Pretty in Ink (18 page)

 

I sleep so hard that I don’t stir until the sun starts peeping through the blinds. It’s disorienting to wake for the first time to the light, accustomed as I am to regular rousings throughout the night to tend to small people. Rob and I have planned on a morning tour of the Putney Academy, but I’m aching to be back home with my girls. I picture their tiny feet pitter-pattering across the kitchen linoleum, asking Maria about Mommy and Daddy. “Let’s go home,” I say. “We have years to go before the kids’ll be in school.” My husband kisses my forehead and nods.

In the car, Rob slips a CD into the player. “What’s this?” I ask.

“Shhh, just listen.” First it’s a sweet, old-fashioned plinking of piano keys, and then the unmistakable voice of Ella Fitzgerald.

Rob drapes his arm around my seat back. I listen to the song and stare out the window at what’s now generic highway. We could be anywhere. In her pure, smooth voice, Ella Fitzgerald is singing about pennies and falling leaves and moonlight in Vermont. She’s describing the kind of breezy summer evening we had last night, and I’m surprised to realize my eyes are blurry with liquid. I hear a lyric about meadowlarks. “You know,” I say, blinking my eyes clear and trying to compose myself, “I read an article in the
Brattleboro Bulletin
about the fifteen varieties of birds to look out for on nature walks. There was no mention of meadowlarks.”

“Hey, smarty-pants, I didn’t write the song. Would you like to enlighten me about the types of fauna of this fine state?”

“Well, I sort of skimmed the article.”

Rob rolls his eyes. “You would kill someone who told you they just skimmed a story of yours in
Hers
.”

The mention of
Hers
makes me squirm. “You know what?” I blurt out. “Let’s put in an offer on the house.”

“Really?” Rob’s gape is so intent that I have to readjust his gaze to the road.

I feel suddenly certain. “Yeah, let’s do it.” We toast the decision with chunks of Grafton cheddar, and it’s either my giddiness or the cheese’s sharp tang that makes my tongue tingle. I spend the next four hours half-appreciating the peaceful quiet of the adults-only ride and half crazy with excitement to see my daughters and soon embark on this new adventure together as a family.

13

M
y to-do list: insane! I’m toggling between uploading our August content onto HersMag.com, gabbing with fans on our Facebook page, and reading the latest batch of Bedroom Test Drive questionnaires to pick today’s culprit for the blog. My mind’s racing like a maniac, but it’s cool because there’s nothing I hate more than being bored. Graham calls me hyperactive, but he’s a freak of nature who can not only sit through a three-hour documentary about tree pollen but actually enjoy it.

I flip to Regina’s questionnaire and read: “Acting out my husband’s hot nurse fantasy was fun, but the dirty talk was AWKWARD! Cringe.” I cackle, picturing our entertainment director all dressed up and ready to administer medicine.

I scan Leah’s next: “I bought the sexy lingerie, but I’m ashamed to say I’ve been too exhausted for two weeks now to even try it on. In other words, f&*# motherhood.” Jesus, I am never having kids. I’ll have to bug Leah to get on it; my supply of responses is running low.

Lynn’s questionnaire is nearly illegible. In chicken scratch she’s scrawled, “I went out with the vibrator in my underpants and I gave the guy the remote control (on a second date, by the way!). Did I get off? Yessiree! But I swear everyone in the restaurant could hear the buzzing. It was honestly kind of a turn-on. Yee-haw!” I bowl over with laughter.

Badoop!
I check my screen and see an IM from Regina: “Only noon here. Boohoo, you’re 3 hrs closer to closing time.”

“Ya, but I’ve been working my ass off 3 hrs longer,” I type back. Regina and I IM all day long when she’s out in Cali. “Gotta figure out the next sex test, brb.”

Bedroom Test Drive was my brilliant idea that was really just a ploy to dig up dirt on my coworkers. Though that no longer includes Mimi; when she volunteered to try out the Ben Wa Kegels balls, she wrote up such a detailed play-by-play of the increased pleasure of her orgasms (ew!) that I’ve blushed every time I’ve seen her since. I’ve stopped including her on the call-out e-mails.

Everyone’s anonymous online—I give them stupid names like “Linda Loves It” and “Wild Wendy” next to their “red hot” and “sweet and sensual” ratings of the products and experiments—but they all turn in their questionnaires to
moi,
so I know the real woman behind the write-up. If someone wants to bad-mouth me, they better watch out since I know stuff like how it turned them on to slather their partner’s privates in key lime pie–flavored lube. I’m still working on Victoria to sign up.

Mimi calls me into her office. “I have your edited copy for the Kama Sutra positions,” she says. “Weren’t we planning to test out sex tapes this week? All the celebs are doing it and then leaking the tapes for publicity, so now the whole thing’s gone mainstream.”

“Apparently not that mainstream. No one’s volunteered.”

“Zoe, do you understand that it is your job to coax these people into participation?”

“Ya, but—”

“Think of yourself as Dr. Ruth minus the wrinkles. Ha! You’re supposed to make your coworkers feel like their disgusting desires and lusty impulses are totally healthy and normal, OK? Get a sex tape tester, stat. I don’t care if you have to invent her from thin air.”

Mimi fixes her gaze on me and quickly proves to be more of a staring expert than I am. Then she barks out a shrill laugh that may or may not indicate that she’s joking. This is exactly the kind of thing I would do, and I feel a funny sort of kinship with Mimi. Everyone’s been bitching about the new boss like it’s part of their jobs, but I think she’s totes genius for pushing every story shorter, sharper, juicier. Louisa deluded herself that our readers wanted five-thousand-word, dull-as-dirt features on attachment parenting, and eight-page profiles on some random woman who started a charity. Yawn city. Mimi gets that we’re competing with tweets and YouTube clips and hilarious gifs, not with Faulkner novels and college term papers. Duh. No one wants to sit down and read anymore; who has the attention span?

I approach the art department and set my sights on Drew. “Hey, lady, you haven’t signed up as a bedroom tester yet.”

“That is correct.” She doesn’t look up from her proof pages.

“Come on, take one for the team and videotape yourself doing it. How ’bout it, lady?”

“Get out of here, Zoe. I’m trying to work.”

“Oh, chill out, Drew. It’ll be fun. YOLO!”

“Excuse me, yo what?”

“You only live once! And Mark would love it.” Drew shoots me a look, like somehow her relationship is still supposed to be a secret even though Lynn spilled the beans weeks ago. I’d actually love for her to submit footage of her and Mark. That guy is hella sexy. “Mark could art direct, and you’d know just the right camera settings to use. It would be a real porno masterpiece. What do you say?”

Drew sighs loudly and swivels in her seat. “Zoe, with what frequency do you think an unemployed male wants to have sex?”

“Um, I dunno, all the time? He’s got nothing better to do, right?”

She laughs bitterly. “Try never. Now scram, seriously.”

“OK, OK. I’ll get back to you when I’ve got a solo project up for grabs.”

Drew is a tough one. I scan the office for another potential target. I wonder if I can cajole Jonathan, and just change some of the “he”s to “she”s. I could ask Laura, but she seems more naïve than even your average twenty-three-year-old. I can imagine her recording ending up on some amateur porn hub and forwarded to everyone she knows. I’m feeling oddly benevolent, so I spare her the exploitation.

By six p.m. I still have no takers, but I won’t let Mimi down. I have a feeling I’m going to go far in this new regime. I edit the online horoscopes, and last week our astrologer Miss Starlee said she sensed I was turning a corner in my career, which makes sense considering the current planetary alignment and my Gem-ini–Cancer cusp sign. I’ve figured out that Mimi values spunk and grit, and lucky me, I possess both of those traits in spades. I eye the office and spot Leah’s vacant cube. She’s working from home, but as soon as Mimi stops stringing her along, all her stuff will be cleared out, too, like she never existed at all. Then I’ll be gunning for her spot.

 

“Hey, hon, I’ve got an idea.” I’ve plied Graham with red wine and his favorite honey-glazed pork chops.

“Hmm?” He’s got one eye on the Yankees, the other on the
Wall Street Journal.

“It’s a surprise,” I say. “Meet me in the bedroom in ten.”

“Sweetie, I’m watching the game.”

“It won’t take long, promise. I’ll have you back to the couch by the third inning. Don’t you want a little adventure?” I’m aware that Graham’s idea of an adventure is sitting at his desk and bidding on a risky stock, or whatevs, but my job is at stake here, and the least he can do is help out his dear, sweet wifey. I’ve changed into an old baby-doll slip that a girlfriend gave me for my wedding shower and that’s been shoved to the back of a drawer for the year and a half since. It’s wrinkled and smells vaguely like dryer sheets, plus it’s snugger around my ass now, but I can still pull it off. I’ve got the camera rigged up on a tripod in the corner, mostly hidden by the drapes. I blow myself a kiss in the mirror, then hop up onto the bed, and call out, “Graham-y!”

“What is it?” He barges through the door. “Oh, hello, sexy.”

I start in on my best Marilyn Monroe impression, cooing, “Happy Birthday to you.”

“It’s my birthday, is it?” Graham sidles up to me. “Does that mean you bought me those cuff links I’ve been eyeing?”

“Cuff links, Graham?” We really need to work on his dirty talk.

“But seriously, it is my half birthday. You know we celebrate yours.” It’s true, but that’s because I figured out early on that my half birthday falls a week after annual bonus time at Graham’s bank. Ka-ching!

“We
are
going to celebrate,” I say. “
I’m
your present.” I peel off Graham’s shirt and begin unhooking his belt buckle. As I lean in to his boxers, I do my best Jenna Jameson-with-a-dash-of-Betty Boop impression, thrusting my cleavage and hips, batting my eyelashes, and flashing sultry glances up at my husband. He’s smirking at me, but I can tell he’s excited. I throw him back against the bed, and the making out begins. I nudge Graham over to readjust our angle.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just making sure we’re in the shot.” I point to the camera and purse my lips.

“Jesus Christ, Zoe!” He rolls off of me and reaches for his shirt. “What, did you hook us up to a live Web feed?”

“No, dummy, it’s just for work.” I slump back on the bed and relax my belly pooch.

“What?!”
Graham has been sensitive ever since he discovered my
Hers
sex blog. Back when Jane and I appeared on TV to promote its launch, he demanded I pull out. But then Jane abandoned her post, and Mimi was like a puppy dog about my contributions, so we compromised and I began writing under two pseudonyms, Randiest Rachel and Married Mona. Well,
I
compromised. I figure the less Graham knows, the happier he’ll be. In Mona’s posts, I chronicle my actual married sex life: the quickies and shower nookie, my discovery of Graham’s box of Asian Babe DVDs and the dry spell that followed, the mind-blowing sex we had the night he was promoted to a VP, the unspeakable act I agreed to do in exchange for his shelling out on $700 boots for me. Standard married-lady stuff. In Rachel’s posts, I harken back to my single-girl glory days: the drunken one-night stands and early-morning headachy shame, the pregnancy scares, the occasional threesome—inserting a bit of sexting and dirty Snapchatting to make it all sound up-to-date. The blog has skyrocketed to two million hits a month, and Mimi tells me she’s in talks to turn the posts into a
Hers-
branded romance novel and maybe even a sitcom on Lifetime. I’m cool with it as long as I’m played by someone like Jennifer Lawrence or Mila Kunis.

“That came out wrong,” I say. “I’m not, like, hosting a screening of our rendezvous for my coworkers. Jesus, I’m not that cray-cray.”

“Oh, you’re not, huh?”

“I’m just testing it out, for the Web site.”

“Hand me my pants.”

“Graham-y, relax, will you?”

“Hand them to me now.”

“So, what did you think? Red hot? Sweet and sensual? Major bust? Oh, come on, hon, I’m joking. Look, I’m stopping the recording.” I pass him his pants and kiss him on his nose.

“You promise it’s really off?”

“Yes, look, no red light.”

“OK, then get over here, you naughty little minx.” Graham pulls me toward him, and I’m giggling like a schoolgirl.

Afterward, Graham gravitates back to the couch to watch the rest of the game, and I nestle up beside him. In my dreamy post-coital state I don’t even mind that my husband sounds more enthusiastic when A-Rod hits a homer than he did in the bedroom. I decide that later I’ll make my own sexy little video and leave it under his pillow.

 

The sex tape copy is due the following afternoon. I don’t have the usual completed questionnaire to consult, so I turn up the volume on my iTunes—it’s that awesome Helena Hope jam, and Jane is too polite to tell me to turn it down—and I start writing freestyle:

I immediately erase the last sentence, cracking myself up. Jesus, I should write erotica. I print out the write-up and drop it in Victoria’s in-box. I love to watch her editing the reviews, coughing primly as she stumbles upon words like “oral” and “anal”—what a prude. But today there’s a sample sale at Alice + Olivia, so I let Victoria work without my lurking.

“Press event,” I say to Laura on my way out. She eyes me dubiously.

 

We shoppers are crammed like cattle into the mass dressing room, but I don’t even care because I nabbed the perfect skinny jeans plus
the
season’s wedges in 8, the most popular size. I occasionally fantasize about a reality show starring me as an expert shopper. In fact, I’ve already written up the pitch and am just waiting to meet someone well connected in network TV so I can slip it to them. I’m trying to squeeze into a size 4 pair of floral jeggings when I feel my phone vibrate. “Hello?”

“Zoe, hi, it’s May. I’m the new freelancer in the research department.” I attempt one more suck in of the stomach, and eke the zipper closed. Success! God, my ass looks amaze in these. I check myself out in the mirror, then lose my grip on the phone. Shit.

I eventually locate the device under someone’s discarded bra, turquoise and lacy—
tacky.
“Sorry, sorry. What’s up?”

“You weren’t at your desk, and I had a question about the Bedroom Test Drive.”

“Can it wait an hour? I’m at an event.”

“Well, Victoria claimed this was urgent.” Unbelievable—the person responsible for firing Sylvia and obliterating our research department in one fell swoop has suddenly decided that fact-checking is important. “I don’t have your backup for the sex tape write-up,” May says.