“And for reproduction, though, right?” Taylor said, reading along.
“No,” I said. I had finished the paragraph before him. “That’s the thing. For thousands of years, they’ve told women that the vagina only exists for reproduction. Nobody wanted to admit that the organ that gave us pleasure wasn’t actually the vagina! Because, after all, women’s sole purpose was to make babies, right?”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me,” he said, surprised by my tone.
“You can see why it bothers me though, right? That no one gave a shit about studying women’s pleasure until 1998!”
“That’s just the year one woman discovered one thing, it doesn’t mean that…”
“You don’t get it! Our pleasure was stolen! And you know why? Because men wanted us to think vaginal orgasms were the only kind so we’d believe we needed them to give us pleasure.”
“C’mon, girls these days touch themselves more than we do.”
“Yeah, good for us,” I answered, still looking at the screen. “Look! The clitoris wasn’t even included as a body part in high school textbooks until 2017!”
“Yeah, it’s scandalous,” Tay said.
I scowled at him. “This is serious!”
“It’s interesting too. When people hear all this in class, they’re going to flip out.”
“That’s my hope…”
I remembered my first time with Danny. What a dickhead. Hedidn’t bother touching me where he should have; he never asked if I liked it or if I’d had an orgasm. Nothing! Once he had come, the whole thing was over.
“Listen, I promise I’ll give your clitoris all the attention it needs once you decide to let me get near it,” he whispered, causing my cheeks to turn an intense red.
“It’ll happen,” I said, smiling.
“I guess that’ll have to do,” he said, shutting his laptop and yawning. “Man, I’m exhausted.”
I was too. Studying the day after a party was the absolute worst. I put my things in my backpack and got ready to walk out, and just then, I saw Kate enter with Amanda and Lisa in tow. They all glared at me before walking off toward a table by the fireplace.
“They can’t stand me,” I said, wondering how things had gotten so out of hand.
“Forget them, babe,” Taylor replied.
“I’m more worried about who’s behind all this,” I said, glaring at Danny, who’d been sitting at the next table over, ignoring us the entire time.
“You know who I saw him making out with yesterday, right?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah, Ellie.”
“You got it.” He slipped his laptop into its case and looked at me more seriously. “Does that bother you?”
“It bothers me that she hid it from me, but mostly I can’t believe that she could feel attracted to him, knowing how he treated me.”
“Maybe he’s nice to her?”
I had been about to gather my books, but I stopped. “What? Are you saying it was my fault he’s such an asshole to me?”
“Jesus, Kami, I didn’t say anything like that. You’re touchy as hell.”
I sighed and closed my eyes a moment to get my head together. “Sorry, you’re right. Do you want to go out for lunch?”
Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, Taylor pulled me close and kissed me on the lips. “Everything’s going to be all right, Kami, I promise.”
But it wouldn’t. How could it be all right that my father had moved out of my house? That my parents were getting a divorce? That my friends didn’t like me anymore? That some weirdo was stalking me and trying to make my life hell?
