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The Accidental Virgin

Chapter One

Monday morning

Stacy Temple, 32, redheaded and pink of cheek, the very picture of health, if not happiness, lifted the pointed chin of her heart-shaped face and said, "Suicide on a roll."

She'd been waiting on line at the deli for over ten minutes, and had managed to apply full makeup and read up to page six of the New York Post before placing her order.

"Butter, too?" asked the man in the apron behind the chrome counter.

"No, thanks," she said, turning the page of her paper.

"Oh, go ahead," said the deli man. "Two fried eggs with bacon and cheese on a roll? Why not add some butter to lube up your digestion?"

Stacy had been coming to this hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon, crammed between two fifty-story silver towers on Park Avenue, for her weekday breakfasts for over a year. Never once had her conversation with the grill man varied from the usual pattern: her pleasantly issued request, his grunt of acknowledgment, her barely audible appreciation, his forking over the food.

Thrown by the shift from their usual exchange, Stacy looked at the man who prepared her morning meal. He was 24, 25 maybe, with wiry black hair. Greek? Italian? Mediterranean ancestry, but no trace of an accent. His round face rested solidly on a thick bull neck. He showed her his smile now, a wide one that spread across his face like the butter he was pushing. Chiclets for teeth. He vibrated with the nervous edge of a pent-up human animal, forced by financial necessity to flip eggs for strangers over a hot grill in New York City July, seeking a bit of kindness on a Monday morning, asmall friendly exchange with a pretty girl to brighten the drudgery of the day.

She smiled back at him. "That's very considerate of you to think of my digestion, but I'll pass. Thanks again."

From beneath a black, bushy eyebrow, the man winked. Then he winked with his other eye. And after that, he puckered his lips and made a "kissy-kissy" sound.

Stacy Temple, redheaded and suddenly redder of cheek, gasped. Someone behind her laughed. She clutched her tote and the Post to her chest and exited as quickly as possible in kitten-heeled mules.

"And the worst part about it: Where can I go for breakfast now?" Safely at her desk on a floor near the top of one of those silver Park Avenue towers, Stacy cradled the phone on her shoulder, picked grudgingly at the dry bran muffin she purchased from the building's cafeteria vending machine, and scrolled through her E-mail.

On the phone, the impatient voice of her best friend, Charlie Gabriel, asked, "Are you multitasking me? I hear clicking. And chewing."

"I'm swiveling." Guilty, Stacy turned her chair and attention away from the computer screen. Formerly a segment producer at NPR, she currently served as vice president in charge of merchandising and marketing for thongs.com, the on-line retailer of lacy intimates. Facing her north wall, the one lined with racks of flimsy, strappy things on hangers, bolts of red satin stacked on the industrial gray carpet, Stacy said, "I felt violated."

"Guys must hit on you all the time," ventured Charlie.

"They don't."

"You are low frequency," he said. "Every part of your body language communicates, 'Don't look at me. Don't talk to me. Keep two hundred feet back.' Your clothes mix the signals, though." Charlie was high frequency. When they walked into a room together, any room, all eyes turned toward him and stayed there. It wasn't just his physical bearing (tousled blond hair, six-foot six inches of tautness, red lips and otherworldly green eyes) that drew attention. His voice, baritone, bounced, and the words he chose as effortlessly as a fish swims couldn't be discounted.

"Men can tell you're nonsexual," he said. "They can sniff that out. The faintest whiff of indifference to dick will lead a man to completely ignore, with disdain, the most gorgeous woman in the room."

Stacy said, "If I have such indifference to dick -- which, by the way, would make a great title for your next documentary -- why would the deli man hit on me?"

"Two possible explanations," said Charlie. "His olfactory sense -- the means by which men can deduce a woman's sexuality -- has been bacon impaired. And, two, he can tell that you are a celibate, and he wanted to rattle you for his personal amusement. It's a power trip. A petty form of sexual harassment."

"Then I'm right to feel violated," said Stacy. "I reject the assumption that the entire world can smell sexual inactivity. Besides, I am not a celibate who reeks of disuse. It's just been a long dry spell. And stop saying the word sex or sexuality or sexual. It's not even nine o'clock." Stacy checked her watch. "I've got to go. Emergency meeting."

"Miracle advances in thigh highs?" asked Charlie.

"Desperate search for the next big thing. I'll be pushing for a resurgence of the whalebone corselette," she said.

Charlie, a former doctoral candidate in medieval studies (currently a movie reviewer for noir.com and an aspiring documentary filmmaker), asked, "You're selling armored vests?"

"That's a corselet," Stacy corrected. "A corselette is a rib-crushing encasement of Lycra that fits over a woman's body, cramming her breasts, belly and protruding hips into a compact, tight, saucy package. Think Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8. In approximately ninety seconds, I will go into an eight-hour meeting to convince my bosses that this garment of magic and grace would be most appealing to the women of America with silk rosebuds stitched into the cleavage well."

"Then I'll be brief," said Charlie. "Just say yes or no. Are you coming to the screening tonight?"

"No."

"Will I see you for lunch on Thursday?"

"Doubtful."

"That's a no."

"Yes," she said.

"Do you find it ironic that someone who sells crotchless finery for a living never has the occasion to wear it?"

"I'm wearing some right now." Actually, Stacy encased her own tight, saucy body in a knee-length, bias-cut skirt of thin gold leather ...

The Accidental Virgin. Copyright © by Valerie Frankel. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.