The Muffia Read online

  As I entered the Soup, a startlingly good-looking man with dark brown hair, light stubble and the deliberately casual, frumpy style of dress I’ve always liked in a man, passed me on his way out. He just walked right by me, making me feel as inconsequential as FOD, which is airport lingo for “foreign object debris.” You’ve seen the stuff. It’s all the bits of lint and crud that collects around baggage carousels, which can often be seen tumbling over the linoleum but which most people never notice as they hustle their bags to the curb. Were my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt so last season I didn't even merit a glance?

  I knew my libido was low but my self-esteem was even lower. I felt like I hadn’t even registered to this guy as a person. Was he gay? How could he ignore me so egregiously? If I’d been a guy, I'd probably tell myself that a member of the opposite sex failing to acknowledge my presence must be gay. Herein lies a fundamental distinction between men (the heterosexual kind) and women, according to me: women can admit failure and men like to put a spin on things so their self-image doesn’t take a hit.

  Now, I absolutely do not have a problem with gay men. My problem, if it’s a problem at all, is that I really like gay men. I’ve had a few crushes on gay men, in fact, which, duh, never end well. Gay men are generally sensitive and caring; they usually have some aesthetic sense (or at least an awareness that style matters) and they aren’t averse to housework. In most of the ways that matter, a gay man is the perfect life partner for a woman who prefers brunch with friends and shopping or a movie to NASCAR and the Final Four. If such a woman, say me, were to become half a couple with such a man, the only issue would be for both parties to find outside penises to play with that aren’t attached to men, or god forbid, the same man who might disrupt the relationship I was having with my gay partner. On second thought, it’s too complicated.

  It’s very sad that women don't arouse, in gay men, the kind of love and passion we crave. How could we? They’re gay. As far as I’m concerned, the only trouble with gay men is that homosexuality shrinks the field of eligible partners.

  Let it go, I said to myself as I moved further into the Soup, shaking free of my intellectual response to the handsome déshabillé of the sexy stranger. What was left in its place was a slight tingling at the top of my thighs, which I took as a good omen for the Cliterati and finding our next book.

  “Justine felt her vulva opening and closing, throbbing in anticipation. She was not a virgin—far from it—but she’d not had a worthy lover in months. So when Antonio began to unbutton her blouse, cupping her breast in his strong swimmer’s hand, her body began to respond without hesitation, her skin pulsing with electricity. She felt a moistness between her legs and every time his fingertips graced her forearm, her ankle, her neck—she groaned—not only for the pleasure she was experiencing as he touched her, but for those pleasures she knew would come. She’d imagined a lover like this, patient, sensual, and of unquestionable beauty; but to have finally found him in Antonio, a man ten years younger than she, was beyond her wildest fantasies. Justine’s hands drifted slowly, sensually down his back, over his muscular frame and taut skin, still moist from the swim from which she’d disturbed him. He inhaled suddenly, closing his eyes. Then, with more purpose, his hand reached down, finding the hem of her dress, and lifting it gently, he slid his warm palm up her thigh to her buttocks, which he held tightly in his grasp, pulling her body against his sex.

  ‘I want you,’ he said—

  ‘Take me,’ Justine murmured. ‘Please, I can’t’—”

  “Are you finding what you’re looking for?”

  I looked up to find a man staring down at me as I sat slack-jawed and cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the Soup. It took me a few seconds to get Antonio out of my head and focus on the man looking at me, a few seconds before I realized he was the guy I’d seen earlier—the good-looking one who’d treated me like I was FOD. He’d come back. Maybe he wasn’t gay. Maybe he was just metrosexual, whatever that was. Or maybe he worked here, in which case he’d know what I was reading—I mean, really know. He wouldn’t be fooled by the fact that I’d carried the books over to the children’s section in an effort to avoid detection. I quickly closed the book, and lay it face down in my lap.

  It was then that I noticed that the tingling I’d felt earlier at the top of my thighs had turned to flat out creaming. My vulva was throbbing, just like I imagined Justine’s must have been, and I was glad I’d covered it because I was pretty sure the throbbing was noticeable through my jeans. This, in turn, caused my cheeks to flush and my breath to quicken even more. Only a blind person would fail to see what was going on with me.

  Over an hour had passed since I’d entered the store, and this man, who’d previously walked right by me, and who couldn’t have been older than thirty-four, now seemed to be looking at me with Bambi eyes, waiting for me to speak. Had I changed? Can one get over libido-loss so quickly? Was I giving off some kind of pheromones after my erotic read? I wasn’t completely sure what pheromones were or if I was emitting any but I liked the idea that I had some to which I could attribute the cute man’s return.

  “Yes, I am. Thank you,” I said, trying to appear nonplussed. But then feeling the need to elaborate. “See it’s my turn to pick the next book for my book club so I’m checking out a few things.”

  “In the children’s’ section.” One side of his mouth was lifting, which told me he wasn't buying it.

  “Well,” I proceeded confidently, “I found myself in the children’s section but I have books from several sections, actually. Don't worry. I’ll put them back.”

  “I’m not worried.” Now he was smiling at me. “That was a good one.” He was pointing to Justine in Paradise, still shielding my throbbing vulva. Clearly he must have been watching me for some time.

  “Oh? Well, I’m supposed to pick something sexy.” I casually tossed Justine into my shopping basket with the other titles whereupon I stood up so as to appear in control of the situation.

  He eyed my stash. So far I’d perused the classics, The Story of O (too much bondage) and 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed (needs 101?). Both had contributed nicely to getting my fantasy juices flowing but neither was quite right for the Muffia. Nor was Fifty Shades of Silly because, well, that book was so silly it didn’t even seem relevant to anyone over 24. “Oh My!” Says heroine Anastasia Steele about 300 times. That book did help me realize, however, that though my search continued it was no longer necessary for a book to possess artful syntax and word selection to make a girl feel horny.

  “Ah, that explains it,” he said, returning his gaze to my face. “Those are all good. I think I’ve read most of them, at one time or another, but it’s been years of course.”

  “Of course.” Weren’t these books for women? Maybe he was gay after all. But he seemed to be making a pass, though it had been so long I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize a pass unless it was labeled. My own flirting techniques were decidedly rusty.

  “So, are there any newer titles you can recommend?”

  “Sorry, but I’ve been into political non-fiction pretty exclusively for the past seven or eight years. If you wanted to get the latest take on religion in politics or swine flu as a means of mind control, I’m your man. But I think you’d be making a good choice with any one of those.”

  “I just thought you might have heard something, you know, since you work here.”

  “Actually, I don’t work here.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. Had he been watching me?

  “My name’s Steve.” He offered his hand.

  I took it. “Hi, Steve.”

  “I don’t want to appear too forward but would you like to get a cup of coffee?”

  Why was he paying attention to me now when I hadn’t existed before? Was it the books in my basket? Did it matter? I wondered if his fingertips would send electrical charges across my skin, what his hands would be like on my buttocks. Could he be my zipless fuck—an erotic encounter wi
th a stranger that renews a woman’s faith in the satisfaction of her abject lust?

  He gazed out at me through soulful brown eyes, his hair falling around his face most appealingly. I could feel his animal intensity boring into me, which alone probably could have made me come if I’d looked into those big browns long enough, but I broke contact when I found myself wondering what his penis looked like—beautiful to be sure, in the way penises are beautiful, except of course when one notices that they’re completely ridiculous.

  “Listen, Steve,” I heard myself say before I could change my mind, “I live way out in the valley and I’m a single mom. I don’t really think—much as I’d like to...”

  “Just coffee,” he said.

  “It sounds nice, really.” This was the truth. “But I have to get home to pick up my daughter and take her to ballet.” This was only partly true. I actually had hours before I needed to pick Lila up.

  The fact was I was terrified—he was a lot younger than I was. Maybe Justine would be all right with that kind of age difference but I was nervous about his seeing my naked aging body. I’d need to work out every day for a month first. Yes, I realize he was only asking me for coffee and I’d already made the leap to the bedroom, but what was he thinking? He must have gotten the wrong impression, surely— that I was a repressed housewife from Sherman Oaks who spent her lonely days and nights reading erotica and therefore be easy pickin’s.

  But, oh, those sleepy brown eyes! Did he want something, anything beyond the coffee? Did he imagine wild flights of sexual abandon? I recognize now this is exactly what I needed. I didn’t need any coffee. I needed to fuck this guy. And, after thinking about it, having a fling with Book Soup Steve might have kept me from ever going to Berggren’s dinner party. Steve and I might have been together that Saturday night having fantastic sex while Lila was safe at her dad’s or at a friend’s house. But of course, how could I have known that then, when I stood like an idiot in a bookstore holding a bunch of erotic books—mere surrogates for the real thing— talking to a gorgeous guy who I might have had a good time with if only I hadn’t been such an idiot.

  But once again, I get ahead of myself.

  Chapter 5

  Deliciously Disturbed and Distracted turned out to be the novel I chose for the next gathering of the Cliterati. Both finalists under consideration were sexy and well written so, in the end, unable to decide for myself on the merits, I’d tossed a coin. Deliciously Disturbed beat out The Opposite of Dead ten tosses to nine.

  As far as I could tell, Molly Wanamaker, Disturbed’s author, had selected her tasty title as a reference to what was going on inside her protagonist, though her clandestine rendezvous over miscellaneous delectable ethnic meals seemed to carry a plot of their own. The title might also have been a reference to the swath this unnamed thirty-five-year-old married woman, whom I called “Lucky Girl,” cut across New York City as she flitted from one lover to the next with seemingly zero negative repercussions. All that said, Deliciously Disturbed was beginning to cause disturbances of its own although, in the big scheme of things, it probably wouldn’t have mattered what book we read. The ices were melting, the seed had been sown, the lava was leaping and that horse was already out of the barn.

  I grew hornier with every page, more and more disturbed because I had no immediate way of satisfying the increasing lust I felt, generated by Lucky Girl and her paramours. I mean, duh, yes, there was always masturbation and I could have gone to a bar or a hotel lobby and scored with the first lonely traveling businessman I encountered but that wasn’t going to do it for me. Stupidly, I’d scuttled Book Soup Steve, who after the fact, in my head, I’d turned into a love-God rivaling Michelango’s David come to life.

  One chapter into the book, after Lucky Girl had enjoyed unimaginably great sex with a swarthy Italian type she’d noticed noticing her on the lat machine at Club Equinox—someone she referred to as “the Hit Man”—I decided to take action. Returning to Book Soup on another slow Tuesday I hoped to find Steve who might, once again, be hanging around, waiting for women perusing erotic books. I planned on taking him up on his offer this time, belated as it was—possibly making him an offer of my own, one he couldn’t and wouldn’t refuse. In my head I had a very precise idea of what “getting together” would look like. It wouldn’t exactly be zipless because he wasn’t technically a stranger. After all, he’d watched me cream my jeans while reading Justine in Paradise. He knew I had a daughter and lived in the Valley. But it would still be sudden, thrilling and… safe? Oh yeah, condoms. Shit. Well, somehow you get the condom on but that wasn’t part of my fantasy. I tried to look busy in Book Soup for three hours, going in and out of the Peet’s Coffee across the street a few times, but Steve didn’t show. I concluded that he must have found a more willing book-clubber to boff.

  It didn’t seem fair that Lucky Girl was having sex with three men whom she wanted to have sex with, including her husband, and I wasn’t getting any sex at all. Looking in the mirror, I couldn’t figure it out. Objectively speaking, I’m better looking and in better shape than a lot of women my age—women who have husbands who seem to adore them and who claim to share quality lovemaking at least twice a month. Of course I could also be going down that big river in Egypt.

  Either I'd never met my perfect mate or I’ve been too particular about what I’m looking for. Or perhaps it was those damned pheromones again—they didn't work. But most likely all three things were true.

  I’ve never been much of a bar hopper, even back in the day when a husband was what we were all looking for. At least I think that’s what we were doing. Now it’s as if I'm not sure I really want a husband—only a lover or two or three. I’m too old, at forty-two, to attract the eye of the type of man I have both an intellectual and visceral response to because that guy is usually looking for someone younger. There have been men I could have had—fifty-five and sixty-year-olds with well-established waistlines and an overdeveloped sense of entitlement—but I didn't find those guys attractive. There’d been no one I really wanted and I was getting desperate. My throbbing crotch was even starting to interfere when I conducted my alternate dispute resolutions.

  In one of my easier divorce cases, not too long ago, I became aware of an attraction I was feeling toward the man whose divorce I was mediating. He was very kind to his soon-to-be ex-wife, and that probably had something to do with it, but he also had a strong, masculine chin, petulant lips, and his shoulders filled out his beautifully tailored shirts as only a well-muscled, body-conscious male physique can do.

  He gave me the impression that he’d be able to toss me onto a bed and ravage me while still retaining enough energetic ardor for twenty more rounds. I felt an attraction issuing from him in return. But obviously, in order to conduct the mediation without the appearance of bias, I had to ignore—or, more specifically, repress—these feelings. It would be highly unethical for me to act on them—at least until the passage of a respectable time period after the marital settlement agreement had been filed.

  I was actually happy that I’d met someone other than Book Soup Steve whom I was attracted to because that had been a problem before: no one got me going except the shirtless teenage hotties in ads for male underwear and that was sort of frightening for a woman old enough to be the mother of one of them.

  In truth, I could only praise myself for acknowledging how I felt and commit myself to dealing with the situation: Madelyn needed to get laid. Not just a quick fuck but laid—the kind of can't walk, can't think straight, last-through-the-next-dry-spell kind of laid. (Dealing with myself and my problems in the third person always seems to make the situation crystal clear, as if I were dealing with someone else’s).

  It was about three weeks after I emailed the group to assign the book that I noticed a relative hush had come over the Clitterati—kind of like the lull in conversation when you’re out to dinner and people start eating, as if they’re too consumed with eating to talk. Was this the usual lull between Muff m
eetings? Or was something else going on? I wondered if Delightfully Disturbed and Distracted mightn’t have been causing disturbances—delicious or otherwise—in the lives of my fellow Clitties. I was about to start an email exchange when Lauren, just returning from her week away, beat me to it:

  [email protected]: Hey all...just back from Jamaica. After being peed on twice and thrown up on one humongous time on the plane, I couldn't be happier to be home. It was brutally hot and there were so many mosquitoes—all of which enjoyed making my family their favorite meal. Can someone please email me the name of the best small pocket battery-less vibrator I should be buying? Must order one online ASAP. And would possibly consider buying the one that Jelicka raved about with batteries. Please send brands and website. Love to all. xxxx - L

  PS—Juicy book choice, Maddie

  Hmmmm . . . vibrators. . . Lauren gets back from a sunny Jamaican vacation with her loving husband and two kids and upon her return immediately sends out a request for vibrator info? Seems to me like there’s a minor disturbance going on there.

  Lauren had been married to George Busch for seven years. His given names were actually Sebastian George and when he was growing up, long before the Texas Bushes invaded our consciousness, everyone had called him Georgie. It was unfortunate when Bush II came around, that Lauren, a lifelong Democrat, found herself having to endure the ribbing that came with being George and Lauren Busch—can’t help whom you fall in love with, I guess. She made an all-out effort to get people to call him Sebastian, or ’Bastian, a name she’d loved ever since developing a crush on Anthony Andrews while watching her mother’s stash of Brideshead Revisited videos, but just like me trying to get people to call me Madelyn, it didn’t stick.