People I Want to Punch in the Throat (18 page)

Joyce explained that while giving speeches is a fun hobby, her
real
job was selling pleasure. She determined that what Colleen really needed was a good, sturdy vibrator. However, a good vibrator is expensive, and Colleen needed to throw a Flaming Desire party so her friends could buy enough lube and flavored
condoms to help offset the expense. Colleen booked a party on the spot.

A few weeks later Joyce arrived at Colleen’s house out of breath and lugging a giant suitcase into the front hall. “Hi, sexy ladies!” she called out.

We all looked behind us. Was she talking to us?

I barely recognized Joyce. Sex-toy-sales-consultant Joyce looks very different than embracing-your-sexuality-speech-giving Joyce. One thing I’ll say about Joyce is that she fully embraces who she is. She is a big girl with a lot going on, yet she wasn’t afraid to pour herself into a tight miniskirt that barely covered her business. She worked her fishnet stockings, which were straining to hold her fleshy legs, and I’ve never seen a woman with such a large bosom give so little regard to a supportive bra. Her peasant top could hardly contain her enormous breasts, which swung wildly (and I’m pretty sure freely) every time she moved. When she spoke she was incredibly animated and bounced around a lot, using her hands to articulate. When she really got going, I had to avert my eyes, because I was sure there would be a boob escape at any moment.

We moved into the living room and bunched together and tittered like a bunch of schoolgirls while we watched Joyce unpack her suitcase. It was like a clown car at the circus, only the clowns were dildos—each one bigger and more neon-colored than the next, because nothing turns ladies on more than a bright green boner. Besides the toys, she also had tons and tons of “nibblers,” as she liked to call them. These would be your edible panties, flavored condoms, and chocolate-flavored dust. Instead of getting me excited, these just made my stomach growl. Colleen had focused a lot on the drinks for the night but hadn’t given much thought to the food, and I was starving!

“Okay! Shall we get started?” Joyce asked. “My name is Joyce, and tonight I will be showing you the secrets to unlocking your hot and sexy side!”

Everyone whooped and cheered. “Yeah, sexy!” I yelled, just because I was hangry and felt like being an ass.

“Who’s ready to unlock her inner diva?” Joyce cried, waving a dildo around.

“I am!” yelled Colleen. I moved her drink out of her reach. Her inner diva was hammered already.

“Would you believe that just a year ago I was a wallflower who didn’t have a date?” Joyce asked.

I looked closely at her bad skin and fried hair.
Yes
, I thought.
Yes, I would believe that
.

“A year ago I was introduced to Flaming Desire parties, and my life has never been the same since. I now date men half my age! Every time I go out to a bar or restaurant I never buy a drink! I have men fighting over me. And this is all thanks to Flaming Desire products.”

The whooping and screaming stopped, and we just stared at her. Every woman in the room was married with kids. The last thing we wanted was a bunch of college-age douchebags fighting over us in a bar.

Finally I spoke up. “Yeah, good for you, I guess, except we’re all married,” I said. “We’re not really looking to get free drinks and men fighting over us.”

“I hear ya, but wouldn’t it be nice to know that men out there still want you?” Joyce winked. “Wouldn’t it be great to see your man twitch a little when a drink arrives at your table courtesy of a stranger?”

“I don’t understand,” our friend Gloria said. “Men will buy me drinks because I use a vibrator?”

“No, silly! Men will buy you drinks because they will recognize you as a sexually liberated woman who knows exactly what she wants! They will sense your aura! The vibrator just helps you unlock your inner diva.”

“Ohhh,” Gloria said, still confused.

“Hold on,” I said. “I couldn’t give a shit about my inner diva and free drinks from strangers in bars, and I have a box full of battery-operated fun collecting dust in the back of my closet. Here’s what I really want, and maybe you have it in your bag of dicks over there. I want something that will fold laundry and satisfy my husband so he will leave me alone to read my book in peace.”

“Amen!” Gloria yelled.

“Oh, that sounds good. Yes, I want that, too,” said Colleen.

“What are you talking about?” Joyce asked. “You said you wanted to release your feminine energies.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so. See, here’s the part you don’t understand,” I explained to Joyce. “We’re all married. We have been for years. Our husbands want to have sex with us. All the time. Being desired isn’t our problem. We’re desired.
Too
desired, in fact. We’re exhausted. I don’t want to lick chocolate dust off my husband’s chest, because that shit will get on the sheets and then that makes more laundry for me. I don’t want a giant green dildo, because that’s one more damn thing in my house that will need new batteries in a few weeks, and after a while my husband will start to feel inadequate in comparison and then I’ll have to pump up his confidence again, which is something I don’t have time for. I’m not interested in making my husband want me more. I’m looking for something that will keep him occupied so he’ll leave me alone, and if it can wash dishes, too, even better. If you’re selling something like that, then I’ll buy one for everyone in the room.”

Joyce didn’t know what to make of me and my friends. I think we were the first bunch of women she’d partied with who didn’t want to re-create
Fifty Shades of Grey
. She quickly realized her dream of selling us giant penises and S&M fetish starter packs was over and she was just going to have to focus on the old-lady basics: dry vaginas.

“Well, obviously, I don’t have anything like that, but how about lube?” she said. “You can’t always get out of the deed, and so for those times wouldn’t it be nice to have everything working together smoothly … and quickly?”

“Yes, I suppose that would be helpful,” I replied, thumbing through her catalog of lubricants. I gasped a little. Who knew lube cost so much more than a spatula?

Joyce must have heard me, because she said, “Jen, did I mention that I’m in the market for a new house?”

I bought the S&M fetish starter pack as a present for Colleen and sold Joyce a lovely three-bedroom bungalow.

You always know when it’s back-to-school time. Many suburban moms across the country bump into one another in the school supplies aisle as they’re trying to figure out the difference between a poly folder and a plastic folder and cursing the teachers for choosing the large glue sticks when the small ones are the ones on sale. These moms haven’t seen one another since the extravaganza/carnival/field day/picnic, and now it’s the perfect time to block the aisles with their overflowing carts, ignore their wilding offspring, and catch up on what they’ve missed.

While I choose not to partake in all this revelry, I always park my cart in the next aisle over so I can eavesdrop, because that’s just how I roll.

There’s a formula to these conversations. It’s always the same endless loop. It goes something like this:

Kori:
Jillian! Hi! Oh my God. I haven’t seen you all summer. Not since you moved to Willow Tree Bend Hills. How is the new neighborhood?

Jillian:
Oh wow, Kori. Hi! Yes, Willow Tree Bend Hills is
amazing, of course. Are you guys still stuck in Ainsley Lake Meadow?

Kori:
Well, I wouldn’t say “stuck.” We still like it a lot.

Jillian:
Really? You don’t think it’s weird that there isn’t a lake?

Whit:
Well, it’s no weirder than the lack of willow trees or hills in your neighborhood, Jillian.

Kori:
Whit! I cannot believe you are here. I thought your nanny would do the school supply shopping for you.

Whit:
I know! I can’t believe it, either. She’s on vacation this week. Her mother is having surgery or something. It’s been a
total
nightmare for me. I have no idea why I allowed her to go. I was so stupid! I haven’t set foot in a big box store in months. I forgot how disgusting they are.

After the neighborhood smackdown comes the faux passive-aggressive backhanded compliments:

Jillian:
Well, even when you’re slumming, you still look great, Whit. CrossFit?

Whit:
Hot yoga and eyelash extensions.

Jillian:
Did you get the Groupon for the lashes? They look like the ones I saw advertised last week.

Whit:
God, no. I would never go cheap on my eyelashes. You could go blind if the right person doesn’t do them for you! Was that the same Groupon that was advertising liposuction, too? I didn’t even open that one. I guess you did, huh?

Kori:
It can be frightening to get discounted treatments like that! They’re so sketchy. You don’t do that, do you, Jillian?

Jillian:
Of course not! I just picked up the one for a chemical
peel for Sebastian. He’s the only one brave enough to do the discount ones.

Whit:
I didn’t realize men are getting chemical peels now.

Jillian:
Well, mine is. He gets waxed, spray-tanned, and Botoxed. He might as well add chemical peel to his arsenal, too.

Kori:
It’s more than the lashes … there is something else. Your boobs look better than ever.

Whit:
Shhh!
I got them lifted. You guys remember, I had them done as a high school graduation present, but time and gravity had taken their toll.

Jillian:
That’s it! Well, they look great.

Whit:
Not as good as Kori’s nose.

Kori:
Oh! You noticed! Yes, Phil’s gift to me for Mother’s Day. I got my chin done, too. Phil never liked it. He always said it was too strong. Whatever that means. It hurt like a bitch, but I think it’s a definite improvement.

Jillian:
Of course it is! I’d love to get my chin done!

Whit:
Just do your boobs. No one is looking at your chin, Jillian.

Kori:
So true.

Now that everyone is feeling slightly fat, cheap, and ugly, the conversation finally moves on to school. After all, it’s that time of year and it’s all anyone can talk about. No mother in my community has a more widely recognized hobby than bitching about her child’s school. I’ve come to realize that for many, school is a real drag. It gets in the way of raising a professional athlete. Really. One of these days I’m going to be surrounded by so many young gifted athletes. There must be something in the water, because everyone’s kid is a prodigy of some kind, except for mine.
Gomer is a bit of a lumberer on the soccer field, and when Adolpha practices her ballet, she has the grace of a baby giraffe. They’re so like their mother. I couldn’t be prouder of my little underachievers.

Whit:
So, which teachers did you guys get this year? We’ve got Monroe and Phillips.

Kori:
Oh, Phillips is kind of a bitch.

Whit:
She is?

Jillian:
Yeah, last year she made the kids do homework every single night.

Whit:
What the hell is her problem? It’s only third grade!

Kori:
We had to have a meeting with her, because between tae kwon do, soccer, diving, and filmmaking Cavanaugh only had one night a week to do homework.

Jillian:
Oh I remember that! She was a total bitch to you guys. Didn’t she want you to drop everything?

Kori:
Yes. As if! How is he going to get into a good college if he isn’t well rounded?

Jillian:
Exactly. How can you raise a well-rounded kid when the teachers are constantly sending home busywork for them to do?

Whit:
Why can’t they get everything done during the day? What are they doing all day?

Kori:
That’s what we wanted to know, too!

Whit:
Well, I’ve got news for her. Tex simply adores baseball, basketball, track, tennis, and oil painting. He won’t be dropping out of any of those for schoolwork! I think Brick would have a coronary if I told him Tex couldn’t play baseball on three teams this year. Brick’s philosophy
is that when you join the Yankees nobody asks you what your GPA was in third grade.

Jillian:
Well, I think the key is to just set the right tone from the beginning of the year, Whit. Just let Phillips know that you’re Tex’s mother and you’ll do what you think is best. Besides, our tax dollars pay her salary, so it’s like she works for us! Don’t let her forget that.