Page 209 of A Taste of Vanilla

He smiles.

The room settles around us. My body still hurts, but the fear is easing. The humiliation, too.

That’s the part that no one talks about. Other than, well, all of it. Pain is one thing. But pain during sex is another. It comes with so many stupid emotional hooks. Embarrassment, frustration. The worry that your body is too complicated. Too much work. Not easy enough to want.

I never thought Grant was cruel about it. I thought he was normal.

On his best days, he would get careful in that disappointed way. Gentle like I had interrupted him. Patient like I had become a task. He would say, “It’s okay,” but his face said something else. Afterward, I would apologize, and the room would feel colder. He’d leave me to go play video games or chat with his friends.

That was when he was in the best mood. There were a lot of times when I felt deeply guilty.

Warren doesn’t make me feel any of that.

My eyes are heavy as I look at him. At the tattoos down his arms and across his chest. At the raven and the flowers and the map. At the snake.

“You didn’t put your shirt back on,” I say.

His gaze drops to himself as if this is news.

“No.”

“Good.”

He looks at me. “Good?”

“Yeah.” I curl slightly around the heating pad. “I like seeing you.”

He stays quiet until finally he says, “I usually cover them.”

“The tattoos?”

He nods.

“At work?”

“Most places.”

“Because of Germany?”

His fingers rest loosely over one bent knee. They flex once. “Yes.”

I eat a yellow and green gummy worm and try not to look as angry as I feel.

I fail.

“I’m still mad about that.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“So?”

“It’s over.”

“That’s an extremely Warren thing to say.”

“It’s factual.”

“It’s stupid.”