10
Maddie
“How many weeks is it now?” Delores asked. She was constantly nosing around for information about my relationship with Luke. I wasn’t sure if it was a living vicariously thing or a gossipy habit thing, but it was definitely a thing.
A woman named Wanda, whose hair I had cut twice, was in my chair. Wanda was the kind of woman that wore a lot of lipstick and had good intentions but might not always live up to them. She asked, “Are you two talking about Luke Morgan? That’s who you're dating. Right, Maddie?”
This town. I had no doubt that Wanda was one hundred percent certain that Luke was my man. We had been dating for exactly one month today, and everyone in town seemed to know that we were together, but to me, they all pretend like they might have heard something about it.
I smiled, “Yes. I’m dating Luke.” Then, I grasped a chunk of her hair, lined it up with my comb, and prepared to cut.
“He sure is a looker,” Wanda said. “All those Morgan boys are so handsome.”
“That is the truth,” Delores echoed.
“I bet he’s more than looks,” Wanda hinted, trying to imply that Luke was good in bed. “When I was a teenager, I happened to see Bill Morgan lose his trunks at the swimming hole. Wyatt played a prank on him. All I can say is that boy was packing some heat, if you know what I mean.”
Delores laughed. She was resting in one of the hairdryer seats. She had a magazine on her lap and looked a little tired. It had been a long day. “That wasn’t exactly subtle, Wanda. We all know what you mean.”
I said nothing. Admittedly, I certainly had a stronger familiarity with Luke’s assets than either of these women, but honestly, even though we started out all hot and heavy, we’d been taking it really slow. I mean, I’ve touched it, and for sure, my man was working with some serious equipment. But the day after our first date, we sat down and had a long discussion about the emotional versus the physical. Luke said he’d been out on the ranch thinking about me coming on his fingers and he was struck by the reality that he wanted to savor each phase of our sexual exploration. It sounded insane to me. What guy wants to wait for any reason other than maybe the belief in no sex before marriage? But the more he talked about it, the more I got what he was trying to say to me.
He said, “Obviously, neither one of us are virgins, right?”
I smirked but nodded. We were sitting in my kitchen eating Chinese food out of the cartons.
“Okay, well do you agree that there was something magical about the sexual experiences you had before you had sex? All the hot and heavy making out?”
“Of course, but sex is good too.”
“No doubt,” he said, implying my point was obvious with his tone.
“But, ugh. How do I explain this?” He paused, his eyes rolling up as he tried to put his thoughts together. “I don’t just want to get into a routine where we take off our clothes and flop into bed, hump, and go to sleep. I want to learn how to make each other crazy. I want to know everything there is to know about your body before I slip inside you, Maddie. It’s like there is this other plane of sex, not just crazy lust-fueled fucking, which honestly, a part of me is dying to jump into, but I want more than that with you. I want to be the best you’ve ever had, and I’m a realist so that’s gonna take work and knowledge. I want us to learn each other's rhythms before we bang. This is insane. I’m being insane, right?”
It was actually totally hot. “Not insane exactly. What are we talking about here? A week? A month? A year? Or just by ear?”
“How about until we can’t stand it anymore?”
“So, by ear then,” I quipped.
He laughed. And that was pretty much the deal since then.
A part of me wanted to spill all of this to Wanda and Delores. I wanted to tell them that he was a genius. That his idea to wait and play sexual explorers had my heart racing with desire all day. If he sent me a text message that said, “Hi,” I was instantly wet. Every touch was burned into my memory and I thought about being sexy with him all day long. But I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t need everyone in town knowing that Luke Morgan was by far the sexiest man I’d even been with and I hadn’t even been with him yet.
“Not gonna give us even a tiny taste, are you, Maddie?” Delores asked.
“Nope.” I set up another section of Wanda’s hair, “But I will tell you we have a date tonight.”
“Talk is,” Wanda offered. “That you two are pretty serious.” She, like all my other clients, was just prodding me, seeing if she could be the one to crack the surface and get the details they all wanted to throw around at their book clubs, sewing circles, and church luncheons.
I smiled at her, making it look like I was just holding my cards close to my chest, but she was right. It felt serious. Except, I knew what Luke didn’t know… that I couldn’t have babies. I had to talk to him about it. I had started waking up at night, when he was there and when he wasn’t, terrified that once he knew I was barren, it would all be over. A part of me knew that it should be. A man as good as Luke deserved to raise children. The world needed children raised by people like Luke. Men and women with love to give. People nothing like my parents.
“Cathy Higgins. You know her, don’t you, Maddie? She told me last week that she has never seen Luke so twisted up in knots about a woman and she’s known him since pre-school.”
Wanda had also known Luke since pre-school. Considering she’d pretended that she wasn’t certain who I was dating five minutes earlier, I wasn’t too surprised that she’d been discussing my relationship with Cathy Higgins.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Leave her alone, Wanda. Just because your life is uninspired at the moment doesn’t mean you can get her to tell you her secrets.” Delores was protecting me, she usually jumped in about this time in a conversation about Luke and me.
“Aww, pshaw, you’re only saying that because you probably know more details than the rest of us.”
“Nope,” Delores opened the magazine on her lap. “She keeps her daydreams close and her reality closer. It’s what I like most about her.”
So, yes, Delores was nosey, but she was also the best.
* * *