Читать книгу Very Truly Sexy - Dawn Atkins - Страница 8

“OKAY, SARA, DESCRIBE the first time you were intimate with Rick. In detail, please. No twitch is too tiny, no moan too minor.”

Beth Samuels adjusted her steno pad on her lap, clicked on the mini-recorder she used to back up her note-taking, then leaned back to listen, her stomach jumpy with tension. Her Chinese Crested hairless dog Spud, as relaxed as Beth was nervous, shifted his barrel body against her hip, cozying up for a snooze.

“Were intimate?” Sara teased. “You mean had sex, Beth. If you’re going to write about it, you’re going to have to say it.” Sara dipped an Oreo into the whipped cream garnish Beth had added to the circle of cookies for their snack-and-chat.

“I’m adjusting, okay? I said twitch and moan. What do you want?”

“More than that, sweetie.”

Beth clicked off the recorder, dismayed by the challenge she faced. She had to go from easy-breezy entertainment writer to nitty-gritty sex columnist practically overnight. Well, by the next magazine deadline anyway. She wasn’t that experienced at having sex, let alone writing about it. That was where her sexually accomplished friend Sara came in. If she would only cooperate.

“I’ll make it work, don’t worry,” Beth said firmly. She would not let her readers down. She cherished her “On the Town” column, where, as her alter ego, E.M. “Em” Samuels, she scoped out entertainment venues, analyzing every nuance with as fresh a wit and focus on detail as she could manage. The column was her window on the world and it made her feel valuable and very alive. The money mattered, too, but not as much as the joy of the work.

“So, about Rick and that first time,” she said, resituating herself, making Spud groan in his sleep. She snapped on the recorder again. “Was it on your first date? Why or why not? Did he suggest it, or you? Did you make out at length or did it just happen?”

“You mean, did clothes whip away, condoms appear and bodies magically meld?” Sara smiled. She’d told Beth more than once she was too dreamy about these things. “Sex doesn’t have to be pretty to be good.” She dipped an Oreo into the Grand Marnier frappé Beth had concocted as part of the evening’s refreshments, then gestured with it. “People jiggle and wobble.”

Beth lunged forward with a napkin to catch Sara’s flying drips.

“Zippers snag,” Sara continued. “Condoms fly across the bed. Bodies squeak and thrusts get off-tempo. But if you have the right attitude, everybody has a good time.” She pushed the soggy snack into her mouth with a triumphant finger.

The drip danger gone, Beth relaxed against the sofa. “I just don’t like the awkward parts.”

“What you didn’t like was sex with Blaine.”

“Our sex was okay.”

“Okay and sex should never be in the same sentence.”

Sara hadn’t made a secret of disliking Blaine, though an I-told-you-so had never crossed her lips. Sara was fiercely opinionated, but a loyal friend.

“You have to take a different approach, Bethie, if you’re going to make this work. Less lace, limos and gimlets and more ‘Ten Tips for Better Blow Jobs.’”

“I’m not writing for Cosmo,” she said, distress shooting through her. “It’s still Phoenix Rising magazine. I’m just going to spice up the entertainment reviews with a little sex.”

Though that wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. Or as easy as her managing editor, Will Connell, thought it would be. Just take your notepad in for the post-date entertainment, he’d said to reassure her. What’s the problem?

The problem was that, for her, there was no post-date entertainment, though she wouldn’t share that fact with Will, who treated her like a treasured niece. She was as likely to take Sara with her to scope out new bars, restaurants and clubs, as to take a man. She hadn’t actually had a date since Blaine left, nearly a year ago. Maybe she was still recovering. Or maybe dating just seemed like too much trouble.

Sara tried to set her up from time to time, but Beth preferred cocooning in her cozy house with her pets, watching Doris Day-Rock Hudson romps while munching on low-fat caramel rice cakes and diet cream soda—low-cal snacks so she could afford an occasional cookie-frappé splurge with Sara.

But now Phoenix Rising was about to be gobbled up by a magazine conglomerate and Will was trying to save as many sections, columns and jobs as he could, including her own, God bless him.

“So pick up a guy and write about your own first time,” Sara said, twisting a cookie apart to scrape the frosting off with her teeth. “Pop a toothbrush and some Trojans into your clutch, hit a singles’ spot and—poof—a sex column.”

“That’s you, not me,” she said, absently running her fingers through the silky fringe of a throw pillow, vaguely soothed by the tickling sensation.

“Maybe that’s not sweet, shy Beth, but it sure as hell could be hip cosmopolite Em.”

“I think I’ll stick with my very own personal sex-pert—you. Just help me through this rough patch, Sara.”

“And you think it’s going to smooth out?”

“I can only hope.” We’re in a reality TV world, Em, Will had said. Readers are bored with their own lives, so everyone else’s fascinate them. And nothing was more fascinating than sex. She sighed.

“Okay,” Sara conceded, evidently reading her gloom. “I still say you need the adventure, but I’ll tell you about the first time with Rick if it’ll help you.”

“Start with the highlights, please.” Boomer, her St. Bernard, lifted his chin from the floor, as if interested in the scoop, and Ditzy, her teacup poodle, jumped onto Sara’s lap.

“Is this animal story time?” Sara asked. She glanced up at the archway into the kitchen. “Even your cats are listening in.”

Beth glanced up at her black-and-white spotted cats, Frick and Frack—watching closely from their favorite perch—then at Sara. “At least cover Ditzy’s ears. I think she’s still a virgin.”

“Listen and learn, furball,” Sara said to the dog curled in her lap, then shifted her attention to Beth. “Okay, the highlights. First off, Rick has the most amazing tongue. He did this swirly thing in my ear, and then below, where it counts, and, let me tell you, I thought I was having an out-of-body experience and a vision quest—where an animal guide tells you the meaning of your life, right?—in one big whammo.”

Beth swallowed. “Um, that’s impressive.” The tops of her ears burned and she felt funny listening to something so intimate, but it had to be done. To distract herself, she scooped a dab of whipped cream from the cookie plate onto a finger, then let it drizzle sweetly down her throat.

“Impressive? It was mind-altering, mind-boggling, mind-melding—all that and more. After I stopped hyperventilating, I returned the favor, doing my very best work….”

Beth took careful notes while Sara described what her best work entailed, uncomfortable with the way her body began to feel like a marshmallow over a low flame—toasty warm on the outside and all melted on the inside.

A little bit later, Sara finished describing her second orgasm and paused for air. They both took big gulps of the orange-flavored frappé, thinking over the story. The drink was supposed to be research for the column Beth had planned on froufrou drinks. But now that her focus had to be sex, the cocktail review would be merely a sidebar.

“Great detail, Sara,” she said. “But let me ask a few general questions. Do you always carry condoms with you in case the man isn’t equipped?”

“Absolutely. Safer sex is everybody’s job.”

“But doesn’t that make it seem calculating? Have condoms, will have sex? Doesn’t it take away the excitement?”

“No more than having a fire extinguisher suggests you’re planning a kitchen fire. It’s a precaution. It’s being prepared. Weren’t you a Girl Scout?”

“That makes sense, I guess. Next question—what makes you decide to sleep with a guy?”

“Lots of things. If he makes me laugh…if he’s a good dancer…if he looks good…if he seems sweet. With Rick, it was his body temperature. He was so warm, I just knew he’d be sensual in the sack.”

“You slept with him because of his metabolic rate?”

Sara shrugged. “It’s just sex, Beth, not the meaning of life.”

“It’s never that simple for me.”

“That’s because you angst over it instead of just letting it happen.”

“Men don’t react to me like they do to you.”

“If you’d wear something hotter than a jumper, take your hair out of a braid and not look so serious all the time, you’d have better luck.”

“You mean, if I were a different person. I’ll settle for pretending to be you for a while. Plus I picked up some books.”

“You’re reading about sex? Jeez, Beth.”

“What can I say? That’s me.”

“You underestimate yourself. You’re a sensual person. Look at you in your silk pajamas.”

Beth rubbed the smooth, cool fabric that covered her legs. “Yeah? So?”

“And look around. Your living room has deep colors and tons of textures.” Sara gestured at the framed weavings—complex fibers in teal, silver and burlap-brown. “Plus, you love music—that whole wall is filled with CDs. Scented candles are all over the place in, what do you call them, aroma groups? Aroma groups, for God’s sake. Fresh flowers in every room. And look what you did to our simple snack. Not only did you make a lovely frappé instead of breaking out the Diet Coke, but you added whipped cream to my Oreos for a taste nirvana.

“You’ve got all the senses fired up—sight, touch, taste, smell, sound.” She counted them off on her fingers. “Of course, sex does all that and more. It’s a sensory jackpot with moans for music. You’ve just been neglecting that angle.”

“I suppose so.” Beth had worked hard to make her home comfortable and satisfying. She noticed she was still fingering the pillow fringe for the simple pleasure of the feeling.

“You just need a guy who can tap into all that sensuality and, ba-da-bing, you’ll be as hot as your column.”

“Believe me, if I find this mythical guy, you’ll be the first to know. For now, let’s go back to Rick’s magic tongue. Would you say the secret is in the actual swirl, the heat and moisture of the tongue, or the pressure of the tip?”

“Good Lord, Beth. You need a man.”

THE NEXT MORNING, Beth hurried her dogs back from their walk, anxious to get started on her column, her head full of Sara’s sexploits and her own doubts. Sara was right that her column would be stronger if it were based on her own experiences, and it would be nice to meet a guy with racy techniques like Rick’s tongue swirl, but what were the chances of that happening anytime soon? Blaine hadn’t even been much of a kisser, alternating a thin-lipped maneuver with an open fish-mouth.

But they’d had fun together, she reminded herself, not wanting to malign her good memories. He’d stayed up on trends, loved going with her to check out new restaurants, bars and after-hours spots. He’d been a good conversationalist and had appreciated all the lovely touches she’d provided to their times together. They’d seemed completely compatible.

Until he left. With her confidence.

Oh, and her savings. But she tried not to think about that. Too humiliating.

Inside the house, her dogs extracted their personal favorites from the large wicker basket of dog toys, while Frick and Frack observed the doings from their positions on their tall scratching pole. Beth tossed the toys and looked around her living room, thinking about what Sara had said about her place.

She’d only intended to create a comfortable haven for her and her pets, but the result was a feast for the senses, now that she thought about it. And she’d done it on a shoestring budget, too. The overstuffed sofa was as comfortable as a glove, but with an appealing rough weave. The cherrywood cocktail table and matching end tables were deeply stained and gleamed like liquid, and the carved wooden upright lamp was as curvaceous as a living form. These were amazing steals from an estate sale. The framed weavings Sara had admired were vibrant against the wall she’d painted an accent plum color. She’d worked out a trade with the artist—doing some publicity brochures and newsletters for her.

In contrast to the soft warmth of most of the room, elegant glass vases of various shapes, colors and heights filled her knickknack shelf. Treasures from garage sales and eBay. She varied the scents of the candle clusters based on her mood, which Sara teased her about.

She breathed deeply of the white gardenias, red hibiscus and yellow honeysuckle blooms she’d arranged in vases in her living room, dining room and kitchen. They were all from her yard. The aroma and bright colors made her feel good. She extracted a bloom and stroked her cheek with its petals, shivering with the delicious tickle. Maybe she was a sensualist, after all.

Her previous lovers hadn’t tapped into her sensual side, that was certain. Not that she’d slept with many men in her twenty-seven years—three, counting Blaine. They had all been good intellectual matches for her, which seemed more important than sex, which she’d viewed simply as part of the package. Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe she would explore sensuality versus sexuality in her column. Which she had to get to work on. Now.

“Enough, guys,” she said, refusing the ninetieth slobbery delivery of Ditzy’s rubber newspaper, Spud’s cloth monkey and Boomer’s battered playground ball. She headed into the second bedroom, which served as her office, her canine pals trailing her, disappointed but resigned.

Her revision on a camper top manual for Thompson Manufacturing was due this week, but her column scared her, so it came first.

She turned on the desktop water feature—a miniature waterfall that spilled over three layers of rounded pebbles into a frosted glass bowl—lit two energy-boosting peppermint candles, limbered her back and arms with yoga stretches, then sat in her specially outfitted chair.

After three slow, deep breaths, she tilted her lamp minutely to be certain the glare wouldn’t tire her eyes, then clicked the start button on her computer.

Her animals assumed their work posts. Spud rested his chin on her insteps, Boomer lounged to her left and Ditzy curled up in her lap, chewing on her toy. Hopefully, its squeaker would give out before Beth went nuts from the wheezy creak.

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, she rested her fingers on the keyboard and began her adventure.

Your “On the Town” reporter, who has faithfully detailed the latest dance clubs and restaurants, greatest wine-by-the-glass value and most intriguing after-hours venues, will now turn her attention to the rest of the evening. After all, while my date and I are savoring the saucy bouquet of our cunning cabernet, we’re wondering what we’ll do after the last jazz set at The Phoenician and the ginger Crème Brûlée with pumpkin seed lace at Lon’s at the Hermosa Inn. Will we be intimate? And how will we decide?

Not a bad beginning, she thought, reading it over. Could she be Sara for the next part? Deciding to have sex based on whether the guy made her laugh, could dance, smelled good or, hell, wore a tie she liked?

That wasn’t Beth’s way. Beth waited to have sex until the relationship was solid and they were comfortable enough around each other to minimize the fumbling awkwardness of the first time.

And she did her best to make it special—perfect lighting, alluring music, erotically scented candles, something tastefully sexy to wear, wine beside the bed and an after-sex snack awaiting them in the fridge. And then she hoped for the best.

Her entertainment column was all about ambiance and turning everything, even a cup of coffee, into a celebration. Her column elevated the ordinary to the extraordinary. And now she wanted to do something like that with sex.

Sara, on the other hand, didn’t care a bit about elegance. She liked sex in whatever way it came, so to speak. But couldn’t sex be lovely, lyrical and hot? Surely Beth could give Sara’s sexcapades Em’s tasteful flare.

She looked at the calendar. She had just one week to write, revise and finalize the piece. Tight. She liked to let her columns breathe for a few days before polishing them to a gleam and sending them to Will. Her glance at the calendar brought her eye to the fan letters she’d pinned to the bulletin board. Smiling, she detached them and read the phrases she’d highlighted in each.

“Miss Em: Your words made me practically see the place,” said the first. “Thanks to your recommendation, Em, our anniversary was the most romantic ever,” went the second. And the third really moved her: “Oh, to have E.M. Samuels’s vision. What would we do without you?”

Her readers counted on her. She would not let them down.

But when the phone rang, she was grateful for the delay. “Hello?” she said eagerly, and her mother greeted her with equal cheer.

Beth rocked back in her chair, knowing the conversation would take a while. Her mother leaned on Beth for comfort and advice, a habit that began when Beth’s father had left them twenty years before, but she had to be coaxed to ask for the help she needed with practical things—repairs and finances.

It took a few minutes, but Beth finally extracted the fact that the AC unit was broken. AC was essential in Phoenix, even in April. Her brother Timmy, who lived with her mom, had patched it before heading to work, but it had wheezed its last shot of cool air shortly afterward.

The landlord, George Nichols, was insisting he’d replace it with a unit from another of his properties, but her mother didn’t want that. Her rent was low because they’d stipulated in the lease that they’d handle repairs, and Tim was good at that. The offer of the AC was too much like a favor, her mother said, which it undoubtedly was. George seemed to really like her mother.

A fact her mother seemed to be ignoring. She’d dated a few men during the twenty years since Beth’s father left, but the relationships never lasted long or amounted to much. George was a good guy—handsome, intelligent, kind—a little older, probably, than her mother’s fifty, but he acted youthful. He’d retired from some high-tech firm and managed properties to stay busy.

Today, she wished her mother would just let the guy give them the unit, favor or not. They needed to cut costs wherever possible. Beth’s work as a technical writer paid her living expenses, but the column funded the extra help her mom and brother needed. Yet more reason to make the sex column work.

She convinced her mother to let George give her the unit, without telling her about the column crisis—she didn’t want her to worry—and agreed to come to dinner before hanging up.

Staring at her blinking cursor, she thought about something else her mother had mentioned—Timmy’s latest invention idea. He needs investors, Bethie, if you have any ideas. Her stomach tightened another notch. In the past, she would have offered help from her savings. Now there were no savings. Not since Blaine. How had she been so wrong about the man?

They’d been together for nearly a year, spent most of their free time together, and Blaine had behaved as though she hung the moon, set the sun and fluffed up the clouds to boot. In truth, she’d felt a little uncomfortable because she didn’t feel quite as connected to him as he’d seemed to her.

But when he’d disappeared, she’d been stunned. She’d thought she had good people instincts. Basically an optimist, she expected the best from people, and they usually delivered. Yes, toward the end, Blaine had seemed more distant, unusually preoccupied about his business. He’d mentioned some difficulty with funding for his limited partnership, and his enthusiasm about their long-planned Caribbean cruise had ebbed, but she’d never doubted that he cared for her, loved her, wanted to be with her.

Maybe his infatuation had blinded her to what was really going on. Something had, because somehow, right under her nose, he’d forged her name on a check from her money-market account and taken twenty-thousand dollars, leaving her with a balance of just two hundred.

The experience had destroyed her confidence, for sure, and it would be a long time before she got serious with a man. Or even stuck her toe in the dating pool—no matter what Sara said about getting right back on that board and diving in.

She wasn’t risking another belly flop anytime soon.

Back to the column. Beth played the tape of Sara’s words, closed her eyes to picture Sara, so comfortable in her body, so easy with her sexuality. If Beth could just channel Sara, she would be fine.

Four hours later, she had a draft that held enough detail to be believable and was as refined as she could manage. She’d described the specifics of the experience vividly, but tastefully. She’d been frank, not vulgar; erotic, not graphic. Pleased with the result, she shot a courtesy copy to Sara and was just about to e-mail her draft to Will—early, to make sure she was on the right track—when her phone rang.

“Tell me you haven’t submitted this,” Sara said without preamble.

“I’m about to. Why?”

“I’m sorry, Beth, but you can’t use it.”

“What?”

Sara lowered her voice. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but Rick thinks it’s too personal.”

“You’re kidding. No way could anyone tell it’s him or you.”

“But we know, he says, and that’s enough.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were. Personally, I thought it was pretty hot. And, get this, now he wants us to only date each other.”

“But you don’t do exclusives,” Beth said, her brain struggling to absorb the bad news about her column. “What about ‘a pair and a spare’?” This was Sara’s dating philosophy: date two guys with another one in the wings…just to keep things interesting.

“I know, I know. But it’s kind of cute. He’s, like, zap, all protective and sentimental. About the tongue swirly thing, can you believe it? I said I’d try it for a while and see how it goes. If he goes weird on me—possessive and jealous—I’m outta there, of course.”

“I’m glad for you, Sara. I hope it works out.” She sighed, trying not to think about her nixed column.

“I’m sorry to do this to you, Beth,” Sara said, reading her mind. “Maybe you could modify the column a tad? Snip out the detail?”

“The magic is the detail. Let me see…” She clicked open the file and scanned its contents. Removing all signature elements, she was left with a measly two paragraphs. “Without you two, I’ve got an introductory blurb. And a week to fix it.”

“You know the answer—go pick up a guy. Fresh is better than canned in more than spinach, you know.”

“Can you honestly see me doing that?”

“Yeah, if you don’t bring a book.”

“That was one time. And it was a great novel.” Sara was notoriously late and Beth had happened to have a paperback in her purse while she waited for her. Reading in a bar. Sara had never let her hear the end of it.

“You can do it, Beth. Wear something slinky and look friendly.”

“I’ll just fake the column, I guess. Fictionalize it.” She sighed. “Maybe add some statistics on favorite kinds of foreplay or something.”

“Statistics? Come on. Think what a great column it would make—Em really on the town…. Give it a try.”

“Nope. Not me.” When it came to picking up a man, Beth was as far from the coolly sophisticated Em as a virgin from a call girl.

She hung up and looked at her computer screen, the cursor pulsing like her own nervous heart. She pictured herself throwing on something slinky and marching into a bar, pickup radar pinging. No way. Not in a million years.

“THIS DOESN’T WORK for me, Beth,” Will told her, holding the printout of her revised-to-death column. He’d asked her to come in to talk it over. Not a good sign. “It’s too wooden, too cookbook. Like a kinder, gentler Cosmo anecdote.”

“Tell me what you really think,” she said glumly. The worst was, she knew he was right.

“Where’s the energy? The scrumptious detail that is Em’s trademark? Hell, your description of the wine is hotter than the bedroom stuff.”

“I had to change it at the last minute. I can do better.” Except her expertise was in reporting, observing and interpreting real experiences, not writing fiction.

Will grabbed a magazine from a pile on his desk— Man’s Man, she saw—the California-based cross between Esquire and Maxim whose parent company was about to take over Phoenix Rising. He opened it to a page he’d dog-eared, tapped it and turned it to her. “Man’s Man Gets Some” by Z. “This is what we want—our version of this Z writer.”

“This is a men’s magazine,” she said. “Phoenix Rising has women readers, too.” She tried to hand it back.

“Keep it for inspiration. Give me something I can work with, Em. We’re leaking readers all over the place. And women like to read about sex, too.”

She noticed deep worry creases in Will’s forehead and sweat rings staining his shirt. Something was worse than he was saying. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He sighed. “The thing is, the VP of Man’s Man editorial will be here next week to talk about the makeover. He’s going to reassign and refocus. The mantra at MM is edge, titillation, heat. I want to keep your column, but it’s got to deliver. You have to dazzle me—and him.”

“I’ll do my best,” she said, her stomach twisting with tension.

“I know you will,” he said. “You can do it. Just, I don’t know, make it more vivid, more fresh, more real.”

Vivid, fresh, real? Right. Her heart heavy, Beth read over the Man’s Man column as she headed out of the building. It was sex, sex, sex—no warmth, no class, no sensitivity.

This was lame. And gross. A bunch of phallo-centric drivel. Which was the last thing Phoenix Rising readers needed, no matter what the Man’s Man hatchet man wanted.

She could do better. She had to. She couldn’t fake it, though. Not and make it vivid, fresh and real. There was only one way to do what she needed to do.

On the sidewalk outside the building, she shoved the magazine under her arm and hit speed dial three on her cell.

“Hello?” Sara said.

“Tell me everything I need to know about picking up a man.”

“Really?”

“No. Wait. Make that meeting a man. Talking, flirting, getting to know him, all that. Oh, hell, just help me, Sara.”