Charlie couldn’t agree more. “You are so right! May I borrow that observation for my review?”
“I’d be honored.”
“I think I’m a bit more feminine than Tony McGuinty,” said Stacy.
The two men stopped their mutual appreciation party and gave Stacy the attention she should have had all along.
“Of course, Stacy,” said Jason. “I was exaggerating.”
“Renee Zellwegger can help me leave my daily deposit in the reproduction labs any day. I’ll show her yield,” said Charlie.
Stacy said, “Do you mind not saying deposit and yield? It isn’t even nine o’clock.”
The trio put on their coats and left the screening. On the way out, Charlie gushed to the movie studio’s stylish publicist about how much he loved the film, that Kathy Bates was sure to win her second Oscar, and that his review would appear on noir.com on Wednesday. She purred her gratitude and gave Charlie her card, quickly scribbling her home phone number, “just in case you have any questions about the production. Call me anytime. Even in the middle of the night.”
That did it. Charlie said he had a few questions that could only be answered right away, while they were fresh on his mind. He asked the publicist if she was free to go for some coffee. She needed a minute to clear her schedule. And that was that. Stacy would, undoubtedly, get the full report from Charlie in the morning, or whenever he surfaced for air and food.
Stacy and Jason walked out of the screening room into the beastly hot night. The limo idled exactly where Stacy had left it curbside, air conditioning pumping. She offered Jason a lift home. He accepted. He didn’t realize yet that it was a lift to her home.
When they pulled up at her building in SoHo, Jason said to the driver, “Next stop, the Lower East Side.”
“Actually, Jason, the driver is supposed to go off duty once he drops me off. I hope you don’t mind.” She lied for a good cause.
He rubbed his chin with his hairy paw. “All right. I’ll get out here, too. Thanks for the lift downtown. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
They exited the limo. Stacy excused the driver, keeping one hand on Jason’s wrist. The car sped off, leaving a plume of black exhaust to add to the claustrophobic New York summer air.
“You must come upstairs to cool down before you walk anywhere in this heat,” said Stacy. “It’s unbearable out here.”
“I don’t mind the heat,” he said flatly.
“At least walk me to my apartment door. I’m always afraid I’ll be attacked at night,” she said. In truth, Stacy always felt safe in her neighborhood, and her city.
While they went up the elevator to the fourth floor of her building, Stacy tried to regroup. She’d thought Jason would be a sure thing. But something was bothering him. Stacy had been direct with her intentions all night. Maybe the rules of seduction had changed. It’d been years since Stacy had had to flirt. You’d think thigh rubbing and hand feeding would still turn the screw. That’s when Stacy leaned in for a kiss, and Jason gave her the “It’s getting late” comment. Stacy ignored it, and flipped her shiny red hair over her shoulder as she fiddled with the lock on her door.
“You must be parched. You do drink?” she asked.
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Do you eat?”
“I’m stuffed from all that popcorn.”
With the nudge of her slender shoulder, Stacy pushed her door open and turned on the overhead light. Jason looked inside and gasped in horror. Her apartment wasn’t a mess. It was busy. Very busy. She’d been dateless for so long, she forgot that the clutter could throw some people: the handbag collection on her bookshelf; the waist-high piles of newspapers and magazines; two dozen jackets thrown on the couch. Stacy closed the door quickly, and said, “I’ll slip inside and straighten up. Do you mind waiting out here for a couple minutes?” She knew it was risky to ask. If a man ever asked her to stand in his hallway while he speed cleaned, she’d disappear into the night.
Jason shook his head. “Stacy, you’re a very nice person…”
“Do you need to use the bathroom?” That would be a more appropriate place to wait, unless he’d be turned off by her five-shelf antique atomizer collection, fuzzy toilet seat cover, the buckets of nail polish bottles, and the shoeboxes full of lipstick tubes.
“I’m going to take off,” Jason announced, raking a hand through his hair. Stacy noticed that his knuckle growth was two shades darker than his head mane.
She was losing him; or maybe she’d never had him. What had happened? He’d wanted her after their last date. She’d just assumed he’d be in her pocket. Charlie had long advised Stacy, “If he wants you today, he’ll want you tomorrow.” Maybe Jason had seen too many tomorrows.
Stacy made one last drive. Opening her brown eyes wide and innocent, she said, “What’s wrong, Jason? Don’t you like me?”
“I do,” he said. “I’m not sure you like me.”
Was he a woman? “I do like you. I really, really do.” She did. She really, really did. And, more important, he was there.
“Charlie told me that you only want to sleep with me so you won’t go a full year without sex.”
“I will kill Charlie on sight.”
In the same way she could feel eyes on her back, Stacy felt ears in the hallway. She was convinced each of her neighbors had an ear pressed against his or her door. She whispered to Jason, “Can we take this discussion inside?”
Jason shook his head. “You barely know me. Besides that, you’re not making this very interesting for me.”
“Should I run down the hall so you can chase me?” she asked.
A couple of her neighbors had blatantly opened their doors a crack. Jason said, “If you want to go on a date, fine. But I’m not coming inside now. I’d feel used and I wouldn’t respect you in the morning. There’d be no future if we did this now.”
He wanted a relationship; she wanted sex. How often did this happen? “Didn’t Charlie tell you I’m wearing crotchless panties?” she asked.
“He did.”
“And?”
“That doesn’t sound very sanitary.”
She was sure she heard giggles up and down the hall. Feeling the early pinch of a headache — a big one — Stacy stared at Jason: tall, handsome, furry, nervous, emasculated by her aggression. Avoiding revirgination might be tougher than she’d thought. Tough, but not impossible. She could make a list of prospects. There had to be dozens of men who would be thrilled to perform this small service to ensure her cardiac health and lower her cholesterol. In fact, making a detailed list of her candidates was what she would do. Right away.
But first, Stacy smiled what used to be her irresistible sweetheart smile, and said, “If that’s how you feel, then I’ll say good night, Jason.” She opened her apartment door.
He said, “Good night, Stacy.”
As he walked down the hall, she said, “Good night, everyone.”
Softly, from behind closed doors, her neighbors’ voices chorused, “Good night, Stacy.”
Chapter Three
Tuesday morning
In her three-year relationship with Brian Gourd (albeit a union of convenience and habit more than consuming passion), Stacy had grown accustomed to getting her minimum weekly requirements. For the first year and a half their sex had been hot. She thought about him — it — constantly. Stacy would wake up from a daydream about him and realize that an hour had gone by. At the end, when Brian wouldn’t stop complaining and Stacy found herself bored by his face, the centerpiece of her erotic fantasies had shifted from cock to stock.
This was around the time she’d started at thongs.com — pre-IPO, post-options package. She relished the prospect of millions — not even what those dollars could buy, just the idea of being fabulously wealthy. In the summer and fall of 1998, theoretical riches were far more exciting than actual dear, sweet, never - hurt - anyone - on - purpose Brian. Thongs.com was a seductive lover. The romance of 12-hour workdays, stock options, l
arger-than-life bosses, silky props, good press (in mid-1998, thongs.com was named Dot Com.er of the Year by the New York Post Business Section) all served to intensify her obsession. After a good workday, Stacy floated home on a cloud of pride and elation. She couldn’t remember a single day in her relationship with Brian that made her feel as shamelessly smug. The breakup was inevitable. She was sure she’d made the right choice between her man and her job. (If she still felt as passionately about thongs.com, she might not be in a panic about the absence of romance with a person in her life now.)
She’d never wanted to marry Brian. Stacy wasn’t exactly sure how she’d ended up in a long-term relationship with him in the first place; it was a weekend fling that had lasted three years. She’d constantly asked herself if it was an important relationship, knowing all the while that it wasn’t. But the possibility of amassing wealth — that was important. Stacy’s father, Sol Temple, a hedge fund manager at Smith Barney, believed that “you are what you earn”; her mother, Belinda Temple, an interior decorator, was more of an “you are what you eat” fat-phobic semiprofessional anorexic. They were still married, despite the affairs, and seemed to tolerate each other fairly well, especially during Mostly Mozart season at Lincoln Center.
Even given that the job was a distraction, it still seemed peculiar that her sex drive had stalled. How had it happened? She supposed it was a combination of will and inertia. Post-Brian, the early months: Stacy had missed physical contact, but not the sex act itself. It had grown flat at the end of the relationship, and she had alleviated her acute symptoms handily on her own. She had pined for admiration, flattering comments, inter-locking toes in bed. But adoration from a man, she reminded herself often, wasn’t life sustaining. Men were not mandatory. Unlike food, water, the impulsive shopping spree, Stacy could survive without Brian’s hands and lips. She was a strong, emotionally stable woman, proudly independent, making it in the world. She enjoyed her own company. But there’d been times in the fall and winter of last year, undeniable times, when she caught a glimpse of herself in grubby pajamas late at night, when this thought would unsettle her: I don’t like myself. Then, the despair, the “what will become of me?” fear, had to be dealt with before she could fall asleep.
With the exception of those fitful hours, Stacy got her rest. She went to work on weekdays (and Saturdays). She exercised. She ate at least three pieces of fruit a day. Months and the need for affection passed. It fell away slyly. She hadn’t even noticed. Over time, sexual inactivity had become part of her identity. Charlie was right: She did reek of disuse, everyone could tell. And now she could smell it on herself. How dreadfully embarrassing.
Such reflections made for a depressing subway ride. Not that the underground crunch would have been better had she been contemplating the ocean deep and blue. The train temperature felt at least 200 degrees Fahrenheit and the air, practically visible as steam, pressed against her chest and legs. Stacy hung on to her metal strap and replayed last night’s rejection scene. Had the rules of seduction changed that much? she wondered. Never in her life has she felt so little sexual tension, such a void of interest from a man. Stacy was an exceptionally attractive woman. She had a passionate flame of red hair. She was pink of cheek. Wasn’t that enough anymore?
In her 20s, Stacy’s sexual patterns had been un-complicated. She’d meet a guy in a bar or at a party, sleep with him right away, and they’d become boyfriend/girlfriend for several weeks or months. They’d break up, and she’d meet someone new. Perhaps the rules changed once a woman entered her fourth decade. Or maybe the problem was men over 30. If Jason were 25, he wouldn’t have hesitated. At 35, he wanted Stacy’s respect in the morning. Was this evidence of a decline in testosterone levels?
Stacy studied the other subway passengers, trying to guess the last time each had had sex. That cooing couple, unmarried (no rings), mature (40s), had clearly engaged within an hour of entering the train station. The 300-pound woman, sweating copiously despite the mini-fan, wore a ring and had probably done it within the month. A severely attractive man in seersucker at the strap next to Stacy wore the satisfied expression of sexual accomplishment. He smiled at her as she examined him. Stacy quickly turned away. She could practically feel the throbbing of a scarlet V on her forehead.
She got off at Grand Central. The huge train station cum shopping mall was swarming with thousands of people who fully enjoyed a decadent sex life. Preoccupied by passers-by (“last night,” “within a month,” “two times this week and thrice on Sunday”), Stacy slogged through the building and out onto 42nd Street. She turned toward the greasy deli for her usual breakfast sandwich. Then she hesitated. The kissy-kissy man would be inside. If she were to enter, he’d naturally assume that she’d returned for another helping of harassment.
She couldn’t face him — not in this pitiable state of impotency. She glanced in the deli window and saw him, her tormenter, spatula in hand. He noticed her, too, and shot a wink and a pucker.
Shame renewed, embarrassment refreshed, Stacy scuttled toward her Park Avenue silver tower. Stumbling on a grate, she managed to remain upright, but broke the heel of her sandal. Since she had several pairs of spare shoes in her office, a trauma of this magnitude wouldn’t ordinarily reduce Stacy to tears, the hot kind that shot from the ducts like liquid bullets. Ordinarily, no. Today, in her mire, yes.
Stacy hobbled into the up elevator of her office building to discover Taylor Perry, thongs.com’s employee number four, vice president in charge of production. A dirty blonde — hair still damp — in an unevenly hemmed orange halter dress (despite the fact that a woman of her proportions should never be seen in public without a bra), Taylor took one look at Stacy’s makeup streaks and proposed a theory.
“You must be PMSing,” she said, adding, “I am. We all are. The meeting today will be a bitch.”
Taylor Perry, 22, formerly a political science major at Dartmouth, was the one person without whom thongs.com could not exist. Stacy’s eyes glazed over whenever Taylor started talking about servers, uploads, caches and cookies, but without her kind of know-how, thongs.com or any Internet retail company couldn’t do business. “Creatives” — like Stacy — were a dime a dozen. Tech people — like Taylor — were rare and in demand.
Upon seeing her colleague Stacy immediately became posture conscious, straightening her back as if pulled by an invisible string from the top of her head. She smiled weakly at Taylor and said, “What brings you in so early?” It was just after 8 A.M. Stacy had hoped to grab several minutes of alone time to organize her thoughts and her list of de-revirgination prospects before her bosses arrived and began issuing orders.
“I’m late actually. I’m usually here at seven,” said Taylor. “I get up at five thirty, run six miles, and come right over. I like the quiet. Can’t get much done with The Women prowling the halls.” The Women — as the staff called them — were Janice Strumph and Fiona Chardonnay, the founders and leaders of the company.
Stacy nodded as her colleague spoke, imagining Taylor’s predawn exercise and the gargantuan sports bra she would need for restraint. Taylor graduated from college only last year and, in a recruiting binge, had been courted by dozens of Internet companies before choosing thongs.com as her first job. Stacy imagined the stock options package Fiona and Janice must have offered to woo Taylor away from (premerger) AOL and (pre-bottomed out) Amazon.
Despite the gossipy atmosphere at thongs.com (inevitable with the late hours and free cappuccino), Taylor was tight-lipped about her life away from work (as if there was time for such a thing). Stacy had gathered enough droplets of information to fill a birdbath: Taylor had had a boyfriend in college, a geek like her (said with admiration, not derision), who’d moved to Grand Cayman after graduation to create a hugely profitable Internet gaming site. His partner was another Dartmouth grad, a woman who was neither a geek nor blessed with Taylor’s commodious curves. Stacy and Fiona had visited the site, casinoroyale.com, and examined the photograph of the two gamin
g tycoons, waving on a white-sand beach: he, a chubby, shirtless, tan, baseball-capped piña colada drinker; she, a skinny, bikinied, sunburned, arch-eyebrowed brunette with several anklets. If giddy good luck could be captured digitally, this grainy photograph was it.
Whenever Stacy felt jealous of Taylor (she was impossibly young and talented), Stacy thought of the ex-boyfriend in all his sun-drenched joy with a woman he’d met the day before he dumped Taylor and disappeared into paradise. No wonder Taylor claimed to have “sworn off men” whenever Janice consumed half a staff meeting to deconstruct her most recent demoralizing Saturday-night date.
Stacy only now wondered if Taylor saw her as a kindred spirit. By all appearances, Stacy had also decided to forgo men intentionally (one of Gigi XXX’s celibate-by-choicers). Stacy was reticent about her personal life (by default: nothing to tell). Taylor and Stacy shared the dubious bond of abstinence — along with the biological kinship of menstruation. Maybe that explained why Taylor always sat next to Stacy at meetings and wrote little secret messages for her on her legal pad (“This sucks,” “Get me out of here,” “How did pasties become the center of my world?”). God knows, Taylor and Stacy didn’t share a love of circuitry and gigabytes — or antique lace and satin bows. Their only common (infertile) ground was sexual inactivity.
Taylor was an expert, however, in substitution. The elevator climbed a dozen floors in seconds. While Stacy worked her jaw to pop her ears, Taylor prattled on about running, how her legs shook from exertion, her heart pounded, her skin tingled all over, and then, how there was, around mile five, the incredible release of endorphins.
“That’s the best part of the run,” she explained. “The big bang at the end.”
“I should get more exercise,” said Stacy as they stepped off the elevator and onto the thongs.com floor.
“It helps with bloating,” Taylor added.
The Accidental Virgin Page 3