Chapter Seventeen
Marshall
I didn’t get much sleep that night. I spent hours in bed scrolling through Twitter trying hard to forget the look on her face as she knelt on the floor clutching her dress to her breasts and asked me to leave.
We had been doing so well up until that moment. I must have been a horrible judge of other people’s feelings because I thought she was enjoying our time together as much as I was. The memory of her body against mine was a kind of torture. I had wanted her so badly, had almost had her, and then at the last moment, she had slipped through my grasp, leaving me hungrier than ever and groaning with desire unsatisfied.
“I know you think you’re an excellent lover,” said Sean, “but you must have done something to upset her. How far did you get before she puts the brakes on it?”
“We had just made it to second base… I think? Is that the base for groping and petting?”
“That’s the one. So, it stands to reason that she didn’t like the way you were touching her. There could be a number of reasons why. Maybe you were too firm. Sometimes I don’t think you know your own strength. Maybe you weren’t moving fast enough, and she got bored.”
“I don’t think that was it,” I said defensively.
Sean shrugged. “Well, until I see the footage, I can’t tell you one way or the other.”
“I’m not showing you the footage, Sean.”
We were out fishing again in a boat on the middle of Lake Marion. It was a cloudy and overcast morning with a light wind stirring the elms on the far bank. The fish must have sensed that there was a storm coming, for they had made themselves scarce. So far, I hadn’t felt so much as a single tug on my line.
I had awoken that morning feeling miserable and hopeless. It had taken me a minute to remember why, but then the events of last night came flooding back into my memory with a scalding clarity. Not wanting to spend the rest of the day sulking in despair, I had texted Sean and asked if he wanted to go fishing. He never responded, and I was in the middle of drafting a second text chewing him out for ignoring me when I heard a sharp knock at the door. Sean stood there in full fishing gear, beaming eagerly.
On the way to the lake, I had brought him up to speed on my date with Lori.
“How did she seem during dinner?” he asked, leaning forward and pulling a beer out of the cooler. “Did you get the sense that she was happy to be there or was she checking her phone a lot?”
“I’ll be honest: I think she enjoyed the date a lot more than she was expecting. We spent about an hour talking about our favorite music. I know what you’re going to say; I know you think I’m making it up, but she really enjoyed our conversation, and as the night wore on she got more and more relaxed.”
Sean raised his hands in the air. “I never said you were making it up. You do seem a little defensive, but I guess that’s to be expected. What makes you think she was enjoying herself?”
“She just was. At one point she brought out her phone and started showing me pictures of her books.”
“Hmmm.” Sean stroked his chin thoughtfully. “See, if a girl did that to me, I would think she was bored and just looking for a way to entertain herself. Or she was nervous and didn’t know what else to do.”
No matter how hard I tried, there was no convincing Sean that Lori had behaved irrationally. He felt sure I must have done something to offend her or she wouldn’t have stormed off. “Okay, so she was bored and frightened. Fantastic.”
“I’m not saying she was, but those are the actions of a woman who feels out of her depth. Anyway, it would help if you explained a bit more what you did with her when you got back to the shop.”
Sean had been angling for a sexual play-by-play ever since I informed him that we had made out. “I’m not going into any more detail than what I already told you, you creep. There was some smooching and petting. That was about the extent of it. And then, right at the moment when I finally got her out of her dress, she got scared and showed me to the door.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem like there was much mystery about it.” He took a sip of his beer and looked out over the dark water. “She was fine making out with you, but didn’t want to have sex for whatever reason and thought the relationship was moving too fast. You ought to have waited at least two more dates.”
“Why, though?” I moaned. “It really seemed like she was into me.”
“She probably just didn’t know how to say no. I bet there were clues that she was feeling uneasy about it that you didn’t pick up on because you were so eager to get it on.”
“Do you really think I may have escalated things too quickly?”
“Probably. I don’t know. You’ve known each other for about a week, and you’ve been on one date, which in the back of her head she probably thinks you tricked her into going on. I’m not saying that’s the truth, but that’s how she sees it. And in my long and varied experience with women, I can tell you there are some girls who will never have sex on the first date because they want you to prove that you care about them and not just their bodies. If you look too eager to get into her pants, she’s going to assume that’s all you care about.”
“But that wasn’t the case. She had a fantastic body, of course, but that wasn’t why I wanted to sleep with her. I liked her.”
“I know,” said Sean, raising one hand as though motioning for me to calm down. “I’m not saying any of this is the truth. I’m saying that’s her perception, and when it comes to dating, perception is just as important as facts.”