Page 68 of Bourbon Bliss
“Okay, so what was it like?”
“I think it was nice. There were things about it that I enjoyed, physically.” I paused, twisting my hands together in my lap. “I don’t know how to talk about this, Cassidy.”
Her expression softened and she reached over to grab my hand. “Oh, June Bug. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me the details if you don’t want to. I just want to know why sleeping with George made you upset. What did he do to you?”
I shook my head. “It’s not what he did to me. It’s what I did to him. I don’t understand how to do this part. I like George. I’m intensely attracted to him in a way I’ve never experienced before. He makes me want to be with him all the time, and you know how I feel about other humans.”
“I sure do.”
“But Cassidy… men don’t like me after they’ve slept with me.”
“What? What are you going on about? What men?”
I swallowed hard. “You know about Hank Preston, in high school. We dated for a while. And then he wanted to have intercourse. I thought it was what I should do—what a normal girl would do. Many teenagers were having sex by then. But after we did, he broke up with me.”
Cassidy’s face reddened as I spoke. “Hank Preston was a no-good, dick-licking son of a motherless goat. He treated you terribly and if I wasn’t such an upstanding citizen, I’d have burned his house down a long time ago. Or at least, I wouldn’t have stopped Scarlett from doing it.”
“The point is, I’m not made for intimacy,” I said. “I don’t understand it, or how to return it. Especially the physical kind.”
“One asshole kid who slept with you and broke up with you right after doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, June Bug. It means he was garbage.”
“He’s not the only one.”
Cassidy’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?”
“I’ve dated other men since high school,” I said. “Twice, I’ve had a relationship progress to the point of sleeping together. Both times they broke up with me afterward.”
“Hold on. First of all, I didn’t know you’d slept with anyone besides Hank. Why didn’t you tell me? And second, what do you mean they broke up with you afterward? Do you meanrightafter?”
“To answer your second question, in one case it was the next day. The other was a few days later, but essentially the same thing. To answer your first, I don’t know why I kept it from you. I felt very rejected when those men ended our relationships. Especially because I knew why they had done it.”
“And why was that?”
I looked down at my hands. “Because I’m ill-equipped for an intimate physical relationship.”
“You think they dumped you because you were bad at sex?” she whisper-yelled.
“That’s an oversimplification, but yes. It’s not that I’m uneducated in the act itself. I understand how it works. But forging a proper intimate physical relationship is beyond my capabilities.”
“Juney, that’s not true. You don’t think like other people, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an intimate relationship with someone.”
“What if it does?”
Her back straightened and I recognized her expression—her Deputy Tucker face. Equal parts authoritative and stubborn. “It doesn’t. It just means you need to find someone who understands the way you work.”
Tears stung my eyes. I almost never cried, but this hurt deep enough to elicit a response from my tear ducts. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Okay, let’s back up. Tell me what happened with George.”
“We’d had a nice evening together. And when the time came, I gave him no reason to believe I didn’t want to be with him. I’d resigned myself to it, because our relationship had naturally progressed to a point where intercourse seemed appropriate. Or it would have if I was normal.”
“Stop with thenot normalshit, Juney.”
I ignored her comment and kept talking. “It was physically enjoyable at first. But I was anxious. As he got closer to his climax, all I could think was that this was going to be the end.”
“You really have that lodged deep in your brain, don’t you?” Cassidy asked. “The idea that once you sleep with a guy, they’re going to leave you.”
“Past experience is the best predictor of future behavior,” I said.
