“Yes,” I answer. “It was hard. But worthwhile. And I promise I didn’t mean to derail the conversation into sad cancer talk, because this is about us and much more fun things.”
“So which one of us is the doctor and which one of us is the patient?”
I start cleaning off my counter as I talk. “I think we’re each both. Both things at once. We need to figure out what’s important to each of us, what our priorities are. And also we need to talk about boundaries—what we won’t do and we won’t give up—and also all the practical stuff, mechanics and schedules—all of it. It’s going to be awkward and feel kind of intimate for two people who don’t know each other very well, just like with the palliative doctor and his patient, but that way we start out with all the important information on the table.”
“Okay.” She gives a nod of approval, which is belied by how hard she’s chewing on the inside of her cheek. “You go first.”
“Me first. Okay.” I look at her, my hands still scrubbing at the counter. “Keeping you safe is the most important thing to me,” I say. “I promised your brother I would, and beyond that, I…I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you. I can’t deny that I want this—and I want you—but it can’t come at any price that you have to pay.”
A pause. Her eyes glued to mine, her pulse jumping in her neck.
“Okay,” she finally whispers.
“Zenny, I need to know as we move forward…are you a virgin?”
She blinks up at the ceiling. “Sort of?”
I finish cleaning, toss the sponge into the sink and lean forward onto the granite, bracing myself on my elbows. “Explain sort of.”
“Well, I do feel like I should mention that I think virginity in general is an arbitrary construct designed by men as a system of control and fear. And it’s heteronormative. And limiting, because why do certain sexual acts preserve virginity and some destroy it? What if I fucked a dildo every night, but I hadn’t fucked a man? Why doesn’t anal sex count? And what if I was with someone and penetration wasn’t an option, for any number of biological or emotional or identity reasons—would that make our sex less somehow? I’d be a virgin forever?”
I open and close my mouth, completely at a loss for an answer and feeling a little ashamed that I’d actually never even considered the concept of virginity that deeply.
“But for the purposes of our conversation, it means that I had a boyfriend in high school, and I decided to try intercourse with him. I changed my mind in the middle of the act, he stopped, and that was it.”
I don’t miss how easily she can toss around words like fuck when she’s talking in hypotheticals, but when she’s talking about herself, about real life, it becomes intercourse and the act. I mentally file that away as I say, “Was it consensual?”
I don’t like the way she hesitates before she nods, but she does nod. Slowly.
“Can we talk about it more? I won’t push if you’d rather keep it in the past, but for the purposes of your ‘exploration,’ it could be helpful to know what’s new or what has a negative association for you.” My words go up at the end, lilting like a question, because I really don’t want to push her. But I also want to take care of her and I want to show her all the delicious things she’s been missing—which means it would help to know what’s in her past.
Zenny blows out a breath, but she looks determined, not troubled. “Yes, we can talk about it more. It’s just awkward, like you said.”
“I want to hold and touch you while we talk about it. Is that okay?”
She bites her lip, suppressing the flicker of pleasure that moved across her face. “Yes,” she says quietly. “That would be okay.”
I come around the island and step between her legs again, but this time I don’t stay there. I scoop her up by her thighs and carry her with her legs wrapped around my waist to one of the sofas.
She squeals in surprise when I do it, but her legs tighten around my waist and her hands lace around my neck, and suddenly, I want very much to keep holding her forever, just like this. With her thighs bracketing my torso and her face slightly above mine, laughing down at me.
I arrange us on the couch so that she’s on my lap but perched far enough back that I’m not nudging her with my erection. And I do it so that we’re close, in something that could be called a cuddle, where I can hold her and speak to her and support her, but she’s above me and she can easily change position. Easily gain space.
“Is this how couples talk?” she whispers, gazing down at me with the laughter still fading from her face. “Is this how you talk to all your women?”
I reach up and run a finger along her jaw. “I don’t know if this is how couples talk,” I say. “I’ve never been in a couple. And no, I never talk to women like this.”
One of those film-star eyebrows again. “Is that because you don’t talk to women period?”
“Smartass,” I say, giving her bottom a teasing pinch, and the breathless giggle she gives has me regretting not peeling off her jeans before parking her on my lap. I could make her smile so much more if I didn’t have all this denim in the way. “I talk to plenty of women. I even talk to the women I fuck. Although generally if I’ve got a woman in my lap, she’s doing something else instead of talking.”
“Something el—” Zenny catches herself.
I grin up at her. “I’ll be happy to show you all the things other than talking you can do in my lap, sweet girl.”
SEAN BELL. FOCUS.
“But first,” I say. “We talk about the awkward stuff.”
“We talk about the awkward stuff,” she agrees.
“Tell me why you decided to go to bed with this guy in high school,” I gently ask. “Why him? Why then?”
She looks down at her hands, which are now resting atop her thighs and rubbing restlessly at the fabric. She seems to be gathering her thoughts. “On paper, he was the right guy for it, you know? He went to Rockhurst, I went to St. Teresa’s. He had great grades, he was star of the track team, he did all this volunteer work, we were in Jack and Jill together as kids…my parents adored him. And he wanted to have sex. And I wanted to have sex.”
“And what had you done before this? With him or any other person?”
She shakes her head. “Just kissed. I’d kissed a handful of boys by the time I met Isaac. And Isaac and I had made out several times. It never went further than that because we were always in my basement and Isaac was terrified of the Honorable Letitia Iverson coming downstairs and dragging him by the ear to jail or something.”
I have to smile at that; I definitely didn’t make it out of my own childhood unscathed by Mrs. Iverson’s fiercely maternal style of justice. But back to the topic at hand. “So wait, he hadn’t even given you head by this point? What about fingering? Dry humping?”
My frank use of the terms seems to embarrass her a little, but she rallies. “Um, he touched my breasts once while we were kissing, and that was it,” she says. “But he kept asking for more, asking if we could find a place to be alone, if we could just try it—so I said yes. We told our parents we were staying with friends, and then we snuck into the youth center at church because I had a key from volunteering. And like I said, I didn’t like it and I asked him to stop. He did. That’s it.”