“Really?”
“Absolutely. But I’ve gotta warn you, babe, the real thing might not stand up against your fantasies. You probably believe you’ll feel the flap of angel wings against your tender nethers or the songs of a thousand voices singing a perfect C note together or some Shakespearian crap like that. Not accurate. First time, there’s grunting and rutting and sweating and pounding—actually, no, no pounding, you wish there were some pounding—for about thirty seconds and then it’s over. Honestly? Kind of a hot mess. Gets better, though. Has to. God, I’d join a nunnery if every time were as bad as my first.”
“You a nun?” I snorted. “You’re not even Catholic.”
She replied, “I’d convert if it were always so dreadful. Remember Niles the Night Terror from my first time two years ago? After we did it, he says to me, ‘Can I borrow a couple of pence?’ and I said, ‘What for?’ and he replied, ‘Want to buy a packet of Malteasers to get the taste of you out of my mouth.’”
Yikes. “Can’t see that happening with Liam, though.”
“Good, because you said you can’t find Malteasers anywhere. I’m tired of having to mail you decent tooth polish and proper chocolate. Bloody savage country.”
“I only wish...” I started.
She peered at me. “Finish your thought.”
“Wish I could talk to Mum about this. Seems almost criminal to hide this info from her,” I replied.
Cordy shook her head vehemently and raised her pointer finger at me on the other side of the screen. “No, no, no. Wrong. No one talks to their mum about sex. It’s not done because it’s twisted. After your parents are done changing your dirty nappies, they never want to think about your vag again, that’s a fact. Your relationship with them is not the norm. I’m glad you’re close and Fi and Angus are loads of fun, but, no. Hell to the no. Sex is not meant to be the topic of a family meal. You can’t say to them, ‘Please pass the jacket potatoes and PS, had my first orgasm, tremendous fan,’ because it defies the natural code. You have to trust me here.”
“You may be right,” I said with more conviction than I felt.
“’Course I’m right. I’m right about everything! Who said to you, don’t buy the McQueen clogs, you’ll sprain your ankle, but you did anyway and then you hobbled around like a lunatic for three months. I know things, you have to listen to me—it’s the law.”
“It’s not the law.”
“Well, then, it should be. Anyway, do it. Doooo iiiiit. Then tell me all about it. Now I have to sod off, I’m knackered. Text me about all the dirty bits when you’re done. And lower your expectations!” With that, she disconnected the call.
After Cordy and I talked and I thought about everything I’d said, I decided that today is the day. D day. Or, more like V day.
“What else is sweet?” Liam muses. “You feel like a couple of Frappuccinos? We can get different flavors and trade halfway through. Or, if you want coffee and donuts, we can head over to Spunky Dunkers. Cake or yeast, glazed, powdered, sugared, your call. You tell me what’s sweet.”
I tell him, “You’re sweet.”
He grins up at me through his fringe of blond locks. “You’re pretty sweet, too.”
I’m emboldened, knowing what’s to come, so I place my hand high up on his thigh.
“Liam, for a brilliant guy, you’re just not that swift. When I said I wanted something sweet, I mean that I want you.”
*
Liam drops me on the corner at 5:00 p.m., like he does every day, a spot just out of view of my house. He lingers as he kisses me goodbye. We’re now tethered to each other in a way I could never before fathom.
I wanted to stay there with him, wrapped in his arms, all snug and drowsy in his soft bed. I liked being in his room, surrounded by All Things Liam, from his books arranged by color on his shelves to the framed and matted snaps of him coaching youth soccer.
However, we figured his mum would be back from the stable where she boards her horses soon. In this perfectly appointed home, a colder, far more tidy version of my own, it would be impossible for her to not notice the trail of clothing that began at his front door. So, reluctantly, oh-so-reluctantly, we extricated ourselves from one another.
That was...like nothing Cordy described. I had my expectations, but they were tempered after our Skype talk. She was so wrong about the angel wings and the chorus of one thousand voices united in harmony, because it’s exactly how I felt.
Walking down my block, I’m giddy and euphoric and drunk on the sense of having been so close. Liam made it so it wasn’t awkward, so that I wasn’t nervous, so that I was comfortable in every way. He made me feel beautiful and precious and cherished.
Safe.
Desired.
The only sour note of the whole experience was when we were lying there afterward and he traced the tattoo on my shoulder blade. My mum, dad, and I have matching ink—Roman numerals of my birth year to commemorate when we became a real family. When I thought about that rainy London day we got them, I was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt. I hated the idea of doing something that would displease them, yet the draw of Liam was and is too powerful, too intoxicating.
I’m addicted.
I’d claim I could quit him if I wanted to, but that’s a lie; I’d OD on him in a second.
When we were basking in the afterglow, before he touched my ink, he told me he loved me. I tried to make a joke of it, saying, “You’re supposed to say that before you get into my trousers,” but this was no laughing matter to him.
He took my face in his hands and said, “I want to remember everything about this moment for the rest of my life. I want to file it away in deepest memory, for any time I’m upset or scared or angry. When I come back to this second, no matter what happens, I’ll feel calm and happy and whole again.”
What else could I do but tell him I loved him, too?
(Full disclosure, I also jumped on him again.)
I probably need to slap this grin off my mug before I go inside. One look and my parents will know that everything’s different and then... I don’t want to even imagine “and then.” Would I even be in trouble? Can’t say for sure what trouble looks like. Yet the idea of them being disappointed just guts me and I don’t want that today, not after all that magic.
Maybe I should invent some good news so that my reaction seems appropriate. Yes, that’s a fine idea. I’ll mention one of my photographs will be featured on the front page of the Round Table. Wait, they’d want to see it, would frame the copy. They’re proud like that. I’d have to con the editor into featuring what I’d shot, but I couldn’t say why, not the real reason anyway, so I’d have to invent something else, too.