Page 12 of Whiskey Splash

The elevatordingsand the two silver doors slide shut and I’m thankful I don’t have to make a decision. I’m thankful that the decision has already been made and I’m whooshing down, far below, far away from that rooftop terrace and Flambé.

Desmond Pike is nothing more to me than a pretty man on a magazine cover, a television star whom a thousand women covet. He isn’t the gorgeous, and witty, ridiculously kind gentleman that just thawed my vagina and makes my thighs tremble.

He’s a stranger.

He’s no one.

And I’ve learned not to take risks, because you usually regret them. And Desmond Pike is the kind I think would be fun, but would most definitely regret in the morning.

Chapter Three

Desmond Pike has ruinedDownton Abbyfor me.

I’ve been home for almost three hours and my normal comfort food of binge-watchingDownton Abbyand drinking chamomile tea isn’t working. Of course, this is primarily due to the fact that I can’t look at Maggie Smith all primmed and tufted in her lavender scarves and feathered hats as Lady Violet Grantham without her accusing, dowager duchess-scowl telling me that even she—at the ripe old age of eighty-four—wouldn’t have been such a prude as to walk away from Desmond Pike and his ten-inch cock!

Perhaps worse is the fact that the throb between my legs hasn’t subsided and my imagination has gone into hyperdrive. Every surface of my apartment has become a twisted game of ‘what position would we need to be in if we were’… on my kitchen table, bent over the couch, checking the hallway mailbox … and I was coming on Desmond Pike’s face?

I growl at the latest obscene image pawing through my head and click off the television.

Gulping down the last dregs of my tea, I head for my bedroom, realizing I just have todo something about thisotherwise I won’t be able to sleep. I’ve been horny before, of course, but something about walking into my empty bedroom and pulling out my favorite battery-operated boyfriend feels like the universe’s poetic revenge. I can already hear Arie in the back of my mind taunting: You could have had Desmond Pike’s toe-curling cock, Esme, but instead you opted for that cheap vibrating rubbery thing.

I pull off my yoga clothes and toss them on the floor, only they land next to Arie’s dress which lies in a pile of fringe and gold next to my dresser. It makes me wonder if he would have stripped it off of me and left it in a heap like that, or, as Arie suggested, would he have yanked up the skirt for easy access and taken me with the fringe sticking to his sweating abdomen.

I flop back on my bed, naked, and click on the buzz of the vibrator. My core pounds, knowing it will get at least a little release tonight and I tease my soft flesh with the lowest setting. Arie will bitch me out tomorrow for bailing, but I know myself, and I know this is better—safer. It comes with no strings attached and is free of all the emotional baggage. There’s no way I can get hurt if he’s a figment in my imagination. Plus, this way I can imagine all the hot and dirty things he’d do to me, things I’d never let him do in real life, and then I can go back to normal. Because he’d go back to his life afterward anyway and forget me.

I slide the vibrator against my sensitive skin, my body waking to its trembling promise.

“I have a very normal sized cock,” Desmond said to me, and I smile at the thought. How modest of him. Though it’s not his size that excites me, it’s the fact that even the tip of him inside me would have had me raring to go.

I angle the toy, but it doesn’t feel as good as I want. The rubbery vibration is mechanical and insufficient. Again, I hear Arie on my shoulder mocking: Have you forgotten that half the fun of sex is the fact that you don’t know what’s about to happen? That you don’t know which way he’s going to flip you over and fuck you? You get the weight of him, his hands, his body sliding against you. I toss the vibrator on the side of my bed, already knowing the toy won’t get the job done. Even after two hours of trying, I’d still be lying here aching and unsatisfied.

“God dammit!” I curse, throwing a pillow over my head and starting to seriously regret my decision. Fantasies usually work for me, whereas the real thing … well, it comes with drama and the unfortunate fact thatI get attached. The sex doesn’t even have to be good for me to crave the intimacy and connection. And usually the sex is—well, it’s fine—but nothing Arie would rave about. And it’s not that I haven’t had lovers, it’s just that everyone I end up trusting does something to stomp on my heart. And since my heart comes with the sex, I’ve decided to put both major organs (heart and vagina) out of commission.

I turn on my meditation machine to try and quiet this tsunami of overthinking, but after an hour my brain is still doing summersaults.

I consider doing some late-night yoga, but then the image of downward dog with Desmond’s talented tongue buried between my thighs adds to the ever-growing list of ways I could come against his face.

My last-ditch resort is to take an ice cold shower before downing a couple sleeping pills. The irony of this option isn’t lost on me. My ice-block of a vagina has finally thawed and come out of hibernation, and here I am trying to chill it back into hiding again.

In the daze of sheer exhaustion, I may have told my vagina that she can be the boss from now on—all my fears and emotional baggage be dammed! I may have said something ridiculous like she can take the reins next time we’re around Desmond Pike, and if she wants to screw him against a wall, then we’ll do it Spiderman style.

For there is no wrath like a vagina scorned.

* * *

Walking into Flambé the next morning to get my purse, clothes, and phone, feels like a walk of shame. Not because I had a wild one-night stand, but because I didn’t.

I skulk past the empty dining room that’s bathed in morning sunshine and the whole restaurant feels like a different place. There are no hidden shadows to dine in as you gaze into one another’s eyes over a flaming cocktail. No dark corners in which to whisper dirty talk. The dining room is exactly the wake-up call that happens when you sober up the next morning and realize it was all smoke and illusion.

I pad down the hall trying to stay undetected, Arie’s gold dress and heels in my hand. Hopefully, my sister isn’t here yet and I can grab my things and get to work without having to face the impending tsunami of expletives she will shower me with.

To my surprise, Arie’s office is empty, and I head straight for the armoire, my clothes folded on the chair next to it. I put the dress on a hanger and tuck all my belongings under my arm, checking my phone. The screen blinks thirty-six new messages and I know all of them are from my sister.

“Give me one reason not to murder you right now!” I startle and turn around to find Arie blocking the doorway. No more sleeping dragon. Arie is suited up in sleek leggings and a tank, her hair in a fireball on top of her head. She makes the “I just got up and haven’t had my coffee—or cocktail—yet” look like the next fad to hit the runway.

“Hey!” I say cheerily, holding up my phone and trying to play this cool. “I left this here last night. It looks like you called me a hundred times.”

She shakes her head, not playing this game. “Oh, that’s not theonlything you left here last night!” Her arms cross over her chest. “You also stood up the sexy six-foot-three inches of gorgeous man muscle that I served to you on a silver platter.”

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