Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Anyone

Anyone

“As tempting as your offer sounds,” Lou said, “it wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do.”

“Who cares about being nice at this point?”

“What happened between the two of you, anyway?”

“Never mind that.” I took the glass out of her hand and quietly put it on the table. I didn’t want to wake Katy. I was going to do that just before I walked out with Lou. “And if, as you told me, it’s just about sex, then it should hardly matter who ends up in your bed.” My fingers travelled to her upper thigh. In the couch across from us Katy stirred and, accompanied by one loud snore, turned on her back.

“Be that as it may,” Lou said, while intertwining her fingers with mine. “I do what I do to avoid drama, not to land smack in the middle of it.” The touch of her hand made me dizzy. It could’ve also been the alcohol.

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you got your hands on Katy.”

“I’m sorry about that. I had no idea.”

“It’s hardly your fault. Katy, on the other hand, has quite the knack for sussing out who to sleep with to upset me most.”

“I’m not sure she knew though−”

“Oh, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she knew.”

“Then what happened?” Roz asked, the street light coming in through the window getting stuck in her blond hair.

“She said no.” I had spent my entire Sunday debating whether to tell Roz about the party. I only did because I hoped that she could somehow turn it around and make me feel better about it. “And I went home alone.”

“Looks like you all did.”

“I’m not very prone to happy endings.”

“Sometimes you have to focus on the things you didn’t do. You didn’t run to Claire. You could’ve even gone to Lucy. Rejection can make us act funny at times.” Roz’s voice was so low-pitched and decisive. It sounded so true when she said it. ”Was that the only reason you wanted to sleep with Lou? To snatch her away from under Katy’s nose?” Hearing it spelled out like that made it all seem like such a bad soap opera. I smiled apologetically.

“Good grief, I must give lesbians such a bad name. We’re not all like this, you know. In fact, most of us−”

“Try to answer the question, please.” She peered over her glasses again, for the millionth time that session, her eyes bold and blue, blistering my skin. I shuffled in my seat to hide my discomfort but she was the therapist, she read body language for a living. She must have known.

“No. I wanted to sleep with Lou again from the minute I walked out of her door.”

“That good eh?” Roz winked, supposedly to break the tension, but it made me feel even more uncomfortable. “Do you have feelings for her?”

“I don’t know, and if I did, it wouldn’t matter.” Then she looked at the clock behind my head and gently touched the watch around her wrist. Time was up. Another week of pining stretched out in front of me. Lou, Roz, Claire, they all merged together into one cocktail of unrequited desire in my heart. It was time to change things up again.

“I think I’m through with abstinence,” I told Nathalie. We had just put Leo to bed, my new after-therapy Monday night ritual, and sipped wine at the kitchen table.

“Do you have anyone in particular in mind to celebrate your return to the sins of the flesh with?” Nathalie wasn’t used to drinking anymore. One glass and she turned all giddy and lyrical.

“Oh Nat, that really is not the right question to ask,” I said. “The state I’m in right now, I would sleep with anyone.”

To be continued…