The Year Of Uh

by Jud Widing

  Then again, some people were just timid. This she reminded herself as she lay flat-out on one arm of the fluffy, puffy sectional. It was only by the tremulous energy of her goal for the evening that she avoided falling asleep instantly. This was one comfy-ass couch.

  She got comfortable (how could she not), resting one ankle atop the other (remembering in the knick of time to inhale sharply as she brushed the bandage across the top of her right foot), and gazed up at Hyun-Woo with what she hoped were eyes in which a fella could get lost. Or at least diverted enough to make him swallow his pride and ask for directions.

  After that, she was really counting on him to react. She had no problem leading, but even the world’s most magnetic leader couldn’t shift a, hm…

  There was no way to finish that analogy without insulting Hyun-Woo, especially if she’d gone with her first thought, which was “a bucket of dirt”.

  She needed him to follow her lead, that was the point. And far from following, very far, was Hyun-Woo, all but hugging the wall opposite the sectional.

  And thus, they reached a stalemate. Nur had made a big show of flopping onto the comfy-ass couch, so she couldn’t well get right back up without looking like a fool. But the couch was a passive place to be. He was up and on his feet, but more interested in squat-scratching his back like a gorilla on a thick frame, which displayed a large white matte, which displayed a small grayscale picture of a dock at sunset or some shit.

  She had no words. How frustrating, then, that she should have so many things to say. Words locked in the skull, yet again.

  It’s alright, she strained to convince herself, just break the ideas down to their component parts. Figure out what you can say.

  …

  What can I say?

  …

  How long have we been staring at each other?

  …

  This is getting weird.

  …

  Somebody should say something.

  …

  You’re somebody.

  …

  SAY SOMETHING!

  “Bbbbhhhhlllll!” Nur cried, because she had so many things she wanted to say all at once.

  The worst part about the eternity that followed was that Hyun-Woo didn’t react. If he had recoiled or grimaced or attacked, Nur would at least be able to understand why. He had invited her into his home, and she had started gibbering. There probably wasn’t a particular protocol observed by the higher classes in moments like these, unless the uppity books on etiquette were far more comprehensive than Nur had ever imagined, but surely human nature would dictate some sort of response in such a situation.

  But Hyun-Woo just stood there, staring at her with exactly the same look of skeptical perplexity as he’d been rocking for, oh, who knows how long. Time flies when you’re trying to cultivate your romantic prospects and accidentally end up drowning them in molasses.

  And then she remembered that she was wearing an eroticized version of a very bad bear from a very bad movie, and she wished she had died in her mother’s womb.

  He broke the silence that had descended after she had broken the silence, and his silence-breaker was hardly more substantial. Though, to be fair, that was mostly on Nur, because at least he said words.

  Three of those words she knew and understood. The fourth she didn’t, which was a bummer because that seemed like the really important one. It was the word that the other three words were about.

  “I’ve never had” were the first three. What had he never had? What’s never-having-been-had-ness would be germane to this agonizingly protracted moment?

  Did bbbbhhhhlllll sound like something else in English that he’d never had?

  Had he peeked in her bag and recognized a type of candy he’d never had?

  Was he oh wait no hang on a second right oh okay well that explained a lot.

  In all of her excitement, her scheming and dreaming, Nur had never bothered to look up the English word for what she was after. She couldn’t be certain that the English word of which she was ignorant was that fourth word Hyun-Woo had said. And she wasn’t entirely sure how best to seek clarification on the topic.

  It would certainly frame his hot-and-cold approach to intimacy in a more comprehensible light, and maybe a big white matte to draw the eye.

  Well, she could think of one method of clarification.

  She felt a smile creeping across her face, and watched Hyun-Woo’s drop in perfect counterpoint. It was a grin directed at her two methods of detection, though for all poor Hyun-Woo knew she was smirking at his never having had the fourth word.

  “No, no,” she corrected. “Um…I didn’t understand. You’ve never had…” And then she went with her second method, which was to touch the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, and poke her right index finger through the resultant hole.

  Hyun-Woo’s face was a patchwork of emotions that had been run through the wash a few too many times. “Right,” he replied in a completely unreadable voice. “I’ve never had sex.”

  “Sex,” she repeated diligently. And then Nur De Dernberg, hopeless romantic, self-appointed bulwark against the hordes of cynicism that would seek to divest Love of its nobility, poor study of the English language, said “you wanna have it?”

  And Hyun-Woo said “sure”.

  And then they had it.

  And it was just alright.

  The hardest part (wakka wakka) was after, when Nur had to get up, collect her costume and leave, without knowing how to mumble “whoops, can’t stay, gotta run, gotta meet my sister, so sorry”. She did want to stay, and she got the distinct impression that Hyun-Woo wanted her to stay as well. The wordless post-coital extraction (well, technically the second wordless post-coital extraction of the evening, heyo) made her feel cheap, even if she knew there was a perfectly good reason for it.

  Well, maybe that was the second worst part. The worst part was, in the beginning, when Hyun-Woo was, erm, still asleep at the switch, and Nur spent a hot second terrified he’d be the sort of guy who couldn’t perform unless he was being strangled or cut. However he wanted his first time to go, Nur was less than thrilled at the prospect of their first time being conducted under the aegis of a safeword like “race car” or “recycling bin” – of the words they both understood, not too many were especially sexy. Unless their safe word had been “sex”, which Nur had just learned, though for some reason she’d much rather have had Hyun-Woo start shouting LAUNDROMAT LAUNDROMAT than SEX SEX SEX. Fortunately it was just good old-fashioned performance anxiety, and Hyun-Woo was quick to regain his confidence without being put in a half nelson.

  So, in hindsight, having to once again become Sexy Bear from The Revenant and tromp off into the cutting chill of October (though with a toasty afterglow to dull the needling breeze)…that was the hardest part. Because she wanted to stay. Not even to do it again…not that she’d say no if he’d wanted to…but just to be with Hyun-Woo. For it being his first time, he had been gentle and attentive. And while she certainly hoped she’d have the chance to teach him the occasional virtues of vehemence, the obvious effort he’d put in to baseline adequacy was endlessly endearing, in such a way that made her want to bury her face in the crook of his neck and fall asleep. Then again, she was a cuddler, so she may very well have wound up feeling that way no matter how it turned out.

  Even still – it was 11:13, and she had to be going. There were mumbled farewells, hers far more generic than she imagined his were, a prolonged hug, and a few chaste kisses, followed by a prolonged not-so-chaste kiss and another hug.

  By the time she left his apartment it was 11:29, because that not-so-chaste kiss was very prolonged. As was Hyun-Woo, Nur couldn’t help but notice. On second thought, a second time would have been just fine by her. But it was 11:30. Time to go.

  After one more kiss.


  CHAPTER 22

  It was a good job they’d set up those sisterly boundaries earlier in the evening. They’d keep the ride home relatively painless. Nur was happy to provide the headlines, but the gory details would remain classified.

  She didn’t get back to the T station until a little after 11:40, and she’d been hustling to make that. As she arrived tardy, sweaty (maybe this costume was a bit too warm) and panting, there was some good-natured ribbing from Deirdre, variations on the theme of “that good, was it?” Nur weathered these gracefully as they descended the stairs and awaited the train.

  And then, a shaft of regret pierced her bosom, because she realized she’d left her bag of candy at Hyun-Woo’s. Not that that mattered, because free candy was for children like Deirdre. But still. It was free candy, and she wasn’t a sociopath, which is what you’d have to be to lose a bag of free candy and not feel something.

  He’d probably bring it into school tomorrow. Cold comfort, given how hard she would murder something with chocolate and peanut butter right now.

  “Enough about the candy,” Deirdre snapped, which was when Nur realized she’d been having those thoughts out loud. “Tell me about the sweets.”

  “…”

  “I thought that was tactful.”

  “On the cusp.” Nur jumped as the train took a corner and made a loud farting noise.

  “Is that a type of foreplay?”

  Despite a valiant effort to retain a mask of frustration, Nur smirked. “It happened, and it was nice, and that’s all I’ll say about it.”

  Deirdre opened her mouth to pose a follow-up, but slowly closed it, respecting the line Nur had drawn. The older sister was proud of the younger, and even though that didn’t happen often, it always felt just right when it did.

  On the few times that did happen, it never lasted long. Case in point: before they’d even made it back to Park Street to switch back to the Green Line, Deirdre clapped her hands together and informed Nur that “now, we switch.”

  “I remember. At Park Street.”

  “No, I mean you and I switch.”

  “…”

  “I wingmanned for y-“

  “No.”

  “-ou, now you have t-“

  “No way.”

  “-o wingman for me.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?”

  The train pulled in to Park Street. They debarked, ascended the stairs, awaited an outbound C train, boarded it, sat down (well, Nur sat; Deirdre stood) and waited for the train to start moving.

  “Because,” Nur resumed as though there hadn’t been seven minutes of electrical silence just then, “you’re fifteen years old.”

  “So?”

  “Age of consent in this country is eighteen.”

  “And?”

  “It’d be illegal!”

  “Not if I do it with somebody else under eighteen!”

  “I’m not going to help two children have sex with each other!” Nur shouted into car full costumed people too old to be in costumes, suddenly quite glad that her English wasn’t good enough to support this conversation.

  “Nobody’s asking you to help us have sex, j-“

  “Just get to a point where you can have sex, yes, I get it, I see where you’re going with that. I’m not joking.”

  Deirdre stomped her foot, which rustled her bag of candy. She’d seldom looked younger to Nur that she did now. “I helped you! I did almost all the work on setting that up!” She pointed indiscriminately to her left, which Nur was fairly certain was completely the wrong direction if she meant to be pointing towards Hyun-Woo’s place in Cambridge, but all the same she knew perfectly well where the trembling digit was directed.

  “And I’ve told you, multiple times, how much I appreciate that.” The dusty snapping sound creeping into Nur’s voice was her patience fraying to the breaking point. She’d shot for a reasoned tone of diplomacy, but her frustration betrayed her. Deirdre’s face was busy betraying her, and what was burning in her belly was a bit more than frustration. So Nur broke the glass in case of emergencies and yanked out the ire extinguisher. “Look, I’m sorry,” she cooed, not quite know what she was sorry for just yet. “I’m sorry that, ah, well, I know how much you helped me out here. But this was a specific…thing, with a specific guy. I really like him. Are there any boys you’ve met who you really like?”

  This was a four-alarm blaze of fury on Deirdre’s face. Where had this come from? They had been getting along so well! Just minutes ago, they had been getting along! Good-natured ribbing! Where did that go? Why was this happening?

  How can I make it stop happening?

  “That’s not the point,” Deirdre mumbled. She knew she was in the wrong, and Nur was glad to see her sister wasn’t facing this realization with the belligerence of her youth. “I just…it’s what’s fair! I helped you, you should help me. It’s…I want it to happen.”

  A question occurred to Nur, largely because it was a topic near the front of her mind. Even as the words had clumped together in her brain and gone sliding down the mouth-spout, she knew that saying them would be a terrible, horrible, catastrophic thing to do, and she wished with all of her might that she wouldn’t say them. But inertia’s a hell of a thing.

  “Have you ever even had sex?” she inquired as gently as one can with that question.

  Deirdre blinked hard enough to crack walnuts between her lids. Nur was almost positive she could hear wet little bink bink bink noises over the rumbling and grumbling of the train.

  There was hardly any point running damage control; the rickety edifice of sisterly affection they’d been laboriously constructing over the past few weeks had just collapsed in on itself, and sieving through the ruins for encouraging crossbeams wasn’t going to bring it back.

  But still, Nur tried, because she didn’t quite understand why this had happened. Couldn’t quite believe it had happened. Hadn’t she just thought to herself that the ride would be relatively painless? “Deirdre, if this was something you wanted we should have discussed it. It’s not as though I agreed to help you, and now I’m refusing.”

  Deirdre said nothing.

  “I’m really sorry I said that. I didn’t say it to be mean, I’m just thinking, you should try to have your first time be special, you know? Not with some stranger in America.”

  Deirdre said nothing.

  “I’m just trying to look out for you. I’m really, really sorry I said that. I’m an idiot.”

  Nothing, said Deirdre.

  “I don’t understand what just happened! We were getting along!”

  Nothing is what Deirdre continued to say.

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me with Hyun-Woo, but you can’t honestly have expected me to help you lose your virginity to a stranger, could you?”

  Guess what Deirdre said to that.

  “What did you expect I would say to that?”

  Deirdre scoffed. “I expected you to be my friend.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing!” And then they both said enough nothing to fill a three-week philosopher’s symposium.

  Someday, Nur assured herself, Deirdre will look back on this moment and know I was right. Even if she doesn’t thank me for it, she’ll know I had her best interests in mind. That was a nice thought, but the thing about ‘someday’ is it’s a day that never really comes. Not really.

  CHAPTER 23

  Nur had a lot of time to think, because she had a lot of time and thinking was all she could do.

  Hyun-Woo returned her bag of candy the next day, with a great big smile on his face. After some labored English and a three-minute panto, he managed to ask where Deirdre had gotten to, and Nur had managed to respond that her younger sister wouldn’t be along to translate anytime so
on. There were a few more frustrated stabs at conversation, but after becoming accustomed to the friendly intercessions of the junior De Dernberg, it was difficult to maintain any great enthusiasm for the sort of halting, gesture-heavy exchange to which they one again found themselves limited. And that was alright, because it was time to go to class. Hyun-Woo to his advanced session, Nur to the one just barely above the beginner level.

  She hardly paid Tuppence Crabshoe any attention. Had she thought about it, she might have made more of an effort, as the words and concepts the venerable namesake of the school was writing on the board and tapping with a stick were just the sorts of things that would help Nur communicate with Hyun-Woo. But she was too busy thinking about other things. Thinking about how much she wanted to say to Hyun-Woo, about last night, about tomorrow night, and about today, and about the two of them. Thinking about all of the things she wanted to say but didn’t know how, not in the melodramatic sense but in the more prosaic, enragingly literal sense. Thinking, because that was all she could do.

  Somehow, Nur had gotten it into her head that relations with Deirdre would thaw under the first sunrise of November. This was quite emphatically not the case. Deirdre simply reverted to her old self…well, her old new self. Her old old self was bubbly and fun and pleasant to be around. It was her old new self, the dour, gloomy teen, that Nur had desperately hoped she’d seen the back of for good. Alas, not so much. Deirdre had stepped up her cold shoulder game from mute glaring to mute eye-contact-avoidance. The amount of effort and attention she was putting in to ignoring Nur was surely unprecedented in all of teendom. And, though Nur would never in a million years admit it…Deirdre was getting to her. Distracting herself on the endless T rides to and from the school by making the acquaintance of every bleat and screech and moan and groan the train made as they complained their way around Beantown proved fruitless; the only reprieve she could find from her sister’s deafening silences was in the classroom, where her ears rang with the conversations she wasn’t having, and was unable to have, with Hyun-Woo.