Page 29 of Maybe You

I’ve come to the conclusion that my biggest problem when it comes to sex is the decided lack of practice.

I’m not totally inexperienced. There are a few pre-scars handjobs and blowjobs on my résumé. Quick, fumbled moments in Danny’s bedroom under the guise of doing homework while his mom was downstairs, cooking dinner.

It mainly comes down to being afraid and insecure. High school was a bit of a nightmare after everything, and then when I had finally talked myself up enough to try anything again with that new body of mine? Well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. There was a guy I met the summer after I graduated high school. Cory. We hung out. He was fun. Easygoing. And he was still all those things even after I took my clothes off. It’s just that he was also very clearly uncomfortable and not at all into me the moment he saw me naked, which didn’t really help with my already abysmal confidence issues.

Enter Ethan. I think the right way to put it is that he pursued me. And he was sweet and understanding and persistent and gave me butterflies, and I did my level best to make sure he’d never see me naked because I actually liked Ethan, so I didn’t want this thing between us to end up being Cory vol. 2. Which meant sex in the dark, lights off and curtains drawn. Not too much touching. Always too tense to actually enjoy anything about the process, and since Ethan is the nicest guy out there, he put up with it and tried to do everything humanly possible to accommodate all my weird hang-ups. In return, I only got more paranoid.

After two months of dating, he walked in on me when I was changing my shirt, and I flipped the fuck out. So he dumped me.

It’s been two years.

And all the while, other people are out there fucking like rabbits and waxing poetic about the experience, and I can’t help but wonder what it feels like to have really great sex. Or maybe I’m setting the bar too high. I should be wondering what it feels like to even have a sex life, because I don’t have one. Which would be fine if I didn’t want to have sex, but I do. I just have so many hang-ups by now that it feels easier to go without than to start addressing the mess inside my head.

So here’s what I’ve come up with: I need to desensitize myself. I need somebody brutally honest, who won’t try to be nice about the whole scars-thing and will just lay it out for me point-blank if it’s going to be an issue and whether, in theory, somebody who’s set their mind on sleeping with me will find me… palatable.

Then, if it turns out it’s not an issue, they can give me some hands-on experience.

And I have the perfect man for the job.

Sutton.

First of all, he’s made no secret of his desire to fuck me. Granted, he doesn’t have all the necessary information to make that decision, but first things first, there’s willingness.

Second, I have a few months of therapy sessions under my belt now, so in theory, I’m less prone to blind panic.

Third, he’s been very clear that all he wants is sex, which is good. There’s no danger of feelings getting involved and everything getting messy and complicated like it would if I had a crush on him. We’ll never have to see each other again, and at least in theory, I won’t take it too personally if it all goes to shit.

At the same time, he’s not a complete stranger, so it feels more manageable to do it with him. He’s the right amount of unfamiliar for test driving sex.

And last, the guy has no filter. A thought enters his brain, and he spits it out. Which might not sound like the best thing in theory, but in reality it’s exactly what I need. I don’t want carefully calculated responses. I’m well beyond wanting somebody to treat me with kid gloves.

I want honesty.

As much as I love Remy, Jordan, and Theo, they are not anywhere in the vicinity of unbiased.

No. What I need is some impartial, not sugarcoated, brutal truth.

And Sutton is the man to deliver it to me.

Which brings me back to my original question. How do you ask a person to sleep with you?

I just have to come out and say it, I guess, but what exactly do I say? What words do I use?

Have sex with me?

Fuck me?

Would you fancy a meeting between our penises?

I mean, any of those would get the meaning across effectively enough, so I guess my answer is any of those?

Maybe not that last one.

I groan and rub my palms over my face. I’m overthinking this, but I can’t help it. Since I met Sutton, I’ve never been nervous when talking to him, but I’m making up for lost time now.

Plus, well, you learn something new every day, and what I’ve learned over the course of the last few hours of this lovely Friday is that it is pretty much impossible to find a good opening to ask somebody to have sex with you.

Which means now the plan is to try and steer the conversation anywhere in the vicinity of sex and go from there. You’d think it’d be easy enough with Sutton, seeing how he manages to turn absolutely everything into an innuendo.