The Muffia by Ann Royal Nicholas Read Free Book Online Page A

wife Alice?” offered Sarah. “It was only seventy-three pages. Though it was by a man.”
    “Please, Maddie,” pleaded Jelicka desperately—too desperately for a woman who has it all . “Pick something we’ll want to read—even juicy trash at this point. Something we won’t want to put down.”
    “It was good!” Sarah protested. “And short.”
    “No more cancer books,” Vicki said. “That’s my second wish.”
    “Of course,” said Sarah. “Sorry.”
    Vicki patted Sarah on the knee. “I agree with Jelicka. Let’s just have some fun for a change. If I’m going to die, you know, soon —not saying I am, but if I am, I only want to read good, entertaining books that celebrate life.”
    “How about something erotic?” suggested Quinn. “I think we all could probably use a book with some good sex scenes.”
    “Can’t hurt,” Paige concurred. “But it has to be tasteful. My sex life has turned into a chore just a notch above folding laundry—in fact, folding laundry can often be a lot more rewarding.”
    There was a beat of silence. Apparently none of us wanted to explore the sex-as-laundry metaphor. Probably because we didn’t want to be reminded about the times in our own lives when doing laundry had been more fulfilling than sex.
    “Can erotica be well written?” I asked. “It always seems a little, I don’t know, cheap and tawdry or something. But maybe I just haven’t been exposed.”
    “Well, that’s certainly true,” Quinn winked.
    What did she mean? I wasn’t a total novice — how could I be? I'm forty-two and a mother.
    “The new Jane Smiley is supposed to be pornographic,” Rachel said, not giving up. “The back cover says it’s ‘R’ for ravishing.”
    “Does it really?” asked Jelicka. “What’s it called?”
    “ Ten Days in the Valley . No—hills. Ten Days in the Hills.”
    It seemed to me that Rachel only pretended not to know the title, dumbing down her large literary brain by acting absent-minded.
    “Whatever you decide, Mad, I’ll read the whole thing, but I’m also going to read the Jane Smiley book,” Jelicka said, explaining. “See, what you don’t know is Roscoe had to give up Viagra because it conflicted with his heart medicine. I haven’t had sex in two months. I could really use a lover but living vicariously through a few bodice rippers is probably the safer choice.”
    So that’s how my journey to Udi started, I guess—with a mandate to choose a sexy book. It would prove to be a very special book of cliterature that was certain to lift us all into a richer world of lust, sex and maybe even romance—something that appeared to be lacking in all our lives.

 
    Chapter 4
     
    What Quinn had said about me was sadly true—even if I chose to avoid thinking about why exactly it was true. The reality was I hadn’t been with a man in almost two years and it had been far longer since I’d felt a passionate fluttering for any of their ilk. Not since my marriage had ended—died out, really—not unlike a mammalian body whose lungs and heart had ceased operating.
    As a mammal myself, I don’t feel dead most of the time. In fact, I’m alive enough to still seek connection with someone who will take me as I am, flaws included, but that’s always proved difficult. As I’ve gotten older, men seem more like aliens to me. And when I feel those flickers of physical desire, they are quickly squelched by the fear I might end up as the feeding tube in yet another relationship.
    But enough of the self-analysis—my quest at this point was to choose a book that was both sexy and satisfying; a book that would appeal to Jelicka’s need for lust and Rachel’s for literary mastery. It had to be easier than finding Mr. Right but where was I to get my hands on such a book?
    The last erotica I’d read was Delta of Venus back in my twenties and, when I was even younger, the juiciest parts of Fanny Hill .  I’d flipped through The G Spot:And Other Discoveries about