Seeking Mr. Wrong

by Natalie Charles

Talking felt like turning up sediment, and the more I continued, the deeper I went and the more it hurt. “I don’t want to sleep with someone and wake up alone. I don’t want to be dumped again.”

  By then, my voice was barely a whisper and I was staring at my lap, blinking back tears. Mindy pulled her chair closer to mine so she could hold my hand. “You don’t want to be rejected,” she said softly.

  “Yeah.” I sniffed and wiped my cheek with my napkin. “I think that’s a good reason, don’t you?”

  She licked the corner of her mouth and considered her response. “But here’s the thing: you’ve given me lots of reasons not to get into a relationship. I’m suggesting that you bypass all of those long-term expectations. Just find a hot guy to have wild sex with, no strings attached. You know, find the right Mr. Wrong.”

  I took a few moments to allow that to sink in. Having wild sex with a hot guy didn’t sound so bad. We could skip dinner and keep the lights low, agree not to talk before or after. It was totally unlike anything I’d ever done or considered doing. I was the girl who played it conservative, but really: How was playing it conservative working out for me? It wasn’t.

  But I didn’t know any Mr. Wrongs. Well, there was Max Anderson, the phys ed teacher, but . . . gross. He’d tell everyone in the faculty lounge about it, and no way would he ever let it go and be cool. He’d undress me with his eyes at faculty meetings. And then there was Eric Clayman. My skin prickled at the thought of having wild sex with him, but all signs pointed to him being a nice guy. A choirboy. The kind of guy I’d actually end up developing feelings for. No, there was no way I was going to do anything like this with anyone I knew and could ever see again.

  “All right,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I agree to pursue this avenue and find the right Mr. Wrong, but strictly for research and reviving my comatose vagina. How does one go about acquiring an anonymous lover?”

  “You have to open yourself up to possibilities.”

  I fluttered my lips. “That sounds so new age.”

  “Come here.” She rose and moved her chair.

  “What?”

  “I want to do a thing.”

  She adjusted our chairs so that they were facing each other. Then she sat down and reached forward to clasp my fingers in hers. “Close your eyes and focus on your breathing.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Seriously, are we about to manifest a lover?”

  I saw by the tip of Mindy’s head that in questioning the law of attraction, I’d gone too far. “Do you want my help? Do you want to be able to enjoy sex again?”

  Yes, I did. I wanted to read those sexy books and not feel my heart twisting in place. If talking with Dr. Bubbles wasn’t going to do it, then maybe I’d pursue Mindy’s sex therapy. “Fine,” I mumbled, and closed my eyes.

  “Good.” I heard her take a deep breath and then release it slowly. “Now focus on our centering thought: I am open to possibilities.”

  “I am open to possibilities,” I whispered.

  “Repeat it to yourself, and every time you say it, feel your body expand to the universe.”

  It was weird. We were sitting in my backyard, holding hands, opening ourselves to possibilities. I resisted at first. But, you know, I felt a shift. I had been closed off for months since James left, and locked into so much hurt. I wanted to let it go and move on. I wanted to feel good again.

  “I am open to possibilities,” Mindy whispered. And I sort of felt like I was.

  We sat there for some time before she released my hands. “Open your eyes when you’re ready.”

  I waited a moment before blinking into the daylight. My chest felt a little bit lighter. Just a little, but it was enough to make me smile cautiously. “Okay. I’m open to possibilities.”

  She beamed. “That’s what I like to hear! I’m going to make an appointment for you with my friend. Don’t freak out. Remember: you’re open to possibilities.”

  Uh-oh. I braced myself. “What kind of friend is this?”

  Mindy pressed her lips together and then grinned. “She’s awesome. She’s a photographer, but she works part-time as a dominatrix.”

  “Oh no.” I shook my head. My Zen was gone. “Nope. No way.”

  “You said you were open to possibilities.”

  “I mean other possibilities. Ones that don’t involve sex with women.”

  “It’s not sex. She doesn’t do that with any of her clients.”

  Her clients. Jeez. I finished off my beer as Mindy continued to explain it. According to her, it was about finding inner strength. Healing. Trust. “I have problems with trust,” I said.

  She paused and sat back in her seat, pulling both legs up this time. “There must be someone you trust.”

  “Oprah.”

  To her credit, Mindy didn’t make a face. “Oprah would definitely visit a dominatrix. Because she’s open to possibilities.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Look. This is practical advice.” Mindy leaned her head back against her chair. “If you want to write BDSM, you should experience it. But don’t worry—my friend? She’s totally great. She’ll let you set the limits, and you’ll have a blast. Ask her a few questions and get material for your book.”

  She seemed so sure. I swallowed the tightness in my throat and reached over to pet Odin’s back, wondering what the hell I was getting myself into.

  CHAPTER 6

  I SAT DOWN at my computer with a cup of chai, since writing erotica seemed to call for spicy tea. I engaged good posture and stretched my hands to the ceiling to stimulate blood flow. Senses: enhanced. Time to write about people having sex. And really, how difficult could it be? I knew the fundamentals, so this would be a matter of committing those mechanics to paper. No big deal.

  I sat, fingers positioned. Waited for inspiration. Typed a few words.

  A is for anal beads.

  Well now . . . that seemed like an odd start to a story, though possibly a compelling title. I erased it and tried again.

  One sunny day, a young woman had her salad tossed.

  Was this how it went? I reached for A Back-Door Neighbor. I’d folded the corners of the pages containing sex scenes, and really, why bother? Why not simply fold half the book? So I opened to a page at random:

  Tasha sprawled out on the bed with her wrists and ankles tied to the bedpost. Behind her, Cord reached for the lubricant and grinned. “I know what you’re thinking, darlin’, but once I get going, you’re gonna love it.”

  Wait, Cord? Who the hell is Cord? I’d thought the hero’s name was Vincent. I sat back in my chair and attempted to orient myself to the text again. By the time I remembered the story line, I’d lost twenty minutes. It was time to focus. I had a few more false starts and stops. The transition from children’s book author to erotic superstar was more difficult than I’d expected. I was writing Duck’s Happy Day but with ball gags.

  Focus, Lettie. I closed my eyes, channeling my inner sex goddess. But honestly, I would’ve settled for an inner make-out demigod.

  Sally was angry. She hadn’t had a good screw in four months. I paused. No need to make this autobiographical. I changed “four months” to “a year” and continued. Any sex she’d had before then had been lackluster. She was beginning to suspect she’d never had a proper roll in the hay. Shoot—roll in the hay? That wasn’t sexy. I changed it to screw. Better. But then, I was using the word screw twice in three sentences. Dammit!

  My tea was cold.

  I shut my laptop and stood up. I’d been working for a while, and even if I had only three sentences to show for it, I could stretch my legs and make another cup of chai. Odin followed me into the kitchen and wagged his tail expectantly. “You want to go outside, Odie?” Vigorous wagging.

  I could throw him the ball a few times. That would
get my blood circulating, and I’d probably be inspired and ready to work after five minutes or so. This was part of the process, and not procrastination. Definitely not.

  Writing about sex shouldn’t be so difficult. All I had to do was draw from my life experience and fill in the blanks with my imagination. But my sex life had never been anything worth talking about. In foodie terms, my love life had been a bowl of vanilla ice cream, plain, no sprinkles or whipped cream. Every now and then there may have been a stray chocolate chip, something delicious and unexpected. But that was a fluke, some problem in the ice cream factory. Let there be no mistake: that was a dish of vanilla ice cream. If Dr. Bubbles knew about it, he’d say I had a sex gap.

  I don’t care for the phrase losing virginity. Not because of any feminist ideals, but because it makes a hymen sound like Great-Aunt Gertrude’s opal brooch. I prefer the euphemism punching the v-card because that’s more like a frequent-shopper rewards program, and I have positive associations with those. I enjoy feeling like my tenth visit will be on the house, if only I can continue punching my card at the same shop.

  I punched my v-card in senior year of college on spring break. Twenty-one years is a long time to go without sex. It’s not like I wasn’t interested, but more like I couldn’t find a willing partner. In high school someone came to talk to us about safe sex and to tell us never to open condoms with our teeth, that it might look sexy but it pokes holes in the latex. She also said that if any woman in the room at any point wanted to have sex, she would instantly receive offers from several men. I knew it wasn’t that easy. I’d never actually announced my desire, but until I was twenty-one years old, no boy or man stepped up to, um, fill that void.

  So who was the lucky gent? His name was Art, and he was a friend of a friend. A Filipino American with a Southern drawl. He was completely unexpected. We ended up staying in the same block of rooms at a motel on Daytona Beach. He was cute and he lived in Georgia. He had dark brown hair and golden-brown skin, and he wanted to be an architect. Out of the group of friends we were with, we were the only singles on the trip.

  We weren’t about to do the long-distance relationship thing, and we had no illusions about finding true love on spring break in Daytona Beach. It wasn’t a love connection. But we were left alone a lot while our friends hooked up. I spent a few nights on the couch in his room, locked out of mine, and he spent a night or two on the couch in my room, and one night we got fed up with being the only people within fifty miles not having sex, so we did.

  I didn’t tell him I was a virgin. I was trying out a party-girl persona for the week: flexible, nonchalant, noncommittal. When we were kissing on his bed and I let Art take off my bra, he said to me, “You’re a pretty cool girl,” and I just about fell over. I couldn’t believe he’d bought the act.

  Yes, that was me. I was “cool.” Back home I was straitlaced and working hard to maintain my grade-point average. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I didn’t let men I’d just met touch my breasts. But on spring break, I drank a few wine coolers and got naked. I giggled—another cool-girl move—and said things like, “Hey, I’m down for whatever.” I just wanted desperately to punch my v-card. That first sale is so crucial. When Art told me I was “pretty cool,” I felt that quick buzz of validation before I translated the compliment: “You’re a pretty cool girl . . . for agreeing to have sex with me.”

  The sex was quick, not as painful as I’d expected, and not all that awkward until it was over. It was clear that Art had punched his share of cards, so he was skilled in condom management. When it was done, we mumbled some things about keeping in touch, but we never did. It was never like that.

  In hindsight, I didn’t have much passion to draw from with James, either. It all sort of melded together, but what I remembered vividly were the arguments about my orgasm—specifically how James took personal offense when I didn’t have one. I got so sick of seeing that look when he rolled off me, sweaty and tired and thoroughly pissed off that his latest technique had failed. “I don’t get it,” he said once. “Do you even have a clitoris?”

  We were in bed in his apartment in Cambridge. It was a summer night and the window to his bedroom was open. Two stories down, a man was calling his friend pussy-whipped for texting his girlfriend. It wasn’t exactly romantic, but if we closed the window, we’d melt. As it was, we were both lying there in snow-angel positions, attempting to air ourselves out without touching each other. “My ob-gyn has never mentioned my clitoris, so I guess I can’t be certain I have one. I should have a man confirm its existence.”

  “Oh come on. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” James was an enlightened man and a self-proclaimed feminist, and he resented it when I pointed out that he wasn’t acting like either. “Maybe if you tried deep breathing?”

  “That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. I’ll just breathe more.”

  There was a stretch of silence during which I braced myself. “Don’t you find me attractive?” he said.

  His tone was more peeved than pained, otherwise I might have felt bad about it. Instead, I resented that my orgasm was somehow about James’s ego. Things got a little better when I started faking them. I was good at it. Not too loud or dramatic, just little sighs and moans and verbal confirmation that I had climaxed and it was “incredible.” All this time, and the secret was to breathe more. James seemed to buy it at first, but ultimately this may have been the catalyst for our breakup. We were both lying, and both of our truths hurt.

  I thought about all of this while I threw the ball to Odin in the backyard. When I returned to my laptop to reattempt to write erotica, I realized I’d never had an earthshaking romance. After Art I went on to have sex with two other guys and then I dated James. None of them spanked me or talked dirty or did anything close to rocking my world. Everything I was reading involved exciting locations, kink, and acrobatics, and my experience to date had all been so . . . missionary.

  But it was okay. Orgasms aside, sex was enjoyable. For the most part. I mean, it was fine. It’s a matter of sticking one thing into another. Though, I guess I’ve never understood why there are so many books on sex and relationships. I don’t see what the big deal is. It happens and then it’s over and you’re left to take care of your own needs.

  She peered through the curtain as the black Mercedes convertible pulled into the driveway across the street. The driver’s side door opened and he stepped out. Tall. Dark. Handsome. He was a dentist, but she knew he had a kinky side. Whips and chains in the basement. The one time they’d been together, he’d chained her up against the basement wall and entered her from behind, eschewing her silken pocket for her third entrance. She’d never known one could orgasm from anal sex, and the orgasm was unlike any other she’d ever felt in her life. It was like being plunged into hell and tossed into heaven, then falling down a cliff and landing in a sea of pure bliss. He’d kept going so that she came again and again. He must have been magical down there. Then when it was all over and he’d spilled his seed, he’d made her a grilled cheese sandwich and talked for hours about the challenges of dentistry. He volunteered his time at a clinic in the inner city and he confessed to enjoying household chores. “I like to vacuum.” He laughed. “No woman of mine will ever lift a finger in the house!” She’d never known anyone so thrilling.

  She was mopping the floors again, bored out of her mind. The kids wouldn’t be home until four. She might as well go over and see if he was up for a roll in the hay. After all, she found him deeply fascinating.

  Blech.

  ON THURSDAY, I received a series of missed calls, all from an unidentified number. No voice mail. When I finally picked up, I was at home with Odin, throwing handfuls of noodles into a pot of boiling water. “Hello?”

  A woman’s voice replied, “I hear you want a date.”

  I fumbled the cell and dropped it onto the tile, where it bounced once and slid. Odin bounded toward it, wagging his tail merr
ily and pawing at his find. “No, Odie! Leave it!” I lunged for the phone before he could decide whether he was going to obey. “Sorry about that,” I said. “Who is this?”

  “Miss Hunter. A mutual friend gave me this number. She said you’d like a session.”

  Her voice was cool, almost calm. By contrast, my palms were sweaty and my pulse was skyrocketing. “Yes, right. Sort of. I’m—I’m a writer,” I stammered. “I was thinking I could interview you. For my book. Not a session.”

  That’s really what I said. I’d agreed to be open to possibilities, and then in the proceeding days I’d promptly lost my nerve. Unfortunately for me, Miss Hunter wasn’t having it. “I don’t do interviews.”

  “Even if it’s off the record?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Huh.”

  I leaned back against the cool black granite of the kitchen counter and chewed on my thumbnail. This was no good. I’d made a few attempts at starting my erotic novel, but it felt like running barefoot, uphill on a sheet of ice. All of the effort was getting me nowhere. “What exactly do you do during a . . . session?”

  “We can start with the basics.”

  “Which is?”

  “That depends on your needs. What do you think those are?”

  I scratched at the back of my neck and watched the steam rising off the pot of water. My needs? I thought I’d been clear that my need was to get an interview for a book, so . . . “Maybe you can give me a hint? I’m not totally clear—”

  “Our mutual friend tells me that you have trust issues. Is that true?”

  “Our mutual friend has a big mouth.” The burner sizzled as water spilled over the top of the pot, and I jumped to turn down the heat. “Okay, sort of? I mean, I guess it depends on how you’re using the term trust issues? But my therapist says I expect the worst of people so that they can never let me down, so there’s that.”

  “And you agree with her?”

  She was so businesslike, this Miss Hunter. I appreciated that. I imagined her in a full-body black leather suit, taking notes at a desk in her dungeon. “Him, but I guess so.”