Free Out Bad by Janice M. Whiteaker Page B

ass.
    Grabbing a bottle of lavender scented bubble bath off the
shelf behind her head, she squeezed a hefty dose of the pale purple gel into
the rising water hoping the promises of calm and relaxation the label made were
true.  She needed some calm.
    What she really needed was to get it together.  In what
world did sexually propositioning your brother-in-law's best friend, a man you
barely know by the way, sound like a great idea?  Apparently, at least for
a little bit, the wine fueled world she was living in when he arrived on her
doorstep.
    Only it didn't seem asinine then.  It made perfect
sense.  Based on past experience, sleeping with Joe would be the perfect
way to stop her attraction to him dead in its tracks. 
    In the past two years she’d had sex with exactly two
guys.  Two.  One, two.  It was a pathetic number at best,
especially considering two was also the number of times she’d had sex in the
past two years. 
    Both were with men she met at the gym.  Both had seemed
like a good idea at the time.  Both ended quickly and horribly leaving her
facing the cold hard reality that she might spend the rest of her life
alone. 
    The first came about a year into her life as a single
woman.  Ted was nice enough and he had a bangin ’
body, but for some reason she just wasn’t really feeling that into him. 
But it had been so long since she'd had any sort of companionship outside her
family, the idea of at least getting to go to a nice dinner made her say
yes. 
    Unfortunately, Ted was just not that interesting and they
struggled to even make small talk over a mediocre meal.  She decided to
give him one more chance to get her attention and at least get to have a little
fun, in a physical sense. 
    By the end of the night she was even more positive being
single was the way to go as she shoved him, his great body, his lackluster
bedroom skills, and wet blanket personality out the front door.
    The second time was a year after that.  This time he
was much younger and she figured, why the hell not?  He wasn’t very smart
and he was a little immature, but he was very good looking and she was crossing
her fingers he'd at least be exciting.
    Exciting wasn't the half of it.
    After a nice dinner with surprisingly interesting
conversation, he took her home and she'd invited him in.  Things were
going well and she thought maybe it would be a better time than her last
go-round.
    She was wrong.
    What started out as a hot and heavy make-out session somehow
dissolved into an alternate universe where a grown man was asking to be smacked
across the face while he wanked his Prince Albert
topped dick with both hands.  "Hit me.  Hit me hard baby."
    What the fuck was going on?
    Turns out he'd been attracted to her because of her
"icy personality" and hoped to capitalize on it.  Sexually.
    After she kicked his kinky ass to the curb she'd decided
that going for the overly good-looking guy might not be the best approach, and
made a new set of rules for herself.  No more gorgeous men and definitely
no more gym memberships.
    And she was doing just fine following them until Joe the
plumber came along to fuck up her world.  In less than a week, his
existence had caused more inner turmoil than she had suffered since-- in years
and she just wanted it to stop. 
    She wanted to go back to the way she was before she tried to
ignore him from across the bar.  Before she felt his body pressed against
hers in a way that set parts of her on fire which no man had successfully even
warmed in recent years.  And definitely before she all but threw herself
at him only to be denied and left alone and mortified, drunk in her bathtub.
    That was how having sex with him ended up sounding like a
good idea.  Sex had effectively ended the two other times she’d been
distracted by a man.  She had no reason to assume it wouldn’t work
again. 
    If she had sex with him, she would be shoving him out the
door and rushing up to take a shower and brush