Flying High by Liz Gavin Page A

speechless. Again. That was never a good sign.
    “Nonsense.”
    The older woman shook her head dismissing Kay’s argument. Stubbornness was one of Sylvia’s strongest characteristics.
    “No woman should give up on it. Ever. I mean, nobody should give up on sex,” she paused again. “Oh, I know! It’s been so long since you had it that you must have forgotten how good it was.”
    “Or it’s just that I’ve never had that much fun doing it to begin with.”
    Her bitter laughter didn’t sound right even to her own ears.
    “Kay, stop this nonsense! You’ve had a couple of bad experiences with men, I’ll give you that. But let me tell you something. Imagine you’ve been invited to this fancy dinner and when you got there you saw this beautiful table set with great-looking fruits and plates heaped up with mouth-watering food, right? You grabbed the nearest apple and as you sank your teeth into it you found out it wasn’t real. It was an apple made of wax. Would you give up on eating any other food after that? I don’t think so! You need to figure out the real food from the fake.”
    Kay laughed out loud at her friend’s colorful analogy. Another trademark.
    “I guess not,” she replied still shaking her head and trying to get rid of the banquet imagery.
    “Exactly. Why should you give up on men entirely after eating a couple of bad apples you picked at the orchard?”
    “You know the situations were a bit more serious than that, Syl. One was a control freak who thought I was his property. You know I don’t follow orders that easily.”
    Sylvia nodded and smiled at Kay’s understatement. Kay was totally incapable of submitting to anyone in any way.
    “The other one...” Kay’s voice broke off.
    “I know, I know. Forget the nut job, forget I said anything,” Sylvia interrupted Kay when she noticed her friend’s hesitation and the sad look on her face. “Still, you shouldn’t shut out men from your life all together,” and she decided to joke to lighten the mood. “Unless you’ve found out you’re a lesbian. Is that it? In that case, I can fix you up with my sister-in-law.”
    “Thanks, but no, thanks,” Kay exploded in a heartfelt laughter this time. It was impossible to stay sad for long around Sylvia. “I’m just being realistic here, sweetie. You’ve made a good point, though. I haven’t been very smart choosing men. Besides, I’m not getting any younger, you know,” she paused, expecting her friend to contradict her but when she didn’t say anything, Kay added. “It’s not like there’s a line of gorgeous men waiting at my front door to take me out, nowadays, is there?”
    “And whose fault is that, Miss Montanaro? When was the last time you let an interesting man get closer to you than an arm’s length?”
    She swallowed the instinctive, automatic reply that always popped up in her mind when someone asked Kay a similar question. Sylvia was an excellent psychologist who knew her too well to be fooled by that artificial answer.
    “I’ve just told you why but you didn’t believe me.”
    “I didn’t believe you because it’s unbelievable that an intelligent, interesting woman like you would go that long without getting laid. How can you stand it?”
    “I manage,” even though she was embarrassed to admit it to her friend, there was no point in hiding anything from Sylvia. She would only nag her until she told her the truth.
    Sylvia eyed Kay for a moment and shook her head again, smiling.
    “Vibrators will only do so much, you know. A woman needs more than that. You’ve got to get out more, meet new people, sweetie.”
    “It’s easy for you to say. You’re gorgeous and skinny. You could get any man you wanted if you weren’t married. Look at me!”
    “Gosh, you can be so dense sometimes! What does that have to do with anything? You’re a pretty woman. You just hide it very well most of the time.”
    She didn’t argue the point because Sylvia was right. Over the years,