Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakthrough (16 page)

of a dozen friends and gone dancing at a club. She did that often in New York. Ben was never much of a dancer, but he didn't mind that she went. She went out quite often, in fact.

  For some reason—probably that she was thinking about New York—she wondered what Vivian was doing tonight. How she liked the quiet nights in Kettle, compared to the wild orgies of her life in the Big Apple. It must be quite a come-down, not that she deserved anything but.

  Though of course Vivian had been through plenty of quiet nights in prison recently. Six months of them. Probably making out with the other women, wasn't that what prisoners did?

  Sarah would prefer not thinking about that.

  She went upstairs, lurching at one point and catching her shoulder hard against the wall, which brought tears to her eyes, but made her laugh. A little too much to drink, Sarah?

  She giggled. Harmless fun. At least she got to have fun too, since no one had invited
her
to a party tonight. She probably should be working on the Kettle Halloween bash. Worrying about the decorations, since Joan was chairing that committee, and the food and the entertainment. Or sending another encouraging note to little Katie, in the hospital for heart surgery, who would benefit from whatever money Sarah's pumpkins made. Sarah hoped it would be enough to make a difference; lately she'd been worried about that.

  She hoped the party was a success. Sometimes she thought about Vivian's idea of Come As You're Not, and wondered if that theme would appeal to more people. She'd have to give that some thought. But not right now.

  In her and Ben's bedroom, she dragged out her laptop. Maybe she'd have e -mail from a friend. Maybe she could write to her college roommate and find out how Karen was doing. Or one of her other friends from New York. She needed to be in touch with them more frequently. Find out what their evenings consisted of now they'd all had kids. Less wild, probably, but with New York at their feet, anything was possible.

  She waited impatiently for the machine to boot up, singing a little bit of the hymn from church that morning.
Oh Love that will not let me go.

  The computer warmed and she loaded her e -mail program and scanned the incoming list.

  Adrenaline buzzed through her; she felt her cheeks grow hot.

  An e -mail from Tom.

  Oh my. Oh my, oh no. Without really realizing what she was doing, she'd practically invited him to e -mail her. And now he had. Maybe it was just about the pen? Maybe it was just business? She certainly hoped so.

Sarah,

I hope you won't think me forward. But I wondered if you'd like to get together sometime. For a drink. Or a meal. Or whatever sounds good to you. It seems like we don't get enough of a chance to say what's on our minds.

Tom

  Sarah inhaled sharply, taking in oxygen and carbon dioxide as if she'd never stop. At the very puffed -up peak of her breath, her lungs clamped tight shut and wouldn't let the air out.

  
Or whatever sounds good to you . . . we don't get enough of a chance to say what's on our minds
.

  Dark, crazy excitement started burning through her, especially down
there.
She put a hand to her chest, to see if she could feel her heart pounding. He wanted her. It was right there in black and white, hers to do with what she would.

  He wanted her.

  Sarah clasped her burning cheeks, struck out with both legs so her chair rolled away from the computer to give her safe distance.

  What was she thinking? She wasn't that kind of woman. Tom had to know that. What was
he
thinking? That she'd start some . . .
affair
with him?

  Her throat clutched on a swallow and she had to try again before the mechanism functioned properly. Between her legs the excitement hadn't abated at all. She must be ovulating, that was it. Her libido was up so she was spending way too much time imagining something that wasn't ever going to happen. That couldn't ever happen. She wouldn't let it.

  She stood, repeatedly smoothing her hands down her Casual Corner white ribbed cotton top over her still -tight abdomen, looking around wildly for something to do, something to get her away from the crazy hot rush of excitement and the urge to answer him and build that excitement higher, something to ground her in the reality of her life.

  Ben had filled the wastebasket to overflowing with tissues from his cold. And he'd not bothered to empty it, just left it there, overflowing, with other tissues scattered around as if being close to the trash was good enough.

  She was tempted to leave it all there. Leave it for weeks and weeks, until the pile of tissues grew so huge she and Ben could no longer see out of their window. Would he even notice? Would he ever
get
it?

  She stomped over to the closet where she kept plastic grocery shopping bags to empty the second -fl oor trash. Stomped back and yanked up the wastebasket, heavier than she expected. She turned it upside down into the bag, wincing at the thought of seeing more big clumps of tissues, telling herself he had a cold and that's why there were so many.

  There was a clunk, and a split second later, the plastic bag jerked in her hands. She frowned. Tissues didn't clunk.

  And then she remembered. The vibrator.

  Her body wouldn't move for a long, long time. Then her arm reached in among Ben's bounty of tissues, and pulled the horrible thing out. She stared at it, not even sure what or whether she was deciding to do. Her thumb fl icked the switch and the loud buzzing started.

  Immediately she turned it off. How stupid. She was embarrassed and disgusted just hearing the noise.

  Sarah tossed it back into the bag and gathered up the discarded tissues on the floor. Then she straightened and fi shed it out again; she couldn't help it. Took it to the bathroom, washed and dried it, came back into the bedroom, tossed it onto the bed, and stared at it, most of it sleek and smooth and white where the battery must be housed, then a thin turquoise rod on one end capped with a gray, soft -looking rubber tip. Which must be where one touched it to oneself.

  She tied a knot in the plastic bag over the tissues and let it fall to the floor. Stood for a moment, hands on her hips. Then she climbed onto the bed and knelt over the little plastic toy, gazing down at it, pushing her hair behind her ears.

  What did it feel like?

  Her loafers clunked to the floor. She picked up the little machine and turned it on again, ready this time for the brash, horrible sound.

  No. She couldn't stand it. It was humiliating even thinking about it. How often had she been told by her parents that touching yourself was wrong? Sinful. Even being adult now and knowing she'd been misled, she couldn't.

  The silence in the room made her feel guilty. For what, thoughts? She turned on the little radio, CD, and tape player Ben bought Amber for Christmas years ago. Amber wanted a new one last year, so this one came into their room. Sarah turned the classical station up loud, then glanced back at the white plastic instrument of promise still on her bed.

  What did it feel like?

  Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring
tore through the room, savage, rhythmic, primal music. Impulsively, she danced steps from the choreography she'd learned in college. Her body came alive to the music, even if her synapses and balance were shot from alcohol. Wonderful, wonderful, alive and graceful and female.

  She danced away from the bed, and without even having consciously made up her mind to, she turned out the lights in the room so the white -blue glow from her laptop became a nightlight, danced back, climbed into the center of the bed over the hollow Ben's body had made over the years, and turned the vibrator on again. This time she could barely hear the buzz.

  
What did it feel like?

  Eyes closed, cheeks flaming, she leaned back on her elbows and opened her legs. Oh Lord. Was she going to do this?

  She giggled, giggled again. Yes. Yes, she was.

  She lay back farther. Put the thing at the crotch seam of her Liz Claiborne stretch pants.

  Her eyes shot open; she gasped. Oh my God.

  The arousal was immediate, intense, like nothing she'd felt before. Her breath came faster, she fumbled to pull down her pants, kicked them to the floor, followed them with her panties. Closed her eyes. And slowly drew the buzzing miracle over her again, where it was supposed to go.

  Oh my God.

  Almost immediately she felt her body gathering forces for something so deep and strong, she hardly knew how to react, how to slow it, how to get it to stay so she could understand the experience, hang on to the feeling.

  Then a burning wave of pleasure so intense, she heard herself crying out in a voice like a movie actress, a voice she assumed exaggerated for male entertainment.

  Her sex started pulsing, contracting, and the strong stimulation wasn't so good anymore, though the feeling was still delicious. She moved the vibrator slightly to one side, wishing she could keep it in place so the feeling could go on forever.

  Except it subsided too soon and the vibration hurt when she tried to move the rubber tip back front and center. So she switched the machine off.

  Stravinsky swelled through the room, suddenly overblown and intolerable. Sarah moved from the bed and turned him off, too. Then she let herself fall back onto the burgundy and gold duvet from Bed, Bath & Beyond and found herself smiling like a beauty pageant contestant. Oh, how
amazing.
She felt drugged, languid, sexy, delicious. She wanted to feel that feeling again. And again. And again. How had she lived this long without it?

  Come as you're not.

  The pun made her giggle stupidly, and right then and there, she decided it wasn't too late to change the party's theme. Even if the idea had come from Vivian.

  Irony smacked her between the eyes and narrowed her smile to nothing. The vibrator had come from Vivian, too. Vivian Harcourt had handed Sarah the key to her own body. A key Ben should have given her way back in college.

  Her breath became irregular again; a sob wanted to climb out of her tight throat, but there didn't seem to be enough room.

  All this time while she'd been doing his laundry, cooking his meals, serving him, loving him, making his own self absorbed carefree life possible, he'd been holding this back from her, this basic gift of love.

  Worse, she'd spent most of her life denying anything was wrong, ignoring other women's descriptions of their rapture, tamping down the uneasy feeling that there was something missing from her body, that she was somehow not quite right.

  She was perfect.

  Rage flooded her like a wall of water, like a tidal wave, moving steadily in to destroy beaches and homes and towns.

  He'd kept this from her. While he sat in his damn offi ce, typing his damn books, jerking himself off and leaving the tissues for her to empty and put out for trash day on Fridays. Over twenty years of orgasms he'd had without her, including all the years they dated. Over twenty years.

  Well, now she knew how to have them, too, and she was going to make damn sure she made up for lost time. With him or without him, she was going to make the rest of her life one big freaking climax after another.

  One sob managed to make it from her lips before she heard the chime of another incoming e -mail.

  What was she going to do about Tom?

  Sarah scrambled to the computer. The latest e -mail was from her mother, somewhere in rural USA. But Tom's still sat there.

  Usually, she opened her parents' e -mails eagerly, wanting to hear the news from whatever state they were touring, to hear of their adventures, to know Mom and Dad were okay.

  This time she wanted only Tom's. To read it again. To enjoy the danger and the temptation before she sensibly deleted it. Or answered in no uncertain terms that she was married and nothing could happen between them. Except in her private fantasies. Those belonged only to her and did no one any harm.

  After all, who knew what Ben thought of when he was pulling at himself without her. She'd put down her life savings he wasn't thinking of his wife.

  She swiveled her chair back and forth, keeping her eyes on the screen while her body turned.
Or whatever sounds good to you
.

What did Tom think about? Did he think about Sarah?

  Her breath went in and rushed out, and the heat started building again between her legs. Ben's was the only penis she knew. What was Tom's like? Long and thick? Clean and strong and proud?

  She crept to the bed, only mildly guilty. Her hand searched, then closed over the smooth, cool plastic. The buzzing didn't bother her this time, even in the silent room.

  She lay back, opened her legs, imagined Tom coming into the room. Undressing her slowly, reverently, kissing her everywhere, especially
there,
where Ben hardly did anymore. She used the vibrator like a tongue this time, long strokes where she imagined Tom's tongue would go.

  Her moans came out without her having to plan them. Her head thrashed on its own. A second orgasm built, this one stronger, wilder, deeper.

  She called Tom's name, and the excitement of another man's name on her lips fueled her higher. This time she knew to move the vibration out of the way when it became too much. This time she knew to expect the change from the initial ecstatic rush to the pulsing.

  Next time she'd know even more.

  The orgasm faded to the same delicious weariness as the last one, but Tom's image stayed with her, holding her now, telling her she was beautiful, sexy, the best he'd ever been with. How he'd loved her all his life, how there were no other women who could take her place in his heart.

  The vibrator stayed on the bed; she moved swiftly to the computer. Opened his e -mail and hit reply.

Anytime is good, Tom. Whatever you had in mind.

Sarah