“Oh, right, because you’re swallowing it,” she said, making a finger gun at me.
“There has been no semen in this house for…” Ugh, I didn’t even want to think about it.
“Not even when your lover was here?” She pronounced it “lov-ah” because she knew it creeped me out.
I plopped down in the pillow pit with her and felt around for the remotes. “Nothing happened. It was actually nice to just snuggle. I’ve missed that so much.”
Holli leaned up on one elbow. “I would have snuggled you!”
“I know you would have,” I reassured her. “I just needed some non-platonic snuggling. And a dude. I’m used to going to sleep with Neil.”
“I dig it. You’re still banging chicks, though, right?” she asked hopefully, though I knew she was fully aware that our relationship would never go there. She was just psyched that we had another thing in common.
“I haven’t been banging anyone lately.” I wouldn’t have complained about that to anyone but her. Lamenting your lack of a sex life when your husband was dealing with horrific grief and hospitalization for suicidal behavior wasn’t what most people would consider totally sympathetic. But Holli wouldn’t care.
Holli was the least sexually reserved person in the history of people. She was like the Marquis de Sade, except without the shock value, pedophilia, and violence. She just did her own thing and didn’t care what people thought—or what they did, in return.
So, I felt safe saying, “He wants me to sleep with someone else.”
“What?” Holli drew the word out like, whaaaaaaaaat?
“I know. That’s kind of what I’m thinking. How the hell can he be cool with me having sex with someone else while he’s under all this mental—” I waved my hand over the top of my head, as though that could indicate an issue beyond riding in a convertible with your hair down.
Holli shrugged. “True, but maybe, for him, it’s not like that. He’s always been fine with sharing.”
“Okay, yeah. Point. It just seems like I shouldn’t be interested in having sex when he’s going through all of this.”
“So, the issue isn’t that you’re worried about Neil’s mental state, you’re just worried that you can’t live with yourself if you do step outside of the boundaries of marriage.”
Damn. She could read between the lines like nobody’s business.
“Okay, yes. But I really am afraid of hurting Neil, too. I don’t want to do something that’s going to set him back.” If having sex with somebody else would hurt Neil, I would remain celibate for the rest of my life. Not because I was a martyr or anything. I just preferred to have Neil, and have him healthy. “He has this habit of worrying about me before he worries about himself. Even in the note he left, he was like, ‘This is for your own good’ or something like that. He could be saying, ‘Hey, go get laid, I’m fine with it,’ when what he’s really doing is ignoring how he feels.”
“You and Neil had pretty clear boundaries about this stuff before he went into the hospital. Would doing what he’s asking you to do now violate any of those?”
“Well, not really. That was the whole point, we had to have permission. Which is why I didn’t fuck Emir when he was here.” I still didn’t use his real name around anyone but Neil. “But I don’t think he would have even cared if I did.”
“Well, if you’re not in the mood to go out and find another sex partner, then I guess the point is moot. Unless you had someone else you can make an international booty call to,” she mused.
My brain sparkled with copper-colored glitter in an explosion of hormones. “Not…international.”
“Oh?” One of Holli’s brows arched. “Someone local. Perhaps a hot longshoreman?”
“Are there actually fishermen on Long Island, anymore?” I asked, then shook my head. “Wait, that’s not the subject. I was thinking about Gena.”
“Oh, the double fuck chick?” Holli asked.
I tossed a small pillow at her. “Don’t be gross. But yes. Her. I’m not sure if she’d be down for a booty call, though.”
“Didn’t you just have lunch with her, a few months ago?” Holli tilted her head like a spaniel. “Did she seem…interested, then?”
“I don’t know.” I considered, running over the bits of our conversation I could remember. “She kind of just wanted to reestablish contact and offer me a shoulder to cry on, after Emma died. I mean, I told her I was attracted to her, but she didn’t make an invitation or anything.”
“Here’s what you should do,” Holli said, sitting up criss-cross-applesauce. “You’re going to give her a call and be like, “Hey, thinking of you. Wondering if you’d like to get together. And then, when she says, ‘Great, what do you want to do?’ you can be like, ‘I wanna fuck your brains out.’ Then, she comes over, you get all sorts of wild girl-on-girl action, you video it, then you send it to me.”
“No to sending you video. Maybe to everything else,” I said dryly.
“Pictures are fine,” she amended easily. “Seriously, I think you should at least try. It’s not like you’re going to ruin some kind of long and lasting friendship. And she probably won’t even be weird about it. You could always plead temporary insanity if she’s offended.”