Page 253 of The Sinner: James

“Handsome. Passionate. Hot.”

She looks at me, waiting for my reaction.

“You want more?” she asks.

I don’t say anything, so she continues.

“I want him to be sexy. I mean seriously sexy. You know, the kind of man who sweeps you off your feet. I want to melt when he touches me. And I want him to give me a gazillion orgasms. I want to float on a cloud…”

I smile.

“You need a sex god.”

“Yes, please. May I have one?” she tosses at me facetiously.

“I’m not so sure they exist.”

“You had one,” she says promptly. “And there were two more where that one came from,” she adds, smiling from ear to ear.

A rush of blood comes to my cheeks.

“Yeah… Them. I forgot about them,” I murmur, sunk in thought.

“No seriously,” she says as the silence thickens. “I just want him to be good in bed.”

“It goes without saying.”

Our eyes lock, and her expression changes.

She looks around, disheartened.

“I don’t know,” she tosses at me, no longer smiling.

Her gaze is tilted down as she stares blankly at the floor, musing over something.

“I think the most important thing for me would be–– and that’s why I’m willing to pay him handsomely––to have him when I need him. I don’t want to waste my time chasing a man online, waiting for his messages, getting sick over his pictures with other women, and analyzing him to death, trying to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. You know, the usual crap. And then, I don’t want to be pursued by some desperate man in real life who can’t figure out shit when it comes to women.”

She glances at me.

“Does that make sense?”

“It does. I know exactly what you mean.”

I pause for a moment.

“How’s Andy?” I ask.

She throws her arms up with frustration, her face crimson.

“He’s in love. And she has him wrapped around her finger.”

She looks down again, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I thought I knew everything about him. What he liked and didn’t like. His pet peeves, dreams, and little secrets. Everything he said to me was a lie. Things he didn’t ‘like’ when we were together, he loves now because of her. Everything she says is gospel to him. And I couldn’t even convince him to paint his studio in a different color.”

“What was wrong with the color?”

“It was eggplant,” she says, aggravated. “Anyway. Enough about my love life,” she adds, and I fully understand her pain.

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