There it sat, perhaps, the crux of the problem. Content everywhere, but with this little canker festering and exhausting the both of them on all topics non-sexual, so they couldn’t even see the stem. “Petrillo really should’ve noticed that,” Ryan told his Jack and Coke, now very nearly through.
Noah finished up with two loud drunkards at the opposite end of the bar and slid down toward Ryan. Ryan kept his head down toward his glass, so Noah stared at the top of his head for a while, then grabbed his small bar towel from his shoulder and began to wipe down a glass in a most theatrical fashion. “Long day?”
Ryan smirked. “What’re you doing back there?”
“You kidding?” Noah threw out rhetorically. “This way everybody has to come see me, none of that mingling crap. ‘Where’s Noah?’ ‘At the bar downstairs, if you want to get a drink.’”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“Sam!” Noah bellowed, lifting his finger of Scotch up in a salute to Sam Morton, who slid onto the stool next to Ryan.
Sam, slender, his retreating blond hairline and sallow expression suggesting an age far greater than thirty-eight, wearing a thick, ill-fitting, and likely home-knit sweater sighed before asking for a “Blind Russian.”
“The fuck is a Blind Russian?” demanded Noah, eyes squinted at Sam.
“Same as a White Russian, only with Bailey’s instead of cream.”
“Nicely done, Sam, found a way to remove the only non-alcoholic portion of your drink and replace it with more alcohol.” Ryan tipped his glass. “Cheers.”
Sam gave a dramatic sigh as he folded his hands on the bar. “It’s a constant now,” he told them gloomily. His demeanor spoke volumes and told Ryan and Noah what “it” was without their asking. Sam had, for the last few months, had a recurring problem with the dreaded erectile dysfunction, something that the three of them had hesitated to actually refer to as ED, for that would give it name, and this was something that should not be named. Ryan and Noah exchanged solemn nods as Sam continued. “She said, ‘No, don’t worry…’ and all that ever does is make you worry!”
“Yeah,” returned Noah. The flaw in this bartender impression was, as always, his inability to empathize when occasionally Ryan or, far more often, Sam spoke of difficulties in his bedroom.
“And once I start worrying about it,” Sam continued, “it’s all I can think about. And nothing says limp quite like worry. It’s like trying to push a fish into a garden hose.”
The simile hung in the air between the three men as each reflected on what it meant to them. Ryan stuck his finger in his almost empty glass and shuttled the ice about.
Noah cleared his throat. “Okay, now, I know I’ve suggested it before, and…”
“I don’t want Viagra.” Sam was firm, punctuating the sentence with a heavier than usual clink of his glass on the bar top. “It’s psychological. I can beat it.”
“Well…” said Noah with a sigh. “Godspeed.”
“When did it stop being fun for you guys?” Ryan asked.
Sam looked up from his drink. “Oh, god… years?”
“Too much worry…” Ryan finished the Jack and Coke and held it up for Noah.
Sam gave a soulful nod. “Way too much worry.”
“We’re talking sex, right?” Noah slid the finished Blind Russian over to Sam. “You poor bastards. It’s still fun for me. You know, do new things. New places. New… And when you do it, you gotta just slide it in, don’t ask permission first or you’ll get knocked down. Got very close last night. Very close. Like more than just the tip.”
“Adventurous isn’t simply sliding your dick in her ass when she’s not expecting it, Noah,” Ryan snorted.
“It’s an adventure,” he returned.
“It’s all about the attempt for you?” asked Sam.
“Sure.”
Sam raised his glass in toast. “In that case, I’m doing spectacularly. We attempt daily.”
Ryan sucked the last of the Jack and Coke off one of his ice cubes and spit it back into the glass. “You’re having sex with Patti daily?”
“Well, I can’t—”
“Sam!” Noah slammed his hand down on the bar and his voice took on the baritone of too much drink again. “Knocking it out time and time again. And you were implying… well… less.”
Ryan stared at Sam in disbelief. Sam, married six years longer than him. Sam, balding, almost skeletal, was having sex every single day. “All that sex.”
“Well,” Sam argued, “it can hardly be called sex, can it?”
“Are you putting your penis into her vagina?”
“A little.”
Noah poured himself another Scotch. “Let’s drink to this wonderful revelation!”
4
The last of a bottle of golden Moscato cascaded into Jennifer Lambert’s waiting wine glass. “Oh,” she said and smiled at Barbara. “Thanks.”
Barbara shrugged and set the empty bottle alongside several fallen compatriots on the black speckled granite countertop near the sink. “Looking glum. Certainly far too glum for a Christmas party.”
“Nah,” denied Jennifer, waving it away and masking with a smile. There was the smile that kept things nice and social and polite. That affirmed everything was a-okay. Nothing wrong with her life, her marriage, her sex life, nothing at all, thank you kindly.
Barbara looked at her a moment longer before taking her by the elbow and pulling her toward a small collection of women gathered around the chips and dip on the center island, directly below a hanging sconce. The cornerstone of Barbara Watkins’ McMansion had to be her well-appointed kitchen, laid out in oak and granite with tile floors and inset lights, halogen and LEDs, around the bases of the cabinets. Mood lighting when the main overheads were turned off. Now additionally adorned with several strings of white twinkle light garland.
Of the four woman surrounding the island, Jennifer knew Patti Morton, the wife of one of Ryan’s friends, and the sultry woman she’d briefly met in the entry way before Noah ushered them all in.
“I can’t go more than a day without the gym, anymore,” declared the woman, taking a healthy swing of her wine. Jennifer watched her swirl behind her perfect lips and felt a quivery feeling deep within that she couldn’t readily identify.
“I wish I had your energy, Paige, I really do.” Patti, giving her thirty-fifth year a third go, just now over the edge of tipsy, swirled her own wine in her glass, a pale simulacrum of a move that the woman named Paige had done moments before. “I always say I’m going to go more often. Doesn’t help that I can barely drag Sam off the couch.”
Paige caught Jennifer’s eye and winked, triggering an unexpected bout of self-consciousness within her. Had that wink been meant for her? Had Paige noticed that Jennifer had been staring at her lips for the last few… Quit staring, say something! “You, uh, you look great.”
“Well, thank you, Jennifer! Doesn’t come easy, believe me!” An effortless laugh cascaded from those same spectacular lips, glinting under the twinkle lights with a shine that didn’t seem to transfer itself to her glass. How did she do that?
Barbara offered a shrug. “They say you can become addicted to anything, provided you do it enough.”
“Every year I try. Make it until around the third week in January, then say…” Jennifer again felt the self-consciousness, afraid to say—
“Fuck it?” suggested Paige.
Jennifer laughed. “Yeah.”
“Well,” Paige held her wine glass between her palms and rolled the crimson wine back and forth within, then cocked her jaw and looked up, as though she were considering the wisdom of the ages. “You have to reward yourself after. I get a weekly massage.”