“Not a single person?” By the tone of Anatoly’s voice I could tell he wasn’t really asking a question but underscoring the desperate state of his finances.
“Not a soul. All of my friends’ significant others have been annoyingly faithful lately.”
“Ah, well.” Anatoly shrugged and then looked me over carefully. “You look good.”
“Thanks.”
“Really good.”
And here comes that self-esteem again.
“There’s one more thing I’ve been wondering about.”
“Oh?”
“Last time we talked you said you wanted more of a commitment.”
“I did say that.”
“That was two months ago and we’ve both had some time to think.”
I felt my heart pick up in speed. He had reconsidered. He wanted to be in a relationship with me. Suddenly I saw my future and it was filled with emotional growth!
“I’ve missed you, Sophie,” he said, taking a step forward. “If you were willing to let go of this idea of improving on what was already a good thing, we could go back to the way things were.”
And we were back to feeling like shit. I stepped forward and ran my finger across his pecks. “Anatoly?”
He smiled his sexy half smile and leaned in closer. “Yes?”
“Take your front fairing and stick it up your ass.”
4
I don’t mind asking the tough questions. I just don’t want to hear the answers.
—C’est La Mort
“So let me get this straight,” Dena said slowly. “Melanie wants a private dick and Anatoly wants more clients, but you’re not going to get them in touch with each other.”
“That’s right,” I said. We were sitting in the back room of Dena’s store, Guilty Pleasures, and I had just finished telling her about everything that had gone down with both Melanie and Eugene and my little run-in with Anatoly and his front fairing. Beyond being my favorite supplier of sensuous flavored body oils, Dena was also my best friend in the world and had been since high school. Normally she’d be the first person I’d call after an awkward exchange with an ex or if, say…the husband of my old mentor was shot right after I made a pass at him, but she had been off attending a bondage-wear trade show in Amsterdam.
“Sophie, this is insane. It was one thing to play detective when your own life was at risk or when your sister was falsely accused of killing that asshole husband of hers, but to do it just so you don’t have to answer a few casual questions for Anatoly…”
“Nothing’s ever casual when it comes to Anatoly. Every exchange I have with the man is emotionally volatile and nerve-racking. Except for the sex, and according to Anatoly the sex we’ve had has been nothing but casual.”
“So this is about avoidance?” Dena crossed her toned lambskin-clad legs and ran her fingers through her short dark hair. “Are you sure the real reason you’re not telling Anatoly about this gig is because you’re pissed at him and you don’t want to help his business?”
“Of course not,” I shot back, but Dena’s brown Sicilian eyes were skeptical and I knew I couldn’t carry off the lie. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’m a little pissed. Why should I refer clients to him or help him in any way after what he did?”
“You know, I’m still not really clear on what exactly he did that was so wrong.”
“Are you kidding me? We had been dating for almost a year, Dena. A year! And it wasn’t like I was looking for a ring. You know I don’t want to get married again. I don’t even want to live with someone. I like my space too much, and besides if I moved a guy into my place how would that make Mr. Katz feel? He might think I was trying to replace him.”
“Please tell me your relationship with your cat is vastly different from your relationships with the men you date.”
“Obviously it’s different—I trust my cat. But we’re getting off the subject. The point is that all I really wanted out of Anatoly was for him to fess up to being my boyfriend and to agree to be monogamous, but he couldn’t even do that.”
“But he wasn’t actually sleeping with other people while you guys were together, right? He just didn’t want the option taken away from him.”
“Well, yeah, but who the hell wants to give her boyfriend that kind of option?”
“Me for starters,” Dena said. “If he has the option that means I’ve got it, too, and that can only be a good thing. You see, men are like See’s candy lollipops.”
“Excuse me?”
“See’s candy lollipops, Sophie. I like the chocolate pops the best, and nine times out of ten that’s what I’m going to buy when I want something sweet. But every once in a while I have a craving for butterscotch or vanilla, and if that’s what I’m craving that’s what I’m going to have. Why should I limit myself to only sucking on chocolate when I can suck on so much more?”
“But the only guy I wanted to suck on was Anatoly! Wait—can I change that to lick? I don’t really like…you know…sucking on anyone.”
“Lick him, suck him, saddle him up and ride him like a bronco if that’s what you want to do, he certainly doesn’t seem to be stopping you. He just doesn’t want to emotionally commit. So stop obsessing on words like boyfriend, girlfriend and monogamy and use him as a GBC.”
“GBC?”
“Glorified Booty Call. A guy you sleep with who also occasionally takes you out to a nice dinner.”
“I don’t think I could use Anatoly as a GBC at this point. There are too many emotions involved.”
“Emotions? Sophie, when you say emotions do you mean you care about him or…you don’t love him, do you?”
“No,” I said quickly, “but for a second there I thought maybe I was sort of falling in love with him. I mean, I hadn’t hit bottom yet but I could have gotten there pretty quick.”
“But he drives you nuts!”
I shrugged. Everything had been so perfect for a while. After the first six months of dating I had kind of figured that Anatoly was my boyfriend. I just assumed that the reason Anatoly wasn’t dating other women was because the nature of our relationship would have made doing so inappropriate, not because he hadn’t been able to fit infidelity into his schedule. Despite what Dena seemed to think, it wasn’t always what someone did or didn’t do that was important; it was why they did or didn’t do it. Clearly he hadn’t felt as strongly about me as I had felt about him. I suppose one could argue that I didn’t have the right to be angry with him just because he didn’t feel what I wanted him to feel, but I couldn’t help it. He had no right not to love me, particularly when there had been so many times in which he’d treated me as if he had.
Dena wiggled a pen between her fingers and sighed. “Sophie, men are good for a lot of things, and they’re also a nice accessory to wear to the opera. Kind of like an expensive bracelet or wrap. But when it comes to emotional stuff they do nothing but disappoint. That’s why we all need girl-friends. If you’re having a crisis and need a shoulder to cry on, call me. If you want to get off…well you can call me for that, too, since I am the one who sells vibrators, but if you’re craving a penis that isn’t battery-operated, then that’s the time to call a man. Live by those rules and you’ll never get your heart broken.”
“So you’re not a big believer in the whole ‘better to have loved and lost’ thing.”
“You