Not That Kind of Girl

by Nia Forrester

  As he does that, I pull one knee up to my chest and use my foot to maneuver his basketball shorts down his waist and to his hips. The process is painstakingly slow, and as I work at it, I feel Ian smiling against my neck and then chest.

  “You want to help me out?” I ask finally.

  “But you’re doing so well on your own,” he says sucking the tip of an already hardened nipple.

  Clearly, he’s in no hurry. He flicks, teases and sucks each one, his hand working lazily between my legs so I’m arching off the bed and squirming beneath him, feeling his fingers produce ever more slick slipperiness with each stroking motion.

  I manage to get my foot down the center of his back, beneath the elastic waistband of his shorts and over his firm buttocks. My big toe slips out of bounds and he tightens.

  “Whoa, shorty!”

  Then we’re both laughing, and he pulls the shorts down for me so we’re both finally naked. He sits up a moment to toss it aside and I raise myself onto my elbows.

  “Stand up a second,” I say. “I wanna see something.”

  Ian looks at me quizzically. “What? I got titty juice on my chin?”

  I splutter and give him a look. “These titties have no juice. That would be your slobber you’re talking about.”

  He licks his lower lip. “Yeah,” he says. “I think you’re right.”

  But he stands, humoring me.

  “So … why am I doing this again?” he asks when I say nothing after about ten seconds of staring.

  “It’s just …” I shake my head. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

  Ian’s smile melts and then we’re doing that thing, where we stare like we’re searching each other’s souls.

  I get off the bed and sink to my knees in front of him. He holds really still, and I touch him, cup him really, feeling the smooth, velvety skin. I grip him in my fist and move my hand back and forth until he feels like steel in a silken glove.

  “Fuck,” he says when I take him into my mouth.

  It’s the only time I’ve ever heard him cuss. Under the circumstances, I think it’s forgivable.

  Ian has just groaned out his release and I collapse onto his chest, my inner thighs aching from clenching hard on either side of him, my hips throbbing a little from how hard his hands gripped me. And inside me, I feel him, softer and about to slip free when he holds me again, pulling down so we can wait it out and he hardens again.

  “You know what I wanna do with you?” he says in my ear, his breaths still broken and feathery.

  “What?” I speak against his neck.

  “I wanna take you on a date.”

  I freeze, then laugh aloud.

  Ian lifts his head. “Why’s that funny?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not. I just … I thought you were about to say you wanted to do something, you know, sexual. Something … dirty.”

  He sits up, so I’m forced to raise my torso and am now sitting astride him.

  “I wanna take you somewhere,” he says, holding me by the waist. “Like a real … We get dressed up, go to a movie and dinner … a real date.”

  I chew the corner of my lower lip. It’s tender, a little swollen, I think. But it feels good, because I know why it’s tender and swollen.

  “When would that be?” I ask quietly.

  “Tomorrow. I mean, tonight.”

  It’s Saturday. The time with Ian passes so quickly.

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, sounding more committal this time.

  He grins. “Cool.”

  Then he kisses me. Softly now. Now, almost all his kisses are soft. I can’t recall when that transition happened, when our kisses went from hungry and needy to gentle and secure.

  I put a hand up, rest my elbow on his shoulder and thread my fingers through his baby-soft hair. His eyes shut and he moans as I massage his scalp.

  “Ian?” I say.

  “Yeah?” He is still moaning a little, his eyes are still closed, and as my hand moves, he holds me against him with one firm forearm.

  “What was it?” I ask. “About me. Why did you want to …?”

  His eyes remain shut. “I don’t know,” he says quietly.

  I swallow. “If it was just … physical attraction or you just wanted to … I mean, I won’t be insulted. I … I’m actually kind of flattered if even when you’re dating Kate you would …”

  His eyes fly open. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. Just, Kate’s a really cute girl and …”

  “You’re a really cute girl,” he says. “You’re more than cute. You’re …”

  I wave that away. “I’m not … insecure about my looks,” I say. “And I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m not saying that. But Kate is like outgoing and has that thing, right? That thing that just draws your attention to her. Like star-quality or something.”

  “Kate’s a cute girl,” he acknowledges.

  “Right. And has other qualities as well. So, I wondered what is was that …”

  “I don’t compare you to Kate,” he says.

  I sigh. I can feel him getting irritated, or impatient. It’s another of those moments, when lack of practice and experience means I just can’t get a precise read on his emotions.

  “This isn’t some ploy to get you to say anything mean about her. I just wonder, that’s all. When you have a perfectly good relationship, what made you want to …”

  “Cheat,” he finishes for me.

  I nod. There’s no dressing it up, is there?

  Ian holds me with both hands and lifts me off him, so I’m sitting between his legs now, and no longer astride him. He pulls the sheet to cover our pelvises.

  There’s no way to have discussion that mentions your girlfriend while you’re inside some other girl. It lacks … decorum.

  “I didn’t want to cheat on Kate. I didn’t …”

  “Mean for it to happen,” I say flatly. I roll my eyes and turn away from him

  “Terri, I wanna tell you something that makes sense. Believe me. I want to tell myself something that makes sense. Something to make you feel better, convince you I’m not this kinda dude. And you’re not that kinda girl, but …”

  “But we are,” I say.

  “No! That’s not what I’m sayin’ …”

  “Then …”

  “When I met you, I knew you. A’ight? That’s what it felt like. When I met you, it felt like I knew you.”

  I turn to look at him, searching his eyes for some sign that he’s messing with my head. The really smooth ones, the accomplished liars can make you believe anything. That the sky is green, and fish are land-dwelling creatures.

  “Now you’re lookin’ at me all crazy,” Ian says, shaking his head.

  “Because it is,” I speak slowly. But my heart is beating fast. I move away from him a little and he puts a hand on my leg to still me.

  “I didn’t know you. But I felt like I knew you. Or like you were someone I was meant to know.”

  I say nothing. I let his hand sit where it is on my leg, and don’t move a muscle.

  He shrugs and then exhales. “That’s the god’s honest truth. I looked at you, and I thought, uwoduhi adanvto.”

  I look at him, bemused, curious. I don’t have to ask.

  He tells me, “It means … beautiful spirit.”

  I almost don’t care if he’s lying at this point. I smile.

  I awaken to the sensation of Ian’s lips against the nape of my neck. I’m barely conscious but I know him. My body already recognizes his scent and the weight and pressure of his hands on my waist. It’s sometimes awkward to sleep with someone new. Not to have sex with them … though that can be awkward too. I mean, sleep with them. You struggle to find positions that work for you both. Do you cuddle, do you not? Does he spoon or want his space? Is your head on his arm too heavy, or does he want to drape a thigh across yours?

  There are so many questions to nav
igate, so it’s sometimes easier just to go home and sleep alone. Though I haven’t had many hookups, or lovers or whatever you want to call them, I’ve had to face those questions and they often lead to uncomfortable goodbyes and late-night exits, shoes in hand.

  The first night Ian and I spent together, I think it was more like a stupor than sleep. I was exhausted from the sun and the sex, narcotized by the alcohol. And just slipped into oblivion. This time, though I was tired, I was more present. My mind was buzzing with everything Ian said, and my body humming from the way he had handled it. But when I fell asleep, I was settled, and he was settled next to me. We fit.

  Now, feeling his lips on my neck, his hand on my waist, I fight my way back to wakefulness so I can feel everything.

  He turns me over and I sigh. He is above me, and my eyes are half open and his are half open and he is looking at me. He was sleeping too, I realize. But something woke him, and he now wants me. My thighs relax and fall apart and he sinks between them.

  Within seconds, he is inside me. I lie prone as he moves, his back arching and bowing, making slows waves. His slightly coarse pubic hair strokes me and I come in jerking, spastic quivers, clawing at his back.

  When he comes, less than a minute later, he exhales, deep and long, then burrows his face in the space between my neck and shoulder. He tries to pull away, to ease his weight off me but I don’t let him. I want to hold on to him. Just a little bit longer.

  Chapter Twelve

  “A dress,” he said. “Wear a dress.”

  Seemed like a pretty straightforward request and an easy one to fulfill.

  Ian left me in his bed again, but this time he woke me up as he was getting dressed to go for a run.

  “I’m not staying,” I told him, my words garbled.

  There might even have been a little dried drool at the corner of my mouth, but I was too whacked to care. We didn’t fall asleep again until something past four in the morning, and here it was, just after seven and he was going for a run.

  He’d woken up, showered and put on training gear without me hearing any of it. But when he shook me awake I told him I had to go home to shower, change, whatever.

  “You’re gonna go sleep again, aren’t you?” he said. “When you get back to your room?”

  “Yeah, Ian,” I admitted. “I might.”

  “Remember we got a date though,” he said.

  “What time?”

  “I dunno. Like five we go see a movie then go eat?”

  “Five,” I repeated. “Sure. Good. Don’t call me before three-thirty.”

  “Okay, sleepyhead.” He even gave me a peck on the forehead. And as he was walking out, I stopped him.

  “What should I wear?” I asked.

  “A dress,” he said as he ducked out the door. “Wear a dress.”

  Once he was gone, I couldn’t fall asleep. And realizing that most people were normal like me, and still sleeping off Friday night, I dragged myself up and out of Ian’s dorm while there were no witnesses. Once in my own room, I had a moment where I thought I might have left my phone again, but luckily, it was with me. And dead.

  I plugged it in, undressed and went to sleep again, this time in my own bed.

  I woke up just after one in the afternoon, showered and returned another call from my dad and one from Corinne asking if I wanted to have lunch with her. I wanted to but wasn’t sure I’d have enough time. I wanted to do something with my hair. And I had to unearth a dress. I declined and told her I’d love to meet on Sunday for brunch instead.

  ‘That’s very inconvenient for me,’ she responded. ‘But I haven’t seen you for a long time, so we can make it Sunday.’

  Corinne’s Asperger’s sometimes makes her blunt to the point of rudeness. When I first met her, I thought she just had a dry sense of humor, until I realized she wasn’t laughing along with me, and sometimes found my amusement puzzling. Now, I just enjoy her as she is, because she’s honest, and wouldn’t even know how to be otherwise.

  I’m digging through my small closet, choosing and then un-choosing a dress among the four I have with me at school. One is a non-starter, basically a smock that I wear when I’m premenstrual and bloated and another is a church dress with a chaste collar and an A-line skirt that makes me look like a novitiate about to take her final orders before becoming a nun. Which leaves the final two.

  The first is a simple grey maxi-dress, a long shift that more or less, follows my figure but doesn’t cling to it. It’s a little longer than it should be, so I always wear something with a heel to prevent it from sweeping the floor. And the second is a black minidress, my only semi-formalwear that gets trotted out whenever there’s an event on campus that passes as “fancy.” I wore it when there was a reception for Pennsylvania’s Senator, and there was the possibility of getting a picture taken with him.

  I think of Ian and what he’s likely to wear. I don’t know where we’re going other than a movie, nor whether the restaurant he has in mind for afterward is a sort of nice place or a really nice place. I decide on the grey dress. Because the restaurant is likely to be medium fancy if at all, and no one wears a semi-formal black dress to the movies.

  Then, with dress decision made, I spend most of my time on my hair, twisting it wet, drying it and planning to loosen it into waves before realizing it can stay up in chignon. Since I’m short, having my hair up elongates me. And I choose hoop earrings, because a girl can’t go wrong with thin, medium-sized hoops. I’m still playing around with makeup, sitting with a handheld mirror propped between my knees when my phone rings.

  At first, I don’t bother looking at it, but it’s almost three-thirty, and I remember that I told Ian he shouldn’t expect me to be conscious till then. For a moment I wonder whether he might be calling to cancel, to tell me that something else has come up. I haven’t heard from him all day after all. Not that he’s obligated to check in, and also, I literally told him not to bother me.

  I dive for the phone and answer without looking at it.

  “My father,” the voice on the other end says, “is driving me nuts.”

  My heart lurches. “Kate?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Look, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure,” I say slowly. “What d’you need?”

  “There’s an envelope in my desk drawer,” she says. “From an insurance company? It has my new insurance card in it. I need you to find it, scan it and then email it to me. Otherwise my father isn’t going to let me drive back.”

  “Oh. No prob,” I say.

  “I told him that even if I was to get stopped, my insurance company is the same, and if I had to explain to a cop that I just didn’t have the new card with me, if they called they’d see that my paperwork is current, just not on my person. But no …”

  I can tell as Kate rambles on that she is speaking for the benefit of an audience, and that the audience isn’t me.

  It doesn’t matter, because I’m not really listening to what she’s saying so much as I am absorbing the sound of her voice. Hearing her voice makes her real again. She isn’t a hypothetical roommate, who is hypothetically dating Ian. She’s real. And she’s making plans to come back.

  “Are you coming back sooner then?” I ask. “Like today?”

  “No. Still Monday. Or maybe Sunday if my father doesn’t get off my back …” Again, speaking to another audience. “But I don’t want to take a chance you aren’t able to scan that card and get it to me. Also, my dad wants to inspect it. He thinks since I went to school and had them change my billing address maybe I’m not being responsible and paying the bill on time and maybe the policy’s lapsed and I’m just being a big, fat liar.”

  “I can do it right now,” I say. “It’s no problem. Want to stay on the line while I look for the insurance bill, just to make sure?”

  “No,” Kate says airily. “I’m sure you’ll find it. Because contrary to what some people believe, I’m pretty fucking organized.”

  In the background I
hear a male voice—Kate’s father, her secondary audience I’m guessing—complaining about her use of “coarse language.”

  “Anyway, thanks Terri,” she speaks over the male voice. “Text me when you’ve sent it, okay?”

  “Yup.”

  I hang up and sit on the edge of my bed, the excitement at my date with Ian significantly depleted after only six or so minutes of Kate’s voice. I give canceling about a nanosecond’s consideration.

  But I can’t do it. If anything, it’s more important that I see him tonight. Because I never really forgot about Kate. I mean, we talked about her just last night. I’ve known she was coming back and that Ian and I were temporary. And I promised myself that because of that, I’d make the most of the time we spent together. Nothing’s changed. I can still do that. Only now, I’m keeping my fingers crossed she doesn’t get pissed at her father and come back one day early.

  I find Kate’s insurance bill just inside her desk drawer like she said it would be, opened and on top of a pile of papers, the envelope it came in neatly paper-clipped to the back corner. The insurance card is just the bottom, perforated portion of the bill, so I decide to scan the entire thing. When I lift it, there are other papers underneath, and the corner of a picture. From what I can see of it, it looks like a prom picture, because there is the hint of the formal dress.

  Sliding it out completely I look at the picture of Kate with a guy who is so similar in appearance he could pass for her brother. Blonde, tousled hair, strong-boned good looks, wide, white smile. But his arm around her while they glance toward the camera is not the way a brother holds his sister. The shot is semi-candid, a professional shot of the type taken by a roaming event photographer and later peddled to attendees. It’s labeled at the bottom, ‘Sidwell Golf Club Summer Formal’ and the year. This year.

  Before I even flip it over, I know that I’ll find something on the back of the picture. And I even sense it will be the bombshell it is.

  Here’s to five years, it reads in a scratchy masculine script. Here’s to countless more. Love, Liam.

  I look at the picture again, trying to discern from Kate and Liam’s expressions whether the ‘love’ he refers to could possibly be platonic. But I know that’s a very long stretch. Your platonic friends don’t generally mark years of “friendship” in this way.