Chapter 5 #4
"Yeah, I'm good with that." She sobers again rapidly. "He…we…" she trails off, shaking her head, breathing hard. "Sorry, I…”
"Take your time. Don't be sorry—you have nothing to be sorry for, honey."
"I just haven’t told anyone this."
"No one? Not even your girlfriends?"
Her head shakes. "No. They wouldn't understand. They all have boyfriends and have sex all the time. They don't see what the big deal is."
"I'm so sorry you've carried this alone all this time, Mal."
"He put it in, and it did hurt. Not like agony, but it wasn't fun.
And…he…he…I…Brooklyn told me that it would start feeling good after a minute or two, but it didn't, and I realized I was just…
I wasn't ready, and I wanted to stop, so I said ‘Stop’ and he was like ‘No, you want this. You said you wanted this, c'mon baby, you know it feels good, you know you like it,’ a lot of shit like that.”
My blood is boiling. To call my rage incandescent is to say the sun is a little hot and the ocean a little big. "Mal," I whisper. "My god, honey."
"I pushed him off me, and I punched him in the nose."
"Good job! That's the way, baby."
"I wanted to just keep punching him. I was so mad and scared, and I was shaking, and I was afraid I'd, like, not stop punching him."
"Valid."
"I got dressed and I left. I just…I couldn't believe what happened.
It was…it was like he became someone else.
He followed me out, apologizing and crying and all that, mainly because I broke his nose.
He claimed later it got broken during practice, but everyone knew he was lying.
I just…I didn't know what to do, who to talk to, how to feel.
" She gets to her feet and paces away. "And now I'm like…
will I ever want to try that again? The thought of a guy touching me right now is—" she cuts off, shuddering. "No. Just…no."
"That's normal, too. Meaning, it's a normal reaction—what happened to you is not normal. It's not okay. It's wrong, and Heath got off easy."
"You can't go after him again, Mom."
"Well, I can't promise I'll behave if I come face to face with the ratfuck punk-ass bitch."
Mallory's eyes fly wide and she splutters. "Mom!"
I keep my face bland. "Have you forgotten that I was a badass biker bitch? You know I got into fist fights a lot, right? In that world, when your man throws hands, so do you. I'll curb-stomp the little bitch-boy.”
“Okay, She-Ra." Mallory leans into me. "You can put away Badass Mom, please.
I don't need you to be my avenger. He showed up to school with a broken nose and two black eyes, and we were broken up.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together, y'know?
He lost all social standing. And then, when you got him blacklisted?
He has no friends. People hate him. Because even though no one knows exactly what he did, they can all guess closely enough.
They also know better than to fuck with me, because not only can I break noses, they know you'll come after them too. "
"Guess you're a badass like your mama, too, huh?"
She grins. "Guess so." The humor fades fast again. "Like, will I ever want to have sex? Am I broken?"
I pull her close and hug her tight. "No, honey.
No, no, no. It'll take time and the right guy, but it'll happen.
You just have to be patient with yourself and really take time to get to know him.
There are almost always signs when a dude is like Heath, Mallory.
Part of growing up female is learning to identify them early.
" I hug her again. "How he treats people who aren't you.
How he deals with rejection. How he approaches intimacy with you. "
"So what do you look for, in a positive sense? Like, what are your green flags?"
I laugh. "Oh, honey, I'm obviously not the right person to ask. Did you forget how this entire conversation started?"
"Well, you're what I've got, so I'm asking you.” She points toward the garage. "Besides, you kissed Coach Austin and didn't rule out seeing him again, so there's got to be a green flag in there somewhere."
"Well, he's as unsure about the whole situation between us as I am, for one thing."
"How so?"
"He’s a widower, Mallory. He lost his wife of thirty years to leukemia three years ago.
He hasn't been on a first date or any of that since he was only a few years older than you.
Grief doesn't just stop. It doesn't just heal and get all better, especially grief like that.
The whole town knew how much he and Taylor loved each other.
So for him, I imagine starting something new is gonna be difficult. "
"You guys kissed before going on a date," she points out, helpfully.
Not.
"It was…unexpected…for us both, I think." I feel squirmy inside discussing this with my daughter. Maybe it's just me, I don't know.
"But do you like him?"
"Yes, I like him. I wouldn't have kissed him otherwise."
"You kissed Charlie Cousins."
"And I liked him up until he got handsy." I clap my hand over my mouth. "Forget I said that."
"Uh, no. Explain."
"I did. He got handsy. I thought we were kissing, he thought we were rounding the bases."
"I thought you said we were using our grown-up words and not being cute."
"How dare you use my own words against me?" I say, droll and deadpan. "Fine. He honked my boob."
She splutters. "Honked? he honked it?" I demonstrate on her—she cackles and bats my hand away. "Okay, yeah, nope, not doing that again."
"Exactly!"
"But you're just being funny, right? That's not how he actually did it."
“No, that’s what happened.”
"Was it his first time touching a tit? Like, at no point in his life did anyone ever tell him it's not sexy to honka-honka the boobies?”
I snort at her turn of phrase. "Clearly not. That was it for me."
"The Ick," she says, again sounding sage and wise, nodding knowingly.
"The Ick," I agree. "And boy, that's a major Ick."
“Something tells me Coach Austin won't honk your boobs."
"I wouldn't think so, no. Assuming we get that far—and no, I will not be confiding in you if and when that does happen because I have my limits, and gossiping about the details of my sex life with my daughter is one of them."
"I guess that's fair, and I honestly don't think I really want to know those kinds of details about my mother."
I laugh and squeeze her again before letting go. "Glad we agree."
She nods, and then grabs my wrist before I can walk away. "Mom?"
I turn back. "Yeah, baby."
"I think you should go out with him."
"I'm thinking about it, sweetheart. I've just been hurt a lot. What happened with your father really…it left a lot of scars, emotionally. It's really, really hard to open up again after something like that."
"Obviously, since you've kissed two men in eighteen years."
"Three. I went to a New Year's Eve party two years ago, and a random tourist kissed me when the ball dropped."
She rolls her eyes. “Not what I mean."
I sigh. "I know."
She stands up and kisses my cheek. "We both gotta be brave, I guess, huh?" She heads for the stairs.
"There's no rush to get back out there, you know," I call after her from the bottom of the stairs.
"For me, no." She hangs over the railing at the top of the stairs to look at me upside down. "For you? Maybe a little bit of a rush. Y'know. Considering."
"Are you calling me old, Mallory Morgan Wheeler?"
She holds her forefinger and thumb an inch apart, and then makes a heart with her fingers and mouths I love you.
I shake my head, chuckling to myself as I wipe down the counters, wash the stockpot, and shut the kitchen down. "Little bit of a rush, my ass," I mutter. "I'm not old."
But yet in the back of my mind, there's a little voice whispering that maybe I shouldn't wait around thinking too long. I'm less than eighteen months away from my fiftieth birthday.
Fifty! Half a century.
The last time I had sex, the iPhone 3G was the big thing, Obama was campaigning, Sasha Fierce was the big album of the year, way back when albums were still a thing…
God.
That's kinda sad.
Can you forget how to fuck?
Is there a virginity reset? Like, after fifteen years of celibacy, you're officially a virgin again? If so, can I have that in writing? A certificate of achievement, or something.
Is it pathetic?
Maybe I should just give up the whole thing and become a nun. But then, I don't much care for organized religion, which I suppose presents a problem for that plan.
But then I think about Noah Austin on the steps of my garage, gazing up at me with big, deep, dark blue eyes, and I think about his hands on my waist, how he effortlessly lifted my 5'10", 160lb frame.
How he pinned me to the fridge and kissed me like I was his next breath.
I think about how wet my underwear was, just from kissing him.
And I know that I won't be joining a nunnery any time soon.
I want more of Noah Austin. Yes, I'm terrified of being hurt again, but…it's Noah.
Even while watching reality TV shows on my iPad in bed, my mind keeps going back to the kisses with Noah.
And just because I've been celibate doesn't mean I've lost all desire. I masturbate regularly. I still look at a hot guy and drool a little. Notice a nice, tight ass or a sexy pair of shoulders, and don't even get me on veiny, muscular forearms.
All of which Noah possesses.
Sleep is slow in coming, mainly because my thoughts are a horny, chaotic train wreck. Noah silhouetted in my doorframe, backlit, naked, looking at me like I'm his next meal. Noah in turnout bottoms and nothing else. Better yet, just a length of hose…if you know what I mean.
I wake up with a start, sweating, panting, and on the verge of orgasming—the details of the dream fade swiftly, and I'm left with a vague dream-fragment memory of Noah above me, doing deliciously dirty things to me.
It's not until I use my fingers to make myself come that I find enough respite from the horniness to finally get to sleep.