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He sighs and looks back out at the sea. “Yeah, me too.”
I rest my chin on my knees, and we sit there silently until it’s time to return to the car.
Chapter Five
Damon
We make our way back to the Jag, and it’s not long before I’m easing the car out of the ferry and through the small town of Picton, heading south. The sun has set now, and the Jag purrs as it slides through the twilight.
Once we’re on State Highway One, I pull over at a petrol station, fill the Jag up, and treat us both to a latte. Then, as we head back to the car, I hold the keys out to her.
She stares at me, eyebrows rising. “Seriously?”
“You passed your defensive driving course, didn’t you? I told you, I put you on the insurance so you could drive it.”
“Even though it’s dark?”
“Belle, as you rightly reminded me, you’re twenty-one. You’re one of the best drivers I know. Go on.”
Eagerly, she takes the keys and gets in. We buckle ourselves in, she starts the engine, then eases the car out onto the highway.
“Ohhh… she’s beautiful,” she murmurs, increasing the speed to the national limit once she’s on the straight, the Jag stretching her legs without a beat.
I smile and pull out my phone. “Want some music on?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Anything in particular?”
“No, anything.”
I choose one of my playlists from Spotify and start it playing. Neil Finn starts singingPineapple Head, and Belle begins humming along.
I check my emails, then, surreptitiously, I bring up the search engine and browse for a site with orgasm statistics. I scan it, my forehead creasing into a frown as I read.
I’d thought that Belle’s sexual journey was unusual. My brother, Kip, told me that his girl, Alice, was a virgin when he first slept with her, but that was because she’d been unable to date due to looking after her mother. From the few hints he’s dropped, she wasn’t completely innocent, and she knew what to expect in bed. Most of the women I know are confident and sexually liberated, and they all joke about orgasms and sexual positions, and make it clear that they expect satisfaction in bed, the same way guys do.
I wasn’t totally surprised that Belle said she’d never come with a partner. But I’d assumed that the majority of women indulged in self-care, and so I was puzzled when she told me she’s never touched herself, and she’s never had an orgasm on her own.
However, the Internet gives me some shocking statistics.
Some I would have been able to predict. On average, men take five-point-four minutes to orgasm, but women take fourteen minutes with a partner, eight minutes during masturbation. No surprises there. Women who receive oral are twenty-three percent more likely to orgasm during sex. That’s become very obvious to me. And 81.6 percent of women don’t orgasm from intercourse alone and need clitoral stimulation to come. Again, no real surprise.
But the next set of stats surprises me. Ninety-five percent of heterosexual men usually or always orgasm with a partner, compared to sixty-five percent of heterosexual women. Fifty-nine percent of women have faked an orgasm. And a stunning five to ten percent of women haveneverhad an orgasm. That’s a much higher statistic than I would have imagined.
It does add that many of those women are pre-orgasmic—they haven’t had an orgasm yet, but will later—rather than anorgasmic, meaning they are unable to orgasm. That suggests to me the reason they haven’t had an orgasm is less a medical issue and more a psychological issue, or maybe even just down to technique.
I turn off my phone, looking out into the rapidly fading twilight landscape as we head through Mount Richmond Forest Park toward the eastern coast of the South Island. I don’t remember my parents ever sitting me down and talking about sex, but they’ve always been happy to answer questions in a way that didn’t embarrass me or make me feel stupid. Both Saxon and Kip, who are two years older than me, have always joked about sex and been open about it, as have my mates.
I can’t imagine being in Belle’s position, clueless and without any support. The fact that her mother moved to L.A. when Belle was twelve must have had a significant impact on her, although from what she said, it doesn’t sound as if Kaitlyn would have been helpful anyway. Fancy telling your daughter that girls shouldn’t think about sex. Jesus. Shame is such a damaging emotion. If you don’t explore your own body and find out what you enjoy, how can you communicate that to a partner?
Equally, I don’t understand the guys she’s been with. Sex is great, and orgasms are fantastic, but I can’t imagine ever going at it, finishing, then rolling over and leaving the girl unsatisfied. As a youth, like many guys, I imagine, I watched porn and knew the basics of how to make a girl come, and I was eager to try it out when I started having sex. I like giving a woman an orgasm. It makes me feel good. How fucking selfish do you have to be not to be interested in doing that?
“Penny for them,” Belle says.
I glance across at her. I told her I shouldn’t have had that conversation with her, but the truth is that I was pleased it made her feel liberated. It makes my heart ache to hear her say she felt powerless. If nothing else, I hope I’ve made her feel it’s okay to explore her sexuality. Still, I shouldn’t discuss it with her any further. I managed to resist kissing her. I’m proud of myself for doing that. It would make my life a lot easier if I lied now and said I was thinking about food or rugby.
