CHAPTER 1
Ash
Can you be sexually cursed?
And I don’t mean that in a cute “magical hex” kind of way. The old “Oh shame, she has such bad luck”kind of way. I mean in the most serious way possible. In the “Oh fuck, her eyes are rolling back in her head—she’s projectile vomiting green stuff”kind of way. Because that’s me. Seriously, sexually cursed. If there was an exorcist for the kind of curse that I’ve been living under, I would call them. But I don’t think the Catholic Church has a branch that deals with sexual curses. In fact, it would be easier if I was possessed by Satan himself, then I could call someone who would arrive with a rosary and holy water, and chant incantations at me.
I’ve even thought of going to a sangoma, a traditional healer who would throw the bones and give me a concoction of herbs and ground-up dried chicken foot in an attempt to break this evil curse. I haven’t yet, but after last night’s Datr date, I think that powdered animal hoof and dried tree bark would be preferable to what I’d had to endure and was currently enduring.
“And you injured yourself how?” the physiotherapist asked in a thoughtful manner as he laid his fingers round my neck.
“Yoga,” I said, wincing as he attempted to push my neck forward.
“You really shouldn’t push yourself too hard,” he said, taking my chin between his hands and moving my head from side to side. “One really needs to listen to one’s body.”
“I’ll remember that for next time,” I mumbled sarcastically, because I knew there would absolutelynotbe a next time. Last night was the first time, the last time and the only time all rolled into one. Datr date Brad—35, Adventurer, Dreamer, Explorer—was not going to be exploring another centimeter of my body if I had anything to say about it. Last night he’d been such an eager beaver explorer that he’d dropped me on my head while trying to dangle me over a chair so he could take me from behind, evidently. But, as the stupid adventurer had removed his foot from the chair to undo his zipper, the entire chair fell over. I’d fallen flat on my head, hence the need to be at my physio’s office at the crack of dawn before a very busy workday, for which I was now definitely running late and which would have severe knock-on consequences for hours to follow.
“It’s very tight,” the physio said, pulling my neck as far back as he could so I was now looking at the celling.
“Mmm,” I managed, and then tasted something sour in the back of my throat. Because the last time someone had used the word “tight” in relation to me, I’d almost vomited. Call me a prude, but when someone, a man—Simon,32, looking for someone to keep up with my witty banter—had whispered in my ear while watching the Barbie movie, that he hoped I would be wet and tight for him, I’d put the popcorn down at my feet and walked out. Not before turning to him and telling him I did not think his style of witty banter was for me, or any other women on the planet, for that matter.
“I think you’re going to have to come in again this week so I can continue manipulating it.”
“Sure,” I said, now looking at the left wall of his office where a large medical diagram of the human musculature hung. I zoned in on the thing dangling between the legs of the male medical drawing.Yup!That, right there, was the problem. It could all be blamed onthat, that appendage. That was the cause of it all. The cause of my neck injury, the cause of the terrible yeast infection that took weeks to get over, the cause of one of my broken crowns—and do you have any idea how much a dentist charges to fix one of those things? I almost considered taking out a second mortgage on my apartment—one trip to the emergency room, for him, not me, when Charles,40, young at heart, had a mini heart attack while humping me. Doing chest compression while waiting for an ambulance to come is a serious mood killer. Not that the mood had been that good to begin with, him banging away on top of me had not actually been that enjoyable. So call me a bad person, but when he’d fallen backwards off the bed and started grabbing at his chest in what looked like pure panicked agony, a part of me was actually relieved.
That appendage over there, which nestled so perfectly between the abductor muscles, had also been the cause of another emergency-room visit, for me, not him. Who knew one could be allergic to tingling and warming condoms? And who knew your labia majora could grow to such a majora size? That appendage had been the cause of many, many, many fake orgasms over the years, copious amounts of pretend moans and a lot of pornographic lip biting. I’ve discovered that biting your lip seems to drive them wild, making them reach orgasm far quicker, thank God! That appendage had done nothing but cause heartbreak—so much heartbreak—and pain over the years, and none more so than a very unlucky number thirteen years ago . . .
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
“I can’t believe you guys are finally going to do it tonight,” my best friend Sarah said, sitting on the closed toilet while I sat in the bath and shaved my legs to within an inch of their life. I wanted everything to be perfect, and having one hair left on my leg was not in line with the vision of perfection I had for myself.
“It’s going to be amazing,” I said, taking the razor to my big toe as well.
“You guys have waited so long,” Sarah added, fiddling with my various bottles of nail polish, trying the different shades on.
“I know. We just wanted it to be special. We didn’t want to rush into it, even though it’s been really hard not to at times.”
“It’s going to be so worth it,” Sarah replied. “I wish Brad and I had waited a while.”
“Why?” I asked as I focused carefully on my knee now.
“I think we rushed it. I mean I liked him when we had sex, but I wasn’t in love. Not like you and Logan.”
I felt a hot swell in my belly. “I am so completely in love with him. And that’s why everything needs to be perfect tonight!”
“Speaking of, this is theperfectnail polish—it’ll match the lingerie you bought.”
She held up the soft pink polish that did indeed match the corset-style bra, matching G-string panties and a suspender belt and stockings I’d bought for tonight.
I slid down further into the warm, lavender-scented bath water. Tonight was going to be perfect.Magical.Logan and I had been dating for two years and tonight, the night of our farewell ball, the end of our school careers, we werefinallygoing to have sex. This was it—the perfect time we had been waiting for. We were going into a new phase of our lives: adulthood, university, the next chapter. And I wanted to start that next chapter of my life the right way, with him. All of him. I was so glad we’d waited, because this was going to be a moment that we would remember forever, because we intended on spending forever together. And this was the start of that.
“Like this?” Logan asked.
“I mean, sort of . . . maybe . . . I don’t know.”
“This?”
“Nooo, not like that.”
