The Big "O": A Romantic Comedy (20 page)

“I have my trainer really early and a full day tomorrow,” Isis said, doing a dead-on impression of Edwin.

The girls giggled for the rest of their walk. Then Emily went with Isis back to her apartment, to shower and change, before heading downtown to seek some advice from someone else that she entirely trusted.

Emily entered Edwin's outer office, looking much like her pre-baby self, fit, put-together, self. Isis had done a little magic with Emily's makeup and given her a jacket and Emily felt incredibly confident. After waiting for a short while, Emily was ushered in to meet with Edwin.

“What was so urgent?” Edwin asked kindly.

“It's a recruiter, for a big national firm, she's been calling and pitching me,” Emily stated without preamble. Edwin didn't look terribly surprised.

“What did you tell her?” he asked.

“I'm not sure I know how to deal with the opportunity. I've been putting the headhunter off. What should I do?” Emily said.

“Would you work for someone else again?” Edwin asked.

“No, I don't think so,” Emily said and realized that it as emphatically true. As pleasant as it was to be in demand to someone, to be professionally pursued, she didn't want to work for an outside company unless she was forced to do so. She figured out that it was fear that had kept her stringing the recruiter along.

“Then politely put her off and she'll probably stop calling,” Edwin said.

“Yeah, I was having a hard time deciding what to do,” Emily admitted.

“Are things okay with you and Max?” Edwin asked.

“I guess things are confusing,” Emily said.

“Anything I can do?” Edwin asked and he sounded terribly surprised. Emily knew that Isis kept her own counsel so she figured that, unless Max had said something to Edwin, which she entirely doubted, then the man was totally in the dark about her and Max's marital troubles.

“Nah. We'll work it out. But thanks. Anything I can do for you?” Emily said.

“Actually, there is,” Edwin said, which surprised Emily, as Edwin never asked anyone for anything, “I want to throw a little surprise party... for Isis.”

I
T WAS LATE at night, and Victor and Juliette were both tired, but they were in their bed, going for the gold.

He pulled out a feather and began to trace Juliette's face with it. She laughed from the funny sensation of being tickled and then sneezed. She flopped back and closed her eyes.

“Honey, I wanted to be a good sport, but I'm allergic to the feather and, honestly, I'm just too tired,” Juliette admitted. Her voice got softer as she curled up on her side.

“Okay,” Victor said sadly.

“Love you,” Juliette breathed quietly and Victor sighed as Juliette dropped off to asleep. Victor turned off the bedside lamp and tried to join her in slumber. No dice. Victor couldn't sleep.

He lay in their bed, for two hours, with Juliette in a deep sleep beside him. No matter how he tried, he was unable to drop off and fall asleep.

He'd had insomnia one term in college. He couldn't even remember why. He did remember that it had been a royal pain in the ass. It had lasted for weeks and weeks.

So, he knew, from past experience, that he would probably be awake until sometime between three and five AM before he could drop off. It pissed him off.

He counted sheep.

He did mental math, which almost always worked.

Nothing helped.

Finally, Victor flipped on the TV. Juliette sighed and wriggled in her sleep.

Victor flipped channels, the volume down super low, for a couple of hours.

He got up and ate a huge bowl of cereal, finishing off two boxes, which helped. It was always easier for him to sleep when his stomach was full. Though he grew more and more exhausted he couldn't quite fall asleep.

He got back into bed and looked at his sleeping wife. She was incredible. She could sleep anywhere. In the car. On a train. Nothing disturbed her. He could even watch TV with the volume on normally and she could sleep but he didn't like to be rude.

He didn't feel like he was getting sleepy but he was. Victor's head nodded as he flipped channels. There was nothing good on. It was all ancient TV sitcom reruns, and terribly old movies, and late-night infomercials.

Victor flipped past and then back to look at a MOM WOW infomercial. The woman, the author of the book, now looked so familiar to him.

Then he remembered that he'd seen the blonde on Ferguson and also on a book display in the adult store a month or so back. He'd almost bought her book.

Victor dropped off to sleep wondering if he should have bought her book.

In his dream, he was sleeping in bed with Juliette beside him.

Maddox, the author of
The Best Page in the Universe
, one of Victor's favorite sites online, dressed like a pirate, hovered above him in the darkness.

Back-lit by a misty dream light, with what appeared to be wings sprouting from his shoulders, Maddox looked like a wicked angel/pirate being.

“Wake up, you lard ass, cock,” Maddox said.

Vic blearily, barely opened his eyes, not in real life, but in his dream, and saw Maddox floating above him. The author of 'The Alphabet of Manliness' was personally appearing in his dream?

“Whah?” Victor managed to squeak out and rubbed his eyes before he flopped back and began to fall asleep.

“I said wake the fuck up, pussy,” Maddox shouted.

Before Vic was fully awake, a giant robot picked him up and body slammed him onto the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

“That wake you up?” Maddox shouted and throat-punched him. Vic stared up at Maddox.

“Maddox?” Victor whispered. He looked at his dream wife and saw that she was in a deep sleep. He stared up at Maddox.

“Yeah, it's Maddox… the relationship counselor,” Maddox said sardonically.

Victor noticed a bright emotion, that he could barely identify as hope, flare up in his being. Maddox was a bad-ass. Maddox was a savior. Maddox was a no bull-shit, confident and opinionated man who could probably tell him how to fix his shit.

Victor floated in his dream state, the imagery like still photos interspersed with hazy transitions with occasional quick cuts to video and audio.

Yeah, Maddox might castrate his ass along the way, but then again maybe he needed a good ass-kicking. What kind of asshole is too insensitive to notice that he isn't pleasing his woman? Victor wondered.

Vic felt like a complete fuck-up.

Maddox snapped his fingers and Victor was startled from his dream reverie.

The goddess Kali, dark and utterly terrifying, naked and beautiful, wearing a garland of skulls, and carrying various weapons in her many arms, appeared before him.

Sword in hand, she advanced and raised her sword. She positioned it as if she were going to cut Vic's dick right off.

Vic scrambled desperately backward and attempted to escape this nightmare mythic woman. Maddox laughed as Victor surveyed the surreal scene.

“Aren’t you a rugged, plaid-wearing, beef jerky eating bad ass, with balls yet?” Maddox screamed as Kali advanced, swinging her sword like the next time she would connect.

Vic scrambled backward, his head on the headboard, and fell off and out of the bed and woke up.

He jerked awake and looked around wildly. He was still in bed and there was no sign of Kali or Maddox.

“Goddamn,” he whispered aloud to himself.

His heart pounded in his chest and it felt like the thudding of a herd of wild horses. Just a goddamn dream, he told himself mentally, chillax the fuck out, man. He looked down and saw Juliette sleeping. He looked over at the TV screen.

There was Charlene, the woman from Ferguson’s late-night TV show, the MOM WOW author from the sex toy store, on an infomercial set, earnestly facing the camera.

“What I learned, the tools and techniques I'll share with you in my course, will eliminate the pain of sexual and emotional problems…” when the beautiful blond paused, pictures of people, obviously symbolizing loneliness, broken relationships, and divorce, flashed on screen.

The video footage cut back to Charlene and she continued.

“...those same tools and techniques that allowed me to create a life of deep emotional intimacy and satisfaction… the life I live today with my husband and family.”

Pictures of people in love, getting married, happy, celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary and more, all symbolizing love, flashed on screen before cutting back to her.

Victor found it all terribly heart-opening. It was like watching a super cute YouTube video guaranteed to tug on one's heartstrings. Soon Victor was crying, for himself and Juliette.

Charlene held up a picture of a family of four and spoke about her family, her husband and two sons, and their love.

Victor found himself wiping away a tear as she explained how difficult it had been to learn to receive love once she had found someone who was capable of giving love.

She joked about sexual satisfaction and intimacy and how they were closely related. She was funny and direct.

In a very professional manner, she talked about sexuality in a natural way.

It wasn’t about the sex she said, it was about the heart and soul, about the connection one would allow and then sustain. The multiple orgasms would follow the deep connection.

“Are you suffering and in pain? Do you want to give or receive more love in your life? Whether you will or not is up to you,” Charlene said and Victor found himself nodding.

A phone number flashed on the screen.

“You too can be multi-orgasmic. Change your life right now, call to book your MOW WOW workshop. Operators are standing by,” a television announcer said smoothly.

Victor clicked off the TV.

He quietly dialed the phone and did his best to make no sound at all. Somehow he had to get to that workshop. For the Big “O.” For Juliette.

An operator picked up on the line and answered.

“Where's the workshop location?” Victor whispered.

“Uh-huh,” he said and got pissed off at himself when he noticed that his hand was trembling.

“Oh… thanks anyway. Too far, I guess,” he said and hung up, turned over and got back in bed. He looked at his wife.

Victor lay on his back and looked up at the ceiling.

Juliette, completely oblivious, didn’t wake or make a sound.

Victor looked back over at his wife. She was so pretty; her strands of her light brown hair around her face, her dark eyelashes against her fair skin. She was so exhausted because she barely had time to sleep that nothing would wake her.

I can’t wait to get a real job, she’d said not too long ago. I want to contribute to us. He’d never had what Juliette offered, he’d never been part of a real family, a family that was a team. A family that stuck together through thick and thin.

Divorce sucked, he knew for damn sure From personal experience..

Sex, he speculated, was just the icing on the damned cake… what he really hungered for was cake… but if that woman author was telling the truth, and in his gut he felt that she was, then you had to have the cake to ice it properly.

It actually made sense, when you thought about it.

You couldn’t frost cake that you didn’t have. His cake might be okay, but it wouldn't be right until he frosted it.

Immediately, an intense, deep hurt spread instantaneously throughout his body like a windshield cracking upon impact, because the thought of not having what he did have, with Juliette, just about broke his heart.

Goddamn it, Vic, he told himself, there is no distance that is too far to go to figure out what the fuck is wrong with you that you can’t please your beautiful, smart, loving, sweet wife.

Vic quietly rolled off the side of the bed, got his wallet, took out a credit card, and picked up the phone. He pushed redial.

Yes, book me for the MOM WOW workshop closest to Southern California,” he said when an operator answered. Vic hung up and felt a little better. Just a week before he was leading a soft, nicely average modern hipster, pain-free life.

He’d had his cereal, his pop culture entertainment, which was bad-ass, his regular and increasing income, was good at what he did, and had a super smart, sexy wife.

A week later and everything was in jeopardy.

Every time that Juliette had said something to him, made a request, or had a comment about something that he’d done, he’d misinterpreted it negatively. He hadn’t said anything but he was aware that it was what he had been doing.

He’d just used whatever she’d said to hurt himself.

If she said that they were out of bread, in his mind, he’d silently tacked on the word “asshole.” I’ve been a shit, he realized.

Sure, Juliette was a bit short now that she was completing the last of her research and writing her dissertation, but she loved him. Thinking about the plethora of cereal that she'd stopped off to get for him made his heart feel huge with love.

It was his own lack of faith in his abilities as a husband that riled him up, he decided. He felt guilty because he knew that she loved him deeply.

It hurt that everything was now on the line, but it felt good, too: things would have to improve from here on out.

As soon as he'd had these revelations, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Max awoke hearing a strange series of noises. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed. Where was Emily? Max stepped out of the master bedroom suite and walked down the hall toward the nursery.

He popped his head in the door and saw his wife opening a new fabulous baby stimulating gizmo toy thing made of wood. Their child watched from his bed. Max stared.

What the hell had happened to their agreement? He felt intense shock. Now he was going to have to be the bad guy.

Baby Max looked interested in the wooden thing and Emily was saying something that Max couldn’t hear.

“What is that?” Max asked. He sounded odd, strained, even to himself. Emily looked up at him.

“I don't want him to get bored,” she stated. She’d read enough of the research to know that being a super smart kid wasn’t all ecstasy over acing tests and outperforming everybody else.

“We agreed. He doesn't need any new toys,” Max said.

Max tried to swipe the toy and Emily put it behind her back and wondered what had gotten into her husband.

“It's Montessori approved,” Emily practically shouted at him.

“I don't care if the damned Czar of Education approved it. Lincoln logs and crayons were good enough for me and they're good enough for my son,” Max spat out.

Emily softened. She could see that Max was freaking out, something in his head had closed off. He was being particularly small-minded and mean about this.

“I understand you're uncomfortable with what's happening, honey, apparently enough to sabotage my parenting efforts. But kids who aren't stimulated get bored and it can create emotional or behavioral problems. Do you want our son to be a criminal?” Emily asked softly.

“He's a good kid, don't talk about him like that,” Max said.

He couldn’t believe that Emily had just mentioned criminal and baby Max’s name in the same conversation.

Was she trying to curse the kid’s future? He didn’t expect his kid to be overly successful, overly rich, overly educated or intellectual, or whatever, but he expected him to be normal.

Emily rubbed her forehead and tried to find sympathy for her spouse. He glared at her as if she were a serious problem. She felt more tired every time she and Max spoke recently.

She stared up at him as he glared down at her.

“And you agreed,” Max petulantly said again.

“No, we didn’t agree…” Emily stated firmly, “you ordained it and I admitted that I had heard you. That’s what went down.”

“Do you or don't you want to stimulate him appropriately?” Emily finally asked. She really didn’t know what else to ask him. The answer seemed obvious to her. If your child had a special need, whatever that need was, intellectual, emotional, physical, whatever, you found a way to meet the need.

“I'm throwing it away!” Max said and grabbed for the toy. Emily tried to make a joke and played 'keep away' with it. Surely he was kidding. He had to be joking. She giggled a bit.