Page 39 of Sinner (Priest 2)
“And what had you done before this? With him or any other person?”
She shakes her head. “Just kissed. I’d kissed a handful of boys by the time I met Isaac. And Isaac and I had made out several times. It never went further than that because we were always in my basement and Isaac was terrified of the Honorable Letitia Iverson coming downstairs and dragging him by the ear to jail or something.”
I have to smile at that; I definitely didn’t make it out of my own childhood unscathed by Mrs. Iverson’s fiercely maternal style of justice. But back to the topic at hand. “So wait, he hadn’t even given you head by this point? What about fingering? Dry humping?”
My frank use of the terms seems to embarrass her a little, but she rallies. “Um, he touched my breasts once while we were kissing, and that was it,” she says. “But he kept asking for more, asking if we could find a place to be alone, if we could just try it—so I said yes. We told our parents we were staying with friends, and then we snuck into the youth center at church because I had a key from volunteering. And like I said, I didn’t like it and I asked him to stop. He did. That’s it.”
There’s something about the way her gaze darts away from mine, about the way her shoulders draw up and her voice goes brittle that makes me think there’s more to the story.
“Did you say yes because you really wanted to? Or because you liked him and you wanted him to keep liking you?”
“I really did want to, Sean, I promise. But I was nervous and I think…I think if he hadn’t kept asking, I would have wanted to wait. But it seemed stupid to keep telling this boy no when there was nothing wrong with him, you know? He was smart and handsome and everyone liked him—why wouldn’t I do it with him? And what if we didn’t do it, and then I regretted it later?”
I’m about to reply when she puts a finger over my lips. “I know now that I didn’t owe him sex,” she says, and I exhale in relief. “And maybe I knew it then too. My reasons for saying yes, while complicated, weren’t coerced.”
“And the sex itself? How did he prepare you?”
Her eyebrows draw together. “Prepare?”
“To get you ready,” I say. “To get you wet.”
She stares down at me, eyebrows still furrowed. “We took off our clothes and he told me to lay down, so I did. Then he put on a condom and put his penis inside of me—what?” she says at my face. “What’s wrong?”
I’m furious as fuck is what’s wrong. “Did it hurt you?”
Her chin dips low and she looks away. “How did you know?”
I rub my hands along Zenny’s arms, trying to find a way to explain. “That would hurt any woman, shoving inside without her being ready, but a virgin? I’m impressed you ever wanted to consider sex again after that.”
“I didn’t know,” she says, her hands fiddling with her jeans again. “And he probably didn’t know either. It just hurt so badly and I started crying, begged him to stop. He did—but there was a moment when I thought he wouldn’t. Just a second, really, and it was nothing he did or said, but it was this moment when I realized that I had nothing but the decency of a now-pissed-off teenage boy protecting me. He did the right thing, but—” her voice catches and she swallows again. “I’m sorry, I’m not that upset, it’s just so embarrassing.”
“Go on.”
“He said it was supposed to hurt the first time, and that it would have felt better if I would have been patient. He broke up with me the next day. Said he wanted to be with a girl who really liked him and wasn’t ‘just pretending.’” Zenny pauses, looking at where my hands have curled into fists in the sleeves of her T-shirt. “Sean?”
“Keep going,” I say, remarkably calmly. “I’m just keeping the lid on some mild rage here.”
A tilted smile. “It’s okay, really. That’s about the worst of it.”
“About the worst of it?”
“Well,” she says, taking a breath. “There was this thing on Twitter for a while. The Rockhurst boys—his friends—all started a hashtag. #ZennytheNun. If they could only see me now, eh?”
“Jesu
s Christ. Zenny.”
“What?”
“You had the worst first time possible. You were incredibly brave and stood up for what you needed in the moment…then you were dumped and subsequently bullied for it.”
“It’s not—” she stops, thinks, starts again. “It sounds traumatic when I lay it out, and yes, it stings to think about sometimes, but even in the moment, it didn’t gut me. It didn’t wound me. It sucked, but it sucked like a broken toe. It happened, it hurt, but I was fine and I am fine.”
I take her hands in my own, trying to read her expression. If I were going to trust anyone about their emotional inner life, I suppose it would be easiest to trust a nun—and the clear-eyed way Zenny’s looking down at me doesn’t betray any secret pain—but I have to be sure. If I’m going to take her to bed, I have to be able to keep her safe in every way possible.
“Honest girl thing? You really are fine?”
A soft smile. “Yeah.”
