“Baby, I’m so proud of you,” she said over the coq au vin she’d made for their dinner. She poured him more wine （$400 a bottle!）。 “You’re such a good provider. Even though I’m a total feminist, there’s something . . . I don’t know . . . primal about my man taking such good care of me.”
They had sex on the dining room table. Yes. She understood men quite well.
That was another thing. Dennis Finch would never be able to say he never got any at home, nuh-uh. She read a few books, listened to a few podcasts, bought a few toys and outfits. Dennis, being in his early fifties, was on a mission to prove he was the world’s greatest lover and oh so virile, and both of them were very content.
His kids were not happy, he said, but she didn’t care. Amanda was eighteen, Nick twenty-two （just a year younger than Melissa, but Dennis thought she was twenty-nine）。 “They’ll warm up to you,” Dennis said. Melissa knew better, but hey. Let the man cling to his fantasy. “You’re the most wonderful thing in the world. I haven’t been this happy in years.”
Dennis didn’t mind her “deferment” from school, and why would he? She still googled articles about orthopedics, and tried to look knowledgeable when he discussed his work.
She threw dinner parties and charmed his partners, if not their wives. She could see exactly what they thought of her . . . and she could see exactly what their husbands were thinking when she touched their arms or laughed at their jokes or said, “No, don’t you dare come into my kitchen! You sit there and relax. You’ve earned it.”
Yeah, the wives all hated her. Oh, well.
The universe had put Dennis Finch, MD, in that van for a reason. He needed someone to take care of him, make him look good, assure him that he was still vital and masculine and young. And here she was, spending his money, living the life she deserved.
After a year, Dennis said he wanted a baby. In addition to acquiring a woman a generation younger, Dennis types needed to prove their sperm could still swim.
Melissa pretended to go off birth control, but she was not going to get pregnant. Hell no, though she well understood the financial benefit of having a child with a rich man. But she’d dodged the prenup, and the apartment was in her name, too. Pregnancy? Ick. All those physical ailments women loved to describe—nausea, heartburn, hair loss, fatigue, bloating, weight gain—and that was just the pregnancy! Then came the agony of labor, which every mother she’d ever met loved to discuss in horrifying detail. The contractions. The gush of fluid soaking their carpet/clothing/car. The agony, the writhing, the screaming—or, even more irritating, the serenity, the earth-mother moments of woman-power and holiness.
No thanks. It still left you with a soft pooched-out stomach, stretch marks, drooping milky breasts and a saggy vagina, which you’d later feel compelled to fix at great cost through a Park Avenue plastic surgeon.
Then the baby itself. Crying, helpless, vulnerable, its devices and carriers and toys filling up your once pristine home. The sleepless nights. The fall in favor as the father’s attention shifted to his baby. Once, you were his porn-star, spoiled sex kitten wife . . . now, you were whining for him to please take the baby so you could get a nap.
There was no way she’d become a slave to a tiny baby, exhausted and obsessed and boring as hell. She didn’t want anyone to be more important to her than her own darn self. So each month, she sighed and got teary-eyed and said, “Not yet, honey. Oh, heck, what if I can’t have a baby? Will you still love me?”
“Babe! Of course I will!”
She pretended to sag with gratitude. “Oh, thank heavens, because I love you so much, Dennis. As for the baby, I guess the universe wants us to focus on each other.” That shut him up for a while.
Her days were spent fussing around the apartment （a cleaning lady came twice a week）。 She did the cooking, always something delicious, knowing that a man liked his woman to be domestic . . . at least, Dennis’s type did. The bed was made to perfection each day, and she had an icy cold martini for him ten minutes after he walked through the door. She went to spin class and yoga and the gym religiously, and on weekends, she and Dennis would take a run in Central Park and see a play （on Broadway!） or go out for dinner at places that prided themselves on tiny portions and Michelin stars.
Life was so good.
Did she love him? Sort of. He was perfect for her purposes. He was . . . well, he was fine. He was good in bed and had given her an Amex Black card. She couldn’t ask for more. Even if he did divorce her down the line, she owned half of this apartment. She’d always have something in the bank.