The Other Fish in the Sea (32 page)

“I already have a pair of handcuffs,” she informed me almost pouting. Again, I’m not surprised by her admission.

“Well good, they’re not for you,” I said and stuck my tongue out at her, which she immediately reciprocated in little sister-like fashion.

“Let me guess…you’re upgrading from bungee cords,” Kate joked while giggling at me and having guessed more or less correctly.

 
“Yeah, I’ve found bungee cords tend to leave rope burns and I’m afraid I’ll get scars from repetitive use,” I replied soberly and then started laughing at her somewhat scandalized expression. “Don’t freak out, we’re twisted for sure, but these
are
actually a joke. Tristan and I agreed on gag gifts for Christmas.”
 

It’s true, we did. Since this is the first time either of us has had to worry about Christmas shopping for a significant other, we thought removing the pressure of picking something “nice” out would be good. I mean how bad would it suck to get a gift from someone you really like or love and absolutely hate it?! Then you have to act all appreciative and lie and stuff. Forget it, we’ll take the laughter over the awkwardness, thank you. So, that means Tristan’s getting handcuffs, a toy submarine and a little plastic pig for Christmas.

On our way home we connected with the guys, who’d spent the afternoon together as well, and decided to meet up with them at this little hole-in-the-wall burger joint for dinner. If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, you gotta go to Beef-N-Bun…they have
the
best chocolate-peanut butter shakes in Fletcher Hills…just sayin’. Melissa’s addicted to them and we invited her too, but she had plans with Brandon. She did say they might make it though, just not to count on her.

“Ugh, I hate driving in the rain,” Kate said to no one in particular as she turned her wipers on full-speed. It’d been overcast, but a pretty nice day just the same and it wasn’t even sprinkling when we left downtown, but by the time we hit Mission Valley, which is roughly about fifteen freeway minutes from where we live, it was pouring cats and dogs.

Thinking that I wanted to talk to Kate about something, I checked Jillian’s status in the backseat and was rewarded by seeing that she was fully engrossed in a movie on her iPod with her earbuds in.

“Hey Kate, can I ask you something kinda personal?” She gave me a quick, but sharp glance and nodded. “Well, I think Tristan wants to have sex.” Like that’s news. And it wasn’t even a question. Ugh…

Her facial expression concurred with my mental thought. “Of course he does,” she said like “duh.”

“Okay yeah, that didn’t come out how I meant. I just…”

Why is it that I have such a hard time with phrasing my questions and concerns when it comes to this stuff? I’m really not embarrassed talking about sex so the only thing I can think of is that I’m afraid of sounding ignorant, because I really am in this sphere. So, I blunder around and then wind up
making
myself sound stupid, which in turn embarrasses me. I seriously need to work on that.

“You’re just not quite there yet and you’re intimidated,” Kate said, rescuing me with her prowess of perception. She’s almost as bad as Jillian.

“Yes! I’ve been thinking about it almost constantly and I’m pretty close to being sure, I mean I
do
want to, but…I dunno…I
am
intimidated. I mean, he has so much freaking experience and I guess I’m just afraid of not knowing what to do and well…disappointing him, you know?”

“I can see where you might feel that way…I mean I’d probably feel the same way if I was an almost sixteen-year-old virgin and my almost eighteen-year-old boyfriend had been having sex since he was twelve, bu—”

OMG!!!

“Did you just say TWELVE?!” That so doesn’t go towards reassuring me, Kate! Jeez, thanks
so
freaking much…

“Oops…yeah, sorry. I probably should’ve left that out.”

“Ya think?!” Seriously, that was something I could’ve easily lived happily ever after not knowing.

“I said sorry! If it makes you feel any better, I was thirteen…obviously that means Jeff was fourteen, but still.”

“Holy shit…not that I’m judging or anything, but…how does someone that age even
know
what to do?!” For crying out loud, I’m almost sixteen and I know how things technically work, but that’s really not the same thing as doing it! I mean, you can read all about brain surgery and know how it works, but I’m sure doing it is a
whole
other ball game, you know?

“Okay, well, Tristan is a different case…the girl he was with his, um, first time was older and it
wasn’t
her first time, but Jeff and I were each other’s firsts and onlys for everything and well…honestly, it was horrible.”

“Not helping here…horrible how and why?” I may as well ask for specifics now. After all, she’s the one who opened this particular can of worms.

Kate blew out a breath, making a raspberry sound, and then she delved into the sex for the first time can of worms. And let me warn you here, she got pretty damned specific…

“Well, for one thing, we really
didn’t
know what we were doing and that caused some issues, but we still think the main thing for us was using a condom. God, it was awful… We were both
intensely
nervous, which didn’t help in the lubrication department, and because we didn’t take Tristan’s belief in foreplay seriously and just went for it, that made it worse, and even though the condom was lubricated…well, it just couldn’t stand up to the Sahara Desert I’d become, you know?”

I almost wanted to stop her and say, “No, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” but I didn’t, which was just as well because she ended up explaining as she continued.

“So, once he got in, which was an adventure in itself…I swear he should’ve asked Tristan for directions or a damned map…I was
so
nervous and so dry that it hurt both of us like holy hellfire and the crease of my inner labia on one side kinda ripped and the bottom of my vagina actually tore…you know where I mean, right down wher—”

“Yeah, Kate, I got it,” I said, not meaning to sound so short, but come on. I was trying to not wince and/or groan at the thought of having my freaking vagina ripping and tearing, and I was
desperately
trying to eradicate from my mind as completely and totally as I could the particular mental image of Kate’s doing exactly that. I mean seriously, I like when she outlines everything for me and I’m the one who asked for specifics here, but uh, I think we just seriously crossed over into TMI territory, you know?!

“Yeah well, it fucking hurt, and afterwards, just walking, sitting and freaking
peeing
stung like hell…Jesus, I swear that shit didn’t heal for weeks. And during, I remember thanking God that the whole thing was over in like two minutes. I mean, Camie, it hurt so damned bad that Jeff couldn’t even cum the first time, I’m not even kidding. The next few times weren’t much better either, even though we took our time and did plenty of fooling around beforehand and I wasn’t nearly as nervous. Because of that though, we thought it might be the condoms drying me up so we did an experiment…

“I went on the pill and we had sex once without a condom and it was dramatically better, then we did it with a condom and it sucked again. So, now we just don’t use them. But that’s just us, you know? Brandon used a condom with Melissa and she told me her first time was actually sorta great. She had
no
problems other than being pretty sore for a couple of days afterwards and that was only because of his size. Plus, she was riding around the desert the very next morning on a freaking quad. But there again, Brandon knew what he was doing and we didn’t.”

Beautiful. I don’t know if hearing all this is reassuring or more worrisome. I mean crap, Jeff is one of the most loving people I know but Kate still tore because she was nervous,
however
, “Insensitive Brandon” navigated Melissa through it just fine…

I let go of a deep sigh causing Kate to look at my face for a brief moment in which I’m sure she was able to see my anxiety.

“Camie, you know my experience will
not
be yours. I mean if you think about it, if you lose your virginity to
Tristan?
Well, there will be condoms for sure…I’m pretty sure he even uses them for oral sex too, but regardless, I’m thinking you probably wouldn’t be able to find a
better
guy capable of making your first time picture perfect, you know? I mean there will most likely be music for one thing and that’ll totally help you out, and also, I
guarantee
you won’t be thinking of his deep-seated belief in foreplay as a joke anymore and you’ll be thanking him and God both for that, plus, you can be sure Tristan of all people
really
knows
what he’s doi—”

“Yeah, but Kate, that’s where all the intimidation and worrying about disappointing him comes in.”

“Let me ask you something, have you ever asked him how he feels about you being a virgin?”

“Yeah, he thinks it’s hot. In fact, the day we officially got together and I told him I was, he told me it was total turn-on.” Actually, I’m glad Kate asked that because it had me thinking back to that conversation when he told me I’d already exceeded his expectations and he wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. Maybe I’ve just been worrying about my inexperience for nothing.

Kate giggled at my reply. “Yeah, I bet for him it
really
is. Shit, you being a virgin is like striking control freak gold for him.” I was about to ask what she meant by that but she went on too quickly and really, I’m finding that some things are just better left unsaid. “But here’s the thing, Camie, you’re probably gonna continue to feel intimidated until you do it, but there’s no
possible
way on God’s green earth that you’ll disappoint him.”

She sounds
so
very positive about that and I just don’t understand how she can be.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Easy, he loves you. You know that, right?” She asked while looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

“Uhh, no, not really. He hasn’t said he does anyway…” I know he likes me a whole freaking lot, but he’s never uttered the words I love you, so I don’t really wanna assume he does when he might not, you know? Assuming makes an ass out of you and me and I don’t want either of us to be an ass when it comes to love.

Kate was shaking her head in dismay when she said, “Oh Camie…you know, this is like when he never said the words ‘I’m sorry’ about licorice girl. There’s a good chance you’ll have to read between the lines on this one because I’m telling you, he does. There’re no ifs ands or buts about it, and I’m pretty sure he knows he does too.”

“Is it so wrong to want to hear it though?” I would so love hearing those words from him.

“Have
you
said it?”

She shot the question at me so quickly that I actually stuttered.

“W—Well, no.”

Huh. Now I feel pretty childish wanting to hear it from him when I’ve been completely reticent in saying it myself. Well, aside from when he delivered lotion to me and even then, I’m not completely positive I said it. Besides,
if
I did, it wasn’t meant like that. I mean, I
do
love him but that was more like me being out of my mind with itchiness and being really grateful for Aveeno, you know?

“Right. So here’s my advice, continue thinking about having sex and when you’re ready,
talk
to him. I don’t think he’ll bring it up because he doesn’t wanna pressure you and I’m like ninety-nine percent sure that’s why he told you about his safety habits that night during the game, because he wanted you to know but he didn’t want you to think he was pushing you. But Camie, if
you
bring it up, he’ll be more than willing to be open about all of this. Plus, he’ll be able to assuage your fears and concerns way better than I can, and if you think you need to hear him say the words, then say them first. I would be seriously surprised if he didn’t verbally validate his love for you after you do it for him.” Sometimes I really believe Kate to be wise beyond her years.

I was about to ask about her and Jeff’s decision to only use birth control pills when she pointed ahead and said, “Look, there’re the guys…”

We pulled up behind them at the light and she honked. Jeff and Pete started to turn around to wave but then the car next to them started revving its engine which had them looking at it instead.

“What an idiot,” Kate said, shaking her head.

“What?”

“He’s trying to get Tristan to race but he’s in for a major disappointment. People are always trying to get him to show what his car can do, but Tristan does
not
race…ever. I don’t think he’s ever even broken the speed limit in that car.”

That’s true; he doesn’t, at least not with passengers in the car. He has a very healthy respect for cars and the damage they can do when not driven with that respect. And Kate’s right about people trying to get him to show off. He easily has the fastest car in school, but you would never know by how he drives it even though he’s always being goaded by other gear heads.

When the light turned green, the Camaro took off but Tristan just made a casual right hand turn instead; it was his way of telling the guy to f-off. At the same time, Kate got a text from Jeff that I read to her. It just said they were going around the back way and they’d see us at Beef-N-Bun in a few. Shortly before our destination though, the Camaro had been stopped by the red light and we were unfortunate to pull up beside it, however the driver and his passenger didn’t pay any attention to us. Through the rain splattered windows we could see they were laughing and goofing off, but apparently Kate’s Mustang wasn’t enough to draw their attention, which we were more than happy with and ignored them in return.

“Um, Kate? I know you guys don’t have to worry about STDs and stuff, but if the pill is all you use, do you ever worry about getting pregnant? I mean, I just started taking them so I’m wondering, like, what your routine is or whatever, you know?” The pill is fine for birth control, but it’s not one hundred percent and they’ve been having sex for years now without condoms. I guess I’m just curious about how she takes them since I’m taking them now too.