"Arm porn?" Claire suggested.
I pretended to look aghast. "Arm porn? Bitch, he's everything porn. He's chest porn and abs porn and thighs porn and--"
"Cock porn?"
I shuddered, and this time it wasn't pretend. "Claire...you have no idea."
"I wish I did have an idea."
"You do, you really, really do. I mean, if you actually went and slept with him I'd be forced to challenge you to a duel for breaking the girl code, but seriously, the man's dick is...it needs its own area code. He could be a professional dick model."
"You mean porn star?"
I shook my head. "It's not a thing, but if penis models were a thing, he'd be a penis model. Because it's just...it's pretty, Claire. Like...I just want to touch it and hold it and look at it and--"
"And name him George?"
I coughed in laughter, nearly spitting out my wine. "Yes! I will love him and hug him and squeeze him and I will name him George."
"'I shall call him squishy and he shall be mine, he shall be my squishy. Come here squishy!'"
"Okay, Dory." I wiped my chin with the cocktail napkin. "Seriously, though. It's really that amazing."
She snickered. "We're being serious now, are we?"
I waved a hand. "Don't be ridiculous, we're never serious."
Claire flagged down a waitress and ordered us both more red wine. "Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we should be more serious sometimes. Like, about guys, I mean. Or, about a guy. Each of us, I mean. Not both of us about the same guy, that'd be a love triangle and those never go well."
I rolled my eyes as Claire rambled, which, honestly, she was somewhat prone to. Another trait I loved about her, because her ramblings were just so damn cute.
"Claire."
"But what if we decided to be polygamists, like that one show on TLC? Where he has four wives? We could share him, this guy of yours. Especially if he has, what is according to you, the most beautiful penis in all the land, I mean, we could share him. You don't need him all to yourself every single night, do you? You don't need to be selfish. You could totally share him." She glanced down at her lap. "Although, I'm not sure if I could handle a dick that big, to be totally honest. I'm what you might call petite, and yeah, I'm petite down there too. Not a lot going on between the legs, you might say. Pretty, um, small. That's me. Little Claire, with the teeny tiny titties and the itty bitty booty and, oh yes, that's right, the world's smallest vagina." She patted herself between the legs. "I mean, I love my hoo-ha, but it's tiny. The last guy I slept with, he was rocking, like four inches max and was maybe as thick as a Ballpark Frank. Had the same curve as one of those curvy-deal hotdogs too. And I was like ow ow ow ow the whole time, because I'm just--that--small."
I stared at her. "Claire."
She blinked. "What?"
"You're rambling again."
She sighed. "Oh. Oops. Where were we?"
"You were talking about Mr. Curved-like-a-hotdog penis."
"No, before I started rambling."
"Oh. We were talking about Zane's cock."
Claire had gone still, and was staring over my shoulder with a deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face. "This Zane of yours, with the perfect penis...does he have short brown hair and super intense brown eyes, and a jawline like the Cliffs of Dover?"
I frowned at her. "Yeahhhhhhh," I drawled, starting to cotton on to what she was implying.
"And, um, does he also happen to have a really badass Navy SEAL tattoo on his left arm?"
"He's behind me, isn't he?"
His voice buzzed in my ear. "Perfect penis, huh?"
"Hi Zane," I breathed, flushing in embarrassment.
"You know, my ears have been burning for awhile now. You wouldn't be talking about me, would you?"
I refused to turn around. "Nope. Not a word."
His fingertip brushed my cheek. "Hmm. Not sure I believe you, but I'll let it slide." He slid into the booth beside me. "Mind if I join you?"
I shot him a healthy dose of side eye. "He says, already sitting down."
He just grinned at me, flagging the passing waitress. "Bulleit. Neat, please. Make it a double." To me, then, "What, like you were going to say no?"
I took a sip of my wine and considered the options. I mean, was I going to tell him he couldn't join us? I was already dizzy from his scent, a mix of some kind of spicy cologne, smoke from a grill, and a hint of leather from the battered motorcycle jacket he was wearing. He hadn't even touched me, and I was clamping my thighs together and sitting on my hand just to keep it from sneaking away from me and going to somewhere on Zane's person, somewhere highly inappropriate for me to touch in public. Or at all, considering I'd ordered myself not to sleep with him again.
So yeah, I should tell him to get lost.
For my own good.
But I didn't want to. I liked how he blocked out the whole rest of the bar when he sat next to me, how I felt small and safe and secure in his presence. And he really did smell amazing.
But then again...I wondered what he'd do if I did tell him to leave.
"I mean, I haven't seen Claire in six months, and we're kind of having a girl's night. She's only here for--what, Claire, two days?" I said, testing the refusal on both myself and Zane.
The waitress came by with Zane's bourbon; he passed her a twenty and waved off the change.
His eyes flicked from me to Claire and back to me, searching. A smile spread across his lips. "A girl's night, huh?"
"And no, before you ask," I said, "we're not both going home with you."
"We're not?" Claire asked, and I was like ninety-nine percent sure she was just playing along, but with Claire, you never knew--the girl had a secret freaky side.
"We're not," I insisted.
Zane tossed back a slug of his whiskey, and then stood up. "Meh, I haven't done that shit since SEAL graduation. Two girls at once sounds like a lot more fun than it really ends up being." He bent over and brushed a kiss to the corner of my mouth, then put his lips to my ear, whispering. "Besides, all I really want is another shot at putting my perfect penis inside your perfect vagina."
Gah. Now he smelled like whiskey, and if I kissed him, he'd taste like whiskey, and there are few things more intoxicating for me than the taste of whiskey on a man's breath.
Wait. Perfect vagina? He thought my vagina was perfect?
He was already swaggering away, though, his tight ass molded to artistic perfection in a pair of dark jeans. Those long, strong legs, though. Damn. And that ass? Did I mention his ass? How it was roughly the same size, shape, and hardness as a pair of bowling balls cupped in a pair of jeans?
He sidled up to the bar, finishing his whiskey on the way. The bartender was a woman, tall and lanky and beautiful, tight black tank top showing off a vibrant display of tats. She took one look at Zane and pretty much ran over to serve him, bending over the bar at the waist to give him a nice open look down her blouse at her tits, which were big and fake and amazing. She giggled at him, leaning close as he said something to her. He shot her a bright, flirty grin, nudging his glass at her. She responded with another smarmy giggle, took his glass, and filled it with an absolutely absurd amount of Bulleit. And then, instead of just telling him how much he owed, she went through the trouble of printing out the ticket...so she could very obviously write her number on it.
The bastard wasn't even trying and she was falling all over herself to pick him up.
Zane paid the bill, once again not bothering with change. He took the ticket she'd written her number on, kept it hidden in his hand as he eased away from the bar and ambled to a corner where he could still see me but wasn't obviously watching. I could see him over Claire's shoulder. God, that bastard. Just standing there looking sexy, sipping his whiskey and toying with the receipt from the hot bartender.
I asked a question to get Claire talking, and she was off like a runaway train, chattering happily about her new job, how laid back and fun it was, how they had what she called
the rescue cat library, where you could check out a cat to hang out with at your desk all day, and how each cat came with its own box for if-it-fits-I-sits. Which sounded awesome, but I wasn't really listening; Claire and I had an understanding, where she would just let her mouth sort of run away, and I would half-listen while people watching. She didn't really need me to answer, she just needed someone who would let her talk, and I needed someone who understood that I liked to be around a person I trusted without having to talk all the damn time. Thus, our arrangement worked for both of us.
And in this particular instance, our arrangement let me nod at the right time and give Claire half an ear while I focused the rest of my attention on Zane. On the way his arms filled the sleeves of his leather jacket, and on the way his plain white T-shirt clung to his waist and hinted at the superhero abs I knew he had underneath. And on the way all he had to do was stand there and women flocked to him in droves, one after another, and sometimes in pairs--and once even an entire bachelorette party clustered around him, touching his chest and tittering at him and giving him their phone numbers on torn slips of paper. He never touched any of them back, I noticed, and he never gave any of them the slow, sultry, heavy-lidded grin he gave me the first time we met. These girls got a version of Zane I didn't really like, honestly. He gave them a grin that was all white teeth and no warmth in his eyes, and he leaned there in his corner sipping his whiskey as if he had all night and no plans, and he'd listen and nod and was obviously not paying any attention to them whatsoever.
Because his attention was on me.
He'd glance at me with a hint of secret amusement every time he got another phone number, and he'd tuck that paper in the back pocket of his jeans, and eventually the girl or girls would wander off with a ridiculous amount of longing backward glances.
And I couldn't help thinking that if those girls only knew exactly how amazing he was in bed and how big his cock really was and how delectable his abs actually were, they'd be trying a lot harder to get that smile I'd gotten, the one that promised a long night of hard and dirty fucking.
A promise he'd certainly followed through on.
And there went my imagination, running amok with fantasies of what we'd do together if I were stupid enough to let him bring me back with him.
Eventually, Claire ran out of steam, and let the flow of chatter trickle to a stop. Which I didn't notice right away, as Zane was sipping his Bulleit and staring at me over the rim with sex in his eyes.
"Girlfriend, you've got it bad," Claire said.
That got my attention. "What do you mean?"
She waved at me in disgust. "You. I haven't missed the way you and Zane have been eye-fucking this whole time."
"We're not eye-fucking," I protested.
Claire snorted. "Bitch, please. If you could get pregnant from eye-fucking, you'd be nine kinds of knocked up."
I finished my second glass of wine. "Okay, fine, we're eye-fucking. So what?"
"So, why don't you take him back to your hotel and fuck him for real?"
"I already did, well, at his place, but you know what I mean."
"So?"
I gave her a look that said the answer should have been blindingly obvious. "So...one ride per customer, remember? That's how we do things. To protect our hearts?"
Claire was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. "I've been getting sort of tired of that lately. I'm just...not as interested in the endless parade of guys as I used to be. I don't know if it's the move to Seattle or getting older, or what, but...I'm starting to think about getting a boyfriend."
I blinked at her. "Get a boyfriend? Like, long-term, live-in, grunts and farts and forgets to put the seat down boyfriend?"
She shrugged. "Yeah. Why not? I get lonely in my apartment at night. It'd be nice to have someone in bed with me, you know? I mean, really, how hard can it be to break in a boyfriend?"
I laughed. "Claire. What are you gonna do, go to the boyfriend store and pick out a boyfriend? Get some boyfriend chow and boyfriend potty training pads? Maybe a nice floral print boyfriend collar and leash?"
She pulled a well...actually face. "Yeah, pretty much. Except if anyone was gonna wear a collar and leash, it'd be me."
I sputtered disbelieving laughter. "Claire!"
"What? I like being dominated now and then--so what? It's fun to pretend to be all submissive."
"I know you liked being spanked, but goddamn, Claire. I had no idea."
She shrugged, blushing faintly. "I'd only do that when you weren't around."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "I was embarrassed. I thought you'd think I was a freak or something."
I took her hands. "Since when am I that judgmental?"
Claire shrugged again. "It's not that I thought you were judgmental, it's just that you like things...vanilla."
I couldn't answer right away. "Vanilla?"
She nodded. "Yeah. You don't go in for any kink at all. Like, have you ever let a guy tie you up? Or spank you? Or blindfold you? That's still pretty vanilla compared to some of the things a few guys have asked me to do, but for you? You like your guys blah. Cute, sexy, funny, and blah."
I felt a twinge of hurt and couldn't help myself from firing back at her. "And since we're on the subject, do you really like rough sex, or do you just like it rough because it keeps guys from getting attached to the real you?"
She let out a breath from between pursed lips and frowned at me. "Damn, girl, going right in for the kill, huh?" She glanced away from me. "I like it rough because that's something I like, okay? It is the real me, it's just...not all of the real me."
I blew a raspberry. "Bullshit yourself if you want, but you can't bullshit me." I slammed back the rest of my wine. "And you're wrong about me liking my guys blah, by the way."
"Yeah, Mara, you totally like your guys blah. The most blah. Not there's anything wrong with them, they're just...meh. Nothing to write home about."
"Wow. I had no idea you felt that way."
She reached up and tugged hard on a lock of my hair. "You know I love you, right?"
"Yeah." I swatted at her hand. "And I love you back."
"But I think you pick them blah on purpose."
"Why would I do that?"
Claire ordered us each more wine as the waitress came by, and then turned back to me. "I don't know. We don't really talk about what we did in the Army, and we certainly don't talk about our lives before the Army. So, I don't know. But you like your guys blah, and you don't ever let a guy actually get to know you, especially not if he's an interesting guy..." she jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "Like Zane Badd, he of the epic penis."
"I feel sort of betrayed, Claire," I said. "First you move away, breaking up the Gruesome Twosome. Then you dye your hair pink. And then you talk about getting a boyfriend...and now you tell me I like boring guys and insinuate that I'm afraid of intimacy."
"I just--"
I wasn't done though, and kept talking over her. "And when was the last time you let a guy get close to the real you?"
"Remember Brian March?"
I nodded. "Tall, super skinny, long goatee, weird taste in movies?"
"Yeah, him."
I shrugged. "I know you slept with him a couple times."
"Try twice a month for a year and a half. He was how I got into light bondage."
"So, you and he..."
"I'd meet him at his apartment after work every other Wednesday and we'd have sex. He'd tie me up, spank me, blindfold me and tease me with ice cubes and feathers and dildos, and I'd suck him off, and then we'd fuck. It was hot."
"You had a bunch of other guys over every weekend."
She sipped her wine as it arrived. "Yeah, well, we had an agreement. We weren't exclusive, we just used each other to express a side of our sexuality we couldn't necessarily show the other people we dated or whatever."
I shook my head. "I feel like there's this whole other Claire I never even knew about."
"It's n
ot like I'm a super spy living a double life. I just did some things I didn't share with you."
"Because you thought I'd judge you for it."
She hesitated, and then glanced down at the table. "Yeah, kind of."
"Why?"
"I guess...it just felt like you wouldn't understand."
I tried to picture how I would have reacted if she'd told me this when we were roommates. And I didn't like the answer at all. "I'm not a good person, am I? Like, I'm a shitty friend."
Claire laughed, shaking her head at me. "You're the best friend, stupid. And you're an amazing person. You just..." she paused, frowning in thought. "You need to open your mind more. You need to figure out why you won't let guys even be your friend, why you won't have sex with the same guy twice, much less actually date someone."
"Have you dated anyone?"
She nodded. "Yeah. There's a programmer where I work. We've gone out a few times. Nothing, like, serious. Just...you know, getting my feet wet a little bit, in terms of trying out this whole dating thing."
"What's it like?"
"What? Dating?" I nodded, and she leaned back in her chair, swirling her wine in the glass. "It's fun, to be honest. There's something to be said for letting a guy pick you up, take you to dinner, and just...talking. Walking around, doing stuff. Gabe and I went to Pike Place the other day and just walked around talking. It was so fun. I mean, there are no expectations for either of us. I told him when he first asked me out that I wasn't the dating type, and that I wasn't looking for anything. He said that's fine, neither was he; he just wanted to spend time with me, because he thought I was cool. That's...it's a nice feeling, Mara. Someone who likes me for my personality? Like, actually for real, he just likes who I am? It's better than sex, in a weird kind of way. I mean, I haven't even had sex with this guy, and I'm not sure I'm going to."
I boggled. "Wait, you're dating this guy you work with, which is weird by itself, by the way--and you don't plan on sleeping with him?"
She nodded. "For one, we don't work together, just for the same company. He's in a whole different department, on a different floor. We met on the elevator, as a matter of fact. And yeah, I'm approaching this whole dating thing as an experiment, right? Like, what will happen if I go into it not expecting anything? If I let things play out on their own, not necessarily expecting sex or a second date or anything, just...take it one step at a time? And I like it. It's new."
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