I’m empty afterward. In every way. I leave her to get a washcloth to clean her up. I can feel her confusion. She expected to lose her virginity. I expected to take it. I told her I would. When it came down to it I just couldn’t.

I can’t take what’s not mine. She’s not mine.

I don’t look at her as I clean her off. I don’t entirely understand the way I feel. She’s going to have questions I have no answers for. The one thing I know for sure is that it has nothing to do with finally getting to have sex with her or making her a trophy like Savannah accused me of. I could have her. In ten or so minutes I could push her back onto the bed again, get her hot for me, and push inside her the way my body cries out to do whenever I’m with her.

It has nothing to do with me being freaked out about being her first. I’m not weirded out by her virginity and it doesn’t add a sick twist to my desire for her either. It’s a factor in that I want her first time to be something she looks back on with good memories and no regrets. It’s a part of her, the way her blue eyes and her chewed-down pinkie nails are.

I need something from her that I can’t express. Until I figure out exactly what that is or if it’s even possible I can’t have sex with her the way she wants me to. And that realization scares the shit out of me because I think I might need her to love me the way I love her. No. It’s more than that. I think I might need her to marry me.

God, I’m such a girl.

If I told my friends any of this shit they’d give me never-ending crap about it. And if I told Cora…Hell. I can’t tell Cora. She’d run so far and fast from me that I’d never recover. She may have already ruined me for anyone else. If she left now, that would be some shit I’d never get over.

I rinse the cloth out in the sink and throw it in the laundry room next to the other jizz-soaked washcloth. At this rate I’ll have to buy Mike a whole package of new washcloths. When I get back to the bedroom, Cora is sitting up in bed, talking on the phone. She pulled her nightgown back on. Her knees are drawn up to her chest underneath the gown and she hugs them, staring out the window at the ocean. She doesn’t acknowledge me or even turn to look at me as I pull my boxers on.

“No,” Cora says into the phone. “I can’t.” There’s a pause. She rocks back and forth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Yeah, I’ll let you know if I change my mind, but I doubt I will. I just don’t think of you that way.”

That son of a bitch Dylan. I knew he’d call her.

She finishes the call and tosses her phone on the bed. “That was Dylan. But then you probably already know that.” She looks at me then, and there’s something I’ve never seen before in her eyes—insecurity. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You turned that asshole down, so no.”

“I mean here.” She gestures at the bed. “I saw the box of condoms in your bag. Did you have them that first night?”

How do I answer her? I lied to her then. Do I lie to her now too? How many times can I lie before that’s all that’s left between us?

“Yes.”

“Why did you tell me you didn’t have any that first time?”

I shrug, not because I’m trying to be flippant, but because she’s opening up a conversation I want no part of.

“Why don’t you want to have sex with me?”

I can tell my reluctance to go all the way with her and my lying and avoidance hurt her. What do I say that won’t either creep her out or scare her away?

“We have sex.” My voice comes out as a hoarse whisper.

“We get each other off.”

“There’s more to sex than penetration.” I can’t believe my response is to give her a fucking sex-ed lesson she doesn’t want or need.

“Why won’t you have sex with me the way I want to have sex with you?”

I crack a teasing smile when there’s nothing funny here. “How do you want to have sex with me?”

“I want you to stick your dick in me like I know you want to but for some reason won’t. Why not? And by the way, you were right about Dylan. He asked me out. I bet if I went out with him he’d fuck me.”

“Is that what you want, to be fucked and thrown away? You don’t value yourself enough to be more than a quick fuck?” I’m motherfucking Dr. Phil now, talking about feelings and shit. I should be getting my first period any day.

“Why won’t you answer my question? Do you have a problem with me being a virgin?”

“No.”

Glaring up at me, she hugs her knees. That white cotton nightgown is having a strange effect on me. There’s nothing special about it. In fact it’s kind of plain, but it’s doing my head in. I picture her wearing it with a white veil, holding a bouquet of flowers. She’s walking down the aisle toward me. Then it’s our wedding night and I’m taking it off her like I did just a few moments ago, only this time I don’t freak out. She’s my wife and it feels right, like coming home. I slide into her. She welcomes me. She’s not wearing the look she’s got now that tells me I’m a big giant asshole.

“I don’t believe you,” she says. “Have you ever been with a virgin?”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

“I’m going to take a shower, then I want to check the map against what Damien LeFeaux said in his testimony during the trial before we meet with my dad. He’s got that meeting with LeFeaux this afternoon.” I head for the bathroom.

“My virginity freaks you out.”

“Your virginity doesn’t freak me out. Would you let it go, already?” I slam the bathroom door on her reply.

It would almost be better if I had some kind of hang-up about virgins. I’d be less of a head case if that was what’s going on here. Maybe then I’d recognize myself. Because this Leo—the one who can’t bring himself to open a box of condoms when he’s got a hot, willing woman in his bed—is not someone I know. I’m not sure he’s someone I want to know. That guy is a loser, holding out for something he’s never going to have with Cora.

Chapter 27 Cora

I don’t understand Leo. He’s not behaving the way I expected him to. The only explanation is that my virginity weirds him out. He certainly seems to like touching me and doing things to me and with me, but he won’t screw me. It’s starting to feel like I’m wearing a scarlet V on my chest. I’m impenetrable, like some kind of unsexy superhero. I’m coated in penis repellant. My own kind of invisible super power that no one wants.

Of all the guys for this to be a problem for, I never would’ve guessed it would be a problem for Leo. I figured he’d have a whole bedpost notched with virgin conquests. I’m starting to think I’m his first virgin and he doesn’t know what to do with that. I should read up on it. I bet there’s a protocol or treatment for this sort of thing.

The shower goes on in the bathroom. I grab my phone and do some Google-fu. Huh. Apparently Parthenophobia is the mortal fear of virgins. Symptoms of Parthenophobia include heavy breathing, profuse sweating, nausea, vomiting, an inability to speak, cotton mouth, and a feeling of paralysis. He definitely didn’t seem to have any of those. So if it’s not a clinical thing requiring a doctor it must just be only a slight hang-up. If he legitimately had this fear, then he certainly wouldn’t have been able to get me and himself off.

Maybe he just needs someone to help him work through it. I grab Leo’s box of condoms, open it, and take one out. Then I take a second one out…just in case. I test the bathroom doorknob. It turns easily, so I enter and close the door quietly behind me. I slip out of my panties and drag my nightgown over my head. Taking a deep breath, I tell myself that I’m doing this for him. The truth is I’m doing it for me.