Ten Thousand Hours

by Ren Benton

  11

  The day after the party, Swann’s received dozens of calls and booked six parties for the coming month. Rita congratulated Ivy for making the news segment a success.

  Griff left a terse message canceling their plans for the evening. She was disappointed, but she knew better than anyone how plans sometimes had to change, and he sounded stressed enough without her whining about it. She promised his voicemail she’d make it worth his while when he rescheduled.

  Since her evening had become free, she invited Camille to her house to help diagnose and treat what ailed Jen.

  After Jen’s kids were tucked in, the three women settled down for grownup talk and tea.

  Camille flipped through a magazine Jen had brought in her suitcase. “Eleven Sex Positions Women Hate and Why. Oh, goody. I need a magazine to tell me what to hate and why.”

  Ivy blew across the top of her mug. “I don’t even know eleven positions. I have to separate oral by gender to come up with six. Are they using more than two participants in their configurations?”

  “No, but some of these configurations are ridiculous. Two would be a back breaker.”

  The illustration showed a woman in a reverse table pose with a man kneeling between her legs. “Who would ever do that outside of yoga class?”

  Jen leaned over the coffee table to inspect the image. “I can’t hold that for sixty seconds without someone shoving at me. They made that one up.”

  Camille turned the page and shook her head. “Four is my favorite, and the lack of control that’s supposed to be why I hate it is why it’s my favorite.”

  Actual humans posed for a photograph for the more plausible scenario of a woman lifted up against a wall, legs around the hips of the man supporting her weight with his hands and pelvis. That was just vertical missionary. Adding axis rotation, Ivy could bring her list up to ten, but she strongly felt that was cheating.

  Jen gave her tea bag an apathetic dunk. “Von has the arms for it. Being fumbled by someone less endowed with upper body strength kills the mood right quick.”

  Ivy wouldn’t complain about being fumbled as long as the guy was so impatient to get in her, he hoisted her against the handiest wall. Men she’d been with had assured her she didn’t have to act like they were in a porno — defined by them as anything other than missionary in a bed at night. The one time she worked up the nerve to suggest she was more than willing to branch out, her wanton aspirations had been politely shot down.

  She was a nice girl. She wasn’t made for things like that. He couldn’t seat his mother at the dinner table next to a woman he had fucked.

  As it turned out, she never sat next to that man’s mother again, so he deprived her of a good fucking for no reason.

  Maybe if she shoved Griff against a wall and worked him into a frenzy, he’d reciprocate.

  “And number seven is completely in her control, so it should get approval by their previously stated criteria.” Camille tossed aside the magazine in disgust. “Some poor dude is reading this and getting the impression there’s no pleasing any of us.”

  Jen glanced at the picture in question and shook her head. “Being on top is too much work. I just want to lie back and be pleasured.”

  Ivy didn’t mind the work, and she liked the control. She had a different reason for not favoring the position. “I worry about gravity. My skin sags. I look like a bloodhound.”

  “You do not,” Jen scolded.

  “I never went to yoga without a full-body compressor after the first time I planked and got that long view off my droopy boobs and sow belly.” The physical effects of weight loss occasionally made her seriously consider regaining the weight so she would no longer look deflated. If not for the high blood pressure and prediabetes, she’d inflate herself with all the ice cream and garlic bread she could eat. “If you think that turns men on, you’ve been reading too many magazines.”

  “A man doesn’t care if your middle is a little spongy while you’re riding him or blowing him,” Camille insisted. “As long as his dick is happy, you’re good enough.”

  “When he starts withholding dick,” Jen advised, “that’s when you know he doesn’t want to be with you anymore.”

  Camille locked eyes with Ivy, equally shocked to hear the word dick come out of Jen’s mouth. Ivy recovered the power of speech first. “Roger’s been working a lot. He’s tired and stressed.”

  “And your seething hostility probably isn’t helping to coax Mr. Turtle out of his shell.”

  Jen’s lips thinned to a white line. “My mood would be nicer if I’d been touched in the past six months.”

  Camille’s sympathies abruptly reversed. “Oh, hell. I’d leave the man, too.”

  “It started with ‘I worked late. I’m too tired.’ And then it became the norm.” Jen squeezed a lemon wedge over her tea until the pulp was crushed to oblivion. “I’m the maid and nanny, and that’s been fine with him for six months. That’s his assessment of the arrangement: fine.”

  When Roger told Griff I don’t have any marital problems, Ivy had thought he was just being defensive. Now she wondered if he’d meant the circumstances Jen described weren’t problems for him.

  “He called today to ask where his clean socks are. As if Maid Jen came to the house while he was at work to do his laundry. It hasn’t been ‘Please come home. I can’t live without you.’ It’s ‘Please come home. I don’t know how to iron a shirt.’”

  Roger, you putz. “I’m sure that’s not how he feels.”

  “It’s how he acts, and his actions are speaking the same language as his words.”

  “Have you used your words to tell him you want weekly three, five, nine, and the occasional number six?” Camille poked the magazine for emphasis.

  Jen curled her lip at it. “They’re right about six. No intimacy.”

  Six was inelegantly labeled doggy style. Any variation thereof was Ivy’s favorite. A big, warm body leaning over her, sheltering her. Hands free to touch her all over. Kissing her neck and shoulders. Growling praise in her ear. Heat bloomed in her cheeks just thinking about it. “If lack of intimacy in that position is an issue, he’s doing it wrong.”

  “Eye contact doesn’t make it intimate,” Camille concurred. “A man can porn-fuck you in missionary, staring right at your face the whole time and missing the connection. You pick up intimacy elsewhere and take it to bed with you. A boner is not an outward manifestation of a man’s deep inner sensitivity and regard for you.”

  Jen squirted honey into her mug. “That’s not what they say when they want to put it in you.”

  “Those liars are the worst in bed.” Camille tipped her head back against the arm of her chair. “Lord, give me an honest, lusty erection over one I’m supposed to have pity on because it has feelings.”

  Ivy sipped her tea. She’d never had a man try to guilt her into sex, but in her recent experience, lusty erections were in every way superior to those that had to be cajoled into being because the man they were attached to was indifferent about sex with her.

  Camille resumed her diagnostic testing. “So I take it you never said, ‘Roger, I need more dick.’”

  Ivy almost laughed at the idea of Jen saying that to Roger. Then she realized she was guilty of making the same assumption she hated men making about her — believing her conservative, responsible friends incapable of carnal abandon when they weren’t posing for family portraits while wearing coordinating sweaters.

  She knew from experience some men were unable or unwilling to provide what she needed. The best way to find out was to ask. “Make a list of demands.”

  “Demands?” That was too pushy for Jen’s friendly nature. “No.”

  “You’re holding his marriage hostage,” Camille reminded her. “If he wants it back, make him pay.”

  Since Jen wasn’t responding well to the bloodthirsty terminology, Ivy tried to broker peace. “A lot of his job is negotiating. Give him a clear set of terms to consider and see what he comes back wi
th.” When Jen didn’t leap at that suggestion, she could think of only one alternative. “Or have an actual conversation with him.”

  “Get me a pen.”

  Ivy fetched the requested writing implement and a spiral notebook from the school supply box in the hall closet.

  Camille got the list started. “Item number one: dick on the regular.”

  “Be specific about frequency,” Ivy cautioned. “He’ll tear you apart on technicalities if you’re imprecise.”

  Jen scribbled. “Should I offer anything at this phase?”

  Camille shushed Ivy with a wave of her hand. “Such as?”

  “To facilitate compliance with the frequency of the aforementioned, once a week, I’ll set the alarm half an hour early and wake him up with a blowjob.”

  Camille was awestruck. “Jennifer Louise. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Getting it in me is the whole idea.”

  Camille whooped.

  Ivy hoped Jen’s kids were sound sleepers. If not, there would be an awful lot of awkward questions in the morning. “I don’t see how fostering goodwill in such a fashion could possibly hurt your bargaining position.”

  “We’ll call that position twelve.” Camille sketched an anatomically improbable rendering of such a bargain.

  Jen extended her list. She also needed Roger to make more effort to be home for dinner but acknowledged that wasn’t always possible. On those occasions, a phone call as soon as possible to let her know was an absolute requirement. “Phone calls in general. I’d kill for ‘I just wanted to hear your voice’ once in a while. A phone quickie between meetings. Anything that doesn’t pertain to chores. I can’t remember the last time we spoke on the phone about anything other than the kids or needing a gallon of milk or asking me to grab a file he left on his desk for a courier he’s sending over.”

  Ivy glared at Camille to stop her from asking if Jen had used her words previously. She was using them now, which was a step in the right direction. “I hear the same story from every not-a-first-time bride. Maybe that’s just what marriage is.”

  Camille took exception to that. “Only if you let it be. Von and I are still courting, winning the privilege to go to bed together every night. Only difference from dating is now we pay bills out of joint checking and there’s no dodging his mother because she’s my mother, too. Fires don’t stay lit by themselves. People are too lazy to chop wood, so of course it gets chilly in the house.”

  Jen made a sound of disgust. “It’s different when you have kids. Your whole life becomes about them.”

  Ivy could offer at least one case to the contrary, but she supposed her preoccupation with her nieces and nephews substituted for Holly’s lack.

  Camille pointed down the hallway leading toward the bedrooms. “I will sit those babies so you can get laid.”

  “I’m also happy to volunteer for that worthy cause.” It would be especially easy for Ivy, since they were encamped in her home already.

  “Uh-uh.” Camille held up her drawing of position twelve. “You concentrate on getting your own ankles up around your ears.”

  “Speaking of which” — Jen put down her notebook — “how are things with the enchilada?”

  “Super.” The sex was joint loosening. He swore there were no other women. She’d given him a free pass in that regard. He had no reason to lie to her — and yet it sounded like a lie a man told a woman who didn’t understand their relationship wasn’t serious so he wouldn’t have to deal with tears.

  Had he finally fallen into the pit from which he was unable to see her as anything but a nice girl who wanted to tie him down because that’s what nice girls did to men?

  Or maybe she was just paranoid. She thought she’d handled it well outwardly, but maybe her punched-in-the-chest response to the discovery had betrayed feelings that were out of proportion to their arrangement.

  Her lack of elaboration signaled something amiss to Camille. “Uh-oh. Is the spice giving you indigestion?”

  “It’s fine.”

  The same assessment Roger gave his marriage while it fell apart around him.

  But she wasn’t married to Griff. There was no structure to fall apart. “I told you, we’re just fooling around. The fooling around is super.”

  Jen gave her a knowing look. “You want more, don’t you?”

  “No! Dammit.” Ivy got up from the couch that suddenly felt like it was made of knives. “Why is it impossible to believe I just like sex with someone who does it the way I like it? The only part of me that’s sappy about him is my vagina, all right?”

  A look passed between her friends. Camille said, “Okay, then. Here’s to all our lady caves dripping more maple syrup than Vermont.”

  She didn’t hear from Griff on Friday, which was... fine. He had a job. He had friends and family. He had a woodworking project. She didn’t have a monopoly on his time.

  On Saturday, in response to the hard time they’d given Jen about making her desires known, Ivy risked seeming clingy by calling again. She left a message indicating she had a live-in babysitter for the time being and could sneak out for a few hours if he wanted to practice any skills in which they had not yet achieved mastery.

  By Sunday, with no response to two messages, worry kicked in. What if he’d decided to try camel racing or alligator wrestling and was in a hospital somewhere, alone and unable to contact anyone?

  Someone had to know where he was. As a last resort, she could call Ulu and ask for Selena — her brother might have information about his partner in mayhem — but family would be better. Hadn’t he said his brother’s name was Dan?

  She found a listing for Dunleavy, Daniel T. Viewing that arrangement of letters triggered an epiphany.

  She’d been brushed off.

  She had expected it to come to this all along. She knew she was too boring to hold Griff’s interest. The end was inevitable, and from the beginning, she had accepted that limited life expectancy.

  And then the bastard told her there were no other women and he didn’t want to be with anyone other than her. How was she supposed to interpret that as It’s over?

  But that wasn’t what he’d said to her at all, was it? He said he forgot the other woman and then brought her a pizza because he wanted to see her, and she injected that with meaning because she wanted him to care as much as she, stupidly, did. In all likelihood, Gina was forgettable because she had five o’clock shadow and an Adam’s apple, not because Ivy occupied too much of Griff’s memory to store additional women.

  All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. If he hadn’t apologized as if he cared whether he hurt her, she would have gone right on assuming hurt was inevitable. It was his fault the end wasn’t easy to accept anymore, and the coward damn well owed her the courtesy of squirming through an official rejection.

  She left Jen in charge of seven kids while she charged off to demand the closure that was her due.

  She parked in the driveway behind his car. He had moved it out of the garage to make room for the cabinet pieces laid out on the floor. The garage door was open to allow the haze of sawdust within to dissipate.

  Griff bent over a workbench, applying some type of power tool to the edge of a chunk of wood. Relief surged through her at the sight of him in one piece.

  That ebbed in a hurry, and fury flooded the void.

  She couldn’t hear her own footsteps over the whine of the tool, so he must have spotted her out of the corner of his eye — or perhaps he sensed the hostility bearing down on him.

  He turned off the machine and pushed his safety glasses to the top of his head. He regarded her with wary eyes rather than surprise, confirming his phone silence was more than an oversight.

  She stopped at the edge of the lumber labyrinth. “I would have felt terrible for being pissed off if you were comatose in the hospital. Now that I know you’re alive and well, I’m good with the anger.”

  He remained stone-faced. He probably dealt with scorned women half a do
zen times per week and coped by daydreaming about his next conquest until the hysteria passed.

  “You could have left me a message. Texted. Sent a sorry-for-your-loss bouquet to my house. But since you didn’t have the balls to dump me even like a coward, you get to say it to my face.”

  His expression was infuriatingly blank. “I’m not the kind of man you’d marry.”

  Of all the things he could have said, that one made the least sense. “Who the hell asked you?”

  His forehead pinched in little fissures. She hoped it cracked open and ventilated the empty cavity of his skull.

  “You’re fun to play with. You’re great in bed. Good for you, but I can’t rely on you to be around, and I can’t trust you not to fuck other women. One of your finest qualities is that you’ve been totally up front about the fact that you’re not to be relied upon or trusted, which eliminates any misunderstanding on my part.” He, however, somehow ended up completely confused. “What it is about the man I’ve described that you erroneously believe has stimulated some female gland responsible for wedding fever?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to say something else stupid when his mouth opened. “If I was foaming at the mouth to get married, I would have said yes to the reliable, trustworthy man who asked me to marry him — twice. Being his polar opposite does not put you in danger of suffering the dire fate he narrowly escaped. I wouldn’t be the wife you cheat on with all the Ginas in the world if you begged me, you egomaniacal bastard.”

  I wouldn’t have you if you begged was almost as satisfying as being the one to end it in the first place. On that note, time to make a dramatic exit before she ruined her victory by bursting into tears.

  He wound through the wooden maze in pursuit. “Ivy.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Why did he have to be so stupid? How many puppies did she have to kick before everyone — including the one person who finally indulged her mildly adventurous side — stopped believing she was too good to have a good time without a long-term agenda involving a prison made of white pickets?