Dedication and Quotes
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
BONUS
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright © 2015 by Leslie McAdam
Cover Design by Tracy J. Parker
Interior Formatting by Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Other Works by the Author
Giving You … Series
The Sun and the Moon
The Stars in the Sky
All the Waters of the Earth
The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Novella
Lumbersexual
Anthology
Because Beards
Dedication and Quotes
For Tom
"Things go and things happen and you're there, I guess." —Rob Machado
Acknowledgments
My thanks and love to:
My husband and my children, for allowing me time to write and for not asking too many questions;
My brother, Nelson Wells, for understanding;
My parents, for not reading what I write;
Carol Sautter, for loyalty;
MAV, PM, and Laura Victoria Kline Bartels (my Marie), for literally saving my life in February 2014;
Blake Darrington, Joyce Lombard, and Linda Kottler, for guidance;
James R. Dobbins, Jr., for getting me past the wall;
Theresa Robledo, for flowers and for dishing, regularly;
Ari Larson, Dena Wyand, and Mary-Allyn Garcia, for believing that I was a writer when I didn’t believe it myself;
Doodlebug, for the Grubmeister;
J.D. Hawkins, for inspiration and for listening to my stories;
Kristy Lin Billuni of www.sexygrammar.com, for getting me out of the writer’s closet and for holding my hand;
Amanda Billuni, for the introduction and for a long, lovely history;
Kristen Vail, for reading my shit early;
Maxine Donner, for adding commas and for having my back, always;
BG Davies, for telling me that I didn’t need commas;
Little Dude, for sexy giggles;
Catherine Bibby of Rochelle’s Reviews, for taking a chance on me and for my first blog review;
Maria Monroe of Graffiti Fiction, for Hemingway;
Candi Kane of the Dirty Laundry Blog, for auto-correct fails;
Heather Lynne of Obsessed with Myshelf, for being my spirit animal;
Jen McCoy of the Literary Gossip, for my first shout out;
Jerica MacMillan, for editing assistance, although all errors are mine;
My beautiful family, colleagues, and friends, for love and friendship; and
The magnificent people in the Wattpad, Twitter, and Facebook reading and writing communities, for your support.
I love you all
Not All Accountants Drive Harleys
HE PANTED OVER ME, sweat beading on his forehead, his veins straining in his neck. I grasped his smooth, naked back, and then his ass, while he thrusted into me. I faked a moan and kissed his ear. He groaned loudly. I let go and ran my hands through his soft, light brown hair.
I just wasn’t into this. I’d a better chance of getting an orgasm in the NARS aisle at Sephora. There, an "orgasm" was a certainty, after I handed over my credit card for an overpriced powdered blush, in a pinky-peach color, called ORGASM. Here, it was a crapshoot. But I’d decided to try it tonight, after putting him off for three months, hoping that it’d be worth it. He was really sweet at dinner. It was a good dinner. The champagne was nice. I thought the sex would be good.
It wasn’t. Goddamn it. Goddamn him. Goddamn me. Goddamn the antidepressants. I was entitled to an orgasm. But the pills made it hard for me to come. I didn't think it was impossible, though. Dr. Google and Dr. WebMD said it could happen. So now I was pissed and blaming him and me for not doing this well, but I decided to hide my anger with a gasp, which he interpreted, incorrectly, as something like pleasure or enthusiasm.
So he gripped my ass, and thrusted faster and harder. Harder was okay with me, but it didn’t hit the right spots. And I wasn’t sure that I could guide him to the right spots if he asked. I made the decision, then, to just get this over with. Not only the sex but also the relationship. It was a relationship with a little "r" anyway, not a big "R." I could kick him out right now, but that was kind of a shit maneuver. I mean, I invited him here to do this. I wanted to try it. This wasn’t my first time in bed with a man. But right now, I didn’t have the energy to talk with him and tell him what I wanted. I didn’t want to explore. I didn’t want to communicate. I just wanted to be over and done with this night.
My mind wandered. I was bored and distracted. I knew that I was supposed to be into it—all consumed, all lust and climaxing and shit like that. But no, as he moved, I looked at the ceiling of my 1927 Santa Barbara adobe, darkening in the dusky sky. I noticed patterns in the white plaster. The room was getting really dark. I never had sex in the full light because I didn’t want any questions about my scars. Yet another reason why I put this off. I exhaled.
What’s on TV later?
One of the channels was having a Harry Potter marathon.
I wish I’d gone to Hogwarts instead of law school.
Wait. Focus. Sex. We're having sex. I was doing it with Paul. He was cute and nice. He had lovely, soft skin and a shy smile. And he was an accountant.
Okay, so he was bad in bed.
Really bad.
Whoever said that sex was like pizza—even when it's bad, it's good—was a big fat liar. There was such a thing as bad sex. And bad pizza. I ought to know. I swear, if a man could make me orgasm—even if I had to break my Rules and do it myself—I’d stay with him for life.
At this point, I didn’t think that I could turn this into good, or even slightly pleasant sex, nor did I want to. It was all my fault for being a closet romantic.
Don’t ask me where I’d got it, but I had this impression that accountants were really bad boys who secretly rode Harleys on weekends, with, well, a naughty side, which would be unleashed once they got an erection. Not Paul. He was sweet, but not passionate. Kind, but socially and emotionally clueless. He seemed genuinely perplexed by me and my sense of humor. I’d caught him looking at me like he couldn’t quite figure me out. He was good looking, but bland. Not particularly small, but not particularly big—in every way that you could imagine. He dressed well, but not flashy. He had a nice car, but not too nice. He listened. He was polite. He treated me nicely.
But there w
as no spark. My heart didn’t beat harder when I saw him. I’d finally figured out that he wasn’t hard to figure out: there was just no romantic, secret, passionate side to Paul the accountant.
The bottom line was, he liked taxes. Well, he liked figuring out how to get away with legally not paying taxes, and telling me about it in intricate detail. That was his passion. Sex? Not so much. I’m a lawyer, and I love me a loophole, but give me a break.
I’d thought this through logically: he was a guy, so he must like sex, and getting him naked would allow me to find out how much he liked sex, and maybe get an orgasm that wasn’t an expensive powdered blush. But now that I was experiencing the naked side of Paul, I’d found out that fucking wasn’t his strong point.
Wait. I didn’t "fuck." I "had sex." Or "made love." Or "got busy." I was too classy to fuck. It was against my Rules. Well, whatever. He was better at preparing 1040s.
But he was also safe. There was no chance of him finding out about my Rules and therefore breaking them, because he didn’t question me when I asked to do it missionary. He just strapped on the condom and started thrusting. That was a relief.
I think.
In case you were wondering, these are my Rules:
1. No sex in the daylight. Or any type of light.
2. No masturbation.
3. No doggy style.
4. No oral sex.
5. No submission. I am always in control.
6. No toys.
7. No spending the night, so I never do the walk of shame. And no one spends the night at my place.
8. Nothing demeaning.
9. No dirty talk.
10. I don’t call it "fucking." I only "make love."
And anal didn’t even need to be on the list because it wasn’t even a consideration. Not in my world.
Yeah. I really am a princess with a stick up my ass, and yeah, I know that sometimes I say one thing and then do another. Deal with it.
Paul maneuvered faster now. Bless him. He was trying. But nope. Television was better. The stars weren’t aligning. I wasn’t going to come. The Prozac still messed with me and apparently, it had stolen my orgasm.
I noted yet another pattern on the plastered ceiling, now barely visible in the fully darkened room.
And he was really moving. It wasn’t painful or anything. I liked the guy. But he just wasn’t doing it for me. Nope. So …
What was on TV?
Focus, girl, focus.
Better fake it to get it over with.
"Oh God. Oh God. Paul. Paul!" I clenched my vaginal muscles, took a big breath, and then let the air noisily out.
He thrusted, sped up, and then stilled, pumping a release into the too-big condom. After a bit, he hugged me, kissed my forehead and rolled over, tracing my arm with his fingertip.
Maybe he’d leave soon, and I could rewatch Order of the Phoenix.
Thank God that was over. He looked pleased, though. I'd have to let him down easy. Tomorrow.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON I made it to my weekly appointment.
"When do you feel sexy?" my therapist asked.
"Never."
"Never?"
I nodded. "I'm not supposed to feel sexy. I want to feel pretty. Or hot. But not sexy. And most of the time I just feel fat. There's this lump here, on my belly, that's just not going away." She ignored my attempt to body shame myself, and went straight to the point.
"We'll set aside the issue of whether you are 'supposed to' do anything or not do anything for now. But using your words, why do you think you're not supposed to feel sexy?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel or not feel anymore," I snapped. "But yes, I'm not supposed to feel sexy."
Yes, I’m weird. My belief is completely at odds with marketing today. Nowadays, everything’s sex; I’m supposed go around feeling sexy since I’m a modern, enlightened woman. And it’s true: I’m no virgin. I want my orgasm.
But somehow along the way, like a lot of us, I'd come to believe that sex, pleasure, and feeling good were all wrong. I felt guilty about sex, even though that was embarrassing to admit at my age. I was raised Irish-Catholic and taught to believe that anything pleasurable was bad. I had also learned that a woman was not supposed to be openly sexual. When that belief was ingrained in you, it was hard to believe anything else. If it felt good, it must be bad.
Really, it’s part of the stern, cultural tradition of prudish sexual morality in America. I could blame it on the Puritans. But since they've been fucking gone for centuries—at least the kind with buckled shoes—I wasn’t sure who to blame for my personal pathological repression.
How do you reconcile the fact that we’re sexual beings with our mixed up cultural norms? And how do you do it on a personal level?
I did it by establishing my Rules. I gave my body sex but only on limited conditions. It worked.
Sort of.
Okay, it didn’t.
After my experiences the past year, I was seriously considering revising these Rules. Indeed, after my sessions with my therapist, I now thought that this was a key part of the cause of my depression: denying myself pleasure. The thing was, when I really thought about it, what was wrong with sex? It's natural, biological. I didn't want to get a disease, or get physically or emotionally hurt. But after wanting to have sex, but only under certain conditions, for so long, I couldn’t help but feel that I needed to change something.
"It's okay to have that feeling, you know?" said my therapist with a smile. "You don't have to like sex."
"But I think I want to," I said in a quiet voice.
"Then let's try something. I'm going to give you some homework. Do a few things to make yourself feel sexy. Make a list and do it. Buy some incredible lingerie. Get a Brazilian. Buy a vibrator. Read a romance novel."
"I don't read trash."
"The greatest way to turn on a woman is through her mind," my therapist said firmly. "I'll give you a list of books to check out. That's what e-readers are for—so you don't have to go to the store and deal with walking to the register holding a book with a half-naked man or woman on the cover. Look, I understand you may feel uncomfortable about this, but I can assure you that it's part of healthy sexuality. Just try it and be open."
Healthy sexuality. Now there was a concept. I was almost giggling with glee. What would happen if I tried it? After so much therapy, I had broken through so many barriers and allowed myself to get out of a very bad place. But this was the final frontier. Giving myself permission to enjoy sex, huh? That could be good.
It was funny how quickly I dropped my defenses about this. Thirty-one years old now, I had lost my virginity when I was eighteen. That was a long time of simultaneously wanting to have sex and feeling bad about it. But now that I’d thought about it logically, I really wanted to engage in pleasure. I bet my brain would feel so good with an orgasm. I was ready to dial in.
"I'll do it," I pledged.
Green Eyes and Blue
THE PACIFIC OCEAN SPARKLED to my right in the September morning sunlight as I drove south from Santa Barbara, my home, to Ventura, where I was to be in court later that day. Not knowing traffic, I’d left early, brought a laptop and some files, and intended to work at a coffee shop until I needed to be in court. I’d checked Yelp, and planned on trying Southwinds Coffee, an indie shop that was highly recommended, and close to the courthouse. Frankly, with an ocean-side drive almost the whole way, this was one of the best commutes in the world, and I was glad to be out of the office and on to court for a pretrial hearing. My big trial was scheduled in a week; this was some procedural garbage that I had to get rid of before the first day of the proceedings.
I tried to keep my eyes on the road as I drove my black Mercedes convertible down Highway 101, but the ocean was really distracting. Chamber of Commerce weather, I called it—clear, blue sky, murky, but silvery, green-blue water, and the crash of waves. No fog. You could see the Channel Islands in the distance and pelicans flying low along the shore. I bet if you
stopped and watched, you could see dolphins. With the window open a crack, I could smell the ocean salt and stink. I still loved it.
I wanted to put the top down on my car, but that would muss up my hair, and I had to stay put together for court. I wore semi-badass lawyer attire. Full badass meant a navy pinstriped suit, pearls, and heels. Yes, traditional, but you had to play the part, and the clothes were armor. Fucking power suits. They worked. Semi-badass, my uniform today, meant a pale blue suit, with red heels and gold hoop earrings. I still meant business. But I didn't need pinstripes today, not for this type of hearing.
My hair fell down past my shoulders, and was very dark brown, almost black, with a lot of wave. I knew that I was lucky that it didn't get frizzy, it just curled more the closer I got to the beach. Driving alongside the beach didn't count. I'd be fine today.
Not that you could tell that I ever went to the beach. I didn't look like a California beachy girl even though I was a native Californian. I didn't match the type. My skin appeared so pale, naturally, and I spent so much time inside writing on the computer, and reading law books—and Harry Potter—that you really couldn't tell that I ever went outside. I loved the beach, but I usually went there in the evening, walking along the shore, barefoot, picking up shells and sea glass. That wasn't the way to get your skin tan. Still, I’d accepted my pale skin and learned to endure the comments from people who couldn't understand that I grew up here.
My favorite body part, hands down, were my unusual eyes—they were almost violet they were so blue. If you squinted and dressed me up right, I sort of looked like Elizabeth Taylor—pale skin, violet eyes, and dark hair. I knew that I looked alright. Too bad it was just a package. I knew that the insides were still fucked up.
As I drove, I thought about the past year. It was amazing that I was noticing things like the ocean sparkle and stink, the pelicans, the crash of the waves, and the islands. Depression made you not notice things like that. It closed your world down and you didn’t enjoy anything at all. It was just too hard to do anything. Think. Move. Appreciate. Breathe. Too hard to do any of that.
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