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"You are?"
"Yeah."
"About your sexual abilities?"
"No." I shouldn't answer this either. I do anyway. "But not because I know I'm a gifted lover."
"Did you just say lover?" she asks.
"You can turn around and look at me, you know."
She shifts her body toward mine, but she doesn't look me in the eyes. It's too much for her too.
"It's because I don't care about the people I fuck." It sounds worse out loud, but there's no sense denying the truth. That's what got me into this mess, constantly running away from my feelings. "For me, sex has always been a casual thing. A way to feel good for fifteen minutes. And that shit is really hit or miss."
"It is?"
"Yeah. A lot of times, you just don't click with someone physically. You're not in tune."
She smiles. "Tune again."
"I am a musician." I smile back.
For a moment, it feels normal, like the sort of friendship we could have. Then her cheeks flush, and my blood rushes south, and there's nothing normal about my reaction to her.
I try to ignore it. I try to keep my voice even, so she thinks I don't care. "I'm not having any sex right now." No good. The words send an electric charge through the air. "Before that." Well, before rehab. "It ran the gamut. Some good. Some bad. Never great, really."
"Never?" She turns all the way toward me. "Not even with the older woman?"
"It was great because it was new. Not because we were in sync." I laugh at my inability to find another metaphor. "What if I use dance?"
"That's still music."
"What if I say we're using different steps?" I ask.
"Then you have to demonstrate dance steps," she says.
Another laugh spills from my lips. I don't love dance the way some people do, but it's like any activity set to music; I love connecting to the sound. I just don't know how to do it anymore. "Sometimes, we're not in the same key. We're both playing the right notes, but we don't fit together. Or we've got the wrong instruments."
"Or you're on a different time register," she offers. "Or you forgot the words."
"I only know the chorus."
"What does that represent?"
"I don't know." I look into her beautiful green eyes. Find only vulnerability. It's way too appealing. "When did things change? With Frederick?"
"When I switched medications," she says. "I could finally come again. But he had no idea what I actually liked, so it took a while to teach him that, and back then… I wasn't direct the way I am now."
"Now it's all orders, all the time?"
"Obviously," she says. "That's why I'm only on FetLife. No. Well, maybe. I can only do it when I'm comfortable with someone. That's probably why there hasn't been anyone else," she says. "That and… I promised myself I wouldn't do that again, what I did with Frederick, where I played up my interest to save his ego. Only, I am. I'm here, ordering you to kiss me, and it's all about what Frederick sees again."
"It doesn't have to be."
"You mean, you can kiss me, just to kiss me?"
Kiss you, touch you, fuck you. "We still have the job."
"Yeah, and I need him to believe it for that." She nods. "But we don't have to actually kiss for that."
"We can stop kissing."
She shakes her head.
Relief floods my body. I don't want to stop kissing her. I want to kiss her forever. "We can ignore him. Forget him."
Again, she shakes her head. "I'll still be thinking about him. Even if I pretend to ignore him."
I know how to work with that. "Does it turn you on?"
"Huh?" She turns to me and looks me in the eyes. "What do you mean?"
"Does making your ex-boyfriend jealous turn you on?"
"Yes." Her cheeks flush. "Fuck. Am I a monster?"
"No. It turns me on too." Red alert. Red alert. The plane is going down.
"It does?" Her pupils dilate.
"Yeah." I try to keep my voice even, as if the subtext of my words isn't I want to fuck you in front of your ex-boyfriend. "That means it's for us. For you. You're doing it because it makes you feel good."
"It does, but that's not why I'm doing it," she says. "I'm not going to lie to myself."
"What if that was why?" I ask.
"We're not having sex. What turns me on doesn't matter."
Yes.
That's the logic missing from my words.
We're. Not. Having. Sex.
The end.
"Do you think that's why he left?" She looks in the direction of the party. "Did he want someone easier to please?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe he's right. Maybe she's better. More talented, more willing, more beautiful."
"Does it matter?" I ask.
"I don't know what's worse, if he left because we didn't connect there, or because we didn't connect somewhere else." Heartbreak spreads all over her face. "He said he wanted softer. That's what everyone says. Either I leave before they expect it or they end things with the same speech. I'm sorry, Cassie, but I need someone more supportive."
