Slim Chance

by Jackie Rose

  “If you’re trying to get me to not feel guilty, you’re doing a crappy job,” I told her.

  “Hear me out. But on the other hand, you’ve also experienced an awakening—physical, sexual, spiritual, whatever you want to call it, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I know so. Losing fifty pounds is enough to make any woman take a good long look at herself. Evie, since it seems like nobody’s ever told you this, then let me be the first: You’re entitled to feel attractive, and you’re entitled to enjoy a little attention from the opposite sex. You’re a gorgeous, vibrant twenty-seven-year-old woman. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Then why do I feel guilty?”

  “Because your mother did a number on you, and because you think you know how to avoid hurting Bruce. I bet you probably think monogamy is part of being a decent human being!”

  “Hello? Am I missing something here?”

  “Yes. You’ll never be a good wife if you’re not a good Evie first. And to be a good Evie, you have to be faithful to yourself above all others. If you go into your marriage wondering what might have been, or wishing you’d taken a chance just once, then you’ll end up resenting Bruce—unfairly I might add—and it’ll ruin your relationship.”

  “It’s almost ruined now.”

  Morgan threw her hands up into the air and shook her head. “So what do you have to lose? Maybe you need to indulge your urges to finally be free of them. If that sounds crazy to you then whatever, but it’s worked wonders for me. You think I sit around all day torturing myself over what I want or don’t want or what I should or shouldn’t do? As if. My advice in all this is don’t be afraid of Jade. Go back to the gym and talk to him. See how you feel. If you want to have a fling—a single solitary fling over the course of your entire life—then this is the time to do it. The world won’t end. You might even find it empowering. Then you can go forward with everything else. Evie, we all have a right to experience the joys in life, and to keep it to ourselves if we want to.”

  “It’s frightening how wrong you are, and how sick that reasoning is,” I snapped. “You’re not enlightened, you’re demented. And an amoral bitch, too. You know that?”

  She laughed. “I’m so sorry if I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities, Miss Mays. I suppose I was kind of wondering if you were actually considering actually doing it…you know, before it’s too late. And I guess I have my answer.”

  Morgan’s tirade did inspire me to go back to the gym. I wanted to test my feelings, to see how strong they really were. I had to trust myself, that was the key. Of course, I would never actually do anything with Jade, but some of what Morgan said did make sense. And since playing with fire was something I’d never really done before, I had a right to know what it felt like. That could be empowering, too, without having to go all the way, of course.

  Jade’s face lit up when he saw me.

  “I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see you again,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t feel like coming.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you, Evie. Everything okay?”

  “Bruce and I had a big fight.” I honestly didn’t mean to tell him. It just came out.

  “What happened?”

  I guess I really needed to vent, because over the next couple of hours, I told him the entire story, sparing no details, from beginning to end. To my growing delight, he nodded sympathetically at all the right places, and even touched my shoulder twice to show support (Mademoiselle, March: “10 Ways To Tell if He Likes You”). I didn’t feel guilty, like I thought I would, sharing Bruce’s words with Jade. All I felt was relief.

  By the time we were finished, I should have been emotionally and physically exhausted. Instead, I was unbelievably energized.

  After I changed and showered, Jade caught up with me at the front door.

  “I’m done for the night,” he said. “Getting out early, for once.”

  “This is early?”

  “Yup—my 8:30 cancelled. She finally went into labor. You walking this way?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So what are you up to tonight?”

  “I think I feel like going out. Whaddya say?” he nudged me in the ribs with his elbow.

  There was no harm in it, I reasoned. I was really enjoying his company, in a purely non-sexual way. “Sure. Why not,” I smiled. “Bruce is gone for the night, anyway.”

  “Again? He sure goes out of town a lot,” Jade said.

  “This is the last time. School’s finished next week, and then he’s off until September. Well, sort of. He teaches summer school in the mornings. Can you believe that? Those little geeks go to school in the summer for fun.”

  Jade didn’t say anything, and we walked in silence for a minute or two. I was such an idiot—he obviously didn’t want to hear about my fiancé’s summer plans.

  “So where do you want to go?” I asked.

  “You sure you want to?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s no big deal. Just two people with nothing else to do hanging out for a couple of hours. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, if you ask me. But just so you know, it’s not that I don’t have anything else to do tonight. I want to be with you.”

  Now it was I who said nothing. As long as we were skirting the issue and flirting harmlessly, there was no trouble making conversation. It was when Jade got serious with me that I seemed to freeze up.

  He sensed my discomfort. “Umm, let me think…well there’s a quiet little place just around the corner from my house. They make a mean apple martini. How’s that?”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said quickly.

  We took a cab to the bar, which was probably a really trendy place on the weekends, but since it was Tuesday night, it was pretty dead. We sipped our martinis and made small talk, mostly about our likes and dislikes, favorite movies, stuff like that. It reminded me of when Bruce and I first started dating, and the exhilaration of getting to know each other. Jade seemed genuinely interested in everything about me. He even asked me a few questions about my dad, which I skillfully avoided.

  “So, did you ever think you’d end up sitting here with me having drinks?” he finally asked.

  “You mean when I first saw you? I’d have to say definitely not. I thought you were just a dumb jock who flirted shamelessly to reel in customers.”

  He laughed. The bartender looked over and drooled.

  “Nobody could accuse you of mincing words, Evie,” he said. “So now what do you think of me?”

  “Well, you’re not as dumb as I thought, but you’re an even bigger flirt than I imagined.”

  “I think you’re the one who’s flirting,” he grinned.

  “Easy, boy,” I said. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and the martini was going to my head in a wonderful way. I had this guy wrapped around my finger. Morgan was right—it was empowering.

  “Easy yourself. You want another drink?”

  “Sure. Couldn’t hurt. But two’s my limit on a school night.”

  I don’t know whether or not it was my subconscious intention to get completely blitzed, but that’s exactly what I did. Maybe it was because I was hungry, and the martinis came with little slivers of apple in them. Or maybe it was because I was just so sick and tired of thinking all the time, and being drunk was like giving my brain a much-needed holiday. Whatever the case, an hour and a half and four drinks later, Jade and I were strolling arm-in-arm down the street. The plan was to walk me to the subway, but we ended up at his front door.

  “Don’t ask me if I want to come in,” I sighed. “Because I really don’t.”

  “Then I won’t ask you,” he said, turning the key in the lock and leading me up the stairs. “The place is a mess, so you probably wouldn’t want to see it anyway.”

  “No, I certainly wouldn’t,” I agreed as I stepped through the doorway. Despite my drunkenness, I was thinking clearly and felt quite wonderful.

  “Then you definitely wouldn’t
want a tour, then,” he said.

  “No thanks.”

  “Good,” Jade said as we walked through his apartment. “Because this isn’t the bedroom.”

  I looked around the room. It was actually pretty tidy. The bed was made and there were lots of little white candles everywhere. Very unusual for a guy.

  “I bet you bring all your clients here,” I said, then added, “This room looks like a set from a bad porno.”

  “I told you I don’t do that,” he said as he fluffed the pillows. “And I hate to disappoint you, but you’re the first one.”

  “You’re a virgin?”

  “No! I mean you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here from work.” He lit a candle beside the bed.

  “How many drinks did you have?” I asked him.

  “Does it matter?”

  “You’re not drunk, are you?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good,” he said, and sat down on the bed. “Well, as long as you’re in control of your faculties, why don’t you come over here? I want to show you my condom collection.”

  “That’s very funny, but I’m fine where I am, thank you.”

  “You’re fine wherever you are,” he smiled.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “You think I’m going to fall for that?”

  “Yes.”

  Jade stood up and walked toward me. The room was spinning, and I knew things were about to get heavy. I exhaled slowly. There was nothing to do but let it all happen.

  He grabbed my waist and gently pulled me close to him.

  “Evie,” he whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About this,” he said, and kissed me.

  It was a long one, very slow and deliberate. The best kiss I’d ever had. I knew that before it was over. He pulled away and looked into my eyes. My legs were shaking like the floor was made of Jell-O.

  “Is this okay?” he asked softly. “If you don’t—”

  But it was definitely too late for that. I put my hand on the back of his neck, closed my eyes and kissed him again. It was just as good. Better, even. He tasted like heaven, like vodka and cinnamon gum.

  Soon, we were on the bed, then under the sheets. My shirt was on the floor. He fumbled with my bra. I fumbled with his belt buckle. Evie, Evie, what are you doing? He let out a little moan. Slowly, the rest of the world disappeared.

  It was almost impossibly surreal, like one of those out-of-body experiences you hear about on the talk shows where some old lady’s heart stops beating during surgery and she sees herself lying on the operating table below. Only this time it was happening to me. Most miraculously of all, every time I opened my eyes, Jade was still there. Gorgeous. Breathtakingly gorgeous. And at that moment, he wanted me, Evelyn Mays, more than anything else. I knew there was no going back, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.

  Maybe if that first kiss was bad, I would have stopped right there and ran home to our shabby little apartment in Brooklyn. But it wasn’t, and I didn’t. And as good as that kiss was, the rest was even better.

  17

  Wednesday morning, it didn’t take long for me to reach new heights of self-loathing. Of course, things didn’t start out that way. When I snuck out of Jade’s bedroom, it was with the intention of appearing kind of mysterious and elusive and fabulously noncommittal about the whole thing. Like a guy. Walking down the street, I imagined everyone could tell that I’d just spent the night with the most gorgeous creature in all of New York. Understandably, they were incredibly jealous. But when I got to the subway and opened my purse to get a token, there were my underwear, staring back out. On the train, it was almost as if I could hear them in there, mocking me. By the time I got home, those panties were no longer just the innocently sexy but otherwise innocuous Calvin Klein thong I’d bought on sale at Macy’s only last week. Small though they were, they had somehow taken on tremendous proportions. They were sinister. Evil, almost.

  The second I got home, I stripped off my clothes and stuffed them in a plastic bag at the back of my closet. I buried the thong in the trash, and was seriously tempted to throw out everything I was wearing, but the everything in question was a new navy-blue DKNY suit that looked fabulous on me (In Style, May: Seven Sexy Suits for Spring”). Definitely one of my better outfits, and worth salvaging. I vowed to bring it in that afternoon (if anything good came out of the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, it was that cheaters everywhere learned the importance of timely dry-cleaning). I took a very hot shower and collapsed on the bed. I only woke up when Bruce came home.

  “Are you okay, Evie?”

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “It’s one o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  “In the afternoon. I just got in now. My plane was delayed. Are you sick or something? I called you three times last night, but no one answered.”

  I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled like Bruce. “Yeah, I have a headache.”

  “I’ll let you sleep. I’m going in to school, and I’ll probably stay late. I’ll call later to check up on you.”

  I didn’t want him to leave. “How was Baltimore?”

  “Buffalo. But thanks for asking.” He shut the lights and I fell back asleep.

  The phone rang and rang and I drifted in and out of consciousness until I had to pee so badly that I had no choice but to get up. It was almost five and the apartment was sweltering. I checked the machine—there were two messages from Bruce and a nasty one from Pruscilla, who was pretending to sound worried but who was probably really pissed off. I took another shower and went back to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was replay the events of last night over and over again in my mind, and wondered if it was really as good as I thought it was. There were fuzzy patches, of course, but for the most part, I think it was an earth-shattering experience. And the real trouble was, the better I remembered it being, the worse I felt.

  Bruce came home and ordered a pizza. I pretended to be asleep. He brought me two Tylenol and then went to watch TV.

  When my alarm went off, I could barely move, even though I’d slept about twenty of the last twenty-four hours. Bruce had already left for school, and I was all alone again. The thought of going in to work was too much, so I called and left Pruscilla a message saying that I needed a few personal days. Thank God she wasn’t there, or I’m sure she would have given me crap for not calling in yesterday.

  I also phoned Morgan before she left for work.

  “Morgan, I need you,” I whimpered, and promptly burst into tears.

  “Ohmygod, you did it, didn’t you?” She always had a way of knowing.

  I nodded into the phone and sobbed.

  “Don’t worry, I’m coming over,” she said.

  “But…but…you…”

  “Calm down, Evie. It’s okay. I’m going to take the morning off. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  It only took her forty-five minutes. I must have looked pathetic, because she hugged me as soon as she saw me, and Morgan’s not much of a hugger. “Here,” she said, handing me a bag of bagels. “You need to eat.”

  I hadn’t eaten a thing since the apple martinis, and those weren’t much of a meal. By the time the coffee was ready, I’d inhaled two bagels with cream cheese and some pizza from last night.

  “So?” Morgan said, when she sensed I was ready.

  “Well, I took your advice….”

  “Whoa…wait a second. Advice is too strong a word. I was merely presenting an option, one of many.”

  “Fine, Morgan. Whatever. I did what you said.”

  She sucked in her breath. “I can’t believe you really did it. I really didn’t think you would.”

  “I’m touched that you’re so impressed. But what I need right now is for you to tell me what to do. I’m just so screwed up, I don’t know what’s wrong with
me. I can’t even think straight. God, I’m such a piece of crap. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.” I put my head in my hands. “My thong hates me. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Evie, it’s okay. I promise. You’re going to be fine. We’ll figure it out…. Except for that thong thing. But I’m sure there’s some sort of medication for that. Now tell me what happened.”

  I took a deep breath. “Oh, you know, we went out, got drunk. I guess I didn’t think it was actually going to happen, you know? Like we were just going out as friends. But I didn’t account for how much cuter he got when I was tipsy. I just didn’t think it was possible. And the more I drank, the more impossible he was to resist…and I drank a lot.”

  “You slut! Did you even enjoy it? Were you so wasted that you can’t remember it?” She was on the edge of her seat.

  “I wish! Then I wouldn’t be torturing myself so effectively.” I was sobbing and laughing at the same time. “It was…fantastic.”

  Morgan’s eyes widened. “Give me details. I need details!”

  “I don’t even know where to begin.” I paused for dramatic effect. “That man is like, I don’t know, like a god or something. He was perfect. Everything was perfect. And I was good, too. No—I was great. With him, I was great. It was magical. It was passionate.”

  She waited for more.

  “It was the best I’ve ever had.”

  “You’re fucked,” she said decisively.

  It wasn’t quite the reaction I’d hoped for. A wave of panic washed over me. “But you said if I gave in to my urges, they’d disappear! That it would be empowering!”

  “What—you don’t feel empowered?” she asked. “This type of liberating sexual experience is exactly what the feminists had in mind back in the ’70s. If you don’t like it, or you feel weird or whatever, it’s just because you’re not used to it. But I can assure you that what you’re going through is normal, so there’s no need to get hysterical. You think I wasn’t weirded out the first time I slept with a married man? Or the first time I had a threesome? There’s more to loving than what they told you in church, Evie. Physical, emotional, marital—it’s all sort of the same thing when you see it without the spin. You just got your first glimpse of it, that’s all.”