A smart, queeny friend of mine once looked at me in the middle of one of my rants about Jeffrey and said, "Honey, country music is three chords and the truth." Although I hated to admit it, I could see how it applied to my life at the time. I might as well have had a guitar slung over my shoulder and a pick in my hand.

(Note to all: this head has never worn a cowboy hat and probably never will. Unless a six-two cowboy named Luke comes with it.) Anyway...that was before I discovered the power of a pair of "fuck me" pumps grabbed from the French manicured hands of the woman who blew my husband. That was before I found my rock-n-roll soul.

The night after I ran into the Concubine at Saks, Raoul showed up at my door. He was typically late (three days at least) to fix a drawer in the kitchen and scrape and paint the dining room walls. (There is no dining in the dining room. It has turned into a storage/homework/place to dump stuff room and I had decided that a good step forward in the annals of parenting would be to bring green veggies back to the table and the kids away from Happy Meals in front of the TV). Raoul was looking especially fuckable that night (don't get me wrong, I have no plans to go there), and because he doesn't seem to believe in jackets, even in the chill of a California evening (one of the many sexy things about him), I noticed he had a new tattoo on his arm.

"What's that?" I pointed at the tattoo. It was still raw and had what appeared to be plastic wrap stuck on it. "What do you think it is?" He grinned at me, then headed for the kitchen closet where he had dumped his paint cans and tools the last time he was here (like two weeks ago, but who's counting.)

"I don't know," I say. (Raoul can be annoyingly vague at times. Like his parrot namesake he'll often say nothing or just repeat back what I've said to him.) "Why don't you tell me?" Raoul crinkles his eyes at me (they are annoyingly crinkly, in that cute way that gets kind of distracting) and doesn't answer. "Fine," I say. "I think it's an immature reflection of your obsession with your body." I follow him into the kitchen. "What about my body?" He turns and cocks an eyebrow (yep, he's one of those cock an eyebrow guys), then stands there waiting. Slowly, his eyes lower to my feet. "What the fuck are those things?"

Now, I may have failed to mention that at this very moment, I was wearing my "fuck me" shoes. I was alone, the kids were at Jeffrey's (the Concubine was there, the court had decided that she counted as "supervision" which as you might imagine, was particularly galling), and in honor of that debacle I had decided that prancing around in the "fuck me" shoes would remind me how I had practically stolen them from her and in that vein, lift my sagging spirits. I had been thinking of calling Annabelle and suggesting we go dancing or to a bar or somewhere where at the very least the shoes would find some love, but I hadn't gotten any further than turning on JACK FM and tottering around in my sweats and heels.

I shrugged, nonchalantly (‘cause that's my strong suit), batted my eyelashes (figured I'd try it out) and made a clearly embarrassing attempt at playing coy. (Why, I'm not sure, since as previously stated I have no intention of going there, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

"Don't you recognize a pair of Louboutin's when you see them?" I sounded exasperated (on purpose) like what kind of guy are you that you don't recognize the kind of shoes a woman wears when she means business. "La-boo-what's?" He stares at me like I'm insane. "You're wearing ripped up sweat pants. Are you going out in public dressed like that?"

I glare at him. "Since when are you the fashion police, Mr. Tattoos Make Me So Tough." (This was the best I could manage in the snappy comeback department. I'll admit, I've done better, but I was oddly off my game.) "Ouch," Raoul kind of snorts. "That hurts." He starts fiddling with the kitchen drawer. The latch was broken and it was about two seconds away from crashing and spilling all its contents (vegetable peeler, measuring spoons, paring knives, etc.) onto the floor. "You should find a better place for this stuff," he says, over his shoulder. "This drawer is asking for trouble."

Now, I don't know what came over me at this moment, but don't forget, I was wearing the all-empowering shoes. Raoul's back was to me and I have to admit, it was a strong back, with the kind of muscles that strain through a t-shirt that if not too tight, fits like a second skin. I just stood there kind of staring at it (his back) for a moment and then, without really thinking about it, I reached out and touched his arm where the plastic covered the raw, newly tattooed skin.

"Hey!" He flinched and jumped a little. The drawer and its contents came crashing to the ground. Roaul angled his body back to get out of the way I guess and because I was so close he kind of bumped into me and then we both fell on the floor. Because he fell backwards, Raoul kind of landed on top of me and so all of a sudden, there I am, lying on the linoleum with my handyman pressed against my chest.

"This is awkward" I say, after that weird moment where neither of us says anything and all I hear is some faith inspiring Amy Grant song which oddly, is playing onthe radio. (Perhaps it is a message from God, but I am unclear about that because at the moment, all I am really conscious of is that no man has touched my boobs in a really long time and now I am acutely aware of the muscles of Raoul's back pressing into my nipples.)

"Can you move your foot?" he says. "What?" I am brought back to reality by the cranky sound of his voice. "Your foot," he repeats. "Your shoe. The La-boo-what the fuck. Is slicing my ankle."

"Oh, sorry!" I kick off the shoe and listen to it slide across the floor. I turn my head and stare at it. It really is a work of art, I think. And apparently a deadly weapon. Raoul sits up. "What the hell were you doing?" "What?" I'm still distracted by the fact that two seconds ago he was on top of me. Even if I have no intention of ever going there, I can't help but suddenly entertain the thought. I shake my head, trying to clear the sex-deprived cobwebs. "Focus," I think. "Focus, turn off the country music (Why is there country music playing?!) and you will be fine."

"Um...I wanted to see the tattoo," I say. "I was curious. What is it, anyway?"

Raoul looks at me like I'm insane. And I don't know, maybe I am. I mean, I'm prancing around my half re-modeled house in sweat pants and Louboutins with raging hormones, nowhere to go and this peculiar feeling like, suddenly, in this moment, or at least, very soon after, my life is going to change.

"You're a freak, Esme," says Raoul. "You know that, right?" I shrug. "Fine, don't tell me if you don't want to." I struggle to stand, but forget that I still have one shoe on which makes me incredibly lopsided and off balance. I fall backwards and right on to Raoul's tattooed arm.

"Crap!" he bellows. "Are you trying to kill me or just make sure I never come back here again?" "Sorry, sorry," I say. "I don't know what's wrong with me today." I struggle, with an attempt at dignity, to stand again, but Raoul grabs me and pulls me back down. And now I'm looking right into his eyes (they are really blue, like I don't know what...all those clichéd similes for blue things that bad poets use. What they really remind me of is the blue of one of those toilet bowl cleaners, but I'd never say that) and I'm thinking "Don't do it, don't do it" when I'm not even sure what "it" would be and then he moves even closer and I'm thinking, "Shit. This can't happen because I need Raoul to fix my house, even more than I need him to fix me, if that were even possible, which it is not because I am woman, hear me roar, etc. etc." and then he holds up his arm really close to me and I'm half wondering, "Is he trying to hug me? ‘Cause that would be weird" and then he says, "Fine. Go ahead. Take it off."

And I say, "What?" while I'm thinking to myself, "Take it off?!" What does he think I am, some kind of stripper mom (which, as we all know, at times has not been too far from the truth) and then I realize with relief (or is it disappointment? I'm not quite sure) that he is referring to the plastic on his arm. "Go ahead," he insists. "Pull it off if you want to see the thing. It's almost healed."

"I don't want to hurt you," I say and he laughs, "Believe me, you could never do that." And somehow, I don't quite believe him but in this weird ass moment I just do what he tells me to (I know, somehow out of character, but that's always been me when it comes to men) and so I grit my teeth and rip the plastic off his arm.

And he flinches, for just a second and then the plastic is off and there's the new tattoo in all its raw and angry glory.

"What do you think?" he says. "Umm..." "Come on, you can tell me. I won't be offended," he says. I look at the tattoo from another angle. I don't want to seem like an idiot but I have no fucking idea what it is.

Raoul laughs. "You don't know what it is, do you?" "Uh, no. Not really," I admit. He crinkles his blue eyes as he stares down at his arm. "It's a little corny, " he says. "And was kind of the artist's idea. She does Angelina." "Okay," I say. (And I'm not so stupid that I don't know he's referring to Angelina Jolie.) "What does it say? Be My Brad Forever?" Raoul sighs. "Esme, are you ever serious?""Not really," I answer. "What would be the point of that?"

Raoul looks at me and nods slowly. Like he's assessing something here. Or, I don't know. What the fuck do I know about men, anyway? My husband left his menopausal wife for her former best friend and then to add insult to injury, slept with a hooker. What do I know about the male species other than they like their fuck buddies young?

"It's the longitude and latitude of where my kid was born," he says. I stare at him. "What?" "It's the longitude and latitude of where my kid was born," he repeats, as if to an obtuse child. "London, England. The United Kingdom, to be exact."

"You have a kid?" I say. I'm staring at him. "Why didn't I know that?!" Raoul gets up, dusts himself off. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Esme" he says. "The same way I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about you. Now, it's minutes to midnight. How about you pick all this crap off the floor before someone gets hurt and let me fix the drawer." "Ok-kay..." I manage to get out. I stand up on my one, empowering shoe." And turn off that country music while you're at it," he says. "I'm in the mood for some rock ‘n roll."

And he stares at me for a beat. And I stare back. "Rock ‘n roll!" screeches Raoul the parrot (who, I may have failed to mention, has been observing this whole time) "Yeah, rock sounds good," I say. And (even though for some inexplicable reason I'm grinning wildly inside) I leave it at that.