She took a second to take in Marley’s words. They sounded foreign to her somehow. Her heart started racing and she was beginning to feel faint.
“Oh my God. Do you … how … oh my God.”
“Besides the hangover, are you hurt? Are you in pain anywhere?”
“My head has been killing me all day, but nothing other than that. Oh my God, what did I do?”
Hailey dropped her head into her hands to try to ward off the lightheadedness. It was not working.
“Hailey, look at me.”
She mustered all the energy she could to tilt her head up, but she still had her hands supporting it.
“You did not do anything wrong. The only person whose fault it is is Scott. You have nothing to be ashamed about.”
Tears started falling down Hailey’s face as she absorbed all this information, burying her face back in her hands. How could he do something like that?
She heard a suction sound and then a door shutting, before she felt Marley get closer to her. When she looked up, Marley was holding out a bottle of water to her.Hailey reached for it and was ecstatic to feel the cold against her hand. She immediately unscrewed it and took a sip before getting the cap back on and holding it against her forehead. She looked past Marley and only just noticed the mini fridge behind her chair.
“Thank you, when did you get a fridge in here?”
“Last week. Awesome, right?” Marley said while she returned to her seat. “Now just breathe.”
Hailey took some deep breaths and a few more sips of water. There was something she was confused about.
“I’m afraid I liked it.”
“What do you mean?”
She took a deep breath and felt a bit of shame at what she was about to confess. “He said I was wet. I have trouble staying wet for Gage. Why was I wet for him if I didn’t like it?”
Marley looked into Hailey’s eyes for a moment in deep thought and then she crossed the room to a bookshelf over her desk. She pulled a book down and then handed it over to Hailey before going back to her seat.
Hailey examined the pink cover for a moment.Come As You Areby Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. “What’s this?”
“You can borrow it if you want. But, there is a chapter in there that explains why you don’t have to worry about that. I’m pretty sure there’s a bookmark in there or I highlighted the table of contents, but what I do remember is there is only a ten percent overlap forwomen when it comes to our genital response versus our subjective arousal.”
Hailey was too tired for a science lesson. “What does that mean?”
“Okay, so imagine there is a part of you that is sometimes aroused or turned on and there is a part of you that creates that moisture in your vagina. Those two things hardly ever overlap. Only ten percent of the time. So, just because you’re wet doesnotmean you are turned on. And just because you are turned on doesnotmean you are wet. There have even been women who orgasm during rape, but that still doesn’t mean they enjoyed it. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
What the fuuuuuuuck?
“But, that goes against pretty much everything I’ve been taught, every romance novel I’ve ever read.”
“Well romance novels aren’t supposed to be realistic, they’re supposed to be sexy. Same reason characters hardly ever wash their hands before cooking or pee after sex like you’re supposed to. That’s not really the kind of stuff readers enjoy.”
Well, shit. It was like Hailey had just dropped a hundred-pound weight off her shoulders. She let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.
“Okay, then. That makes me feel better at least.”
“Now, the question is do you want to do something about it?”
“Do something? Like what?”
“You could report him at work.”
“It was his going away party. He left the state yesterday.”
