A Slightly Blue Fairy Tale About True Love and Cialis

Believe it or not, it really is a scientific fact that squirrels forget where they store their nuts. That was little consolation to George Templeton, who at the moment was wondering where he’d hidden his latest prescription of Cialis. It was enough to drive him… well, squirrelly.

Lousy thing to get, he muttered to himself, yanking on desk drawers and checking his coat pockets. Erectile dysfunction. But he was coping. At 54, George had his own successful structural engineering consultancy in New York, and he thought he was over the hump of the worst five years of his life. There was Jenny fading away with the breast cancer and then the court case over those butchers who never caught it. And while yes, widowers were granted a cup of sympathy, he feared he looked a bit ridiculous at parties and in restaurants with a 32-year-old girlfriend. It’s not like anyone would believe the truth: No, you don’t understand, she chose me.

And where the hell were those pills? Where was his Cialis?

He hadn’t gone to his doctor over Nicole. Oh, no, he’d discovered his loss of erection problems with a 44-year-old divorced Goldman Sachs executive who had sat up in bed, absently scratched under her bare breast, and with no thought for his embarrassment, asked, "Mind if I smoke? I really need a cigarette… after this much time."

Excruciating. But then she hadn’t been the kind of woman he expected to cuddle with afterwards. Five years without Jenny and he had needs, and all right, it hadn’t worked out romantically with that cold fish, but he knew he wanted to date again.

Wherrrre’s his Cialis?

No, not date – dating implied staying single. He wanted someone to say, "We make a great team." He wanted to feel part of something with someone. So even though he had no immediate prospects, he went to see Tom, his physician for thirty years, who sent him for a consult with a urologist, and thank God, there was a treatment. Cialis.

Pills, pills… Where were they? Maybe try to imagine the Cialis logo on the label, remember where you last saw it…

She had chosen him. She really had. Nicole. He was in a Barnes and Noble bookstore one Saturday, looking through the architecture section, and she had wandered over from Fine Arts and brazenly announced, "You have a great face." She liked chiseled. She liked character lines. She liked salt and pepper, and hell, she liked him. For his part, he couldn’t help admire the curves wrapped in tight Levis and a little Bolero jacket, the short-cropped black hair. She was an artist, Korean-American, and she knew how to work the grant system for doing her abstract paintings. She liked her sex steamy, spontaneous, and often in public places where there was a chance to get caught.

Which made having a stash of Cialis a bit of a juggling act.

He tried carrying his treatment around with him. Then one day, while digging his laser pointer out of his jacket at a presentation in front of clients, his Cialis pills went skidding across the conference table. Oh, boy.

These days, he tended to rely on Susan, his personal assistant. He’d considered himself a private person, but after his wife’s death a lot of trust had developed in their relationship, from her guessing what was in those discreet packages delivered to the office to the day he broke down at his desk a week after Jen’s death. She had even helped him research the best online pharmacy to use, for Pete’s sake, and had warned him about all the hyped up "generic Cialis", that he should always buy Cialis or whatever he needed from a reputable online pharmacy.

In a strange sort of respect for her, he never asked about Susan’s own personal life. Sure, he couldn’t help but have a passing thought about her as a romantic prospect. She was a clever, attractive woman of 37, with a mane of shimmering blonde hair, always very grounded, but every so often he picked up a hint that…Yep, he was pretty sure she was a lesbian. Which was fine by him, but he thought it would have been rude to ask.

"George," he heard her call now from her desk. "You’re making a hell of a racket. Can I help?"

"No, it’s just I’m late, and I’m…" He couldn’t bring himself to say it. My girlfriend just phoned from Bloomingdale’s to say she’s really horny, and she wants me to meet her in a dressing stall in Men’s Casuals. Which means I need my Cialis asap!

"I’m late for Nicole…"

"Go," said Susan.

"I can’t!" he said sheepishly, still not eager to explain why.

But the look on her face told him she’d guessed. "You’ve got your cell, don’t you?" she asked. "Text me exactly where you are when you get there, and I’ll get your Cialis to you."

He wanted to ask how but she was shooing him out the door, saying never keep a lady waiting, and then she did a peculiar thing. She kissed him on the cheek and stroked his hair soothingly, something she’d never done before. Certainly she was allowed. Personal assistant. Confidante. Friend.

There was one great thing about his doctor prescribing Cialis for him. Viagra only lasted about four hours, but a single dose of Cialis could last up to 36 hours – which an insatiable Nicole often put to the test, since she liked seconds and thirds. But he did have another problem…

He found the right dressing room at the department store, and later he learned she’d bribed a security guard to look the other way. As he slipped in and closed the curtain, Nicole giggled and made his hands cup her perfect, small golden bare breasts, kissing him urgently. "Right here, right now, baby."

"Uhh…" His problem was that if he had taken his Cialis back at the office, they would have kicked in by now. Dummy. He needed a good fifteen minutes. He knew the smart thing would have been to keep her waiting until Susan came to the rescue with his Cialis.

You can tell her the truth, he thought. Babe, I’ve got erectile dysfunction.

Yeah, right.

"Hey, you know what would be a turn-on?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her slim waist. She stood on her toes and purred "What?" into his neck. "What if you went and collected a whole outfit – shirt, tie, pants? And you dressed up in guy’s clothes, then came back, and we’d have a really sexy cross-dressing strip-tease?"

This won’t fly. Doomed. Doomed, doomed, doom—

"Whoa! Kiiiiinnnky!"

And she flipped back the curtain and was gone. Then, suddenly, Susan was standing there. "Here you go," said Susan, handing him the Cialis. He took his pill and Susan lingered, her eyebrows rising as she said, "I saw Nicky looking at ties by the escalator. How did you get her to shop for you?"

"Umm…"

But she told him it was okay, he didn’t have to answer, and as she said goodbye, she gave him a fleeting hug and said have a good time. He did. It was a wonder with Nicole pressed up against the wall, legs wrapped around the back of his thighs and groaning in ecstasy that the store guards didn’t burst in on them. God bless Cialis, he thought. And bless Susan.

"I’m surprised you never thought of going out with her," Nicole asked, stroking his hair, hours later in bed at his apartment for a change. "She is attractive."

He admitted that yes, Susan was attractive (very attractive), but she was also his employee. He wasn’t about to do anything to make her feel uncomfortable, plus she had been a pillar of strength to him after his wife died and frankly, he idealized her as a trusted friend. And, he thought privately, he hardly thought a gal like that would want him, knowing that his stamina came from pills, not from any physical prowess. She knew he used Cialis. No rose-tinted specs for her.

Strange thing for Nicole to ask, but that was the start of a surreal week. He’d been dating Nicole for a good two months now, and the fires, if anything, had grown higher, especially this week, when George found himself constantly checking his hiding spots for Cialis. It was Susan who had unfailingly ordered his treatment online and who now found his Cialis pills whenever he misplaced them.

A party at a mansion on Long Island. Friends of old friends, he was sure the host was a TV producer or something. He was in full crisis mode when he discovered his Cialis pills were once again missing as Nicole backed him into a washroom on the third floor. "Take off your clothes," she demanded. And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

But no sooner had he stripped down than she pulled a bizarre stunt, scooping up all his clothes and rushing out the bathroom door. "Nicole!"

"I’m coming back, relax," she laughed. "But when I do, you better be ready!"

He was in trouble – soft, less-than-rising-to-the-occasion trouble. Not that trapped naked in a stranger’s bathroom was an aphrodisiac. No Cialis… No clothes! If anyone knocked, he could probably shout "Occupied!" for a while, but eventually his girl would come back, and—

"George?"

Susan…? Yes, she’d brought his Cialis, but she needed to talk to him. He tried delicately to explain that if she could just slip his pills through a crack in the door, but no, she needed to talk to him. Hide behind the shower curtain if you want to, she suggested. He unlocked the door.

"Susan, this is really embarrassing, and Nicole’s coming back, and I should take my Cialis, and I don’t want you to see me like this—"

"George, Nicole’s not coming back for a little while," she told him gently, pushing back the shower curtain and smiling. "Because I’m the one who got her to swipe your clothes."

And as he took that in, not bothering to cover himself, she added, "I know you think you’re lucky that a woman as young as Nicole could be interested in you, but… you have two younger women interested in you. Your mouth’s open, you might as well take your Cialis."

He didn’t understand. She stroked his cheek and tried to explain. How it was no coincidence that Nicole had found him in the bookstore. And no, she was not gay. She was bisexual – so for that matter was Nicole. Nicky’s tastes in women were rather flexible, but she had always preferred older guys.

"I don’t usually go for older men," said Susan with a shrug, "but after your wife died, I saw you, and I thought… I would be lucky if I found any man or woman who cared for me half as much as you cared for her. So I found you Nicole. But I realize I shouldn’t have passed you over to her so quickly."

He stood there, flabbergasted, astonished, and flattered. "You mean…?"

"You better order a lot more Cialis," she laughed. "Listen, you told me once how you wanted to be part of a great team. Never mind that Erection Problems – Cialis can help! Hey, a lot of teams have more than two players – if you’re willing. You know what the best treatment for grief is? Joy. The joy of sex."

He smiled at her with a tender gratitude. Beyond the perverse happiness he felt, he recognized something special was happening in his life beyond simply the erotic… something that was certainly worth celebrating. Her fingers slid down his chest and reached below. "Looks like the Cialis is kicking in."

Which was just about when Nicole returned and knocked on the door. And Susan whispered the Cialis would be their little secret.