Granted, itwasdifferent with her. Joni and I may have fought constantly growing up, but we’d also shared everything, right down to a bedroom, until we were out of high school. When she thought she and Nathan were done last spring,Iwas the safe haven she ran to, all the way to Paris, instead of our other sisters’ homes in New York, to Frankie in London, or our brother in Boston. I was the first person she told when she was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia over the summer and started medication and therapy. I also was the only one who ever knew anything about her past. The good and the very, very bad.
She knew all my secrets too.
Or the significant lack thereof.
Lea, however, was new to some of them. “You mean you haven’t even…”
I sighed. “No, I still haven’t…kissed anyone. Thanks for telling, Jo.”
I didn’t need to add “or anything else” to that sentence. The first admission was embarrassing enough.
But for once, Joni wasn’t looking at me with judgment about my status as a nun without vows. There was no taunting, no bullying, no obnoxious jokes about popping my cherry.
Over the last year, my sister had learned compassion. Maybe that came from learning to be compassionate for herself too.
“Are you ace?” she wondered. “Aro?”
I frowned. “Am I what?”
“What is that?” Lea wondered. “Lord, I’ve been out of it for too long.”
“Asexual or aromantic,” Joni clarified. “They’re spectrums, like most things to do with sex. I thought maybe you figured that out and didn’t want to tell us. Kind of like Kate and…”
She flipped her hand at the poorly kept secret of one of our sisters having had at least some relationships with women, though she’d never discussed it with any of us openly. Nor had she offered any kind of label.
I considered.
I knew I liked broad shoulders, but not too broad. Men with long legs, but not too muscular. Nathan’s physique, for instance, was too much for me. But I knew what it felt like to be physically attracted to someone, even if I’d never had the guts to do anything about it. Just like I knew what it felt like to pine for someone who had no idea you existed.
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Definitely not aro, anyway.”
“Well, of course not,” Lea put in. “She’s been fantasizing about becoming Mrs. Daniel Lyons for a decade.”
“But sex?” Joni prodded. “It’s okay if you don’t want it, you know.”
I swallowed. It was hard to explain. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to experience sex. Granted, I didn’t know exactly what it was like, but I’d seen enough examples to have an idea. I also knew how to please myself just fine, having had a longstanding relationship with a vibrator and some go-to romance novels.
I imagined someone—usually Daniel, though for whatever reason, the figure in my fantasies was often fuzzily featured—touching me the way those men on the page touched their partners. Taking off my clothes. Putting his mouth on different parts of me. Sliding a finger or maybe even his erection into me too.
Yeah, my whole body prickled just thinking about it, with excitement as well as something else. It was the same kind of fear that had accompanied me since childhood, like a parrot on my shoulder. It came with tasks as small as going to the bodega alone to get my grandfather’s newspaper or when I had to take a city bus for the first time on my own. And it was definitely there when I did things like start a new job or move to Paris.
It didn’t stop me from doing new things when I had to.
But when they weren’t required…let’s just say it was a significant struggle.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I…do want it. Sex, I mean. One day. It’s just that it’s…”
“It’s what?” Joni asked.
“It’s scary.” My voice was small. “The idea of someone seeing me. All of me. I’d have nowhere to hide.”
I’d never said it out loud, but now that I had, it came as a bit of a relief just to admit that the idea of getting vulnerable with another person terrified me to my core. Still, I braced myself for the typical jeers or condescension I might have received growing up, even if it was out of love.
But instead of making fun of me, Joni reached out and rubbed my arm. Lea looked completely bewildered. For once, she had no idea what to say.
“You wouldn’t be able to hide,” Joni agreed. “But Mimi, neither would they.”
I didn’t answer. Some people were just more comfortable with putting themselves out there. Joni was one of them. I’d never been like that, and I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
