That seems to quell her tears. She sniffles, but she’s stopped crying. She takes her napkin and dabs it across her face. Her mascara is running down her cheeks. “What is wrong with your arm?”
Oh. Right. There are bits of dried wax still attached to my skin.
I push my sleeve down, covering my shame.
I counter with: “What’s wrong with your face? You look like you gave an octopus a blow job.”
She lets out a sound that is half a bark, half a laugh. “I’m going to go clean up.”
She gives my hand one more squeeze and then detaches from me. Maggie gets up and leaves the table. While she’s gone, I pull out my phone. I text Dove:
Me:
See you tomorrow, Boss.
8
BOYFRIEND REPAIR
Dove.Now.
The mattress shifts as Ophelia rolls to her stomach, perched up on her forearms. Her beautiful, dark curls bounce when she adjusts. “Is he seriously coming?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I give it a 50/50.”
“I hope he does. I wanna hang out with the man you’ve got wrapped around your…”
“Whip?”
“Nah. Your whip wrapped aroundhis…” She whistles, swirls a single finger in the air.
We cackle with laughter. We’ve both wonderfully, stupidly wine drunk. I roll over, belly crawl to the other side of the mattress, and pick up the bottle of wine, topping us both off.
“I am a gift to women everywhere,” I tell Ophelia as we lay side by side in her bed. “People should pay me. Like a service, you know? Give me $300 bucks. I will train yourboyfriend to be a better boyfriend. I call it…Boyfriend Repair.”
“You break it, you buy it.”
“I mean, sometimes you’ve gotta take things apart to put them back together…you know?”
“You’re not wrong.”
I take a thoughtful sip of wine. “Mm. Speaking of breaking things.” Her bedframe is old school—rounded bars on both the head and foot of the bed. I prop up on her footboard, bend my knees, and knock my leg against hers. “Is Phantom coming to the party?”
“I think so.”
“Is that going to be weird? If Brody proposes…”
A frown deepens on her mouth. “If Brody proposes, he’ll be happy for me. Look—what I have with Phantom, it’s great. But it only exists at the club. Brody…he takes me out on dates. He asks me how my day is. He cares about me. We have a chance at something real. It’s time. You know?”
Ido know.I get it. I think about that guy from the bar.Thirty-five,he said.Good for you.
Time slips, running away from you before you’re ready. Everyone around me is trying to settle down, finding love, building lives.
Meanwhile, what am I doing?
I’m going through second puberty, playing pretend as a dominatrix,finding myself(whatever the fuck that means).
As if she can sense the mood shift (because of course she can, she always knows what I’m thinking), Ophelia leans forward, extending her wine glass towards me. “Hey,” she says, her dark eyes meeting mine, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “Whatever happens…let’s fuck it all up. If this is my last night as an un-engaged woman, I want to go out in style. I want a blow-out, banged up birthday. I want to wake up the next day with bruises and not have any idea how they got there.”
