The Friends List Ch. 07

"Fine," she finally said softly. "I'll start at the beginning."

I reached over and put my hand on her leg gently before pulling it back, and smiled at her. She smiled back before taking a sip of her coffee.

"Take your time," I encouraged. I was happy she still trusted me.

"As you know," she began, "I slept around in the fall. I never told you the details because it was none of your business, and I appreciate your being not at all jealous about that. But I'm going to give you some necessary background. In September and October I had a bunch of sex with a bunch of different guys, and if sex with you was a 10 out of 10, everyone else except Jacob was a 5 at best.

"I fucked a guy who busted after 90 seconds and then walked out on me without getting me off, even after I swallowed my pride and directly asked him to. I had a guy who got offended when I showed him how I liked to be touched and said he didn't need the help, even though what he was doing was borderline hurting me. Another guy tried to choke me without asking, and it scared the hell out of me.

"I also slept with a few guys who were just... I don't know, mediocre. Like the sex was fine, but it didn't knock my socks off. Some guys you could tell had watched way too much porn and had no idea how to connect with a real woman. Sometimes I'd cum, sometimes I wouldn't, but I never felt that connection with anyone else that I had with you, and I never met another guy who was even half as good as you are."

I allowed myself to feel smug. "Thank you for the compliment. Can I ask if you committed floorcest?"

Sam laughed for the first time since she'd picked me up. "I didn't! You should be proud of me. I wanted to during O-Week. There's a guy on my floor who's super hot, and we were flirting up a storm one night, but I couldn't get your warning out of my head and I turned him down. And I'm so glad I did. You were right to warn me to avoid the awkwardness."

"You're welcome. And I'm sorry that an experience you were so much looking forward to wasn't what you expected."

"Yeah, me too, but whatever. I learned a lot from it. But anyway, Jacob. He's in a couple of my classes, and he's really intelligent. I loved hearing his insights in tutorial from the beginning of the semester, but for the first couple of months I hadn't ever talked to him one on one. Then we had a study session together back in November before midterms, and he asked me out on a date. He was a gentleman - he paid for dinner, he held doors for me. He didn't try to sleep with me, even though I would have if he'd made a move.

"The date ended with a kiss goodnight at my dorm, and I went to sleep, for the first time since starting university, feeling like I wanted more. Not just sex, but I wanted to know more about this guy. I wanted to see him again. I felt like I'd been on a date the way you would in high school, and it made me realize that I totally missed out on that life experience.

"If you're a virgin, I think guys respect that, and they generally don't try to push the envelope too much. But once you've had sex, they expect if they stick around long enough, you'll have sex with them, too. My loss of virginity was terrible, like you've heard about, and I like sex, but it sucks having men expect things of you without regard to whether that's what you want or not. It was really refreshing to be with a guy who wanted to take it slow. Just like with you, him not trying to push me into sex made me really want to."

"That makes sense."

"I think I really fell in love with the idea of 'having a boyfriend'. I kept hooking up with you, obviously, but that was just sex. It was hot, fantastic, sweaty, mind-blowing sex, but it didn't mean anything. Jacob was dating the way it's supposed to be, the way I imagined Barbie and Ken doing when I was growing up. And before Christmas, when he asked me to go exclusive and be his girlfriend, I wanted that. Being with him made me realize that I'd missed out on dating, and with him, I finally got to have it."

"Sure," I agreed. "I'd have felt like I missed out, too, if I hadn't had that. Once you're older, sex isn't a big deal anymore, but you skipped right to the end too fast and missed the experience of climbing that mountain with someone. You just got helicoptered to the summit."

"Exactly. Anyway. We finally slept together on the fifth or sixth date, and it wasn't as electric as it is with you, but it was still really good, like way better than any of the guys I'd casually hooked up with. He wanted me to be his girlfriend, and I wanted that too. I hadn't ever gotten to be anyone's girlfriend before, and despite where my head was over the summer, the novelty of having sex with a bunch of men wore off so damned fast that settling down seemed like a good idea at the time. That was the headspace I was in before Christmas."

"That makes sense. What happened next?"

"Nothing. Jacob was, and is, a good, respectful, intelligent guy. But he's..."

I waited, letting her find her words.

"He doesn't excite me. We agree on almost everything. We're into the same causes and stuff, and he's really smart, he's cute, but I don't get anything more out of the relationship than that. I kept comparing him in my head, not just to you, but to my girlfriends. I compare him to Vanessa calling me a 'dumb bitch' in a loving way when she disagrees with me; to Kirsten being the most sympathetic ear and best friend in the world, but never letting me get away with being lazy or unmotivated.

"The best people in my life push me, not in the overly critical way my parents do, but with love behind it. You do that for me, too. Jacob was never going to challenge me. I'm his first serious girlfriend, and a lot of the time, he acted like he was so grateful to have a girlfriend that he'd agree with whatever I wanted."

"Was he a virgin?" I asked. "I know that's a common mistake from inexperienced guys, particularly when they've never had a girlfriend before."

"He had a girlfriend in high school, but I was his second. At first, I figured he was just insecure, but he became a different person when we got together, and all the things I liked about him slowly started drying up as he tried to become what he thought I wanted him to be, instead of just being himself. I guess I just lost interest when he lost what was genuine about him. And..." She suddenly cut herself off, and I could see her blushing slightly.

"What?" I asked.

"I shouldn't tell you."

"I'm not going to insist that you do, but I'm happy to listen to whatever you want to tell me."

She looked conflicted, turning something over in her head for quite a while, before finally opening her mouth.

"I think Jacob's sex drive is well below average for a man."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, I could happily have sex every single day, and he'd be fine with once a week or less. I never really thought much about my libido before, since you always seemed to be able to keep up with me. When Jacob and I did have sex, it was almost always good, but he didn't want it all that often. Sometimes we'd end a date with me practically throwing myself at him, and him not even noticing; he'd just kiss me goodnight and that would be that. It made me feel awful. Aren't guys supposed to be hornier than girls? What's wrong with me when my boyfriend doesn't want me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you! And there's probably nothing wrong with him, either. You just don't sync up. It happens."

"Do you think I have a high libido?" she blurted out.

"In comparison to what?"

"To other girls you've been with. I'm asking because I don't know what's normal, and being with him has me second-guessing myself in a way I haven't before."

I thought back to the past semester, all the late night sexting, the number of times I'd lost track of how many orgasms she'd had when I'd fucked her, the fact that I sometimes struggled to keep up with her desire. "Yes, I'd say you have a high libido, but..."

"I thought so," she interrupted. "Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"No! Some people are naturally higher than others. I loved trying to satisfy you."

"How do I compare to other girls you've been with?"

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

I thought for a moment. "You'd be the highest. But you and I also never got past the honeymoon phase where you're fucking all the time, either, so I don't know if it would have stayed like that long term."

"It would have," Sam laughed. "If I'm hornier than the average girl, then it is what it is. I mostly don't feel guilt or shame about it anymore, at least, not like I used to. It's just socially isolating being a girl sometimes. My friends and I talk openly about a lot of things, but not this one."

"Why not?"

"Embarrassment, I guess. Like we're pressured from puberty not to show any signs of being horny, even though of course we all are. It's a little different now that we're all adults; like, we've recommended vibrators to each other and stuff, and we've had drunken oversharing nights and played 'Never Have I Ever'. I know the girls in my life aren't secretly judging me for my sexuality.

"But even though it's not scandalous anymore to talk about a lot of sexual stuff among close friends, it's still not socially acceptable to message the group chat that you just masturbated for the fifth time today. I still sometimes wondered whether I was fully normal, and feeling like I was pressuring Jacob to fuck me every time we hung out made some of those old insecurities come back."

"I think you're normal, and I think he is, too. Some people just aren't physically compatible with each other."

Sam nodded, but said nothing. We drove in silence for a bit.

"That's not why you broke up, though," I guessed.

"It was a factor, but it wasn't the main one," she agreed.

"What happened?"

Sam took a long drink of her coffee, finishing it. "My parents have always played my brother and sister and I off each other. Bryan is a genius, but he's a rebellious bad boy. I'm a good girl at heart, but I don't agree with them on anything, and they complain about my attitude because I don't just knuckle under and be what they want me to be or think how they want me to think. Leah is friendly and agreeable, but she's an underachiever and a burnout.

"So when we were younger, and up to the present, Bryan gets, 'Why can't you behave yourself like your sisters?' I get 'Why can't you forget about those silly ideas and use your talents for something useful like Bryan and Leah?' And Leah gets 'Why can't you work hard and get better grades like Bryan and Samantha?'"

"That sounds awful."

"It is. Bryan rebelled in part by sleeping around with a bunch of Gentile girls, and to this day he's still never dated a Jew. My parents hate his long-term girlfriend just for being who she is, even though she's a sweetheart and really good for him."

"That's really sad."

"As for Leah..."

"Was she high when she was up here visiting?" I interrupted.

"She's a huge stoner. You'd think my Dad, being a doctor, would notice, wouldn't you?" Sam laughed resignedly. "I've just tried to deal with the pressure by doing the best I can and trying not to let them get to me too much.

"So anyway, the beginning of the end was the last day I saw you, when my family was up for a visit. That was the day that my parents fell in love with him at first sight, when they realized his dad and my dad were college buddies. I was terrified to introduce them, but to my shock, they both loved him from the moment they saw him. Jacob is not just Jewish but conservative Jewish, intellectual, from a good family, and by the end of that lunch visit they were already referring to him as their 'son-in-law'."

"Is that good?"

"You'd think that finally having my parents' approval for about the first time in my life would be a good thing, wouldn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "But my God, I got their acceptance and I panicked. I spent the rest of that visit freaking out about it, which is probably why I seemed so off when you ran into us that day.

"Right after they left that night, I wanted to talk to you about all this, and I would have texted you anyway if you hadn't messaged me first. But you came over, and instead, once I saw you, I realized that magnetic attraction between us hadn't gone anywhere. I suddenly didn't want to talk anymore, I just wanted to get drunk and fuck your brains out.

"I never said this at the time, so thank you for being a gentleman about it and keeping me from cheating on Jacob. I really do appreciate it. I was in a really weird and vulnerable place that night and you didn't take advantage of me. Once again, you keep proving you're a good guy."

She offered her hand, and I gave it a squeeze as she smiled at me.

"That was the beginning of the end for Jacob. For me, being the girl who's never, ever had her parents' approval, getting it on something like that made me want to run away from it. If they like him, how can I trust that he's right for me? They've never liked any of my friends or respected any of my decisions.

"Even Kirsten, who's been my best friend and non-romantic soulmate since high school, they've never given time of day towards, simply because she's German. And I get it, we're Jews, we have ancestors who were murdered in the concentration camps, but Kirsten's grandfather was an anti-fascist who had to flee Germany during the war because the Nazis were out to get him. If anyone gets a pass on the sins of their ancestry, it's her. But none of that matters to them.

"I was already having doubts about Jacob, and then that day ramped the doubts up several notches. After that, all I could see when we hung out was that it was like dating my Dad. I finally talked to Kirsten earlier this week about it, and then I broke up with him a couple of nights ago."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"I'm sure you are."

"I mean it," I insisted. "I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy with me, obviously, but if being with him was right for you, then I wanted that for you."

"Well, thank you." Sam shrugged. "What's done is done. I don't regret the life experience. He's a really good guy, but he's not for me."

"Do you think you were subconsciously looking for your parents' approval by dating him?"

"Kirsten asked me the same question, and the only answer I have is 'I don't know.' It would make a certain amount of sense. But also, he's the marrying type, and even if I someday wind up settling down with a guy like him, I'm 19 and I've had one boyfriend in my life. I'm so not ready to settle down. My parents were pushing too hard, too fast, even after the first day meeting him. All I had to hear for the next month was questions about him, about when I was coming down to visit with him, etc. It's hard knowing that they liked him way more than they like me."

If she hadn't been driving, I'd have reached over and hugged her. My heart bled for this beautiful girl who seemed like she had it all, except for the unconditional love and support from family that I'd spent my life taking for granted. "That's so sad. Have you told them you've broken up with him?"

"Not yet. That'll make the next week fun, huh?" She smiled resignedly.

"And how did he take it?"

"He was devastated. I still feel like such an asshole for breaking his heart."

"It's not being an asshole to put yourself first," I pointed out.

"I've never put myself first. I wouldn't even know how to."

"That makes me sad." I noticed a stray strand of hair had fallen in her eyes, and I gently reached over and brushed it behind her ear. She glanced over at me, half-smiled, then focused back on the road.

"Anyway," she continued, "I would have been happy to go back to being fuck-buddies again with you now that I'm single, but you had to go and confess you've got feelings for me, which means this won't be just meaningless sex anymore. I couldn't do that to you. I can't break anyone else's heart."

"You confessed you had feelings for me too, if I remember correctly," I pointed out.

Sam said nothing, but her body visibly tensed in the driver's seat.

"If we like each other, then what's holding you back?"

"I already told you, a month ago."

"So if I hadn't had a drunken hookup with Laura almost a year ago, you'd say yes?"

Sam scoffed. "I don't give a shit about that and you know it. It's the collective weight of you fucking all of them."

"You didn't seem to care before Christmas."

"That was before. When it was just sex, I didn't care that you had experience. I learned pretty quickly that not every guy knows how a pussy works, so the fact you knew what you were doing was a good thing. I didn't care where you learned, because it benefited me. I also liked that you weren't trying to control me when I was slutting my way around campus last fall. I knew you were fucking other girls, too, and I didn't have any jealousy about that. That would have made me a hypocrite. But then you had to go and have sex with Natalie."

"After you ended things between us? That time?"

"I still had feelings for you," she said quietly.

I turned to face her. "I didn't know that at the time. If I had, I wouldn't have done it. I was going to confess to you that last night we were together that I liked you, but instead you told me about Jacob."

"Oh. I see." Sam breathed heavily. I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"Why did Natalie bother you so much?" I asked.

Sam sat focused on the road for a long time. Finally, she spoke. "Because I really liked you. Because I thought we had something special together, even though I was trying to convince myself it wasn't there. I didn't care about your past, even your recent past. I didn't love that you'd been with my best friend and some other girls I knew, but it would have been hypocritical of me to be upset about it when I was sleeping around just as much as you were.

"But the idea you just moved on to the next girl in line after we were done really bothered me, especially when the next girl in line is another one of my close friends. It still does bother me. If I'd found out you'd slept with some rando on my floor while I was with Jacob, I couldn't have cared less. But when it was Natalie, it really made me feel like I was just another conquest for you. Like you're getting some sort of perverse satisfaction out of fucking every girl your sister knows."

"That was never my intention," I insisted. "But nevertheless, I apologize for sleeping with Natalie. If I'd known my feelings for you were reciprocated, I never would have done it. Sleeping with her was at least partly a rebound for me, trying to move on from having feelings for a girl who was taken, and whom I thought didn't like me the way I liked her."

"Thank you. I can see why it happened, and I accept your apology. But I don't know where that leaves us. When I show up with you on my arm, everyone in the room will think that I'm girl number four, the one who fell in love with the village bicycle. Everyone's had a ride, but I'm the dumb bitch who took it home with me."

"Everyone will think that?" I asked. "Even Kirsten, who's a total sweetheart who doesn't have a judgmental bone in her body? Or what about Vanessa? She slept with your brother! She's in no place to judge, and I don't think she would anyway. I talked to her about us. She said she'd be happy if we wound up together."

Sam stared daggers at the car in front of us on the highway, barely moving. Finally, she glanced over at me. "I'm sorry, Peter, I can't focus on two things at once. Can we pull over somewhere if we're going to have this conversation?"

"Of course."

The next exit was Wesleyville Road, just outside Newcastle. Sam guided the car down a country road, headed south towards Lake Ontario. Ours were the only tracks being laid in an inch or so of fresh snow. In the distance was a massive factory of some kind that appeared to be shut down, and this exit clearly didn't otherwise seem to get a lot of business.