"How do you cope with all of this?" Jenna asked.
"I drink."
"No, seriously, what do you do to relieve the stress?"
"Seriously, I drink. Or you could say I seriously drink."
Monica was kidding, of course, but only to a point. Working with children who have autism all day, every day was incredibly stressful. She enjoyed her work, but it was often very frustrating and it had a very low reward-to-time spent ratio because it often took a really long time to make any kind of progress. It was the kind of work that would bring most people to their knees in short order.
To her knees. Monica hadn't been on hers in so long she couldn't remember the last time. She was 32 and in great shape, but her husband didn't seem to care she still worked out nearly every day to stay fit and toned. Like her sister-in-law and best friend, Jenna, she got to the gym before work five day a week and also went during the afternoon on Saturday. She and their husbands, twin brothers Michael and David Thomas, had a standing dinner date every Sunday which alternated between homes every other week.
"How do you deal with it, Jenna?" Monica asked her.
Jenna was a probation officer who dealt with rapists, murderers, child molesters, and what most would call the dregs of society. Like Monica, she was a hopeless progressive who was endlessly patient and ever-hopeful that her efforts might help make society better. Were she honest, she'd have to admit any progress she made was very small as most criminals tended to be recidivists who ended up back in jail before completing probation. But Jenna Thomas didn't give up. Not at work and not at home. Were she a quitter, she'd be ready to throw in the towel on her marriage of five years to David who no longer seemed to know or even care she was alive.
"I masturbate. A lot."
"Jenna! For goodness sake. What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. I'm just a neglected housewife. Masturbation is perfectly normal. You should try it sometime."
"Okay, you're not getting any attention at home either, but do you always have to be so...direct?" She loved Jenna. They'd been best friends since she'd married Michael's twin brother, David, a year after she and Michael had themselves wed. Being twins, the brothers were inseparable so what little free time Michael had, he wanted to spend with David. Monica understood that, but the understanding did nothing to alleviate the frustration and sexual tension which regularly built up inside her to the boiling point.
Jenna was by far the more confident and outspoken of the two, but even her tendency to say what was on her mind hadn't yielded any appreciable results on the home front. Neither she nor Monica were getting kind the love, attention, and yes—sex—they'd both gotten very used to the first years of their marriages.
As far as her outspokenness was concerned, Monica often found it annoying, but she loved Jenna dearly. She sometimes just wished she could tone it down a bit. All in all, Jenna and Monica loved one another like sisters and sometimes they fought like they were. Over the years, they had become as close as any two friends could. They'd hit it off immediately, but it took time for them to learn to trust one another with any and all secrets. They now shared things with each other they knew with certainty would never be repeated, not even to the other's husband.
"Maybe I should start diddling myself, too," Monica admitted wistfully. "Lord knows it'd be better than what I'm getting from Mike."
"I take it things are no better around here than the last time we had this discussion?" Jenna asked.
"No, not really. Just the same old thing. Or lack thereof I should say," she told Jenna truthfully. "Seriously, how do you cope with the stress?" Monica asked because in addition to their stressful jobs, they both had mortgages, car payments, student loans, and the outrageous property taxes assessed in ultra-liberal Berkeley, California.
Both of the brothers were worked for the city. Together, each couple made a little over eighty thousand a year, but that was more than gobbled up by monthly expenses and the occasional vacation. All four of the Thomases wanted children, but neither couple even thought about having them because of the added financial stress. So between that and their work, the added frustration of not getting laid was driving both of them crazy.
Jenna sighed and said, "Honestly? I fantasize—a lot."
"Fantasy. So...how's that working for you?" Monica asked with just a slight touch of snarkiness. She wasn't trying to be mean, she just wanted to know if that (or anything) actually helped. She genuinely wanted to know if it brought relief to Jenna, because it didn't do much for her. Monica thought of fantasizing as being little more than mental masturbation. It might make you temporarily feel better, but it didn't solve anything. As the more practical of the two, Monica was always looking for actual solutions to the problem while Jenna needed to talk—and vent. Sometimes however, Jenna took action and what she did often surprised or even shocked her sister-in-law. This was one of those times.
Jenna didn't answer right away. She sat there and waited for Monica to look at her. "What?" Monica said when she finally turned Jenna's way. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I just wanted to make sure I have your attention," her best friend told her. "Now that I do, I'm going to share something with you which is obviously off-limits to the guys. I um, well, I created a dating profile on line."
"You what?" Monica said, her voice rising with incredulity.
"Hear me out! I'm not actually dating anyone. I just decided to put up a profile with some pics and see what happens."
"But you have to be single to do that. What if someone finds out? What if they try and find out who you are and learn you're married and playing with them? That might not end well, Jenn."
"Well...it's a site for um...married people. So there's no issue with telling the truth because I am married."
