Friends With Multiple Benefits (22 page)

"Ed, are you sure you don't want anything?" Victoria asked.

"No, thank you."

"I could have told you that," Beverly grumbled.

"What are you saying, Beverly?" Victoria asked.

"He doesn't want anything."

"Please don't start." Edward sighed.

"What doesn't he want?" Victoria asked with concern.

"Sex with me."

"Beverly, please this isn't the time."

"When is the time, Ed?" She wiped away a tear. "You tell me when the right time is?"

Victoria put her hand on top of Beverly's arm. "What's going on with you two?"

"We… we haven't been intimate for more than a year." Beverly gazed into her mug and sniffled.

"Um, well…" Victoria looked to
Ed,
who was sitting there frowning with his hands folded. "Is this true?"

"No offense, but I don't want to talk about personal issues like this."

"Why not?" Beverly began. "She
is
a therapist."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Some things just should not be discussed. Personal things."

Beverly took a sip of her tea. "Ever since the leader of our church was arrested for fraud, he hasn't touched me."

"What?"

"Yes, we belonged to this church…" She shuddered. "We just fell into it really. We had these neighbors and they got us to go. The church had these strange rituals and required that we give them lots of our money."

"I see."

"While we were in the
church
we had an active sex life, but it all just stopped."

Victoria asked, "How long were you members of the church?"

"About four years."

"And before that, how was
sex
between you."

"Um…" Beverly looked her in the eye then paused to gaze at the ceiling. "Well, it wasn't like this."

"Okay." Victoria sipped her tea then turned her attention to Edward. "Ed, can you tell me what you're feeling right now?"

He returned a sour look.

"Ed," Victoria began. "I can't help unless you open up."

He curled his lip and shook his head.

Beverly said, "He claims that he's just not interested in sex anymore. But… but I caught him…"

Suddenly, Jim walked through the back door carrying his sleeping daughter the moment his mother added, "Ask him why he's masturbating when he won't touch me."

Jim stopped in his tracks.

"Ask him?"

"No, please don't ask him," Jim pleaded.

Victoria shot her husband a disappointed look.

"Hi, Dad." Jim gave his wife a pointed look. "I'm going to put her down. Victoria, could you please help me?"

"I'm in the middle of something."

"I really need to see you right now," Jim said.

After dropping Kaylie off in her room, Jim grabbed his wife's hand, led her into the bathroom, and closed the door. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to help them. Obviously, they are hurting."

"She's telling you about my father's masturbation schedule?" His eyes bugged out of his head.

"Look, they haven't had sex in more than a year and—"

"I don't want to hear this." He covered his ears.

"You're being
a baby."

"Look…" He put his finger in the air to quiet her for a moment. "Hold on." He opened the door, gazed out to
the empty
hall, then closed it. "I never told you this, but right before I met you, Jillian and I were locked in a closet outside of their
sex room,
and we overheard them, them…" he
cringed, "…
doing it."

"Oh, what kind of sex room?" She perked up.

"Never mind that."

"What the hell were you doing locked in a closet with Jillian?" She held back a laugh.

"And that's not important right now either. What is important is that they are into some freaky shit."

"Like what?" She folded her arms and frowned.

"They had this sex toy head harness thing and they are in this freaky church and praying to this higher power before they, um, um,
fornicated
. I mean, who uses the word fornicate anymore?"

"Well, they left the church."

"Good."

"And they stopped having sex."

"Even better." He scoffed.

"I think your mother came here looking for my help." She put her hand on his shoulder. "I think she hoped your father would follow her here and he has."

"Please don't get involved with this."

"Helping people is what I do."

He sighed. "Can't you just refer them to someone else?"

"Let me do this for them," she pleaded. "I want to."

Closing his eyes, he let out a long, slow breath. "I'm begging you. Some couples should not have sex and they are one of them."

"Every couple should have sex."

"And you call yourself a therapist." Gazing at her scowling, he shook his head.

She folded her arms. "I'm helping them and you cannot stop me."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Just don't tell me anything about it and for the love of God, if you watch them doing it in your little sex viewing room, I swear I'm moving out."

"I promise I won't watch them." She stepped to him and put her hands around his neck. "Look, it will be fine. Just relax."

"You don't know what it was like growing up with them. It's a wonder I wasn't scarred for life."

"You seem fine to me." She kissed him on the lips. "Now, go out there and say a proper hello to your father."

After a rough couple nights of sleep due to twin overexcitement, Brian was exhausted. It was his first day working again with Amanda Jo at the tennis club and he was dragging. After reaching the court early, he warmed up a bit then relaxed on the bench. The
back court
was sealed off and Miss Joseph snuck in through the side entrance wearing a sweat suit,
sunglasses,
and a baseball cap. She discovered Brian asleep on the bench near the net and she walked up to him smiling and shaking her head. "Brian?"

He didn't move so she repeated his name and still no response. She tapped him on the shoulder and startled him. His eyes opened and he ran his hand over his face. "Sorry, I, um—"

"I take it being a new parent is exhausting."

"Like you wouldn't believe." He rose to his feet and took a deep breath forcing his eyes open wide. "Hey, Amanda."

"It's good to see you."

"How've you been?"

"Good." She dropped her bag and gave him a hug.

"So, have you been playing much?"

"Not as much as I'd like. Since the
wedding,
I've been crazy busy."

"That's right." He smiled. "Jillian told me you and Jared were getting married."

"We had the ceremony in Italy."

"Italy, wow."

"It was beautiful."

"Congratulations."

"Thank you." She unzipped her sweat jacket and exposed just about the smallest, tightest, white T-shirt Brian had ever seen. Her abundant cleavage was on full display and he had to tear his gaze away from her.

"And how is the baby?" Her eyes brightened. "Wait, you had twins, right?"

"Yes, boys,
Dylan
and Griffin."

"Those are great names."

"Thank you."

"How's Jillian holding up?" She pushed her sweatpants down exposing an equally short skirt.

"Um, she's good. Didn't you meet with her last week?"

"No. I think I was on the west coast that day."

"Well, she's busy, but hanging in there."

She sat on the bench and pulled her foot up to tie her shoe. While taking a sip from a water bottle, Brian glanced down and his eyes bugged out of his head when he could clearly see she was not wearing underwear. Her tiny landing strip was visible above her otherwise completely shaved lady parts. He broke into a coughing fit, shooting water from his mouth.

"Oh, sorry." Noticing where his eyes were looking and evidently feeling the breeze, she quickly returned her leg to the court and cringed. "I just remembered I'm not wearing any underwear."

He bent over with his eyes watering and cleared his throat. "Oh, no, I, um… I didn't see anything, I swear."

"I got the idea from Jillian's book." She shrugged. "I actually like the way it makes me feel. I feel, I don't know… free."

"Um, yeah…" He avoided eye contact with her. "Free is a good word for it."

"I wanted to try a little method acting, you know, where you get into character early and stay that way."

"She normally wears underwear now when we play," he replied nervously.

"I'm sure she does." Amanda chuckled. "But back then she didn't, right?"

"That is correct. There were times she didn't."

"Yeah, so I'm trying to do a little Daniel Day Lewis kinda thing. When he played Lincoln they had to call him Mister President and he wouldn't discuss anything current. In his mind, he was actually living during that time in the eighteen
hundreds
."

"Wow, I didn't know that." He shook his head. "So, what am I supposed to call you?"

"How about Anastasia from the movie."

"All right Anastasia." He held back a laugh. "What do you want to focus on today?"

Narrowing her eyes, she walked up to him and focused her attention on his shirt. "Sorry, I must have gotten a little makeup on you."

"Where?" He looked down.

Taking a step closer, she put her hand on his chest and brushed lightly at the stain. Then she examined the spot some more, placed her hand back on his chest and kept it there. "I think I got it."

"Thanks."

"We wouldn't want Jillian getting the wrong idea, now would we?" she asked with her hand still on him.

"No." He shook his head.

Her gaze went from his pecs to his face. "Have you been bulking up?"

"Um, yeah, I've been trying to hit the gym a little more."

"It shows."

After clearing his throat, he took a step backward out of her reach. "So, what did you say you wanted to work on, um, today?"

"I didn't." She gave him a sexy smile. "What do you recommend we work on? I'm completely open to suggestions."

"Let's see, um…" He turned away from her and bounced the ball three times while gnawing nervously on his lip. On his fourth
bounce,
the ball went off the side of his foot and rolled into the net.

She laughed. "Maybe
you
need
a little work
on bouncing the ball."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Backhand." He pulled his racket back and simulated a stroke. "How's your backhand doing? Last I remembered you were struggling a little with that."

"Whatever you say, coach." She walked to her bag, bent over to unzip it, and exposed her gorgeous rear end to him. He turned away and rushed to the baseline while rubbing the nervous sweat from his brow.

They spent the next two hours working on her backhand, forehand, and finally her serve. Brian struggled to keep both his distance from the perky beauty and his composure in an effort to prevent any unnecessary extra blood from rushing to his groin. While they were standing together chatting near the
net,
his phone chirped. He read the message then said, "I have something I need to take care of."

"Go, I'm just going to hit a couple more
serves
. I can find my way out."

"Great."

She smiled. "So tomorrow remember we're meeting at the court on the set."

"Oh, okay."

She stepped to him and gave him another polite hug. This time he turned to the side to avoid any direct contact on his slightly bulging groin area.

After checking in with Todd at the front desk, Brian returned to his office, closed the door, and slumped back in his chair, exhausted. He vowed to never tell Jillian about the events of that day. He decided to give Amanda the benefit of the doubt, because she really hadn't done anything, on the court, that wasn't already in Jillian's book. In fact, she stopped short of doing all the things that Anastasia had done to Brice in the story. She was probably simply preparing for her role as she said. Or at least that's what he kept telling himself.

After some discussion, Edward finally agreed to accompany his wife in a therapy session with Victoria. The three sat in her office spending the first thirty minutes or so on non-sensitive topics. They talked about what kind of babies Brian and Jim were and how they acted as children along with life back in Delaware. Beverly did most of the talking with Edward only answering two of Victoria's questions and both with one-word replies.