Playing Games. Dianne Drake

fifteen billion books he’d written—the ones still in the carton in the trunk of her car. Unopened. “Good evening, Doctor Craig. And let me just correct one thing you said before we go any further. I’m always in rare form. Not just tonight.” Something about his voice, that little Boston/British accent thing he had going on, made her voice go even sexier than her normal Valentine sexy. If dark chocolate could talk, it would sound like Edward Craig.

      Roxy glanced down at the dark-chocolate truffle on her desk. Every night, right about this time, she got the craving.

      “Rare form, maybe. But rare doesn’t necessarily mean good. Not when you do such a disservice to your listeners with your advice.”

      “My advice, Doctor Craig?”

      “Keep it nice,” Astrid warned over the headphones. “We’ve got a couple of potential new sponsors listening in.”

      Roxy slapped a sweet smile on her face just for Astrid’s benefit. “My advice, Doctor Craig, is what my listeners want. Or they wouldn’t call me, would they.” She felt a chill, awaiting his voice. Strange effect, but it happened a lot. She chalked it up to the adrenalin rush of a battle. “So what would you have me do?”

      “I’d have you give the previous caller sound advice instead—”

      “Yeah, yeah, Eddie,” Roxy interrupted. “We know your broken record. Get counseling, get counseling. But what good’s counseling going to do a cheating husband? It’s not a problem in his head. It’s in his pants. Actually, let me rephrase that. There wouldn’t be a problem if it was in his pants. You know a counselor’s going to charge her a couple hundred bucks an hour, and you know as well as I do that cheating hubbys don’t go to counseling. So she goes there by herself, plunks down all that money, and for what?”

      “To fix her marriage.”

      “Might be better spent if she could fix her hubby. But that’s not going to happen, so what I’m suggesting is an inexpensive alternative—revenge sex, Doctor.”

      “And you really believe a knee-jerk reaction like revenge sex, Doctor, is sound advice for working through an indiscretion? By the way, do you really think revenge sex is a good label to put on what you’re advocating? That oversimplifies a serious problem.”

      “Knee-jerk?” Instinctively, she looked down. The left knee of her jeans had a hole in it. The right was frayed. Not exactly the Valentine image she put out there. “And whatever do you mean by sound advice? Personally, I think my advice sounded awfully good. Oh, and if you don’t like to call it revenge sex, I’ll be glad to go with make-good sex, getting-even sex, do-unto-cheatin’-hubby sex. Take your pick.” This was getting particularly good between them tonight. Somehow she’d known it might when she’d given that little piece of revenge-sex advice to the caller.

      “And you don’t think the wife plays a part in the husband’s actions?”

      Oh, Eddie. You really opened yourself up with that one. Roxy glanced over at Astrid and winked. “A wife may play a part in the marital problems, but you and I both know it’s not always marital problems that send a man into another woman’s bed. So unless the wife actually drives her husband to his mistress’s door, and says, ‘There you go, dear. Go have a good time, and I’ll be back in an hour to get you,’ she’s not playing a part in his cheating. It’s a solo gig, Doc. He opened that door by himself, and he walked through it, and claiming she pushed him through it is a cop-out. Bottom line is, when he’s cheating it’s all about sex. Motivations don’t matter. So if that’s what it’s about for him, why can’t it be about that for her? I certainly think the first time he drops his pants for someone else he’s inviting his wife to do the same, if that’s what she wants to do.”

      Edward let out an impatient breath meant to be heard on air. “Having an affair because she’s been hurt—what will that accomplish, Doctor, except to cause more hurt?”

      “Sex, Doctor. Not an affair. And the only hurt it could possibly cause—since she’s a consenting adult—will be her husband’s, who deserves to be hurt for what he’s done to her. Like they say, an eye for an eye…or in this case…a romp for a romp.”

      “Which will drag her down to her husband’s level. That, Valentine, solves nothing.”

      Which was true, at least in Roxy’s thinking. But Roxy’s thinking wasn’t Valentine’s, and sometimes that little tug-of-war got rough. But, all for the ratings… “Quite the contrary, Doctor. It will serve as a catharsis. Surely, as a shrink, you realize the value of a good catharsis every now and then, don’t you?”

      “As a shrink, Doctor McCarthy, surely you realize that catharsis is not an act of revenge, but an act of release—”

      “And a good orgasm’s not a release, Eddie? If that’s what you think, then I’d say you don’t get around too much, do you?”

      “An emotional release,” Edward said defensively, then nervously cleared his throat. “I’m talking about an emotional release, if you can forget about the sex for a minute.”

      “Forget about the sex?” Roxy replied in her deepest, huskiest, sexiest voice. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve been having too much fun.” Roxy smiled, impressing a mental mark in her imaginary column. “Like I said before, you must not get around, because an orgasm can be as much of an emotional release as a physical one, and there are studies to back me up on that one, Doctor.” She added a second mark. “Think about it…Edward. Think about the last time you enjoyed that release…with another person, I mean.” She scrunched her nose at Astrid, at the thought of the pompous Doctor Craig indulging in that scenario. “Wasn’t it a wonderfully satisfying emotional surrender, as well as the obvious physical enjoyment?”

      “It might have been, but this isn’t about me, Doctor,” he said, his voice so dark-chocolate it gave her goose bumps.

      She glanced at her truffle. Never, ever until after Edward, but she wanted it so bad right now. “Isn’t it, Doctor?” she purred, claiming her third mark. “It’s about your ideas of right and wrong, which, like it or not, are affected by your life, your loves, your sexual experiences, and vice versa. My caller was hurt, she needed to vent, and yes, she needs to feel like she has some control in the matter. As a relationship counselor you know this, or you should. What I suggested, Eddie—a little revenge sex—gives her back some of that control. To me, that’s a pretty simple solution. You know what they say about two playing that game, and maybe when her husband finds out she’s been playing—and you know he’d never suspect she would, men never do—he might just rethink his playing if he wants that marriage to work out. If he doesn’t and he leaves, she’s better off without him.”

      “Adultery, Doctor McCarthy, is never the solution. Not to any problem. It’s only a means to compound it.”

      It was time to end this now. He was drifting off into levelheaded land, where it was hard to combat his real logic with Val sense. Meaning she had to cut him off before Edward succeeded in besting Valentine. That was not what her listeners wanted.

      Roxy drew in a steadying breath, and looked to Astrid for her end-the-segment signal, but instead got the stretch sign, meaning she was going to have to roll this all the way to the next commercial break. “Adultery isn’t an issue for the husband, since he started it, Doctor, so don’t make it an issue for the wife, too.” She twisted toward Astrid, and gave her the slash-throat signal, but Astrid shook her head.’ Roxy shook her head emphatically, but Astrid countered with a nod to which Roxy mouthed the words, “You’re fired.” Astrid responded with a gesture Roxy knew was coming and turned away from before she saw it.

      “I wouldn’t have to make it an issue for the wife, Doctor McCarthy, if you hadn’t given her license to go out and do what feels good simply as a way of getting back at her husband. But you did, and now…”

      “And now nothing,” she countered. “It’s sex, Doctor Craig. Sex for the sake of getting even. Nooky for nooky, and that’s all it is, so don’t blow it out of proportion, okay?” A little over