Once in a Lifetime by Suzanne Mattaboni

Author:Suzanne Mattaboni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TouchPoint Press

I pull his Femmes T-shirt over my head. It snakes down my torso as I step barefoot toward the hallway bathroom. In the process, I mentally tiptoe through a slow fermentation of guilt. I made Drew wait months for a moment like this. Not three dates. The disparity between being 17 and being 20 is more jarring than I anticipated. Like hurtling myself across the Grand Canyon.

I wonder if sexual permissiveness just naturally skyrockets as we move toward this adulthood thing. And if this is why Whit was literally counting dates with me. Because a certain amount of dates lead to sex.

I pass a bedroom filled up by an iridescent drum kit, copper cymbals hanging over an unmade mattress on the floor. The next bedroom has a full bed in it, with a tufted comforter and a respectable-looking dresser. Whit could have invited me into this room, but he didn’t. We stayed on his living room floor.

The porcelain in the bathroom is actually clean, not some spectrum of grays that need to be scrubbed away to reveal white. Did he scour the place before he invited me, or is he just not gross?

I lock the bathroom door and peel down black lace underwear that I inadvertently put back on inside-out. The fabric clings to my body a little too enthusiastically. Hmmm.

I rest a foot on the tub, reaching for the places where he had so nicely been playing.

My finger hits something that is not me.

I contort myself to view a region of my body that I otherwise have no desire to see. As aesthetic as the female form can be, this section of our anatomy could pass for a pile of fish bait if you ask me.

I glimpse a vibrant blob of pink, a color that no woman has ever been in real life. When I pull it, I feel distinct, tiny pinches of pain as it lifts from my skin.

“Oh, Holy God!”

I shuffle backward, whacking an elbow against the papered wall. A bottle of Nivea topples from a shelf behind me and clunks to the floor, its push-spout clogged with yellow gook.

Whit calls from the living room. “You good in there?”

“Not exactly.”

I swing open the door. Whit’s at the end of the hall, hopping into a pair of sweats.

I root myself in the rectangle of the hallway, hands on my hips. I imagine myself lit by the brazen white glare of the bathroom fixture. Scary Sister.

I raise a harsh eyebrow. “Ahem. This is a good one.”

His collared shirt is flung over one shoulder. His chest is still bare. He shakes his head at me.

“Are you missing something?” I ask him.

Whit stuffs an arm into his shirt and pulls the fabric up his back. He shrugs. “Are you gonna make me guess?”

“Gum!” I say.

His eyes search the ceiling, hair riding in front of his eyes.

“You were chewing gum?” I exclaim. “Do you realize where you frigging left it?”

Whit wipes his palms on the corner of his unbuttoned shirt and stumbles toward the aluminum garbage can next to his construction-yard desk.

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