The Accidental Virgin (6 page)

She leaned in to kiss him. He hesitated for a moment. Stacy feared she’d pressured him, or that he didn’t want her (impossible — he’d always told her she was his ideal). After she’d nibbled on his lips for a few seconds, he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. The familiarity of his hug nearly made her cry. It felt safe, comfortable, easy. She needed a dose of easy. And she’d really meant what she said. If he’d have her back, she’d be stupid with happiness about it.

With a graceful reshuffling, Stacy put one leg over Brian and straddled him on the couch. She deftly lifted her dress over her head and sat upon him, nude save for her mules and underwear (on this day, she’d had the foresight to put on one of thongs.com’s most popular bra-and-panty sets: the pink lace Maid in the Meadow).

“God, Stace. Your body,” he said, and then began kissing her on the bra, burying his face between her breasts. He resurfaced to sniffle and wiped his nose on his sleeve. But Stacy wasn’t horrified. She’d take him sick, coughing, oozing. And he’d take her just as she was. Under his khakis, he was granite (reliable, predictable Brian). A powerful hard-on cloaked in cotton. Nothing could have been sexier to Stacy at that moment. She put her hand on the outline and pressed.

Brian lay back on the couch, pulling her on top of him. Mad kissing and feeling up. He put his hands inside her Maid in the Meadows for an ass grab. Stacy imagined an ice field cleaving, huge pieces of glacier breaking away and falling into the dark sea. Her year of abstinence and the weight of it sank out of reach. A lift, that was what it was. A lifting of repression and denial. She bobbed on top of Brian as if he were a life raft.

She struggled with the top button of his pants. They were decidedly tighter than she’d remembered, or she was out of practice. She had to sit up as he lay beneath her and work on it with two hands. Just as she’d sprung the button and moved to the zipper, a flash of orange flew by her eyes. Fur and unsheathed claws scrambled across Brian’s chest and her bare thighs.

Brian screamed; Stacy screamed. She looked down at the rips in Brian’s shirt and then at the four deep scratch marks on her legs, first white and then the slow surfacing of red blood.

Once Brian and Stacy recovered from the surprise of Batty’s sneak attack (the hurt came seconds after), she couldn’t understand why screams still filled the apartment. Brian seemed perplexed, too. The two of them turned toward the sound.

There, in the doorway, stood a woman. She was short and fair, with a blonde pageboy. She was cute, in a pug-nosed, preppy kind of way. She wore an “antiStacy” outfit — chinos and a mannish blazer over a cobalt blue Oxford shirt. Her hands reached to cup her cheeks, and she dropped a stuffed backpack, blue, on the floor. For a deluded second, Stacy thought she was screaming in pain from dropping such a heavy bundle on her foot. The shrieks were prolonged, ear piercing. This woman must have had some vocal training to sustain the volume. Brian pushed Stacy off him (causing her to tumble clumsily against the opposite arm of the couch).

He blinked and said, “Idit!”

Idit? Was he calling this woman an idiot? Before Stacy could hazard a guess, the small woman with the large lung capacity picked up the backpack and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

“In my apartment!” she yelled before running out the open apartment door, slamming it as she left.

Her apartment? This had been Brian’s apartment for ten years. Who did this woman think she was?

Brian filled her in: “That was my fiancée, Idit Sholanstein.” He put the backpack on the couch between them.

Stacy used a pillow to cover her near nakedness. “Your fiancée,” she said, grappling with the news. “I practically begged you to take me back.”

“You’re my dream girl, Stace,” he said. “Idit wasn’t supposed to be home until late. I guess I should go after her.” Brian turned to look at Stacy, waiting for a cue. She had a choice here: She could 1) send him after his fiancée (the right thing to do), or 2) seduce him, ending her problem and his engagement in one swoop. But then she’d have to be his girlfriend again. From her new place on the other side of the couch, that suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. She looked squarely at Brian, whose eyes were searching her face (and examining her body) for direction.

“I’m not sure I want a relationship right now,” she said, fumbling. “I meant it when I said that I did, but now I’m not so sure.” She picked up her dress and put it on. “If only Idit had come in ten minutes later,” she said mournfully.

“I do love her,” said Brian. “But one look at you…”

“We went out for three years and never got close to being engaged,” she said. “How long have you been with Idit?”

“We met at vavoom.com, right after you dumped me.” Brian, formerly an engineer for Volvo America, worked as a designer for the simulation shareware game site. “We started as friends. I was depressed after our breakup. Idit comforted me, took care of me. I can’t imagine what I’d have done without her. She proposed to me. Last week. Bought herself a ring. The reason I never asked you to marry me is because I knew you wouldn’t have said yes. And I also know that you don’t really want to get back together with me. You just want to get laid. And I was up for it. I still am.” He pulled Stacy into his lap. “Idit will come back. I’ll make it right. But she has nothing to do with unfinished business between us.” He put his hand between her knees.

Could she go through with it, now that she knew he was engaged? A moral dilemma. She didn’t need the bad karma, that was for sure. But his fingers felt lovely on her skin and she did have this revirgination problem. If he was willing to compromise his engagement, why should she worry? Was it her responsibility to keep him in line? She wasn’t cheating on anyone. She didn’t even know this Idit.

Before Stacy could sink into Brian and his moral decline, Idit saved her own life. She slammed back into the apartment, picked up Stacy’s bag, pulled Stacy away from Brian, dragged her out of the apartment, down the hallway, into the elevator, out onto the street and halfway down the block.

As they neared the corner of 71st Street, Stacy shook herself loose. Her dress was sticking to the tacky blood on her thighs from that vicious cat’s attack. Her arm was smarting from Idit’s military grip (Stacy bruised easily; she was sure she’d have an unsightly mark in a few hours). And she very nearly broke another heel.

Idit, arms crossed over her mannish outfit, said, “I picked him up, cleaned him off, and carried him on my shoulders for nearly six months until he got you out of his system. He’s mine, and you’re not going to come along a year later and ruin everything I’ve been working toward.”

“I’m sorry. He didn’t tell me he was engaged,” protested Stacy weakly. Idit stared at her with unbridled hostility. “I know that apologizing won’t do much good. But I am genuinely sorry. Nothing happened. We’d only just started…”

“I’m glad Batty had the sense to try and stop you.”

Hateful cat, thought Stacy. “May I…look, Brian is just confused. We, uh, it just happened.”

“I don’t care what you did or why you did it,” said Idit, with the precision of a scalpel. “I want to get married. Brian is going to be my husband no matter who he sleeps with. I’ve been working for this, and I’ll achieve my goal.”

That sounded strangely cold and impersonal. Stacy felt a swell of protectiveness for Brian. “You love him, of course.”

“Yes, yes, I love him. I
chose
him,” said Idit. “And I believe that he loves me. But even if he doesn’t, he sees enough good in me or what I do for him that he’s agreed to spend the rest of his life as my husband.”

“Forgive me for saying, but you don’t seem like a terribly warm and tender sort. Brian needs a lot of cuddling and hand-holding.” The reasons Stacy had to end it with him, she thought.

“Forgive me for saying,” countered Idit, “but I’m not inclined to show my warm and tender side to the woman who just tried to seduce my fiancé. And you don’t have to worry about Brian. I know exactly what he needs.” She turned on the flat heels of her Hush Puppies and headed back toward her future. She was about 10 feet from Stacy when she looked over her shoulder and said, “We’ll never see each other again.”

“I won’t be a bridesmaid?” asked Stacy.

“Nor a bride.” She sniffed.

Wednesday, predawn

T
he outstretched arms on Stacy Temple’s Josie and the Pussycats clock pointed to 3
A.M.
Her thoughts crawled from the gory events of the past two days to the salacious. (Stacy sat alone on a large turtle-shaped conference table in the middle of a dimly lit room. Suddenly, beams from above reveal naked men in cages surrounding the table. Somehow it is made known to Stacy that the imprisoned men have been locked inside for nearly a year — fed, watered, exercised, but deprived of physical contact of any kind while being forced to watch pornography for ten hours a day. Stacy was the first flesh-and-blood woman any of these twelve clones of Tony McGuinty had seen in months and months. They were practically frothing from every orifice at the very sight of her in a white lace thong and camisole set. With the slam of metal doors, the cages sprang open. The men emerged and rushed Stacy, a look of depraved starvation in their eyes, gigantic erections in their hands.)

The ravaging of Stacy’s sleepy-time hours continued. Masturbation was not as soporific as she would have liked. Stacy remembered reading once that the worst thing for insomnia was watching the clock as the minutes of your life ticked by, unused. Her torture acute, Stacy sat upright in bed and threw back the covers. She wandered into her living room and turned on the computer. Might as well check e-mail. She signed on.

Hurray,
she thought, when she saw that Gigi from swerve.com had written back. After the past couple of days, Stacy would welcome absolution from the woman who, unknowingly, had started Stacy on this quest. She opened the note and read.

That’s it?
Stacy wondered. She scrolled down to see if there was an attachment or an addendum or a postscript. Nothing. How inexorably frustrating. Stacy had put herself out there and received zilch from Gigi in return (the same treatment she’d been getting from her growing list of disastrous dates).

Stacy checked her other e-mails. Charlie had sent her a blank note, except for a hypertext link to a URL at swerve.com. Stacy clicked on link. An article popped onto her screen, by Gigi XXX. This one was called, “Pity the Accidental Celibate.”

Her heart clinched. She read the copy, clutching her chest. It started:

Never, in all her life, thought Stacy, as she read the last words of Gigi’s character assassination, had she been served up and fed to the dogs like that. Stacy was a sweet person. She didn’t deserve to be destroyed by a woman she’d offered to hire (for a job that didn’t exist, but Gigi couldn’t know that). Questioning Stacy’s entire existence because she’d had a busy year? The insult! The injury! The gall! The bladder! It was easy for Gigi to savage Stacy, using a pseudonym and a picture that obscured her face. Stacy vowed she’d never read another word issued from the keyboard of that pusillanimous hack.

Stacy called up the e-mail she received from Gigi and fired back a response.

After hitting
SEND NOW
and cackling softly, Stacy got dressed. In her fit of fury, she’d never be able to sleep now. She slipped on a pair of orange pedal pushers, a lavender eyelet blouse and her pink mules. She loved those mules with the rose on top. And they were going to carry her out of this chamber of torment and into the city at night. She was hungry. Affrontery gave her an appetite.

Outside at 4
A.M.
, she was alone on the street, as if SoHo had taken off on vacation without inviting her. The sun was a couple of hours from rising; the dark of morning shimmered with humidity and heat. A sheen of perspiration coated her brow. She was torn between self-consciousness about the sweat and the hope that her pheromones would bring all eligible men out of the shadows. Maybe a small band of out-of-work male models would emerge from an alley and ask for directions or spare change.

Even in the wee hours in downtown Manhattan, that was an unlikely tableau. Stacy headed straight for her favorite diner on the corner. As soon as she got there, though, she realized she’d come unprepared. No book, magazine, or
New York Post
. She had only the laminated menu to occupy her eyes. She read the selection of American and Greek fare, admiring the menu’s spot art of Hellenic columns, the acropolis and dancing gyro sandwiches. When she finished with that, she tried to lift herself out of the miasma of confusion. Was she deluded? Had she cut herself off from the world of sex and love because she feared taking risks? Were Gigi’s ugly accusations even worth contemplating? She hated writers. They’d exploit anything and anyone for their own egomania, never taking other people’s feelings into account. Gigi and her talking asshole. Stacy would dearly like to tear her a new one.

A tired-looking waiter approached. He seemed completely unmoved by Stacy’s beauty and grace. No kissy-kissy sounds from him. One would think that would be a relief for Stacy. One would. As she imagined what would be a sexier way to say “cheeseburger and onion rings,” she looked around the stillness of the diner.

The booths were all empty. Save one. On the opposite end of the diner, a newspaper page was being turned. The ruffling sound and flickering movement drew her eye. The reader, obscured by the paper, wasn’t in the least bit curious about the flaming redhead who, despite apparent sobriety at 4:30
A.M.
on a Wednesday, had ordered a huge meal that in no culture of the world would be described as light. The mystery of her. Her unaccountability. The reader’s lack of curiosity intrigued her. She studied the hands holding the paper. Was it a man or a woman? She couldn’t tell.

And then the newspaper was folded and placed neatly on the booth. A man. Quite handsome, in fact. Late 20s. Rakishly disheveled, he wore a T-shirt from Ed’s Gym (she couldn’t get a look at his pants or shoes from her location). His black hair stuck out in thick clumps. His eyes were brooding and blue — her favorite combination. She watched him sip his drink, full lips encircling the straw in a tiny
O
. As he drank, he looked up at Stacy. She immediately turned away, blushing.

When she’d dared to look up again, the man was staring at her openly. She stared back. His skin was preternaturally white. A night owl, she thought. Possibly a vampire. She could easily picture this man naked, exiting a cage or a coffin at sundown. Stacy imagined his mouth clasped to her jugular. Picturing it would be as far as she’d get with him, though. She’d never initiate conversation with a stranger (not her style; Stacy always let men come to her — at least she had before this week).

Back to this man in a cage. Naked, save for a black satin cape. And a bat perched on his shoulder. Did bats perch? Stacy redrew it to hang by its feet from the top bars of Vampire Boy’s cage, red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

The waiter in the dirty apron interrupted her thoughts. “Cheeseburger and onion rings,” he said as he dropped plates on Stacy’s table. She felt self-conscious about her choice of food. The brooding prince of darkness might think her bulimic. The aroma of grease and red meat enticed her to eat lustily anyway. She consumed the 1,000 calories, including untold grams of fat, in less that five minutes (a new world record?). Her belly full, Stacy relaxed. She knew she could sleep now. In fact, she felt dangerously close to falling asleep right in the booth. If she hurried back, she could get a couple hours in before having to go to work. And, frankly, the way the Vampire was staring at her was unnerving, especially with her drastically increased blood sugar levels.

She stood, dropping a ten on the table. At the same moment, the young man rose from his booth, too. He left a five next to his empty glass. They reached the diner door together. Wordlessly, he held it open and waved her through, escorting her out into the Manhattan night.

His footsteps fell into place behind her. She didn’t like the sound of that. Stacy turned left at the corner. Five paces to her rear, the Vampire turned left. Dear God, he was following her. Did he think casual eye contact was code for “do me now”? A spark of fear shot from her heart to her heels. She picked up the pace and gained some ground on him; he was a half block back when she reached her building. Stacy slipped inside and closed the front door. The reassuring click of the lock flooded her with relief. As she waited for the elevator, she chided herself for going outside alone at such an hour. But Christ, she thought, even rapists and muggers have to sleep sometime.

The elevator bell rang. She stepped in. She thought she heard the front door open, and began to push the elevator buttons impatiently. Finally, the metal doors started to close. With a few inches to go, a man’s arm shot between the doors and pried them apart. Stacy’s breath caught when she saw who it was: the coffee-shop Vampire. He’d managed to pick the building door’s lock, and now had her cornered in the elevator. This was not the metal cage of her fantasies. He had no right. The doors shut with a clang. The elevator gave a bounce and lifted the pair upward.

Stacy tried to remember the one-hour on-site self-defense course thongs.com sponsored in the conference room. Back in the cash-flooded days (late 1998), Fiona frequently had organized expensive treats and trips for her staff (a weekend at the Taj in Atlantic City, three reserved tables to see Aimee Mann at Joe’s Pub, the summer house for employee use in Sag Harbor). The self-defense course was taught by a black belt in karate named Raja who was Fiona’s personal trainer/sex slave (from the way she described it) for a couple months. Janice told Stacy that, for the 60-minute demonstration of elbow butchery, kidney punches and ear boxing, Fiona paid him $1,500. The boss invited any staffer to organize a seminar of her own for the same money. Stacy wondered what special skill she could teach the group. Finally, she offered to escort the staff on a lunchtime tour of the antique-purse district in the east 20s. Fiona didn’t bite.

But would Vampire Boy? Stacy recalled Raja’s instructions on how to break a masher’s nose: Using the meat of the palm, jab sharply in an uppercut motion, driving the nasal cartilage into the attacker’s brain. She could do it. She could do it.

She could
never
do it. If threatened, she could muster slapping and scratching. But the sound of bones slamming into spongy gray matter — that was a squish you’d never forget. Still, she kept her fingers curled into her palm, wrist bent at a 90 degree angle, ready to flatten Vampire Boy’s (admittedly very cute and buttonlike) nose.