It wasn’t cheating. She and Jeff had agreed that whatever they did on their night of freedom, or month in his case, was a complete and utter pass. Oksana was shocked at first, but she warmed to the idea quickly, even applauded Annie for wanting to do something different from the typical night of drunkenness with her girlfriends.
That night after their session, Annie walked to her car, her stomach flopping anxiously as she heard Oksana call her name from across the parking lot. She was glad she’d told someone, but she was no closer to finding a playmate, no closer to actually executing her plan. She’d turned to see Oksana jogging in her direction.
“Annie,” she breathed as she reached Annie’s Prius. “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Annie had asked, shocked because she knew the answer.
“I’ll be…the one. If you want.”
“You’ll sleep with me?” They had laughed. It sounded crazy out loud. Who the hell planned these sorts of things? Annie did, that’s who. She had no interest in picking out flowers and nailing down a DJ for the reception, but she still liked her own plans to be tight and flawless. Her mother had taught her that much.
“Yeah.” Oksana shrugged. The confidence she usually had in the gym was gone, replaced by this raw eagerness. To Annie it was so sexy. “Could be fun.”
“I think so,” Annie had replied, trying not to choke on her tongue. Oksana was perfect. Beautiful. Nice. Gay. She wasn’t a murderer. She’d seen Annie sweating her ass off and hadn’t been completely repulsed. She was willing. And most importantly, she didn’t hate Annie for having this idea in the first place. Annie knew how it sounded. That she was just looking for some easy gay girl to try out her bi-curiosity on, but that wasn’t it. She wanted someone who wanted her, just for that night and someone she would want too. Mutual, consensual fun.
“Okay.” Annie beamed up at her. “Let’s do it.”
So they decided, after giggling some more at Annie’s last choice of words. Oksana requested the night to fit with her morning training schedule. Annie booked the room. And a week later, twenty-four hours after Jeff flew out of LAX, Annie found herself four stories above downtown L.A. in a junior suite of The Hilton Checkers Hotel, the perfect place for their sexual rendezvous. A safe distance from Oksana’s stomping ground of West Hollywood. Miles away from Annie’s home in Venice.
The night had been flawless, hot, and intoxicating. In the end, all Annie wanted was more time to explore Oksana’s body, more time to drown in her kisses. That should have been the first sign. This whole affair was meant to last one night. One night only, but almost a full day later, Annie couldn’t get Oksana out of her mind. The text messages they’d exchanged throughout the day weren’t making things any easier. She had plenty to distract her, but all those distractions revolved around a certain wedding. A wedding for some reason she was suddenly dreading.
Annie swallowed hard as the thought and the emotion and the flood of anxiety that rushed over her skin like an eerily cool breeze all met in the pit of her stomach. The mix sent the kung pao chicken surfing in her gut.
Another glass of wine sounded like a super idea, and then as she poured well to the top of the glass, Annie thought it would be best to play another round of the blame game. With a flick of her thumb, she pulled up their text conversation. For this portion of the tournament, the judges found that Oksana was at fault. Oksana had sent the first text of the day, and even if it had been somewhat of a “see you later-good-bye-ish” text, if Oksana hadn’t sent that stupid thing in the first place, Annie would have never replied with:
Not awkward at all. You should have stayed.
Then Oksana never would have replied with:
O rly?
Annie never would have giggled like a fool as she walked to the hotel shower and she’d never have texted back as she waited for the water to warm up.
Rly. The shower is pretty big.
Maybe next time
was the returned text that made Annie freeze, one step away from the sink. There was not going to be a next time, but at that moment, Annie knew a next time was exactly what she wanted. And now a good way to being shitfaced, sitting on her couch surrounded by take-out and bridal magazines, Annie mumbled the same thought that had passed through her head earlier that day.
Why did she text Oksana back?
That moment, that text, was the text that should have ended this part of their relationship. Annie should have brought them both back to reality, back to their respective roles as client and trainer, a professional relationship that was due to end in exactly two and a half months. Maybe a full three if Annie kept burying her sorrow and confusion in whole bottles of wine and Chinese food. Not to mention the Ben and Jerry’s she’d been hoarding for her next cheat day.
She scrolled through the list of electronic bits of forbidden lust. Lust was the right word. Not love. Only pathetic virgins and desperate teen boys fell in love with the person—or in this case, the unearthly angel of beauty and cardiovascular fitness—who’d popped their cherry. Annie was not in love, but she was certainly pathetic. So pathetic she was actually considering texting Oksana again. Why stop now, right?
Back and forth all day, through payroll, through Annie’s lunch break, the
Single Dads
scheduling meeting, and immediately after a brief call with her mom. Annie assumed between Oksana’s other training sessions, they couldn’t seem to stop with the texting. Oksana’s nightly dinner with her grandmother and her little sister was the only reason they weren’t swapping messages now.
Oksana had only mentioned her small family of three a few times before. Like a good trainer, she kept most of their conversations focused on Annie, but that hadn’t stopped Annie from wondering every now and then what the grandmother and the kid sister were like.
The image flooded Annie’s mind—the sweet, understanding old woman who loved Oksana for exactly who she was, tattoos and all. And the adorable little sister, fourteen years old or so, perked up in her chair, passing dinner rolls to Oksana as she gleefully recounted her day at school. It wasn’t middle America perfect, but it was Oksana perfect, and Annie realized that she was fucking crazy for dreaming up Oksana’s personal life and even crazier for maybe, a little bit, wanting to be a part of it.
Annie squinted at the lilac polish on her ring finger and the diamond below then shook her head trying to blur the thoughts away.
Jeff. Jeff was the focus. His rugged good looks. His adorable hipster flare. His gorgeous brown eyes and sweet smile. Jeff had tattoos too. Sexy tattoos that Annie loved. She knew what each one stood for. The Joker on his shoulder showed his dedication to his favorite DC villain. The orchid on his chest was in honor of his late aunt, and the enormous dragon on his back was a commissioned piece from his favorite local artist. Some of the other smaller pieces on his arms and legs were a little silly to Annie, like the Road Runner on his calf (his best friend sported Wile E. Coyote on the other leg.) Okay, the Road Runner was really stupid and kind of unattractive, but it suited the whole Jeff package. A package Annie would love unconditionally until death do them part.
Oksana’s tattoos were similar in a way. All tattoos were. Annie didn’t have any, but she thought maybe one day she would get one, if she could find some symbol to commit to for life. One like Oksana’s that mixed with her femininity. Oksana was definitely femme.
Annie paused for a moment. Femme was the right word. Or was it lipstick lesbian? It didn’t matter for this particular conversation, but except for her shaved head, Oksana had a very feminine, almost dainty air about her. That femininity made her hard-edged tattoos that much more intriguing.
The large Cyrillic letters (Annie had looked that up as soon as she got to work) that ran up Oksana’s left side, the cutout of the heart on her hard bicep that followed a dashed trail over her armpit then over the curve of her breast and stopped at its exact match, right above her heart. The heart didn’t have the typical bulbous curves or the anatomical structure of some of the heart tattoos Annie had seen before. It was all hard lines. Two boxes at the top converging at a pointed base.
See,
Annie wasn’t that drunk. “Converging” was still part of her vocabulary. She still had her words. There were sunflowers too, in gray and black, and that really cool birch bark that blended into her skin on her right side. More words, more pictures, two silhouettes of grizzly bears on either wrist, and the inner workings of a clock, but the heart had intrigued her the most. She never got a chance to ask about it. Her mouth had always been full of some part of Oksana, blocked by her own screams of pleasure. Oh, it had been one perfect night for sure, but not enough to wipe out the lifetime she had planned with Jeff.
Annie rolled her head off the back of the couch and eyed the clock on the DVR box.
A lifetime is a
long
time
.
“Ugh!” Annie groaned, pounding the sofa with her fist. “Anne. Please get your shit together. You are marrying Jeff. You are marrying Jeff. You
love
Jeff.”
In twelve weeks, she would be walking down the aisle toward an amazing guy. They hadn’t exactly discussed it yet, but eventually they would have their own cute kids. No doubt much cuter than any Oksana-related little sister. Jeff wasn’t much for sentiment or sit-down dinners, but he would make an excellent father. An excellent father and an excellent husband. Twelve weeks and Annie would have her happily ever after.
And in the meantime…
Annie glared at her phone. In the meantime, Annie would become an alcoholic. Or find a new trainer. Yeah, the new trainer thing was a great idea. A guy trainer. An ugly guy trainer with an ugly face and a killer body. A gay guy trainer with a really ugly face that Annie would never, ever considering sleeping with whether she had an agreed upon ho pass from Jeff or not. That would solve all her problems. New trainer, never see Oksana again, never have to look at her beautiful supple mouth again. Work off all this take-out and the seven thousand calories of wine, keep it off, then marry Jeff.
“You’re a genius, Anne,” she slurred cheerfully, holding her glass up in the air.
A moment later, her cell phone vibrated in her other hand. Annie closed her eyes and prayed this spiraling nightmare would just end already.
“Please be Megan. Please be Megan.” She opened one eye, then the other, and calmly set her wine glass down on the table. Then she looked down at her phone.
It wasn’t Megan.
I have to call it an early night. Sweet dreams.
Annie could almost hear Oksana breathing the words.
“Sweet dreams, my ass,” Annie grumbled, sneering at her phone.
That’s when it dawned on her. This was a test. A test from the matrimony gods. She worked in television, and movies before that, and not once had she given in to random advances from crew guys and grabby producers, not even the cute ones, because she had Jeff. No other guy compared to him in her eyes. But Oksana presented something new and fresh. Unexpected. Oksana was different, her body a different kind of temptation. Oksana had boobs and killer legs. If Annie could sleep with someone like Oksana, if she could let Oksana kiss her, let her soft hands explore every inch of her body, she could surely turn the other cheek, figuratively of course, and walk right into a peaceful, long marriage.
If she could never think about Oksana’s body again…Oksana’s breasts, soft and perky, the right size to fit in Annie’s palms with those mouthwatering piercings, were nowhere near enough to make her want to leave Jeff. No way. No fucking way. It was sex. That was it. Annie was bisexual, yes, but she had made her choice, and one night was not enough to make her all the way gay, and it surely was not enough to make her have a single second thought about being with Jeff.
The oral sex they shared on the bed. The brutally kinky finger fucking she’d delivered to Oksana on that shockingly sturdy desk was no match for what Jeff could do with his cock. Jesus Christ, the way Oksana tasted. How wet she got when Annie—
Shit
. She’d done it now.
Annie slid down into the cushions, cupping herself pathetically through her jeans. She wanted back in that hotel room. She wanted Oksana back between her thighs.
She was drunk and horny and this had to stop. For now, she’d fuck herself into oblivion—another big word she was proud to remember—exorcise the demon out of her pants, then for the next few weeks she’d abstain from any sexual thoughts, focus on work, and what parts of her wedding Megan and her mother would let her touch. And then she’d let Jeff fuck her back to sanity the minute he walked through the door. Three and a half weeks from now.
Annie sat up and chucked her phone across the couch. It skidded across the cushions, bounced off the armrest and skipped to the pink shag carpet under her coffee table. It could stay there. She’d charge it in the morning. No way that evil mobile device of temptation was following her into the bedroom. She corked the wine on the third try and grabbed her glass. She only tripped twice on her way to the kitchen, managed only to spill a few drops down her chin as she finished what she had already poured out. So what if the glass broke in the sink.
She made it to her room without any major incidents. The socks came off and then the jeans and her shirt and bra. Annie collapsed on her bed and worked her fingers into her underwear. She was wet. Absolutely no surprise there. She brought Jeff into her mind, his messy brown hair between her legs as she fingered her clit with one hand and fucked her pussy with the other. It only took fifteen seconds before those thick, dark locks were replaced by a soft bald head, those dark brown eyes suddenly green. All traces of a five o’clock shadow banished to the back of her mind for smooth cheeks and full, pink lips that flashed open to a teasing smile.