“She was my firstrealgirlfriend. Like, a girl that I was actually serious about. She was my last girlfriend, too.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize that.”
“Yeah.”
Another long silence.
“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” she asked.
“No. Hell. I’m trying to find the words.” The athlete grunted with frustration. “Jesus, I suck at this.”
“You’re doing fine. Just relax and let it come out.”
He took a few deep breaths and then blurted it right out. “She said I fuckin’ sucked at eating pussy, okay?”
“Oh! Er. Well.” Austen’s eyes grew wide. “So that’s why you won’t do it?”
“Yeah,” he said curtly.
“That wasn’t a very nice thing for her to say.”
“No, but she said it, so it must be true. She said I gave the worst head she’d ever had.”
“Wait, how did this come up at thebowlingalley? Didn’t you say you were there with all your teammates and friends?”
“Yeah.” He rolled his eyes. “The beer was flowing that night. And the boys were joking about the size of my wrench.”
“Your … wrench?”
“Yeah, you know, it’s hockey talk for cock. Wrench, hammer, hog …”
“I’ve never heard any of those terms before.” She giggled. “But wait, are you telling me that you guys talk about each other’s penises?”
“Well, sure!” Dane said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “We’re naked with each other all the time: in the locker room, in the showers. Kinda hard not to notice who’s got a big wrench, you know?”
“This issoamusing.” Austen clapped her hands with glee. “Okay, so you guys were drunk, and everyone was talking about the size of your wrench. Go on.”
“So we were joking around, and the boys somehow brought up my cock—and then they started teasing mygirlfriend about it. They were saying she must have to unhinge her jaw, like a snake, just to blow me.”
“Go on,” Austen said.
“Well, I was drunk like everyone else, and I stupidly said something along the lines of, ‘Iwishshe could unhinge her jaw! Her mouth is too small to even blow me, fellas.’ ”
Austen cringed. “Oof.”
“She just couldn’t fit more than the head in her mouth, you know? Sorry if that’s TMI. She tried once, but she gave up because it made her jaw hurt. I asked her to try again after that, but she’d just get mad at me for bringing it up.”
“Ohreally?” Austen said. “So youhavehad a girlfriend that wouldn’t go down on you. And how’d you like that?”
“It sucked! I mean, sex is great, obviously. But sometimes, a mouth can feelsogood.”
“Yeah!” Austen agreed. “Exactly! That’s how us girls feel when you aren’t willing to reciprocate!”
“I know … but … no one really seemed to care about it until you.”
“I wanna hear the rest of your story,” Austen said. “So you called her out for not sucking dick, and she didn’t like that, I imagine.”
“Nah. She didn’t like that at all. She screamed, ‘how dare you tell people that!’ and suddenly, I hear this loud slam. I turn and look, just in the nick of time, to see thatshe rolled a bowling ball right at me. I jumped out of the way, and it ended up taking out this dude in the lane next to us. He flew through the air.”
