you really believe in aliens?”
Emily tried to hide her annoyance. “Mom, I think I heard Ariel calling for you upstairs.”
“I thought he was asleep.”
“He was, but on the baby monitor I kept hearing, ‘I want Grandma!’”
“Really? He has severe stranger anxiety and has resisted spending time alone with me. How long ago was this?”
“Just now.”
“Mom,” Lauren said. “He actually has very normal levels of caution around strangers. Although I’ve noticed he can sometimes be uncomfortable around new white people. I try my best to expose him to as many people of color as possible, and he’s growing up with a very healthy fear of whiteness.”
“Sounds healthy,” Jason said.
Marla rushed upstairs. Steven put his plastic fork down. “American Chinese food isn’t really Chinese in any sense. It’s all sugary American versions of things most people in China never even eat.”
No one responded. Emily tried a new subject. “So, Kevin, Jennifer texted me and said she ran into you at the airport.”
“Yeah. We wound up sharing a car. She’s gorgeous, by the way.”
Bringing up Jennifer was a mistake. She wanted the conversation to end before people started raving about Jennifer’s looks. It was tiring to hear the inevitable cascade of compliments about Jennifer’s beauty every time she came up in conversation.
“Ooh, a bridesmaid,” Jason said, digging into the greasy beef lo mein and plopping it on his plate. “She’s the hot one, right?”
“No offense taken,” Gabrielle said, rolling her eyes in unison with Lauren.
“You’re married and pregnant,” Jason said. “You weren’t even included in the ranking.”
“Wow, there was a ranking!” Gabrielle laughed. “The more you know.”
Lauren cleared her throat. “I want to push back against women of color such as Gabrielle being excluded from this so-called ranking.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Jason said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Jennifer is Indian.”
“She’s not Indian,” Emily said, not sure why that was what she chose to take issue with.
“What is she then?”
“You’re fetishizing, Jason,” Lauren groaned, serving herself some tofu. “She’s a human being, not a commodity.” Emily nodded, although she was less concerned with Jason objectifying Jennifer than about having to field further questions about her hotness.
“Seriously, though,” Jason said to Emily. “What is she?”
“She’s half Greek and half Japanese.”
“Hot. Is she single?”
“Yes, but you’re not her type. She’s really picky. She likes super tall, rich guys her own age. Being a bald, divorced guy with a kid doesn’t strengthen your case.”
“Tons of women don’t think I’m their type, but I turn it around.”
“You turn what around?” Marla was back downstairs. “Ariel was not happy to see me, Emily. He started shouting uncontrollably as if he were having a night terror. Are you sure he actually called for me?”
“Maybe I’m hearing things.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re neurotic, not psychotic. You diagnose yourself with enough diseases you don’t have, please don’t add auditory hallucinations to the list.”
“Your mom is hilarious!” Kevin said to Emily.
“Yeah, she’s really subtle with it. So many people can’t tell she’s joking.”
“I want to hear more about this Jason-Kevin-Jennifer love triangle,” Mark said.
“It’s not a love triangle,” Jason said. “Kevin shared a cab with her but I’ve been watching her social media posts for months. Good luck catching up, kid.” He winked at Kevin.
“Ooh, it’s heating up!” Mark rubbed his hands.
“Stop trying to make everything a competition,” Gabrielle said snippily. She then softened her face and smiled at Kevin. “Frankly, Kevin, I think you’d be a great match for Jennifer.”
“And not me?” Jason asked, in a tone that fell somewhere between “genuinely offended” and “only joking.”
“Well, um... I...”
“I don’t think you guys realize how malleable a woman’s attraction is,” Jason said. “How does Hugh Hefner get all these babes?” He reached out his hands to gesture “all these babes” but he inadvertently looked like he was referencing Lauren and Marla.
“Money,” Emily said. “They’re basically sleeping with him for money.”
“Wrong. Game. He’s alpha as shit. And that’s my strategy too—sure, I’m not the best-looking guy ever but I game women.” His pointer finger collided with the surface of the table for emphasis.
“You mean manipulate women?” Lauren said, her mouth full of rice. “Or are you just drugging them?”
“You’ll never catch me drugging anyone. I just game women better than they expect to be gamed.” He crossed his arms and sat back.
“Sure, we’ll never catch you.” Lauren motioned to Emily as if asking for backup.
“What about Sandy last night?” Emily said, temporarily much more annoyed with Jason than with Lauren, a feeling she knew would change within the hour. “You got her so drunk, she would have slept with anyone. That’s not game. If you had game, these women would be sober when they had sex with you.” She turned to Kevin. “We always joke around like this, don’t let it freak you out.”
Kevin smiled. “My parents live in a Bermuda co-op for over-sixty swingers. I don’t think your family is going to freak me out.”
“Whoa, is that a real thing?” Mark asked.
“It is,” David said. “They have a branch in San Francisco with great Yelp reviews.”
“Sandy and I didn’t have sex anyway,” Jason said to Emily quietly. “I went down on her and she fell asleep halfway through.” He gave her an irrationally self-satisfied smile.
“Who’s Sandy?” Marla said. “Who’s going down on whom?” Emily recognized the pesky tone in Marla’s voice from when she was younger and Marla would go through Emily’s AIM buddy list asking her to identify screen names: Who is 2sexxy4maishirt? Who is yankeesrock33? Who is hottiebabe87? Who is blow_jay88? Who is gwenstefanifan8_08? Who is ieatpoop?
“Jason brought some girl home last night,” said Lauren. “Some drunk girl from the bar.”
“Jason, this is my home,” Marla said. “You do not bring street women into my home.”
“To be fair, Mom,” Emily said, “she was just a normal drunk woman, not a prostitute. He didn’t bring a ‘street woman’ home.”
“Still, I have some accent pieces from Chico’s and Peruvian Connection and I don’t want them to get stolen.”
“This food is amazing,” Kevin said, attempting to ease the tension. “Thanks so much for having us.” Emily recognized something in Kevin that she’d seen in David the first day he arrived in Westchester—the eagerness, the willingness to please, the excessive politeness. It would all dissipate in time once the novelty of Marla’s free food and hospitality faded and her criticisms and dramatic declarations became more abundant. Emily gave Kevin two days with constant exposure to Marla before he stopped being so polite, or four days with occasional exposure.
“So, Jason, what do you do?” Kevin asked. Emily wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed in anticipation of Jason’s inevitable WalkShare pitch, or to be relieved that Kevin had asked Jason about his career, and not Lauren. A Cunt Magazine pitch might be even worse.
“Thanks for asking,” Jason said, swallowing a chunk of beef. “I run a social networking start-up called WalkShare. It’s sort of like Meetup on-the-go.”
“That’s cool,” Kevin said. “What stage are you at?”
“Right now we only have a small amount of angel funding, but I know you rub elbows with some of the fat cats in DC, and—”
“Jason, the government doesn’t fund dating start-ups,” Emily said.
“I know that. But Kevin is a well-connected dude regardless. I’ve seen his LinkedIn. Kevin, I don’t know what your situation is, but a small investment of just three thousand dollars could turn into a return of three hundred million dollars.”
“I’ll think about it,” Kevin said as if he were talking to a college-aged Greenpeace canvasser.
“My buddy Evan already got in on it.”
“Nice, getting your first investor must be tough.”
“Well, he hasn’t invested any quote-unquote ‘money’ yet. He promised he would invest twenty thousand in WalkShare if I invested a mere five thousand in his company. So once he has the money, I’m getting my money back and then some.”
Kevin’s eyebrows rose. “What’s Evan’s company?”
“Beardster.”
“Beardster?”
“It’s like Pinterest but for beards. It’s all photos, all beards, all the time. Over forty-seven downloads so far.”
“Nice. Good luck to him. And to you too.”
“We’re actually thinking of merging Beardster and WalkShare to create the next Grindr—a location-based dating app for gay bearded men. We might call it BearShare. The gays are an untapped market for this industry because there’s no restriction on sex. And you know why? No women. Women hold the key to sex and if you’re hetero, men have to climb Mount Everest to get to the pussy.”
“Jason!” Marla said.
“I’ve just got so many ideas, man,” he said. “They’re all just...flowing. All the time. I’m like a windmill, and the wind is all my ideas.”
The phone in the kitchen rang. Marla got up, shaking her head. “So rude to call after eight, honestly. I have grandchildren sleeping upstairs! It’s probably the fucking Jehovah’s Witnesses. They have a points system, you know, and converting a Jew is the highest achievement for them.”
“Do Jehovah’s Witnesses actually call you?” Mark asked. “I thought they just knocked on the door.”
Marla waved her hand around. “They haven’t called yet, but clearly they’re getting more tech-savvy every day because that’s definitely them. Two of those maniacs were at our door just last month—this is their sick follow-up.” She walked into the kitchen and answered the phone.
“Oh, Lisa. Hi! Well, yes, we’re all quite busy with Emily’s wedding... Oh, no offense taken, I’m aware you would be too busy to attend, that’s why I didn’t invite you. I didn’t want to make you feel obligated when I knew you had so much going on with those adorable antiques shows, and really, we had to keep it intimate, close family and friends only. I’m sure you understand. How has that—oh? Okay...really! And you call me about this at night? I have grandchildren upstairs, who, might I add, you’ve never met. Oh, okay. Right. Well, Lisa, this was terrible timing on your part. You really couldn’t wait until the wedding was over? Oh, well, of course, it’s what Mom would have wanted. Easy for you to say that when Mom is in an urn, how convenient for you. You know what, Lisa? I have to go. I’m with my family. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Marla walked back into the dining room. Her expression instantly changed from annoyance to deep devastation. “Pardon me, all,” she said, in an unnecessarily formal tone. “My beloved aunt Ellen, who was more of a mother to me than my own mother, who I’ll admit was a narcissist but that’s beside the point...she has...sadly...passed on.” She hung her head.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Gabrielle said, getting up to hug Marla’s stiff board of a body. “I went through this when my aunt died last year. Trust me, she’s in a better place.”
“She’s in a morgue, most likely,” Steven said. “The afterlife is a nice story, but let’s not insult Marla’s intelligence here.”
Gabrielle, perplexed, looked around, unsure as to why nobody else seemed to care about Aunt Ellen as much as she did.
“Mom, sit down,” Jason said.
“I don’t want to be rude,” Mark said to Jason in a low voice, “but isn’t this kind of a big deal? She said this woman was like a mother to her. Maybe you should try to be a little more—”
“Mom hated Aunt Ellen,” Jason said. “She stopped speaking to her more than thirty years ago. I’ve never even met her.”
“That’s not true at all, Jason,” Marla said. “Aunt Ellen met you when you were a baby. She probably wouldn’t remember it any better than you do, though. She was a raving alcoholic and nearly dropped you on your head because she was so sloshed, but that’s beside the point.”
“How was she like a mother to you?” Emily asked. “You told me a few years ago that she was your inspiration to go into psychology because she was such a—and I quote—‘pathetic failure of a woman’ and you ‘wanted to have a real life that went beyond slaving away for offspring all day.’”
“Aunt Ellen was absolutely a failure of a woman,” Marla said. “But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t important to me. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be some complacent stay-at-home mom in Massachusetts with a worthless degree in anthropology.”
Steven looked prickled. “To be fair, Marla, degrees aren’t ever useless.”
“Not for professors,” she shot back. “Check with your students in ten years and see what they think is useless. Anyway, this conversation has reeled entirely off topic. I need to grieve for my aunt. Emily, I’m sorry to say this, but I need to fly up to Boston.”
“What?” Emily got up from her seat. “For how long? You’re going to miss my wedding?”
“No, I’ll probably come back the morning of. You’ll be fine, trust me, it’s really time for you to be an adult and showing some empathy here would be great personal growth.”
“Mom,” Lauren said. “I don’t mean to grief-shame you, but I have to agree with Emily and Jason that you barely even liked this woman, let alone loved her. When exactly is the funeral?”
“She isn’t having one,” Marla said. “They’re just cremating her and her kids are hosting a small get-together for close friends and family at cousin Hannah’s house. I’m not sure how they’re going to fit everyone, though. Hannah’s house is far too small last I checked, just a dinky split-level covered in those tacky cat decorations, it’s really quite absurd. And honestly, I don’t even need to go to that, I just want to go up there and pay my respects.”
David turned to Emily. “Why are none of these relatives coming to the wedding? I assumed they were all dead.”
“Dead to her,” Emily said.
* * *
David was a great cuddler. Emily didn’t know that someone could be good or bad at cuddling until she met him. He was just so warm, and his body fit perfectly with hers. They snuggled up in bed after Mark, Gabrielle and Kevin went back to the Ritz. It took a few minutes of making out with David for Emily’s family to fade from her thoughts. Every time she closed her eyes, all she could think about was her mother pursing her lips and shaking her head in disapproval. She would probably have thought the lingerie Emily was wearing right now was tacky because it was red and lacy, and not...what kind of lingerie did Marla wear anyway? Did she wear lingerie? Emily didn’t know why she did this to herself. She was making out with the sexiest guy she knew and thinking about her mother’s panties.
She racked her brain for a fantasy, anything to get her mind to a better place. She envied men—they didn’t have to think about anything, it seemed. Men could reach orgasm with women they didn’t even find attractive. Jason loved to remind her of this when she was in college. That was back when she was hooking up with cute guys for the first time, squeezing in with them on twin-sized college beds with pilly sheets, beer seeping from the pores of their sweaty bodies. No sex, of course—she didn’t want to get syphilis. But making out with a cute boy was fairly harmless, and the validation outweighed her small risk of getting mono. “It’s not a compliment that they’re fucking you,” Jason had said, assuming any guy Emily kissed had also rawdogged her. “Men fuck anything. It just means they think you’re at least a five.” She wondered if that was his way of being a protective big brother. She knew he would never be sentimental enough to admit he actually cared about her safety.
She really had to stop thinking of her family. Finally she pictured David as a sexy high school teacher in a tweed jacket and unbuttoned white shirt, and herself as the misbehaving schoolgirl in pigtails and a pleated skirt. In this fantasy, she also had clearer skin. David’s hand stroked up her right thigh and she felt shivers. His other hand fell on her left breast gently.
“I like your boobs,” David said.
He was never the best at dirty talking. She sometimes felt he just said things because he thought he should say something. He had a few go-to lines he strategically sprinkled in depending on the situation, but this was a little too seventh-grade, even for him.
“Shh,” she said, holding back giggles. “My sister is going to hear you. You’re off dirty-talk duty for tonight.”
“That’s good, because ‘I like your boobs’ was all I had.”
“We’re not going to have sex less when we get married, right?”
“Of course not, why?”
“I don’t know, I just... I look at Jason and the stuff he says about Christina, and the stuff Christina says about Jason and I just wonder if that’s how all couples turn out eventually. And Lauren is pretty tight-lipped about sex with Matt but...come on, can you imagine them ever doing it?”
“Jason has always been an asshole.” He kissed her again.
“The gloves are coming off.”
“Yep. They’ll come all the way off when I’m officially your husband.”
“I can’t wait.”
Matt
Matt came out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth. Lauren was in bed, breastfeeding Ariel, who wore only his tutu and a pair of Cinderella underpants. She had promised Matt that the breastfeeding would stop the year before. She had also told him, at other times, that she liked that it was a natural form of birth control, and that she wouldn’t stop until Ariel wanted to stop. The best form of birth control was, of course, abstinence, and she seemed to be practicing that fairly well. Matt wanted to say something, but he didn’t want her to think he was disapproving of her bodily autonomy. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the pube dye fiasco.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “Is he going to bed soon?”
“He’s asleep now, I think.” Ariel’s mouth was open. His cheek was squashed against her nipple, filmy white milk dripping down his chin. “I don’t want to move him. Look how adorable he is.”
“It’d be nice to get some Mommy-Daddy time,” he said, giving her a flirty smile.
Lauren smiled back. “Let’s give this a try.” She gingerly picked up Ariel, her shirt still pulled up over her breasts. He began to stir and started rubbing his eyes.
“Mommy, are we all going to bed now?”
Lauren looked at Matt with big eyes. “He wants to cosleep tonight.”
“How about I put him to bed across the hall with Mia, and you sit here and relax... I’ll come back and give you a nice foot massage. How does that sound?”
“Matt, I can’t reject him like that. If he wants to sleep with us, I’m not going to banish him.”
It wasn’t worth a fight. This had been the routine almost daily since Ariel was born. It had gotten to the point where Matt often had to schedule sex with Lauren days ahead of time, although she seldom kept the commitment. Ariel always needed her in some way or another. On the rare occasions that she agreed to put Ariel to bed in a different room, there was still no guarantee of sex. Usually Matt would massage her, go down on her for about twenty minutes, pulling out all the tricks that he knew—that was the only way she could orgasm, she claimed. After she finished, she would tell him she was too tight and sore for sex, and he would have to jerk off in the bathroom. She was abnormally tiny down there, she’d say—she was just smaller than the average woman. Nothing to do with him. Matt once asked her how this was possible when she had vaginally delivered Ariel, and Lauren yelled at him for purporting to know her body better than she did.
“It’s fine,” he said with a long sigh. “Ariel can sleep in bed with us.”
“Aw, thanks, sweetheart.” She pulled her shirt back down and pulled the covers over Ariel, kissing his forehead before yawning and falling asleep in seconds.
Matt had heard David and Emily having sex through the walls when he was showering. It began with the unmistakable rhythmic bed-squeaking noise and ended with moaning. He and Lauren hadn’t been like that even before Ariel was born. He once read an article about how some marriages fail due to mismatched sex drives, but Lauren didn’t have a low sex drive. She had three brightly colored, glittery vibrators the size of bear penises. She had even released a vlog on YouTube for Cunt Magazine about masturbation techniques in which she described herself as a “high-drive woman.”
He exhaled deeply, put a T-shirt on that read Women Poop Too, and climbed into bed, giving his son a kiss on the cheek before falling asleep.