Page 1 of Bad At Love

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Abandoned mid-break-up while shackled to the bed wasn’t how Chaaru Raj had seen her Friday evening going.

That her lace-clad ass was resting on eight-hundred-thread Egyptian cotton sheets in a beautiful room with high ceilings and exposed beams, or that she could see the dusky outline of the city of Seattle through the large windows, didn't make any difference.

Cursing, Chaaru tugged at the feathery cuffs.

What was the chance that her lover of two weeks and four botched encounters would have playful cuffs in his arsenal when he needed GPS to find his way around her body?

Sam was a thirty-two-year-old painter whose mother had hired Chaaru’s concierge housekeeping business to clean, cook and generally organize his life for four weeks.

Usually, the Adulting Package was popular with working women in their thirties and forties, juggling home life and careers. But business was business and Chaaru didn’t judge. During those four weeks, he’d caught her attention with his impassioned talks about strong women being his inspiration.

Two weeks with him had proved that the man was as lazy in bed as he was everywhere else. Assuming he would handle her breaking up with him like a grown-ass man was her own fault.

Being the horny resident of the third circle of perimenopause-hell at forty-three, she’d stayed when he’d asked for another chance. After years of slogging to build her business and raising her son alone, this was finally her chance to have the good sex she’d only read about in romance novels. Wasn’t it?

When he’d kissed her wrists, it had seemed like,finally, he could take instruction. Instead, he had cuffed her to his headboard claiming ‘he was going to prove to her that they belonged together’.

Now she was stuck, half-naked and shivering, in his cold apartment. She had a suspicion sensitive Sam was also spiteful Sam and had turned the temperature down before storming out.

Thank God he’d left her phone within reach. Switching it on, she jumped to contacts and called the first number.

Her best friend Mona answered. “Hey babe, do you think getting Dom involved in my boudoir shot might defeat the entire goal?”

“Uh…umm…no,” Chaaru said. “Not if you prepare him beforehand. I’m sure he’ll be over the moon to learn that you’re doing it to feel good in your own skin. And it could be another shared experience that can elevate your…sex life. Just don’t spring it on him.”

“Yeah, so like give him a chance to get his balls waxed?”

“Exactly,” Chaaru said, running her palm over her smooth leg. Hell or not, one of the side effects of perimenopause was that her body hair didn’t come in thick anymore.

She preferred hair on a man compared to waxed, oiled chests though.

Like her friend DP who effortlessly carried the lumberjack look. But then DP was nothing like Sam, who was all talk and no substance. DP was…more than just attractive. He was solid, dependable, a true gentleman.

“Makes sense,” Mona said. “I mean, Dom schedules sex and calls it cuddle time on his calendar. Although I have to say he’s been better this last year with delegating work.”

After a rocky temporary separation last year, Mona and her husband Dominic were celebrating twenty-five years of marriage. Shitty as her own marriage had been, her friends had restored Chaaru’s faith in romantic love. Not that she was ever going to be in the running for it personally. “I can’t believe we’re all going to Cancun in three weeks,” Chaaru squealed. “You and Dom are sweethearts for putting us all up at a luxury resort.”

“We want you all there, celebrating with us,” Mona said, tears coloring her voice. “And this way, we’ll see the kids during Christmas and don’t have to feel guilty for flying immediately after.”

“But they’re joining us for the final day in Cancun, right?”

“Right. Wait,” Mona said, shuffling sounds on the line. “Wasn’t tonight your breakup with the sensitive painter?”

Chaaru bit her lip. “Promise you won’t freak out on me.”

“What? What did he do? Do I need to mobilize Dominic and DP and our other friends?”

“No, nothing like that. He…cuffed me to his bed and then stormed out. A little tantrum that I broke up with him.”

“Jesus, Char! Why did you let me go on? Where’s his apartment?”

“I just remembered that you are at the hair clinic overnight,” Chaaru said with a sigh. As a result of hormonal imbalances, Mona had lost a lot of hair and was getting implants. “That’s nearly two hours of driving. Never mind.”

“I can’t believe he left you there.”

“I thought he was different,” Chaaru said, feeling utterly foolish.

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