This was completely different.
It was so different she was doing something else too. She didn’t want to think about it too clearly, but once the nipple thing became clear it got harder to avoid. All kinds of stuff was flashing up in neon behind her eyes, like the fact that she’d spread her legs a little, at some point. Just a little, but a little seemed like a whole lot when she’d almost spread themaround his thigh.
And she was...she was...doing stuff.
She knew she was doing stuff.
He was well within his rights to try taking off her clothes. Or maybe notrightsexactly, but he certainly wasn’t being an asshole to imagine she might want this. There was just one small problem, really.
Her complete and total panic.
Though she felt it was to her credit that she contained said panic better than she had in the bathroom. She didn’t spider walk away from him, or knock a bookshelf over in an effort to get away. She just took one calm step back and said, “Okay, can we stop? Is it okay if we stop a second?”
She was the epitome of reasonableness and collected cool.
Yet somehow it didn’t quite feel that way. It felt wrenching—as though they’d been attached with a row of stitches and she’d just ripped them all open. She could still feel an echo of that thrumming sensation once they were apart, and wanted nothing more than to go back in and get it back.
And judging by his expression, he would have liked that too. He did his best to mask it, but there was a confusion there in his eyes. Maybe a touch of hurt too—but not for the reasons she first suspected. She got busy wondering if he felt rejected, and was just about to forward that theory when he spoke, instead.
“Of course it’s okay. It’s absolutely okay. Did you think I wouldn’t behave as though it’s okay?”
“Well we were getting pretty...and you know I was...rubbing you so...”
“So...you shouldn’t be able to say stop?”
She managed not to say the words aloud, but the thought was there.
I didn’twantto say stop.
“I don’t...maybe I...I...”
“Alice, the answer is always yes. Yes, you can say stop whenever you need to. You didn’t do anything wrong.Idid something wrong when I started shoving my hand up your t-shirt like a fucking Neanderthal.”
He looked so genuinely dismayed by this completely absurd realization that she almost gave him the real reason. It had been buried beneath all kinds of things before now—like her virgin state and her fear and his fame—but as soon as she saw his expression it announced itself. It wasn’t any of those things.
It was what he would see if they went ahead with this.I have scars, she thought of saying, but was thankful it didn’t come out. If she told him about the scars, then she’d have to tell him aboutwhy they were there. And once he knewwhy they were there, she wouldn’t be Alice anymore.
She’d be that other girl, the damaged girl.
She couldn’t have that, and so went with all the other stuff. The other stuff was embarrassing and probably wouldn’t do her any good, but it at least was partially true. It had been true for most of their time together. He wasn’t likely to doubt it and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t say.
And that made it worth the red face.
“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that...you know. I’m not very sexually experienced,” she said, then braced herself for his laughter.
It didn’t happen, however.
Of course it didn’t happen.
Heknew.
“Whoa, hold the phone. You’re not experienced? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you,” he said, in a tone so full of amusement she sort of wanted to die. But then how could she have known that the levels of humiliation would be this high? She’d assumed she was doing everything right—or at least that she wasn’t totally fucking it up.
But Lord, how wrong she’d been.
“Oh God, is it really that obvious? Did I just screw the kissing up? It felt as though you liked it when I did that—”
“Alice, Alice, you haven’t screwed the kissing up.”
