Four of a Kind

by Valerie Frankel

  After Finn finished the last computer stroke, he leaned toward Alicia and planted a juicy wet kiss right on her lips. It was their first kiss. Months of heavy flirting and back/limb stroking at the guys’ poker games had come to this.

  She’d spent the last hour fiddling with words about value and character, yet Alicia didn’t, not once, hesitate to kiss Finn back. She had proven her values and character, working hard to support her family, making sacrifices for Joe, ignoring her own emotional and physical needs. Alicia’s character and values had been tested. She’d endured enough. Finn was offering himself to her. She accepted.

  Finn’s tongue was soft, warm, and wonderfully alive in her mouth. She kissed him like a drowning woman gulps for air, her hands in his hair, pulling him into her as if her life depended on it. Finn’s beautiful long strong fingers—she loved to watch them wrapped around a pencil—were now under her blouse, under her bra. When he cupped her breast, catching her nipple between two fingers, she moaned. Ridiculously loud. It’d escaped from a place so deep in her body, the sound reverberated, nearly shook the apartment windows.

  “I’ve struck gold,” he said, laughing.

  “Do it again,” she gasped.

  His glorious hands traveled down her back, across her bottom, pulling a leg up and around him. He pressed himself against her. Even through her skirt and his trousers, she felt the heat coming off his erection. She imagined it a glowing rod of heat and light, pulsing in his pants. Her parts started to pulse in a rhythm, too, getting hot, expanding. She felt slick as an eel, and desperately needed him to touch her and find out exactly how excited she was.

  Finn lifted her against him with both hands on her ass. Full frontal contact. He pushed her hair off her shoulder with his nose, and then bit her gently on her shoulder. Alicia had been holding on to his neck with both arms, afraid to let go and fall to the floor. She let one hand trail down his chest and sneak between two buttons of his shirt. Chest hair, dense, coarse, and dark. Finding a soft bump, she squeezed his nipple and he seemed to stiffen. Had she hurt him?

  “Now you’ve done it,” he said, his voice hitched.

  He unzipped his pants, pushed aside her soaked panties, positioned himself, and then slid into her, tip to nuts.

  In those five seconds, Alicia thought she might’ve seen God. Blinking frantically from the tears that were suddenly streaming out of her eyes, she was overwhelmed by sensation. Finn’s hands on her butt, she clutched at his chest and shoulders as his heat drove into her.

  Her clit felt big and hot as a lightbulb.

  Finn bit her shoulder again, his hands gripping her ass tighter. He lifted her up, tilting her into a more comfortable position, and she let him take her weight. He carried her to his couch, still joined, lowered her onto the cushion, and kneeled in front of her. She could wrap both legs around him now, and lean back to watch his face.

  His eyes were wide open, staring back at her. The look on his face, amazement, need, a slight strain from holding back, the O of his mouth as he panted and groaned with each thrust. It was too much, too beautiful and raw. Alicia felt the building pressure, like a balloon filling with liquid gold. Filling and filling, and then bursting, hot gold pumping in and out, up and down her spine. Alicia had never come with her eyes open before. She watched Finn watch her, and it was the biggest turn-on she’d ever experienced.

  A second later, he came. His face twisted with relief and joy, his cheeks turned red, his nostrils widened and twitched, his mouth wide open. It was the face of truth and beauty. Absolute perfection.

  She’d been wrong. Watching him come was the biggest turn-on she’d ever experienced.

  And she wanted to do it again. ASAP.

  Finn detached himself, flopped next to her on the couch. They arranged their clothes a bit awkwardly.

  “Sorry so short,” he said, still breathing heavy.

  “Five minutes that changed my life,” she said, her tone light.

  He was respectfully silent, but then said, “I don’t think of you as a cougar or anything.”

  “A cougar?” He meant much older women who seduced younger men. “I’m only seven years older than you! But thanks for the assurance.”

  “I liked you from my first day at Bartlebee,” he said, turning his head to face her, make sure she knew he meant it.

  “Liked me?”

  “Thought you were cute,” he said. “I remember thinking I was surprised you were older, and had a family. If it weren’t for your husband and Joe, I would have gone for it. I had to turn off the switch. Think of you in only one way.”

  “I did the same thing about you,” she said. “Turned off the switch.”

  “But then you turned it back on,” he said, curious. “A few months ago when you joined the poker game.”

  “You realize, if we’d slept together years ago, we never would have become friends or written all those ads together,” she said. “We would’ve flamed out. We still might. This could destroy a great partnership.”

  “Partnership,” he said, nodding. “Like with your husband?”

  She placed a hand on Finn’s cheek. “Nothing like that. Believe me. You don’t know how not-like-that this is.”

  “Was it the poker game? Winning seemed to get you going,” he said, back to that.

  “It was the poker game,” she said. But not the one he thought. “I also play with some women every few weeks.”

  “You told them about me?” he asked, grinning.

  “I told them about me,” she said. She’d opened up at the game, about her sexless marriage. That was the first step that brought her to this blissful moment on Finn’s couch.

  Finn didn’t quite get her point. “Well, whatever you did, keep doing it,” he said.

  “Let’s play now,” said Alicia, sitting up, smiling broadly. “Strip poker. It’ll be fun.”

  They played five-card draw, which Alicia hadn’t tried before, but got the hang of quickly. Having her mind engaged, hands full, and clothes on—at first—eased the slight weirdness of having just made love to her office mate of five years, cheating on her husband, best friend, and father of her only child. It was a momentous day, for sure! Alicia was basking in the flood of happy hormones coursing through her brain, fully aware that those very chemicals obliterated less joyous thoughts that would surely surface later.

  Alicia—no, Wild Heart—lost a hand, and removed her bra. Finn’s eyes drank in her small breasts, what Tim called “the fried eggs” (incredibly, it used to sound affectionate).

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  “You like women with starter boobs?” she asked, instantly regretting how insecure she sounded.

  “Not usually,” he admitted. “You’ve seen my ex-girlfriends.”

  Yes, she couldn’t help but notice the parade of curvy half-wits he’d ushered through their shared office. “I’m a departure, you’re saying?” she asked.

  “More like a late arrival,” said Finn.

  Too clever, she thought. Too cute. What rabbit hole had she fallen into? No one deserved this kind of happiness, she thought. Least of all me.

  “I do have one major complaint about you,” he said.

  “Just one?”

  “You don’t know when to stop talking,” said Finn.

  He moved toward her, pushing her back on the bed, positioning himself on top. In short order, they were completely, rapturously naked, once again fused together.

  Afterward, when she returned to earth, Alicia realized that a bunch of cards were stuck to the dewy skin on her back. Finn peeled them off, and showed her each one. Hearts, diamonds. Lots of red.

  “You’ve got a flush,” said Finn.

  Of course, leaving was agony. Alicia felt like a teenager, her emotions heightened and intense, uncontrollable. She actually cried when Finn kissed her good-bye at his door. He wasn’t weirded out, or didn’t let on if he was.

  But it was weird! How would they act tomorrow at the office? Would it happen again? “I w
ill surely die if we don’t do this again,” she told him at his door.

  “Then I guess we’d better!” he said. “I’m free now.”

  But she had to go immediately or she might never leave Finn’s lair. At some point, soon, she and Finn would have to talk. Or maybe not, thought Alicia as she pushed the elevator button. She’d tried to talk to Tim about their marriage, many times—but not for a while, she realized, having given up. Of course, the way the world worked, now that she was moving away from the marriage, Tim would make a push to save it. She laughed to herself, imagining Tim’s attempt to romance her, or even (gasp) seduce her. The smell of another man on her skin might inflame his proprietary claim on her, if only subconsciously. Tim would never, not in a million years, believe her capable of cheating.

  The elevator doors opened.

  “Mommy!”

  Alicia, standing frozen, registered the shape and face of her son in the elevator. Next to Joe stood her husband, Tim; his jaw dropped to the floor. Did he look guilty? she wondered. Did I? The doors started to close. A hand shot out between them, and the doors opened again.

  “Are you coming in?” asked Tim. “This is a surprise.”

  Alicia stepped inside the car. “I was at Finn’s apartment,” she said. “Working.”

  “I figured,” said Tim.

  She was about to ask Tim what they were doing there, when Joe grabbed her around the waist, buried his face into her shirt and started crying.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, hugging him. “What’s wrong?”

  Tim answered. “We had a playdate at Anita Turnbull’s—remember her from the potluck? Joe and Austin didn’t get along so well.”

  “What happened?” she asked her son.

  “I hate him,” said Joe.

  “Why?” she asked.

  But her son couldn’t or wouldn’t say. She looked to Tim for answers. He just shrugged.

  “Can we please just go home?” asked Joe. “I never want to come here again.” The boy was glaring at his father now. “I told you before. I hate Austin. I hate coming here.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Tim. “Message received.”

  “You come here often?” asked Alicia.

  Tim was in charge of after-school activities, including playdates. This was their division of labor. Alicia dropped off, and Tim picked up. The swirl at pick-up was when playdates were arranged. Alicia knew it was better for Joe that Tim served as social director. If that were left up to her, Joe wouldn’t have any playdates at all. Except for Bess, Robin, and Carla, Alicia hadn’t managed to bond with the other parents in Joe’s class, just as she’d predicted and feared.

  But charming and available Tim had befriended the one or two other dads at pick-up (Alicia thought of them as “beta husbands”), as well as all the moms. That included, apparently, the pampered and comely Anita Turnbull, the type of woman Alicia found inhumanly intimidating with her polished pilates body with money and super-mom cred.

  Tim said, “I thought the boys were doing well together.”

  “I told you Austin’s a jerk,” wailed Joe. “What part of ‘I hate him and wish he was dead’ don’t you understand?”

  Alicia laughed despite the tension. The kid was miserable, but he still managed to keep a (dark) sense of humor. What doesn’t kill him would only make him funnier, she thought. Alicia knew that humor was a defense mechanism. It was her shield of choice, too.

  The elevator doors opened into the lobby. The three of them walked in silence toward the subway entrance a few blocks away. According to her watch, it was six o’clock. Tim and Joe had been at Anita’s since school ended three hours ago.

  Alicia flashed back to that poker night at Bess’s, when she’d brought Joe along to hang with the other kids while she played with the moms. She’d been in the game room for two hours before Joe had his meltdown and insisted they leave. If she’d been paying the slightest bit of attention to her son, she would have plucked him out of the difficult situation way before he reached hysteria. Tim yelled at her later that night when she told him what happened, accusing her of not paying enough attention to Joe.

  They squeezed into the crowded rush-hour train, bound for Brooklyn. The farther they got from Manhattan, the more Joe seemed to relax. Now that he’d recovered, Joe didn’t want her to touch him. She tried to stroke his hair, but he pushed her hand away.

  Joe wasn’t a baby, true. At ten years old, he was up to her shoulder. In a few years, he’d be a teenager, with a host of complicated emotional, hormonal issues to contend with, on top of his social phobia. The kid was in for a rough ride. No more stalling and hoping the problem would just go away. Whether or not they could afford therapy and medication (if it came to that), Joe needed help now.

  Alicia glanced at Tim. His body was there, swaying subtly with the motion of the train. But he was miles away.

  “Tell me again,” said Alicia later that night, after Joe went to bed. “You and Joe went to Battery Park with Anita and Austin right after school.” They sat in the living room, on opposite ends of their lumpy, knotty, ancient couch.

  “Everything was fine on the way there,” said Tim.

  “You got to the apartment, and … then what?”

  “Anita and I had coffee in the kitchen. The boys went off to play Wii boxing.”

  “And?”

  “When it was time to go, we left,” said Tim. “I had no idea Joe had a bad time until he started crying in the elevator.”

  “I realize Anita’s apartment is pretty big, but you must have heard something.”

  “It sounded like they were having fun.”

  “What are fun sounds?”

  “You know.”

  “Honestly, I don’t.”

  Tim sighed. “You’re being insufferable right now.”

  “Joe is in pain,” she said flatly.

  “He’s sensitive,” said Tim.

  Alicia frowned. “I want you to call Anita right now, and tell her to talk to Austin about what happened.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “Then I will.”

  Tim shrugged (a gesture he was making too often lately; the physical equivalent of “whatever”). It incensed her. Didn’t he want to get to the bottom of this? What had that little beast done to Joe to upset him so much?

  She got up and rooted around in the kitchen for the Brownstone directory. She picked up the phone, and dialed the number for Anita Turnbull.

  The phone pressed to her cheek, Alicia watched Tim’s face go from ruddy to pink to pale to chalk white. He said, “You want to make a fool of yourself? Go ahead.”

  No answer. Voicemail. She hung up. “We are going to get to the bottom of this,” Alicia announced. As far as her marriage was concerned, Alicia felt like she’d already reached the bottom.

  She dialed another number. “Carla?” asked Alicia. “We’re ready for the name of that pediatric psychiatrist.”

  A few nights later, the players met at Robin’s house. Zeke, Manny, and Amy came with their moms. Alicia didn’t dare bring Joe with her this time. Why throw the guppy in with the sharks?

  She had taken Joe to see the shrink. He was tested. According to the doctor, Alicia’s son fell somewhere on the obsessive-compulsive disorder spectrum, with a touch of anxiety disorder, too. Despite the bad news, Alicia was grateful to have it. OCD-lite didn’t seem that horrible. And now they knew what they were dealing with, and could proceed with treatment. Dr. Zorn explained their options. Tim was against medication, toeing the “he’ll grow out of it” line. Alicia, who remembered her own anxieties and phobias—albeit, not as severe as Joe’s—was in favor of giving the kid some relief.

  “Close the window, Robin,” complained Carla. “It’s thirty degrees outside.”

  “One more drag,” said the redhead.

  “I don’t want Amy to know you smoke,” said Bess. Her daughter Amy was babysitting the fourth-grade kids while the women played. Borden was with their three boys at a Knicks game.

  �
�She already knows,” said Robin. She took a long drag of her cigarette, stubbed it out on the sill, and then closed her kitchen window. The three other women were shivering around the table. “I’m ready for spring. Beyond ready. Is this the longest March in the history of the world or what?”

  Bess shuffled the cards and started dealing. “You know how it works,” she said. “It’s forty one day, and seventy the next. Throw in an April freeze, and by May, we’re ready to plant.”

  Carla peeked at her cards. “Raise five,” she said crisply, tossing more chips into the pot.

  Alicia didn’t like what she saw in her pocket. Rags, a five, and a seven. “Fold.”

  “I know Anita Turnbull pretty well,” said Bess, calling the bet. “She’s a flirt. I’ve had to peel her off Borden a few times at parties. But I don’t think she’d jeopardize her marriage by having an affair. Her husband, John, is a nice man.”

  “Not to mention Midas rich,” said Robin.

  “That, too,” agreed Bess.

  Alicia understood the implication. Anita wouldn’t risk upturning her gilded apple cart by having a fling with a penniless, if charming and sharp-dressed, man like Tim.

  “I confronted the kid,” said Alicia. “Austin. I waited at drop-off until Anita left, and told Joe to go return his library books by himself. Then I walked over to Austin in the playground and demanded to know what he did to my son.”

  Robin laughed and threw her chips into the pot. “Did he piss himself?”

  “He ignored me!” said Alicia. “I had to corner him by the swing set before he even looked at me.”

  “What’d he say?” asked Carla.

  “I got a straight answer, I think,” said Alicia. “Nothing too dramatic. They played Wii boxing. Austin beat Joe. Then they played Wii tennis. Beat him again. And again in three other Wii games. It could be a straightforward case of Austin being a competitive, gloating shitbag, and Joe feeling beaten down by losing.”

  “That would have been enough to make me cry,” said Robin.

  Bess dealt the flop.

  Carla checked and said, “You realize you might’ve made life even harder for Joe by confronting Austin.”