“Sort of how you’re staring at me now. Judging. I don’t want just another guy. This is not a ‘swipe right’ kind of situation. I want someone with lots of experience. Someone I can brief. Someone who won’t care if I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And I want this to play out away from my real life. This is an… independent project.”
“Girl,” Callie says firmly, “first things first: I don’t judge my friends. Ever. And also… Babes, you had me fooled the entire night.”
My head pops up. “What are you on about?”
“I thought you were smart. Like, almost April-smart.”
Backhanded compliment received and logged.
“But you don’t get it, do you?” Her brow creases, mouth pulling into an incredulous smirk. “No expectations? The guy should be on his knees—figuratively, and yeah, literally too—thanking the heavens for a chance with you.”
I roll my eyes so hard I practically see gray matter. “Hmph,” I mutter. It's the universal sound of ‘shut up’, but Callie isn’t having it.
She sits across from me on the coffee table, grabs my knees and yanks my body towards her. I nearly slip off the sofa to the ground. “Hey, you listen to me now.” We’re face to face. Nowhere to hide. “Look, I get it. You want control. You want someone who doesn’t make you feel one wrong move away from a bad Yelp review. We’ve all been there.”
She leans back, eyes a little glassy. “My first was Arnold, my assistant teacher.”
I blink. “Your what?”
“Yes,” she confirms unapologetically. “In college. And before you go full protective-mum mode, yes, I was legal. Just.” She laughs, but I don’t. “He was older, but I wasall grown, babes.” Her smile falters when I keep staring. “I know how it sounds. But it wasn’t how you’re picturing it.”
I don’t realize how hard I’m gripping my glass until my fingers ache. “Callie…” I whisper, every cell in my body ready to fight Arnold in the parking lot of my imagination. “It sounds like you’re trying to make it sound better than it was.”
“Don’t give me that look.” She points a stern finger at my nose. “I wasn’t groomed, thank you for asking before assuming. He was twenty-six, so inmen years, he was younger than me.”
My eyes widen, not at all convinced. Legal or not, that’s still dodgy.
“I started it. And I was very persuasive. I don’t tell this story often because people get stuck on the numbers, and that’s the wrong part. But, babes, I wasn’t some clueless girl being manipulated. I was a horny, wildly determined woman who seduced a man by bringing him coffee in tank tops that rivaled my bikinis.”
I groan into my hands. “Not making it any better, Callie.”
She leans in, voice softening. “That’s your prerogative. But the truth is, that man changed the way I saw myself. He was imperative in making me the woman I am today. In making me love myself as I am. At first,I was so scared of him seeing the parts of me I tried to hide—the soft stomach, the stretch marks on my thighs, the underside of my ass that I thought was too big. I’d try to cover them, and he’d move my hands away. Not roughly, always gently. I’ll never forget the day he whispered, ‘Don't ruin this moment by thinking you’re not what I want.’”
My breath hitches. I wasn’t expecting that.
“He’d kiss the parts of me I hated,” she continues. “So much he convinced me they were his favorites. He used to say, ‘Men jerk off to Playboy, but when it’s time to fuck, we want s’mth’n soft to hold.’”
I let out a strangled wheeze. “You were so close to a meaningful moment, and then you did that voice.”
She grins and repeats it in an even raspier, exaggerated growl: “‘S’mth’n to hold, darlin’.’”
I collapse back onto the sofa, torn between laughter and tears.
“Anyway,” Callie says, fanning herself, probably reliving the memory, “after that, he could bend me like a pretzel, and I didn’t give a single damn about what folded where. Because that man wanted me. Me.”
She leans in, dropping the theatrics. “That’s what you deserve, Mia. Not a man who tolerates your body. Not a man who grades you. Let alone a man you hired. We’ll find you one who looks at the full picture, sees the woman attached to the body, and craves the whole damn package.”
She clutches my hands tighter. “You are beautiful. And a hot piece of ass.”
As if those words could magically flip a switch inside me. My gaze drops, and my words quicken. “It’s not that simple, Cal. I wish it was, but you know it’s not. It’s alifetime of ‘no’s.’ Of never finding your size in shops on the high street, of sales staff pretending to smile while pitying you.”
My throat tightens. I barely manage a breath before I let it all out.
“It’s growing up the third wheel,” I say softly. “The plus-one to the friend who always got chosen first. Always the extra. It’s the dressing-room light that makes you flinch. The waiter who asks if ‘I’m sure I want dessert.’ The doctor who blames your cough on your weight. The photos where you hide behind someone’s hair.”
I could go on and on, but Callie cuts in, soft and certain. “I know, babes. I’m not exactly petite either. We’re big girls. I went through some of those struggles growing up too. But I guess I got lucky with the people around me; they didn’t let me hate myself for my size. In fact, they were annoyingly loud about how hot I was.” She gives me a cheeky wink. “Somewhere along the way, I learned to love every fucking curve, dip, and crease of this body. I love every inch of me, Mia. I really do. And a man only gets the privilege of enjoying all this”—she runs her hands down her sides—“if he actually appreciates it too. And believe me, hun, plenty do. I have to fight some off with a stick.”
Facts. I testified to that tonight.
