I promised Adam that I would send my regards, put the yogurt down, and left the store. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t even know what I was feeling. I headed over to Saks Fifth Avenue and with Vince’s credit card, bought myself a lovely pair of Christian Louboutins. Not because I needed shoes, but because I needed to remind myself of the benefits of my marriage.
I didn’t say anything about running into Adam when Vince got home that night. I tried to block the encounter out, but it kept coming into my head. Did Vince have a girlfriend? Casual sex was one thing, but did he have an actual relationship with another woman? I had so many questions that I didn’t dare to ask. We had a good life, didn’t we? Was he going to try to leave? Was she the one who was into anal? I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know the answers, but I couldn’t get the questions out of my head. I kept wondering what she looked like.
The next night, I pulled the sexiest dress I could find out of my closet and put it on with my new shoes. I looked in the mirror before leaving. I had to say, I looked pretty good.
I made it to the W around 9 p.m. When I walked in, I spotted a group of good-looking guys at the bar, probably in their late twenties or early thirties. I sat next to them. The one closest to me was exceptionally attractive. He wore black dress pants with a maroon-colored shirt and a nice tie that matched well. His hair was dark, and he had hazel eyes and a very nicely shaped beard.
I kept trying to make eye contact with him, but he was too consumed in his conversation to even realize I was sitting next to him. I began moving my upper body to the beat of the pop music playing—still nothing. Finally, I started the conversation. “What are you drinking? It looks delicious.”
He swiveled and smiled, once he realized that a woman was sitting next to him. “A gin martini,” he answered.
“I’ll have the same thing,” I said to the bartender.
The drink was a nice presentation. Big, stuffed blue-cheese olives were skewered across the martini glass on a long toothpick. I took a sip and immediately reared back. It tasted like drinking rubbing alcohol mixed with turpentine, with a hint of olives. The martini was disgusting, but I smiled like the drink was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man.
“Cole,” he said.
“Wow, Cole, you have good taste in alcohol,” I said.
“And what’s your name?” he asked.
“Samantha,” I said.
He turned his seat around to face me. “Why are you here all alone?”
“I’m waiting for my friend,” I lied. “She’s running late.”
Cole and I spoke for about an hour. He bragged to me about his job. He was some sort of generic stockbroker—not on Wall Street, but in an office downtown somewhere. He was very proud of his $125 thousand salary like he thought that was a lot of money, so I acted impressed. When he asked me what I did, I told him I was a teacher. It was the first thing that came to mind. I couldn’t exactly tell him I was nothing—just a housewife with grown kids and a rich husband. If you could even call me a housewife.
I rubbed my stomach. “I don’t think my friend is showing up. I’m starving, do they serve food here?” I asked. He suggested a nice restaurant a few blocks down and asked if I’d like to go. I accepted the invitation, and we left to go eat.
We went to this little tapas place, dimly lit with candles and a rustic theme—very romantic. We shared plates of food and had a few more drinks. He was single, twenty-nine years old, and lived in Brooklyn. He was seven years older than my son. When he wasn’t looking down at his cell phone he spoke about online dating, video games, and some new superhero movie that was out. We had nothing in common, but he was cute. He was using a lot of slang I didn’t understand, and most of the time I found myself nodding and pretending I knew what he was talking about. I was technically only nine years older than him but felt like there was a much bigger generation gap.
The check came at almost midnight. Cole picked up the bill and read: “$125, so a $25 tip?”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
He took out his phone and did some sort of mathematical equation. “Okay, so a hundred and twenty give plus twenty-five is one hundred fifty, divided by two, $75 each.”
I looked up, stunned. Was he asking me to pay half the bill?
“If you have Venmo, you can send it that way,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t realize that women picked up their own share on first dates now. I certainly couldn’t Venmo him money, where all transactions could be viewed on a public wall for all of your contacts to see.
“I’ll have to go to an ATM,” I said.
He smiled. “No big deal. I’ll wait.”
I walked a block down to the closest ATM. I hadn’t even prepped my new shoes with sole guards yet for walking on concrete, so they were quite clearly never going to be worn again. Did Casey deal with this sort of thing when she went out with guys? Whatever, I wasn’t going to let this ruin my night. I took the money out and returned to the restaurant to pay him.
“What are you doing now?” he asked. “You want to come back to my place?”
I did. I don’t know why I did. Maybe I just needed to be with someone other than Vince. Perhaps I’d feel better about what I’d discovered earlier in the supermarket if I slept with someone else, too.
We climbed into an Uber and headed to Brooklyn. He kept trying to kiss me in the Uber, and I laughed, telling him to wait. The Uber driver kept looking at us through the rearview mirror. I started to get worried. I’d never slept with anyone except Vince—were all men the same? Would the same things turn Cole on? He was probably used to sleeping with girls in their twenties—was I even still attractive enough?
The Uber stopped. I was expecting Cole to tell me what half the bill was, but he didn’t. I guess now that he knew for sure he was getting laid, he was willing to pay the fare. The block was pretty quiet compared to Manhattan. There was a bodega on the corner, where a group of guys were hanging out and drinking something out of a paper bag. We started walking toward his house, and he put his finger over his mouth and motioned for me to be quiet. He led me through the backyard. Walking on the grass in my heels was a challenge, so I took them off. “Why are we being quiet?” I whispered.
“I don’t want to wake my parents up,” he said.
I froze right there. “Your parents? You live with your parents?”
He seemed annoyed that I was talking after he’d just told me to be quiet.
“No, I don’t live with my parents. I have the basement apartment,” he whispered. “They don’t come down, but they can hear me coming in if we’re too loud. Don’t worry, my space is nice, it has windows.”
I just stood there. What the hell was I doing? I’d paid half the tapas bill to come all the way out to Brooklyn, to sleep with some kid who still technically lived under his parents’ roof?
“You know what, Cole? I should go home. I’m a little older than you,” I confessed.
He looked at me as if that was no big shock. “It’s okay,” he reassured me, “I like cougars.”
Cougars?! Now, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I immediately called an Uber. Cole was annoyed, to say the least. Called me some sort of name that I assumed translated to “tease” and disappeared inside. Fortunately, the Uber came quickly. I was disgusted. How could I ever consider leaving if this was what dating had turned into nowadays? The whole experience scared the shit out of me, so much that I didn’t care anymore. Vince could do whatever he wanted; I was way too old to start dating again.
When I got home, all the lights were off. Vince must have already been asleep upstairs. I wasn’t even sure he realized that I’d been gone. Right next to the door was a vase that we’d bought on a trip to France. I wanted him to see me, I realized. I wanted him to see me walking through that door dressed like I was. Let him wonder where I’d been, the same way I now wondered about
where he spent his Wednesday nights.
I took the vase and dropped it on the floor. At the crash, Rocky started going crazy, barking like a lunatic. Within seconds, Vince came running down the stairs, armed with a handgun. It was dark and he couldn’t see. I flipped on the lights, and he pointed the gun straight at me. He immediately dropped his stance and looked at me, relieved. “Oh shit, I thought you were someone breaking in—what time is it?”
“2 a.m.”
Vince appeared half asleep, like he was still in a daze. He glanced down at the ground and spotted the broken vase on the floor.
“Are you hurt, did you cut yourself?” He barely looked at me, much less seem to notice what I was wearing.
“No, I’m fine,” I said quietly, picking Rocky up and petting him. The poor little guy was shaking. I think I’d scared him more than Vince.
He went into the kitchen to get a broom. He returned as I removed my heels and held them in my other hand. He swept up the mess and took it to the kitchen to toss. This time, when he came back, he looked me up and down. Finally, the outfit I was wearing and the time registered.
“Are you drunk? Do you need help getting upstairs?” he asked.
Disappointed at his lack of reaction, I replied, “No, seriously, I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going back to sleep—I have to be up early tomorrow. Well, today, I guess.” Then, he went back upstairs.
I made my way to the empty master bedroom, my room. I sank onto the bed, replaying the entire night in my head. Vince didn’t care where I’d been, or for that matter, who I’d been with. He didn’t care that I’d stumbled home at 2 a.m. He must really like this new girl, for him to not even try to sleep with me when I was all dressed up.
He just didn’t care anymore.
SARAH
Isabel surprised me at work one night. She hadn’t even told me she’d purchased tickets to the show, but when I came out from my dressing room afterward, she was waiting for me.
“You were great!” she said. “Let’s go out and celebrate. There’s a hot new club in meatpacking. We can probably get there by midnight.”
“Oh, I can’t,” I said. “It’s a rough week. I don’t have that type of cash flow tonight.”
“What’s the sense of dating a rich man if you still don’t have enough cash to go out on a Saturday night?” she asked. “Don’t worry about the money. I have it covered.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But I can’t drink a lot. I’m not really supposed to be drinking at all.”
We went back to my apartment and I searched my closet for something to wear. She wasn’t impressed by anything I tried on. Nothing was sexy enough. So, we headed to her apartment, which was only a few blocks away. She had a studio, and her couch turned into a bed. We stepped over the clothes strewn all over the floor so that she could shuffle through her closet to find something that met her approval. She pulled out a tiny pair of black leather shorts and a sparkly belly shirt. She dug out a pair of stilettos that matched the shirt perfectly.
When we got to the club, there was still a line that wrapped around the corner, despite the late time. It took about twenty minutes before we even saw a sign of a bouncer. We had our arms wrapped around our waists while we rocked back and forth to try to warm up. There was a group of girls in front of us. Not very attractive, but well made up, like they’d paid to have their hair and nails done just to go to the club that night. They were excited in the line, anxious to get in.
“$50,” I heard the bouncer say. He looked like a professional fighter.
I looked at Isabel. “Did he just say $50? I’m not paying $50 to get into a club,” I said. We stared over at the bouncer in shock. The girls were quite surprised as well and tried to negotiate.
“$50 or go to another club,” he repeated.
Disappointed, the girls walked out of the line, leaving Isabel and I to approach the bouncer—even though neither of us had the money to pay the admission fee. The bouncer looked at us up and down, undressing us with his eyes. Then, with a smirk on his face, he announced, “$20.”
“You just told those other girls fifty,” I said.
He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at me. His biceps looked like they were made of steel. “And now I’m telling you twenty,” he said.
I looked at Isabel in disgust. I felt so bad for those other girls who were forced to leave.
“Forget it,” she said, and I followed her off the line.
As she raised her arm to hail a cab, the bouncer yelled over at us, “$10.”
We looked at each other. Sure, it was messed up, but for $10, we were going to go inside. We made our way through the crowded dance floor to the bar. There were so many people dancing that I quickly went from cold to hot. Isabel ordered us two vodka shots.
“Okay, here’s the game plan,” she said, holding up her shot. “We’re both broke. If anyone offers to buy us drinks, we get shots. We’ll get drunk faster that way.”
We took the shots and made our way onto the dance floor. The DJ was playing great music, and colored lights blinked throughout. The two of us put on quite the show. The way we were dancing on each other, you’d think we were back on stage at the strip club. Soon we had a crowd surrounding us, watching us dance. Isabel yelled something over the music. I cupped my ear because didn’t understand what she was saying. To me, it sounded like she’d said, Kiss me.
“I can’t hear you,” I shouted back.
“Kiss me,” she yelled again.
“Kiss you?” I said, still dancing. “Like on the lips?”
She laughed, nodding. “Yes, on the lips—tongue and all! Trust me!”
So, I kissed her, tongue and all. We made out for a few minutes on the dance floor, and the shots came pouring in. I think every man in that club bought us a drink, and even some of the girls. I was so drunk by the time we left, that I could barely walk. The taxi took me home first. As soon as I got inside my house—still on a high from the awesome time at the club—I picked up the phone and dialed Vincent. You’d think by then that someone would have created new technology, just to prevent drunk calls.
Vincent picked up, half asleep. “What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” I said. “I’m more than okay, I’m horny, and you need to come here right now.”
There was a slight pause.
“Are you drunk?” he asked.
“Yes. Now get over here.”
“Sarah, it’s 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning,” he said. “I can’t come there now. You’re not even supposed to be drinking, don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
My mood drastically changed from happy to mad, almost instantaneously. “Don’t lecture me. I don’t want to hear that shit. You better come here now.”
“Please. I can’t argue with you right now, I can’t even really be on this phone. Just go to sleep, and I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.
Now I was outraged. In that drunk moment, I didn’t care that he had a wife, kids, what time it was—I wanted him here, and I wanted him here right then.
“If you don’t get here in twenty minutes, never call me again!” I hung up on him.
It took him about fifteen minutes to arrive. “Oh, that’s great,” he said, as he walked inside. “Your door is wide open, and you’re passed out on the floor. Real safe.”
I was sitting on the floor of my living room. “I am not passed out, I just can’t stand at the moment,” I said.
He came right over to me and tried to lift me up. “Sarah, I can’t stay here. I need to go. I still have to figure what to say if I get caught walking back into that house at this hour. Let me help you get undressed.”
“Yes! Take my clothes off.” I lifted my shirt higher than it already was and exposed the underside of my breasts.
He looked down at me. “What the fuck are you wearing? Do you always go out dressed like this?” He didn’t sound
impressed.
“It was a special occasion,” I slurred.
“Really? What was the occasion? National Slut Day?” he asked.
He started bringing me over to the bedroom, while I was stripping off my clothes. “Fuck me,” I kept saying. He was getting annoyed and glancing at everything in my room except me.
“I can’t. I have to go, please just go to bed,” he said.
“If you don’t fuck me right now, I will have someone else come and do it!” I said sternly.
He shook his head in disgust. “Fine,” he said. And then he walked out.
Suddenly, I started throwing up over the bed, onto the floor. He must have heard the noise, because he returned with the garbage pail from the bathroom to catch the vomit. He held my hair back, directing my head over the pail so as not to make a mess. He picked up my phone and handed it to me. “Unlock your phone,” he demanded.
“Why?” I asked, putting my face right up to his. He backed up, nose scrunched.
“You stink like alcohol and vomit—I’m not asking again! Unlock your damn phone,” he repeated angrily.
I unlocked my phone, and he found Isabel’s number. “You need to come here. I can’t stay, and she’s really sick,” I heard him say.
Isabel showed up five minutes later.
“Hey Vincent!” she exclaimed, walking in as if she still had the music playing in her head.
Vincent looked her up and down and then hurried out the door without saying another word to either of us.
My head pounded when Isabel woke me up at 11 a.m. the next morning.
“You may want to call out of work,” she said, before rolling over on her side of the bed.
I ran to the bathroom and vomited before calling in to say I wouldn’t be making it that day.
“Did we have pizza last night?” I asked her.
“Yeah, in the cab, you don’t remember? You got sauce all over the seat—the driver was pissed!” she recalled.
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