9
KARL
All the air leaves my lungs, and I drop her hand like it’s a hot burner. Did I hear her right? I shake my head. The chair creaks as I stand and pace the dining room.
“You’re a virgin?” I ask, stunned and staring at her in awe.
Lola nods and looks down at her hands again.
“Lola, no—”
“Just, please, listen first.”
I shake my head, but I say nothing.
“I want it to be with someone who is a friend. Someone who I know will be kind.”
“You were with him throughout high school, right? It never occurred to you to have sex with Ethan?” I ask, even as the mere thought of it rises bile from my stomach.
Lola nods. “Of course I thought about it. But . . . Ethan—” She bites her lower lip, the fabric from the hem of her shirt twisting in her fingers. “He’s really religious and—and I tried to be respectful of his beliefs. He’s been my only boyfriend, so I’ve never . . .”
My blood pulses loud in my ears. She’s asking me for something that I want—something that my bodyneeds—but something I can’t give her. I won’t do it.
“Lola, I’m not having sex with you for your first time.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay? What does that mean?”
“It means okay, Karl. I’m not going to force myself on you or anything—”
Crap, she looks so dejected. That’s not what I intended. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Lola. Don’t look like that.”
Her head tilts to the side, big green eyes blinking at me. “Then why not?”
“Because. You’re special. I want your first time to be with someone you love.”
Lola scoffs.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m done waiting for the perfect person—for the perfect moment. I want to have sex, Karl. I respect you don’t want to—with me. And that is totally fine. But even without you, Iwillhave sex. It’s what I want.”
How do I tell her the truth?
How can I convey with words what an empty feeling it is to wake up to a stranger? How hollow and gutted it feels when you realize you’re being used, for your body, for your money, for your fame?
While her situation isn’t exactly the same, picking up a stranger will surely mean having sex for the first time with a man who wants something from her, only her body, but nother.
If I could get her to understand the depth of that emptiness the morning after, I know she’d agree with me.
That emptiness has been the only kind of experience I’ve ever had. I don’t want to drag her down here with me, to this wretched place where you feel more used and discarded than a roll of toilet paper. She deserves so much more—especially her first time.
For the first time in my life, I thinkImight deserve so much more too.
My fists clench at my sides, and I pace faster. She’s going to have sex with some random jerk who might not even treat her right. “Lola, you can’t just have sex with someone random for your first time. You should love the person you—”
“You said it wasn’t that you didn’t want to. So you would want to if it weren’t my first time?”