Fork 9

“So now that you’ve got super powers, do you think you’ll talk to Freddie?” Elyssa asked, as usual.

I sighed.

“Hey. What’s that about?” Elyssa questioned, concerned.

“I’m sorry. I just get tired of having this same conversation,” I admitted.

“Why? How many times have we done this?” She glanced at my bracelet to confirm that it was green.

“Like ten?” I guessed. It was sort of a blur.

“Oh...,” she said. She was thinking hard - trying to predict what I needed. “Well what’s the conversation you want to have?”

That question hit me like a punch in the nose. Eventually I told her, “I slept with two guys. One of them was older - high school. And it was great - seriously amazing. But you overheard them talking to each other and they said I was no good. They called me a wet hole. It’s really bothering me.”

“Gretchen, don’t worry about it! Those timelines are long gone. Those guys won’t think that about you any more!”

“No, it’s not that. It bothers me that I’m no good,” I explained.

Elyssa rolled her eyes. “Gretch, of course you were bad at it your first time. Everyone is. You’ll get better. We’ll get you a boyfriend - Freddie maybe - and you two can figure it all out together.”

I frowned. “You always say that.”

“Maybe I don’t understand what’s bothering you,” she confessed.

“I’m not sure I do either,” I said.

Before class I wandered into the boys’ bathroom, just to see what would happen. They gave me all kinds of looks, but nobody actually said anything. Even when I stood next to them at the urinals and peeked, they didn’t say anything: they just turned their bodies to try to hide their penises while they peed.

I definitely couldn’t handle another day of repeat classes, so I took a city bus to the mall. It was weird to see the place so empty. I got a pretzel and looked at clothes.

I decided I needed a guys’ perspective - a guy who’d had lots of sex. I looked from shop to shop trying to find someone whose brain I could pick: old enough, not too old, not ugly, and not busy. The best I could come up with was two guys talking in a video game store. I pretended to browse while I listed to them talking about cars before I approached them.

“I need advice,” I told them. They turned to me attentively. “What makes a woman good in bed?”

They both laughed. They probably thought that I was there on a dare or something. When I kept waiting for an answer, the clerk asked, “How old are you?”

“Old enough to have sex,” I answer with a bit of attitude. “Old enough to be told I’m no good at it,” I added.

The clerk was pretty average looking, and I guessed him to be about thirty. He’d probably had sex with two or three girlfriends and then gotten married. The customer was twenty-five or so, with long hair and a torn shirt. He had a vaping device in his pocket. He looked like the kind of guy who partied, so I hoped he might have answers for me.

“Look, great sex is all about the emotional connection. When you’re with someone you love and trust, it just happens,” the clerk said. The customer nodded.

“I am so sick of that bullshit answer!” I ranted. “I know that’s what you’re supposed to say! Be honest, if you were at a bachelor party bragging about the best sex you’ve ever had, would you be telling the guys that it was great because how much you looooved each other? Or would you be telling them about the crazy girl who did - something!?”

“Ah...,” the customer blathered.

The clerk shook his head. “It’s really not appropriate for us to talk about this sort of thing with you,” he said. “Maybe you could ask your school councilor.”

I sighed rudely. “Assholes,” I said as I walked out.

I was feeling ornery, so I tried to steal a nightie from the lingerie store. The sirens blared as soon as I stepped outside the store.