Sexaholics

by Pynk

  “I know that’s right,” Magnolia confirmed, taking a big gulp from her blended vodka and peach schnapps. Her scarlet red nails matched her knee-length strapless chiffon dress. Her gold satin slingbacks were high and sexy.

  “And you didn’t see to it that at least he had fun? I mean, you know,” Darla asked.

  “I did. Well, a little bit.” Rebe paused with a hold-up look for them both. “Hey, why are you guys all up in my stuff anyway? Damn.” She sucked her tongue and gave a sassy snarl.

  Darla raised her newly threaded brows and darted her head back. “You’re the one who took us there.”

  “Yeah, well I wish I hadn’t. I was just trying to share my wedding-night disaster with my girls, that’s all.” Rebe twisted her glossed lips and raised her glass, tipping a swallow of the ice-cold Pierre Jouët champagne into her mouth.

  Magnolia kept both hands on her cocktail glass. “Hell, at least you had a wedding night. It’s probably a good guess that I’ll never find out what it’s like to even say I do. I mean after all, thirty-nine will be gone in, ah,” Magnolia peeked at her oval diamond watch, “twelve minutes and counting.”

  Darla, the dental hygienist, tilted her head toward Magnolia as her full lips smiled, exposing her perfect, bleached teeth. “Me too, girl. I’ll be saying good-bye to thirty-nine right along with ya.”

  Rebe added, “Please. I’m right behind both of you. I remember when we were younger, we thought forty was damn near elderly. I mean all of our parents were the very age we are now. Tell me, where in the heck did the time go? My Lord.” She shook her head and gave Magnolia a reflective gaze.

  Magnolia’s ginger-colored face beamed. “That’s true, huh? It was back in 1989 when we were at Miami-Dade, cramming and partying and doing our twenty-year-old thing. Heck, was that two decades ago already?” She had question marks in her huge eyes.

  Rebe nodded. “Yes ma’am, it was.” Her eyes shifted to her other friend. “And then Darla, you and Aaron ran off and eloped and left it at only two musketeers. Excuse you.”

  Darla ran her fingertips along the back of her closely tapered neckline. Her slender face indicated surprise and displeasure. “Oh please. Don’t bring him up. Not tonight.”

  Magnolia’s eyes were warm. “Darla, we love you. I know it’s been five years since he passed, but you had a solid marriage and a man who loved you. My relationship lasted one damn year before he up and left me, just because I wouldn’t act like a stripper in bed, unlike his husband-stealing secretary. Aaron loved you for you, Darla. And for that, you’re blessed.”

  Darla’s honey-colored shoulders dipped. She leaned back and then forward. “I know that. But I do miss him. Lord knows I do. But one day, I’m gonna need to move on and get me someone, or should I say, get me some, period.”

  “But Darla, come on now. Not even one dick in five years? Not one?” Rebe held up a solo index finger.

  “No. And?”

  “And, how do you do it?” Rebe asked.

  “I mind my own damn business, that’s what I do. Just like you didn’t want us up in your stuff a minute ago.” She cut her eyes from Rebe to Magnolia, who gave her a sly grin. “And Magnolia, we know you get more dick than all the ladies up in this club tonight put together.”

  Magnolia gave a half-gasp and put her hand to her chest. “Oh please, talking about minding someone’s business. So now I’m a slut, is that what you’re saying? All because Rebe didn’t do her man right on her wedding night.”

  Rebe shook her head and managed a snicker.

  Darla put her hand up. “I’m just saying, I mean honestly, you’ve been in more relationships than we have.”

  “I have. Yeah. You’re right. Don’t trip now just because I can catch, you know. That hasn’t been the problem. But damn, if I’m so successful in the bedroom, then why did Neal leave my ass for his secretary? Hell, that was the longest relationship I’ve been in and I got dumped. Shoot, they all leave anyway. No biggie.” Magnolia readjusted her long, off-black ponytail, which hung down to the middle of her back. “And Trent left, too. Went back to his baby’s mama just because she liked to have threesomes with him. Sorry-ass fool.”

  Rebe said, “Then that says a lot about him. You two were just different. But I mean, I did hear it’s not only about how much sex you have, but also what you’re doing in the bedroom that matters. I’d be the first one to say I failed if that’s the case.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?” asked Magnolia after she took another swallow.

  Rebe looked toward her friends, and then looked past Darla. “I don’t remember. Somewhere.” Her eyes said she was distracted by nearby testosterone. “Anyway, the point was that we women should get off our backs and get on our knees. It’s about opening our minds and our legs. I mean, like definitely having safe sex, but having great sex, too.”

  Darla stared squarely at Rebe. “Did you hear about that before or after you got stingy on your own wedding night?”

  Rebe kept her sights behind Darla’s back. “Very funny,” she said without even a snicker. “I’m just saying, I mean I was left by Roderick after he accused me of being too missionary, so like I said, I know how you feel, Magnolia.” Rebe smiled demurely, but not at Magnolia, while uncrossing her legs.

  Darla added, “Hell, I’m gonna be myself, no matter what. Screw what they want. And I don’t care what these women out here are doing in this crazy-ass world nowadays anyway. I’m sorry but I’ve just gotta be me.”

  Rebe batted her eyes and inched her sights back to her buddies. “Yeah, but haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to just go buck-ass wild and freak like there’s no tomorrow? To fuck a stranger or have an orgy or buy all the sex toys you can and just fuck yourself in every orifice all night long? Haven’t you been curious?”

  Magnolia said immediately, “No.”

  “Yes you have.”

  “Orgy. Hell, no. Masturbate all night, maybe.” Magnolia took a drink.

  Rebe eyed the view behind Darla again and her cheeks began to blush. “I’ll take the first one. Shit, I might just walk right up to him”—she nodded toward a man sitting two bar stools over from Darla, then slyly looked down toward her glass—“and ask him to take me home and fuck me like the new freak I need to be. Like he’s mad about slavery and shit. I mean fuck me like it’s 1999, instead of 2009. Fuck me like I’m the last fuck of his life and he’s about to get hit by a Mack truck in the morning.” She shook her torso, like she had shivers running up and down the slit of her vagina.

  Darla turned around and saw a big man, very long, like he could be maybe six-seven if he stood, with a low-cut fade and a perfect goatee and light skin, eyeing down Rebe like she was the last corner of Grandma’s secret recipe macaroni and cheese on Thanksgiving Day. “Damn,” she said, turning back around to give Rebe a high five with her eyes.

  Magnolia glanced over behind Darla, too. “Yeah, right. You do that. And then, and only then, I will have an orgy,” she said with sarcasm.

  “No, you won’t,” Rebe said as a dare.

  Magnolia shrugged her body-glittered shoulders. “I don’t have to worry about a damn orgy because you’re not about to say one single thing to that man. Not Darling Rebe. And yes, he is fine now. I will say that. Yes I will.”

  Rebe straightened her back. “Yeah, well, I guess you really don’t know me like you think you do.”

  “Please. You don’t know yourself.” Magnolia looked assured.

  Rebe said, “Maybe none of us knows ourselves the way we should.” She turned her body all the way toward them and recrossed her legs. “I’ll tell you what. How about if for 2009, we turn up our libidos and make some real resolutions? Some sexual resolutions. Something different. How about if we go into the New Year shattering our beliefs about sex? Living our sexy dreams, out loud.” She used her hands to assist her words. “I just think we’ve set these boundaries for ourselves, and maybe they’ve limited our ability to really experience the erotic, sexual side of us. I mean, t
hese comfort zones are getting about tired if you ask me. Honestly, I’ve had enough of this frigid adulthood.” She circled the rim of her glass with her fingertip. “I don’t know about you two, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I’m perimenopausal, but I’m about to cross over the erotic line and dive off the fucking edge for real. I’m about to say good-bye to my inhibitions. Hell, it’s a new year.” She leaned closer toward them. “I say we lighten the fuck up like we should have twenty years ago.” She swigged her drink.

  Darla shook her head. “Rebe, girl, please. After all, we can’t go back.”

  “Who says?”

  Magnolia reminded her, “We’re forty. Hello.” Her eyes said hello, too. “Maybe your dynamic hard body forgot your age but my arthritic knees sure as hell remember.”

  Rebe smirked and glanced up at the time on the television screen over the bar. “Hold up now, we’re not forty yet. And for the next five minutes, I’m about to dare even myself and open my mind and my legs in a way I’ve never done before. I’m about to take back my sexual freedom, and my first step is—get ready for this—I’m gonna start stripping at night.”

  Darla asked, looking amazed, “Stripping. Oh Lord, that’s the bubbly talking now. I know you were a dance instructor years ago and all, but, who’s gonna hire a forty-year-old stripper?”

  “I already have my pole-dancing class set, if you don’t mind.”

  “What? You an exotic dancer?” Magnolia watched

  Rebe’s eyes, which were again focused on the hunk to the left.

  The crowd started to get louder.

  The buzz was more intense.

  Folks’ glasses were being filled to the top.

  People moved closer together.

  “Yes. It’s a New Year’s class specifically scheduled for brave, sexy, daring women like me who want to break out of the box, or at least that’s what the brochure said. So don’t hate.” Rebe again moved her eyes to Magnolia and Darla. “Anyway ladies, what about you? What is it that you’ve always wanted to do but never had the nerve to do?”

  Magnolia took a long gulp as the bartender walked up. She smiled and pointed toward her and her friends’ glasses for fill-ups. The bow-tie-wearing lady nodded and walked away. Magnolia leaned along the shiny, speckled bar and spoke as if she were telling the FBI’s most classified secret. “Well, actually, a few months ago I was talking on the phone to this guy, and he told me I sounded like a phone sex operator. I mean he pissed me off a little, but later I actually thought of what it would be like to do that. You know. Turn someone on over the phone while they jack off, and maybe even find a way to get paid for it.” She dropped her sexy smirk and sat up straight. “After all, I have been jobless for nearly a month.”

  Darla wore a look of wonder. “What? I know you got laid off and could use the money, but you, Magnolia? I can’t even picture you doing pillow talk, whether it’s for money or for free. I mean I know you get yours, but I’m sorry, I just can’t picture it.” She shook her head. “But I must admit, something’s gotten into you lately. Sitting up in here with your little tight red dress on and shit. Usually, we can’t even get you out of your velour sweats. You go ahead on.”

  “Whatever.”

  Rebe asked, “You mean like have phone sex with people as in on the regular for money?”

  “Maybe,” Magnolia replied as all three drinks were refreshed. “Thanks,” she said to the bartender, who then took another person’s drink order.

  “Closet freak,” said Darla, close to Magnolia.

  Magnolia angled her head. “Well, what about you, Miss Stick in the Mud?” she asked Darla.

  “You know what?” Darla’s eyes got big. “To tell you the truth, I wanted to open a business. I mean, I only have a little life insurance money left. I figure I could try and do something with it before I blow it all.”

  “Nice. And?” Rebe asked, fighting her eyes to keep them from visually licking the man’s face behind Darla.

  “And, I was wondering what it would take for me to open an adult toy store.”

  “An adult toy store? And you call me a closet freak?” Magnolia asked, looking baffled.

  Rebe touched her shoulder. “Darla, you should do that. I think that would be sexy and fun and maybe even profitable.”

  “No, I can’t. What would my mom think? And my in-laws. And my brother. Good Lord. Joseph would think I lost my mind.”

  “Well good, maybe he should. Losing our old minds for new ones might be just what we need. Besides, you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to. That’s on you.” Rebe’s eyes flipped between both of her friends. “You know, ever since I can remember, we’ve been so damn worried about being proper and always so bothered by what people think of us. Well, I’m shaking that off and I’m all for the philosophy of, ‘what you think of me is none of my damn business.’ ” Rebe downed a long gulp and smacked her lips. “So what do you say? Are we all in? All three of us? Me, stripping; Magnolia, you with your phone sex website.”

  Magnolia jumped in fast. “Oh heck no, I didn’t say anything about a website. I said I’d try it. I don’t know how but I hear it can be a legitimate home-based business. Something like that.”

  “Okay, whatever. Try it.” Darla made air quotes with her fingers and again said, “Try it. And you, Rebe, you’re opening a sex store. Right?”

  “I said I’d look into it. Get it right.”

  “Good. Let’s just do it then. I mean it’s not like we’re robbing a bank. It’s not gonna kill us.”

  Magnolia tapped her fingernails along the bar and looked left and then right at her friends. “Shit, might as well.”

  Rebe smiled. “Then the challenge is on.”

  Darla asked, “Challenge? And what do we win after we do it?”

  “Hopefully a hell of a lot of damn good sex and some extra money,” Darla said, just as the boisterous countdown began around them. The ladies all arose to their high-heeled feet, standing side by side upon the maple concrete flooring, and raised their glasses high in the air.

  “Ten.”

  “Nine.”

  “Eight.”

  “Seven.”

  “Six.”

  “Five.”

  “Four.”

  “Three.”

  “Two.”

  “One.”

  As everyone began to yell, “Happy New Year,” Magnolia said extra-loudly, “Here’s to girlfriends never being farther away than the arms of our hearts can reach.” It was the threesome’s sisterhood mantra.

  Rebe and Darla nodded and smiled, and all three said together “Cheers” as they clinked their glasses.

  A few of the people along the bar and those who stood behind them offered a touch of their glasses, too, each saying, “Happy New Year,” and the ladies saying it in return. Groups of strangers hugged, and loud horns blew and noisemakers cranked, and turquoise and black balloons drifted slowly from the ceiling downward among the many bodies, making a trail down to the floor around them.

  “Happy Freaking New Year,” Rebe said out loud like she was starting to really get the 2009 feeling, just as she looked over at the big man with the perfect goatee. He stayed seated as people hustled around him. His eyes were only for her. Hers met his and stayed there. She read his thick lips: Happy New Year.

  Rebe heard him loud and clear and mouthed it back sexily.

  She had a new look on her face.

  And Magnolia and Darla noticed.

  They watched Rebe watch him and then she smiled sweetly toward the big man. She spoke loudly again. “Freaking New Year is right. And I’m about to start right now.” She took hold of her little black clutch from along the bar top and pulled on the hem of her short dress. “Listen. I love you both but I gotta go.”

  Magnolia placed her hand on Rebe’s wrist. “No you’re not.”

  “Watch me.” She took a tiny sip from her glass and placed it back down on the bar. “And I might even suck his dick on the way.”

  Darla’s
forehead wrinkled. She warned, “Rebe. Be careful. You don’t even know him.”

  “That’s the whole damn point.”

  “Are you drunk?” Magnolia asked over the loud glare of feel-good voices.

  “No. Not even a little bit.”

  Darla spoke close to Rebe’s ear, “Look, you text me in ten minutes, and then if you leave, you text me an address. Don’t play.”

  Rebe acted as though she was deaf. Magnolia and Darla watched her sashay away, with her straight, elongated back and long legs strutting like she was on a runway. She gave a girly fling of her skinny braids and stood before the big man, shook his hand, and brought her lips close to his left lobe. Magnolia and Rebe could see Rebe shut her eyes as she spoke. The song “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang played as folks joined in to sing along, some heading to the dance floor.

  In thirty seconds flat, after the big man whispered back to her, he stood tall, proving that he was indeed six-seven, towering over her by a foot. He placed some money on the bar and grabbed Rebe’s hand, stepping away suavely with an ear-to-ear smile, while she femininely followed, looking back at her buddies, winking, grinning, and giggling like a teenager.

  Magnolia said, “Well I’ll be damned,” almost giving off a smirk of envy. “The nerve.”

  Darla’s mouth was stuck on open. She swallowed hard and blinked three times fast, looking at Magnolia as though prompting her to do something quick, and then she darted her worried eyes back toward Darla’s exit. “Oh my God. She did it. She’s leaving. Is she leaving, or are they headed to that private room? Where are they going? That child cannot be serious.” She turned toward the bar and looked at Magnolia again for a moment. “What happened to the squeamish girl who just used the word ewwww a minute ago? She has lost her ever-loving mind at the stroke of midnight.” Darla turned back toward Rebe’s departure and lost complete sight of the big man and Rebe. She stood on her tiptoes. “Heck, where’d his tall ass take her?”

  Magnolia sat down and took her drink in hand. “Rebe’s truly taken that forty-year thing to a whole new height. And I guess that means our butts need to get serious too, girlie. Like she said, we just made three sexual resolutions. And I don’t know about you, but I’m in.” Magnolia again raised her glass for a toast. “Happy fortieth birthday, Darla.”