Jenna Banks looked up from the slice of pizza in her hand, across the room to her best friend Shannon’s husband. She loved Kevin—he was like a brother to her—but when she’d been invited over for pizza and a movie, she hadn’t expected to be grilled on her sex life. Or lack thereof.

“And I should tell you this why?”

Kevin tilted his head as if to say, Come on—it’s me, your buddy, Kev. “I just think you need to . . . have more fun, that’s all. You’re an attractive single woman and you’re letting life pass you by.”

At this, Jenna laughed. “Unless I happen to step in front of a bus or something, I have plenty of life left.”

“But maybe not a lot of . . . you know, youth,” Shannon chimed in, her blond curls bouncing as she settled on the arm of Kevin’s easy chair. They both flashed expressions that made Jenna think of the Spanish Inquisition.

Yet she merely rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty-nine. According to the experts, I won’t even reach my sexual peak until thirty-five.”

“But don’t you want to be in the game when it happens?” Kevin asked.

“And what if your peak comes early?” Shannon added. “What if you miss it?”

“My God, you two, get a grip. It’s not as if I never have sex. I’m just . . . selective about my partners. Which I happen to think is wise in this day and age. I mean, you guys are married—you don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. And besides, if I’m happy with myself—and I am—what’s the problem?”

“We just don’t want you to have any regrets later in life,” Shannon said.

Kevin leaned forward in his chair then, a challenging look in his eye. “And since you claim you do have sex, when was the last time?”

Fine, she’d take the challenge, if it would stop this silliness. “When I was dating Todd Rogers.”

“Todd Rogers!” Shannon exclaimed—as Kevin’s eyes fogged over in horror.

“That was how long ago?” he asked.

Jenna let out a breath and did the math. She and Todd had been together on the Fourth of July last year, but had broken up by Labor Day, and now it was August, so . . . “About a year ago, I guess.”

“A year,” Kevin repeated, appearing dumbfounded.

Next to him, Shannon simply let out a sad sigh. “A year of your life when you could have been indulging in good sex.”

Jenna finally dropped her pizza on the plate in her lap—it had gone limp and cold in her hand anyway—and lowered it to the coffee table in front of her. “You two make it sound so easy. Like there are decent, eligible, good-looking guys just lining the streets. But that’s not how it is. And sure, I could hang out in bars and try to pick up men for one-night stands, but . . . why? That sounds so . . . yucky.”

Shannon shrugged, and Kev said, “Back before Shannon, I had some pretty good one-night stands in my day.”

Jenna thought Shannon would smack his arm for that, or at least scowl a little, but instead she simply said, “Me, too. Surely you remember.”

Certainly Jenna did. Shannon had been a lot more wild than her back in college at the University of Michigan—and come out none the worse for it. “Look,” Jenna finally said, “just because that sort of thing worked for you guys doesn’t mean it’s right for me. When I have sex with a guy, I want it to—”

“Please don’t say ‘mean something,’” Kevin interrupted. “That’s such a girl thing.”

Jenna sat up a little straighter, thoroughly irritated now. “I am a girl, thank you very much, and that’s how I feel. And even if it isn’t always deep and meaningful, I at least want it to be with a guy I sincerely like, and respect, and feel comfortable with. Otherwise, it’s just—”

“Pleasure,” Shannon finished for her. “For your information, there can be a lot of pleasure involved regardless of like, respect, and comfort. And sometimes you just have to think . . . well, like a guy. Sometimes you have to be in it for the pure physical enjoyment. And there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way. This is the twenty-first century—women are allowed to seek their own pleasure. Sometimes, my dear Jenna,” she said as if she were very wise, or Jenna were very thick, “a good orgasm has to be enough to satisfy you.”

Jenna paused, turning the words over in her head. She was loath to admit it, but she almost saw what they were saying. She wasn’t particularly aching for an orgasm—but the point was, if she couldn’t find a guy she really liked, maybe it was better to at least take some pleasure from one she could . . . crave. One of those really hot, sexy guys who probably did hang out at meat market bars looking to get lucky. She could fix herself up—wear something short and tight from Shannon’s closet, put on more makeup than usual—then go out and pick up a guy. Before she got old, like they were saying. In case Mr. Right never came along. So that she would at least have a few wild nights, a few hot romps to look back on in her later years.

Except . . . wait a minute. What was she thinking? She couldn’t do what they were suggesting—ever!

“The problem is,” she began in rebuttal, “I don’t think a good orgasm would be enough to satisfy me. In fact, if that’s all I got out of it, I’m pretty sure I’d be depressed afterward, and feel empty inside. Blegh,” she concluded, making a face.

Kevin just shook his handsome head, clearly sad for her. “We just worry about you, Jenna.”

“Well, don’t. I have a perfectly full life without casual sex every weekend. I have my work and my family, both of which I love. I have my friends, whom I also love—most of the time,” she added, raising a reproachful eyebrow. “I have a great condo, my book club every other Thursday, my weekend getaways with Shannon each summer—face it, I have a great life. If I sometimes have a nice guy and some sex added to the mix, all the better. And if I don’t, I’m still perfectly satisfied.”

Kev looked up from where he sat on the floor in front of the TV fiddling with the remote—just as Shannon entered the room, jostling the bowl of popcorn she held to send a few fluffy kernels scattering to the carpet. “Happy movie night to you, too,” she said.

“Movie schmovie,” Jenna snapped. “You’re both dead.”

“What did we do?” Kevin gaped at her, the remote resting forgotten in his hand.

“I got a phone call a little while ago,” Jenna informed them, so livid she could barely speak, “from a place called the Hotel Erotique! They tell me I’ve won the grand prize in their annual ‘singles sweepstakes,’ a two-week stay at a resort where sex is the main amenity! Well, you can imagine my shock,” she said, trying to calm down, but segueing into complete sarcasm, “since I’ve never heard of the place and certainly never entered their sweepstakes. And when I acted confused, they then said it had been an e-mail entry—from an address that happens to be yours!” She pointed a threatening finger at Kevin, who now dropped the remote altogether.

Kev and Shannon exchanged glances and Kevin said, “Uh-oh.”

This somehow managed to make Jenna even more angry. “What the hell were you thinking? What on earth possessed you? Are you out of your freaking mind?”

“I was just, uh, playing around on the Internet one night,” he began uncertainly.

“You mean looking at porn,” Jenna corrected.

“Whatever,” he said, shaking his head. “And I came across this website for this place that, well, sort of helps people live out their sexual fantasies, and . . .”

“And?” repeated Jenna, querying him. Because surely he had more of an explanation than that.

“Well, I called Shannon into the room, just because I thought it seemed pretty cool—and then we saw the form to enter the sweepstakes and . . .” He trailed off again. The coward.

“And,” Shannon picked up for him, “Kev thought it sounded like exactly what you needed.”

Jenna gasped, and Shannon cringed, and Kevin hung his head in shame. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he explained, cautiously raising his gaze back to her, then slowly lifting himself up onto the couch—presumably to put some distance between them. “I just thought something like that would . . . bring you out of your shell. Make you like sex more.”

At which she gasped again. “I like sex fine, for the trillionth time. And I am not in a shell! But I might soon be in a cell—after I murder you.”

“So . . . what did you tell them?” Shannon asked. She set the popcorn down and moved to sit beside Kevin on the couch—probably to protect him, Jenna concluded.

“Well, I was completely flustered—I’ve never been so caught off guard in my life! And I was going to say no, flat out, that they should give it to someone else—but then they told me the prize was worth fifteen thousand dollars! And that threw me so much that I said I was in the middle of something and would have to call them back.”

“Are you gonna go?” Kev asked with a small, speculative head tilt.

Jenna simply blinked, nonplussed. “I’d rather be tarred and feathered.”

“But think about it,” Kevin said, apparently overcoming his fears and getting back to his usual confident self. “You won. Out of probably thousands and thousands of entries. I mean, what are the chances?”

“I don’t know, but next time, enter me to win something I want, please. A tour of Tuscany maybe. A week in Paris. Not two weeks of sex with strangers paid to give it to me.”

“But wow,” Shannon said, still obviously dumbstruck by the price tag, “a fifteen-thousand-dollar value. Are you going to just give that up?”

Jenna drew a deep breath, trying to think it through. For crying out loud, why couldn’t it be a fifteen-thousand-dollar trip to somewhere she felt passionate about, like one of the many places she’d researched for the historical biographies she wrote for a living. But no—she’d won a trip to some sort of crazy sex palace. Just her luck.

“I have an idea,” she said, pinning Kevin in place with her stare. “Why don’t you go? Since you thought the place seemed so cool and all?”

“Well, because I’m not single. The prize was for a single, right?”

A technicality, Jenna decided. “Yes, but I checked out the website, too, and I see couples are welcome. I bet they can give you a slightly less deluxe package for two of the same value. You entered—you go.”

“The thing is,” Kev said, “I’m not the one in need of a, uh . . . sexual outlet. Shannon and I are perfectly happy with our sex life.”

Jenna let out a huge breath. Why did he not get this? “So am I, for God’s sake! I don’t need this any more than you do. I’m a happy woman. When my friends don’t butt into my life in weird ways, that is.”

“Okay, okay,” Shannon soothed her. “You’re right. We went too far. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, sort of a joke. We never dreamed you’d really win.”

“Well, ha ha, very funny.”

“Listen, though,” Kevin added, clearly trying to sound reasonable, “why don’t you go anyway? Not for the sex, but for the other stuff.”

“What other stuff?”

“Well, if you went to the website, you saw the pictures. It’s an up-scale beach resort—pools, a spa, restaurants, you name it, and I’m sure all that stuff is included in your prize. So why don’t you just go and sit on the beach—soak up the sun and relax.”

She let out a sigh. “I could use a little relaxation after this.” And then the irony hit her—that she might have fewer people pressuring her to have sex at a sex resort than she did here at home. “Do you think they’d mind my turning down the sex part of the prize?”

“I don’t see why,” he said with a shrug. “That’s what the amped-up price is for—mostly. According to the site, they do this big analysis of each guest to design the perfect sexual experiences for them, and I’m sure that takes a lot of time and planning. So they’d be getting off cheap if all you want is the room and the pool and the spa.”

Jenna looked to Shannon, who said, “I think you should go for it. What do you have to lose?”

“But what if I get there and it’s . . . icky? I mean, what if there are people having sex all over the place, out in the open, and it creeps me out?”

“Then you get on a plane and come home,” Kev replied.

Okay, easy enough. They couldn’t make her have sex, after all. And they couldn’t make her stay if she was uncomfortable there. And though it was a far cry from the castles and battlefields of Europe, a tropical vacation sounded nice. “All right then. Hotel Erotique, here I come.” But that didn’t keep her from casting Kevin one last glare. “And you’d better hope this doesn’t blow up in my face, or you’re a dead man.”