‘Because you went to a sexual healing group to brag,’ I say, finally – though I immediately regret it. It’s the only answer I had in my head that doesn’t feel true, and now I’ve slathered it all over him. He’s going to nail me for it, I know.
And he does. He just does it with more gentleness than I expect. He actually sounds as light as air and like he’s half-laughing when he says:
‘Is that better or worse than going to a sexual healing group with a fake sex addiction?’
‘I didn’t fake anything.’
‘Oh, honey. Come on. Nuns could have told you that you were faking. I’ve heard more convincing tales of sexual excess from my elderly grandfather.’
Christ, I knew I shouldn’t have said that thing about the leather miniskirt. I bet true sexual adventurers haven’t worn leather miniskirts since 1982. And besides … he’s got to know what that would look like on me. I couldn’t land a fish in something that showed my thighs – never mind a man.
It’s no wonder he’s sceptical.
Though, lucky for me, he doesn’t continue this line of questioning. I’m already cracking under the pressure, and he’s barely begun his cross-examination. Thank God he changes the subject, to something even worse.
‘Did it really seem like I was bragging?’
I have to look at him then. That note of sincerity in his voice kind of makes me do it – but his expression doesn’t contradict what he’s saying. He’s almost wincing, with one thumbnail caught between his teeth. As though he truly didn’t realise how he was coming across. He just said what he was feeling – in the exact way he does now, while I’m all naked and unprepared.
‘Guess it did, huh?’ He shakes his head. ‘Really didn’t mean it that way. Just never revealed stuff like that before … kind of felt like I was talking about someone else’s life. But nope – that’s me. The guy who ran to a hospital wearing a cardboard box.’
He sounds rueful, now, and it makes me wonder: was he really aiming his amusement at the whole idea of sexual healing? Or was he laughing at himself, for being such a fool?
‘But enough about me. What about you? What made you fake being a sex addict?’
Shame,
So it shocks me when he does it instead.
‘You embarrassed about how you really are?’
‘No.’
Yes.
‘You don’t have to be – there’s no crime in being a little shy. Is that why you went there in the first place? To maybe get you out of your own shell for a while?’
For a second I’m too stunned to speak. How does he get something like that? It isn’t even the actual reason, and yet somehow it feels more real than anything I tell him next. I make my voice strong and firm, and I go with the party line. But inside I’m still that fumbling fool who couldn’t even hug a man properly.
‘I’m doing research for the book,’ I say, and he buys it. Why wouldn’t he? I bought it, and I’m the one living this life. I believed it right up until the moment he called me out, and if possible I’m going to keep doing so.
I’m not timid and tentative and unable to look him in the eye.
I’m Kit Connor, sultry sex bomb. Who flushes red when he says:
‘A dirty book?’
‘Yes.’
‘About insane braggarts like me?’
‘No,’ I say, but there’s another version of that answer in my head.
Yes. Yes. I could devote an entire book to you. I could tell tales of your eyes for ever, and never stop writing lines about the laundry-sweet scent of your amazing skin. You, Dillon Holt, are all the things I’ve always wanted as inspiration, and never quite found in anything but fantasy land.
Thank God I don’t go with it. My head sounds like a drooling moron.
‘You’ve gone all quiet.’
Because I’m busy being mortified over things I didn’t actually say aloud. That’s how big my capacity for embarrassment is: I go all red over non-existent gushing about hot guys.
‘I’m just thinking.’
‘About what?’
Oh, now I’m in trouble. Why did I lead him down this path? Now I’ve got to come up with an actual reason for my sudden lapse into silence.
‘About why you were really there. You know, if it wasn’t about you being an insane braggart. Which I don’t believe it was, by the way.’
There. Perfect.
Or it would have been, if he didn’t take my words as his cue to start walking backwards right in front of me. Now I’m all boxed in, and even worse – I have to look at his gorgeous face, while I attempt to lie. This just isn’t going to go well for me. Everywhere I look, there’s more of him. He’s kind of hunching his shoulders against the cold, and they’re still taking up my entire world.
And now he’s saying things. Revealing, warm sorts of things.
‘I guess I just wanted to find out why I feel this way.’
Oh, Lord. He’s talking about feelings. He’s looking at me with those eyes and talking about feelings. Shouldn’t a guy like him be mashing a beer can to his head while mooning the Prime Minister? I’m sure that should be his MO.
But apparently it’s not.
‘And how do you feel?’ I ask, still expecting something stupid. I feel like lighting my own farts, he’ll say, and then he’ll snort and probably run off to find some guy to punch. I’ll see him on an episode of Street Cops two months from now, and never regret jumping over a hedge to escape him.
Though all of that nonsense just makes it more of a shock when he answers:
‘Empty.’
Man, does he ever have a way with his single words. That whispered ‘Faker’ made my pulse race; now my heart sinks all the way through my body and right out onto the street. I can’t speak for the longest time, and when I finally do it’s not about anything useful. It’s all general and blasé, despite the very specific echo I’ve got inside of me.
‘Hate to break it to you, but I think everyone feels that way,’ I say, while the echo tells the truth: Especially me, it says. I’m so hollow you could fill me with helium and float me up to Mars.
Which is a depressing thought, when you really think about it. I’m almost glad when he flicks the switch from serious to silly again – despite the topic he raises.
‘Even fakers?’
‘Are you seriously bringing that up again? I just wanted to … learn about sex things. I just wanted to make my work more … real.’
He nods, sagely.
‘Ah, yes. Sex things. I believe that is the technical term.’
‘Shut up,’ I say, and come dangerously close to batting him playfully when I do.
‘Why, when we’re so close to a breakthrough, professor? I really wanted to discuss my pee-pee and your yoohoo.’
I give him a withering look.
‘I don’t call them that.’
‘Are you sure? Maybe you can’t say “vagina” either.’
‘I can absolutely say … that word.’
He hoots with