“Yes. Exactly,” she says, nodding vigorously like she’s excited that I’m finally catching on. “I even have it blocked out on my planner.”
“Of course you do,” I mutter, stretching back on the bed. My feet are planted firmly on the floor, but the rest of me has flopped backward onto the mattress because what she’s proposing is batshit crazy, and I need a second to collect mythoughts as I stare at the ceiling fan circling above my head. And yes, I always sleep with the fan on. Who doesn’t?
Liza turns back to face me. Hazel hops off her lap, clearly annoyed by the slightest change in position, and head buts my hand, demanding a few pets. I’m obviously not getting the job done, though, because after a couple seconds she stalks away, jumps onto the floor and heads for the recliner in the corner that she staked her claim on a few months ago.
“Are you even listening to me?” Liza asks, clearly annoyed.
“I couldn’t ignore you if I tried,” I tell her, tearing my gaze away from the ceiling fan to let her know she has my full attention.
She takes a deep breathe, like she has to summon all her patience when she’s talking to me. “I have to write things in my planner, and I have to schedule every minute of the day. School occupies a lot of my time, obviously, but when I’m not in class or studying, I’m working. And I don’t have some cushy work study job that lets me sit at the front desk of a residence hall and catch up on homework. I put in a lot of hours at the wolf’s den, and I manage to keep this place from being destroyed, but being an equipment manager and keeping you guys in line doesn’t cover all my expenses, so I have to pick up shifts at the restaurant when I can. Do I like having to schedule every second of my life? Of course not, but there’s no trust fund paying for my education. It’s all me.”
Liza leans forward to punctuate her point, but it takes her a second to realize that she’s practically hovering over me. She pulls back, so I prop myself up on my elbows. “Point taken. But that brings us back to the key detail here. I believe you once said I’m the last person alive you’d ever ask for help. So what happened? Did I miss the apocalypse? And now you’re on an orgasm deadline, and I’m your only hope?” She rolls her eyes at me, but I wave her off. “I’m serious, Liza, what changed?”
She hesitates, and for a second, I’m sure she’s going to walk out the door and hit me with another line about how this also never happened. Instead, she stays put on my bed and meets my eyes as she answers. “The study revolves around the female orgasm, as you know. But it’s not a matter of just…getting the job done. There are certain… variables, I guess you’d call them. Ugh, I’m not explaining this well. So, look. It’s like this. I can’t just diddle myself every few days and write about it, okay? And even if I could, well, as you know from reading my journal, I can’t. Not always. The students conducting the study want data on outside stimuli and, god, there’s a whole list. I don’t have to do everything, of course, which is good, because there are some things on that list I’d have to google first. But basically, within the next forty-eight hours, I need to have an orgasm that I don’t give myself. It doesn’t necessarily have to be from another person. I’m allowed to use a vibrator, but I can’t do that.”
Her rambling and stammering is utterly adorable, and it’s obvious that she’s not super comfortable talking about sex, which has me curious about something. “So why are you even doing this study? Just quit.”
She huffs again, and a sick part of me loves the way I manage to get under her skin without even trying. “I thought it was a sleep study, okay? The last one I did was super easy, so I figured I’d sign up for this one, too. But that all happened during finals week last semester, and my schedule was hectic. By the time I actually read the agreement, it was too late to back out. I mean, I guess I could have, but it just seems rude. It’s not their fault I signed on the dotted line without reading the fine print. Besides,” she says, nibbling at that full bottom lip, “I’m sort of intrigued by it, you know? There’s this whole list of things that could potentially be satisfying. I mean, I don’t have to do the whole list, which is good, because there are words I don’t know on there. So, yes, I’m curious. When I’m not totally frustrated,that is. I’ve never been good at relaxation of any kind, and well, I guess this is my opportunity to get better at it? To see what all the fuss is about, I guess. So, I’m sticking with the study, and I want to enlist your help.”
Jesus. She’s acting like she wants help changing a tire, not changing the way she views sex. I shake my head, like that will help me make sense of her request, but it doesn’t help at all, and I’m still left with a lot of questions. “Wait. You said you could use a toy, right? You’ve got that magic Christmas dildo or whatever, right?” I know she does. How could I forget? I damn near choked when Leo opened what he thought was his Secret Santa gift.
“I do have it, but I should have let Leo keep it,” Liza says. “I should have walked away and pretended it was his all along, because I can’t use it.”
“What? Why? You do know those things come with chargers, right? Unless yours is old school and runs on batteries.”
“That’s not the issue,” she says, toying with one of her braids. “It’s… intimidating. And it has eyes. I know it’s a reindeer and so it has to have eyes, but that’s just weird. And while we’re on the subject, who makes a reindeer vibrator?”
I’m biting my cheek so I don’t laugh. She’s not joking, and she’s not wrong. “So you need outside stimulation,” I say, clearing my throat. “And I’m the only guy in town?”
Liza looks down at me, her brown eyes sparkling. “You’re the only one who’s ever made me come.”
11
Liza
Iwatch with fascination as my words register in Blue’s brain. To his credit, he doesn’t call bullshit, or laugh out loud, or let his jaw hit the floor. He’s schooling his features like a pro.
Sex isn’t something I talk about all that often. It’s not even something I do very often, but when the topic of mind-blowing orgasms does crop up in conversations, I stay silent. What’s that old saying? If you don’t have anything nice to say, keep your big mouth shut? Yeah, it’s something like that.
While my friends like to chatter away about the pleasure they’re receiving, I’m content to make to-do lists in my head, or daydream about a future where I have one singular job and an actual social life. What I’d do with that social life, I have no clue, and I’ll admit that’s part of the reason I’m sticking with this study. Sure, I may not have enough time right now to even think about being in a relationship, but someday far in the future, after I’ve graduated from Bainbridge, and finished grad school, and landed my dream job, then I’ll hit the dating scene. And, if I view this study as a sort of boot camp, and Blue as my drill sergeant, then I’ll be prepared.
“Holy shit, DeWalt. You can’t drop a bomb like that and go radio silent,” Blue says, pulling me out of my head and back to our conversation.
“What else is there to say?” I ask. “You basically know everything, since you read my journal?—”
“I read a freaking paragraph, Liza,” he says, interrupting me, his eyes pleading. “We’ve been over this. It took me a second to figure out what I was reading and when I clued into the fact that it wasn’t meant for my eyes, I stopped.”
I really do believe him, but I’m still mortified. “It might have only been one paragraph, but those few sentences told the bleak little tale of my sex life. And what we did last night was not bleak at all. It was…enlightening.”
Blue’s quiet for a moment as he studies me. “Enlightening? That’s what we’re calling it now? And let me make sure I’m following along here. About twenty-four hours ago, I, uh,enlightenedyou in a storage room. You promptly told me to fuck right off before you ran out like the place was being raided by the cops. You spent the entire day avoiding me while also revisiting your memories of just how good we were together. So good, in fact, that now you want to use me for my skills. Do I have that right so far?”
I can feel my cheeks heat because Blue just gave an eerily accurate rundown of my day. “When you put it like that, it just sounds bad—I sound bad. I’m not planning to just lie there and let you service me.”
“Service you?” Blue asks, his eyebrows raised.
“Take care of my…needs. Dammit, Blue, you know what I mean. I don’t want to use you,” I say, absolutely certain that my face is the color of a strawberry right now.
“Then what do you want to do with me?” he asks, feigning innocence. I can see it in his devilish blue eyes and in the hint of a smile he can’t quite hide.
