The Perfect Holiday

I didn’t plan for the next words to come out of my mouth. They just did, like spitting out a mouthful of water when someone tells a joke. And when I spat them out they hung in the air between us like a bad smell.

“Why did you fuck Juju?”

Shane blinked at the question. “What?”

“Juju,” I said, cupping my hands to my breasts. “Big tits, big hair, deep throat.” I let my hands drop into my lap and laced my fingers together. “Why did you fuck her?”

“I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head and holding up his hands like he was pushing the words back toward me.

“Bullshit,” I shot back.

“No, seriously. I never screwed Juju.”

“I saw you,” I said incredulously, leaning in and cocking my head to the side.

“You saw her… well, sucking my cock. You did not see me fuck her.”

I frowned at him. “Are you telling me you never fucked Juju Wheeler?”

He leaned in to match my posture and lowered his voice. “Never.”

“She was naked in the back of your mom’s car.”

“Yes, she was.”

“You were naked.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t fuck her.”

“I did not.”

It came to me like a nine iron to the forehead. My head slowly bobbed as his words started to chip away at the brick wall that was my brain. “Ah, because you didn’t have the chance because I caught her sucking your cock…”

He brought the glass up to cover the smirk on his lips. His eyes rolled at me from above the glass. “The reason is irrelevant. Because I did not fuck her.”

I sat back and folded my arms over my breasts. I cocked one eyebrow at him. “So, basically it’s the Bill Clinton Defense.”

He frowned as a slight smile bit at the corner of his lips. “The Bill Clinton Defense?”

I jabbed on knuckle in the air and did a very bad impression of Bill Clinton. “I did not have sex with that woman… Juju Wheeler…”

“Ah, the Bill Clinton Defense.”

“A blowjob is sex. Same as fucking.”

“I beg to disagree,” he said, holding up his own finger now and swiping it back and forth through the air. “A blowjob is sex. Fucking is sex. But a blowjob is not fucking, hence a lesser offense.”

“A lesser offense?” I asked, nodding thoughtfully.

“Yes.”

“And you think it should carry a lesser sentence.”

He stared into my eyes and said, “Isn’t ten years enough?”

I started to speak, but my brain had the good sense to keep my mouth shut. Shane was right. I was sitting there beating him up over something that happened —or I thought had happened— more than ten years ago. Was a blowjob as severe an act of betrayal as fucking? Was it a lesser form of cheating and thereby easier to forgive? Should I have reacted the way I did back then, thinking that Shane and Juju’s affair had gone much further than it actually had? Who knows. It was too late to even think about it now.