Very Truly Sexy

“More than that, sweetie.”

Beth clicked off the recorder, dismayed by the challenge she faced. She had to go from easy-breezy entertainment writer to nitty-gritty sex columnist practically overnight. Well, by the next magazine deadline anyway. She wasn’t that experienced at having sex, let alone writing about it. That was where her sexually accomplished friend Sara came in. If she would only cooperate.

“I’ll make it work, don’t worry,” Beth said firmly. She would not let her readers down. She cherished her “On the Town” column, where, as her alter ego, E.M. “Em” Samuels, she scoped out entertainment venues, analyzing every nuance with as fresh a wit and focus on detail as she could manage. The column was her window on the world and it made her feel valuable and very alive. The money mattered, too, but not as much as the joy of the work.

“So, about Rick and that first time,” she said, resituating herself, making Spud groan in his sleep. She snapped on the recorder again. “Was it on your first date? Why or why not? Did he suggest it, or you? Did you make out at length or did it just happen?”

“You mean, did clothes whip away, condoms appear and bodies magically meld?” Sara smiled. She’d told Beth more than once she was too dreamy about these things. “Sex doesn’t have to be pretty to be good.” She dipped an Oreo into the Grand Marnier frappé Beth had concocted as part of the evening’s refreshments, then gestured with it. “People jiggle and wobble.”

Beth lunged forward with a napkin to catch Sara’s flying drips.

“Zippers snag,” Sara continued. “Condoms fly across the bed. Bodies squeak and thrusts get off-tempo. But if you have the right attitude, everybody has a good time.” She pushed the soggy snack into her mouth with a triumphant finger.

The drip danger gone, Beth relaxed against the sofa. “I just don’t like the awkward parts.”

“What you didn’t like was sex with Blaine.”

“Our sex was okay.”

“Okay and sex should never be in the same sentence.”

Sara hadn’t made a secret of disliking Blaine, though an I-told-you-so had never crossed her lips. Sara was fiercely opinionated, but a loyal friend.

“You have to take a different approach, Bethie, if you’re going to make this work. Less lace, limos and gimlets and more ‘Ten Tips for Better Blow Jobs.’”

“I’m not writing for Cosmo,” she said, distress shooting through her. “It’s still Phoenix Rising magazine. I’m just going to spice up the entertainment reviews with a little sex.”

Though that wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. Or as easy as her managing editor, Will Connell, thought it would be. Just take your notepad in for the post-date entertainment, he’d said to reassure her. What’s the problem?

The problem was that, for her, there was no post-date entertainment, though she wouldn’t share that fact with Will, who treated her like a treasured niece. She was as likely to take Sara with her to scope out new bars, restaurants and clubs, as to take a man. She hadn’t actually had a date since Blaine left, nearly a year ago. Maybe she was still recovering. Or maybe dating just seemed like too much trouble.

Sara tried to set her up from time to time, but Beth preferred cocooning in her cozy house with her pets, watching Doris Day-Rock Hudson romps while munching on low-fat caramel rice cakes and diet cream soda—low-cal snacks so she could afford an occasional cookie-frappé splurge with Sara.

But now Phoenix Rising was about to be gobbled up by a magazine conglomerate and Will was trying to save as many sections, columns and jobs as he could, including her own, God bless him.

“So pick up a guy and write about your own first time,” Sara said, twisting a cookie apart to scrape the frosting off with her teeth. “Pop a toothbrush and some Trojans into your clutch, hit a singles’ spot and—poof—a sex column.”

“That’s you, not me,” she said, absently running her fingers through the silky fringe of a throw pillow, vaguely soothed by the tickling sensation.

“Maybe that’s not sweet, shy Beth, but it sure as hell could be hip cosmopolite Em.”

“I think I’ll stick with my very own personal sex-pert—you. Just help me through this rough patch, Sara.”

“And you think it’s going to smooth out?”

“I can only hope.” We’re in a reality TV world, Em, Will had said. Readers are bored with their own lives, so everyone else’s fascinate them. And nothing was more fascinating than sex. She sighed.

“Okay,” Sara conceded, evidently reading her gloom. “I still say you need the adventure, but I’ll tell you about the first time with Rick if it’ll help you.”

“Start with the highlights, please.” Boomer, her St. Bernard, lifted his chin from the floor, as if interested in the scoop, and Ditzy, her teacup poodle, jumped onto Sara’s lap.

“Is this animal story time?” Sara asked. She glanced up at the archway into the kitchen. “Even your cats are listening in.”

Beth glanced up at her black-and-white spotted cats, Frick and Frack—watching closely from their favorite perch—then at Sara. “At least cover Ditzy’s ears. I think she’s still a virgin.”

“Listen and learn, furball,” Sara said to the dog curled in her lap, then shifted her attention to Beth. “Okay, the highlights. First off, Rick has the most amazing tongue. He did this swirly thing in my ear, and then below, where it counts, and, let me tell you, I thought I was having an out-of-body experience and a vision quest—where an animal guide tells you the meaning of your life, right?—in one big whammo.”

Beth swallowed. “Um, that’s impressive.” The tops of her ears burned and she felt funny listening to something so intimate, but it had to be done. To distract herself, she scooped a dab of whipped cream from the cookie plate onto a finger, then let it drizzle sweetly down her throat.

“Impressive? It was mind-altering, mind-boggling, mind-melding—all that and more. After I stopped hyperventilating, I returned the favor, doing my very best work….”

Beth took careful notes while Sara described what her best work entailed, uncomfortable with the way her body began to feel like a marshmallow over a low flame—toasty warm on the outside and all melted on the inside.

A little bit later, Sara finished describing her second orgasm and paused for air. They both took big gulps of the orange-flavored frappé, thinking over the story. The drink was supposed to be research for the column Beth had planned on froufrou drinks. But now that her focus had to be sex, the cocktail review would be merely a sidebar.

“Great detail, Sara,” she said. “But let me ask a few general questions. Do you always carry condoms with you in case the man isn’t equipped?”

“Absolutely. Safer sex is everybody’s job.”

“But doesn’t that make it seem calculating? Have condoms, will have sex? Doesn’t it take away the excitement?”

“No more than having a fire extinguisher suggests you’re planning a kitchen fire. It’s a precaution. It’s being prepared. Weren’t you a Girl Scout?”

“That makes sense, I guess. Next question—what makes you decide to sleep with a guy?”

“Lots of things. If he makes me laugh…if he’s a good dancer…if he looks good…if he seems sweet. With Rick, it was his body temperature. He was so warm, I just knew he’d be sensual in the sack.”

“You slept with him because of his metabolic rate?”

Sara shrugged. “It’s just sex, Beth, not the meaning of life.”

“It’s never that simple for me.”

“That’s because you angst over it instead of just letting it happen.”

“Men don’t react to me like they do to you.”

“If you’d wear something hotter than a jumper, take your hair out of a braid and not look so serious all the time, you’d have better luck.”

“You mean, if I were a different person. I’ll settle for pretending to be you for a while. Plus I picked up some books.”

“You’re reading about sex? Jeez, Beth.”

“What can I say? That’s me.”

“You underestimate yourself. You’re a sensual person. Look at you in your silk pajamas.”

Beth rubbed the smooth, cool fabric that covered her legs. “Yeah? So?”