Turns out I was wrong. There was a weirder feeling.
“So,” Leelah said. “What did you get up to last night?”
Therealworst feeling was having amazing sex and not being able to talk about it. Today, I’d had to face Clara and feign that nothing was different. When I’d first agreed to sex with Hudson, I didn’t tell her because it wasn’t a big deal. It would be a one-night stand I could mention in passing sometime in the very, very distant future, when he was long gone from BuzzCorp. Now that he would be a more semipermanent fixture in my day-to-day, I didn’t want to tell her because…
Well…
What if I failed?
What if my great attempt to balance personal affairs and work was a total bust, The Fantasy flopped, and I disappointed her?
No, I couldn’t handle it.
So I kept my mouth shut and continued to do so with Leelah that afternoon.
As promised, she and I had hit up some trendy sandwich place for lunch so I could get to know her better. Thankfully, she’d spent much of our meal talking about herself: where she grew up (Paris, Texas—home of the Cowboy Boot Jesus, look it up), her hobbies (dance classes, volunteering), her vices (maxing out her Ulta card), her obsessions (rom-coms, hot Formula 1 drivers, and providing free medical intervention to underserved communities). She also took the time to critique my management style, which she described as “hands-on to the extreme.”
She spoke quickly and excitedly, like she was afraid if she came up for air, she’d lose her chance to become my friend. I listened as best I could, all while trying not to think about Hudson and how badly I wanted to gush tosomeoneabout him.
Listen to me. Gush. I never gushed.
After lunch, instead of returning to the office, she dragged me to Pacific Plaza and ordered us drinks from a takeout stand near the entrance. Coffee for her, hot chocolate with whipped cream for me. It was then that she turned the conversation my way.
“Scout? I asked what you got up to.”
“Me? Oh, nothing. Had some food. Stayed up too late.”
“Doing what?”
I stifled a truthful reply with a long sip of my cocoa. “I was experimenting with some new equipment.”
God, this was killing me. How was I not supposed to scream from the rooftops that Hudson had an amazing mouth and hands and that I would let him take me right now on a park bench if he was here?
Right. Because after our morning liaison, we codified several rules of procedure. Simple stuff, mostly. We would have a mutually beneficial sexual relationship, no strings attached. Friendswho fucked by night and coworkers by day. We wouldneverlet our escapades interfere with our jobs or the launch of The Fantasy, and if it ever felt that we were, we would immediately end the association. I would continue to teach him about sex toys, including during our sex sessions. Our safe word wascosmos. We would always practice enthusiastic consent. And once Hudson’s contract was up in six weeks, the affair would be over, too.
The rules were designed to protect us both. Especially that last one. If we both knew that he was going to leave, then there would be no chance of us developing complicated emotions. Like an element with a short half-life, we would enjoy what we had while we had it, then not mourn it once it was gone.
But our most important rule? Never, ever, under any circumstances, let anyone know what was going on between us. This was for my sake.
After the Lloyd Exeterthing, and after my blowup at the bar, I wanted nothing more than to put a reinforced titanium door between my work and sex. InJurassic Park(the book, not the movie…the movie didn’t have enough science in it), there were these big barriers designed to keep poor, unsuspecting humans from getting trampled by ravenous monsters.
Only in this analogy, my career was the precious tourist, and my apparently insatiably horny vagina was the extinction-level threat.
Leelah clucked her tongue. “Okay. So, youdidn’thook up with Hudson last night?”
TheJurassic Parkmetaphor was fucked from the start. Those walls never worked on Isla Nublar. Why did I think they would work for my muff monster?
I tripped. “What? No. Why would you even say that?”
“When he walked in today, he had this super dreamy look on his face. Like he was the luckiest guy in the world—or he would be if you’d just look at him. But no matter how hard he tried, youwouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. The sexual tension was unbearable.”
“It was not!”
It was, but I thought that I was the only one who’d noticed.
“I mean,” I corrected, “there wasn’t any sexual tension. You’re seeing things.”
“You’re really trying to convince me thatnothing’sgoing on between you two?”
