The Dating Bender Read online

  God did not answer my prayers, or maybe it was me who would not allow Him to help. The romantic side of my brain grappled with the idea that nothing else mattered because Frankie was the soul mate I had been waiting for. Two wounded, divorced souls, connecting despite the marital boundary between them. Each prepared to love so completely and unconditionally it would melt away everything else that stood in the way. Or at least that was the fairytale ending I prayed for.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Despite my loose lip action in New York, Ryan and I maintained our status quo in the relationship for a couple of weeks. This was easy enough given he had no idea what had gone down. The same could not be said for Frankie who pulled me into his office. He looked at me softly. I thought he might cry.

  “Samantha,” he said, trying to make eye contact with me. “Out of respect, I decided to leave you alone until my divorce became final, which it has. And, because you are the caliber of woman that you are, I know proof is necessary. Here are the final papers,” he said as he pushed a sheaf of legal nonsense at me.

  I never looked at him directly, not even once. My mother would have applauded my lack of eye contact. I prayed for him to adjust his pleats, break the moment, un-pout his lips—none of which he did—so I cut the tension by staring out at the dropping snow as I babbled.

  I dry heaved. And just like my mother, I muttered incomprehensibly, and ended with, “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

  “Well, not exactly,” he said.

  I glanced at the papers in relief. Now I could love Frankie, legitimately, and not go to hell.

  “All righty then,” I said, and ran out of his office. Despite my best intentions, I was not equipped to deal with him or his divorce papers.

  ***

  Later that night, staring at my heart-shaped bathroom mirror, only one word could describe my look: sinful. I prayed that Candy would telepathically know I needed her help and come running, but she never did.

  Looking eye to eye with myself in the reflection, I practiced telling Ryan that I had shared an illicit makeout moment with Frankie. In my mind, Ryan looked back at me with one of those I expected better of you looks. I had rehearsed the speech many times over the past couple days, but had yet to deliver it. There was no way I could break his heart in person so I dragged my body into the kitchen, picked up my retro rotary phone, and dialed. Not even the heart-filled wallpaper that surrounded me would make this any easier.

  “Hey, sweetie, how are you? Exactly the girl I was hoping to hear from. Are we on for skiing this weekend?” Ryan said.

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I’m not quite sure how to say this.” I burped to buy myself more time.

  “I don’t think we should hang out for a while,” I said as I scratched my nose until I felt warm drops of blood fall onto my lip.

  I couldn’t tell if the droplets came as a result of my gross habit or if it was God’s not-so-gentle reminder of the perils of cheating. Christ suffered on the cross, so should I.

  “That’s okay, sweetie. I get burnt out on skiing too. We can just hang and watch movies or something,” he said.

  “I don’t think you understand. I’m not sure this whole dating thing is good for us, since we work together and all. Maybe we’d be better off as friends.”

  Silence.

  I disgusted myself. I scratched my nose even harder. It felt like his silent treatment was my penance for being such a pussy to break up with him over the phone and then lie about the reason.

  “Okay,” he said, and then hung up.

  I willed him to call me back, to not let me go, to beg me to stay, to draw me into his life, and more than anything, I prayed for him to save me from myself. But he never did.

  With one swift phone call, I had ended a perfectly good relationship for no valid reason. Except Frankie. Whatever, Ryan hadn’t even bothered to fight for me.

  Using Oprah’s positive self-talk techniques, I pulled it together and peeled myself off the buckling tiles of my cold kitchen floor. I felt bad, but it didn’t squelch my feelings for Frankie.

  He understood me better than anyone I had ever met. The fact that he was married when our love began no longer mattered.

  ***

  Frankie moved into the attic of a dumpy, barn-like house. In order to visit, I walked up three flights of rickety wooden steps that hugged the side of the house. Once inside the makeshift apartment, I had to crouch over so as not to hit my head on the beams of the barely vaulted ceiling. His kids would probably like the stunted roof given their pint size, but they had yet to visit what his ex-wife had dubbed the “apartment of sin.”

  Frankie and I cried as we hugged hello. It was strange since we’d mutually agreed via text, that neither of us had ever felt happier. Despite our dysfunctional beginnings, we had been granted an opportunity for true love. I reminded myself that such an occasion called for celebrating, not sobbing.

  “I’m sorry to get your blouse wet Samantha. I’m just so happy to see you. Come here, my love. We just need a sexual release and everything will be all right.”

  “Yeah. That’s what Cosmo always says. Passionate, loving intercourse makes everything better.”

  With Ryan, I had vowed to hold sex until marriage, but with Frankie, none of those Catholic trappings seemed relevant. He swept me into his arms and kissed away my tears as he used my silk sleeve to wipe away his. I tried hard not to care. In one smooth motion, he pushed me over to his tattered couch and pulled off my clothes with purpose.

  I fumbled with his zipper until he came to my rescue by undressing himself for me. My nerves had gotten the better of my seduction strategy.

  Frankie’s penis bobbed before me. I looked at it lovingly but I, unlike it, remained frozen like a statue. When he stopped jiggling the thing, it reminded me of Michelangelo’s David. Frankie’s apparatus looked equally if not more endowed.

  Our moment of penetration came quick, as did I. For the remainder of the night, he held me tightly. I cried silent drops of joy until the sun rose the next morning. With the light of day, I felt as if I might have made the biggest mistake of my life.

  Then I denied it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For the next few weeks, Frankie and I were stricken with alternating bouts of hot sex, guilt, happiness, and sadness. I felt guilty for being a home-wrecker, and Frankie was melancholy because his children were in turmoil over the breakup of their family.

  Despite these distractions, in our love bubble it seemed as if we could spend the rest of our lives together. I ruminated over the idea of becoming a second mother to his children, and it made me full inside.

  His wife was not nearly as taken by the idea.

  On a particularly dreary, rain-soaked Monday morning, I was summoned to a meeting with Ryan and Frankie. When the session adjourned, I tried to go over and say hello to Ryan. He never uttered a single word, just radiated disgust.

  It struck me after he walked away that I might have killed the one healthy and pure romance of my adult life for a married man with three children who happened to be my boss. Let’s do the math. Bad, bad, and bad!

  Ryan never bothered to call me out directly on the affair with Frankie, but I suspected he knew. There was no mistaking Frankie and his glistening, lovelorn eyes—eyes that he seemed incapable of controlling at work, especially in meetings. I often wondered if they were glassy because he was so fond of me, or if they got that way from all the crying we did.

  Candy, over the duration of our friendship, had developed the perception of an FBI agent. She cornered me right after the meeting and forced me to agree to dinner with her as soon as we finished work. One too many hours later, we met in the semicircular loading area outside of our office compound. She mandated that I sit in her pearly blue Mustang convertible and shut up for the entire ten-minute trip to The Loop. I complied because she’d been sporting a don’t mess with me look all day.
r />   The funky little Mexican joint appeared to be hunkered down into the cracks of the mountain, and fittingly, its décor looked equally craggy. Without waiting for the hostess to seat us, Candy led us to our regular table and motioned for me to sit down. She ordered us the usual.

  We sat in uncomfortable silence for five minutes before our food arrived. I assumed I was allowed to open my mouth wide enough to feed myself.

  Without waiting for permission, I bit into a fish taco. It was a savory little sucker. The lime juice stung as it squirted me in the eye.

  “Are you having an affair?” she blurted out.

  “Am I allowed to talk yet?” I asked.

  “Oh my God! You are having an affair! I wasn’t sure but hoped you wouldn’t be that stupid. Holy shit, please tell me it’s not with Frankie?”

  I tried to speak, but started crying instead.

  “Christ. At least tell me the sex was worth it,” she said as she poked at her shrimp quesadilla.

  “It’s the best I’ve ever had. Sort of like this taco.”

  I stopped eating and looked at a has-been piñata hanging from the ceiling, along with some random nappy if not colorful bras.

  “Well good for you, I guess,” she said as she switched her gaze to the bras.

  I wondered which one of them was hers. She claimed to have ditched her brassiere here last week during a date night with her husband. Maybe that kind of racy behavior was why they were still together. That, and her gigantic melons.

  She focused back on me with a look of disgust. She always told me that frivolous sex was healthy, yet now that I’d done it, she was judging me over a paper-mâché pig pepper shaker. I opened my mouth to interject, but she shushed me and flagged down the waiter.

  “We need a pitcher of pineapple margaritas with two straws.”

  We sat in silence until the pitcher arrived. Then she gestured for me to slurp down a hefty dose of the fluorescent drink. After my first suck and the brain freeze that followed, she continued with her interrogation.

  “Oh, my God! Are you in love with him?”

  I started to answer, but she shut me up again.

  “What could you possibly be thinking? You’re not supposed to fall in love with your boss. Who is married with three children. With all those estrogen-fueled mag rags you read, you’d think you would’ve learned that by now.”

  People started to stare as she yelled at me as if I were a tween.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to…it just happened. And don’t mock my magazines. They provide a great source of solace.”

  I waited for her to laugh but her face remained stony, so I continued to slurp away the silence.

  “If you could’ve seen this letter he wrote me,” I said, “you would understand. It’s kismet.”

  I grinded my nose and sucked on the striped straw with equal abandon. The more I sipped, the heavier my head felt.

  “Oh shit, is this why you broke up with Ryan? You’ve really lost it. Frankie isn’t even divorced yet.”

  I chugged the remains of the pint-sized pitcher.

  “No, he’s divorced, I saw the papers. I would’ve never had relations with him otherwise. How stupid do you think I am?”

  I scratched at my boobs in an attempt to distract her from answering.

  “How can you be so intelligent at work, yet so clueless about love? He’s not divorced. He was droning on about it this afternoon. He served Sherry the papers multiple times but she hasn’t signed them yet. Apparently, she’s refusing to go through with it. What papers were you looking at?”

  My stomach gurgled. I tried to tell her that I had only glanced at the contract long enough to see the word divorce, but nausea prevented me from speaking. Redbook never mentioned that signature verification was required in these types of situations.

  The margarita threatened to repeat itself.

  I sat in a taco-tequila haze. This could not be happening. I was in no way meant to be dating and falling in love with a married man. This was not what I signed up for. I fought to hold back the urge to hurl.

  “Shut up. Just because your boobies are bigger than mine doesn’t mean you can treat me this way,” I shouted as I pounded the table with the pitcher.

  I got up, ran to her side of the table, and flaunted my flat chest in front of her face.

  “These are worthy. And so am I.”

  The people at the table next to us hid behind their menus. Christ. My tirade reminded me of past Serrano family dinner nights, most of which ended with my father reaming somebody out for no reason. My tantrum knocked down one of the dangling bras from its perch above our table. Or maybe Candy flicking her fork to settle me down had something to do with it. Whatever the cause, a dirty, dusty D cup landed on my head and ended the outburst.

  “Sam, you need to face facts. He’s married, and he’s likely going to stay that way. Get out of this train wreck of a relationship as soon as possible, before you cause any more damage.”

  I hated her. Where was she when I needed someone to talk me out of dumping Ryan and sleeping with Frankie?

  “This is the real deal. You don’t understand,” I whined, struggling to disentangle myself from the monstrous cups. “He even made these romantic plans for Valentine’s Day. He orchestrated a big night out to cement our relationship for the world to see.”

  No sooner had I freed my face from the grody tit sling than Candy bolted up from her seat, grabbed me by the neck, and pulled me into her more than ample, hundred percent natural C-cup bosoms.

  She defied my family’s typical reaction by giving me what I needed most: a boob to cry on. I loved her again.

  “Pay attention,” she commanded as I burrowed my cheek deeper in her comforting cleavage. “Tomorrow night, you’re going to put on a fabulous dress, blow out your hair, and go enjoy a fantastic evening. You can deal with the rest of it later. Use a condom.”

  I un-nestled my face from her tit.

  “So you think everything is going to be okay?” I asked.

  “It has to be.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ginormous heart-shaped pellets of hail flew out of the sky, but even the weather could not bring me down. Instead, I took it as a sign: God was sprinkling a little bit of heaven down on me and my soul mate for Valentine’s Day.

  Despite my cheery disposition, by the time the precipitation stopped, I was crunched up on the couch barfing my guts out. It must have been the month-old Pop-Tarts and sour milk I had for breakfast.

  For a moment, I thought about canceling on Frankie, but my inner martyr prevailed. I blamed the Church since I had started attending again right after I broke up with Ryan.

  I tested my stomach’s strength by going to pick up the mail, and was pleased that I did so without vomiting. Yet that small victory was short-lived since I noticed my mother had sent me a new clipping, God Will Love You Even if No One Else Can.

  Enough dallying. I had to get ready for my hot date. I leaned up on my elbows, recited one Hail Mary, and flopped off the couch. Once I powered through the sick feeling in my tummy and endured a few minutes of disorienting ceiling spins, I pulled myself off the shabby pink shag rug and waddled to the bathroom to get ready. The sight of my dirty bathroom steeped in hairballs almost made me hurl again. My tendencies toward keeping a clean home had moved to the wayside, right along with my relationship with Ryan. So what if I was sloppy now? Frankie still loved me. I fell into the tub and soaked away my sickness with the hope that some of my sins would wash away too.

  I made it in to the restaurant, but despite my best efforts, still felt and looked like hell, which was fitting given my sinning of late would likely send me straight there. Frankie employed all the right moves you’d expect from a cheating husband.

  “You look beautiful, honey. I can’t wait to get you into the hotel room. Have I told you lately that I love you?” he sang, literally, a tad embarrassing.

  Frankie knew exactly how to cut through my inner pain, guilt, and insecurity. The hours of
our special night at an obscure and hidden wine bistro flew by as smoothly as the jazz trio whirred in the background. The tunes lulled me and my stomach to a state of peace. Everything in the world stopped rumbling, including my guilt-ridden imagination—aside from the odd pang between cheese courses. With each bite, I melted more deeply into the music and our love zone.

  So what if we had to drive all the way to Denver to eat without being spotted by anyone who knew us? He assured me it had nothing to do with hiding out and everything to do with the restaurant’s intoxicating pasta dishes.

  His rose-colored shirt blended in with the dramatic décor and made it look like he was naked, except for the ruby velvet drape behind him that ensconced his body. I was enamored with someone who loved me back with abandon. There was no way God could think this was sinful.

  Frankie, the perfect gentleman, propped me upright at all the right moments to prevent my nausea from returning. He enveloped me with his eye-sparkling stare throughout the duration of the meal, which I tried hard not to regurgitate. Was he worried for my health, or mesmerized by my beauty?

  Sweat slid down my cheeks and nose. Frankie soaked up my perspiration with a heart-shaped cocktail napkin as he whispered in my ear.

  “Samantha Serrano, I love you more than my own life.” He repeated this to the point of nausea. It was hard to tell if it was because of the heady conversation or my upset stomach. I turned freakishly red; half because overt declarations of love embarrassed me, and half because I felt I might hurl at any moment.

  As we made our way back to the hotel, Frankie continued to murmur sweet nothings at me. Despite my feelings of uncertainty and illness, I had never felt happier.

  We navigated the tight hallways of our hotel and made it to our room just in time for Frankie to rip our clothes off. As we stepped inside, he tore off my lacy briefs and stuffed his erect penis inside me. We had dirty sex right up against the hotel door as it and my legs remained partially open. Normally, this would have embarrassed me, but not tonight. We did it again a mere seven minutes later on the dingy mustard carpet—fulfilling and dizzying, yet disgusting all at once.