“I’m right here, you know,” Christy said under her breath.
“Hey,” I said waspishly, “do you wanna explain this?”
“No.”
“All right. Then quit being huffy. It’s taken me almost a year to figure this out. Wren doesn’t wanna wait that long.”
“So… what’re you saying?” Wren asked. “She’ll have sex with you and me, and any other woman, but not Trip? And not any other guy?”
“Technically, yes. But not in reality. It’s a problem of semantics. Blowjobs aren’t sex.”
“Of course they are! Oh, wait… I get it. Not the way she sees things. You mean she’ll blow him, but her pussy’s off-limits?”
“More or less.”
“Well, I don’t want her to sully herself or break any sacred vows.”
“Wren, please,” Christy begged. “Do you think I want to be like this? My life’d be so much easier if I’d just spread my legs for anyone. But I can’t! I want to, but… I can’t.”
Wren sat back, and the fight went out of her. “Yeah, I know. I guess I’ve known all along. I should’ve figured it out when you wouldn’t have sex with Paul. I pushed and pushed and pushed, but you wouldn’t budge.”
“And… I don’t think she realizes this herself,” I added with a sideways glance, “but she wouldn’t sleep with me until we started talking marriage.”
“That isn’t true!” Christy objected.
“Yeah, it is,” I told her calmly. “Think about it.”
She did her best scowl, but I stood my ground.
Wren thought back and nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re right. She was the same with Simon. What a loser.” She rolled her eyes but continued, “She wouldn’t go all the way until he proposed. I thought she was crazy, but I guess she was horny—”
“I was not!”
“—so she used it as an excuse.”
“Probably,” I agreed.
“Hello?” Christy said peevishly. She waved to get our attention. “Right here.”
Wren and I ignored her.
“We used to talk about guys all the time,” Wren continued. “What we wanted to do with them. She wanted to blow ’em all. Like, for real. This cute guy on the swim team, a guy we knew from Astronomy class, you. It didn’t matter. She was goofy about it. But you’re right, she never talked about going all the way.”
Christy glowered. “Still here.”
“Oh, sweetheart!” Wren laughed. “We know. You’re hard to miss, especially when you’re trying to look hurt.”
“I am not trying to look hurt.”
“Then what would you call it?” Wren laughed again. “At least I understand now.”
“Took you long enough,” Christy grumbled.
“Be nice,” I told her. “She isn’t Catholic and doesn’t think like you.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Wren.”
“It’s all right, my love. But what am I supposed to tell Trip? He thinks you don’t like him.”
“I like him fine. When he isn’t being a jerk.”
“What do you expect?” Wren said frostily. “You give him the cold shoulder and treat him like he’s radioactive or something. I’m mixing my metaphors, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Christy admitted. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. Only, he acts like I should swoon or something.”
“Well, you should,” Wren told her. “He’s a great guy. He isn’t all touchy-feely like Paul, but he still has feelings. And you hurt them.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. But… what am I supposed to do? I can’t have sex with him, but I don’t want to tease him. He… doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be happy with just a blowjob.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” Wren said. Then she thought of something and said to me, “You remember my friend Colleen?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, a little too quickly.
“Oh?” Christy wondered aloud.
“She was very… um… memorable.” I pictured her gravity-defying breasts but decided to keep that description to myself. “And very open-minded.”
“Of course,” Christy said sweetly. “I’m sure you were just imagining her, ahem, ‘open mind.’”
“Guilty as charged.”
“She’s really sweet,” Wren said to Christy. “One of my friends from high school. I tried to set her up with Paul, but…” She shrugged. “Anyway, that isn’t the point. She spent the night with Trip and me a couple of times last summer. She only blew him, but he never complained.”
Because he wasn’t stupid. No guy in his right mind would’ve complained, but I knew better than to mention it.
“Oh, okay,” Christy said.
“At least now I know what the problem is,” Wren continued. “So I can figure out how to fix it. Are you sure you don’t want to—?”
“I’m sure. Sorry.”
“Yeah, that’s okay. I thought I’d ask.”
“Hold on,” I laughed. “You never gave up that easily when I said no.”
“That’s because you’re a man. Men don’t know what they want until we tell them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Christy knows what I’m talking about.”
“Oh, she does, does she?”
“Of course. She told you, didn’t she?”
Christy herself took a sudden interest in her napkin.
“Yeah!” I laughed. “I believe she did.”
* * *
“Are you upset?” Christy asked later that evening.
I climbed into bed and slid an arm around her. “About what?”
“That I don’t want to have sex with other men? Even if that means I can’t be a swinger?”
“Not really. Besides, you and I get to decide what ‘being a swinger’ means.”
She relaxed with a sigh, and I realized she’d been holding her breath.
“What would you have done if I had been upset?” I asked.
“I… don’t know.”
“Would you have tried to have sex with another man?”
“I’ve thought about it. And I really wanted to, but… no, probably not. I’m sorry.” She raised her head and looked at me. “I’ll do just about anything else to make you happy, but… not that. I can’t. And I can’t explain it, which is really annoying.”
I chuckled.
“I’m glad one of us thinks this is funny.”
“No, I’m laughing because you hate when you can’t do something.”
“Especially when it’s all in my stupid head. I don’t think you understand what it’s like, how I was raised,” she complained.
“What? To be from a family of overachievers who expect you to do anything you set your mind to?”
“Exactly.”
“You think my family didn’t set high expectations for me?”
“Not like mine do,” she said.
I chose not to argue.
“Thank you,” she said, as if my silence were agreement. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
“Is there any other way to see it?” I teased.
“I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t going to work.”
“Mmm.”
“Sometimes I don’t like you very much.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Ugh!” She fell silent and pretended to sulk.
I gave her a minute and then returned to the original subject.
“No, I’m not upset. So what? You don’t want to be a swinger. Not like my parents, at least. We’ll figure it out.”
“Thank you. Only, I sort of do,” she said. “Want to be like your parents. Well, your mother. Do you remember telling me about what she did? With other guys at camp, I mean. And couples who thought they wanted to try swinging.”
“What? She sucked them off?”
“Exactly.” Christy sat up, and her pale blue eyes glowed with the fire of enthusiasm. “I could be the first test or something. You know how I get, especially when I’m giving head. And if the woman’s okay to watch that, then she’d be fine watching her guy have sex with another woman.”