Page 3 of Mr. Romantic (Mister 2)

We both fall back into the couch cushions and laugh. “What do you know about hot, Ivy?” Nora snorts. “Still a virgin at twenty-two. I don’t know what to do with you. Your father’s influence runs way too deep.”

“I know,” I say, biting my lip. I had a guy all set up for V-day after graduation, but I chickened out at the last minute. “All that episcopal education growing up.”

“Honey, we went to the same boarding school and it never stopped me.”

That’s all true. My father is the episcopal pastor, and dean, of the Bishop School for Girls in Bishop, Massachusetts. I grew up on that campus, in that chapel and with all the rules one might expect from being a pastor’s daughter.

“You know what I should do…” I say, the wheels in my mind starting to turn with an idea.

“What?” Nora asks, impatient when I hesitate too long.

“I should lose my virginity this week.”

Nora laughs so loud, it echoes off the cathedral ceiling. “With who? The billionaire? You want a guy like Mr. Romantic to be your first? Please. You need to work up to a player like him, Ivy. He would fuck you inside out!”

“Don’t talk like that!” But I bite my lip just thinking about it. I admit I don’t know much about sex, but I was in a sorority in college and I was the only virgin in that house. Those girls were wild, including Nora. “He’d be perfect, though, right? An older, more experienced man. He’d know just what to do.”

“He’d hear the word virgin and run the other way, Ivy. Men like that aren’t into the whole first-time thing. He wants a yes girl. Get on your knees, Ivy, he’d say. And he’d expect you to do it. You’ve never even given a man a blow job. No, that’s a very bad idea. I don’t like it. It won’t be a good first time. Start small, Ivy. Like Richard. Why didn’t you ever do it with Richard?”

Richard. Boring Richard. He was my significant other all through college. In fact, we just broke up three months ago. “I didn’t love him. I was never going to marry him.”

“So you’re saving yourself for marriage all these years and now you’re ready to give up your V-card to a playboy billionaire? No,” Nora says, like she’s putting her foot down. “Don’t do it.”

I can feel her judgment. She thinks my idea is ridiculous. And I wonder if she thinks that way because it’s just stupid? Or if she thinks I don’t have a chance in hell of getting the infamous Mr. Romantic to ‘fuck me inside out’.

“It was just a silly fantasy,” I say, trying my best to diffuse the situation. “You know I would never go through with something like that.”

“I know.” Nora laughs. “You’re just not that kind of girl.”

Her words echo through my head. Not that kind of girl. All my life I’ve been living with that label and most of the recent years I’ve been asking myself… why can’t I be that kind of girl? My strict religious upbringing? Probably. But there’s this fear inside me. A fear of taking risks. I’ve never been a risk-taker. I’ve always played it safe.

My childhood was spent sheltered on a rambling four-hundred-acre campus in New England. It consisted of school, my parents, and chapel. I didn’t even get to live in the dorms with the other students until Nora talked my father into it in tenth grade. Those last three years of high school were some of the best of my life. And going away to Brown for college was exhilarating.

Having Richard as my boyfriend seemed so scandalous at the time. I didn’t even tell my father until we’d been dating for over a year.

But now, Richard is just so… boring. And I’m tired of New England. I don’t know anything about Borrego Springs, California, but getting that job would be the best thing to ever happen to me. Moving away would be the best thing to ever happen to me. And I love Nora to death, but she has been my only close friend for practically my whole life.

I feel like I’m missing out on things. Especially sex.

I’ve heard all her stories. And the stories of the other girls in the house at Brown. They made me watch porn with them on my twenty-first birthday and holy hell, I never masturbated so much in my life after I went to bed.

I have secretly been watching porn quite a bit since then. So I know what girls do. Maybe I’m no expert, but I’ve seen how they give blow jobs. I even took notes. Look him in the eyes—the men seem to like that a lot. Try to take him deep. I especially like how the men react to that. I love when they tip their heads back and moan. How they fist the girl’s hair and urge her on. God, I’m getting all hot and bothered just thinking about it.

Nora is chatting about the stuff on TV now, drinking her wine. But I’m picturing Mr. Romantic as he dips his face down between my legs. What would that feel like?

I almost groan with longing.

I’m not going to admit it to Nora, and maybe it won’t be Nolan Delaney, but I need to have sex with someone. I can’t take it anymore. This is my week. And hey, if it does turn out to be Mr. Romantic, all the better.

Who am I kidding? I think to myself as I take a sip of wine to hide my smile. I want it to be him. I bet Nolan Delaney fucks like a porn star. I bet he could make me writhe and moan just like the men do to the girls in those videos.

Nora helps me pack as we finish our wine, but as soon as I have my suitcases lined up at the front door, I tell her goodnight.

I have a date with my vibrator and I want to picture Mr. Romantic’s face as I make myself come.

Chapter Two - Ivy

The next morning I’m a bundle of nerves. Nora gets up to see me off, looking blurry-eyed and a little hungover in her pink nightie. I wish I had something like that to wear for Nolan when I have sex with him this week.