What She Found in the Woods

He laughs, and I love the way his laugh feels when I have my legs wrapped around him.

‘Good,’ he says.

He kisses me and lowers us gently down to the ground. He’s so strong. Like, gorilla strong, but he keeps it all in check. He slows himself, steadies himself, forces his hands to be gentler. I feel precious under him.

He suddenly pulls back.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Have you had boyfriends?’ he asks with a frown.

I know this is going to hurt him, but it’s better we just get this over with. In this, at least, I’m going to be honest from the start. So many things I’m withholding already. But this I will tell him. No matter what.

‘Tons,’ I admit.

Words catch in his throat. ‘How many?’ he finally asks.

‘I honestly don’t remember, but pretty much a different boyfriend every month or so. Sometimes if he didn’t bother me too much, I’d date him for longer, but they always started to bother me. I’ve never dated a guy longer than three months. I started dating five years ago, so . . .’ I calculate fast. ‘I’d say I’ve dated about twenty guys. And I’ve kissed a couple of girls. My friend Mila kissed me just yesterday, but I stopped her before it got real.’

Bo sits up. He’s chalk white, and it looks like he’s going to be sick.

‘OK. Ask me,’ I say.

‘Ask you what?’

I sit up. ‘Ask me if I ever gave a shit about any of the boys I’ve dated.’

He looks confused and overwhelmed. ‘Did you ever—’

‘No.’ He’s looking better, but still unwell. ‘Ask me if I ever had sex with any of them.’

He roils with discomfort, shifting this way and that with no idea which way to look.

‘No,’ I say, answering the question he can’t bring himself to ask. ‘I barely let any of them touch me because I’ve never wanted anyone to touch me before I met you.’

I mean, I touched them – of course. Something physical has to happen or you aren’t really dating, but Bo doesn’t ever need to know that. It doesn’t matter anyway because it’s not like I ever even registered it. The truth is, no guy before Bo has ever touched me, inside or out.

‘So think of it this way,’ I continue, ‘there are twenty guys out there who never saw me make an ass of myself running through a freezing cold river to jump into their arms.’

He looks down, flattered, but still troubled. ‘But why did you date them if you didn’t want them?’ he asks.

‘Politics.’ I laugh at the dumbstruck look on his face. ‘Not politics like you know them,’ I amend, thinking of his radical Leftist family. ‘High school politics.’

‘I have no idea what that means,’ he tells me.

I lean forward until my face is barely an inch from his. ‘I know,’ I say. And I kiss him. I push him on to his back and climb on top of him.

After a very long time, Bo mumbles, ‘My mother,’ around my lips.

I prop myself up over him. ‘Just a tip. Mentioning your mother while you’re making out with someone is never a good idea.’

He smiles up at me, holding my hair back with his hands. ‘I was supposed to bring you home with me today. My mother is expecting us for dinner.’

I look up at the canopy, but with no sun and only filtered light to go by, of course I can’t tell what time it is. ‘Can we still make it?’ I ask him, because I know he can tell what time it is.

‘Yeah,’ he replies. An anxious look crosses his face. ‘If you still want to go.’

I stand up. ‘Definitely,’ I say.