Clichéd Love: A Satirical Romance

by Lynn Galli

  She ran her fingers through my hair. A tantalizing scrape over my ears and down through the strands to where they ended at the swell of my breasts. Those beautiful eyes tracked the progress and slammed shut when my fingers tweaked her nipples again. Her hands switched to my wrists and brought them away from her breasts. She laughed when she saw the disappointment on my face.

  Her head tilted toward the back hallway. “We need to take this to a flat surface.”

  Mine tipped up toward the loft. “Will a bed do?”

  She grinned and circled my wrists to place her hands in mine. “Upstairs?” Her gaze went back to the hallway just beyond the kitchen.

  “Master’s upstairs.”

  A ringtone sounded from her phone this time. She stiffened a moment before brushing it off. “Don’t know if I can make it all the way up the stairs.”

  I chuckled. “We better. The guestroom still has the bed that’s been used by Helen’s friends. No telling how many people have had vacation sex on that thing.”

  Her tongue darted out in a show of distaste. I was tempted to try to capture it in another kiss, but I conserved my energy to start pulling her up the stairs.

  When her phone rang again, she stopped. “Sorry, that’s Lane’s ringtone. Twice now. She usually just texts.”

  Probably those beeps before. I tried to gauge what she wanted. Even as much as I wanted to continue this upstairs, if Lane was texting and calling, it might be a problem. “It’s Lane.” Was all I needed to say to give us both permission to be distracted from our path momentarily.

  “I’ll just check and tell her I’m busy.” Iris dashed to her hanging jacket, her opened shirt flapping with the effort. Too bad I hadn’t been on the right side of that dash for the enticing view. “Hey,” she said into the phone and started to talk again but stopped to listen instead. “Hold tight. I’ll be there soon.”

  My stomach knotted in disappointment. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head, her eyes expressing the same kind of disappointment I was feeling. “Her ex just walked into the bar and wants to talk.”

  “The one who dumped her after…” After Lane was attacked and vulnerable and reeling.

  “Yeah, that one. After six years together, she gives her all of two months to ‘get back to normal’ as she put it before walking out on her. It’s the first time Lane’s seen her in months, and the bitch walks into her place of work. She’s got drama tendencies, and Lane’s freaking.”

  “All right.” Lane would be freaking; anyone would. Lane was my friend, too, but Lane’s ex was preventing more sexy sex with the sexiest woman I’d ever known.

  Iris came up and kissed me fiercely. Another excellent kiss. Seems like we’ve gotten through our kissing yips. “I wouldn’t go if it weren’t something important.”

  “Sure, yeah, I know,” I said, but still felt disappointed.

  Her fingers deftly hooked her bra and started buttoning her shirt. I watched for two seconds before I realized that my shirt was hanging open still, and my pants. When her hands reached to hike her jeans up from their mid-hip slouch and button them, she said, “This has been the best Thursday ever.”

  Yeah, it was, and I’d really liked our Thursdays before. She leaned in for one last kiss, gentle but thorough, and turned to walk out of the apartment. I could have gone with her, but she hadn’t invited me. Our amazing Thursday was over.

  39 | Dylan & Reese

  Sitting through the second interview of the day, I was growing increasingly more frustrated. I’d left Iris and Lane alone last night in case Lane was in a bad way. Then I had to dash out this morning to get to an interview with a couple. I hadn’t had time to call Iris before needing to leave.

  The interview turned out to be a good distraction. He was a car salesperson, and she’d come in for a test drive. They hit it off well enough that she test drove every model at the dealership over the next two weeks. His manager threatened to fire him if he couldn’t close her since she’d wasted so much of his time. He decided he’d rather have a date with her than a sales commission, so he asked her out the next time she came in. She admitted to holding out on buying anything just to spend more time with him. Very sweet and easy to write up, which had taken me well into the afternoon.

  A lesbian couple scheduled for next week called to change their interview to tonight. I didn’t like conducting two interviews in one day. Crankiness always set in during the second interview, which wasn’t fair to the couple. Adding to that mood, I’d gotten so caught up in the morning interview and afternoon write-up that I’d forgotten to call or text Iris today. I wasn’t a clinger. Never had been, but I felt a morning-after check-in was the decent thing to do. My phone hadn’t buzzed either. A little frustration, but also a little anxiety.

  Enter Dylan and Reese. Compared to Manny and Vanessa this morning, these two could put a hummingbird to sleep. Dylan was a doctor who liked nothing more than to describe her surgeries in detail. Reese had been a receptionist until she married the doctor and spit out the requisite number of kids.

  “…then I thread the stent through the…”

  Yep, she was still talking about her latest heart procedure. She was a cardiac surgeon, which she felt made her one of the gods. A lesser one, in my opinion. My eyes wandered the bar area again. It was a busy Friday night, good for Lane, but getting tougher to hear the responses to questions I posed. If I could pose any after hearing about a mitral valve replacement or a pulmonary aneurism repair without feeling queasy. I wanted to talk to Lane about the callous ex-partner visit, but she’d been too busy when I got here. At this rate, I wasn’t sure I’d still be awake at the end of the interview to chat with her.

  The surgery descriptions allowed for time to contemplate my relationship shift with Iris. I’d been sure it was a shift when she left, but after sleeping on it, I wasn’t as sure. Not having heard from her or being able to contact her started screwing with my mind. What if the text and call from Lane had been a standard SOS that Iris always set up before she seduced someone? But I didn’t think she came to my apartment yesterday with the intent of ending up in bed. Or against a wall, having hot, hot sex. Ear burning sex. No, the phone call had to be genuine.

  The door opened to reveal three women and a guy. Not regulars and possibly not gay. The bar’s reviews were making it clear that anyone was welcome as long as they understood gays and straights would be mingling. I was so caught up in tuning my gaydar on the foursome that I almost didn’t see Iris come in behind them.

  My lips spread wide. Her eyes found mine almost instantly. A corresponding smile appeared and the belt cinched around my heart loosened. Nothing in that smile said she’d used Lane’s call as a blow off.

  “Vega?” Dylan said when she realized my eyes weren’t glued to her godlike existence.

  I scolded myself. This was work after all. I should be focused on this interview. Even if watching ants trek in single file was more interesting. “Yes, sorry. I was making sure we weren’t about to be pressured into leaving this table.”

  She swiveled in her chair and finally noticed the others in the bar for the first time tonight. “Oh, I guess we’ve been here a while, haven’t we, snooks?”

  Snooks squeezed her arm as she checked her phone. “We still have two hours with the sitter service, bones.”

  Bones? Ah, sawbones, got it. We wouldn’t want to forget Dylan being a doctor, would we?

  “Excellent.” Bones relaxed back against her chair. “Things in a Los Angeles trauma department can get crazy. I almost missed her case because we were expecting a busload of patients involved in a multiple vehicle collision. One suffered a massive heart attack. If I’d gotten to the ward ten minutes later, I would have been in a nine-hour surgery instead of repairing this one’s valve.”

  “Wait,” I sat up. Had she already told me this part, and I’d glossed it over because I’d been too busy reliving a surprise sexual encounter? “Reese was your patient?”

  “Yeah, didn’t we say
that?” she responded.

  “Isn’t that against hospital policy?” Not to mention the medical board’s ethical standards.

  “Technically, sure, but what are policies when you fall in love at first sight?”

  With a woman needing a heart valve replacement. Reese must have looked unwell, short of breath, probably in a lot of pain. Not exactly the appropriate time for Cupid to strike.

  “How long were you her patient?” I asked Reese, who also didn’t see anything hinky about having an affair with her doctor while being her patient.

  “A few months until Dylan transferred me to another doctor so we could go public with our love.”

  Or they got caught by another doctor on staff and were told to put an end to their doctor/patient relationship before Dylan was brought before the hospital board. I had to look away to stop from shaking my head. There was a reason it was ethically wrong for doctors to become involved with patients. Transference, confused gratitude, position of authority—hold the phone. What was Iris doing?

  I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. She had her arm around a woman, another spiky heeled woman, and was escorting her from the bar. She might just be seeing her to the door. Or into a cab since she was now holding the door open for her. Spiky didn’t look drunk or tipsy, but Iris was a considerate woman. She could hail a cab with the best of them, even if the woman didn’t really need help hailing a cab.

  My eyes landed back on Doctor Unethical to get my thoughts back online. Dylan had diverged from the excruciating particulars of her many surgeries to the excruciating particulars of their wedding. A destination wedding—that must have thrilled their guests. Not only did they have to buy the couple a wedding present, but they had to spend a lot of money to watch them get married. Stupendous idea. Whoever the hell came up with the concept deserves applause and fanfare. A punch to the throat, too. Yes, that’s a little more fitting than applause and fanfare.

  What I’d noticed most about Dylan, taking out the whole doctors are gods thing, was that she liked to talk. Craved it as much as someone craves food or water or sex. It would almost be funny if it hadn’t been four, no, five whole minutes since Iris left the bar with a woman. Twenty-six hours after we’d had dazzling, heart valve replacement worthy, sex. Which, unlike talking, was something that merited craving.

  I didn’t expect a bouquet of flowers—that actually would have made me run for the door—but a word or two before she went and seduced another woman would have been nice. Seven minutes now. With the abundance of cabs that drove this route in front of the bars, she wouldn’t need seven minutes to get her into a cab. She couldn’t be walking her home. Those of the Spiky Heels clan didn’t walk great distances. She had to be getting her a ride. Unless she wasn’t. I’d watched her take women home before, but never two nights in a row. After sex with a friend, she couldn’t float me a two-day buffer?

  “That all sounds lovely,” I said without knowing exactly what sounded lovely. I just knew I had to wrap this up and get out of here. I was tired and, if I allowed myself to admit it, hurt. How many women had warned me about Iris? I didn’t believe them. She didn’t act like a player. She didn’t. And the way we were together yesterday, the regret that she had to leave, the promise in her eyes at the prospect of more. I read people for a living. She wasn’t a player, but maybe she realized friendship was a better option for us, and this was the best way to get that message through to me. Sometimes words weren’t enough. Actions drove things home.

  “It has been. I take it you’re not married?” Reese asked, her eyes on my ring finger.

  “I’m not.”

  “You’ll know it when it’s right,” the doctor told me with all the certainty of a mother knowing her child will be a genius.

  That was the smartest thing she’d said all interview, including all the descriptions about every surgery she’d ever done. I stood and thanked them both again before heading to the bar. I really just wanted to talk to Lane and get out of here, but no less than three people stopped me to talk about my articles, ask if I needed more couples, and gossip about a few regulars. Iris, included. Had I seen who she bagged tonight? Had she ever said anything to me about liking them? Etcetera, etcetera. If the subject didn’t rankle so much, I’d give them a hard time about passing notes in homeroom. All I could manage was a polite nod before breaking free.

  Lane was still slammed, but she finished her current slate of drinks and came over. “Hey, Vega. Good couple tonight?”

  “They were fine.” I searched her face. “Heard you had a bit of an event yesterday. Everything work out okay?”

  She let out a long breath but kept her bartender expression on. “Sort of a shock.” She looked away then back. “That’s a lie, actually. I didn’t expect to see her again. Ever. Threw me, big time.”

  “I’ll bet.” My eyes scanned the crowd at the bar. “I know you’re busy. I just wanted to let you know I’m around to talk any time you’re free and want to.”

  She smiled, a full smile. One that came out more frequently since becoming a bar owner. Made me happy to see. “You leaving?”

  “I should type up these notes while they’re fresh, but I can stay if you need me to.”

  Her eyes went to the front window. Maybe she was hoping Iris would’ve been back from her escapade with Spiky Heels, too. She glanced back at me. “I’m good for tonight. Thanks.”

  “I’m headed to Boise tomorrow, but let’s go to lunch when I get back.” I was dying to hear about how the visit from the ex went, but it could wait until she had some free time. Wait until I wasn’t still hung up on a sexual encounter that I should have guessed wouldn’t mean as much to my chosen partner as it did to me.

  “More interviews?” Lane asked about my scheduled trip.

  “Six.” With requests for others, but I hadn’t wanted to stay away longer. Now, perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to stay on longer. Come back with a fresh attitude. One that wasn’t still wishing Iris would come back through that door after finally finding a cab for Spiky Heels.

  “Does Iris know?” Concern marked her tone.

  I was certain Iris hadn’t told her about yesterday, yet she seemed overly troubled that Iris know I was going to be out of town. “She gave me a hotel recommendation.”

  “All right.” She glanced at the front window again. “See you when you get back. Have a safe trip.”

  “Thanks.” I squeezed her arm and headed out. Alone because I couldn’t even think about having sex with one of these lovely ladies in here, let alone actually go through with it. Not after yesterday. I could only hope that in a few months, I’d be ready again to give dating that might lead to sex a try.

  40 |

  My ass was falling asleep. Driving more than three hours always did this to me. Into the fifth hour, the scenery had changed from beautiful mountains to flat, wide open plains. Regret seeped in at not having stopped for lunch and to gas up before crossing into Oregon. What was the point of not being able to pump my own gas? Did we live in the fifties?

  Even with that educational stop—nearly getting tackled when I went to pick up the pump and being lectured on Oregon’s gas station policies—my rump was starting to feel those stinging prickles every time I shifted. I’d hoped to make the eight-hour drive to Boise and conduct the first of the scheduled interviews tonight after checking in at the hotel. Given the way my back was getting stiff and my behind smarting, I may have to adjust the schedule.

  Turning off the audiobook I was listening to, which was the only thing making this trip bearable, I swiped through the numbers on my phone. I could handle two interviews tomorrow to avoid a lot more discomfort tonight. Unfortunately, when the call connected, my interviewees couldn’t accommodate my requested change.

  I turned up the audiobook, checked the distance to the next rest stop, and drove on. I’d chance looking like an idiot by sprinting a few short dashes at the next rest stop. Anything to get rid of this dead feeling in my lower half.


  A ring sounded through my audio system, signaling an incoming call. My foot tapped the brakes when I saw Iris’s name on the display. She’d finally texted last night, asking if I was busy working. I was, so I didn’t have to lie. I hadn’t wanted to see her freshly sexed from some other woman a day after she’d done the same thing to me.

  I pressed the display button to accept the call. “Hey.” Cool, casual, in control.

  “Forgot you were headed to Boise today. Where are you right now?”

  “Pendleton, I think. It’s hot as hell, and I almost got shot when I tried to pump my own gas.”

  She started laughing. The sound eased some of the tension. At least I could still make her laugh. “I forgot to warn you about that. Do you have an interview tonight?”

  “I just tried to get them to move it because I’d forgotten what eight hours in a car can do to a body. They didn’t go for it.”

  “Oh, well, you’ll be done sooner, then. When are you back?”

  I hesitated. She sounded eager, like she usually did. Like nothing had changed. In her mind, it probably hadn’t. The wonderful thing about two days of contemplation was that I could put this into perspective. Just because I was past the one-night stand stage of my life didn’t mean the women I had sex with had to be. We’d made no promises to each other. Even if it turned out we both wanted to continue a sexual relationship, we hadn’t talked about exclusivity. It didn’t help with the pinch of hurt I felt every time I thought about watching her walk out of the bar with that woman from last night, but I couldn’t let her more casual attitude about our sex blip affect how I felt about her as a friend.

  Avoiding her sexy self for a few days would help. A lot. I’d have enough time to stop remembering how she felt and all that she’d done to me. Start thinking of our afternoon tryst as I thought of my past sexual relationships, which was not at all. Then we could go back to being friends with no other expectations.

  “Vega?”

  I paused, trying to recall her question. “Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. Could be longer.”