“Tidy kitchen?”
“Yes. If you’re after a life-long baking partner, avoid indiscriminate bakers. And if you take on a reformed, previously indiscriminate baker, make sure he’s had his kitchen thoroughly inspected by the health department.”
Her dark eyebrows arched over her violet eyes, which were shadowed with concern. “Then how is it less complicated?”
“If your partner and you have great chemistry, technique matters less.”
She thought about this for a stretch, sipping her tea and staring unseeingly at the counter between us. Then she sighed.
“Clearly I’m the weaker baker in this scenario. For all intents and purposes, in this analogy, I’m the baker who can’t make toast. Just being pragmatic here, I guess my worry is, I’ll meet someone with whom I have great chemistry and blunder the execution—that is, burn the toast.”
“But you teach people how to bake, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you just need to learn proper kissing technique. That’s all.” I shrugged, hopefully communicating that it was no big deal. “Once you feel confident in your technique, then you can see if the chemistry is there.”
“You make it sound like I can just check the classifieds for a kissing instructor. How do normal people do this? How do normal people learn how to kiss without frightening off good kissers?”
“Most people figure it out in high school. No one knows how to kiss in high school, so it’s all different variations of too wet and unpleasant. It’s a lot of trial and error, bad kisses, figuring out what works and what doesn’t.”
“See now, I missed all that . . .” She shook her head, clearly frustrated. “You know, I never wished I’d gone to high school until last year. When I was fourteen and my parents told me they were going to keep me at home and continue homeschooling me, I was relieved.”
“Why?”
“At the time I had three pen pals who were already in high school, and they made it sound like Dante’s sixth circle of hell.”
This description made me smile. “It can be.”
“But now, looking back, I wish I’d gone. I wish I’d experienced a more traditional high school experience, and all the torture that goes along with it. I wouldn’t be so stupid about stuff now. I feel like I’m constrained by my lack of experience.”
“I don’t think your assessment is quite right. In this case, in matters of interpersonal relationships, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to be inexperienced, just like it’s not bad to be experienced.”
Her mouth was pressed in a dubious line. “I find that hard to believe.”
I grinned at her, because once again she looked cute. “It’s true. If you don’t mind another analogy, finding a mate is like playing an instrument. I might play the banjo for years, but then give it up to play the bassoon. Well, I don’t know how to play the bassoon, so it’s like starting all over again. Each instrument is like starting all over. No one has all the answers, no matter how much experience they have in their past.”
Jennifer set her cup down on the counter with a thump. “But, using your analogy, if you’ve played the banjo, at least you know how to read music. You know what the notes mean. I’m like a person who has never even heard a song, and suddenly wants to become a concert pianist.”
I was quiet, because she had a good point.
“What about you?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“What about me?” I straightened from the counter, bracing for whatever unexpected question she was about to toss at me.
“What are you looking for? In your partner? What level of experience are you looking for?”
“Ideally, for efficiency sake . . .” I hesitated, because she was looking at me as though my answer held the key to her future success and was telling of men my age. I thought about lying, to make her feel better and bolster her confidence, but decided against it.
My preference for experience was revealing of most (what I considered normal) men my age or older; by normal I meant men without a daddy, superiority, or power complex. I didn’t know anyone my age or older who was looking to school a shy, blushing virgin unless that man was also a shy, blushing virgin. I had nothing against shy, blushing virgins. I just didn’t want to have sex with them.
Because sex with an inexperienced woman was decidedly vanilla. I didn’t much like vanilla, or missionary, or doing it with the lights off. I didn’t want a woman who was reticent about her body, who tried to hide it with sheets and darkness.
I liked flavor and well-lit rooms, where I could admire everything that made a woman’s form different from a man’s. I liked a variety of positions and a woman with stamina, who knew how to use my body to make hers come and approached sex with enthusiasm, not trepidation.