by KD Robichaux
Suddenly, Jason reaches for the remote and pauses the movie, getting up and making his way around the furniture. When he reaches the back door in the corner of the living room that leads to the patio, he turns and asks, “Want to smoke?”
I nod and follow him as he opens the door, grabbing my purse from the top of the upright piano against the wall. He leaves the overhead light off, saying it would attract bugs, so we use only the light coming from the lamp sitting on the other side of the living room’s window.
I can’t help but smile when I see him light his cigarette with the lighter I bought him, and he tilts his head to watch me as I pull out one of my own to light mine. He holds his hand out, not bothering to speak as he blows out a long stream of smoke, and I place the cool metal into his palm. He turns it over and sees mine has the queen of hearts as my sliding card.
“They had different ones?” he asks, still turning the lighter around and around as he holds his cigarette between two of his fingers.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, taking a drag.
“You got me the ace of spades?”
“Yeah,” I breathe out, along with the smoke I’d inhaled.
He nods, putting his cigarette between his lips.
When he doesn’t say anything else, I work up the courage to ask him, “Will you tell me about your tattoos? I got you the ace of spades because of the big one you have on your bicep, but I know you have more.”
He takes his time, savoring the rest of his cigarette before putting the butt out in the ashtray in the middle of the table. Without looking at me, he pulls up the right sleeve of his black Henley, pointing at the small scorpion on his forearm. “Most people wonder if I got this because I’m a Scorpio, but I’m not; I’m an Aquarius through and through. I got it because I like scorpions, plain and simple. Some people think it’s a crawfish, maybe signifying my Cajun family, but no. I had the artist make the tail straight instead of curved because I had to have it symmetrical. If it was curved to one side, it would have made me insane. I’m OCD when it comes to that shit.”
I make a mental note to ask him about the Aquarius comment later as he unbuttons the two buttons of his shirt and pulls the fabric down so I can see the cross with the initials and date over his heart. “I got this is for Granny, my dad’s mom, when she passed away. She was my absolute favorite. When I would go and stay with her, she’d make me a big-ass breakfast and give me a full glass of milk and full glass of orange juice. She’d tell me she didn’t care how much I ate, as long as I finished off both drinks.”
His reminiscent story makes me smile, picturing him as a little dark-haired child sitting at the breakfast table, wanting to eat all the bacon and pancakes, but having to finish off all that liquid first. I watch as he slides the neck of his shirt off his shoulder, turning his body to show me the series of triangles put together to form one large triangle, with more initials and numbers. “This one is for my buddy, Wes, from high school. He was a Marine and died over in Iraq,” he says emotionlessly, and then pulls up the sleeve on his left forearm to show me the small tattoo of crosshairs he has there. He doesn’t explain it, but I assume he got it because he loves to shoot guns. He spins his chair, giving me his back, and he lifts his shirt all the way up, making my breath catch at the sudden exposure of all that beautiful skin. Across the top of his back is his last name, Robichaux, in a bold font, and then he turns to face me, saying, “And then the most painful one I’ve gotten, the one around my belly button.”
I try my damnedest, but I can’t help the giggle that bubbles up from inside me. I slap my hand over my mouth, tears coming to my eyes as try to contain my laughter, and I see a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Laugh all you want,” he tells me.
In a strained voice, I ask, “Why the hell did you get a tribal tattoo around your belly button? I don’t know for sure, but that’s probably as bad as if you would’ve gotten a tramp stamp!” I throw my head back and let loose an all-out belly laugh, grasping the arms of the chair as it rocks with my sudden movement, reminding me of the alcohol using my veins as a lazy river.
“Well, I was dating a stripper, and she told me it’d be sexy, so being the highly intelligent person I am, I got it to make her happy,” he explains.
My laughing immediately stops, and if I was on the outside looking in, I’m sure it would have been quite comical to see my face go from gleeful hilarity to stonewall grumpy in two-point-five seconds. The sudden, overwhelming rush of jealousy I get makes me feel queasy. First, thick girls, and now strippers? Fuck, I stand no chance.
I guess a small part of me still thought that even though he liked girls with plenty of curves, I might still be able to win him over with my…flat chest and awkwardness? God, I’m such an idiot! If I’m not dating the cream of the crop—insert sarcasm here—then I’m falling for a guy who wants nothing to do with me.
Wait.
Falling for?
Dude, serious as a fucking heart attack, you need to calm it with the ‘falling for’ bullshit. You’ve known this guy for a week. Sure, he’s everything you want all wrapped up in a deliciously tattooed package, but you barely know the guy. Suck it up, girlfriend. He’s just not the one for you.
He’s observed me having this entire conversation with myself, watching me closely, almost gauging my reaction to what he revealed about himself. I don’t have a poker face, so I’m sure he’s seen every single one of my emotions play across my features—humor, shock, jealousy, and possibly that little bit of hope dying. It’s like he’s been in my head along with me, and it surprises me when he asks, “What do you look for in a guy?”
I tilt my head, and respond with a question of my own, “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just wondering why you’re dating Gavin. Why the fuck would a girl like you have anything to do with a guy like him?” He takes another drag off his cigarette and ashes it on the ground beside his chair.
A girl like me? “Well, that depends. What kind of girl do you think I am?” I can’t believe I just had the balls to ask him that. Yay wine!
“From what I’ve gathered, you’re a sweet, naïve, overly-trusting girl, who probably has very little experience with the opposite sex. I think you’re settling for my best albeit moronic friend, because you don’t think you can do any better. Plus, you’d rather be taken and unsatisfied than single. Am I right?”
“You’re a dick,” I scoff. My heart wants to linger on the part he said about me being sweet, but the rest of it hits something inside me, making me feel a mix of embarrassed, ashamed, and dumb.
“True, but I’m right, am I not?” He rocks back and forth in his chair casually, waiting on my answer.
“All except for one thing,” I say more to myself than in response to his question.
“And which part was that?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow and leaning forward to absorb what I’m about to say.
“I have more experience with the opposite sex than you think.” I don’t know how, but I manage to look him dead in the eyes while I throw this out there, and whether he had meant sexually when he’d stated his theory, he knows for certain that’s exactly what I’m talking about because of the tone of my voice.
He leans back in his chair slowly, making the springs squeal under his muscular weight. He reaches for his pack of cigarettes and uses the end of the one he’s finished smoking to light the next. After a few minutes of me wondering if that’s the end of our conversation—right when it was getting interesting—he looks up at me with those chocolate-filled orbs and takes my heart to a whole new level of erratic pounding by saying, “I’d be interested in hearing about this so-called experience you have.”
I gulp. Do I really want to tell this intimidating, gorgeous, obviously highly sexually experienced man about my ridiculous bedroom blunders? I can’t think of anything more embarrassing than revealing all the shit I’ve been put through by guys ranging from boys who have no knowledge of the female anatomy, to men who think they’re gods…e
ven when they only last a total of thirty seconds.
But for some reason, I want to confide in Jason. I want to tell him my tragic tales, purge all the horrid memories. He makes me want to let it all out, with a real person, who might be able to say something that’ll make me feel better. No one knows all the crap I’ve done, or what I’ve let be done to me, not even my best friend Anni. Sure, she knows about the never-orgasmed thing, but she doesn’t know the lengths I’ve gone through trying to get it.
Oh, God…if I tell him anything, it won’t make any sense unless I tell him that part, the part that makes me feel like a freak, like there’s something wrong with me.
All or nothing, Kayla.
Am I willing to tell him every detail about my sexual history, this beautiful stranger sitting in front of me, waiting patiently for me to decide if I’m going to confess all my sins to him?
Yes. Tell him. He’ll make it better.
I don’t know where that voice comes from, but I listen to it, praying it’s the right decision.
“I’ve been having sex since I was fifteen and have never had an orgasm.” I say this to my lap. I couldn’t bring myself to watch his reaction. I don’t want to see it when he laughs at me, or looks at me like I’m broken.
But he does neither. Instead, I’m thrown for a loop when he says, “Fucking idiots.” I glance up at him, seeing him shaking his head. “What kind of dumbasses have you been sleeping with who haven’t taken the time to make you come?”
Suddenly, it feels like my scalp has been set on fire, and the liquid flames pour from my head, down to the very tips of my toes. I’ve never felt such an intense feeling before, and I can’t actually identify it. It sort of feels like relief, mixed with a little surprise, with a dash of discomfiture, topped off with a whole lot of turned-on.
I can’t speak, so he takes the opportunity to ask, “Like, you’ve never come, or never with another person?”
“Um…I have by myself, but never with anyone else,” I confess.
He rubs at his plump bottom lip, contemplating what I’ve said, drawing my attention to that kissable mouth of his. It’s not helping douse the heat rolling along my skin, stoking it instead. I realize I’m playing with my own bottom lip when he brings me out of my trance by asking, “Then it’s not you. You don’t need to feel bad about yourself for the dipshits you’ve been with. If you can come while you pleasure yourself, then it has nothing to do with your body. I mean, a surprising percentage of women don’t have the ability to have an orgasm at all. Period. Not while they masturbate, not while they have sex, nothin’. The female orgasm is ninety percent in their head. You obviously either can’t concentrate enough during sex to get there, whether you’re distracted, thinking about other things, and/or the guy isn’t doing a good enough job of keeping your attention.”
I stare at him for only God knows how long. It’s the most I’ve ever heard Jason say at one time, plus, it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. When I finally find my voice, I ask quietly, “How do you know all that?”
“I didn’t start having sex until I was seventeen. I was a very awkward looking teenager. So when I finally did, I wanted to make sure I was good at it. Girls will overlook you not being the best looking guy in the world if you can make them have multiple orgasms.” He smiles. I can’t help but laugh. He continues, “I read anything I could get my hands on, from Cosmopolitan magazine, to internet articles, even anatomy books. I learned everything I could beforehand, because I knew when it finally happened, it better be fucking good, because if it was bad, whoever it was would go back and tell her friends, and I’d never get laid again. But if it was good, if she told anyone, then they’d want to see it for themselves.”
“So what happened?” I prompted.
He gives me a wicked smile. “Add a zero to the end of your number of sexual partners.”
I think for a minute, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but then when it dawns on me what he’s saying, my mouth drops open in astonishment. “Are you freaking serious?! You been with over a hundred women in,” I do a little math in my head, “four years?! How is that even physically possible?”
“Making up for lost time, I guess.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t as hard as you may think. You see how much Gavin and I go out. Even if I would’ve picked up just one girl every single weekend, it would be way more than that. But I’ve tried dating here and there, and I never cheat if I’m exclusively dating someone, so that held back my number a little. But then when you add in the times with multiple partners…and that stint as a single guy in a swingers’ club…” he trails off, smoking his cigarette, looking like he’s deep in thought.
Cue the infamous record scratching to a halt. Add in the real life crickets chirping in the yard around us.
My mouth opens and closes like a guppy. My internal reaction is what shocks the shit out of me though. One would think, seeing how I’m apparently the most jealous person in the history of ever when it comes to this guy that I’d be green with envy over the great amount of women who have gotten to experience the sex on a stick that is Jason Robichaux. But instead, it actually makes me feel better. In my twisted brain, if his number is that high, it means they meant nothing to him. They were just at the right place at the right time, a warm body for him to dip his willy.
Ugh, gross, brain.
There are so many questions I want to ask him, but the first thing that flies out of my mouth is, “Will you tell me about the swingers’ club?”
The excitement in my voice must alert him I don’t find his history repulsive. He smirks a little as he puts out his cigarette in the ashtray, and then interlocks his fingers, places them behind his head, and leans far back in his chair. “What do you know about swingers’ clubs, little girl?” he teases me in an extra deep voice.
“I’m actually quite fascinated with them, old man,” I mock his tone. “Has Gavin told you anything about me? About my blog or anything?”
“Oh, he’s told me all sorts of stuff about you, but hasn’t mentioned anything about a blog,” he says conspiratorially.
I flush. “Oh, God, I don’t want to know. Moving on. Okay, well, as if you couldn’t tell, I’m a giant nerd. I have a blog, where I review books and I also rant about random chick stuff. The books I review are…colorful. Most of them are paranormal romance but when I can find a BDSM romance, I devour it like pecan pie. There aren’t very many out there. It’s a taboo subject that most authors don’t even want to bother trying their hand at, but damn,” I sigh wistfully, fanning myself and grinning at him.
My enthusiasm makes him smile. He shifts in his seat, facing me fully, looking like he’s settling in for a conversation he’s really interested in. “First of all, you say pecan funny,” he tells me, pronouncing it puh-CON instead of PEE-can like I do. “Your way sounds like something you use when there’s not a toilet available. Yankee.”
I gasp dramatically. “I am NOT a Yankee! North Carolina is like two states below the Mason Dixon line, sir, so don’t you give me that shit.”
My face heats as he laughs. He laughs! I made this tough as nails hottie laugh! It feels like a great accomplishment, and I bask in the deep rumbling coming from him. “Okay, I’ll give you that one, for now,” he says. “About the swingers’ club, what do you want to know?”
I wiggle until I’m sitting higher in my seat, excited to grill him about his adventures. “Oh, lawd, where to start? Umm…okay, let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into it?”
He thinks for a second, and then tells me, “I was friends with this couple who invited me to a party. At the time, I didn’t know it was going to be a swingers’ get-together, but when we got there and I saw what was going on, I said fuck it. I was a single guy surrounded by couples wanting me to join in on their sexcapades. Everyone made it known that it was a safe environment, so when men would approach me asking if I’d bang their wife while they watched, I thought, why not? I mean, who was I to get in the way of someone’s fantasy, ya know? At
the time, I figured I was only nineteen. If I was going to do something dumb and reckless, I might as well do it then, while I was young. That’s what those years are for, right?”
I nod and he continues, “I mean, looking back now, it’s not something I’m proud of. Probably not one of the brightest decisions I’ve ever made. What if mid-thrust the husband changed his mind and attacked me, literally with my pants down? What if their STD tests weren’t up-to-date like what was required?”
I add, “Yeah, or what if the condom broke and you got one of the wives pregnant?” I make an eek-face.
“Well, at least that’s one thing I didn’t have to worry about,” he says quietly, more to himself than to me.
“What do you mean?” My eyebrows draw together. “Was everyone required to be on birth control or something?”
“I’m sure they were, but that’s not why.” He lights another cigarette, and after blowing out the long stream of smoke, he admits, “I can’t have kids.”
“What makes you think you can’t have kids?” I ask. It's suddenly like pulling teeth trying to get answers out of him.
“I don't think I can’t have kids; I know I can’t. Something happened to me when I was little, and after they ran some tests, they found out I wouldn't be able to. But that's a whole other story entirely. Back to what we were talking about before. Is there anything else you wanna know about the swingers’ club?”
His answer makes me pause. I’m surprised he put ‘someday’ as his answer on his dating profile if he can’t have any himself. If he can’t get a girl pregnant, but he wants children in the future, then it makes sense that it would be hard for him to talk about with a virtual stranger. So, I leave it alone, allowing him to change the subject back, asking, “How long did you do it?”
“I only went a couple of times. Whenever I would get home, I’d feel shitty about myself, so I didn't think it was a good idea to keep going,” he confesses.