Maybe questionable morally, but legal.
I plaster a confident smile on my face and step out of the Uber. Ashley is walking up at the same time, so we hug and chitchat on the way in and I pretend that everything is fine and I’m not nervous. They’re my friends. They’re not going to take me out back and start throwing rotten tomatoes at me, right?
The super hot waiter comes and goes, and my besties spend the whole time giggling over his hot ass and wondering aloud about the size of his dick, but I just can’t get into it. My smile has been so firmly plastered onto my face, it feels like it’s cracked and dried in place and will soon be falling off me in chunks.
“Okay Daph, you have to tell,” Lisa finally says, breaking through Carla and Ashley’s discussion over whether Prada or Jimmy Choo’s new line of shoes is more drool-worthy.
Everyone falls silent, and is staring at me.
I don’t want to tell them anything.
Except…they already know. Thanks to Carla’s eagle eyes (okay, so Dominic and I weren’t exactly discreet) and big mouth, half of Manhattan knows, and probably most of Long Island.
So this is just my chance to explain my side of the story.
No rotten tomatoes. No rotten tomatoes.
“Remember my ill-fated birthday present?” I ask. Everyone nods expectantly. No one is going to forget that story for a long time. “Well, I went down to the bar at Bemelmans afterwards and ran into Dominic. He’d just broken it off with a friends-with-benefits-who-was-getting-clingy—you know the type. We started chatting and…
“You guys, I’ve never felt this before. It’s seriously like sticking my finger into a light socket every time I see him. He’s so damn sexy; I have no idea what my mother was thinking, giving him up.
“Well, I do know—she doesn’t like dick. Something I just don’t even understand.” I take a deep breath. I'm absolutely, positively not going to freak out. These are my friends. They love me. They sometimes even like me. It’s going to be fine.
Totally fine.
“Anyway, I know what you guys are wondering—did we fuck when I was in high school? And the answer is no, absolutely not. Dominic wouldn’t cheat on my mom. It was never like that. I mean, I thought he was cute when we were in high school, but in like, an old dude sort of way. You know, how you think Brad Pitt is cute.
“But I never in a million years thought we’d fuck each other. I just didn’t expect it to happen. I don’t want you guys to think any less of me, or of him. He’s not really my dad, I just called him that for years and he was a lot more like my dad than my real dad ever was, considering I never met him but I’m not some hick from the Ozarks who thinks it’s okay to—”
“We know,” Ashley says, gently breaking into my long-winded, worried spiel. “None of us think that.”
I stare, the rest of my explanation dying on the tip of my tongue. My eyes flit from face to face, understanding and encouragement on each of them. “You…you’re okay? You’re not here to tell me that I’m an awful human being?”
“Of course not,” Lisa says, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand. “All we want is for you to be happy, and if it’s Dominic who makes you happy, then we’re all for it.”
Carla leans over and nudges me with her elbow. “So, spill the beans; what’s it like to fuck an older guy? Does he know what he’s doing in bed? How many orgasms a night?” She wiggles her eyebrows naughtily, and I laugh. I feel the tension ease from my shoulders as I start to really believe them, as what they’re saying starts to really sink in.
“Well, I know you guys aren’t going to believe me, but I’m being serious when I say that I think Dom’s dick—”
“Drinks and chips and salsa for everyone,” the waiter says behind me, and begins placing the drinks on the table. I swear to God, I’m about seventeen shades of red right now. He sets a bowl of chips and black-bean salsa in the middle and walks away. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was about to break out into laughter.
Oh God…
“Anyway,” I whisper, leaning forward, “his dick is huge. I mean, massive. There are stallions out there who are jealous right now, wishing they had his dick. I’ve seen your guys’ dick pics,” I say with a wave of my hand when they start pulling out their phones to show me proof that I couldn’t be more wrong, “but seriously, nothing on Dominic.” Ashley looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind, but I ignore her and plunge on.
“He is fucking amazing in bed. Roger … oh my God. Not even the same species, I’d swear it under oath. In bed, and out of it, they just have nothing in common. And one time, Dominic started sending me sexts while I was at work, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the day.” I grin naughtily to myself, remembering that evening after I’d finally gotten off work. It had been worth the wait … and then some.