“Black's not your color,” he said matter-of-factly. “I'd have gone with pink if I were you.” Cortland turned to face me and we held our gaze, longer than the flirting research indicated was the norm, and I wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what.
“You'll thank me later,” he said, tapping the bed with his hand. He motioned to Carl, who was all too happy to schedule the delivery to my house for the following day.
“It's too expensive,” I said, already feeling buyer's remorse. “I don't deserve a bed like this.”
“You do, and that's that. Now let's go get Goldilocks some porridge. Great little Italian place in the mall.”
“I get quite enough Italian,” I said.
“I bet you do. A burger, then?”
“I've been dying for a cheeseburger for weeks.”
I told myself it wasn't a date. It wasn't as if we'd planned to meet at the mall and grab lunch. It just worked out that way, which Anh told me was fate throwing us together. “Your energies are in sync,” she said and I had no idea what that meant, but I still insisted he was just being nice to me because I was his girlfriend's widowed sister.
Chapter 16
THE LIBRARIAN AT UT handed me the Glamourpuss article as if she were passing me porn, tucked in a brown paper bag. “I saved this for you,” Betty said with a wink. “For your dissertation. I presume you'll have a section in there on sex, right?”
I nodded, taking the magazine from her. A women's magazine? Was she kidding? What could possibly be kinky about this?
“And one more thing,” Betty said, pushing her wire frames up on her nose. “Can I read your paper when you're through? I've always been fascinated with love. I never married, but I've been in love at least two dozen times. You might say I'm more in love with love than with any of the blokes I dated. Fortunately, I realized it at exactly the moment each of them asked me to marry them.”
After thanking the octogenarian love-adrenaline junkie, I retreated to my favorite corner of the library, where the morning sun warmed the carpet and the brown leather chair. I curled into it like a cat and read the article Betty thought was so risqué: Hindu love voodoo and Indonesian spousal swapping? What did she think this was, a dissertation for Playboy University? Instead, I gathered my notes on the linguistic origin of the most common sex words and plugged in my laptop so I could get my thoughts down before they dissipated.
“Sex is emotion in motion.” -Mae West
“Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.” -Woody Allen
One cannot write about the language of love without at least acknowledging the language of sex. Contrary to popular belief, the term “French kiss” did not originate in France, but entered the English language in 1923 as a slur on the French, who to this day are deemed highly sexualized. The French don't call it a French kiss at all, but a “tongue kiss,” or “soul kissing.”
The slang expression “petting” is an American word, originally meant “to stroke or caress.” The word was used worldwide during the twentieth century, but has now become old fashioned. In the UK, it is more common to use, “touching someone up,” “frigging someone,” “rubbing someone up,” “bringing someone off.” Petting is now often referred to as “foreplay.”
Once the sex act commences, lovers hope for climax, called “orgasm,” from Greek orgasmos, “to swell up, be excited,” tracing back to 1684.
My cell phone blared “Bootylicious,” but it took me a moment to get my head out of my research before I could answer. It wasn't often homework could turn me on. “What are you doing?” Cortland asked.
I closed my laptop. I hadn't heard from him in three days. Not that I was keeping track. With my own hormones activated from all those sex definitions, he couldn't have picked a worse time to call. I didn't want to think of him in that way. “Writing about sex. You?”
“Not writing about sex I'm afraid,” he said smoothly.
“And people think linguists are boring intellectuals.” I tried to calm the flirt in my tone. My voice was lilted, thick with lust.
“Depends on if they only write about it.”
“ Touché. ”
“French origin, I presume?”
“That pesky accent gives it away every time. Literally it means ‘you touched me, you got me.‘ Originally it came from fencing and sword fighting. A fencer says it when his opponent scores a point by making contact to alert his opponent he's got him. It's used as an insult or to devalue what the other person is saying.”
“So you're insulting me, then? Funny, I don't feel insulted. Turned on, perhaps.”
“Maybe I just don't want to talk about my sex life with you, not that it doesn't warrant it,” I said playfully.
“Well, you're the one that brought it up.”
“Not so. I brought up my dissertation,” I corrected.
“Most dissertations aren't this exciting to discuss. Tell me more.”
“Funny, I thought doctors knew everything.”
“ Touché. ”
“Fine, then. Speaking of the French, what do you know about the origin of the term 'French kiss'?”
“I know I'm strongly in favor of it. What about it?”
“Not French at all. American term. Seems the French/American wars have their linguistic side, too.”
“Interesting. So what do the French call it?”
“Soul kissing, for one.”
“Goldilocks, you're always full of information.”
“I'm always good for useless sex trivia,” I said, packing up my bag. I spotted one of da Vinci's friends at the checkout counter-the one who'd said “cool” when da Vinci had introduced me as his girlfriend. He wore Greek letters on his sweatshirt, from the same frat that da Vinci had joined. I slunk in my seat, hoping he wouldn't recognize me. I turned my attention back to Cortland, trying not to show that I cared he'd called. “So to what do I owe the pleasure, anyway?”
“Wanted to see how you liked your bed. Good enough for Goldilocks?”
“Quite,” I said, thinking how nice it was to not wake up without a backache and to have da Vinci's strong frame beside me all night long. I'd hated to admit to myself how much I'd missed a sleeping companion. The bed seemed just the thing to keep my frat boy at home, at least in the wee hours of the night, but there were some things I wouldn't share with Cortland, friend or not.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “I also called to thank you for the recommendation on the comforter. My daughter loved it. Said it was her favorite birthday gift. And anytime I can one-up my ex-wife is a good day.”
“Glad to see you're not above tacky one-upping,” I said, turning back around to find da Vinci's friend standing in front of me, apparently waiting for me to get off of my call.
“I'm gonna have to let you go,” I said, really not wanting to. It wasn't fair that the one male I felt I could really talk to was my sister's beau.
“Before you do, what do you say we take Bellezza on her first jaunt at the dog park?”
Not a date, I told myself. Safe enough to tell my sister. A boring old dog park is all. In fact, my sister should come along. “Do you think she's ready? I mean, that's sort of like taking your daughter to the first day at kindergarten. What if the other doggies are mean to her?”
“That's why I thought we should go together. She'll have Liebe there to protect her.”
After we'd made plans to meet after da Vinci's taping at Rachel's studio, I instantly regretted it. Taping, dog park, double dating. It would be worse than water torture. I'd have to listen to my sister brag about herself all night and deal with da Vinci's jealousy of Cortland.
First things first, like getting rid of da Vinci's young, grungy playmate. “Todd, right?” I asked, nearly sticking my hand out before remembering what had happened the last time I'd made that mistake, my hand just hanging there in mid-air while his friends had looked at me like a weird old person.