Page 60 of The Other Side of Paradise
She flicked her hair back. “Then you’re going to have to do your best to keep up. Okay, you go first. What’s my first question?”
Oh, god. I blanked. “What are the first twenty digits of pi?”
She laughed, swatting my leg. “I don’t knowis a valid answer. This isn’t a trivia game, you dork. Try again.”
Okay, right. Yes. I guess… this was my chance to be able to ask whatever kinds of questions I wanted about Stella. No matter how inappropriate. In fact, the more inappropriate the better. It wasn’t remotely noble of me to use this to scout out information that was going to turn me on, but what the hell else were you supposed to do with a game like this? I fussed with theedge of the table. “Okay, um. How many people have you been with?”
“Okay, good start.” She sat back, twirling her hair around her finger, where she was haloed in the soft orange glow of the floor lamp. “I’ve dated three, but if you’re just talking about sex, seven.”
She had so much more experience than I did… “You genuinely have zero reservations, huh?”
“You should have zero reservations too, unless you want to get shitfaced tonight. Okay, my turn,” she said, eyes lighting up. “How many people haveyoubeen with?”
I groaned, a hand over my face. “Um. I’ve dated two. I’ve slept with… two.”
I could see her calculating it in her head—I had mentioned I’d slept with someone who I hadn’t dated. I helped her out.
“My first girlfriend and I were like… chaste.”
“Oh, I get it.” She laughed. “You were fifteen, right? You’re so sweet and innocent. I was absolutely having sex at fifteen.”
“I was fifteen, she was fourteen…” Stella was twenty-one. She’d been having sex for six years. Was that average? God, maybe I was a loser.
“Oh, okay,” she said, relaxing. “Okay, your turn, your turn. Ask a question.”
My face was hot, and I picked at the edge of the table more intently. “You said you’ve slept with seven people, so… which one was the best?”
She laughed, eyes sparkling. “Oh, god, that’s a good one. His name was Ken.”
“Like, Barbie and Ken?”
“Yup. His parents were Japanese, he was born in the US, they thought it was a good name that was both Japanese and American, and they weren’t prepared for how many peoplewould make jokes about the doll. We were friends, he was in my geography class in my last year of high school.”
“And you started dating?”
She grinned. “Nope. I’d just gotten out of a relationship with this stupid asshole jock named Mason and Ken was like, super sweet and supportive. And I was basically sad and mopey that I wasn’t going to be getting dicked down, and he was like,you can just fuck people without having to date them, try going on Tinder or asking your friends,so I asked him.”
“Just like that?”
“I mean, there were a few more steps in the middle, but not a lot of them. Jesus Christ, the way this man fucked me,” she laughed, and I didn’t know how to process both being achingly jealous and hopelessly turned on, listening to Stella talking about the ways she liked getting fucked. She shook her head, sitting up taller, grinning. “Okay, my turn, my turn. You can ask more about that, but you have to do it with a question. I’ve been giving you too many freebies!”
“Uh—yeah. Okay, your question,” I said, and she beamed.
“Were you staring at my panties?”
“Oh, god.” I put a hand to my forehead, looking out the window. If I drank, it’d be obvious. “Yes, I was staring at your underwear. I’m sorry.”
She laughed. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m not shy,” she said, and to prove her point, she lifted up her skirt. My stomach dropped at the sight of—well, her underwear, smooth thighs and the soft line of her waist above the band, and—I was staring again. I only realized when she dropped her dress back into place, and I cleared my throat hard, looking away, covering where my cheeks were burning.
“N-no kidding you’re not,” I mumbled.
“Okay, your turn to ask a question.”
“What did Ken do that was so special?”
She laughed, covering her face, and I guess I had managed to actually get her a little embarrassed. “Oh, god. A lot of things. He wasreallygood with his mouth…”
Okay, yeah, between jealousy and arousal, arousal was winning now. Thinking about Stella being really into, uh… receiving… oral, it had an effect on me. “I guess Mason wasn’t.”
