The Accidental Virgin by Valerie Frankel Read Free Book Online Page A

themselves at the disposal of men. That they should open their legs whenever a man shows the slightest interest in sex. Did you ever read
Clan of the Cave Bear?
The cave women were required by prehistoric law to drop to their knees — doggie style — whenever a caveman grunted and pointed at the ground. That’s barbaric! I would never want women to act like that. Any man who would is a pig.
Clan
is really an amazing book, though. You should check it out.”
    “I will. It sounds fascinating,” Stacy said. How had the conversation arrived at the subject of casual sex? Stacy wasn’t sure, but she was pleased to get there. Engaging in casual sex with this man/boy had been locked on her mind since she’d invited him to lunch. Perhaps Tom could read her thoughts.
    Thinking was not doing, however. Since taking their seats at the restaurant’s serpentine counter, Stacy had been debating whether she could actually go through with another seduction attempt. An afternooner with a guy she’d met only a couple hours earlier? Certainly, Stacy had had anonymous sex. Lots of it. But Tom wasn’t exactly zipless. Or faceless. There were consequences. He was her boss’s son. Then again, Tom was leaving the country tomorrow for six months (a lifetime in the eyes of a 20-year-old). She should be able to get in and out (as it were) risk free.
    Tom sermonized some more. “The fact of the matter is,” he said, “any woman can get laid from any guy at any second of any day. You could go up to any guy and say, ‘Fuck me,’ and he’d drop whatever he was doing and fuck you. I hear women complain about not having sex or not being able to find a guy to be with. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If a woman doesn’t get enough sex, it’s her own fault. Her standards are too high, or she doesn’t know that she’s a repressed lesbian.”
    A conveyor belt ran above the top of the counter, carrying tiny plates of sushi. The plates were color coded for price. The bill for a meal was tallied by counting how many plates of each color one collected. Tom had already had three yellow ($4), four white ($6), five green ($3) and one red ($7). He’d tasted nearly every kind of sushi available that day — fatty tuna, soft-shell crab, eel, salmon skin, yellow tail, urchin, and roe, among others — as well as popping California rolls as if they were edamame. Stacy, demure and ladylike, had a stack of just four plates. She hadn’t secured it with Janice, but she planned on expensing this lunch. The total would be over $100 by now, Tom showing no sign of slowing.
    Stacy ventured, “Isn’t it possible that a woman could put sex on a shelf? That she’d just forget about it for the time being?”
    “If this woman had a libido at all, I don’t see how she could forget about it. That’s like forgetting about food, or sleep, or breathing. Sex is a biological imperative. Our bodies are programmed to want sex and think about sex all the time.” Tom, lover of pronouncements, made another one. “If a woman can forget about sex, she is frigid.”
    Stacy stirred the ice in her water with her finger. “Your theory, about how easy it is for a woman to get sex, assumes that she has the courage, lack of discretion and willingness to ask outright for it. For example, if a woman —”
    “You?” he asked. “I’m only insisting on specifics because it
is
relevant if the woman is a hottie. And you are the hottest woman over thirty I’ve seen in a long time. Ever. Even under thirty.”
    “Glad to hear it,” Stacy said. “So then, what you’re saying, is that I, Stacy Temple” — a frigid closet lesbian? — “could walk right up to Tony McGuinty —”
    “Who?”
    “Tony McGuinty. The actor from
The Hail Storm
?
Gorgeousville
?
Wonder Dogs
?”
    “Never heard of him.”
    “Well, he is very handsome.”
    “It would be helpful for me, in envisioning this scenario, if you could pick a man I’m familiar with. How about Derek