"Good weekend, was it?" Shelley greeted him as soon as he stepped through the door.
Jamie couldn't hide anything from Shelley, his work colleague and confidante. "How can you tell?" He proceeded to walk across the staffroom to the hot water dispenser.
"You're walking a bit differently today."
Jamie blushed.
"Oh my God. You did, didn't you." Shelley gasped. "Tell me everything, Jamie. Who was he? Are you seeing him again? How did it happen? Oh, I don't mean those details, scrub that. I mean how did you meet him and end up in bed? God, was it even in a bed?"
Jamie raised his finger to his lips, willing her to quieten down, while he stared at the door expecting someone to enter midway through any embarrassing comment. Even though they were alone in the staffroom, that certainly wouldn't last for long. Sometimes it was busier in here than on the shop floor.
"It's not what you think," he said. "It was with my friends with benefits buddy, Dylan, I've told you about him. So, yes I'll see him again, but he's just a friend. What about you? Did you have a good weekend?"
Shelley jumped up out of her seat to join him at the instant hot water dispenser where he soaked his pot of dehydrated noodles. "Kia and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, so it was all dinner and roses."
"She hasn't changed her mind yet?"
"Oi! I used to like you, Jamie." Shelley hit him playfully on the arm.
Jamie leaned forward and whispered, "I finally lost it." He glanced at her and then scanned around the empty room.
Shelley's eyes opened wider with surprise. "Lost what?"
"My virginity."
"Oh, congratulations, but I'm confused. What have you been doing all this time? For months you've told me you hooked up with men. What were you doing? Just kissing?"
"Well, previously we've just been messing about. This is the first time I've had proper sex."
Shelley narrowed her eyes and lines of confusion appeared across her forehead. "Am I right in thinking, on the previous occasions you've hooked up and with your fuck buddy friend, you got each other off just using hands and mouths?"
"Yes," Jamie agreed, thinking nothing more of it. Steam billowed off the hot noodles that he mixed into the water with his fork.
"And you're saying you finally lost your virginity because for sex to happen a dick has to enter a butthole or vagina?"
When she put it like that, it dawned on him exactly what she was getting at. And he felt a lot foolish for his choice of phrase. He didn't know how to answer.
"You know that's such a patriarchal, phallocentric view of sex. Like as if it's only the real thing if a dick is involved and doing a certain act that mimics the heteronormative."
Jamie picked up his pot of instant noodles and walked to the table where Shelley had been sitting. Her half-eaten sandwich lay discarded on top of her lunch box. "You know some damned big words for a supermarket checkout wench."
She had followed him back to her seat.
Shelley rolled her eyes at the use of their in-joke. She was most definitely one of the more un-wench-like women at the branch. "The attitude behind your language is sexist. What you've been doing for the last few months with your fuck buddy and all the other guys, that sexy stuff. I'd call that sex wouldn't you?"
"Sometimes I call it sex. Sometimes I call it mucking about," Jamie said thoughtfully.
"I don't mind if you call it mucking about. Call it what it is. A hand job, a blow job, or whatever. My problem is when you say it's not sex because to me consenting adults having sexy times together that result in orgasms, that's sex. That's what I do with my wife."
Jamie didn't often think about what Shelley did with her wife, but she'd given him more detail than he required when they chatted in the past. "And I'm sorry. I honestly hadn't thought about what the term virgin meant until right now. Because, from what you've told me, you are no virgin."
"Exactly. Queen Victoria might have thought women couldn't love each other, but I've told you before, no part of a man has been in any of my holes."
"Ew."
"Yeah, you're telling me, Jamie. Perish the thought." Shelley picked up her sandwich.
"So virginity is the wrong word, then."
"Okay. Let's start the conversation again."
Shelley nodded in agreement, so Jamie continued. "I tried a new flavor out of the candy jar at the weekend, and I really liked it."
"I'm all ears for whatever you want to tell me." She bit into her food.
"I put my dick in Dylan." Jamie took a mouthful of noodles but then decided he hadn't been specific enough, so he added, with his mouth full of food. "And I don't mean his mouth."
Shelley mocked choking and let out one of her most raucous laughs. "Was it all you hoped it would be?"
"It was better than all my favorite things mixed."
"Chilli flavored tortilla chips, chocolate ice cream, and silk underwear don't actually make for an excellent combination anyway," she wisely informed him. "The way you're so smiley-face this morning at work I thought perhaps you had found yourself a boyfriend."
"No. Not quite." Jamie turned his lips down at the side.
A couple of women entered the room and sat down far from Jamie and Shelley. Even so, sound traveled around that space as if it were an amphitheater; it wasn't a place for a private sex talk, so that conversation was at an end. Nevertheless, the two women proceeded to talk intently to each other, continuing whatever discussion they were engaged in upon entering.
"Why aren't you and Dylan and item? You light up whenever you talk about him. I think you'd be the perfect couple together." Shelley leaned as close as she could to whisper in Jamie's ear. "And he is your first."
The feeling of Shelley's breath against his ear tickled and made Jamie shudder. He placed his fork down in his bowl and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment as he finished his mouthful. "Don't think I haven't thought about it because I have. A lot. The thing is, he's far away at university, and when he's finished I'm not sure he'll be coming back here."
"He's not that far away, Jamie. Is it about an hour on the train.?"
"That's not the only issue. I would say yes if he asked me. He is gorgeous. And we get on really well together. He's caring and considerate, and he makes me laugh, and we just get on well together. And we'd make an excellent couple."
"I take it from that you do fancy him?"
"God, yes, Shelley. If you saw him." Jamie exaggerated a sigh, looking off toward the ceiling with a big grin on his face. "
"So why don't you ask him?"
"I like him as a friend, and he likes me, but he doesn't fancy me, I'm not his type."
"I don't get it. I don't see why you can't be boyfriends. What am I missing?"
"Ever since I met him he's gone for that rugged, builder type. You know, the sort who can pass for straight. And then look at me." He flung his arms out wide, as if he wasn't noticeable enough.
A few more workers came in to the room, and Shelley looked at her watch. "You aren't out at home, are you?"
"No."
"See. You can pass for straight, too. When you want to."
"It's hardly the same thing. I think Dylan wants a big guy with muscles, and probably an older man."
"You know that's crazy and his loss if he doesn't see what a lovely, handsome man you are. And, more important than looks, you are lovely. If he is so shallow as to judge people by appearances, well, there's plenty more out there who would appreciate you."
Shelley looked serious as she contemplated her almost empty lunchbox. "I've got to get back to work in a minute," she said. "About these straight guys he crushes on, you know it's okay to have fantasies. Mine often involve Scarlett Johansson. Luckily Kia crushes on her too. It's our favorite threesome fantasy."
"TMI, Shelley. TMI."
"Just saying. Even if he has a type, it doesn't mean he won't like you as well. My Kia looks nothing like Scarlett Johansson, unfortunately..." Shelley closed up her lunch box and stood up to leave. But then sat down again.
"Do you remember the guy on the health and safety training course that we went on a few months ago?"
"Any guy in particular? I seem to remember quite a few?"
"You'd remember him. He's family. Perry, his name's Perry. You must remember. He was so sweet on our training course. He's intelligent and charming and would look good on your arm."
"The flamboyant side of the family. I do remember." Jamie remembered exactly who she was talking about. You can't always tell by looking, but if you could tell, Perry was one of those men who looked gay. If Jamie wasn't Dylan's type, Perry most certainly wasn't. He was as camp as a Christmas pantomime.
"Well, he's being transferred to our store. I don't know when he starts, but soon. I could picture you and him together."
"Really?" And Perry was also cute. Jamie remembered that too.
"Yep. For once you'd totally be the butch one. And in the run up to Christmas, you'll be thrown together in here with lots of overtime and no days off. Plenty of opportunities to bag a new man in time for the new year."
Shelley pushed her chair back and stood up to leave again. "Enjoy the rest of your breakfast." They were both on an early shift. Hence it felt that they'd been up half the day, although it was still relatively early morning for most people.
"Will do."
Shelley stepped away from the table as if to leave and then turned around and added, "Don't waste your time on men who don't appreciate you. Find someone who will love you for who you are." She winked and rushed out of the staffroom.