12:Indulge

Charlie was exhausted.  Beyond exhausted.  She was completely and utterly drained from what should have been a simple damn dinner with her kids’ friends.

Firmly closing her bedroom door behind Nana, she wished for another three martinis to accompany the three she had at the restaurant.  It was the bare minimum required to keep from wrapping her hands around that insufferably rude prick’s throat. 

His snide comments about her name and about it being his money paying the check either way had just about pushed her over the edge.  The damn man had the personality of a troll.

She stripped her dress over her head and hung it in the closet, and then reached for her shortie pajamas.

If only he had the face to match that personality, then she could walk away without giving it a second thought.  He was unfortunately good looking and, for the millisecond or two that she’d experienced the direct impact of his smile, she would even go so far as to say he was strikingly handsome.  Muscled arms and legs that managed to brush against her on three separate occasions during and after dinner escalated him to an even higher level, making him – and her – hot. 

“Of all people to be attracted to,” she muttered to herself, grabbing her phone and tablet before throwing back the covers.  Nana, recognizing the routine, jumped onto the bed and curled up at the foot.  “Why in the hell does it have to be the Captain Hook to my Peter Pan?  Or the crocodile?”

Jesus, that’s exactly what his smile reminded her of!  Tick Tock, the crocodile in Peter Pan.  Wide, toothy and meant to engage his prey, that smile was poised to devour anyone who dared to smile back.  It was the only sound lesson Captain Hook had ever taught her – never smile at a crocodile.

Obviously, she wasn’t the only one attracted to him because he still had a lucrative career in performing, but it made her sooooo angry to be part of that legion of women.  Knowing that he sent fiery bolts of lightning shooting through every female form that he touched and that she couldn’t manage to put herself above it absolutely killed her. 

Killed.  Her.

If only there was somebody to explain to her why.  Why couldn’t someone tell her what was it about him that was so freaking appealing to her libido?

“Nobody knows you’re attracted to him, dummy.” 

 She didn’t particularly enjoy admitting it even to herself, or knowing that it would likely be the memory of his sizzling touch to trigger her vibrator-induced orgasm tonight.   Her nipples went hard at the mere thought, making her curse softly.

It was time to get this out of her head and into the open, where it would be revealed as nothing more than sexual starvation for any man with an ample amount of testosterone.  Jon Bon Jovi was nothing special, he was just in the right place at a very ripe time for Charlie.

Plucking her phone from her lap as she leaned back against the headboard, Charlie flipped through her contacts until reaching Izzie’s number.  It seemed appropriate, not only because she was a psychiatrist, but since Joey’s name had been brought up tonight.  Maybe it was one of those omens her mother was always telling Charlie she should be paying attention to.

Dr. Isabel Cosso had been simply Izzie Scarducci when Charlie met her twenty-eight years ago.  As a junior, she had taken the freshman Izzie under her wing during their first high school track practice together and they went on to become exceptionally good friends. 

Charlie wasn’t the only Del Vecchio who grew close to Izzie, as little brother Joey claimed her for his high school sweetheart and, ultimately, his wife.  The two married shortly after graduation and remained deeply in love until the day he died.    

Even years after his death, the Del Vecchios all considered Izzie family and would even if it wasn’t for her and Joey’s son, Joseph.  She’d practically lived in their house all through high school and was unofficially adopted as one of their own even before marrying into the family.  She, Joseph, her new husband Aaron and their two girls still held a standing invitation to family dinners even though it had been a few months since their last appearance.  

Charlie also hadn't spoken to her friend at all in those same months.  They’d exchanged text messages semi-regularly, but there had been no occasion to hear Izzie's voice until now, when she answered this call.

“Hey, woman.  I thought you were on vacation.  Shouldn’t you be drunk on a beach instead of calling me?”

The affectionately harsh words had Charlie smiling fondly into the phone.  At one point, she’d had four sisters-in-law, but this one would always be the most like a sister.

“I friggin’ wish.  Clear off the psycho couch, Iz.  I need to talk.”

“Uh oh.  Hold on.”  Covering the phone’s speaker didn’t completely mute the instructions she gave her husband.  “Honey, it’s Charlie.  I may be a while, so go on to bed.”

“Tell Aaron I said ‘hi’.”

“Charlie says ‘hi’, now go.”  Her voice was again crisp and clear on the line when saying, “Okay.  What’s up?”

The sigh deep enough to shift the mattress prompted Nana to creep further up into the bed and cuddle against Charlie’s thigh.  While playing with the dog’s ear Charlie sough the best place to begin, she finally decided on, “You haven’t been at the dinners lately, so you missed out on some celebrity news.  Specifically, the fact that I handled Jon Bon Jovi’s divorce as counsel for his wife.”

“Since you’re on the figurative couch, I’m just nodding and making notes.  I’ll try and decide whether to be excited about that later.”

Snorting softly, Charlie confessed, “I was bad, Iz.  Like, really, really bad.  I convinced his wife to gouge him in every conceivable way.” 

The more days that elapsed, the more guilt she harbored over her actions.  She wasn’t Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; she had been exorcising demons and making a comfortably wealthy woman even more so by purposefully pissing off the woman’s husband.  The Bongiovi fortune was vast enough that neither of them were hurt for the fact, but the professional ethics that Charlie had been refining to irreproachable standards for the last fifteen years were feeling a little scuzzy.

“Why do you think you did that, Charlie?”

The question was deliberately neutral and smacked of classic psychiatric training, causing Charlie’s eyes to roll in disgust.  “You know exactly fucking why.”

“Yeah, but I’m trying to make you own it, so find the words and tell me.”

It would be a hard connection to miss, considering the previous conversations about her psyche that had taken place through the years.  They’d had so many of these psycho couch sessions at one point, that Charlie could recite the psychological Cliff Notes verbatim.

“My actions stemmed from unhealthy and unresolved issues revolving around musicians, some of which are warranted and some of which are not.”

“Good to see you were paying attention during all the free sessions.  Now, knowing that, why did you take the case?”

“Because I’m a fucking idiot?” Charlie hated making mistakes and positively loathed being called out on it when she did, so her answer was snapped a little more fiercely than was warranted.  Her follow-up was marginally softer.  “She’s an old acquaintance and I didn’t feel like I could refuse her.”

“Plus you wanted to screw the guy over since he’s always been perceived as the indirect source of your musician issues,” Izzie sighed with resignation.  “Which is ludicrous, as I’ve said a million times before.  But since you’re a stubborn bitch and refuse to get that through your thick skull, I’m going to move on and ask for details on how you gouged him.”

So Charlie offered up the abridged version of her bitch diaries by recounting the divorce case, their chance meeting at the Food Bank dinner and the freak coincidence of her boys meeting his boys on the beach today.  When all that had been told and her friend remained silent, she was compelled to tack on the details about tonight’s dinner, leaving out nothing but the chemistry that bubbled between her and Jon.

This time, when she finished speaking and the silence stretched, Charlie allowed it to linger until Izzie finally broke it. 

“Okay, so you didn’t do anything the courts found inappropriate since the judge signed off on it.  Either apologize to him or let it go.  Other than that, it sounds like you handled two very awkward situations reasonably well.  As well or better than he did, if what you say is true.  So what’s the problem?”

This is where it got tricky.  Vulnerability wasn’t Charlie’s strong suit.  She hated putting herself out there for someone to eviscerate and, even though this was Izzie and the entire point of the call, it was hard for her. 

Telling herself that Izzie would handle it with professionalism and not give her a hard time about it, she figuratively pulled the trigger. 

“My hormones go into overdrive every time he touches me.”

“Oh, God.”   

“Exactly!” Nana jumped when Charlie smacked an open palm against the mattress.  “Please tell me that, in your professional opinion, it’s the result of too much abstinence on my part.  Please.”

“You think that’s what it is?”  Her skepticism was blatant.  “Really?”

Anything else was not an option.  Anything else would imply this was specific to Jon, and Charlie couldn’t deal with that. 

“It has to be.”

“Okay,” Izzie assimilated that information with a deep breath of resignation.  “How long since you last had sex?”

“With something that doesn’t require batteries?  Over a year.”

“Oh, honey.  That’s sad and makes me want to kill your moron of a husband.”

She didn’t want her friend’s pity and she most certainly did not want to talk about her husband and sex in the same breath.  “Yeah, yeah.  Moving on.”

“I hate that son of a bitch,” Izzie bitterly professed.  “Now moving on. Women in their forties are notoriously amorous due to the hormonal surges prefacing menopause, craving not just orgasm but the whole tactile experience – kissing, fondling and all that.  A year’s a long time to be without a lover’s touch, so I suppose it’s possible that your reaction to Jon might stem from that.”

Charlie’s brain thunked against the inside of her skull when she dropped it back against the headboard with a disappointed groan.  “Possible” and “might” weren’t what she was in search of.  She was looking for unequivocal and emphatic testimony from an expert witness that justified her reaction to Jon’s touch, and if she didn’t get it, she would go to bed hating her own weakness.

“That’s too frigging vague, Izzie!  Tell me what I need to hear!”

“What you need to hear?” Izzie chuckled without humor.  “I don’t think you want that, because I’m pretty sure we have different definitions of what you need, Charlie.”

She was to the point that she didn’t care. 

“Just spit it out, already!”

“Fine!  You need a normal fucking relationship that involves good old-fashioned fucking – and a fair share of making love with someone you have an emotional connection to.  This shit you’ve been living for the last twenty years is beyond absurd, and I can’t believe that a woman as strong as you would put up with it.”

That was… blunt. 

It was also exactly why she’d never asked Izzie’s opinion of her life choices.  Being kinder than Luke, who periodically told her she was an idiot, Izzie had also never forced those opinions on her.  Her disapproval had just always lurked beneath the surface.

“In lieu of that,” the disapproving one continued.  “Enjoy the attraction and, if the opportunity comes up, enjoy it to the fullest.  You don’t deny yourself food or water when you need them, and the human body is designed to crave sex the same way.  Because I want to see you happy, I say use whatever means you have to satisfy the need, Charlie.”

“I crave a dozen cannoli sometimes, too,” she countered petulantly, still unwilling to accept the fact that it was this specific man she wanted.  “Doesn’t mean they’re good for me.”

“That’s true.”  The serenely unflappable psychiatrist had rejoined the conversation, calmly agreeing before steering Charlie down the “correct” path.  “But think of it this way.  When you’re on a diet and dying for something sweet, does the want go away if you try and ignore it?  In my experience, you only want it more and more until it becomes an obsession.  If you indulge, though – just a little bit – the craving is satisfied and you can move on.”

Well, when put that way, it didn’t seem quite so repulsive.  A little taste would get him out of her system.  She could close her eyes and pretend it wasn’t him long enough to get a little taste.

Couldn’t she?

“So you’re telling me I should try and fuck Jon Bon Jovi?”

Wow.  That sounded… stalker-ish.  She idly wondered how many of his rabid fans had conversations that included that exact sentence, and quickly decided she was better off not knowing.   

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Izzie confirmed flatly.  “And, while you’re at it, fuck him once for me.”