Meg's Moment (4 page)

She started down the stairs when a horrible thought hit her. She’d cheated on Ted. She had an orgasm with another man. She was going to hell. That’s probably why God had spared her today. She was asking the wrong person. She should have been looking down when she asked to be zapped. That’s probably where people like her go. She took a deep breath and contemplated going to confession.

“Just calm down,” she told herself. Maybe there’s a clause in the bible designed for situations like this. A loophole
,
so to speak. Stacy! She needed Stacy. Stacy was sensible. She never overreacted to anything. She’d know what to do. Megan picked up the phone and called Stacy who answered the phone breathlessly.

“Stacy? It’s Megan. Why are you out of breath?”

“I’m working out. Mickey just left. He told me everything. It sounds like you’ve had a very busy day.”

“I need to talk to you. Can you come over?”

She must have heard the tears in Megan’s voice because she said, “I’m on my way. Stay away from massage parlors and duct tape.”

***

Twenty minutes later Stacy came through the back door and gave Megan a once over. If she had anything to say about Megan’s new look she kept it to herself.

Megan was crying over her cutting board
, which
was stacked with vegetables.

“What’s the matter?” Stacy asked
,
grabbing a salad bowl and a knife.

“I cheated on Ted. I’m going to hell and my Mother is going to disown me.” Megan relayed the whole story as her and Stacy prepared the vegetables for the salad. When Megan was done telling her story Stacy cracked up in laughter. Megan started crying again.

“You didn’t cheat on Ted, Megan. There has to be another person involved for that.”

“There was! Sergio!”

“But there was no sex or kissing. There was no intent. You just…well it sounds like… maybe your hormones are just haywire. Cut yourself a break. It happens,” Stacy said and Megan perked up.

“Has it happened to you?”

“Well no but…” Megan started crying again. “But I haven’t met this Sergio yet. It could’ve happened to anyone.”

“But it didn’t. It happened to me and now Ted’s going to divorce me and I’m going to be known around town as the ‘Orgasm Queen’. People won’t invite me to sit down for tea and they’ll probably assign me my own pew at church and…”

Stacy tossed the vegetables into the bowl and took the knife from Megan’s hand. As a matter of fact she should probably rid the house of all sharp objects. “Megan, look at it this way. Does Ted ever get any of those girlie magazines and retreat to the bathroom?”

“I
,
uh
,
I don’t know. I’ve never seen them if he does.”

“Well most men do and the
y
,
uh… well they kind of have an
…uh
,
experience similar to what you had only theirs is on purpose. So, what if you found out that Ted did that every now and again? Would you consider that cheating on you?”

Megan tilted her head back and thought about it for a moment. “No.” She finally said.

“Well then
,
what you did is no different except that yours was an accident and his isn’t. So I tell you what. Tomorrow after you’ve had time to cool off and calm down we’ll search the house and see if we can find some of those magazines. If we do then you’re off the hook. If we don’t then you can tell Ted and we’ll go to confession and confess to your parents
,
or pay whatever penance you think you need to. But you’ve had enough excitement for one day so let’s worry about it tomorrow.”

“You’re right. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.” She covered the salad and placed it in the refrigerator. “I just hope we find some of those magazines.”

‘We will’
Stacy thought
‘because tomorrow I’m going to plant some here so you don’t go crazy and leave me to raise Spot’.

***

Stacy left after giving Megan a reassuring hug and Megan continued to make dinner. By 6:00 she had everything cooking and dashed upstairs
,
avoiding mirrors to get decked out for her passionate evening with Ted. She took her red dress from the closet and laid it on the bed. She stared at it and tried to imagine what Ted would think. Would he find her irresistibly sexy and be so consumed by passion that he didn’t notice her hair? Not a chance
,
she decided.

Or maybe Ted wouldn’t be angry. Maybe he’d just leave her for another woman that was sane and didn’t have unassisted orgasms...

She took her new shoes from the closet and sat them on the bed beside the dress.

Maybe if she put them on and ran down the stairs in the four inch heels she would fall and hit her head and end up in the hospital and when Ted rushed to her side she could tell him that the hospital personnel cut her hair to examine the wound and he should feel very lucky she was alive. Yeah right!

She got out her new lingerie and tossed them on the bed as well. She wondered how well the material would hold up if she tried to strangle herself with the thong panties. Who was she kidding? She was screwed. She sat on the bed with her head in her hands. It was going to be a long night.

Bitty and Bugs slowly approached her bed and took their places at her feet. She petted their heads and they nuzzled her legs. “You still love me
,
right?” The pups barked and jumped in her lap and began licking her face. She gave them both big hugs and shuffled them out of the room to get dressed. She was being silly. Ted would still love her too. The sight of her in that slinky red dress, those elegant shoes
,
and her barely there lingerie was going to send him over the edge into a passionate frenzy and he was going to realize what a dope he’d been for taking her for granted. He’d make it his mission in life to make it up to her. And if he didn’t she could use the heels of her new shoes to beat him to a bloody pulp.

***

By six thirty she was dressed and ready to face Ted
,
who should be home any minute. She put the pups outside, lit candles on the table
,
and threw a Nora Jones CD in the stereo.

At 6:55 she heard Ted’s car pull into the drive. She said a silent prayer that the ceiling would fall in and crush her like a pancake. She looked at the ceiling. Nothing happened so she went to the door to meet Ted. H
e
was on his cell phone shouting impatiently at the person on the other end. Megan just stood there and looked at him, really looked at him for the first time in years. He still had a head full of blonde hair and his boyish smile. His eyes were a devastating light brown with little green specks around the irises that were now accented with little wrinkles around the corners that only made him look more handsome. His evenly tanned face sported a slight five o’clock shadow that gave him a rugged
,
rustic appeal. His lean frame was in perfect form due to his obsessive nightly workouts in the basement. His firm, round butt was covered by perfectly creased jeans that bulged around his thighs and calves. He wore a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and Italian loafers. If he stood at a distance and didn’t open his mouth she could probably muster up an orgasm. She shivered at the thought. Two orgasms in one day would probably kill her
,
or at least be grounds for a psych eval.

Ted started up the steps and paused at the front door, his cell phone still at his ear. Megan took a step forward, raised her chin and stuck out her chest. Ted dropped his phone. His gaze roamed from her recently chopped, and now blonde hair to her newly painted toenails. He stood silently staring at Megan who was scanning the street for speeding buses or alien abductions. Finally their eyes met and Megan forgot to breathe. Ted brushed her cheek with the inside of his index finger then gently squeezed past her and sat in his chair. Megan stood motionless at the door
,
her hand still on the doorknob. Ted was the first to speak.

“Where are the dogs?” Did she hear him right? After all the hell and humiliation she’d been through today to look sexy for him his first thought was the dogs.

“In the backyard and dinner is waiting in the kitchen.” Without further explanation she strode to the kitchen and began putting ice in glasses and setting the food on the table. Ted joined her a few moments later and took his usual seat. He sat quietly, his napkin in his lap
,
his gaze adverted to the floor. Megan was determined to let him speak first but he obviously had nothing to say so she broke the silence.

“It’ll grow back Ted.” He looked up still in a daze.

“Huh?”

“My hair!” She rolled her eyes up as if she could see her hair through her skull. “I know I should have asked you first but the hairdresser, he just started chopping and before I could speak…”

“You’re hair looks nice.” What? He liked it? Had aliens abducted Ted and replaced him with a new Ted who liked change and gave her compliments
?
She blinked several times and involuntarily raised her hand to the back of her neck.

“You like it?”

“It’s… different but…Yeah
,
I like it.” He frowned. “Do you like it Meg?”

The words surprised her. He never cared what she thought or what she wanted and because of that she hadn’t even thought about whether she liked it. “Oh. I don’t know, I guess so. I was so worried about what you would think that I hadn’t even thought about it. I was afraid you would divorce me.”

“
What’s for dinner?”

Hel-lo?
Megan thought. Red dress, sexy shoes, slutty lingerie! What happened to ravish and devour. If she wasn’t a strong Christian woman she’d stand on the table and flash him her butt cleavage. Instead she kept her dignity and said “
s
teak” in the perkiest voice she could muster.

They ate dinner in silence and when they were done Megan started clearing the dishes from the table to keep from bursting into tears. The only explanation for Ted’s lack of attention was that he was secretly gay.

If he wasn’t gay, then what was it? Was she fat? Did she have spinach in her teeth or a booger on the tip of her nose? She grabbed the toaster and squinted her eyes to see her reflection. Nope, aside from the hair she looked the same. She ran her eyes the length of her body checking for toilet paper stuck down her leg or imaginary cooties. Nothing! Instead
,
what she saw was a thirty year old trim,
well-toned
body. Maybe Ted was just tired. And gay.

She finished the dishes and shut off all the lights and joined Ted in the living room. Ted was asleep in his chair, the remote control still in his left hand. She sunk onto the couch making more noise than necessary. Ted didn’t budge. She picked up a magazine and flipped through the pages as loudly as she could. Ted remained in dreamland. Growing frustrated and agitated she rolled up the magazine and slapped the coffee table with it hard. Ted bolted up and looked around
,
dropping his remote control.

“Fly,” she explained and when he gave her a perplexed look she elaborated. “There was a fly on the coffee table. I killed it with the Better Homes and Gardens.” He dismissed it and began looking for his remote control.

“I’ll get it,” she said and crossed the room, turning around so that her rear end was facing him and did her best Marilyn Monroe rendition of retrieving the fallen remote, giving him an ample view of her backside. She shimmied back up with more shake than necessary and handed the remote control to him.

He got out of the chair and gave it back. “Goodnight,” he told her before taking the stairs two at a time. Megan let the dogs in and climbed the stairs to bed dragging her self-esteem behind her.

Chapter Three

She spent the next morning trying to forget the horrors of the previous day. She scrubbed the bathtub, gave the dogs a bath, and dealt with a defiant Spot while cleaning his bowl. She sifted through her email and wrote her column for the week on ‘Surviving a
L
ong
D
istance
R
elationship.’ She figured she probably knew more about that than passion since Ted
and she
lived in the same house but were distant as hell. They’d probably have a better marriage if he lived in Egypt. Or Columbia.

Columbia. Her thoughts strayed to Sergio. Now there’s a passionate man. He reeked of passion from his beautiful head to his boot clad toes. She should have married Sergio.

Or Gabe.

What was she thinking? She loved Ted and she knew he loved her. He hadn’t divorced her because of her hair. He may not have been jumping for joy when he saw the new her but he didn’t run for the hills either. Maybe he was just in shock. Or gay. Or maybe she didn’t look as good as she thought she did.

The phone rang. Stacy was on the other end.

“How’d it go last night?” Megan gave her the short version of the night’s events.

“You can’t be serious. That’s it?” Stacy replied.