by Max Monroe
12. You haven’t shaved your legs in two weeks and could care less about shaving your legs.
13. A boner.
14. Clean sheets.
15. You need to wash the sheets.
16. You just drank a bottle of wine.
17. You ran out of wine.
18. You successfully saved money on your car insurance.
19. You can’t sleep.
20. You’re sleepy, but you need to wake up.
21. You’re stressed out about the house being a mess.
22. You just cleaned the house.
23. You had the best workout.
24. You didn’t work out.
25. You don’t feel like getting dressed and need a good reason to stay naked.
26. You’re horny.
27. You just read some political article and it pissed you off.
28. You got yo hair did, girl.
29. You haven’t brushed your hair in three days.
30. You just took a shower.
31. You haven’t showered in three days.
32. You’re on vacation.
33. You’re pissed off because everyone else but you is on vacation.
34. You just lost five pounds.
35. You just gained five pounds.
36. It’s too cold to go outside.
37. It’s too hot to go outside.
38. It’s raining outside.
39. Your weekly yoga class inspired a new position.
40. You just read this advice column that told you to have more sex, so you’re going to follow it and have more sex.
50. Okay, yeah, this list skips 41-49, but that’s because there is ALWAYS a good reason to just have sex with your significant other. Sex is healthy. Sex is normal. Sex is fun.
Sex Says: Never feel shame for wanting to have sex just for the act itself. Sex is natural. Sex is good. Sex is sex… And seriously, who doesn’t like sex?
I saved the Word doc to my computer and leaned back against the pillows of my sofa as I started to scan my words for grammatical errors or mistakes. By the time I reached the end, I realized it was missing something.
Something important.
Something that would add that special little spark.
Underneath my advice, I added one perfect tidbit of information.
Also, two possible (but probably really good) reasons not to just have sex:
1. The guy’s first name is Reed, and his last name is Luca.
2. The guy’s last name is Luca, and his first name is Reed.
How ’bout them apples, Reed? I smiled to myself.
Still want to be friends now?
I smacked the paper down on the desk in front of me and pulled a cigarette from my new pack without even sitting down. It was becoming a habit these days, buying a fresh pack every time I bought a paper. Sex Says was out, and as I’d been doing since the very first time I’d read it, I made picking up a paper the first priority of my day.
Of course, now, I could deduct it as a business expense.
I smiled to myself.
Maybe I can blame Lola for decreasing my life expectancy too. That’d really fire her up.
I’d spent the entire morning in Dolores Park people watching and reading her words with every perspective I could dredge up. What would a shy woman trying to find her footing think? What about a man who had no interest in relationships? What about the man who did? What did it convince those people they needed to do?
That was the part I truly didn’t think Lola understood, the actual influence of the power of her suggestion—the people it reached who were desperately seeking another answer.
Still, now that I knew her, it was hard not to find personal notes in every word she wrote—and become intrigued by them.
After a quick scan of the article, my forefinger following along each word as if skating across her body, I read and reread one of my favorite lines from her several-hundred-word rant about human sexuality. Humans need sex. They want sex. They desire sex. Humans need orgasms.
If one of my proclivities was gambling, I’d lay down a hefty sum that my new friend was in need of sex and in need of it soon.
I smiled at the thought. Sex was one of my favorite pastimes, given a suitable partner, but as I’d explained in my original rebuttal, Lola’s column was good for nothing but her own needs and those of some small percentage of the population, and in terms of my column, that was what I needed to focus on.
Some people didn’t love sex, had never experienced the raw glory she spoke of so heatedly. Some people felt pressured to love sex more, to have it often, even when their libido lacked fervor. Some people wanted someone to tell them it was natural not to want sex, not to need it, not to desire it. They got their outlet through other venues than orgasms, and the pressure to lure someone in with carnal desire for only their body was a terrifying and intimidating thought.
Personally, I loved the female form as a whole, soft curves and delicate lines, but had never been able to get turned on with only a look. I needed the depth, the emotion, the personality to persuade me. And I happened to know one or two other people like me out there.
It was as if I were in the movie Shallow Hal without the need for the spell, seeing internal beauty or the lack thereof on the outside rather than big breasts and a heart-shaped ass.
“For some of us,” I typed and muttered aloud, “sex is never just sex.”
Already done with my cigarette thanks to a lengthy mental pep talk, I stubbed out the butt in the ashtray and set my fingers to the keys once more.
“An emotional experience can take many forms, and several of them don’t even require eye contact,” I explained—and mocked slightly.
On I went, putting a piece of myself into every word to make it real and using my infinite encounters with all walkers-of-life to guide me in a direction of inclusivity. For some people, sex held an appeal all on its own, and for others, it didn’t. But Lola Sexton’s ranting mind was what was really starting to call to me.
“Reed This,” I decreed, typing the last line to my anti-masterpiece. “Penis pressure comes in all forms. The act of sex isn’t the natural part—your specific sexuality is. Own it. Own you. And don’t follow anyone’s rules but your own.”
Clicking away, I moved the arrow up to save my work and then moved right down the menu to print. I wanted to make sure one special reader got an advanced copy.
As my old printer whirred to life, I pushed up from my seat and stalked across the room to my only phone—a landline. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in cell phones so much as I didn’t like what carrying one did to me. I became disinterested and disengaged, and while that’s fine for some, it was the absolute opposite existence of the one I actually enjoyed.
It rang three times before my brother-in-law, Cameron, answered the phone.
“No,” he said by way of not greeting, and I laughed.
“I didn’t even say anything yet.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve been a part of your family by marriage for five years now and around to witness the depths of your debauchery for seven. You don’t need to say anything—ever. My answer is always no.”
“But what if this is a matter of life or death?”
“Is it?” he questioned, and I laughed again.
“Well, no.”
“Then the answer is still no.”
“Okay, it’s not a matter of life or death, but it is vitally important.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Jesus. You’d think this guy knew me or something.
“Fine. It’s not important at all.” At least not to him, or civilization, or whatever. “But it is a very simple favor to execute in exchange for me not telling Laura about the time we went to Amsterdam and—”
“I fucking hate you.”
Pot brownies in a foreign country that was known for letting loose and dabbling in medicinal highs could persuade even the best cops—like Cameron—into really letting loose and throwing cauti
on to the wind. I’d like to say my influence had a little something to do with that wild night a few years back, but honestly, those pot brownies would’ve orbited anyone straight into outer space.
It’s a night I’ll never forget for the sole purpose of blackmail.
“I know. And I support those feelings. But that doesn’t change the facts here.”
“What do you need?”
See what I mean? Worked like a charm every time.
“An address,” I said simply. All I needed was an address.
Casa Dolores, it said on the sign that arched over the gated entrance to the Spanish style apartments in the Mission District.
It looked like a nice place, fairly safe for a woman on her own and centrally located to some really cool shit, but beyond all of that superficial stuff, it felt like her.
Some days I thought about living down here, but after thoughts that felt circular in nature, I always went back to the place on Fillmore. It’d been my home for years, and as much as I liked to wander through every other aspect of my life, I loved having a place that felt like home. Ironic in some ways, I guessed, how traditional my feelings sometimes were.
I wandered closer to the gate, looking to my left to see rows and rows of mailboxes set in a wall of mosaic tiles. I stepped over while I considered this tiny hitch—it didn’t do much good to know her address if I couldn’t get in—I hadn’t planned on and scanned the rows for hers.
The squeal of the gate opening behind me pulled my attention around.
Jackpot.
I smiled at the young woman with full hands making her exit and nodded to the weight of the gate. “Can I hold that for you?”
She looked between me and the gate twice, studying my features for some sign of murderous tendencies before accepting—at least, accepting enough to give me the opening I needed. “Thanks. I think I’ve got it, but—”
I jumped forward jovially and took the weight before she could finish her sentence. She smiled at my presumed chivalry—the exact thing I needed—but I couldn’t let my nagging feelings go. As much as she’d just played to my interests, I couldn’t leave her like this—not with the world the way it was.
“It’s nice to meet you…” I prompted, looking for her name.
She smiled. “Isabelle.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Isabelle.” She nodded like she thought so too.
“You too?” she agreed, searching for my name.
I gave it to her easily. “Reed.”
And that was it. She turned to leave after a brief, cordial exchange of smiles, but I called her attention back softly. “Hey. Real quick, before you go,” I started, still holding the gate open to ease my entry.
“You should never let somebody talk you into doing this again.”
She seemed surprised and a little confused, so I continued. “It’s okay to be rude. Especially when you’re balancing it against the danger of letting a stranger have access to your gated apartment.”
Her eyes widened a little in panic, so I lied to ease her anxiety. “Don’t worry. I’m a friend of Lola’s. 2C.”
Some of the panic settled as she recognized my information as correct.
“Just for the future, that’s all.”
She backed away slowly, but she still didn’t put up a stink about my entering her apartment complex on my own. Some people are born optimists. This woman was obviously one of them.
I admired it at the very same time I feared for her safety.
Back on track, I let the gate swing closed behind me as I moved up and into the courtyard of the building. It took me a minute, but I finally found a door and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Lola’s door came pretty quickly, the second on the right, and I didn’t hesitate to rap on the wood with my knuckles.
Music drifted under the gap at the bottom and up to my ears, louder than what most people considered an appropriate volume, and when no one answered the door after a full minute, I feared she might not even hear me knocking over it.
So I did it again, louder and with more zeal this time, so much so that the door gave a healthy shake in the frame.
“Coming, coming!” she shouted through the door on her approach, and I couldn’t help but look down at the tiled hall with a smile.
She sounded like she expected it to be someone she liked. Boy, was she in for a surprise.
The door swung open in a rush, and the transfer of air nearly sucked me inside with it. Once I saw the look on Lola’s face, however, I was glad I held my ground.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Hey,” I greeted. “It’s nice to see you too.”
“How do you know where I live?” She searched the hallway behind me as though it might hold the answer.
I shook my head, because I knew better than to answer that, and reached behind my back to pull the folded paper from my back pocket. “I just thought you might like to get a jump on gaining some perspective.”
Her face harshened as she inferred the meaning of my words.
“Excuse me, I have perspective down pat, you no-good mother—”
I smiled and leaned in to place a kiss on her color-ripened cheek. “Have a good night, Lola,” I whispered there.
And with one last glance in her eyes, her mouth opening and closing like a gulping fish, I turned and made my way back out of her building just as I’d come.
Truth was, I’d have liked to hang around, but I was already late. And as much as I played by my own rules and bucked convention, my mother didn’t—and she controlled the food.
God, I hate him.
That had been my mantra for the entire fifteen-minute bike ride to my parents’ house.
I hate him. He may be really sexy, and the instant his lips touched my cheek, my nipples went into a full military-style salute, but I hate him. Yes, I definitely hate him. Obviously, my boobs just haven’t gotten the memo yet, but that’s to be expected. They’re boobs. They don’t have special talents like feeling feelings and picking up Reed’s weird radio frequency—they just react to cues for arousal.
I mean, was he trying to ruin my life?
And how in the hell had he known where I lived?
I still couldn’t believe he had the audacity to show up at my apartment, unannounced and definitely unexpected, and hand me an advanced copy of his column—one that consisted of a diatribe about penis pressure and how some people don’t want or need sex and blah, blah, blah.
Just like before, he’d read my column and twisted my words into something ridiculous. I wasn’t penis pressuring anyone. I had merely written a fun and entertaining piece about how it was okay to just want sex for the act itself sometimes.
Fucking penis pressure. Give me a break.
After reading his response, you’d think I’d told my readers to grab a ruler and a stopwatch and administer an elementary-style timed sex test to their significant others. If I didn’t dislike him so much, I might’ve actually applauded his ability to make magic out of mist. The fucker.
My family chattered around me at the dinner table, but I had nothing to contribute. I was too caught up in conjuring ideas for future columns and then disputing their validity as solid ideas based on how I thought Reed might twist and turn my shit to contradict me.
If I said, “The Golden Gate Bridge is huge,” Reed would take that comment and have a goddamn field day redirecting it into an existential discussion on what defines the word huge. Hell, he’d probably toss in an absurd argument based off of polynomial-time algorithms, and then I’d probably fall asleep because no amount of college algebra would help me understand polynomial time.
I groaned out loud and took the serving spoon for my mom’s famous mashed potatoes and scooped some onto my plate. And then I scooped another helping just for good measure. Hating someone was hard work, and my body needed to carbo-load if there was any hope of plotting my revenge.
“Uh, Lola?” my sister Annie called from across the table. “Are you okay?”
>
“Yeah, Lo, you’re really getting at your mom’s mashed potatoes,” my father interjected. “Mind sharing some with the rest of us?”
I looked up and noted that everyone at the table—my mom, dad, Annie, brother-in-law Brian, even my nieces and nephew—was staring at me.
“I’m fine. Just hungry,” I muttered.
Annie quirked a concerned brow in my direction, but I ignored her. I knew if I made eye contact, she’d ask me a million questions about why I was smacking the mashed potatoes with the serving spoon. Sometimes sisters were a real pain in the ass.
This probably wasn’t the best night for me to attend family dinner at my parents’ house. And even though I always got bombarded with annoying questions about marriage and kids and renter’s insurance policies, I generally enjoyed our twice-monthly routine.
Thanks a lot, Reed. You’re even ruining family dinner night.
I slid the bowl of mashed potatoes toward my dad and settled into my plate. I was determined not to let that pretentious, know-it-all, newbie columnist fuck up the rest of my day.
Conversation continued around me, and I just tuned it out for the moment and focused on the baked chicken in the middle of my too-full plate.
But it didn’t help.
Bite after bite, I grew more and more angry. I had never really hated anyone in my life, but I really, really hated Reed Luca. With a fiery passion that made me better understand those women on that show Snapped—the one where they go off the deep end and kill their boyfriends or husbands. Not that I was plotting murder because, yeah, that was a bit over the top, but I could at least understand where those chicks were coming from.
“Henry,” Annie said in that disappointed yet irritated tone only moms use on their children. “Stop stabbing your chicken with your butter knife. That is inappropriate.”
“But…but…Aunt Lola’s doing it!”
I glanced up at the sound of my name, and then I watched Annie’s gaze move from Henry’s plate to mine. My eyes followed hers and, yeah, my nephew was right. I was currently stabbing my chicken with a butter knife. Mutilating it, actually.