“That must make you mad, though. That he guessed.”
“Less him than anyone else. Mostly just because he never gave me a hard time about you. Denver is the kind of guy who has his own secrets, so he certainly doesn’t pry overly much when it comes to other people’s.”
“Right.”
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“It’s embarrassing,” she said.
“You were talking a big game over text last night.”
“I’ve never done anything like that before,” she said.
“It wasn’tthatdaring.”
She sniffed. “That’s mean. It was the most daring thing I’ve ever done.”
“You would’ve had to send me nudes for it to be real daring.”
“No,” she said. “I am not sending pictures of my naked body to go flying through the ether to hopefully land on your phone.”
“Do pictures often get stuck out there in the air?”
“If any did, they would be pictures of my boobs.”
“That feels a little narcissistic.” He looked at her sideways, and caught the toothy, menacing smile she was giving him.
“Don’t threaten me,” he said.
“You’re acting like a man who wants to be bitten,” she said.
“I’m not opposed to biting.” He let that sit for a second, because it brought up some things that they needed to discuss. The kinds of things he’d never had occasion to think about with his best friend before. Hecleared his throat. “On that topic, do you have any... hard nos.”
“What... what?”
“Things youwon’tdo”
“I... I mean, I feel like there are probably some things, but I would have to google them, and they would take me to corners of the internet I don’t want to be on.”
He gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter. “There was nothing that you did with him that you didn’t like.”
“I don’t know that I want to talk about him.”
“He’s the only man you’ve been with, right?”
“Yes,” she said, looking ahead.
“So he’s your reference point. Comparison is going to be natural.”
“You already sound smug.”
“Oh, I am not worried.”
“I am. What if it’s me? What if I can’t...?”
“Go ahead. You don’t need to be embarrassed. I’m your best friend. And if I’m going to get naked with you, then I need to know everything. I need to know the things you’ve held back before. I need to know the things you’re afraid would hold you back with me.”
“You know my parents were just overwrought. All the time. It was like they loved and hated each other so much they couldn’t stand it. They loved sex with each other so much they would shut themselves away in the middle of the day, but somehow at the same time they also loved to have sex with other people. So they could fight? I never understood how they could act like theywanted each other so badly, but then also be with other people. I never understood how they could be such a registered mess all the time with each other. I never wanted to be that way. I wanted my life to be different. But I think I gave myself a complex about passion. Because I could only ever look at it as this two-edged sword. And if you wanted one edge of the sword you had to take the other one. I get that that isn’t really true. At least I think I do. But it made me feel like I always wanted to be present during sex. I can never lose myself. I was always halfway in a spreadsheet and I just got used to thinking about other things. It seemed like it was easier to just not worry about my own orgasm because that created pressure between us and I didn’t want pressure. I didn’t want to be work. And I also didn’t know how not to be.”
