4
“I hope this isn’t you trying to get me back,” Sophie said when she answered my phone call. “But for your information, my favourite type of flowers are tulips—pink, not red—and my favourite restaurant is the Langham.”
I had spent the past few days trying my hardest not to think about what had happened with Nick, and had mostly succeeded, except in the moments before I fell asleep. That’s when I saw Nick’s long, bare legs, and the way he crawled across my bed.
Worse, that’s when I remembered his words. You really are fucking clueless. Dense. Dumb as hell.
The memories wouldn’t stop haunting me, so I’d decided I had no choice but to call Sophie. I was already half-regretting that decision.
“When you said you don’t like sleeping with me,” I said, “did you mean you don’t like having sex with me?”
“Yes. What’s the question?”
My stomach dropped, but deep down, I wasn’t surprised, not really. “Can you specify why I’m bad?” My voice was small.
“It’s like I said. You’re kind of selfish.”
“But I always ate you out.”
“Yeah, for like, five minutes. Then you said your jaw hurt.”
“It did hurt,” I insisted. “And I never expected you to blow me for more than five minutes.”
“You wouldn’t last even if I did give you head for more than five minutes. That’s the other thing, Hayden. You couldn’t last long.”
“It’s not like I lasted twenty seconds!”
“Do you want a gold medal?”
“During intercourse, I lasted five minutes at least. Maybe even six minutes.”
“I’m sure that was great for you, but it didn’t do a whole lot for me.”
“You sounded like you enjoyed yourself.”
“Sometimes. I told you I liked a faster pace, but you could only keep up for so long.”
“It’s exhausting,” I protested. “I tried, and I was drenched in sweat by the end. And you never wanted to get on top either.”
“The point is,” she cut in loudly, “I never finished, and when you finished, you just rolled off and stared at the ceiling, having post-nut clarity or whatever, while I lay there, wanting to get off too.”
I was silent, the terrible truth dawning on me.
Sophie was right— as soon as I finished, I’d flop onto the bed and stare into nothing, feeling sweaty and exhausted and sated. I never even thought about offering to help her finish.
Well, shit. I was totally selfish.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She huffed. “Yeah, whatever. Is that all you wanted to ask me? I’ve got things to do. Oh, and just to reiterate—tulips are my favourite flowers, and when I say the Langham, I mean the buffet at the five-star hotel—”
“I’ll let you go in a second,” I said, “but can we go over everything I’m terrible at? I didn’t give oral for long enough before my jaw hurt. I didn’t last long enough. I didn’t go at a fast enough pace. And I was selfish because after I finished, I forgot about you.”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah,” Sophie said. “In terms of everything else… your bed was comfortable and clean, you always smelled nice and took care of yourself… I guess if we’re nitpicking, your kissing was alright, but it wasn’t spectacular.”
To be fair, kissing Sophie had always been fine, but nothing like fireworks and magic. I had concluded that kissing was exaggerated in movies and mediocre in reality, but now that appeared to actually also be my fault.
“Okay, kissing too,” I said, adding it to my mental list.
“That’s everything I can think of. What are you going to do with this information?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to know for research purposes.”
“Hayden.” Her tone was suspicious.
“Thank you for your help,” I told her and ended the call.
I was bad at sex. I was really bad at sex.
The question was, what was I going to do about it?
At first, I tried to ignore the recent revelations about my bedroom skills. I managed to continue with life well enough—I studied, I went to class, I attended social events and mingled with other students—but my mind kept returning to the sex thing.
At a free barbecue for Science Society members, I found myself in a circle of students. As I ate a snag, I surveyed the girls in the group. What if I went on a date with one of them? What if we became boyfriend and girlfriend? What if, when it was time to go to bed, I did a horrible job, and they immediately dumped me?
Elena sensed something was up with me, and after asking me several times over a number of days, I finally gave in. “I don’t think I’d be a very good boyfriend.”
She blinked once. “Then get good.”
‘Get good’ was a phrase she’d once heard a gamer boy in high school say, and she’d been parroting it ever since. There was an appealing simplicity in it: get good. Like Nike’s Just Do It .
I mumbled something noncommittal because if I wanted to ‘get good’, then I’d have to think even more than I already was about the fact I sucked in bed, and that was depressing. Besides, it’s not as if it mattered. I didn’t have anyone to have sex with, so there was no reason to improve my skills. I’d probably never have sex with anyone ever again. We’d kiss once, and they’d shove me away because I was so awful.
I almost succeeded in forgetting about the whole thing until I saw Nick at Professors Lane Caf é .
To be fair, it wasn’t that unexpected. The caf é was the most popular one at Lygon U, partly because it was located in the centre of campus, right next to the largest library, where students frequently needed a source of caffeine to continue their study benders.
I was standing off to the side, waiting for my drink to be made, when I saw Nick ordering. Unsurprisingly, he spoke to the barista with a blank expression, the same expression he wore when speaking to me. His dark hair was tousled by the wind, and he wore a wool jumper and dark pants. I thought of the way he’d looked at me that night he’d come over. It’s a pity.
I must’ve been staring like a crazy person because as soon as he left the counter, he met my eyes.
“Nick,” I said.
He looked at me, silent for a few seconds, as if he was deciding whether or not to speak to me.
Eventually, he nodded and came to stand beside me. “Hayden,” he said.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Fine, yourself?”
“Alright.” I hesitated. “You were right.”
He raised a brow.
“I called Sophie—the girl I was seeing—and she said I was bad at sex. She gave me a whole list of reasons why.”
“Okay?” he said, but I swore his lips started to curl up. Even someone as emotionless as Nick couldn’t be immune from the vindication of being right.
This was it. I had the perfect opportunity right in front of me. And yeah, it would be embarrassing, but Nick had been willing to help me once before.
“I’m sorry about how I behaved that night,” I began. “I know it wasn’t nice of me to throw you out, but in my defence, you did call me an idiot several times. Yeah, you were right—I was dumb—but you still didn’t need to call me that.”
“You don’t need to apologise. I don’t care.”
“I do. Because…”
“What.” His voice was flat.
“Canyouteachmetobegoodatsexagain?”
He regarded me. “Now that you know what you’re getting into, you still want someone who’s practically a total stranger to teach you to be good at sex?”
“You were willing to help me that night.”
“Yeah, but…” he pushed a hand through his hair, seeming not to have an answer to that. “Listen, I couldn’t care less. But wouldn’t it be strange for you? Do you even like guys?”
“Do you?” I shot back. “It doesn’t matter to me—this would be purely academic. It’s not like I’m expecting to have sex with you .”
He made a choking noise.
I took the opportunity to plough on. “I’m not so fragile that I’d be bothered by a guy in my bed. I’m not sure how you were planning to teach me, but if you’re worried, we don’t even need to touch. You can just demonstrate and give me tips—the way you did that night, with the eye contact and the prowling onto the bed like a jaguar sort of thing.”
“I did not prowl like a jaguar.”
“You said you wanted to pay me back for finding your key,” I reminded him. It was a weak argument, but I was desperate.
“I already did. I came over that night.”
“Yeah, but…” How else was I supposed to convince him? I settled on, “please?”
He didn’t say anything, just frowned at me.
“Please, Nick? Sophie said I was awful, and Tyler said you were so good. You’d be the perfect teacher. Please ?”
He glanced around as if checking to see whether the people standing nearby were paying attention to us.
I didn’t know if they were, and I didn’t care. Instead, I put my hands together like I was praying. “I’m begging you. Please help me. Pleeeeeease?”
“Alright,” he snapped, slapping my hands away and glancing around again. “Fine,” he hissed. “Only because you sound so pathetic.”
I brightened. “Really? Okay, when?”
He sighed. “I’m free tomorrow afternoon, say four? That’s when my last class finishes.”
“Four o’clock works for me! I’ll be on campus tomorrow too, so we can walk there together. Should we meet here?”
“Sure. And Hayden? This time, can you please make sure your sister doesn’t walk in on us?”
“Of course. I’ll make sure she’s out of the house. Thank you so much, Nick.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Usually, my Foundational Biology class was interesting, but I found myself watching the clock, counting down the minutes until I would meet Nick.
Finally, my class ended, and I rushed out of the building towards Professors Lane Caf é . He was waiting outside, looking at his phone, his backpack hanging from one shoulder.
“Hi,” I said.
He shifted his gaze from his phone to me, flitting once over my body. There was something cold in the way he surveyed me, so it gave me a shot of pleasure that he had to tilt his chin up to look me in the eyes.
“Let’s go.” He started walking in the general direction of my place, and I hurried after him, walking down the red brick path that was surrounded on either side by garden beds full of native shrubs and flowers.
“How was your class?” I asked. “Also, what are you studying, by the way?”
“Look, we don’t have to make small talk,” he said.
“Why not?”
“You don’t have to pretend to be interested in me,” he said. “This is a purely pedagogical relationship.”
“Okay,” I said. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. You’re acting as if I forced you.”
“You did force me,” he countered. “You begged.”
“Yeah, but you could’ve said no.”
He huffed. “Why don’t you tell me exactly how you’re bad in bed?”
I brightened, because I was prepared for this question. “Sophie gave me a list. I can only give head for so long before my jaw hurts, I don’t last long enough, I can’t keep up a fast pace without getting exhausted, and finally, my kissing is mediocre.”
Nick was silent for a few seconds. “So basically, you’re shit at everything.”
I winced. “I suppose?”
“How long have you been having sex?” he asked.
“Let’s see…” I counted back in my mind. “About… two weeks?”
If Nick was a less graceful man, he would’ve stumbled. Instead, his walking pace fell out of rhythm, just for a second. “Oh. That’s… recent. How long have you been kissing? Approximate it by years.”
Once again, I had to do the maths in my head.
He gave me a look. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, just a rough estimate.”
“Zero point zero three eight.”
“Huh?”
“Zero point zero three eight.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You said to approximate it by years.”
“So you’ve been kissing for—” A moment’s pause. “—five weeks?”
To his credit, he worked it out faster than I did. Maybe Lygon University wasn’t lying when it claimed to teach the brightest students in Australia.
“Yep,” I said.
Nick rubbed his nose. “It’s no wonder you’re ‘bad’. You’ve only been doing it for a few weeks. Everyone’s crap when they start. You’ll naturally get better once you get more experience.”
“How am I supposed to get more experience if I’m bad, though?” I asked. We arrived at a pedestrian crossing at the end of campus and had to stop while we waited for the lights to turn green. I took the opportunity to face him. “Girls won’t want anything to do with me because I’m bad. It’s like the paradox of getting an entry-level job that expects you to have five years of experience.”
I thought my logic was flawless, but Nick didn’t look impressed. “If someone really likes you, they won’t mind if you’re mediocre at kissing.”
“Girls won’t even have a chance to like me, though. They’ll write me off because I’m bad at kissing, and I won’t have the opportunity to impress them with my awesome personality.”
His lips twitched, and I started to feel triumphant until I realised I wasn’t sure if he was amused with me or at me.
“I meant that you shouldn’t feel bad about yourself because you’re supposedly bad at physical intimacy,” he said as we crossed the road. “You’ve only just started. Did you expect to be good at swimming the first time you stepped into a pool?”
“No, but that’s why I’ve got a teacher.” I smiled at him, but he just frowned.
It didn’t take us long to arrive at my apartment building. I dug out my keys and fob, which let us into the entrance lobby.
“What is that?” Nick asked sharply.
I followed his gaze to my hand. “My keys,” I said.
“No, that.” He pointed.
“Oh, this?” I jingled my plastic keychain. It had faded after years of carrying it around. “Yeah, this is what I meant about having a keychain so you don’t lose your keys.”
“Is that the girl?” He gestured at the tiny photo framed in the plastic. “Sophie or whatever her name is?”
“Oh.” I looked down at the photo as if I hadn’t noticed it was there. After years of using the same keychain every day, my brain stopped processing it. “No, that’s not her.”
Nick raised a brow at me.
“It’s my mum. When she was younger,” I said.
“You carry around a photo of your mum?”
He was looking at me like I was Oedipus or Norman Bates, and I scowled. “No,” I snapped. “Well, yes, but not in a weird way. I just like to have her with me.”
He didn’t say anything, but his stare changed from judgemental to something worse. Pity.
“She’s not dead,” I hurried to clarify. “It’s just…” I trailed off, not sure how to explain.
“None of my business,” Nick finished. For a second, he looked unbalanced, then gestured at the elevators. “We should probably head up.”
While we waited for the elevator to arrive, I looked around the lobby, suddenly aware of how the place must’ve looked to Nick. There was a concierge, circular gold light fixtures hung like halos from the ceiling, and the elevator was made of mirrored surfaces and gleaming clean.
When we arrived in the apartment, I dumped my backpack on the couch and headed towards the kitchen area. “Would you like anything to drink? We have water, milk, coffee, tea… I could make you a smoothie? We’ve got greens and berries and yoghurt.”
“Water’s fine, thanks.”
I grabbed a glass, filled it with ice from the automatic dispenser in the fridge, then added filtered water. I made a second cup for myself, and we drank in silence.
Yesterday, I’d asked Elena if she could stay out of the apartment and explained I was being tutored by someone who preferred privacy.
“Are you being tutored by that strangely good-looking guy who was prowling across your bed like a leopard?” she had asked.
“I’d thought it’d been more jaguar-like, but yes.”
“I’ll spend the afternoon at Atticus’s,” she’d said, referencing her one and only friend. I thanked her and promised to make it up by remembering to do the dishes.
Now, I was glad there was no chance of interruptions, but the apartment felt extremely silent, and weirdly enough, much smaller than usual. Nick was standing a few steps away from me, but it felt like I was an inch away from him, like one wrong move and my skin would brush his.
Nick drained his glass and placed it in the sink with a clatter that felt far too loud.
“Let’s go to your bedroom”