The Last Place She'd Look by Arlene Schindler Read Free Book Online Page A

until the ping-ting of the music was drowned out by my own outcries of pleasure and release. Ecstatic, this was exactly what I had needed. I felt like I'd robbed a bank and escaped with the loot.
    When I floated out of the massage suite, dazed and delighted, I saw Lila sitting at a big round table with a beach umbrella, festive plates of food in front of her.
    “How was your massage? Hope it had a happy ending,” she remarked, laughing. “I thought the best gift for your birthday was to be rubbed the right way. Let's hope you don't have to wait until next year for it to happen again.”
    “Isn't this illegal?” I asked, thrilled to be pleasured anonymously. Though I'd never think of procuring a “happy ending” myself, I was delighted she had orchestrated my full-body birthday pleasure event.
    “Anybody can be bought for cash under the table,” Lila explained. “I do it all the time for my clients.”
    “You really are thoughtful.” I hugged her. “Thank you. That was more memorable than a Target gift card.”
    “Found your target, didn't we?” Lila said, chuckling.
    “Bull's eye,” I blushed. “It was great. At first I didn't know what to think.”
    “The key to sexual pleasure is not thinking,” she said. “And knowing what you want. What is it for you, Sara?”
    I was silent. What were my sexual wants? I always saw sex in the context of a relationship—and since that had been elusive, sex had been on the back burner for so long, I forgot how to “cook.” My face saddened searching for a memory to reflect on.
    “Don't think about it too much. I ordered you a chicken Caesar and a cranberry juice,” Lila said. After lunch, we headed to our lounge chairs for more trashy reading, a glorious nap, and then back in the mineral pool. “Are you having a good time?”
    “That was really memorable. And nobody had to buy anyone dinner,” I said smiling, still tingling and re-running the event through my mind.
    “Sex with a partner was so last century for me,” Lila tossed off, a sense of nostalgia to her aside. “You should be open to new experiences,” she suggested gently. “I think the older we get, the less available men there are, the more it makes sense to consider the company of women. Even Margaret Mead said that as women live longer, it's an anthropological evolution to be with another woman. And she had a few husbands. The friendship of women grows deeper as we mature. If it turns sexual, there's more tenderness and compassion than fumbling around with some old man attached to a limp dick.”
    “Enough. You refuse to ever mention your husband. What is he, a hit man? How is he?” I asked.
    “Far away, in Florida, the man boob and draggy ass capital of America. He's out of sight and out of mind, only calls when he needs something. He's not going anywhere—that's my problem. I'm too lazy to get a divorce. I see my horse's ass of a husband for holidays. We're buddies now, that's all. So, I have an excuse not to date, a poor excuse, one I send a monthly check to.” We chuckled.
    “Well, there's the company of women, which we both like,” I explained. “And there's keeping company with women, touching another woman's body?”
    Lila said, “It's been so long since I've been touched. I barely remember what it feels like to be kissed, to know the softness of someone's mouth on mine, or even their lips on a shoulder, let alone anywhere down south.”
    In this moment, I wanted to hold Lila, caress and console her, be the warm body to comfort her. I was certain any gesture like that from me would be fiercely rejected. Being a caring friend and being a lover was a boundary that seemed uncrossable. Whenever I was with Lila, I wondered momentarily about that leap because I thought there was a scent of sexual tension between us.
    “We've both been married. We are straight,” I said, tentatively. “The men I meet tell me we have no chemistry. What they mean is that I don't make their dicks hard. At