Page 19 of Not So Goode

“God, you sound like Mother.”

“Why thank you.”

“Considering you’re twenty-four, I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” She slung her purse over her elbow. “Come on. Let’s hit the road.” And so we left the restaurant, stretching in the sunshine with the towers of Chicago all around us. “You want to just walk a little bit?” Lexie suggested.

“Sure,” I said. “Stretch our legs, maybe hit a couple stores.”

And so we passed most of the day—shopping, walking, talking about anything but our messed-up lives. She told me stories about her various college escapades, I told her funny and embarrassing tidbits about Glen—such as how he once made an appointment for a massage, not realizing it was actually an illicit “happy endings” massage parlor slash prostitution front. That was hysterical, until he’d admitted he had actually, out of overly polite confusion, allowed the “massage therapist” to give him the happy ending. And that it had happened while we were together.

I had been less than pleased, but had chalked it up to him being naive and just too polite to tell her to stop.

Now, I wondered.

But I still told the story, because it was funny.

Lex told me about the time she went on three or four dates with this super-hot, beefy, charming Army officer on leave and in uniform…only to find out that he had an actual micro-penis, and hadn’t been able to go through with sleeping with him for the gales of helpless, stunned laughter.

For which she still felt guilty, and claimed to have actually tried to find him later so she could apologize and possibly even make up for it—to no avail, as he’d shipped back out.

“Like, god,” she said, “it’s not his fault—I know that now and I knew it then. Nothing he can do about what he was given by nature. And even teeny weenies need love. I should’ve been able to woman up and still have fun with him. But I was just so shocked, because everything else about him, including his hands, was just enormous. I was fully expecting a serious pocket python when he dropped trouser, but no. It would’ve fit in a damn Tic-Tac box, and I’m not lying. What was I supposed to do with it?” She held her index finger and thumb apart as if holding an invisible pencil, and mimed a vigorous up-and-down motion. “It would’ve been like this. Ridiculous.”

“Lexie, you’re still being mean.”

She sighed. “I know, I know. I should have more compassion and understanding. But I just…I like big dicks, and I cannot lie.” She glanced at me. “What was Glen packing? I’ve always been curious.”

I bit my lip, half hiding a grin. “You’d probably be a little surprised.”

“Yeah? Nicer than expected?”

I shrugged. “I mean, I have no frame of reference, because he’s the only man I’ve ever had sex with.”

She huffed. “We havegotto fix that.”

I shook my head at her. “I’m really not interested in casual sex, Lexie. I’m just not. I don’t say that to cast any judgment on you. I mean that. What you do with your body is your business, and as long as you’re being honest with yourself and respecting yourself and sticking to whatever morals and convictions you hold, then more power to you. But for me, personally, the idea of having sex with a perfect stranger just doesn’t sound fun or exciting, it sounds terrifying and impersonal.”

“That’s part of why it’s fun,” she said. “But I get what you mean. We’re just different people, I guess.”

I hugged her sideways. “And that’s okay. I love you for you, sister.”

She shoved me off. “Oh stop being saccharine, Charlotte. It’s gross.”

I laughed, leaning in to plant a kiss on her cheek, a wet, sloppy one. “Oh come on, Alexandra. Don’t be squeamish. I’m your big sissy!”

She cackled, pulling away, and then abruptly turned into me and licked my cheek. “There.”

“Eeew! Oh my god youlickedme!” I screeched, wiping at my face.

She just laughed, and wiped off her own cheek.

I had a thought, then. “You know, I would normally never, ever, do this. But seeing as he violated my trust and broke my heart, and I need to delete them anyway…”

I dug my phone out of my purse and scrolled backward through my photos to March of the previous year, when Glen and I had had this brief, short-lived, and utterly unsuccessful attempt to “spice up” our sex life by sending each other nude pictures. I knew he still had some of me, but I’d only gotten as far as an awkward topless shot before giving up, so I figured hell, let him have it.

I still had these…and god, they were glorious.

Gloriously awkward, and funny as hell. Which was why I was showing them to Lexie.

I handed her my phone. “Swipe left,” I said. “And behold the glory of Twinkle Mouse.”