Champagne Rules Read Online Free Page A

For a moment I even found myself wishing our lovemaking would create a child.” Suzanne gave a shiver. “Is that insane or what? Especially given my, uh, rather traditional feelings about marriage and kids.”
    “Traditional!” Jenny hooted. “Try archaic. Any woman whose deepest aspiration is to marry Ward Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver . . .”
    “Well, he was awfully good to the Beaver,” Rina said softly, wickedly, and this time they all hooted.
    Ann sobered quickly, though. “Suze, what you said about creating a child? You did use a condom, right?”
    Suzanne swallowed hard. She hadn’t meant to reveal that particular bit of idiocy. “I was on the pill, but I know it was utterly stupid. I plead insanity. Plus too much wine, and I’d been out in the sun for hours and had sunstroke. That’s why I—” She broke off abruptly, realizing she hadn’t told them the rest of it. Rina said, “Is that why you have a two-drink limit?” just as Ann demanded, “Why what?” and Jenny said, “So what was this demon lover’s name anyhow?” The three of them burst out laughing, then turned challenging gazes on Suzanne. And now they’d know what a complete idiot she was. She sighed, beckoned to a waitress in a red T-shirt, and said, “Could I have some ice water, please?” It was time to leave her fantasy cave, and come down to cold, hard Vancouver earth. She waited until the waitress brought water for all of them, took a long, cold swallow, and spilled the truth. “Jen, I don’t know his name. And I’ll save all of you the trouble of asking the logical questions. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in his arms, in the cave. My memory picks up the next morning, in my hotel room, with the chambermaid and a doctor hovering. I had sunburn, heatstroke and felt like crap. I barely made my flight home. And . . .”
    Another gulp of water, then she confessed the last bit in one long rush. “I’m not even surehewasreallyreal.”
    “Huh?” Jenny said, and Suzanne realized the other women wore baffled expressions. She’d spoken so quickly her words had all slurred together.
    “I’m not sure he was real,” she repeated flatly.
    “But . . .” Ann frowned. “What are you talking about? You just told us what he looked like, everything you did together.”
    “I still dream about it every month or so.” And, each time she did, she had an orgasm in her sleep. Way better orgasms than she’d ever had with any man other than her cave-sex lover. She heaved a sigh of frustration. “Maybe it was just a dream in the first place. I’d drunk about a liter of wine. And yes, Rina, I’ve never had more than two drinks since then.
    “Anyhow, wandering around in my alcoholic haze, I found that nude beach and felt so risqué, taking my clothes off.” She thought of her own naïvety, and gave a snort. “Let’s face it, it’s more likely I fell asleep in the sun and fantasized the whole thing than that I had unprotected sex with a complete stranger.”
    For once, she seemed to have rendered her friends speechless. Grimly she went on. “I’ve no idea how I got dressed again, or got back to the hotel.”
    “You don’t remember saying good-bye to the nameless god?” Jenny asked.
    Suzanne shook her head. “And if the whole thing really happened, we’d have had to say something, right? Like, good-bye, it’s been a blast, let’s leave it at that because we could never in a million years replicate the experience? That would make sense. I mean, he wouldn’t exactly fit into my life. He’s not the guy I want to marry and settle down with. I’m fine with everything”—especially those orgasmic dreams—“except not knowing if he was real.”
    “A dream lover,” Rina breathed. “How romantic.”
    “Yeah, but how could you be fine with letting him go?”
    Jenny’s brow was wrinkled. “If he was real, I mean. Maybe you couldn’t—what was that amazingly literate phrase?—‘replicate the experience’? But