Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee Page B

dude worth hunting?” I asked.
    â€œDunno,” she answered, lying back onto her bed. She was quiet for so long that I had drifted into a half sleep when she began speaking again.
    â€œI sometimes wonder if there’s something wrong with me that I don’t feel that need. The few guys I’ve dated . . . they were never serious. They were all relatively smart and interesting people, especially considering where we grew up.” She paused. “Sex with Jake was okay, but it wasn’t this huge cosmic thing, at least not for me. It was just . . . fun.”
    I stayed quiet, expecting more. We hadn’t talked about sex all that much. I knew she’d had two partners: one briefly, and then Jake, for more than a year. Since I’d known her, she hadn’t so much as kissed any of the guys we met at parties, though they always seemed to sniff her out and circle like wolves.
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with fun,” I said quietly. “Why should there be?”
    Cyn rolled over to face me. “Is that what you really think?”
    Her voice had an edge that I didn’t appreciate. When I didn’t respond, she rolled back over.
    â€œYou know, you don’t have to have a casual attitude toward things just because I do.” Her voice sounded strained in the darkness. “I know you still haven’t given up the big V, and I suspect that you’re one of those girls who believes it should be special. And that’s okay. You don’t have to pretend.”
    â€œWho says I’m pretending?” I snapped, my defenses triggered. So what if I was perhaps harboring soft-focus visions of love and romance? I wasn’t a prude, and that was none of her business anyway. I’d been supportive of her becoming a stripper, and now she was belittling me as some sort of blushing virgin?
    â€œThere’s just a lot of things you don’t know about yourself until you go there. Sex isn’t all love and romance and explosive orgasms. There’s pain and regret, fucked-up power dynamics. It can get dangerous quickly. You can get hurt or hurt other people.”
    She quieted, and her words hung in the air like the smoky skeletons of spent fireworks. The window of silence that followed seemed like an open invitation to ask the obvious.
    â€œDid you get hurt, Cyn? Is that it?”
    She chuckled drily. “Other way around.”
    â€œOh. Jake?” I probed, and got nothing but silence from her side of the room. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    â€œNo. Because then I’d have to think about it, and I’m already feeling like shit.”
    â€œOkay. Well, if you ever want to, I’m here. Best pal on duty.”
    I waited for her to answer, and when she didn’t, I got up and filled my glass in the bathroom. When I came back in, I saw her silhouetted against the window. She was sitting up, and sniffling.
    â€œAre you crying?”
    She didn’t respond, but her sniffles increased. I hovered by my bed, glass in hand.
    â€œHey. What’s wrong?”
    â€œMy life is just so fucking trashy,” she said, her voice tightrope tense and equally quavery. “I wish it wasn’t, but it is and that’s fine. I never really had lofty ideals for myself and my life, but what the fuck, I’m working as a stripper now? It’s just, it’s not exactly how I imagined my college experience, and if things are already this low-rent, what the hell is going to happen next?”
    I sat on her bed and gave her a hug. After a moment, she shrugged me off. “Tissues,” she whispered, reaching for a box on the floor. I sat there as she blew her nose, unsure what to say.
    â€œI really thought you were okay with it.”
    She sighed and seemed to regain control. “Fuck. I am okay with it. During the day, when I was there, I was totally fine with it. But now, when I’m worn down, I start to picture my life