CHAPTER 41

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” I say with a smile as Alma walks into her apartment. She immediately flops down in her favorite living room chair, a big cushy thing done in pink and green paisley that makes my eyes hurt.

Pushing off her tennis shoes, she puts her feet up on the matching ottoman with a groan. “Remind me why I work seven days a week?”

Normally, Alma has Sunday and Monday off from the hair salon where she works, Saturday, of course, being her busiest day of the week. But she’s on a mission to buy her first house because as she said, “I need to be more adult-like before I hit thirty.”

As such, she works eighty-hour weeks and squirrels her money away.

“Want something to eat?” I ask as I set my Kindle aside. I’d been relaxing today, just as I have every day since I’ve moved here. It’s nice not having a job, but I can’t live off Vince forever.

“What I want,” Alma says dramatically, “is to know how many orgasms you had last night?”

The only thing she knows is that I was with Alexander because I had texted her such and not to expect me home.

I can’t help but smile at her as I put my feet up on the coffee table. Pulling a pink satin pillow with tassels onto my lap, I hug it to my chest and ask her, “What do you want to know?”

“How many fucking orgasms?” she reiterates.

Chuckling, I tell her, “Too many to count.”

“What rooms did you use at the club?” She pulls her legs from the ottoman and crosses them under her, leaning forward so as not to miss details.

“We didn’t stay at the club.” I recount with a fond smile how I goaded Walsh into having sex with me. “I told him I was going to have sex with some other guy or I could have sex with him, and he pulled me out of the club, threw me in his car, and took me to his apartment.”

“Would you have really had sex with someone else?” she asks. In my opinion, it’s an absolutely unimportant question because she knows me better.

“No way,” I tell her staunchly. “It was a bluff and he didn’t call it last night.”

“So, back to orgasms,” she prods.

“He’s amazing,” I tell her with a smile on my face. “The sex… God, Alma… it’s like nothing I ever imagined. When we first got to his apartment, he put me on my knees and then…”

I hesitate because it’s almost too dirty to say. But she merely cocks an eyebrow at me that says, “Girl… you rode a power dildo for that man… nothing could be dirtier than that.”

That’s true.

“He fucked my face,” I tell her.

Her eyes get round, and she leans forward so far, I’m afraid she’ll topple to the ottoman. “Damn, that’s so hot. Did you deep throat him?”

I shake my head with a grin. “No. My gag reflex sucks, but he started trying to overcome it later.”

“How?”

“He was… um… fucking me on my back, and he put his finger in my mouth and told me to suck it. And so, I did. Then he pushed it back further a little each time, until he had me swallowing it. I was so discombobulated by him hammering me into the mattress, I didn’t even think about my gag reflex.”

“My panties are wet,” Alma says as she grins at me. “Seriously wet. Peter would shit his pants if he knew about this. I want to email him right now.”

“Knew about what?” I ask her curiously.

Peter didn’t expect me to be celibate because he’d emailed me two days after I’d returned to Nevada to tell me that he thought it was best we have the freedom to “explore other options”. That translated to him wanting to have sex with other women, and it crushed me. I cried for two straight days after that and wouldn’t come out of my room.

“Isn’t it clear?” Alma asks.

“Apparently not,” I say dryly.

“Peter was the one who was bad at sex,” Alma says. “I know you haven’t told me about every sexual thing you’ve done with him, but I’m pretty sure the most exciting thing you two did was he had you give him a hand job in an empty movie theater. Woo-hoo. That just screams never-ending orgasms.”

I laugh at my friend, not because she’s silly—because she totally is—but because she can freely admit her dislike of Peter now. I mean, I always knew she didn’t like him but she was a good friend. She tolerated him because I loved him.

When we decided to get married because of the baby, Alma voiced her opinion to me once, and that was to tell me that she didn’t think that was a good reason to get married. But she didn’t harass me about it; she let me make my own choices.

Not long after we married, Peter told me one night that he had been scared shitless about the prospect of parenthood. He went on to tell me he wasn’t ready, and maybe the miscarriage was God’s way of telling us to slow down. I essentially took that to mean that Peter didn’t really want kids. Alma was there to listen to me cry heartbroken through the phone. She didn’t even tell me “I told you so” once even though she had reason to.

But I stuck with that damn marriage because I thought love could triumph and that as Peter got older, he’d get the desire for kids one day.

Sadly, that never manifested. Maybe that’s why things broke down between us. I wanted kids like I wanted to see a sunrise every morning. Maybe I stopped being good enough in bed because sex with him was just sex and nothing else. It wasn’t a means to create something more beautiful.

My phone rings on the couch beside me and I grab it, holding it up and hoping to see Alex’s name. He’s not responded to my texts today, but I also know he was working.

“Oh, shit,” I say as my eyes pop up to Alma as I take in the name on my screen. “It’s Peter.”

“Jesus,” she mutters. “It’s like he knew I was telling you he was a shitty lover.”

Snickering, I shoot her an amused wink and answer the phone. It’s the first time we’ve talked since I left the house. “Hello.”

“Hey, Jasmine,” he says, and I recognize that tone in his voice. It’s conciliatory. He wants something.

“What do you want, Peter?” I ask in a tired voice. Just with two words—Hey, Jasmine—he tired me out.

“I want to check in on you,” he says softly but with a tiny hint of offense.

“Why?” I ask in confusion.

He’s silent a moment before he says, “Because I miss you.”

“Oh, hell no,” I snap into the phone, and Alma’s eyes go wide. “You do not get to do that.”

Normally, if I were to talk to him in the way I just did—all combative and itching to fight—he would come at me with barrels blazing.

Instead, he sets me on my heels by quietly stating, “It’s true. I’ve been really thinking things over, and I think I made a mistake.”

“Figured out maybe I was a better lay than the other women you’ve been out fucking?” I ask acidly.

Another moment of silence before he says, “I’ve been with a few women, Jas. But this is something else. I miss you. My wife. I miss you in bed and at my kitchen table and in my car when we drive up the coast. I miss talking to you after an exhausting day of work when we’re eating macaroni and cheese out of the box, and well… everything. Eight years of memories we’ve built up, and I destroyed them in a fit of middle-aged distress.”

“You’re not even middle-aged, Peter,” I say but the sarcasm in my head doesn’t come through in my voice. That’s clearly because he’s shocked me by his candid words and earnest demeanor.

“Maybe I’m just old enough to realize that what I thought was important wasn’t and what is important I didn’t realize until you left.”

“Huh?” Totally confused.

“Jasmine… I want you to come home,” he says. “I’ll go to counseling if you want. We can talk things through. We can get you a sex therapist or something—”

“What the fuck, Peter?” I practically screech into the phone. “You can’t say something that demeaning to me and think I’m going to run back into your arms.”

“What?” he asks, completely clueless. “I’m just trying to be honest with you.”

My insides boil with rage, and I’m dizzy from what I think might be an unnatural rise in my blood pressure. When I cut my eyes to Alma, she looks back at me with her head tilted and her expression worried.

I take a deep breath and let my nasty bitch come out. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I have sex, Peter. See… I’ve been doing a little exploring myself.”

I hear his sharp intake of breath because I can tell he never thought I had something like that in me. Well, guess what, Peter? You don’t know the gumption deep inside the woman you married and then broke her heart.

“Just last night, I dropped to my knees as soon as we hit his apartment and I let him fuck my face so hard, I cried. Then he ate me out and gave me three orgasms in a row. I’m sorry things aren’t going so well for you, but they are fucking fantastic on my end.”

I wait with glowing self-satisfaction for him to say something in return, but I get nothing but silence.

Dead silence.

“Peter?” I say tentatively into the phone.

Nothing.

I look back to Alma. “He hung up on me.”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you told him about last night. You’re evil and genius and I want to marry you. Divorce Peter and marry me.”

I give a tiny chuckle, but I’m immediately flooded with guilt that I said those things. I know they had to hurt, and I’ve never been one to strike out so viciously just to assuage my own hurt.

“I should call him back,” I say with a heavy, guilt-laden voice.

“You should do no such thing.” Alma’s voice is harsh. “He deserved every word of that. He put you down and made you doubt yourself. Your words didn’t throw his deficiencies at him but rather pointed out that you’re worthy. There was nothing wrong with you doing that.”

Is she right?

Did he deserve that?

And did I deserve to have guilt-free sex with Alex? Was I using him to put a bandage on my battered self-esteem?

Speaking of Alex, I flip to my texts and frown when I see he’s sent me a response. Sorry. Caught up in late meetings and still working. Can’t see you tonight.

“Asshole,” I mutter under my breath.

“What?” Alma asks cautiously.

“Alex just blew me off,” I tell her as I toss the phone her way. She catches it, turns it to face her, and reads his texts.

“I don’t get it,” she says in puzzlement, tossing my phone back to me.

“I don’t either,” I tell her as I stand up resolutely. “He’s definitely past thinking of me as a little sister, so the hang up has to be with Noel.”

“Why would Noel care if you and Alex were together?” she asks.

I shrug as I head toward my bedroom to pull together a sexy outfit. “I have no clue, but I’m going to find out.”

“Are you going to his apartment?”

“Yup,” I call over my shoulder. “And I’m not leaving until he sees me. I hope Benedict is a good conversationalist.”