“I mean, the day I met you in the café.” He laughs again. “I’m attempting to confess, Cassie. I was meant to be getting a takeaway coffee. I was late to meet a client. But I saw you, immersed in your funny ancient book, in that puffy blue dress, caring not a fig about everyone staring, and I thought, bloody hell. She’s really something. So instead of leaving, I got a cupcake, then pretended to study the menu, then pretended to look for a seat, then pretended to pick one opposite you, then pretended to get my laptop out as if I was going to actually work. It was all a big performance. I thought maybe you could tell.”
I stare at Will in amazement. Not only did I completely miss all of that the first time round, I somehow missed it nine times after that too. Also, people were staring at me? Apparently, I missed that too.
“I could not tell,” I confirm, genuinely bewildered. “Gosh.”
“Gosh indeed,” Will laughs. “And all I can say is, I am very glad it worked, because you are just as interesting as your face.”
My eyes suddenly well up: I think I do love him.
Like really, almost definitely, but I can’t tell him quite yet, not on our second date. I’m not a total idiot: it’ll end everything.
Will leans forward and kisses my nose again, then my cheek, my eyelid, my eyebrow and my mouth, and this is why we kiss.Kissing is the sex prelude, the preparatory trumpet, and everything starts to feel warm and bright and peach and giddy, and when Will abruptly stops, I mewl in frustration, as if I dropped a bottle of milk.
“Why did we stop?”
“I just wanted to check you’re okay.” Will studies my face and I’m so flushed and turned on I have no idea what it’s saying. “I am, but it’s only our second date, Cassie. We don’t know each other that well, after all. There’s no rush.”
“Yes, I’d like sex now, please,” I manage, because we do know each other that well, or at least I know him, and suddenly it feels like all our twenty-eight dates leading up to now have just been a dress rehearsal for the real love story, the real romance, which is happening now. “Also, it’s not our second date. Not really.”
Will frowns. “It’s not?”
“No.” I lean in to kiss him again and I can feel his breath move in my throat. “I moved my bag.”
He pulls away. “You moved your bag?”
“Yes. I moved my bag so you could sit with me. I saw you and I liked you, so I made sure you could choose to sit with me if you wanted to. We both intentionally picked our meeting, so I think it makes that our first date.”
“You moved your bag, huh.” Will thinks about this for a few seconds, then grins the widest I’ve ever seen him grin and moves his big warm hands to the base of my spine. “In that case, I reckon you’re right. This is date three.”
“Date three.” I nod vehemently. “The internet says we’re good to go.”
“Well, if the internet says so,” Will laughs, picking me up and swinging me round on his bed in a way that makes my brain fold inward like a paper fan. “Then, Cassandra, go we shall.”
22
So we went.
And I have to be honest: it was a lot like going nowhere at all.
“Well.”
“Well,” I agree as we both stare at the ceiling. “That was...”
“Great!” Will nods. “It was great. Really, really great.”
I am almost completely certain that if you say great three times in a row, it immediately cancels itself out. Zeus once had sex with Danae in the form of golden rain pouring through a subterranean chamber, and I’m pretty sure it was still more impactful than what just happened between me and Will.
“Mmm.” I nod too. “Really great.”
It was not great. It wasn’t even fine. It was like we were playing totally different sports on the same field at the same time. Foreheads banged; arms tangled; noses crunched. At one point, I smashed my elbow against the wall and squealed with pain; Will got stuck in his jumper and when I amorously tugged at it I nearly popped his head right off. Neither of us knew where to look and focused on the headboard. Will eventually climaxed in a flat, relieved kind of way—as if he’d just done a week’s laundry and now didn’t need to think about it again for a while—while I was so far away from it I might as well have been standing by the washing machine with him, separating out my whites.
And the whole way through, we could hear Dandelion: whining and pawing outside the bedroom door, as if she wanted to save her beloved from whatever horror was clearly going on in here.
To be frank, I’m not entirely sure I blame her: I kind of wish she had.
“We can do better,” I say into the silence. “I know we can.”
I know this for certain because we already have.
“It was good!” Will rolls toward me and taps me with a tired, floppy hand, as if I’m a light he’s trying to turn on in the middle of the night. “And the first time is always a bit awkward, right?”
Except our real first time wasn’t awkward at all.
It wasn’t perfect, but at least we were playing the same flaming game. I can’t help wondering if somewhere out there, another version of Will and Cassandra are having cosmos-shattering sex, right at this very moment. There is no excuse for what just happened, and I obviously can’t just leave it like that. Extremely awkward and makes things uncomfortable might be written on all my Work Assessments, but I’m not having it written on my sexual performance too.
“Let’s go again,” I say, closing my eyes.
Undo.
“So is this good?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“What about this? Is it good if I do this?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And what about if I...?”
“It’s all good,” Will says, reaching up to touch my sweaty face. “Maybe we...could leave the constructive feedback until afterward?”
I flush and stop moving, feeling a lot like I do after most of our Away Days: as if there’s a Comment Box and I’ve put in way too many comments.
“Sure. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s fine. I’m sorry. Sorry for saying sorry.”
“Sorry.”
We both gallantly attempt to continue, but it becomes rapidly clear that we’ve both logged off as if it’s 5:00 p.m. and we’ve just simultaneously closed down our computers and picked up our coats.
“Quick break?” Will asks hopefully as I roll off.
For the love of—
Undo.
The third time, we’ve just started when there’s a loud bang and Dandelion catapults herself across the room, jumping on both of us and barking at me.
Undo.
Fourth time: Will tentatively asks midway if I’ve fallen asleep.
Undo.
I contribute with far too much energy to compensate and Will asks if I’m okay in a way that suggests I might not be okay.
Undo.
On our sixth attempt, everything seems to be going better.
I don’t interrogate him for information; Will’s nose doesn’t jab my eyeball; nobody apologizes; the dog doesn’t get involved. I’m exhausted, because honestly I’m just not athletic enough for this quantity of sex, but I experience a last-minute surge of energy, like a runner at a finish line hoping for snacks and a shower.
“Well,” Will says breathlessly, staring at the ceiling.
“Well,” I agree, wiping my forehead. “That was great. Thank you very much.”
Silence.
Then: “You’re welcome?”
And I’m all for good manners, but I think I just accidentally thanked Will for sex like I’m getting off the 196 bus from Elephant and Castle.
Embarrassed, I hold my hand up and attempt to high-five him. Will did this after the first real time we had sex and there was something so sweet and team-like about it. It made me so happy. Like we’d won something together. Like we’d be winning a lot of things, going forward. Like it wouldn’t even matter if we occasionally lost.
Will blinks at my hand for a couple of seconds and for inexplicable reasons it doesn’t work when I do it. When I make this gesture it no longer looks playful and charming: I look like a kid who just did their first roly-poly.
“FUCK!” I scream at the ceiling.
Undo.
Just before the seventh attempt, I silently appeal to Aphrodite and all of the Erotes: Eros, Pothos, Anteros, Pan, literally any god or deity that might have any link to sex or lust at all. Desperate, I briefly switch to Roman, just because they always seem a little more aggressively sexual: Voluptas, Aurora, Cupid, Suadela, Venus. I even momentarily call on Qadesh, the Middle Eastern goddess of sacred ecstasy.
It finally works: we both orgasm, albeit nowhere near together.
I’ll take the win where I can.
“Well,” Will says when we pull apart, wrapping his arms around my waist and immediately pulling me back toward him. We stick together with a small sucking sound and I hate it, but apparently you have to wait at least twenty seconds before peeling yourself off someone who’s just been inside you, otherwise you risk coming across as rude. “That was...”
I wait anxiously for feedback with bated breath.
“Amazing,” he concludes, wiping his forearm across his damp forehead. “No awkward first-time sex for us, Cassie. We smashed it!”
Will holds his hand up for a high five and I stare at it in irritation for a few moments. It’s cute again. Seriously, how come it’s adorable when he does it and creepy/childish when it’s me?
“Yay for us,” I yawn, tapping it.