by Sophie Stern
“You’re right,” she said. “Lawyers.” She muttered the word like a curse, went to her desk, and scribbled down a number. She thrust the piece of paper at me. “You didn’t get it from me.”
“Of course not,” I agreed. “Definitely not.”
When I got back to my office, I pulled my phone out. If Zoey and Felix were actually at lunch, I didn’t want to call, but I’d still text her while they were together. He wasn’t going to be going through her phone or anything like that. She’d be able to see the message and respond discreetly if she wanted to.
DAVID: You owe me dinner, princess.
I sent the text without thinking too hard about it. I wasn’t about to let Zoey slip by me. I also knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t going to leave me hanging. If she didn’t want to eat dinner with me anymore, she’d let me know. Zoey wasn’t exactly a snake when it came to relationships.
I settled down to work on Zander’s case. I started typing, coming up with our next steps, and before I knew it, I was lost in the case. Lunchtime came and went, but still, I worked. Shortly after 2PM, a text came in from Zoey.
ZOEY: I’m free tonight. You down?
I smiled at my phone. Was I down to have dinner with the most beautiful girl in the state? Yeah. I was down.
DAVID: 7PM. I’ll pick you up.
ZOEY: What should I tell my brother?
DAVID: Whatever you want. You’re catching up with an old friend? You’re going to blow his bestie? Whatever floats your boat.
I was only half-joking. I wasn’t going to bring up the fact that Zoey and I were going out, but if she was ready to tell Felix, I wouldn’t protest. Zoey was a big girl. She knew what she wanted to say, and she knew how much she could handle. If she felt like the time was right to tell Felix about us, then I’d respect that.
ZOEY: Funny.
DAVID: I’m glad you think so.
ZOEY: I definitely don’t think so. How should I dress?
DAVID: In something that makes your tits look great. I’m planning on sucking on them.
I stared at my phone and the three little dots that let me know she was typing.
Then she stopped.
Then she was typing.
Then she stopped.
So, I’d managed to confuse the little minx.
Good.
I laughed to myself and put my phone away. Dinnertime couldn’t come fast enough. I was fully expecting the night to be one for the ages. Maybe we’d sleep together or maybe not. All I knew was that Zoey was delightful, and the fact that she’d agreed to go out with me was both terrifying and wondrous. I was excited.
I tried to focus on work, but the rest of the day was a complete waste. I had three meetings and two phone calls and every single thing I tried to do was just not nearly as exciting as seeing her was. I finally left the office at a quarter to six, headed back to my place, and showered and changed. My cat, Percy, sat on the bed and watched me.
“What do you think?” I asked him, adjusting my tie.
MEOW.
“I’ll take that as a positive complement,” I told the little orange cat. I patted Percy on the head, and he meowed loudly. I filled up his food dish, gave him some water, and hugged him tightly before it was time to leave. The restaurant was waiting, and so was my date.
6
Zoey
The restaurant he’d chosen was beautiful. We were seated right away in a corner table away from the noise and conversations of other patrons. Something told me he’d arranged this just for us so we could be alone. This was David, so I had a feeling the conversation was going to turn really dirty really fast. Once we’d ordered and our wine had arrived, he didn’t disappoint.
“So, Zoey,” he said. “Tell me how long it’s been since you had a dick in your mouth.”
I smiled at him. David thought he was going to scare me off. Ten years ago, he would have. When I’d graduated from high school and gone off to college, I’d been a shy little bunny. I’d been nervous and scared and I didn’t know what I wanted from life at all.
Then I’d gone to college, and everything had changed. I’d made friends who were sexually charged and who knew how to get a guy to do what you wanted. I learned that I didn’t have to pay for a damn thing. Hell, I learned I didn’t even have to put out. I could just date and enjoy an evening with a guy and that was it. Understanding my own feminine sexuality had been eye-opening, but it had also spoiled me.
By the time I’d gotten to the “first job out of college” stage of my life, I was already bored with dating, and that was problematic. I’d mixed it up by dating couples. I’d tried group sex and I’d tried blind dates and I’d even gotten into a couple of long-term relationships, but everything had been fairly monotonous and mundane when I compared it to what I really wanted.
And what I really wanted was someone like David.
He was blunt, and he was rough around the edges, and he exuded sexuality. This was the kind of guy who would compete with me in bed, and we’d both end up winners.
“Guess,” I said, sipping at my wine.
“Six months,” he said.
“Why six months?”
“You came fast the other night, which tells me you either haven’t been with a lover in awhile or you haven’t been with someone who was good at sex. You’re wet right now, which means you aren’t used to being around people who banter. Your eyes dilated when I asked you about oral, which means you’re attracted to me, and you want me to be attracted to you, as well.”
“That still doesn’t explain where the six-months number came in.”
“Lucky guess. How’d I do?”
“Four,” I said, smiling at him.
“Four months?”
“Four months,” I nodded. “I had a Tinder date that went well. You?”
“I can honestly tell you that I’ve never had a dick in my mouth.”
“You know what I meant.”
“How long since I’ve had my dick sucked?”
I nodded, drinking the rest of my wine. I didn’t care that I had basically chugged it. I was going to need a buzz if I was going to get through tonight in one piece. David was everything. He exuded seduction and he demanded my full and complete attention.
“Two,” he said.
“Two months?”
“Two years,” he corrected me. My jaw hit the floor, and he started laughing.
“How is that possible?” I asked. “I thought the girl was always the one with this long, sad number. You haven’t had a blowjob in two years?”
“Uh, excuse me,” we both looked up to see the server standing with our salads. The poor guy was blushing about eight shades of red. I made a mental note to make sure we left a good tip. I instantly felt bad about his embarrassment.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t even see you there.”
“I guess we got caught up in the conversation,” David agreed.
“Uh, right,” the server said, setting the salads down. “Your food shouldn’t be too long. I’ll go check on it.” The poor guy scooted away, desperate to be away from the weirdos sitting at the table.
“We fucked that up,” I muttered, reaching for a fork.
“He’ll live.”
“So,” I said. “Why two years?”
“I dated someone,” he said. “For a long time. About two years ago, she stopped being interested in sex.”
“Strange.”
“It was a little strange,” he conceded. “We’d had an active sex life until then, and it just happened one night that she no longer seemed to want anything to do with me.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, taking a bite of my salad. I had a feeling that the conversation was going to go somewhere dark. Somewhere bad.
“I waited patiently,” he said. “I urged her to go to the doctor, change her birth control pills, or do whatever she had to in order for us to be sexually active again. A year went by, but nothing changed.”
“You waited for her for an entire year?
”
David nodded. He sipped his wine. He hadn’t chugged it the way I’d chugged mine. I suddenly regretted my decision. If I’d taken my time a little bit better, I’d still have something in front of me to sip on. I looked around but didn’t see our server. Hopefully, the guy would come back with more wine soon.
“I came home early one day to find that she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Completely gone,” he said. “Her clothing was gone. Her TV was gone. She’d taken all of her stuff and some of mine.” David shook his head. “I was a complete wreck.”
“Felix never told me,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“I didn’t tell Felix.”
“What?” That surprised me. My brother told David everything, as far as I knew. I figured that the relationship went both ways. Then again, my brother seemed to have some secrets, didn’t he? He hadn’t told David about the engagement, after all, and David hadn’t told Felix about this. There was nothing wrong with keeping things to yourself. It was just surprising to me.
“I didn’t want him to worry about me,” David said. “I should have told him, though. I should have told someone. I was wildly depressed, but I just told Felix that it had been a mutual decision and that was that.”
“Ouch.” I felt sad for him. “Did you ever find out what happened?”
“I did,” David said, picking up his salad fork. “Funny story. Apparently, she’d met someone at work to run away with. The guy left his wife, Debra left me, and they ran off together until the guy realized that he actually wanted to see his kids. He went crawling back to his wife a month later, and Debra came crawling back to me.”
“She did?”
“She pops back into my life every few months with the same sob story. Unfortunately for her, I’m not interested in that.” David looked at me carefully, and I was suddenly filled with an incredible amount of respect for the guy. He’d been through hell. He’d been through utter and total hell, and he’d kept himself together. Damn.
“That was a year ago?”
“Almost to the day.”
Then it hit me. It was something I should have realized sooner, something that made the entire not-telling-Felix thing make a little more sense.
“She broke up with you right around the time that Felix met Lauren.”
“They started dating the same week Debra and I broke up,” he told me. “I couldn’t bring myself to rain on Felix’s parade. He was too happy. I mean, Lauren basically saved his life. She keeps him from working too hard, and she keeps him happy. He was well on his way to an early heart attack when she came along.”
“He didn’t tell me that either,” I muttered.
“Being a lawyer can be stressful,” David said.
“I get it.” Any job could be stressful. It was important to have someone who could pull you back when you got too involved. I knew that. Having someone who would watch over you and take care of you and keep you from totally losing yourself to the job...that was essential, wasn’t it?
“So that’s my sad story,” David said. “And that’s why I haven’t had my penis sucked on in two years.”
“Um, excuse me.”
It was the server again. Seriously, twice in one night? David and I both looked up sheepishly to see the waiter. He was holding our meals, and he set them down on the table and took our salad plates away.
“Can I offer you more wine?” He asked. He was whispering.
“Yes, please,” I said.
“I’ll be right back.”
He scurried away, and I looked at David.
“You pay for dinner, and I’ll leave the tip,” I told him. “That guy deserves like, a double tip tonight.”
“I’ll pay for everything,” David smiled at me. “It’s my pleasure.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “Maybe I’ll order more wine, then.”
“You already ordered more wine,” he laughed.
“Oh yeah,” I smiled.
Once our drinks were refilled and our server was safely out of earshot, we started eating the steaks we’d ordered. Mine was well done and his was medium. I hated eating anything that even sort-of looked alive, so I was glad that the edges of my steak were slightly crisp. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and then we started talking again.
“So,” I asked him. I was wildly curious about David, and he was definitely allowing me to ask him whatever I want to. That was a nice feeling. “Have you thought about dating since then?”
“I’ve been on dates,” he told me. “And I’ve had sex. I just haven’t done that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not that it’s a special thing for me,” he said. “It’s just a bit intimate. Sex is easy. Sex is just body parts moving in all of the right places.”
“Are you worried whoever you find won’t be able to blow you that well?” I asked sympathetically. “Because despite what you may have heard, I’m actually very good at it.”
“Is that so?” He asked.
“It’s so,” I nodded.
I was getting a pretty good buzz going, and I was feeling happy. I was happy to be here with him and I was happy that we had chosen to have dinner. Yeah, he’d “tricked” me into it, but not really. It was everything I’d wanted in a date. David was funny and interesting, and he wasn’t afraid to steer the conversation toward “naughty” topics. I liked that a lot.
“Does that mean you’d like to come over after dinner?” David asked carefully. I thought about it for a minute. I’d spent the entire day looking at houses, and I was exhausted. My realtor was going to show me apartments tomorrow since I hadn’t been able to find a house I liked. We both agreed that I might be happier renting for a while before making a big purchase. Lauren and I had been together all day, and I knew she was probably tired, too.
“Maybe,” I said slowly. “I was thinking that it would be weird to explain to Lauren and Felix, but I’m guessing they might like having some time to themselves.”
“They might,” David agreed.
“I don’t really want my brother to know I’m sleeping with you,” I told him.
“Understandable,” David said. He didn’t seem offended, and I was grateful for that. David and I didn’t exactly have a future together. He was my brother’s best friend, and I was here for the weekend. I mean, yeah, I was moving to Kansas City, and I’d be around a lot more, but that didn’t mean David and I were suited to be in a relationship. I didn’t even want a relationship.
His story about Debra had just solidified my own feelings about love. Love was something you did when you were ready to lose yourself. It chipped away at your soul, taking little pieces of yourself until there was nothing left.
Sex, I could do.
Dating? Maybe not.
“Will you excuse me?” David said. “I need to use the restroom.”
I nodded, and he stepped away. The waiter came back, and I ordered another glass of wine. Then I pulled out my phone to send Lauren a message.
ZOEY: Hey, I’m going to go hang out at David’s after dinner. We’re going to watch a movie. I may just end up crashing there. Don’t wait up.
LAUREN: Sounds like fun! What movie?
ZOEY: Something new. Apparently, he’s got a secret passion for chick flicks.
LAUREN: HAHAHAHAHA, who knew????
I left it at that. I didn’t know if David liked chick flicks, but it was something most guys wouldn’t admit either way, so it was a safe thing to text. When he came back, he saw me sipping on my wine, and he smiled.
“Is it safe to assume you’re getting buzzed?” David’s words were gentle and held no judgement. If anything, he seemed amused that I was so relaxed during our date. I had to admit that I was a little amused, too. I wasn’t the type of person to just let my guard down so wildly. Not like I had with him.
I nodded, smiling. David was making me happy, I realized. This was the kind of date girls wrote home about. Our conversation was just easy and comfortable. He was
handsome and he didn’t have a problem paying for everything. He was treating me like I was important, and yeah, I was putting away the wine.
“It’s safe to assume,” I finally said. It was definitely safe to assume that I was getting a little bit buzzed.
“Is it also safe to assume you’re ready to head back to my place?” David sounded slightly hopeful, but I also knew that he wasn’t going to be upset if I changed my mind. He was so different from many guys. He wasn’t going to be angry or hurt if I did something like changed my mind. He wasn’t going to be bothered or upset if I said I didn’t want a date after all.
“I promised Lauren that you and I were going to watch a movie together,” I told him. I raised an eyebrow.
David only laughed.
“We can watch a movie, Zoey. We can do whatever you want.”
“What I want is to get on my knees for you,” I told him boldly.
“Um....”
We both looked up to see our server again. He was holding out the check, and his hand was shaking.
“Thank you so much for coming in tonight,” he whispered. “I’ll be your cashier whenever you’re ready to pay.”
He darted away, horrified, and this time, I was the one who blushed.
“Remind me never to eat here again,” David chuckled, and he pulled out his card to pay.
7
David
I hadn’t really been expecting Zoey to want to come back with me, but I wasn’t going to complain. Whether we ended up watching a movie or not, I was just glad we were going to have the chance to spend a little more time together. We’d both had some wine, so instead of driving back to the house, I called us a ride from an app on my phone.
“What about your car?” Zoey asked as we stood waiting. Usually, I wasn’t the kind of person who would just leave a car overnight, but I felt comfortable leaving it at this restaurant, and it was always best to play safe. I’d been an attorney long enough to know that messing with drinking and driving wasn’t exactly something that was a good idea.
“I cleared it with the owner,” I told her. Her concern was cute. There were a lot of things about Zoey that were cute: things I hadn’t noticed before. The way she carried herself with both confidence and curiosity? That was cute. The way she kept talking about sucking me off? That was cute, too.