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If only the rest of my first sexual experience could have been as electrically charged as the build-up. Cory lasts about thirty seconds before he finishes, leaving me unsatisfied and far too clear-headed. There are no cuddles after this. No sweet words or deep talks about where we go from here and what this means for our friendship. Instead of any emotional climax, we gather our clothes in silence, dressing while facing opposite directions. It’s like we both committed embarrassing acts, and we’ve silently agreed to ignore the fact.
Among the myriad other thoughts swarming around my head like a cloud of locusts is the fear that I wasn’t any good. But he came and I didn’t, so this is hardly my top concern.
“That was…” Cory begins to say once he’s got his jeans buttoned. He looks around the room as though the right word is written somewhere and all he has to do is find it like some twisted version of Where’s Waldo. Having given up on his futile search, he finally settles with, “…good. Really good, I mean.”
All I can do is nod. It wasn’t bad for me, but it wasn’t mind-blowingly good. Humping a pillow has left me feeling more satisfied that my first time having sex, and that’s not a reassuring thought. And it’s certainly not one I’m going to share with the guy I just gave my V-card too. Even if that guy is my best friend.
Cory awkwardly steps forward and gives me a kiss that I’m too slow to return. His smile is shy, and I hope mine is more positive than I feel. Because regrets are writhing around hopes inside me, and I don’t know yet which side will win out. I only know that more than ever, I need time to think.
“I’d better get to the couch,” Cory says.
I nod, but I don’t say anything as he walks out the door. Even when he turns back and wishes me a good night, all I can say is, “You too.”
Then I’m finally alone. Free to figure out what the hell just happened and how I’m supposed to feel about it. But once I lie down on my bed, eyes resolutely on the ceiling, the whole day’s events crash down on me. The warmth of my desk lamp is too slippery for my consciousness to hang onto, and within minutes I’m lost at sea, drowning in the heaviness of sleep.
Chapter 5
“What happened to you back then?” I hear myself saying after replaying that night in my head. “Why did you leave me?”
The humor falls away from Cory’s face. He looks over his shoulders and scans the restaurant. I can’t be sure what he’s looking for, but it reminds me of the way someone acts in a movie before sharing top-secret information. In a whisper, he actually comes out with a line I might expect from such a cheesy summer flick.
“I was in Witness Protection.”
“What?” I shriek far too loudly. Now it’s my turn to look around the room. A few pairs of eyes have glanced our way, but they seem more concerned with the crazy girl than the guy sitting across from her. In a hushed voice, I ask, “Why? How did that even happen?”
“Remember how I never really knew what my dad did for a living? We would joke about it and make up all these wild theories? Well, it turns out they weren’t so far-fetched. I mean, the one time you said that he was a CIA agent was pretty crazy, but it wasn’t that far off.”
“He worked for the CIA?”
“The FBI, actually. Well, not properly. He was more of an asset. That’s what they’re called.”
“I’m lost,” I admit. “I thought you said that you were in Witness Protection.”
Cory rocks his head left and right, as though he’s shaking loose the story lodged in his skull. His neck pops and he continues. “The long and short of it is that my father was an accountant for some really bad guys. When the FBI began sniffing around, my old man freaked out and flipped, promising to tell them everything he knew in exchange for protection. The FBI had a different idea. They put us in Witness Protection. Well, all of my family minus my dad. You see, they didn’t want him to simply give up names; they wanted him to stay undercover.
“By the time I was twenty-three, I hadn’t seen my father in four years. On my birthday, the newspaper headlines were all covering the same story: some huge crime syndicate no one really even knew about had been broken up. The leaders were in custody and the US had seized literal tons of drugs. We got the phone call that night. My dad was caught in the crossfire during the raid.”
So Cory’s father died in a mafia shoot-out? What is a person supposed to say after hearing such a revelation? The normal condolences are too weak to break past my stunned silence. My trust for Cory and the sheer incredulity of his story are warring with each other. My face must let slip a portion of my disbelief, because just then Cory laughs at himself.
“I know, right? Quite the shit storm. I had the exact same look as you when I got the call. My mom tried to lie about us being in Witness Protection, actually. You know what she said? She said the reason we had to move and change our names was because my father’s new job asked all of their employees to do the same. As some sort of loyalty test. While I managed to piece together the edges of the puzzle before my father’s death, it wasn’t until his death that I got the full picture.”
The waiter stops by our table to ask if we need refills, but leaves when neither of us looks up.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, the words feeling too small and hollow after his confession. So I add, “I didn’t know.”
Cory shrugs at this. “That’s sort of the idea. Witness Protection would be pretty shit if everyone knew.”
There’s still a disconnect for me. A big piece missing. “But none of that explains how you ended up getting into movies.”
He leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “Secretly and quietly.” Then he sits back in his chair. “At first, at least. The FBI didn’t want us making any sorts of waves, but you know what kind of guy I am. I wasn’t about to hunker down and miss out on life just because there was some psycho mob boss that might slaughter our whole family if he figured out who we were.
“I started out making independent films on my own time. Stop motion stuff. Did a documentary of my new town for the community college. Then I worked six months on this one project. It was this thriller called ‘The End of the Beginning’. It got a lot of hits on the net. Then when I turned twenty-one, I moved to California and the rest is history.”
‘The rest is history’ is quite the tired cliché to describe Cory’s rise over the past few years. I’m not the type of person who remembers directors’ names. Actors’ names, yes, but not directors. Unless we’re talking about the big ones, like Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorsese—and Flint.
Cory Flint’s name has been bandied about everywhere the past couple of years. So much so that the syllables are a familiar cadence in my mind. I can’t name his whole filmography by heart, but I’ve seen everything he’s made.
All of this leads me to a very pointed question in my mind. It’s going to take some time to digest everything Cory has brought to the table tonight. But learning that his father worked for—and was subsequently killed—by the mafia, while Cory was in Witness Protection, is easily understood, if not so easily believed. That he then went on to become a household name is insane, but there’s only one thing that doesn’t make sense to me.
