Mrs. Fletcher(81)

“Not very PC, though,” he said. “I know I’m not supposed to laugh at Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, but damn. Funny is funny, right?”

“Absolutely,” I said, and we clinked our bottles.

Jason was one of the few guys at the party with a paper heart pinned to his chest. His said, Somebody Loves Me! He tapped it with two fingers.

“All right,” he said. “Gotta get back to my girl before somebody steals her.”

After that I danced with Devlin’s friend Addison, whose heart said, Make Me an Offer. I hadn’t been out on the dance floor since my date with Amber, and it felt really good to be moving in the dark, getting all sweaty and goofy with a bunch of cool people I’d just met. It was almost like I was back in college, except that it was a better college than BSU, and I was a better person, too, a thoughtful guy with interesting opinions and a solid plan for the future.

*

I’d only had two beers, so I wasn’t close to drunk, but I did need to find a bathroom. Addison told me it was down the hall, just past the den.

I got a little distracted on my way. It was a long hallway, and the walls were lined with photographs of Devlin and her little brother and her mom and dad, a good-looking family who seemed to live their lives near water—beaches, lakes, swimming pools, fountains—and were always laughing about something when the picture got taken.

The first room I stuck my head into was a home office, and the second had a yoga mat on the floor, along with a big red exercise ball. I found the den on the third try—bookshelves, fireplace, leather chairs.

“Sorry,” I said, because there was also a couch, and it was occupied by Jason and the girl he was making out with. They were going at it pretty good, and my arrival had startled them. “I was just trying to . . .”

“Trying to what?” Jason said, after an awkward moment of silence.

I didn’t answer. I was staring at the girl. She was staring right back, looking just as confused as I was.

“Becca?” I said. “What are you doing here?”

*

Eve closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh, the way she always did before she started watching porn. It was somewhere between an admission of defeat and an attempt to clear her head, to create a mental space free of judgment and open to erotic suggestion.

She had cut way down on her porn consumption in the past few months—that was one upside of Brendan’s return—but she still found herself visiting the Milfateria from time to time, usually on nights like this when she was bored and lonely and looking for something to cheer her up, or at least distract her for a little while.

I deserve some pleasure, too, she reminded herself, which wouldn’t have been such a terrible status update—not to mention an epitaph on her fucking tombstone—if only she’d had the courage to post it.

She didn’t think Brendan would be home anytime soon, but she went upstairs and latched the bedroom door behind her, just in case. Then she took off her jeans, got into bed, and started searching, clicking on any thumbnail that caught her eye.

In the Milfateria, at least, no one knew it was Valentine’s Day. The people in the porn videos just did what they did, all day, every day, with boundless energy and unflagging enthusiasm, regardless of the calendar. They fucked on Christmas; they fucked on Earth Day and the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving; their fucking was not affected in the least by wars or terrorist attacks or natural disasters. They never got sick, never got tired, never got old. Some of them were probably dead, Eve realized, not that she’d have any way of knowing which ones. But here they were on her screen, going at it with abandon, having the time of their lives.

Good for you, she thought. Keep on doing what you’re doing.

She was happy for them, but she wasn’t especially aroused, which was not an uncommon occurrence in recent weeks. She just didn’t know what she wanted anymore. The lesbian MILF stuff made her nervous, and she hadn’t been able to find a new category to take its place. Some items on the menu seemed a little too familiar, while others were waaaay too specific. Usually she ended up sampling the Homemade MILFs, ordinary women having fairly straightforward sex, mostly with their husbands, if you could believe the brief descriptions that accompanied the videos.

The problem was, Eve had become a lot more interested in the women than she was in the sex. She kept trying to figure out who they were, and how they’d ended up on her laptop. Had they volunteered, or had their partners pressured them? Did it occur to them that their kids might someday watch the video? Their parents? Their neighbors and co-workers? Were they in denial, or did they simply not care? Or maybe they were proud, like they were finally getting a chance to show the world their best selves.

She must have clicked on twenty different videos, looking for something that would get her out of her head and into her body, but nothing worked. It was sad to fail at masturbation—again, no one to blame but herself—but at least it was better than failing with a partner. You didn’t have to fake anything, or apologize, or offer comfort, or pretend it was no big deal. You could just close your computer, shake your head, and call it a night.

*

I tried to find Chris before I left the party, but someone told me he’d gone upstairs with Devlin. I figured he was all set, so I headed to the mudroom to grab my coat. That was where Becca caught up with me.

“I’m sorry, Brendan.” She was standing in the doorway, looking like her usual put-together self—all her buttons buttoned, every hair in place—which was not how she’d looked in the den. “I should have told you.”