The Cowboy, The Cheat, His Ex-Wife & Her Vibrator

by C. C. Coburn

  “And that’s why you were out with the good doctor, the other night?”

  “And the lawyer last night. And the doctor wasn’t quite so ‘good’. In fact, he was quite a naughty boy.”

  Tilly’s brow rose with interest. “Do tell!”

  Beth outlined her disastrous date with Peter Grenville to Tilly, who responded with lots of “Oh’s,” and, “Ah’s,” and, “You’re kidding!”

  “I’m deadly serious.” Beth shuddered at the memory. “And then that lunatic ex–lawyer of mine wanted me to go back to his ‘pad’ with him so that he could make love to me until I screamed.”

  “Good grief,” Tilly said, then frowned. “So if he was offering, and you’re so desperate for sex, why didn’t you take him up on it?”

  “Because he was a total creep, Tilly! Totally boring and self–absorbed. The only man I want to have sex with till I scream, is Gabe.”

  “Oh, my,” Tilly murmured and fanned herself. “So you’re suffering from a bad case of SDS?”

  “Huh?” Tilly’s use of acronyms could make conversation confusing.

  “Selectively Desperate for Sex.”

  “You just made that up,” Beth said as she saw the grin spread over Tilly’s face. “But yeah… I guess I am.” She waved her hands in the air, dispensing of that conversation. “Forget about my problems for the moment. You wanted to talk about Chris.”

  Tilly’s shoulders sagged. “I was actually enjoying your stories because it helped take my mind off it.” She rested her hands on the table and put her head down on them. “What am I going to do? I’ve tried everything. All his favorite positions. All the cute sex talk we used to do to each other before the kids came along.” She lifted her head and her eyes were full of tears. “I think he’s having an affair,” she wailed.

  "Oh, honey!" Beth soothed. "What on earth would give you such a silly idea?"

  Tilly looked up at Beth, her face blotched and tears running unabated down her cheeks. "I just told you, because he’s impotent. At least around me."

  Beth found it hard to imagine someone as virile–looking as obviously in love with his wife as Chris could be impotent. But what would she know—especially about men?

  In her secret fantasies, Beth had imagined bedding Chris. Of course she’d never confess that to Tilly. It would be like being unfaithful with your best friend’s husband, even if it was only in your dreams. But with a shortage of men to use as role models, Beth had been forced to cast Chris as the romantic hero of some of her fantasies. Some of her more erotic fantasies.

  "Hello?" Tilly waved her hand in front of Beth’s eyes. "Are you listening to me? Chris is impotent and I’m sure it’s because he’s having an affair. What am I going to do about it?"

  Beth brought herself back to earth. "I’m sorry, hon. I’m just having a hard time imagining Chris not being able to do the deed."

  "He can’t not only, ‘do the deed’, as you so crudely put it. He’s not even remotely interested in doing it at all." Tilly screwed up her face. "We don’t even get to the point where we’re both hot and heavy and ready to jump each other’s bones and he just can’t get it up. It’s more serious than that—he doesn’t want to get intimate with me at all." A fresh flow of tears streaked down her cheeks and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  Beth reached for the tissue box, tore off a few sheets, handed them over to Tilly and waited while she blew her nose and got herself together.

  "Um, how long has this been going on?"

  Tilly looked up. "The affair or the impotence?"

  "Sweetie, we don’t know that he’s having an affair—only that he’s… um…been having trouble in the love machine department. How long?"

  “A few months.”

  Tilly blew her nose again and looked up at Beth with such hopefulness that Beth put her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers as she said, “Some men get very involved with work, or financial worries and stuff," Beth hedged, trying to remember all the lame excuses JJ gave for not wanting to have sex. Of course it turned out that JJ was having an affair, so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea that she say such a thing to Tilly.

  "Are you sure?"

  "Of course I am. It’s not uncommon in men his age." Again, what would I know? thought Beth as she patted her friend’s hand then got up from the table and looked skywards hoping she wouldn’t be struck down for telling out and out lies. She had no real knowledge of impotence or its many causes, but Tilly at least seemed to have calmed down.

  To hell with it being only morning, Beth decided as she poured two glasses of bourbon, added ice and sat down at the table again. She pushed one glass across to Tilly, then took a long draft of her own and observed Tilly sitting hunch–shouldered. She needed to talk.

  Beth mused that it was great having a friend like Tilly. She wished she’d known Tilly when she was in high school, but they’d only met and become friends since the twins and Tilly’s eldest child, Jaydon, had started elementary school together. She and Tilly shared a similar sense of humor but very different upbringings. They were great confidants and Beth didn’t know what she’d have done without Tilly’s support during her breakup with JJ. She only hoped Chris’s ‘impotence’ didn’t mean Tilly could be heading down the same pathway to divorce.

  No! Surely not! Chris was the salt of the earth, there was absolutely no way he was cheating on Tilly! And Beth was going to make darned sure he wasn’t. Beth formulated a plan as they talked.

  “The guys you’re dating sound about as interesting as those ones you tried speed– dating earlier this year,” Tilly said, bringing Beth back to the present and reminding her of several other disastrous evenings she’d wasted on unsuitable men.

  Beth shuddered as she remembered, there’d been dozens of men at the speed dates and too many blind dates. One day she was going to add them all up. Maybe when she was too old to care anymore. That’s if she could remember anything by then. “Don’t remind me! I only did that speed–dating because your friend, Iona, didn’t want to go alone. And you couldn’t go with her because you’re married. And look where it got her! Engaged! To a big dork!”

  “He’s a big dork who adores her. She could’ve done worse.”

  “Like you, you were going to add, weren’t you?” Beth accused without any rancor. “Anyway, at least with speed–dating there was a bit of variety,” Beth told her. “I wasn’t stuck all evening with the same guy, having to listen to the sob story that was their miserable existence. Argh!”

  Tilly smiled. “I take it there won’t be any return dates with the Podophiliac Pediatrician and the Lovesick Lawyer?”

  “Absolutely not!” Beth pulled a face. “Problem is, I now have to find another lawyer and another pediatrician. The way I’m going, there won’t be a professional male in the greater Denver area that I’ll either be able to date or use the services of same.”

  “That brings me to mention a perfectly lovely cowboy I happen to know.”

  Beth held up her hand. “Don’t even start on me with that cousin of yours!”

  “What’s up now? Gabe said he had a great time with you and the kids and was looking forward to seeing you all again.”

  “Really?” Beth welcomed the warmth that filled her heart at Gabe’s compliment. He really liked her kids?

  “Yes, of course, so the sooner you two stop dancing round each other and get real about a relationship, the sooner you can stop going out on deadbeat dates.”

  “There must be something in the water,” Beth remarked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a conspiracy. To stop the population growth. The government has put something into the water. It’s making men impotent.”

  Tilly spat out her coffee into her cup. “What? ”

  “Well, Chris’s impotent all of a sudden and Gabe’s making all sorts of excuses not to lay me, so there’s got to be more to this.”

  “I think you’ve had too many late nights,” Tilly suggested. “Tell me, what do yo
u talk to these guys about that you end up with such strange endings to your dates? Except for Gabe, of course. I’m starting to think both he and JJ deserve some sort of medal for wanting a second date with you.” Tilly giggled at her stab at Beth, knowing Beth would take it in the spirit it was meant.

  “Very funny,” Beth glowered at her friend.

  “Uh, oh. I’ve offended you. Didn’t think that was possible. Are you doing that forensics thing again?”

  Beth knew Tilly was referring to her standby conversation with dull dates. How could she help not asking relevant things of a funeral director, a butcher and a biochemist?

  “Honestly, Tilly, most of them are so dull. I only asked Peter Grenville what poisons couldn’t be detected on the human body at autopsy, because that biochemist on the speed–date declined to answer. And I asked Douglas Fadden about how I could get permanent custody of the kids. But apart from JJ having a heart attack while having sex with his bimbo or getting run down by an obliging passing truck, I don’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting sole custody of my kids.”

  “Um, I see a pattern developing here. No wonder you’re scaring them off in droves. They think you have murder on your mind.”

  Beth smiled. “A lesser woman would be upset by that remark.”

  “Do you talk to Gabe about forensics?”

  “Um, come to think of it, no. Conversation with Gabe just flowed so easily… Once we got over the vibrator thing.”

  “The vibrator thing?”

  Beth flapped her hand. “Forget it.”

  “Gabe’s into vibrators? Who’d have thought?”

  “No of course not! I was thinking of getting one to help me… you know…” Beth flushed, then brightened. “Maybe you should get one and that might take the performance anxiety away from Chris? You could play with it together.”

  Tilly rolled her eyes. “What part of he doesn’t want to get intimate with me at all do you not understand?”

  “I know he’s interested in you and loves you. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.” She held up her hand to stop Tilly’s protests. “Now, have you heard from my friend Mimi about giving Ikebana classes at the senior center?”

  Tilly’s face lit up as she told Beth about meeting Mimi and being enchanted by her. “She’s also volunteered to teach the kids who come into the library how to create Origami animals from paper. Who knew?”

  Satisfied she’d deflected Tilly’s concerns about her lack of a sex life, Beth started making mental lists of how she could approach Chris in a non–threatening way.

  Maybe I should take you out on a real date,” Gabe told Beth that night during their regular late–night phone calls. At least, as regular as three times in a row could be called regular.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I could woo you in the traditional way. You could get to know what a great guy I am, learn to trust me. Build a relationship with me.”

  Beth sighed. “I don’t want to be wooed, Gabe. I’m thirty–nine years old. Besides, wooing is for starry–eyed teens and love–sick poets. And I already think you’re a great guy. But a guy, nonetheless, and I don’t think I can ever let myself trust a guy again. So relationships are off the menu, okay?”

  It was Gabe’s turn to sigh and she heard it down the line. She didn’t want to hurt him but he needed to know the facts. All she wanted from him, from any man, was sex. Well, maybe not from any man, given her last couple of disastrous dates. The thought of being intimate with either Peter Grenville or Douglas Fadden made her feel physically ill. On the other hand, the thought of being intimate with Gabe gave her a tremendous thrill: one akin to feeling like a starry–eyed teen.

  “Don’t judge all men by JJ,” Gabe murmured.

  She could hear the hurt in his voice, the frustration. Maybe it was better to finish it between her and Gabe right now? Before she really ended up hurting him.

  “Gabe…” She searched for the words to tell him but only came up with, “I don’t do relationships. I… can’t.”

  “Because you’re afraid.”

  “Yes.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice full of compassion. “You don’t think I’m scared too?”

  That surprised her. “You’re scared? Of what?”

  It took him a long time to answer. “Marina was my first love. I thought our love would last forever. I was sure that knowledge would comfort me during the long, lonely nights after she died. But it hasn’t. Being with you has made me realize how lonely I am. I want to be in a relationship. I need to be in love and be loved. But at the same time, I’m afraid of being hurt, of being rejected. Of… losing you.”

  Beth was silent as she digested his bald confession. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Gabe, not consciously. You’re too good a man. That’s why I’ve told you I’ll never let myself trust another man again.”

  “You’re still so hung up on JJ.”

  “No! I’m not hung up on him. I just can’t get past what he did to me and how I didn’t see it coming. I believed all the lies about why he came home late, why he had to go into the office on weekends, why he was always so tired. And I tried so hard to make it right for him, to make everything easier for him, to take the stress out of his life, but all I was really doing was enabling him to spend even more time with Suzie and less with his kids. And me.”

  She drew in a deep breath, she didn’t want to go over and over this with Gabe—with anyone—she just wanted to move forward. “I trusted him completely, Gabe, and then I felt the biggest kind of fool for not seeing it coming. I can’t forgive myself for that.”

  “You can’t see that I’m a very different man from JJ? From the men you’ve been dating?” He was silent for a moment, then said, “Wow… that’s quite a revelation and not one I really wanted to hear.”

  “Don’t go twisting my words, Gabe. You are different from them, but I still can’t allow myself to trust you or any other man with my heart. And this is getting monotonous, so can we please change the subject?”

  There was more silence. If Gabe was going to sulk, then Beth figured she was well rid of him. She didn’t need sulky. She didn’t need a relationship and she didn’t need Gabe. She had her vibrator after all. The vibrator that was still hidden upstairs in her closet, on the top shelf, way out the back of the top shelf where no children were likely to pry, still encased in its plastic wrapper. She’d ordered it online. Paid extra for express delivery. And now she was almost too afraid to open it.

  “Okay,” he finally said, “We’ll change the subject. But there’s one thing I want to say to you before we do.”

  Beth was resigned to Gabe having the last word. He’d agreed to change the subject at least, so she could be generous enough to let him have the final say, she figured. “Okay,” she agreed.

  “Darlin’,” he drawled in the voice that was guaranteed to set her nerve– endings on fire. “If you were married to me, you’d never have to wonder why I was late home, or why I was so tired, or why I had to work on weekends, because you’d be here with me at the ranch and my office is right outside the back door. I’d be home for lunch and maybe we’d make slow lazy love afterwards. I’d be home in time for dinner and after the kids are all in bed, we’d make love again. All night, if you want. And then you’d know exactly why I was so tired the next day. And nothing, nothing bar fighting a wild–fire or a flash–flood, would take me away from you, because I would cherish you and love you so thoroughly that you’d never be in any doubt about the strength and the sincerity of that love.”

  Beth’s mouth went dry at the intensity of his statement. They’d make love after lunch and after dinner too? Maybe all night? And he thought he loved her? Already? After barely a week of knowing each other? That couldn’t be possible. There was no such thing as love at first sight. Lust, sure, she told herself, remembering Gabe’s rather dramatic entrance into her life. But never love.

  “There’s no such thing as love at first sight,” she blurted before r
ealizing they were supposed to be changing the subject. At her urging.

  “There is. Believe me.”

  Marina again. The woman’s ghost kept coming between them. She decided to twist his words. “You’re saying you fell in love with me at first sight?”

  “No, the first sight of you was pretty scary. But by the time we were sharing ice–cream, I was pretty sure you were The One.”

  Beth felt the breath leave her lungs. The One? Gabe was too intense for her. He would suffocate her with the strength of his feelings and expect them to be returned and she just wasn’t capable of doing that. Not now. Probably not ever.

  “That was too much information for you, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  When she still couldn’t answer, he said, “I’m not trying to fence you in, Beth. But I want you to know how I feel about you. It’s scared the crap out of me admitting that to you. I know I’m leaving myself wide open for ridicule and hurt. But there are times in your life when you have to take a chance. I don’t want to lose you, Beth. But if I’m going to lose you, then it’s better I cut you out of my life now, rather than later. You just say the word.”

  Beth gasped at the realization of what he was saying. A chasm opened inside her chest where her heart used to reside. “You’re saying we couldn’t even be friends anymore?” she said, choking back tears at the thought of never speaking to Gabe again. Of never seeing his handsome face, hearing his wonderful deep voice calling her darlin’ and making it sound as though she was so precious to him. Of never feeling his arms around her again.

  What had she done? She’d thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to her, that’s what. Beth bit her lip as the silence between them yawned wide and long.

  “Is that what you want?” she finally heard him ask. “Because I’ll do it if I have to. I don’t want to crowd you, force you to spend time with me to the point that you end up hating me, despising me…

  “No!” she blurted. “Of course that’s not what I want. I… I didn’t mean that. I want us to be friends so much. But I can’t promise you anything beyond that. I want us to be friends who have sex, but nothing more.”