Sean arrived,ordered a cinnamon bun, two eggs, and what he called a “mega coffee,” and since then, he’d been ranting about how Gwen was stealing his clothes. Stealing was his word. She always asked permission to borrow them, but he was partially right, she wasn’t quick to give them back.
“Those pants and that undershirt she was wearing last night were once mine. I don’t even know when she stole that shirt. I think it was years ago. I don’t know why I put up with it.”
I took a bite of my cold pancakes. They were more slimy than sweet now. After I swallowed, I said, “Maybe because you know that if you asked for them back, she’d give them to you.”
He shrugged and then ate for a bit before saying, “Well?”
“Well what?” I asked, confused.
“Well, how long am I going to have to complain about Gwen before you break and tell me what the hell is up with you and our fearless leader?”
I choked on a slimy sweet pancake. Did he hear us? Did he know what had happened between Horse and me? I could feel myself blushing. I managed to say, “What?”
I did not sound as nonchalant as I’d hoped.
“Sarah, don’t play coy. It’s so not your strong suit. You and Horse obviously like each other. You’re not fooling anyone. And from the distress that crossed his face this morning when you weren’t on the bus and the mere fact that you weren’t on the bus, I’m thinking maybe you crossed the line last night, and not to mix metaphors, but I don’t think it was a home run.”
My mouth felt a little pasty. I reached for my iced chai but, at this point, it was more ice than chai. I didn’t want to betray Horse’s confidence, but I desperately needed to talk to someone.
“If something happened, and I’m not saying it did… you could never tell anyone about it,” I said, which I knew was tantamount to saying something happened, but what was a girl to do?
“Since you’re not saying it did, there is nothing to tell,” he winked. He was so damn cheeky.
“Can you just promise to not tell, Sean?” I huffed out, exasperated.
“Oh, cross my heart and hope to die.” He actually crossed his heart like we were in church, and then he leaned in and said, “Now dish.”
“I’m so confused.” I sighed.
He slumped back into his chair. “Oh, I thought this was gonna be sexy,” he teased.
“Sean! I’m serious,” I kinda whine-yelled, and then I dropped my head into my hands.
“I see you are,” he said gently, softer than I’d heard him speak before. “You really can talk to me, Sar.”
“I just…” It was just so embarrassing. I didn’t know how to get the words out. “I don’t…” I trailed off again. Usually, I was quick to share, but I didn’t know how to tell my friend who was clearly so much worldlier than me that I was a novice when it came to sex and men.
Sean took a deep breath. “I can’t do the work for you. If you want to talk about this, you’re gonna have to say words.”
Honestly, it probably would have been easier to talk about this with the Lyft driver. I don’t know why I was so shy about sex, but I was, so the only way I was going to get the words out was in abstractions.
“Can you just humor me for a minute?” I asked.
Sean nodded.
“Okay… so, let’s say that there is a girl. No, a woman, and she is like really into a guy and she thinks he’s into her too…”
Sean interrupted me. “He’s so into you, Sarah.”
“You don’t know that,” I whined again.
“No, I do. I mean, I haven’t heard him come out and actually say the words, but he’s like a lovesick fool. I have known the man for a few years, and I have never, not once, seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you. Honestly, I’d never seen him smile at another human until I saw him with you.”
That was good. Thinking that I was special to Horse made me smile, but it still didn’t explain what happened last night. So, I shook off the glow from Sean’s statement and returned to the project at hand.
“Okay, fine. So, the girl…” I sighed. “The woman and the guy that I mentioned, let’s say they… um… hook up, and she has a really good time and then when she goes to reciprocate, he stops her. Why would that happen? Could she have done something wrong or like… badly?” I was sure I was beet red. “Oh my God,” I gasped again, dropping my head into my hands a second time, and then through them, I expelled a muffled, “This is so embarrassing.”
Sean laughed. To his credit, I thought he might have tried not to because the sound was sort of a cross between laughing and a puff of compressed air.
“Please,” I said in this tiny little unfamiliar voice. “Don’t laugh at me.”
The shift in his demeanor was abrupt. “Oh my God, You're serious? You honestly think that whatever happened in that room last night was about you?”
I nodded just the slightest bit. “Oh, Sarah, stop it. What, are you a virgin?” He was teasing, but as soon as the word was out of his mouth, Sean must have known the answer because my face jumped from my hands and I looked around the room hoping no one heard him.
“Oh no. It’s too much,” he said, flapping his hands in front of his face like they were fans. “How are you possibly a virgin?”
“Shh!” I insisted, still desperately hoping no one was listening to us.
He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “It’s just absurd. You’re gorgeous and basically famous and don’t all you cowpokes from barn towns spend your weekends drinking and getting laid?”
“I have brothers,” I said as if that alone was the reason for my virgin status.
“So, you’re not like saving it for that special someone or waiting for him to put a ring on it?”
I shook my head. Sean looked at me and then cocked his head a little. “Just how virginal are you?”
“Very,” I said and then took another bite of my pancakes to avoid saying anything else.
Sean eyed me up for a minute, “So, let me get this straight. There’s a girl who likes a guy and they hook up on a bus…”
“I didn’t say anything about a bus.”
He rolled his eyes at me, and then continued, “Fine, they hook up on an airplane, in very close proximity to people they know, and she has a good time…” He raised his eyebrows at me, asking a question: Did I have a good time?
I nodded yes.
“Does she have a very good time? Like maybe her first good time with someone other than herself?” Sean asked.
I nodded again, basically unable to look at him.
“Good Horsey,” he said under his breath and then to me, he asked, “And after her good time, did his…” Sean pointed to his own crotch rather than say penis. “Give her the old ten-gun salute?”
I nodded again. Starting to feel a little at ease with his line of questioning because he’d committed so elegantly to my modus operandi.
“And then when she wanted to return the favor, all hell broke loose or what? What did he do?”
“He said ‘please don’t’ and then he kinda panted on my chest a little, and then I asked him to leave.”
Sean took a big bite of his cinnamon roll, and then, talking with his mouth full, he said, “I bet he couldn’t control himself. That shit had nothing to do with you, Sarah, other than he wants you so fucking bad that if you touch him, he’s gonna freaking come like a bazooka. Did you even try to talk to him?”
My chest, which had been tight all morning, started to feel lighter, like I could take full deep breaths again. I was so caught up in my own lack of experience that it hadn’t even occurred to me that Horse could have felt nervous about making noise or going too far. Honestly, my reaction to his action deserved some serious consideration. Why had I just assumed I was doing something wrong? Horse had made it plenty clear that he was enjoying what happened between us. He told me he wanted to fuck me. The word scared me a little when he said it, but it also felt dirty and crass and made my pussy clench around his fingers. How did I stray from that moment to believing that one tiny touch turned him off?
I didn’t have a lot of time to consider the layers that contributed to my adverse reaction because Sean paused his chewing. “Wait, does he know you’re a…”
I put my hand over his mouth so he didn’t tell the whole place I was a virgin again.
“No, but does that really matter?” I asked. “Doesn’t there come a point in your life when you can stop perceiving your hymen as something you give to someone and instead see losing it as a gift you're giving yourself? Can’t it be about me? Not about him?”
Sean loved this. He literally started to bounce in his seat. “A-mazing. Losing it, the gift you give yourself. You should coin that shit and market it. So emboldened, so empowering. I totally wish I gave myself my virginity. It would have been so much better than what I actually did with it.”
I laughed.
Then he smiled at me and said, “Doll, I think we should go get you all gussied up and you should Pretty Woman this situation.”
“Sean,” I sighed. “That film does not apply to this situation at all.”
“Well, not the hooker part, not exactly, but let’s go shopping. I’ll sexy you up and then you can go sex him up.” He emphasized the word sex and wiggled his eyebrow vivaciously.
“I don’t know…”
“I do. Come on, I know how you like to look—natural and cowgirl. How confident do you feel on stage when I do you up?”
He did make me feel beautiful.
“Great clothes and makeup are like war paint in this kind of situation,” he argued. “You need to feel hot so you can be brave enough to be hot.”
“I’m still going to feel awkward.” I laughed.
“Yeah, but he digs your awkward.”
Maybe he did, I thought, smiling to myself.