"He wants more. He just hasn"t had time. He"s a very busy man."
"Too busy to jump your bones? Sounds like he"s afraid of commitment if you ask me."
She wanted to inform Marge that she wouldn"t be contemplating a serious relationship with Stewart in the first place if he was the bone-jumping sort. She liked mutual respect and romance, with all of the lights out.
In her reality, that is.
She"d envisioned a few detailed bone-jumping scenarios in her fantasies, however. But Stewart had been nowhere around. Just a certain dark, delicious, hunky cowboy who smelled even better in person than she"d ever imagined.
Charlene forced her thoughts into taking a quick detour. "Stewart isn"t afraid of commitment," she went on. "He"s just careful about making major decisions."
"And too d.a.m.ned slow, if you ask me. Who needs a man like that?"
"I do. He"s my soul mate."
Marge gave her an are-you-serious? look before she reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and retrieved a ma.s.sive black leather purse. "Just tape the session and I"ll transcribe it when I come back."
"Where are you going?"
"I"ve got a nail appointment. They couldn"t see me at lunch on account of all the secretaries over at the courthouse scheduled during that time." She held up a hand and wiggled her fingers. "I"m trading in the gel and going acrylic this time."
"Sounds like a major life choice." Charlene turned back to the doorway.
"Don"t get your Hanes in a wad. I"ll be back before the next hour"s appointment." Before Charlene could open her mouth, Marge rushed on. "It"s Sheriff Miller. He"s angsting about what to get the missus for their anniversary on account of he bought her a toaster last time and she pulled a gun and shot it clear to smithereens." As if Marge read the questions racing through Charlene"s mind, she added, "She"s going through The Change. Anyhow, he doesn"t want to screw it up this time, so he thought you could help him out."
"I"m surprised he doesn"t just order an Ultimate Milk Chocolate o.r.g.a.s.m from Sweet & Sinful and be done with it."
Okay, Charlene knew she sounded catty but it had been a stressful night. One spent tossing and turning, her thoughts alternating between Mason McGraw and Ultimate o.r.g.a.s.ms and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she was dead wrong when it came to relationships.
Sure, Stewart was coming around, but it had taken him long enough.
Because they lacked that intense physical attraction she"d felt for Mason McGraw?
Yes.
No.
She didn"t know anymore.
"The sheriff actually mentioned Sweet & Sinful," Marge continued. "Said he"d thought of it, but his wife"s on a diet and he doesn"t want her to think he"s insensitive."
"That"s smart."
"That"s what I told him. I also said to buy her some slinky panties, but he said he wanted to hear it from the expert."
Charlene smiled, juggled her armload of books and files and stepped inside her office. At least there was one person in town who still thought of her as the expert.
"Good afternoon," she said to the couple who sat on the small loveseat opposite a large, leather captain"s chair.
Charlene set her burden on the desk before walking around and sinking down into the soft, brown leather opposite her longest-running clients.
The Patricks had come to her three years ago. After twenty-two years of marriage, they"d feared that they were drifting apart. They wanted to recapture the closeness they"d shared early in their relationship. The deep level of intimacy they"d felt when they"d witnessed the birth of each of their children, when they"d bought their first house and planted their first tomato garden.
They wanted to get to know each other again and stop their constant bickering.
Charlene had separated the two and administered in-depth personality tests which had determined that they were well-suited for each other and, therefore, ideal candidates for therapy.
They shared the same interests, the same core values and beliefs, and they both dotted their i"s with circles rather than dots. They both validated one another on every level. Talk about fuel for intimacy.
Charlene had prescribed one hour of conversation per day with a specific topic for each session. According to Charlene"s notes, they"d just finished a month of "I like (blank) because..." The goal was to verbalize one"s feelings, as well as to learn to see things through the other person"s eyes. Day one had been flowers. Day two meatloaf, and so on until they"d hit the end of the month and the piece de resistance "I like you because..."
Judging by the way that they sat on the sofa, thigh to thigh, hands clasped, fingers entwined, the "discovery" therapy had finally worked.
"So." Charlene smiled. "I see things are going well."
"They couldn"t be better." Tina Patrick smiled at her husband. "Why, it"s just like when we first met."
Tom Patrick winked. "Except I creak a lot more because of my arthritis and we don"t have a curfew."
"And we use a sugar subst.i.tute because of my diabetes."
"I"m afraid I don"t understand."
"For the Ultimate o.r.g.a.s.m. We did that last night, but we"re going to try the Chocolate Fudge Body Bon Bons next time. I"m going to mix it up wearing nothing but my high heels and some red lipstick."
"I really love red," Tom said.
Ultimate o.r.g.a.s.m. The words echoed in Charlene"s head as the truth settled in.
"But I thought you wanted to reconnect?"
"We reconnected plenty last night," Tom said.
"I meant an emotional reconnection."
"We haven"t had s.e.x in over a year," Tina said. "Trust me, it was emotional."
"What about talking?"
"We talked a little, too," Tina told her. "About how good the dessert tasted, and then about how good I looked and then about how we wanted to, you know, have s.e.x."
"And then we stopped talking," Tom added.
"What about the conversation topics?"
"We"ve been doing them," Tina said. "And what we realized is that we"re bored. That"s why we"ve been drifting apart. There"s only so much you can say about Wheel of Fortune. Hearing Tom go on about it just made me want to slit my wrists."
"And hearing Tina talk about her love of gerbera daisies made me want to slip a noose around my neck and put myself out of my misery," Tom laughed.
"We needed to stop all the yapping and start having o.r.g.a.s.ms again," Tom continued.
"Lots of o.r.g.a.s.ms," Tina added.
What was it with all the o.r.g.a.s.ms lately?
"There"s more to a relationship than just having a climax," Charlene told them. "It"s about a meeting of the minds, as well as the bodies. It"s about truly connecting. The fact that you two want to have more s.e.x is good, but it"s no reason to give up on the discovery therapy. Without effective communication, the s.e.x is just gratuitous."
"Gratuitous s.e.x is fine with me," Tom said.
"Me, too," Tina added.
"That"s why we came by today, Doc." Tom glanced at his wife. "We wanted to tell you that we"re going to take a break from therapy and go it on our own for a while."
"We"re going to use the money for a new wardrobe," Tina added, her gaze hooked on her husband"s. A smile touched her lips, as if they shared some great secret that Charlene wasn"t privy to. "Tom really likes me in bustiers and fishnet stockings, and that stuff can be real expensive." She shifted her attention to Charlene. "You understand, don"t you?"
"Um." Charlene licked her lips. "Of course," she managed to respond.
Not.
"Thanks, Doc," Tom said.
"That"s right," Tina added. "We couldn"t have done it without you."
"But you said the therapy didn"t work."
"It didn"t, but if I hadn"t seen you at the lodge yesterday while I was across the street getting my hair done, I never would have stopped in for that luncheon. That hand-out about appealing to your partner"s senses was a real eye-opener."
Not bunk. Or nonsense. Or propaganda.
"You saved our marriage," Tina declared as she got to her feet.
"You saved your own marriage." Charlene stood on trembling knees. "I"m just here to guide you through the process."
A process that now included high heels and bustiers, mouth-watering desserts and mindless, gratuitous s.e.x. She tamped down on her rising nausea and tried for a smile.
"Take care and the best of luck to the both of you," she told the Patricks.
And then she did what any woman would do when her entire belief system had just been up-ended-she gathered her courage and faked it through the rest of the day"s appointments.
On the way home, she stopped off at the nearest convenience store for a pint of Ben & Jerry"s Cherry Garcia with a side of Chunky Monkey.
And then she sat in the parking lot with the engine of her Lexus running and ate her way to the bottom of both.
4.
CHARLENE GATHERED up the empty ice cream containers and her briefcase, and climbed from her car. She tried to ignore the guilt that churned away inside her as she made her way up the front walk of the large two-story colonial that had once belonged to her parents.
Impossible.
She could practically feel the zits popping out all over her face. And all because of the Patricks and their announcement that her services-her basic values and beliefs-were no longer needed.
Okay, so it wasn"t entirely their fault. They"d been the icing on the proverbial cake. It had all started with Holly Farraday and her aphrodisiac desserts.
Before Holly had come to town, Charlene had never considered physical attraction and s.e.x as key components of a relationship. She"d just dismissed Stewart"s failure to recognize her soul-mate potential with various excuses. He was too busy. He was too shy. He was too socially inept.
But with everyone jumping onto the o.r.g.a.s.m band-wagon, she"d started to think that maybe, just maybe, he"d failed to take their relationship beyond friendship because he just didn"t find her l.u.s.tworthy.
It wasn"t as if she had a hot body or a great face. She was average. But then, so was Stewart. That was part of the reason they were so perfect for each other.
His statement at lunch about wanting to talk, had given her hope that maybe she wasn"t totally clueless. But then the Patricks had deflated that hope like a sharp knife to a balloon, and she was back to wondering if she wasn"t the one full of bunk.
Figure in a rather embarra.s.sing conversation with Mason McGraw, not to mention her awkward reaction to him-she"d rambled on about her underwear for heaven"s sake-and she was definitely on a downward spiral.
Even more, she couldn"t seem to stop thinking about him. Fantasizing.
Not such a big deal, considering the fact that she"d been doing that for most of her life. But since she"d seen him up close and personal, her fantasies had taken on new dimensions. She knew what he smelled like. She knew how warm he felt and how rough his fingertips were when they brushed hers.
Ugh.
The only bright spot in her entire day was seeing the package sitting on her doorstep when she reached the front porch.
She unlocked the front door and turned the doork.n.o.b. Inside, she flicked on the light, set her briefcase on the floor, hung her purse on the coat rack that sat next to the door and retrieved the package.
After tossing the ice cream containers into the kitchen trash, she made her way back to the living room and settled on the sofa. She smiled as she unwrapped the books she"d ordered on-line last week. How to Make the Perfect Quiche and Building Your Own Barbecue Pit. While she didn"t actually have the time to do either activity-she spent her days preparing for her cla.s.ses in the fall and working with her patients-she liked knowing that she was armed and ready should any free time present itself. She knew that one day her practice would slow and her lecture would lose its popularity. Then she would finally have the opportunity to try some of the interesting projects that filled the how-to books lining her bookshelf.
In the meantime, she could at least read about them.
Charlene took her new books and headed upstairs. She"d been the proud owner of the large house for over six years now, but thanks to her busy schedule, the place still looked the way it had when she"d been growing up. The only exception was the sizeable bookcase she"d bought for the living room to house her collection of how-to books. Otherwise, it was as if time had stood still.
Family portraits lined the winding staircase leading up to the second level. Her mother"s prized chandelier-which she"d gotten at an estate sale for a steal-hung in its usual spot in the foyer. It was the only indulgent looking item in the otherwise low-key house.
The interior had been decorated years ago in neutral tones, the furniture a decent quality but simple. Functional. Her mother hadn"t been concerned with impressing her father"s bank colleagues or making a good showing down at the ladies" auxiliary so much as she"d been focused on holding tight to the family"s money. She"d been obsessed with saving for the proverbial rainy day since she"d grown up in a steady downpour as the daughter of a poor farmer. While she"d married into a stable and comfortable life as the wife of a bank president, she"d never forgotten her roots.
She"d never stopped worrying, and so by the time Charlene"s father had left, they"d acc.u.mulated a sizeable chunk of money that had been split right down the middle. Her father had taken his share and moved to Pennsylvania where his family had originally hailed from, and he now worked with a distant cousin as a financial consultant.
Her mother would still be eating bologna sandwiches for lunch every day and counting her pennies if not for a mild heart attack seven years ago. All the stress of scrimping and saving and raising a child on her own finally caught up with her. She"d realized then, after a triple bypa.s.s, that she couldn"t use her nest egg if she was six feet under. She"d stopped h.o.a.rding and started living then. She"d signed over the house-which she"d been awarded in the divorce settlement-to Charlene and used her savings to purchase a top-of-the-line recreational vehicle. She and her widowed sister were now cruising through the South, namely Florida, and enjoying life.
At least, her mother said she was enjoying life. But in all the years since the divorce, Charlene had yet to see her really smile.
Likewise, she hadn"t seen her father smile much either when she"d gone up to Pennsylvania or he"d come south for the occasional visit.
If she hadn"t known better, she might have suspected that they actually missed each other. But she knew better. Her parents couldn"t stand each other. They"d been in the same room only once since the divorce, at Charlene"s high school graduation, and they"d made it a point to sit on opposite sides of the auditorium. They wouldn"t even talk about each other.