by Kris Radish
The list and life.
Think about it, O’Brien orders. Think about what is on your list, and what you have done the past few months, and what you could do in the next few months and all the months after those.
The sex and lust. New York. New Orleans. The convertible. Connie almost has the list totally memorized and when she realizes what Frannie is getting at she swallows her entire glass of wine and holds out her cup for a refill.
“You’ve been doing it all along,” O’Brien says. “I don’t know what you are so worried about.”
“I didn’t think of it like that,” Connie admits. “I had this plan, this way I thought everything was going to happen, how I wanted it to happen, and then everything became unexpected, wild, and, well, wonderful in a sometimes confusing way.”
“Jesus, it sounds like hell.”
They both laugh at everything. Sitting in the sand at midnight. Dancing in New York. Kissing men in swamps. Breakfast at the Algonquin. Selling sex toys. Diva-ing it up in Cyprus with women who are already so grateful they have sent Connie thank-you letters. The box in the garage. New hair. Men looking twice. More than a stretch of time. Worrying about one goddamn thing after another at their age.
Everything.
Every single thing.
And the wild notion that in order to live the list of dreams Connie not only needs to get rid of #1 but acknowledge that everything, even the almighty list, needs to change.
Connie lets the wind dance along the short edges of her hair when she turns and puts her face into the breeze. She closes her eyes and imagines a life without this—without moments of pause and pleasure, moments of wondering, the warm length of a good friend’s back nestled against your own back, wine dripping down your throat like melted gold, choices dancing within arm’s length like kites coming down from a high wind, knowing people in a way you never realized they existed, rising like a feather to meet your lover’s kiss.
It’s all there.
It’s all here.
It’s never been anywhere else.
“Unexpected choices,” O’Brien tells her, close to the last glass of wine. “They seem to be the best kinds of choices.”
“I thought I was so cool,” Connie admits. “I thought I was open and that I knew my daughters, knew who they were, knew where I was going, knew that sex was a minor chord in my life that I had decided to skip right over, knew how long to idle before the light turned green—everything. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Claiming your sexual self and giving other women the chance to do the same thing is a pretty big deal,” O’Brien replies. “You’ve lived an entire new life in just a couple of weeks. Just think what the next couple of years might be like. Think of that list as your diving board, baby.”
And, Connie adds, I still have to make just a few major decisions while a mess of people in my life hold their breath.
Oh, shit, Frannie says, pulling her friend up from the sand, there will always be a big decision and one after that and then just when you think you can see where the road stops, there’s a new frigging highway or a detour that will drive you nuts because you think—heavy emphasis here on the word “think”—you like the road just the way it is.
“I still need a decision in, like, 24 hours,” Connie complains.
“You’ll get one, baby, and believe me, it will be a complete surprise to someone.”
“Maybe lots of someones,” Connie shouts back, as the wind dances down her neck and bounces off the back of her legs and she races O’Brien to the car, gets her toe stuck under a log, and falls flat on her face.
“Get up, Nurse Nixon,” O’Brien shouts. “This is not an omen.”
They could have used two more cases of wine, and another week, but they only had until very early Sunday morning when Frannie had to get back to fill in during the second half of first shift and when Connie had to make her blessed call to New York so that about fifty people could get on with their lives.
No pressure, Connie joked most of the day on Saturday while they hiked up the beach and back around the dunes hiking trail, fought the urge to check their cell phones, lingered over a very long lunch at the restaurant two bluffs over, and then simply sat on their porch, exhausted, sunburned, and totally not ready to face an early-morning drive back to reality.
They had giggled away the remainder of Friday night, slept with the windows and door wide open, and woke early when a seagull walked into the room and then could not remember where the door was.
“Jesus,” Connie said, jumping from the bed with her pillow as a shield. “O’Brien, help me, there’s a bird on your suitcase.”
Frannie jumped up, screamed—which made the bird go to the bathroom on top of her suitcase—and then simply ran towards the bird with her red T-shirt flapping behind her and the poor bird took off and probably alerted every bird on the lake that a couple of strange women were at the dunes and to be on the lookout.
“Go figure,” Connie said, suddenly longing for a cup of coffee like she had never longed for coffee before.
“See?” O’Brien said. “Something else unexpected. This is your fault, Nurse Nixon. Now that you have learned how to fly at a new altitude, you sexy bitch, even the birds want you.”
The laughter could have woken the people across the lake and set the tone for a day that Connie thought had brought her inches closer to some necessary decisions.
Before their walk to the café for dinner, and what would end up to be a night when they stayed to close the joint, played poker with two guys from Bloomington named Hank and Dan, let some babe from Chicago buy them tequila, and had dessert at midnight, they had a very brilliant talk on the now-birdless porch.
On the porch, with the sun filtering through a wild stand of birch trees and a beach so white it looked as if someone from the linen store had placed a series of sheets on the ground for miles. The hotel manager, who drifted past and waved when she saw them, came back moments later with two cold beers and a wish for a happy night.
And what about that happy life?
“Connie,” O’Brien finally said. “Let’s just do this. Let’s have a quick triage, access the damage, the possibilities and then walk to dinner, which you are buying, by the way.”
Connie was way ready, and so they started.
They started simple. The Swamp Man cometh. And he lingereth in Connie’s mind. Terrific, wonderful sex which she hoped to have again—but a long-term, serious relationship? Not so much. Not yet. Those numbers on the list needed to simmer. She wanted to dance the rumba with the entire band, waltz with her new decisions, feel the power of her newly acquired sexual self in a way that did not limit her.
“Like a swinger?” O’Brien asks.
“No, sweetie. Like a woman who doesn’t want to make the same mistakes she made the last time. Great sex does not a relationship make. I’m pacing myself this time. Michael’s a terrific man but I can’t leap like that. I just can’t do it.”
See how easy this is, Frannie offers. Next.
The new job?
Connie hesitates. She could do the job, she could fill up the time, manage an entire medical universe, do the paperwork and still have time to play, but something happened when she went to the facility. Something telling.
“My heart sank,” she admits. “I could feel it fall into a memorized pattern of familiarity and when I left, my breathing changed. Honest to God. I felt better when I left and I never turned around. Not once.”
“Well, that pretty much answers all the other questions then, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Give me the rest of your beer if you are going to toy with me like this,” Frannie says. “What do you mean no?”
“Since we got here this idea has been swaying back and forth inside of me. It’s like taking a recipe and shifting around the ingredients and making something sort of the same, but totally different.”
Frannie, impatient as hell, grabs the beer out of her hand.
; “The absolute most powerful, wonderful time I had, well, besides making love with Burt Reynolds, was talking to women about the toys, not just selling them, but here in Cyprus when we had the mini-Diva-sex-toy party, well, shit, Frannie, I loved that,” Connie confesses.
“It showed, baby. And this means?”
“Let me skip ahead just a second. I love the condo. I’m not ready to leave Cyprus, but I can’t stay there now like I would have, like I might have, if I kept the new job.”
Frannie leans over and gives her a hug. “This is good news so far, keep going.”
Connie’s short stint in the Diva world showed her that women were more than ready to move beyond the sexual limits they had accepted in their own lives. More than ready to rip open their sexual selves the way they had ripped open everything else. But sometimes, Connie had learned, they were not quite ready to do that in a store, or in public, or with someone they did not know or trust.
“Sex-toy parties,” Connie said. “That’s what I should be doing. Designing programs, and putting together a traveling van, and workshops, and intimate gatherings where women can look up and see someone with wrinkles and a few miles under their belt, have them explain how a dildo works, how to turn on a vibrator, and then share a slice of cake and a cup of coffee while their friends play with the toys. I have tons of ideas, including a big one that we have to call them something besides toys.”
Frannie O’Brien thinks Connie is a genius.
Even now, Connie can’t stop herself. She talks about parties that are not only instructional but also fun. Parties where talking about sex is made to seem normal and important and lively and not at all like something that should not be right there on the front of the plate. O’Brien can see that her friend is on fire but she’s impatient and she cuts her off.
“So you’re saying…”
“Let that other woman Christine run the Chicago store. She’s absolutely perfect. I’m right here. I’ll hop on Jessica and Geneva’s board, work on the training manual, travel for them and design an entire package of party plans, instructions, you name it.”
“Whooo, baby.”
“I’ll keep the condo for now, get out of the house with the singing walls, travel, and make a whole new list of dreams.”
“Was it the beer?”
Connie brushes her off.
“What do you think?”
“I think sex has been very good for you and it sounds like you are going to make it very good for lots and lots of other women as well,” she says, slightly taken aback by the plan but not surprised that Connie would do more than consider it.
“And guess what, baby?” Connie asks, leaning in to grab her beer back. “I’m going to need an assistant and I know you can retire early if you want to.”
O’Brien roars with laughter as if she had just figured out how to do it.
“The Irishman would have a heart attack,” she says, snorting. “Can you see us, driving through town with boxes of sex toys in the car, throwing out condoms at a parade, giving an in-service at the women’s club and then flying off to Las Something for a plastics convention?”
Connie says yes.
She can see it all, absolutely every single moment.
She can see it because she finally sees herself moving like wind, holding onto her Sunday list of dreams, moving with them as her dreams change, changing herself, not being so tied to a number that she misses the sunset.
Yes, she can see that, yes, she can, and then she grabs Frannie O’Brien by the hand, spins her around the tiny deck and launches into a discussion about sexual satisfaction in rural women as compared to urban women and the two women, friends, sisters, and females who know when it’s time to start moving and stop talking, head towards the café where Connie works the crowd and wonders, even after the tequila, how many women could fit into the Wind Drift on a Sunday afternoon for a Diva sex-toy party.
Nurse Nixon’s Easy-Reference Diva Sex Dictionary
In order of importance here is what you need to know right this second. Read this in the bathroom if you have to, but this is a one-two-three quick study for a handful—pardon the pun—of sex terms that will get you going and coming.
DIVA—In numerous countries this word means goddess and that’s exactly what it should always mean to you.
VIBRATOR—A Diva’s best friend. Vibrators are battery- or electric-powered divine devices that can be used to stimulate any area of your body. Think below the waist. Think fast motion. Think wonderful. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some are camouflaged as lipstick tubes, one plugs into your car lighter, one looks like a brush. Get a bigger purse and get going.
G-SPOT—There’s a lovely and lively group of nerves resting an inch or so inside of your vagina, and some nosy doctor whose last name began with a G made mention of this as a potential hot sexual spot. We think it was a woman named Gloria and she would tell you that not every woman goes into orbit right there but, just in case, there are a number of G-spot toys and we think you should try every single one just to make sure.
DILDO—This is an artificial penis or if you don’t like the word “penis,” or the object itself, just think that this is something that would do what a penis does if you did like one. Tall, short, curved, bumpy, with batteries, without. Pink. Purple. White. Black. If you can imagine it, and thank heavens Diva’s has a great imagination, we have probably already designed one just for you. This is definitely in “the more the merrier” department.
LUBRICATION—This is not your mother’s baby oil, baby. Lubrication is used to help make your sex life easier, faster, longer. It comes in lovely jars and bottles and, like those dildos, it comes in lots of varieties. Tons of flavors. Slippery and not so slippery and slippery in the middle. You can use it on the real penis, the make-believe one, other sex toys, your fingers, someone else’s fingers. Believe the Diva Sexpert on this one. Lube is to die for.
HARNESS—A harness, as you know, holds things in place, just like a bra, and there is absolutely nothing like a fine, comfortable, attractive bra. Don’t look now but a harness is used to hold a dildo in place so you can do whatever you want with it. They mostly come in leather, with cool buckles and loops, and there’s something powerful…oh, never mind.
PLEASURE BALMS—These sweet sex accessories are used to heat up a particular area on the body and to help bring a little fun into the bedroom, barn or bowling alley—wherever you plan to do it, women. They are sweet, often scented, tasteless if you prefer, and include powders, lotions and talcs that can be sprinkled, patted, placed or gently rubbed anywhere you can possibly think of on the human body.
MASTURBATION—Divas have a right to own every part of themselves…even their sexual parts. Masturbation means taking care of yourself sexually. Touching, using Diva toys, exploring a lovely fantasy. Sigh. It’s a healthy activity. Loving yourself in all ways is number one in a Diva’s world. Self-satisfaction begins at home and remember, you and only you are responsible for your sexual satisfaction.
ROLE-PLAYING—Whips, chains, blindfolds, dressing up as Jane and Tarzan…whatever you think might float your boat is included in this category. Some people like to control and others like to be controlled. Fantasy is, and always will be, an important part of sex and if you feel safe and everyone involved agrees—Diva, darling—you don’t have a thing to lose.
VIDEOS AND BOOKS—Don’t underestimate your mind’s connection to your body and what a sexy book or video might do to make you a well-rounded woman. Diva’s has a huge selection of books, manuals, and videos that can be used to turn up the heat a notch on your sex life. Books and videos, just like those vibrators and dildos, come in a variety of temperatures and textures. Hot, hotter, and hottest.
SEX TOYS—This is not your grandma’s toy store but it should have been. Sex toys include everything from a fine bottle of wine to a great sexy movie and back around again to everything else in your dictionary. When someone says, “Do you want to play with my toys?” and you gave away your Bar
bie dolls a long time ago, you will now know exactly what board game they are talking about.
Connie’s Calming Sex Tips for Real Divas
1. Relax. Do this any way possible. Have a drink. Let your mind run through a sea of tall grass at the edge of a very lovely blue ocean. Turn off the lights. Take a bath. Shut off every other light in your world except the one that shines on your sexual self. Relaxing means letting go and letting go is a very, let me stress that, very important part of waltzing without tripping while you enjoy sex.
2. Have one extra glass of wine. It can’t hurt and hopefully, within minutes, you will have forgotten you even had the damn thing.
3. Look at yourself. Not your face, sweetie, your self. If you have never laid down on a floor and held up a mirror to view your own vagina and its surrounding territory this is a good time to start. If you are giving driving directions to someone else it really helps to know the map.
4. Talk to another woman. Sexual experiences vary—no one understands that like a Diva Sister—but women know. We do and sometimes a sex-laced conversation can help you get answers, liberate your fears, and let you know that you are not alone.
5. Make sex a priority. What could be more important? Write it in your planner if you have to. Think about it—is changing the oil on time or reseeding the backyard really as important as feeling good?
6. Remember, if you do the same thing in the same place at the same time—something will wear out. Even sex can get boring—I know that’s hard to believe—if you do it the same way day after day, week after week….
7. Read. The Internet and bookstores are filled with lively sex manuals and books and really, the best place to start is at a Diva store because we have had the pleasure, and I mean pleasure, of reading them all and we know which book can harm you and which book can help you.