I tried everything - alcoholism, workaholism, shopaholism, chocoholism. The whole caboodle.
Okay, montage over. We get the picture.
*
Robin raised his eyebrows when I came home with a certain bottle blonde by the name of Taylor, but he wasn't disapproving. I could see he was pleased I was dealing with my Zoey fixation in my own way.
It was late anyway - he'd been out as well, though he'd ended up there on the couch watching Conan on his own. Everyone was fueled up on alcohol, especially him.
So I simply got a couple of raised eyebrows and a mock military salute as I led Taylor through to my bedroom - I didn't get the kind of disapproval regarding my blatant rebound that I actually felt deep down I probably deserved, or Taylor probably deserved, let's face it.
But Taylor didn't care I was bouncing back from a relationship - she seemed only pleased that at last, she'd won another night with me. I'd probably have felt a little sad for her had I not as much alcohol in my system as I had. Taylor was a marketing assistant with a consumer goods manufacturer, maybe a couple of years out of college. I'd first hooked up with her many moons ago after an office Christmas party because she'd been the baby sister of someone who'd worked in our accounts department.
She was pretty, and she smelled of apricots, and she was easy to fall into bed with, though now I'd been exposed to the kind of energy levels of a dominant female, I wondered whether Taylor's pliable manner would hold up.
She was on the bed almost before the door was closed, and I was quickly in her arms, resolved to try my utmost to forget about Zoey.
"I missed you," she breathed, as I kissed her neck, marveling at the velvet softness of her skin. "Gina said you got involved with someone at work."
"I did," I said, remembering that Gina was the name of her sister in our accounts department.
"Didn't work out?" she asked, happy as ever to lie back and let me do whatever I liked with her, which on this occasion involved moving down to push up her little pink and white top, revealing her cute stomach there for me to kiss.
"Not really."
I just brushed my hands over her body, down her slender thighs, checking out her trim figure through the thin white leggings she wore, which along with her top made her look a little trashy perhaps, though fine for a bar and a nightclub as it turned out.
"Mmm…" she moaned as I pushed up her top even further, to find her little breasts, knowing full well after an evening's viewing that she hadn't bothered with a bra. "I'm glad it didn't work out."
I swear, her skin tasted as though she'd brushed herself in sugar.
She was soon moaning and writhing under me as I tasted her flesh, squeezing her little handfuls and grazing her nipples with my fingers. Little cries came as I found her stiff buds with my hot mouth.
My hand sank down between her legs, feeling the glorious curves of her body, the kind of classically feminine shape that could turn a man on in an instant. Her leggings really were thin - hardly any protection for a night on the town. I could feel the heat of her sex through the stretchy material as well as her underlying underwear.
"Tell me what you want," I said quietly, knowing how things had been with her before, knowing she was like all those others who just lay back, opened their thighs, allowed their conqueror to take his fill without question before faking an orgasm in an attempt to make him think she was good in bed.
Taylor looked at me blankly, said: "I want what you want, Aide."
I looked at her, trying not to feel irritated. What a waste to simply push myself inside her, wriggle about a bit and then empty myself. She was a touch trashy, sure, but she was still beautiful, still a woman who deserved to know the possibilities she was missing out on.
I said: "I want you to come. Tell me what you like."
She smiled, her forehead creasing in confusion. "I like you," she said. "You make me come - every time you fuck me."
I thought back, knowing now that what she said was a lie. I'd never made her come. Had I ever made any of those women come? I suddenly felt a bit of an idiot. Perhaps Zoey had been the only one I'd ever actually given an orgasm.
Taylor said brightly: "You want me to suck you a little first?"
She spoke as though it was a spark of blinding inspiration, that no girl had ever thought of before. Foreplay before penetration.
I stroked her cheek, said: "You know there's more to life than pleasing a guy?"
"What're you talking about?"
"Shh…"
I kissed my way down her stomach, slipping easily between her legs, where my face came to rest in the crux of her thighs. I was ignoring her own wishes, I suppose, in distracting myself with her shape, her scent, her heat as I trailed my mouth and nose over the delicate form of her mound. But she did want what I wanted, so. She seemed to be enjoying my touch, at least, and was never going to stop me. As always, she was happy to simply lie back as a passenger. Only this time, glancing up, I could see her face remained marked by confusion and uncertainty.