Other People's Houses(50)
“I’ll help you if I can, Anne,” she said, reaching across the table for her friend’s hand. “But I don’t know what I can do.” She paused, treading carefully. “Were there problems between you two before?”
“Before?”
“Before you started the affair?”
Anne looked out of the window, noticing how untidy Frances’s backyard was, wondering why Frances had no standards at all. “No, things were fine. Just the same as ever. Richard just made me feel young again.” She turned to Frances suddenly, her face flushing. “You know that feeling you had when you were twenty-two and you met someone and fell in lust and spent days and days in bed, fucking and talking and laughing and fucking and it felt like there was only the two of you? It was like nothing I’d experienced for years. It was wonderful.”
Anne laid her head on the table and cried, her fingers curling around Frances’s. OK, thought Frances, well, this I can do. She squeezed Anne’s hand and sat there thinking about what her friend had said and how scared she suddenly was that her husband felt that way about someone else.
* * *
? ? ?
The store was called Please Come Again, and it was on Hollywood and Western. Frances had driven past it a thousand times, idly reading the list of offerings: bedroom toys, massage lotions, DVDs, fun bedroom wear. Every single time she read the list she’d gotten an image of her husband on a scooter, naked, rolling gleefully across the bedroom with a jester hat on his head. She’d never seen this in real life, of course, but the combination of the words toys and fun bedroom wear met up in this way in her imagination. Clearly her imagination was nine-tenths of the problem.
The lady inside the store was a middle-aged Latina with a friendly face and a surprisingly vanilla approach to sex. She liked it straight down the middle, missionary, with her husband and no one else, no need for anything more exotic than an extra Dos Equis on Friday nights. However, there was nothing she hadn’t heard or seen in her twelve years in the store, and as she saw Frances walk in she knew she could sell her a vibrator, a self-warming massage oil, and maybe, just maybe, a pair of fur-lined handcuffs. She further knew that Frances would maybe use the vibrator once or twice, the self-warming oil the next time she had a sore neck, and the fur-lined handcuffs never. Then she would ignore them in her bedside table for a year or two until she suddenly realized the kids could find them and would struggle to think of a way to dispose of them without scaring the cleaning lady. She’d put it all in a paper bag and drop it in a trash can on the high street somewhere, thinking as she did so of the surprise of the next homeless person who’d hoped for a half-eaten sandwich but ended up with so much more. But all this was in the future. Araceli was ready to focus on today.
“Good morning, how can I help you have better sex today?”
Frances was unable to stop a nervous giggle. “Does it have to be today?”
Araceli nodded and smiled a smile that suggested they were talking about knitting, rather than sex. “It should be every day.”
“Really?” Frances felt tired suddenly.
Araceli nodded. “It is like any form of exercise: A little each day is better than a lot once a week.” She turned her attention to the cabinet she was resting on. “Can I show you some toys? A vibrator, perhaps? Pleasuring yourself is the first best step to pleasuring someone else.”
Frances nearly bolted right then. The word pleasuring always made her laugh, she wasn’t really sure why. “Uh. I guess so. Nothing too . . .” She stepped forward and looked through the glass lid. “. . . extreme.” There were things in the cabinet she could only hazard a guess at. Basic penis-shaped things she recognized, but there were also things with multiple ends and extra flaps and ribbed surfaces and bobbled surfaces and movable parts that would surely increase the risk of embarrassing hospital visits? (Well, I was walking along and I fell on it . . . Yes, in a seated position, Doctor.)
“How about this one? It’s very popular.” Araceli held up a seven-inch silver bullet–looking vibrator, shiny and smooth.
“It looks a little high tech for me.” She also knew someone small would be using it as a lightsaber within two seconds of finding it, God forbid. Shit, where was she going to keep all this stuff?
Araceli reached for another. “This one is maybe more familiar.” It was basically a realistic looking penis. Araceli turned it on, and it hummed in a friendly way. Frances nodded, feeling she could get her head around that one. So to speak.
She looked over at a rack of lingerie, and Araceli followed her gaze. Without the other woman noticing she quickly scanned her figure, gauging what she had to work with, and stepped out from behind the counter. “Are you interested in something sexy to wear? We have many lovely things.”
Frances could see nothing but string on hangers, but she gamely went with Araceli to take a look. Black and red featured prominently, although animal skin was also a common motif. She thought about the nature documentaries she’d seen, and got sidetracked by images of baby pandas. Maybe she’d forgotten how to be sexy. She had been sexy, as a younger woman, sexy and free and uninhibited. She’d had many lovers before Michael, and felt pretty good and liberated about the whole thing. But she’d also felt anxious and slightly crazy and out of control, and the safety and warmth of her relationship with Michael had felt like a safe harbor, not a dry dock. And then came the kids. Adorable little passion killers, each and every one.