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“I don’t know. When you tell Tommy—”
“I have no plans to tell Tommy. Why are you telling people?”
“I’m sorry. It’s just Valdi. He’s my best friend from when we were kids. I didn’t think about him being a professor or how that would make you feel, but I should have. I just didn’t think nearly enough about howanyof it was making you feel, really, and I hate myself for that.” He picked at the beer label some more.
“Hate yourself?”
He looked at her. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because… because… I just, like, violated you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He raised his chin and looked down at her. “Okay, right. It probably will take you a while to realize it. For instance, I had this friend—well, she and I were kind of together, but—anyway, one night when we were on mushrooms, she had this epiphany about this thing that happened to her in high school, and she was suddenly realizing how she’d been the victim of—”
“Okay, what happened with us wasn’t like that.”
He eyed her. “No?”
“No.”
He furrowed his brow. He picked at the beer label.
“It’s not like I didn’t want it. It was my idea,” she said.
She had brought it up, yeah, that was true. And he’d tried to talk her out of it and then she’d bent over and started taking off her boots and flashed him those tiny cotton panties of hers and he’d pressed into her, and then… well, then he didn’t know, but he’d gotten a little carried away.
Spread your legs for me, that’s a good girl.
Like, he’d said things like that. Like, whosaysthat? Fuck.
“So, you, uh,youliked it?” He glanced at her.
“I mean…”
“It’s not like you got off or anything,” he said, acutely aware of that fact.
“Well, but that’s just because you… stopped.”
“So, you liked it?” This was wooden, because he didn’t believe her.
She swallowed.
“That’s what I thought,” he muttered.
“I did,” she said. “I did. It was hotter than it had any right to be, and you kept saying those things to me, and you were all—”
“Bullshit. Why’d you do it?”
“Well, you were telling me I was a doormat or whatever people always say to me. That I don’t stand up for myself. So…” She heaved, glaring at him.
“So, how does letting me dothatto you prove that you stand up for yourself?”
Her expression sort of crumpled and she seemed to sink into her chair, tightening her grip on her knees. “I don’t know.”
“Shit,” he breathed. “You have no idea how sorry I am, Dahlia. I don’t know what came over me. Sometimes, I justdothings. Stupid, stupid things. It’s like, I can’t bear the idea of not having every single experience that presents itself to me. If I get a chance to do something, I can’t say no, and you… bent over, and…” He shook his head. “That’s not an excuse. I’m such a jackass.”
