I sighed. “I’m thrilled if I come during sex,” I said. “Obviously. But sometimes I don’t, and I’ve still enjoyed myself. I don’t think an orgasm is necessarily the end-all, be-all of a sexual experience.”
“I agree with you,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be everything. But what about when you masturbate? You’ve never tried to go for another one, after you’ve already…”
For the first time, Eamonn seemed to get a little tripped up, like it only just now hit him what we were talking about. He shifted in his seat, adjusting the heater vent away from him, before seeming to remember that he’d turned the heat off a while ago.
It was probably for the best that he hadn’t said the wordcome, because the way he said it really did something to me. Ipressed my thighs together, smoothing my dress down over my knees.
“Honestly,” I said, “it always seemed to me like if the goal is to orgasm, and you’ve done it, then…gold star? Well done? Mission accomplished? It would be greedy to go for another one after that.”
“Greedy,” Eamonn repeated a little incredulously. “I’m pretty sure the goal is to feel good, so as long as it’s still feeling good, I think you could try for as many as you wanted.”
“Well, what about you?” I asked. It wasn’t fair that I was the only one in the hot seat.
“It’s a bit different,” he said. “There’s a…refractory period. But I’ve wanked a couple times in a row before. Sure.”
I covered my face with my hands, unable to believe we were having this conversation. “I notice you picked up on the multiple-orgasms part,” I said, “and not the part where I said it was also a myth that true love was out there.”
“Inmixed company?” he said. “I wouldn’t have brought that up.”
I laughed, but I also wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “Have you been in love before?”
He hesitated, but then he said, “No. You?”
“No.”
He glanced over at me. “I do believe in it, though. If we’re talking about the feeling. I don’t think that part’s a myth.”
“What do you mean,that part?”
I’d shrugged out of his jacket a long time ago, and he’d taken off his sweater, letting the heater in the car do the work to keep us warm. Even now that he’d shut it off, the car still feltplenty cozy, but there was a fine ripple of goose bumps on the strip of bicep I could see from under the sleeve of his shirt.
“Like I get the emotion behind it,” he said. “The feeling ofYou are the most beautiful person in the world to meand it has nothing to do with what you look like. OrI would do anything to protect you, I never want you to feel a moment of hurt or pain in your life. OrI can’t get enough of your mind, I want to know every single thing you think about or care about.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about me, that his use ofyouwas general, but I couldn’t deny that his words put a flutter low in my stomach. “And that’s love,” I said, meaning it more as a question, but it didn’t come out that way.
“Sure,” he said. “Thefeelings. The part that I think might be a myth is the getting to have it all. Finding a person who feels the same way about you, and who you can live out that love with, day after day.”
Eamonn looked over at me with a little alarm, like something had just occurred to him. “Forme, anyway,” he said. “Not saying it doesn’t exist at all. Only that I don’t see it forme.”
His words made me sad, but if he truly felt that way, I didn’t know that I could talk him out of it. Hadn’t I been the one just yesterday—or the day before, or whatever the fuck day we were on—who’d been promising myself I would stopwantingthings because I didn’t see myself ever getting them? So I couldn’t say I didn’t relate.
“It happens, though, right?” I said. “For some people.”
“It must,” Eamonn said, turning the music back up a couple clicks, until I could make out the words again. I hadn’t evennoticed that the same tape had been looping this whole time. “To keep us all going the way we do.”
I leaned my head back against the seat, closing my eyes. I wasn’t going to sleep, I told myself. My eyes were just a little tired, and I needed a rest.
pitch black
no, not true—light around the edges, moving shapes
hum of voices
Mari
my best friend
she’s talking to…
