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“It’s a shame I’m a self-absorbed bastard with no respect for your needs.”
    Marianne exhaled slowly to calm her heartbeat. “Yeah. And it’s a shame I’m a neurotic bitch with no sense of adventure whatsoever.”
    â€œYeah. We’d be perfect for each other.” Donny leaned over, kissed Marianne lightly on the lips, then rolled away and stood up.
    â€œYou leaving?” Marianne asked. She climbed back into the bed and pulled up the covers. Normally he stayed over and they cuddled.
    â€œYeah, gotta run. I’ve got a poker game with the guys.”
    Marianne sat straight up in bed. He was denying her post-coital snuggling because of a poker game with “the guys”? How cheap! How demoralizing! How . . . male. Donny grabbed his clothes off the floor and headed for the bathroom. With his hand on the doorknob he suddenly stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Well, we’re not committed or anything. . . .”
    Marianne blinked at his retreating form. “Nope. We’re not committed.”
    Donny came out of the bathroom, his hair wet and standing on end from the shower. He came up to the bed and pulled the comforter up to Marianne’s chin and gave her a big, loud smooch on the mouth. “See you soon, Mare.”
    â€œSee you soon.”
    Marianne lay there, listening to the door slam behind him and the distinct percussion of his feet down her apartment stairs. After that, it was completely silent. She’d had a greattime with Donny. They always had a great time in bed. But she suddenly felt icky and distressed. Now that the fun was over and the boy was gone, she just felt wrong.
    She got out of bed, straggled into the bathroom, and had a look at herself, makeup ravaged, the remnants of a French maid’s costume hanging off her body courtesy of her ex-boyfriend. There was only one thing Marianne could say: “This has got to stop.”
    She picked up the phone and called Bijoux.
    â€œDonny already leave?”
    â€œYes. He came . . . we came . . . and then he left to play poker with the boys. Can you believe it? I’m outraged.”
    â€œOoh. No cuddling.”
    â€œApparently he doesn’t care.”
    â€œYou’re not supposed to care either.”
    â€œYes, but I’m female.”
    â€œI understand.”
    â€œI can’t be doing this anymore.” Marianne’s voice cracked. “It’s not healthy.”
    â€œHave you been crying? Are you okay?” Bijoux asked.
    â€œNo and yes. But I feel like I could cry, which can mean only one thing.”
    â€œThis has got to stop,” Bijoux said.
    â€œRight. This has got to stop. If I don’t make a clean break with Donny I will never really get off my ass and go find my true soul mate . . . or whatever. So, did you get the SportsClub passes? You know Susan Saunders met her husband at a gym.”
    â€œDid she? Fantastic. Because I got ’em. Meet me there at noon tomorrow.”
    â€œWill do,” Marianne said. “And I’m serious this time. No more Donny.”
    There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Sure, Marianne. Whatever you say.”

chapter four
    I t was a typical lunchtime Friday at SportsClub L.A., Marianne thought as she looked around the carefully maintained workout space. Make that typical for the people who actually had legitimate memberships. Then there were the moonlighters, exhibit A being Bijoux and herself hunched over their handlebars at side-by-side bicycle machines in identical Juicy sweat-suits they’d pulled from the depths of Bijoux’s closet.
    With its marble lobby, plush towels, and vast menu of ultra-high-grade services (meaning you could probably ask them to import a moose complete with personalized pet collar before yoga class and they’d have it flown in from Vermont by the time you were coming down from your hot-stone