Is This What I Want? (11 page)

“It’s taking a long time. Do you think there’s something wrong?”

He shrugged his shoulders and went back to the conversation. I rolled my eyes.

Finally the line of people in the aisle started moving and I grabbed my things, eager to leave all aspects of our nasty little experience on the plane in the past.

We said our goodbyes to Dane and turned to walk away, but he called out to Rick.

“Oh hey, wait, just thought I’d let you know my wife and I are going to this fun club tonight in case you two want to meet up with us. We’ll be there at around ten. Here’s the address. My cell phone number is on the back.”

He handed Rick a card and Rick thanked him and said something about how we’d see how the night went.

When we got off the plane and entered the gate at Las Vegas Airport, I dropped my bags and hugged Rick tight.

“What’s wrong?” he said with a little laugh.

I sighed. “You don’t feel weird about all that?”

“No. Why would I?” He didn’t seem to get it at all.

“Rick!”

“What? What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“Rick, you let that man, that stranger… see me!”

An old woman with a huge straw hat, sitting on a slot machine stool turned around.

Rick grabbed me with both arms and shook me back and forth in a lighthearted way.

“We were just having fun. There’s no harm done, right? All that happened was perfectly allowed between a husband and wife. Who hasn’t gotten a little hot and heavy somewhere in public and accidentally been seen by someone?”

“But it wasn’t…” I lowered my voice. “It wasn’t accidental.”

“So? Did you like it, Beth?”

I huffed, not wanting him to force me to admit what really had me so upset. “Yes, I liked it. I liked it too much. I think you could tell.”

He laughed and led me to a row of chairs where we could sit without too many people around.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about things. About how easily you were drawn into the situation with Dave. About how I didn’t stop Joanna from doing what she did when she pulled me into that closet. And everything that you’ve told me about Jill and her husband, how being swingers spiced up their marriage.”

“But, wait…” I hadn’t had a chance to tell him the latest news about Jill.

“Don’t worry. I’m not saying I want us to be swingers! But you’ve helped me see that we could be a little more adventurous. We’ve only been married for a decade and hopefully we’ll last many more, so let’s be open to ways to keep things interesting. I want to satisfy you so that you’re not tempted again.”

I didn’t know how to feel about it. Something new was stirred, but part of the ecstasy was because it was wrong, it was socially unacceptable. We had colored outside the lines of our marriage.

I sucked in a big breath and decided to let it all go. The pinging and flashing lights of the slot machines reminded me that I was in Sin City and what I had done was ridiculously tame compared to most things that happened here.

“Okay, let’s get to the hotel, order some more drinks and scope out the poker tables,” I capitulated.

Rick lifted his fist into the air, palm facing in and pulled his arm down fast in a victory pump.

“Will you watch me play a little? You were always my good luck charm when we used to come here.”

I leaned over and kissed his lips. “Of course.”

I stood up to grab my bag and saw Rick pull something out of his pocket.

“Maybe later tonight we should check out the club that guy Dane mentioned.”

Dancing did sound good. It seemed like ages since Rick and I had a wild night grinding together the way we used to at fraternity parties in college.

He held the card up to my face and my heart sank. It said, “The Purple Room.”

OH GREAT,
I THOUGHT
as I watched her stumble into the women’s restroom in the casino.
She’s too drunk now
. I should have encouraged her to slow down earlier, but we were having so much fun at the poker table I lost track of the free drinks.

She was gone for too long and almost tripped on her heels as she lumbered back toward me, but I caught her just in time. I wasn’t exactly steady on my own feet, but I was in better shape than her. Two young women trailed behind her, apparently new friends she made in the bathroom.

“Come on, Beth, let’s go back to the room. I think you need to lie down for a little while.”

“No I don’t,” she slurred. “The fun’s just starting. Why would I want to lie down? Are you just trying to get me back to the room to take advantage of me again? Like on the plane!”

The two women seemed as inebriated as Beth and started cheering in response to her loud pronouncement of the fact that we had sex on the plane.

“Did you guys do the mile high club today? Woo hoo! I did that with my boyfriend last month.”

Her friend corrected her. “It’s not
do
the mile high club. It’s
join
the mile high club.”

Beth laughed loudly and threw her head back as one of her ankles buckled and her shoe turned sideways.

“Ow! Shit!” She took her shoes off and swung them around and around.

The three of them starting talking and laughing but it was hard to make out some of what they were saying. I listened as Beth told them that she wasn’t wearing a bra or underwear under her dress and how she showed her boobs to George Clooney on the plane. I realized her filter was completely gone. I missed it and hoped it wouldn’t take too long to return.

“Rick. These girls are so funny. We have to hang out with them tonight. They should come with us to that Purple Room place.”

Both girls opened their eyes wide.

“You two are going to The Purple Room?” one of them asked.

I assumed they must be horrified. They clearly knew all the things about The Purple Room that Beth had filled me in on earlier. These girls didn’t even look old enough to be in the casino. I figured they must have fake IDs.

I propped Beth up by putting my arm under hers and linking them together.

“Beth, honey, I’m sure these girls don’t want to go to The Purple Room, and you’re in no condition…”

One of the women, the one with gold stiletto heels and a microscopic black dress that left nothing to the imagination, fell into me and grabbed my shoulder to push herself back up.

“Actually, we do want to go to the Purple Room, don’t we, Jenny?”
Jenny was a little plump and wore a more modest black dress with flat shoes, which caused her tall, thin red-haired friend to tower over her. Nodding with enthusiasm, it was clear that Jenny also wanted to go to The Purple Room.

“What was your name?” I asked the tall one.

“Lindsay,” she whispered, trying to sound sexy, but to me she just sounded very, very intoxicated.

“Right. Lindsay, when my wife has a little too much, she gets really tired. There’s no way she’d make it very long at The Purple Room. But thanks for the offer. You ladies go have fun.”

Beth threw her shoes on the ground in a fit of fury.

“I never get to have fun! I always have to be good. I’m the good mom, the good teacher, the good wife, the good everything. I’m so good I even let you flash my nipple to George Clooney today.” About twenty people heard her and laughed, but she didn’t care. She seemed to like it. I told myself that no matter how much she begged me the next day, I would not tell her the things she said and did. Having been here before, I was relatively certain she wouldn’t remember much of it.

Lindsay cuddled up to Beth and they started babbling about how life should be about having fun and there are too many responsibilities and obligations all the time. They went on about how you have to go crazy when you’re in Vegas because everybody does.

Jenny, who I realized was a closer match to my mental state, which I would call nicely buzzed but not drunk, came over to me.

“You see, the thing is, we’ve been curious about The Purple Room just to kind of check it out and see what happens there, not to do anything. But we’re scared to go alone. We keep saying it would be perfect if we could just find a nice couple to go with us so the husband could look out for us, and then we ran into you guys.”

And my wife is wasted
, I thought,
which causes her to make lifelong friends in a matter of seconds
.

I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but my protector instinct kicked in.

“Yeah, you girls shouldn’t go to a place like that alone. It might not be safe. My wife and I would only want to check it out too, out of curiosity. We’re… we’re not into participating in that kind of thing.”

Jenny went over to Beth and Lindsay. “Okay you two, if you can behave yourselves, maybe the four of us can go to The Purple Room. Just for a little while though. Nothing crazy, right, Lindsay? You have a boyfriend, remember? I don’t think he’d be cool with anything other than taking a little peek at what goes on there.”

We made our way through the maze of the casino with its endless rows of craps and blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and grinning dealers in their black bow ties and vests. When we were finally out on the street, I hailed a taxi while the three of them laughed and talked about things Beth would not usually talk about to people she just met. If I were a different kind of guy, I would love this. Three hot women wanted me to take them to a sex club. One of them was my wife and she wanted to go more than anyone. I was definitely curious, but Beth was in a state I couldn’t remember seeing her in since before we had kids. Being away from home for the first time was the permission she needed to let loose. I didn’t want to hold that against her, I could understand it, but I was anxious because I knew anything could happen.

The Purple Room didn’t look like much from the outside. I would have no idea what it was if I didn’t already know. The four of us stepped into the lobby and I realized the building must have been an old movie theater. There was a ticket booth, a snack bar, and a huge, bald bouncer who stood there eyeing us with his thick arms crossed over his bulging chest.

Beth went up to the bouncer and I couldn’t imagine what she was about to ask him.

“Where’s the bar? Is it inside?”

“There’s no bar here, Ma’am. We don’t serve alcohol. You can buy a soda or fruit juice right here.”

Beth, Lindsay and Jenny all sighed “Awww” at the same time. The bouncer’s shirt said “Mike,” though it looked like it could have been someone else’s work shirt at some point. He looked the three of them up and down a little too slowly for my comfort. He was checking them out. I moved closer to Beth. Mike squinted at me and said to Beth, “There’s a gay bar next door. You can drink there and come back. But we won’t let you in if you’ve had too much.”

Mike took his time looking Jenny and Lindsay over again. “You two twenty-one? I can’t let you in without ID.”

“Of course we are!” Jenny gushed, but I wasn’t convinced. I pulled Beth aside as they showed him their identification.

I didn’t expect to be successful but I had to give it a shot. “I think we should just go in. We don’t need to drink more. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

As we sat in the gay bar, the conversation in my head went something like this: “It’s fine that you’re in a gay bar. You’re with your wife. If a guy looks at you a certain way, take it as a compliment.” I had to keep having that same talk with myself. It was hard to feel comfortable seeing men kissing each other and rubbing up against each other shirtless on the dance floor. Beth and the girls seemed to love it. They talked with a gay couple at length about their recent wedding. I was relieved when we headed back to The Purple Room.

Mike was still standing there. He checked all our licenses and motioned for us to go to the ticket booth. There was a small man behind the glass and it was hard to hear him. I leaned in close and thought he said, “The girls are free, but it’s fifty dollars for you.”

“You didn’t say fifty dollars did you?”

Mike jumped in. “Yeah, fifty dollars for guys.”

This better be good
, I thought, as I pulled out the cash.

Our first stop was the strip club room. Beth was so out of her mind that it didn’t take long for her to slip her dress off and start dancing completely naked. I hoped she wouldn’t remember this part. I didn’t think I could provide enough comfort to soothe the humiliation. It might have been sexy if she was sober, but in her condition, she was anything but graceful. Jenny sat with me while Lindsay joined Beth on the stage and pulled her dress down to her waist. She took her bra off and started dancing with Beth. Lindsay was stumbling around the stage as graceless as Beth. Both women had taken their shoes off, thank God, or there most likely would have been serious injuries. At one point, Beth fell to the floor and lay there on her back, naked and laughing hysterically. Lindsay bent down and helped her back up. Beth grabbed Lindsay’s dress and pulled it down from the bottom so that all she had on was her underwear.

Jenny started to look bored. She and I hadn’t had anything to drink at the gay bar. “So, what’s your story?” she asked.

“We’re just a regular married couple with two kids, on a wild weekend in Vegas. Beth is, well, she’s been going through a lot. She… I think she’s trying to figure out how to find balance, you know? She works, she’s a mom, she wants to be responsible and take care of things, but she wants to be herself too and she, well as you can see, she has this impulsive side that comes out sometimes.”

Jenny smiled and we both looked up at the stage, me at my naked wife and she at her friend, as they put on quite a ridiculous show. There were only a few couples in the room and they were focused on one another. No one was paying any attention to what was happening on the stage and I was glad to have that piece of information to share if asked in the aftermath.

“Beth is beautiful. I can’t believe she’s had two kids. She’s in great shape.”

I thought about how she had recently lost weight and how she must still be adapting to how differently people looked at her. She looked good to me both ways, but she felt better thin so I wanted to support her.

“Yeah, she works out a lot.”

“Lindsay does too. She’s at the gym all the time. Wish I could look like that.” I didn’t want her to think I was flirting, but did want to say something to make her feel good.

“You look great too, Jenny. You’re a gorgeous young woman. You have nothing to worry about. I’m not into the skinny look. I like it when a woman has some meat.”

Her face turned red. I hoped I didn’t give her the wrong idea. “Maybe we should grab them and try to see if they want to take off soon.”

When Jenny and I turned back to the stage, we probably shouldn’t have been, but we were surprised to see Beth and Lindsay kissing. They were both naked now and hanging onto the pole as if they were on a bumpy bus ride. Their mouths were locked together and I watched as Lindsay’s hand reached for Beth’s breast.

I scooped Beth’s dress up from the floor and climbed onto the stage to pull the two of them apart. I grabbed Beth’s wrist harder than I meant to and she ripped it out of my hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she slurred.

“It’s time to go,” I said as I slid the dress over her head and positioned it back over her body.

“No it’s not. I’m having fun. Why do you always want to stop me from having fun? You’re so boring.”

Lindsay was twirling around the pole with her head leaning back and didn’t seem to be aware of anything going on. Beth went back to her and started kissing her again. I felt my heart pounding in my chest and inhaled through my nose for as long as I could before responding.

“I don’t want to stop you from having fun. I want to stop you from doing something stupid, something you’re going to regret tomorrow.” She looked at me in disgust.

“I don’t like when people try to control me. You always want to control me.”

“Okay, Beth. We can talk about this another time. Let’s just go.”

She swung around on the pole and kicked me in the shin. It stung.

“You go. I’m staying!” she said like a defiant five-year-old.

“No, you’re not staying.” I tried to keep my voice low and steady.

The three couples in the room, as well as Jenny and Lindsay, were now watching.

Beth stepped off the stage and I thought she was going to fall and break her neck, but she steadied herself on a chair. I stepped down to where she stood.

She put her face right in my face, poked her index finger into my chest and looked at me as if she was finally defending herself against some kind of playground bully.

“You… you don’t know me. You don’t get me. We’re so different. I try to be like you, but I’m not. We’re not a good match. You’re all control and perfection and planning. I’m free and open and don’t want to plan every little thing!”

All of a sudden, she seemed much more lucid. Lucid and enraged. She jabbed my chest again, harder.

“We were too young when we got married. We were twenty-five for God’s sake! Nobody knows who they are at twenty-five!”

My chest hurt. My head hurt. I tried to tell myself that she was drunk, that she didn’t mean the things she was saying. But her words were clear now and even though she was swaying back and forth, she was standing tall as she spoke.

“I don’t understand you. One day you try to be romantic and the next day all you do is criticize me for not being all fucking organized like you. I left a kitchen cabinet open. I forgot the groceries in my trunk and the frozen stuff melted. I spilled a drop of food on the pristine seat of your precious truck. I…”

“Stop it now, Beth. Just stop. You’re going to be sorry you…”