“They aren’t exes.”
“Oh no? How would you define it then? Booty calls? Fuck buddies?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like? Please enlighten me, because from where I am, the picture it paints isn’t very pretty. I may not have the wealth of experience you do, but I’m not stupid. Clearly you’ve been with both of those women at some point. From the look of it, neither one of them minded sharing you. Is that what you want?”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked, shocked she would think that. But it made sense, considering the messed-up situation she’d walked in on.
Her shoulders bowed and she looked down at the counter. “Wasn’t that what the text was about? Some sort of sick invitation to join you?”
Nausea washed over me.
“That’s not how things went down. It had been an hour and you still hadn’t come back. I couldn’t find you on the main floor so I checked upstairs, but you weren’t there. I called so I could come get you, and when you didn’t answer, I sent a text. Sienna and Trina barricaded me in the bathroom when I tried to leave.”
Tenley scoffed. “You didn’t seem to mind the attention.”
“I know how it must look from your perspective, but Sienna is messed up. Dealing with her is a challenge when she’s sober, let alone when she’s hopped up on amphetamines and loaded. I was trying to get her off me without hurting her.”
Tenley regarded me with skepticism.
“Think about what you saw. I was holding her wrists so she couldn’t touch me.” I waited for her to see the logic and acknowledge it could be true.
“Do you have any idea how humiliating tonight was for me?” She’d gone flat, like I drained all the emotion out of her.
The sinking feeling in my stomach grew heavier. “I didn’t mean it to be that way. Look, Tenley, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. This is new to me.” When she gave no response, I sighed. “This . . . thing, relationship, whatever we have, I’ve spent my life avoiding this, so I’m at a loss here. My past is unpleasant, and truthfully I don’t like the idea of sharing it with you.”
“It’s that bad?” She peeked up at me.
“I don’t know, maybe. I guess it depends on who you’re asking. I can’t change it. It’s part of who I was. Past tense. All I know is that I want you, all the fucking time, every day, endlessly. I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t know how to make sense of it without overwhelming you, and I don’t want to tell you anything that’s going to jeopardize it.”
“Do you think I know what I’m doing any more than you?”
Of course that’s what I thought. Tenley went to college. She must have dated. Had boyfriends. Probably several, which made me want to hurt someone. But that was an assumption, because we never talked about it. “Don’t you?”
“I’ve had one long-term relationship.”
I stared at her, my brain slow to process. “You’ve only fucked one other person?”
She cringed, maybe at my crass terminology. “That’s not what I said.”
Her cheeks went a brilliant shade of red, and I couldn’t tell whether she was lying or embarrassed. While part of me didn’t want this kind of information, there was a certain degree of satisfaction in knowing I was one of very few, double standard notwithstanding.
“Elaborate, please,” I said.
“Are you asking for a head count?”
“Yes.” As soon as I said it, I wanted to change my answer.
“Are you going to give me one?” she asked, brow arched defiantly.
“I don’t have an exact number.”
“Do you have a ballpark estimate?”
I swallowed. The answer would not work in my favor. “Fuck, Tenley. I don’t know. I didn’t keep a journal chronicling my sexual exploits. I’ve done a lot of shit I’m not proud of. I don’t need written documentation to prove how much of a deviant I’ve been.” I took a step closer and she stiffened, so I stopped. “I’ve always rebelled against normal codes of behavior. Even when I was a kid with great parents who gave me just about anything I asked for. I have always pushed the boundaries. Socially, physically, sexually, all of it.” I needed to shut the fuck up before I said something that would make her run, or worse. But at the same time, part of me wanted to be done with pretending that the way I was with Tenley was the way I’d always been. She was different; she made me different. Better. She had to see that.
“What does that even mean?” she asked on a whisper.
“It means I didn’t follow the normal rules.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Do you really want details? Because I’m pretty sure you’d be much happier without them.”
“And I’m not sure I agree with you. Do you know how it felt to walk into my friend’s house and be bombarded by an entourage of women you’ve clearly been with?”
“I would hardly call it an ‘entourage.’?”