Chapter 1

"This is a huge mistake!"

She just smiled at my outburst. A very pretty smile. Of course it was. She was beautiful. She had long black hair that cascaded to her mid-back and eyes to match. I could get lost in those eyes.

"Well, you've already paid me for the hour," she replied. "Why not make the best of it?"

"I don't think I can," I moped.

She raised an eyebrow, questioning.

"Too much alcohol."

"The great equivocator," she said.

I nodded. "'It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance'," I recited automatically. "I should have stopped drinking when I called the agency and made the appointment for you to come over. Since then I've had way too much..." Then what she'd said sunk in. I whipped my head up to look her in the face.

"You know Shakespeare?" I challenged. I shouldn't have moved my head so fast. It hurt.

"I am a college graduate," she said.

"Really?"

"Really."

"No. Really?" I asked again.

She sighed. "Bachelor's in psychology, working on my master's at Maryland."

"So why are you escorting?"

She frowned at the question, but didn't seem offended. Good, I didn't want to offend her. I need to pull myself together. I pushed the bottle on the table away from me. As far away as I could.

"This isn't about me," she firmly stated. "It's about you. What do you want, Joe?"

I stared at her. I couldn't remember her name, I realized. In one ear and out the other.

"Why did you call the agency?" she prompted.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," I drawled. I tried to crack a country boy smile but she apparently didn't like the joke.

She got up and walked over to the sink. Why were we sitting in my kitchen instead of the bedroom? She found a glass in the cabinet and filled it at the tap and then placed it in front of me.

"Drink," she ordered.

I automatically took a swig. She waited, looking at me with just a hint of disdain. Like Sharon used to look at me. I shifted and improved my posture.

"So what's going on, Joe?" she asked softly. A tenderness had shown up in her voice.

"My life sucks," I replied.

"Why?"

"I lost both my best friend and probably the only woman who could ever love me," I said. "So I got drunk and made a phone call."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I gave an exaggerated shrug. She sat quietly, waiting.

"It's a long, complicated story," I finally said, "about friends with benefits. Or without benefits. Or ... oh, I don't know. Friends and benefits."

"So tell me about it," she suggested.

"You really want to hear about it?"

"You did pay for the hour. I'm happy to listen, unless you'd rather..." Her eyes flicked to my crotch and back up.

I grimaced. Nothing was stirring down there.

"I don't know where to start," I admitted.

"So start at the beginning."

"'In the beginning, the world was void and without form'," I intoned.

My companion cleared her throat and I shrugged.

"I guess things with Sharon began the day I failed to propose to my college girlfriend, Alicia. Well, ex-girlfriend, technically. We'd been together two and a half years before I left for grad school at the University of Arizona. That was the fall of 1990. My first spring semester in Tucson, the distance took its toll. We broke up but agreed to remain 'friends.' In reality, the only thing that changed was that the fights stopped. We still talked on the phone as often as we had when we were a couple and we made plans to get together at the end of the semester. My last class ended and I hopped in my car and drove for fourteen hours back to Boulder. I only made one stop. Long enough to get a ring. I'd had enough of Tucson and enough of time away from Alicia."

I paused. I hated remembering this next part. I really hated having to talk about it. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

"It ... didn't go well. We started off with a hug and a pleasant conversation. I asked her how her life was and ... and ... and an hour later I was calling Sharon."

I looked up at my companion. She gave a comforting smile and reached over and took my hand.

"Now tell me the story."

I nodded, and let my mind slide back to that day...

"Sharon, it's Joe."

"Joe? How did it go?" The concern in her voice told me she'd picked up the pain in mine.

"Not well. I ... I didn't even have a chance to ask her. Before I could, she was telling me about her new boyfriend."

"Oh, Joe!"

"It gets worse. She told me what a great kisser he is."

"What??"

"It just happened. She said she was glad we'd been able to be friends since we broke up and I agreed. Then she started talking about this guy and I was just too stunned to tell her to shut up. By the time I recovered ... well, let's just say I was lucky I recovered before she told me about anything but kissing. Like how well he could quote Shakespeare."

Sharon chuckled. We shared way too many inside jokes.

"I sincerely doubt there are any two-backed beasts yet, at least with Alicia," she said.

"You're probably right, but does it matter?"

"Of course not," Sharon replied.

I let out a long sigh. Sharon kept silent.

"Can I come over?" I asked.

"Sure," she said. "I'll break open the wine."

Sharon greeted me at her apartment door with a big hug. She didn't let go right away. Neither did I. I wanted to collapse or die, but she held me up.

Eventually we made it inside and over to her couch. As I sagged into the cushions, she handed me a tall plastic glass of red liquid. I looked askance at the cup.

"You need to drink it faster than you will out of a wine glass," she said. "You should actually be drinking something harder tonight."

"Harder stuff tastes like crap," I retorted.

Sharon shrugged and didn't push me. I took a sip of the wine. It tasted like crap too. I took a gulp. Sharon sat on the couch next to me and put an arm around me.

"I thought Alicia loved me," I moaned. "I loved her!" I took another gulp of wine.

"I know," Sharon said soothingly.

"I was willing to quit grad school for her!" I wailed. "And she's already fucking someone else. God, this hurts."

"I know," Sharon said again. "It's just like me and Allen."

I nodded.

Sharon and I had become friends when she was dating my roommate Allen. They met at the beginning of her freshman year. When the school year ended, they had a very passionate send-off that required me to spend the night at Alicia's so they could have the room. It was supposed to tide them over for the summer break while he was in California. A month later the break turned out to be for good. Allen sent Sharon a letter dumping her.

I spent the next year being Sharon's shoulder to cry on. Now it was my turn.

I did cry that night, leaving tear stains on the shoulder of Sharon's t-shirt. She listened to me whine and bawl and bitch about Alicia. I also drank enough to be very sick the next morning. I didn't lose my cookies, but the hangover was fierce. It took me a very long time to sit up on Sharon's couch, where she'd let me sleep the night before.

"Why did you get me drunk?" I moaned when she walked into the room.

"It's what you did for me when Allen dumped me," she said.

"That may have been a bad idea," I muttered.

Sharon just shrugged her shoulders.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

I glared at her. "Like shit."

Sharon just nodded. My head continued to pound and the wooziness was intense. I eventually made it to my feet and tottered toward the bathroom. When I returned, Sharon had started coffee. I decided against sitting in a chair and eased myself back onto the couch. It wasn't too painful to lie on my side and I figured I deserved that reward after my courageous journey to pee. I closed my eyes and tried to will the pounding away. I didn't succeed.

Something nudged my ribs. I opened my eyes to see Sharon holding coffee and aspirin. She pulled an end table around and set them within reach.

"You are a goddess," I muttered.

Sharon grinned and made a flourish with her arm. I would have rolled my eyes but it hurt too much. Instead, I swallowed the aspirin and took a sip of the coffee. Then I closed my eyes and went back to trying to shove the hammers out of my skull.

There is something about pain that changes the nature of time. There is no past and barely a future. There is just this painful breath and then this nauseous whirl and maybe the odd thought that is little more than 'God, make it stop.' Really good hangovers leave few atheists.

My prayers were answered about two in the afternoon. I may have slept, but I didn't feel particularly rested. What I did feel was thirsty. I opened my eyes and managed to sit up without wanting to immediately collapse back. This was good. I made a quick apology to God for all the promises I was sure I'd made but now couldn't remember. I noted that the coffee was gone and glanced around. Sharon was reading at her kitchen table with a glass of something that looked cold. She looked up and watched me. I pulled myself up and slowly, very slowly, made my way to the table.

"Water?" I asked.

Sharon nodded and had a glass in front of me by the time I sank into the chair.

"Still feeling like shit?" she asked.

"Yes. But not as bad. A shower and some food and I might even make it to human."

"A shower and food we can do."

Sharon waited until I'd emptied my glass and then stood, extended a hand, and helped me to my feet. She led me to the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. She started adjusting the knobs while I stripped off my shirt and sagged against the counter, waiting.

"Go ahead and get in," she said, once she was satisfied with the water temperature. "I'll go get you some clean towels."

I nodded, and once Sharon had left the bathroom, shucked my pants and climbed under the spray.

It was glorious. I could almost feel the stink slough away. The steam seemed to open my veins and give me a fresh shot of invigorating oxygen. I stood, just soaking the warmth in.

"Got your towel!" Sharon called from the other side of the shower curtain a while later.

"You are a true goddess!" I called back.

"Thanks!" I could hear the amusement in her voice.

"You got the water temperature exactly right," I added.

"Well, you and Allen once joked that you were the only guys on the floor that liked it a half turn back from boiling. So I set it to the same temperature that we used when we showered together in the dorms."

"Uh, Sharon, the showers in the dorm weren't coed."

She laughed. "I know that. Allen and I would go there to have sex in the early morning hours when no one else was awake."

I was taken aback, but didn't want to let on.

"Sounds hot," I said.

"Oh, it was! Both the water and the sex!"

I gave the obligatory groan at the pun and Sharon laughed.

"You really should try it, Joe. There's something about warm water pouring over your body while you're doing it—it's incredibly erotic."

"I'll believe it. If the water's hot enough, of course."

Sharon chuckled again.

"You'd enjoy it. I certainly did. It's one of the things I miss about Allen."

"So find someone else," I suggested. I was nearly done washing and was mostly continuing the shower for the pure pleasure of standing under the water.

"It's not so easy. Most of the guys who ask me out are clearly players, and I'm not going to put up with that."

"So ask a shy guy out."

"Yuck. If he's too shy to ask me out, then why would I want to go out with him? Besides, I'd probably have to be the teacher in bed, and I'm not interested in doing that."

I snorted in response.

"So what are you looking for?" I asked.

"In a guy?"

"Yeah."

I heard her sigh on the other side of the curtain.

"Someone who can be patient. A guy who can be a great friend, as well as being good in bed."

"Heh. By the time you find out he's good in bed, you're already dating him."

"Not necessarily."

"Not necessarily?"

"We could always be 'friends with benefits' first."

Suddenly I was very, very sober. I was also acutely aware that I was stark naked and only separated by a few feet and a thin plastic curtain from an attractive woman. Who also had a high libido, if I believed Allen's stories. I did one slow final turn under the water and shut the faucet off.

"You're okay with 'friends with benefits'?"

"Well, it's not what I really want ... but yeah."

I cracked the curtain and extended an arm. Sharon placed a towel in my hand and I pulled it back and began drying off.

"You accepting volunteers?" I asked, keeping my voice playful. "Where do I sign up?"

"Hah! Good one!"

I wrapped the towel around myself and opened the shower curtain. Sharon's eyes were twinkling.

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Joe."

"Oh, darn!" I said, snapping my fingers with a broad motion of my arm. It got the sought-after laugh and Sharon just shook her head.

"Get dressed and we'll go get you some breakfast," she said, "or lunch as the case may be."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sharon gave me privacy to dress and I spent the time wondering about her comments. I'd always thought she was in the "had to be in love to have sex" camp. At least she'd insisted on waiting to sleep with Allen until they'd been going out a couple of months. Their first time had ended up being a Christmas present. She bought a deep blue teddy and invited him to unwrap his gift. They'd been happy then.

Like Alicia and I had been. That started me wallowing in my own self-pity. I spent the rest of the day, including the meal with Sharon, in a funk.

I spent the rest of the summer doing much of the same wallowing. There was no point in going back to the heat of Tucson until the fall semester started, so I moped around my parents' house, did a couple of major yard work projects for them, and saw my friends when I could.

Sharon wasn't the only one I hung out with, of course. She did have more free time than some of my other friends, though. She also didn't seem to mind me whining about Alicia as much as the others. We'd go out to a movie or hit a club and end up sitting in her living room late at night, telling stories.