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I spent most of it walking the strip, from the huge fountains out in front of my hotel all the way down to the Luxor. Everything looked so different during the day. Up until now, my girlfriends and I had been enjoying Vegas mostly at night.
As part of my vow to keep busy I stopped for brunch at Planet Hollywood. I did an hour or two of shopping at the Showcase Mall. I even dropped a little money at the roulette wheels over at the MGM Grand.
Gambling was one of my guilty pleasures. I wasn’t a high roller or anything, but as a red-blooded New Yorker I’d been known to drive south to Atlantic City or shoot north toward Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun from time to time. My job as both a publicist and promoter had me working long hours and even longer weekends. Losing myself at these adult playplaces had always helped me blow off some steam.
Of course, Rob never took me. In nearly ten years of marriage, I could count on one hand the number of vacations we’d had. Most of them had been conveniently designed around my husband playing golf with his friends, too. Just another thing he could’ve shared with me, but never did.
Oh fuck Rob, remember?
It was supposed to be the mantra of our trip. Forget all about the guys and husbands — or in my case ex-husband — and just enjoy being together as girlfriends for once. It sounded good in theory, anyway. But in practice…
In practice everything had deteriorated before our week was even half over.
It all started with Heather, disappearing back to her room after dinner to tuck her children in via Skype every night. That part was totally understandable, except that most nights she never came back out.
Noelle was even worse. She made every other excuse to turn in early. It could’ve been because she was tired, but more likely because her loser unemployed husband was a total control freak. We tried getting her to come out with us, but she soon stopped answering her room’s door and her phone.
Victoria was a blast, and a wonderful single mom. But when her son came down with the flu, she’d flown back three days early. And if that weren’t big enough of a drag, we had to put up with Deanna. About to embark upon her second marriage, her new fiance called her phone literally every fifteen fucking minutes.
That left Bella, the wild one. The one I most related to, because ever since my divorce a year ago I was looking very forward to cutting loose with her.
And then four days in… she’d gotten called back to work. And she went. And we all hugged her goodbye and wished her well.
It’s life, Lauren. It happens.
Yeah sure, life happens. Only this time, it happened five consecutive times. And it happened to my vacation. The only one I’d taken in God only knew how long.
And so it came to pass that with three nights left in our ‘week of fun’, I was the sole survivor Everyone had changed flights and gone back early, leaving me with time and money and tons of pent-up energy. Not to mention a very spacious and expensive hotel suite that, as of right now, was hauntingly empty.
As the sun finally set, I felt the knot of anticipation in my stomach more sharply than ever. It occurred to me I’d been distracting myself. Doing anything and everything I could, to keep from thinking about… tonight.
It’s just a drink. One little drink.
Yeah, sure. That’s what I kept telling myself. And the little voice in my head kept laughing back in my face.
No strings, no guilt, no pressure — remember?
The knot in my stomach tightened. The truth was, I’d wanted it last night. Wanted everything the flyer had offered.
And I’d wanted it badly.
It had been almost a year since I’d actually had sex; ten months, to be precise. And if not for a moment of weakness when Rob had stopped by to grab some of his stuff, it would’ve actually been more like a year and a half.
Nothing wrong with wanting it, I reminded myself silently. Hell, it’s only natural.
I’d jumped him after a single glass of wine, right on the couch he was taking with him the next week. I was fine with that. Both the sex and the loss of the couch.
What I wasn’t fine with however, was the guilt that came afterward.
Besides, sex with my ex wasn’t exactly fulfilling either. It was only marginally better than the increasingly lackluster sex we’d had during our marriage, only this time with the forbidden element of doing something ‘wrong’ thrown in.
And now here I was, almost a year later… without even so much as a fuckbuddy or friend with benefits I could call to help me out. I was practically celibate. At severe risk of growing my cherry back.
Hell, I’d even tried one of those swipe-if-you-like dating apps everyone raved so much about. I’d had five meet-ups with four different guys, and none of them had gone past first base. And not for a lack of trying on my part, either.
“Guys these days don’t always make the first move,” Bella had told me. “Sometimes you’ve got to do it yourself.”
Yeah, no thanks.
