I evaluated that question, scrutinizing it from all angles, and it seemed so muddled. Could I see Vince as a father? It was hard to say with his busy lifestyle, but then again, so was mine. Would either of us ever be home? The thought of retiring entered my mind, but it sounded dull and uninspired. I couldn’t do it. I needed my business, needed to know that I could bring home the bacon, too. It was in my blood to work for my money—not have it handed to me—and I liked it that way. I liked knowing I was achieving something.
Besides the money, though, there was little else stemming our relationship. I could get by without having orgasms, couldn’t I? After all, I’d been doing it for twenty-five years, what was another fifty?
“You didn’t answer me,” Danielle said, her head reappearing in the doorway.
“I was thinking—jeez.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know,” I said, getting off the couch.
She disappeared again, back to frying. “Well, there’s your answer. Dinner’s almost done, by the way.”
“I don’t know if I can eat,” I said, my head swirling with confusion.
“Of course you can eat, it’s chicken fried rice.” I could hear the sizzle over the kitchen fan, and the smell did draw me in, making my mouth water.
My stomach growled, unfed since eleven A.M., and I had done an extended run outside, about six miles. It felt good to be outside and running again, muscle memory returning, my form getting back to what it had been in high school. “Yeah, you’re right.”
She turned off the stovetop and removed the pan to a trivet, scooping the dish into two deep bowls. “Here ya go.” She handed me a steaming bowl. “You know, it’s funny, you’re the one with the cooking degree, but I’m the one who cooks more at home.”
“My degree is in pastries and management,” I reminded her. “Plus, that’s what I do most of the day. A break is nice sometimes.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she laughed.
I retrieved two forks from the silverware drawer and handed her one, heading into the living room. Despite having a table, we rarely ate at it, except for breakfast on the weekends when I went into work later. “What do you want to watch?” she asked, scanning through our Netflix queue. “‘Orange is the New Black?’”
“I kinda already watched the third episode,” I admitted, sitting on the couch.
“Without me? You said you’d wait.”
“I got bored,” I defended, “and it’s not like you haven’t watched a show without me.”
She glared at me. “You’ll just have to rewatch it then.”
“That’s fair,” I said, with a mouthful of fried rice. “This is really good. Hot, but really good.”
She grinned as she selected the episode. “I’m glad you approve.”
“And I promise I won’t spoil anything.” She only laughed, knowing that I had a bad habit of divulging endings.
“So what about this Vince situation?” she asked after we ate and the show ended.
“You really think I should just end it?”
She nodded. “A clean break.”
“Do I have to do it in person?”
“You slept with him, but only went out twice . . . I’d say it could go either way.”
I went and got my phone from my bed. “Two dates . . . I think it’d be all right if I only texted him, right?”
“Break-up by text is rough,” she said, making a sour face. “You did say he’s a nice guy, after all.”
“That’s why I think over the phone would be so much harder.”
“Well, it’s up to you.”
I stared at his phone number. “I can’t do it. I can’t call him.” I opened up the text screen and wrote out Hey, I had a lot of fun with you on our last two dates, but I can’t make it tomorrow. Sorry. Actually, I don’t think we should see each other anymore. Sorry. We are not really in the same place. Sorry. I wish you the best of luck. “Will you read it? I’m not very good at this.” I handed Danielle the phone.
“That’s an understatement. You apologize too much, and your writing is so proper for a text,” she criticized. “And what’s with the last line? It sounds like a rejection letter.”
“Isn’t it?”
She handed back the phone. “You know what I mean. Anyway, I’d take out at least two of those ‘sorry’s.”
I reread the message and erased the first two “sorry”s. My thumb hovered over the send key. I drew in a deep breath. “Okay, here I go.”
Danielle saw my wavering and reached over and tapped the send key. “You’re welcome,” she said in a superior tone.
My jaw dropped as I stared at the screen, a small part of me wishing I could take it back, but everything moved too fast in the digital age. The message had already reached him before I exhaled.
EITHER VINCE’S PHONE WAS being upgraded again, or he was choosing not to respond to my breakup text, which was probably the most likely scenario. It was hard to gauge his interest in me, and how hard the news would hit him. He might just move on without skipping a beat, but I doubted that.
It actually affected me more than I thought it would. I was barely able to crawl out of bed on Friday morning, depressed and regretful. I wore my most comfortable pants that I could pass off as professional, and a baggy T-shirt, which was well hidden under my apron.
When Danielle arrived home, she found me face down on the couch, one of my favorite spots for reflection. “Pizza?” was all she said.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Pepperoni and olives?”
I rolled over. “Yeah.”
“I’ll call Ashley, too.” She ordered the pizza and invited her fiancée over. “You want to talk about it? Bridgett said you were mopey all day.”
“I just think I made a terrible, terrible mistake, Danielle. Vince was a great guy.”
“But not Mr. Right,” she pointed out.
“Oh, fuck Mr. Right,” I growled. “He doesn’t exist. Vince does.”
“Then call him and say you made a mistake.”
“You can’t just dump someone and then suddenly change your mind,” I said, shaking my head. “Especially since I dumped him by text.”
A knock at the door interrupted her reply. She hurried to the peephole. “Holy shit.”
“What? Who is it?”
“It’s fucking Vince,” she whispered, turning to me.
I jumped off the couch. “What?” I whispered back. “Let me see.” She scooted over and I spied through, sighting Vince on the other side. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know?”
He knocked again, louder this time.
“What do we do?”
“Open the door?” she ventured, still keeping her voice at a whisper.
I straightened up, sucked in a big breath, and rested my hand on the doorknob. Danielle sprinted for the kitchen, out of sight but within hearing range. I opened the door. “Vince, what are you doing here?”
“Hey, Maci,” he said nervously. “After I got your text last night, I’ve been going over our relationship, because I thought everything was going well, that we were doing well . . . Anyway, your text shocked me, to say the least. And after going through everything in my mind, because we connected so well, there was only one hiccup that I could detect, and that was the sex. Am I wrong there?”
I gaped at him, frozen, speechless. My brain had stopped communicating with my mouth and it wouldn’t form a syllable.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asked after a minute went by in awkward silence.
“You caught me a little off guard,” I finally got out. “I wasn’t expecting you to just show up.”
“I thought it would be best to communicate face-to-face,” he said, shifting his weight to his left. “So, am I wrong?”
“I—I—uh—no. No, you weren’t wrong.”
“So it was the no orgasm thing, right?”
I nodded, too embarrassed to speak.
“Can we talk privately?” he asked. “I can se
e Danielle peeking from the kitchen.”
I twisted back and saw a trace of her eye before she retreated. “Yeah, we can talk in my room.” I closed the door after he crossed the threshold, leading him to my room, locking the door behind us. He unslung a black messenger bag, which I hadn’t even noticed until now, and laid it on the bed. “Nice bag.”
He smiled thinly. “Thanks, I had never liked bags like these before, but Alma got it for me because my backpack was falling apart, and I’ve gotten used to it. But I didn’t come here to talk about my bag.” His lips hardened in a straight line, serious. Another long pause stole the air in the room. “So, what was it? My ineptness? Did I go too fast? Was it because I didn’t talk dirty, because I can talk dirty, if that’s what you want.”
“I don’t know what it was,” I said with honesty. “I’ve just never had one, and Danielle got it in my head that I need to find someone who can give me—those—and since I didn’t with you, I figured I wouldn’t, so I sent you that text, but then I regretted sending you the text. UGH!” I sat down on the bed, rubbing my exhausted eyes.
“So, you do think we have a connection? Because I really thought so.”
“I love everything about our relationship so far,” I said, looking up at him. “Even the sex. I’ve never felt so close to—to that moment, but it still didn’t come.” I laughed at the pun.
“So the sex was good, but not good enough?” He was rubbing his forehead, trying to absorb everything.
“It was great,” I answered. “But Danielle got me thinking that maybe I should find someone who can make me feel that sexual intensity, you know, at least once in my life.”
“Look, I know I have to work on intimacy, and I am—I know I’m a little distant when we do it. I’m working out some problems there from my past. But I think I can give you that moment, if we work on it together. If we learn about each other’s bodies—meaning, if you let me learn yours, what turns you on and what doesn’t.” He grabbed his bag, unlatched the clasps, and brought out a book with an illustration of a woman with blue hair kissing a man with orange hair.
“Guide to Getting It On?” I read aloud, as he handed it to me. I flipped through the table of contents and blushed. The compulsion to flee arose, and an image of me bolting out the door flashed in my mind.
Vince slid off his jacket, the space heater I bought working as it should, making it nice and toasty in my room. “It’s an older edition that I found at Powell’s, but I think this book will help both of us connect in that department. I’ve already read some parts of it, and I think it can give us some perspective. Like, did you know that only about one-third of women have orgasms from intercourse. Do you have orgasms when you masturbate or from oral sex?”
All the blood drained from my head. The question slapped me in the face, and a dizzy spell suddenly attacked me, making me wobble on the bed. I leapt off the mattress and headed for the door. “I—I—”
Vince reacted, putting his arm around me. “Are you okay? You look really pale?”
“I—” I could hear Danielle teasing me, Prude! Prude! Prude! Grow up, Maci! You’re an adult. You can talk about adult stuff. “I’m not very comfortable talking about this stuff.”
“Sex?” he asked, concerned and confused.
“Yeah, sex,” I replied, my breathing picking up as panic set in. I wrestled out of his hold.
“Like anxiety?”
“I don’t know.” My back hit the corner and I sunk to the floor.
Vince knelt before me, watching with worry. “Breathe, Maci. Breathe,” he said, as my breaths shortened. They were coming so quickly that dots started to appear in the distance. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.” He slowly drew in a big breath and held it, then let it out just as slowly. “Like this.” He repeated the action, and I attempted to copy him.
I don’t know how long we sat there while I mimicked his breathing, but it felt like hours. When I finally got my lungs under control, I about keeled over into the fetal position, ready to burst into tears from embarrassment. “You must think I’m a total wacko.”
He laughed, stroking my cheek. “On the contrary, I think you’re quite normal. Everyone has something that makes them panic. I guess for you, it’s sex, or at least talking about it.”
I hung my head, my eyes downcast, humiliated by my reaction. “I don’t know what it is, but for some reason talking about sex just seems so wrong, like it’s something illegal, which I know is irrational. I know there’s nothing wrong with it—that sex is a good thing. And the weird part is, it’s not like my parents forced abstinence on me, or anything religious like that, I just have this part of me that cringes inside and panics when someone brings it up. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“Kinda, I think.” His hand slid under my chin and brought up my head so that our eyes locked. “We don’t have to talk about it—”
“No, that’s the thing: I want to.” My hands went wild as my voice exploded. “I want to be able to say ‘cock’ in front of my best friend and not feel like I’ve committed a felony. I want to stop blushing like a teenager when someone brings up sex. I don’t want to be a prude, and I know I am one—but that’s not who I want to be.”
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Honestly, I have no clue where to begin.”
“How about we both say what we’ve done and work from there?” He cocked his head, still holding my chin. “I can start.” He removed his hand and sat cross-legged, his elbows resting on his thighs.
“What if I’m like this forever?”
He shook his head. “You won’t be, trust me.” He pointed at the book that had slipped from my hands and now lay on the floor by his feet. “You have a guide.” He grinned, showing off his remarkably white teeth.
I smiled back and nodded.
“Well, what I’ve done is pretty short, I think.” He looked at the ceiling as if concentrating hard. “I started masturbating when I was in fifth or sixth grade.”
“Really, that young?” I asked, blown away.
“Oh yeah,” he said calmly, “and that’s not even young, I knew a guy who started in third grade.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty damn crazy.” He was nodding in agreement. “At that age, I probably didn’t even know what good my thing was for besides peeing. My freshman year at Stanford I met a girl and lost my virginity then. We dated for four years, and yeah, she was the only person I’ve ever been with.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Well, until you, yeah . . . and all we did was normal stuff, I guess. A few different positions, nothing too out there, no oral sex or anything like that. We never went crazy or explored that much. What about you?” He raised his eyebrows in a pointedly humorous fashion.
“Six,” I blurted. “Well seven, counting you.”
He leaned back. “No way? Seven, really?”
I nodded, my face crimson, burning.
“It’s just, I didn’t expect seven when you’re so shy about the subject.”
“I think Danielle has been a factor in that number, boosting my confidence when I was ready; and it’s different doing it. I don’t know why, but talking about it is like a huge wall, an obstacle that my mind just can’t overcome. Does that make sense?”
“I think so,” he answered, though his scrunched-up face said otherwise. “So with seven partners you’ve never had an orgasm?”
I shook my head. “Not once.”
“What about by yourself?”
“I’ve never masturbated,” I confessed. “I’ve tried a few times, but it never felt right, you know? No, I guess you wouldn’t.” I laughed to myself.
Vince laughed, too, but it was more nervous, I-don’t-know-what’s-going-on laughter. “What about oral sex? It seems like you’re one of those two-thirds who doesn’t have an orgasm from intercourse.”
“Never had it, giving or receiving.” I inhaled a deep, calming breath. “I’ve always stopped the men from goi
ng that far. I mean, I’ve imagined what it feels like, but I guess that is also part of my mental block when it comes to sex. I’ve also only had sex in . . . well, missionary.”
His mouth fell open, and it was clear that he didn’t know how to react to that. “Then it’s more than just talking about it, if you’ve only done one position your whole life, and never explored anything else.”
I reflected on that for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so. But in my head, it’s talking about it to myself, see? So it’s sorta the same even though it’s not. And it’s not like I’ve never considered exploring. I’ve had fantasies. A lot of them. I’ve wanted to try stuff—I even made a mental list when I was a teenager of all the dirty things I wanted to do one day . . . I just haven’t been able to cross that barrier. I’ve never been able to tell someone what I’ve wanted to do.”
“Then tell me,” he said, his body language encouraging me. “In fact, how about we write down our fantasies and anything else sexual that we’ve ever wanted to do? We can make a list and talk about it. That way you can get comfortable about the idea ahead of time, and maybe we can cross them off the more we adjust and grow. How’s that sound? Can you write them down if we do it together?”
I squirmed against the wall, and then offered him my hand, and we pulled each other up, though it was obvious he was doing most the work. I opened a desk drawer and extracted an old, empty notebook from a stack that I kept around, found a pen and handed it to him. “You first.” I lay down on the bed.
Vince did the same next to me, flipping to the first page of the notebook. He wrote across the top “The List” and then put the point to the first line, pausing. “Let’s see . . . what have I always wanted to do. . .?” He paused, chewing on the cap of the pen, then suddenly, started writing. He angled the paper so that I could see when he was finished.
“Make a home sex video?” I looked over at him. That was certainly something I’d never considered before. “Would you upload it for people to see?” I nearly choked getting out the words.
“It’d be for our eyes only. I always thought it might be fun and erotic. Fill a room with candles and light a fire, make it more than just taping sex. Anyway, it’s your turn.” He pressed the pen into my hand.
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