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CHAPTER THREE

EIREN HAD SPENT the afternoon filling out forms on her phone to get her STD-tests released to the Center. It had been a bit of a rush job, Friday afternoon, getting things all squared away, but it was going to work out, and she was going to be cleared to participate in the rite.

It was a little bit funny, because this was exactly the kind of thing that Eiren would typically claim was way too much work to do, which was why she wouldn’t do it. Then, strangely, if she found herself in a situation where she needed to do all the work, she could get it done in hours .

It was about proper motivation, maybe?

“You thought he was hot,” Eiren said to Tawny. They were sitting together at a table in a restaurant just down the street from the Center.

“I did not,” said Tawny. She wavered. “He was fine to look at, I guess, but he was a cocky son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, but I think you like them that way,” said Eiren, daring Tawny to contradict her. She was in impulsive mode, and when she was, she was fearless. There was a time when she’d wondered if she had some kind of bipolar disorder, and maybe that was it. Maybe that was the truth of the matter. Thing was, she never did anything actually destructive during these little fearless interludes of hers. She didn’t spend money she couldn’t afford to spend or do intravenous drugs or jump off buildings or something.

And the thing was, as she understood it, the way they treated bipolar was to basically destroy the manic situations, and if life didn’t contain these little impulsive interludes, she wasn’t sure there would be any point in it.

However, whatever the case, the proper motivation that was getting her into this rite might not be being manic and might entirely just be hormones.

After all, every doe on earth got hornier during the season, when everyone was fertile.

“I do not!” said Tawny, but she was laughing.

“Well, I’m not saying you want to move in with him,” said Eiren. “Any man who’s willing to say something like, ‘Maybe we are incompetent,’ is never going to pick up his wet towels from the floor.”

“Damned straight,” said Tawny, leaning forward to sip at her drink. Despite the warning at orientation that they weren’t encouraged to drink, they were all on their second drink of the evening. “But you’re saying it might be fun to ride that dick?”

Eiren shrugged. “I read a book about the psychology of attraction, and it said that we want things in other people that allow us to express aspects of our own personality we worry are abrasive. Women who are powerful women often want a man who is powerful, because we feel a man like that could handle us.”

Tawny considered. “Huh, I can see that.”

“On the other hand, we don’t want to be controlled in a relationship, so we might choose a certain sort of man for flings and another for relationships, but it’s unlikely we find a man who could satisfy us in both ways. The book was actually depressing like that the whole way through. Apparently, everyone does it, has a type of person they find arousing an a type of person they can love.”

“And they’re never the same person?” said Tawny.

“Nope,” said Eiren.

“That can’t be true,” spoke up Rora, softly.

“Yeah, I call bullshit,” said Tawny.

“I don’t know,” said Eiren with a little shrug, sipping out of the straw of her mixed drink. “I think truth is like that a lot.”

“What? Depressing?”

“Painful,” said Eiren. “But it’s a certain kind of pain, a sort of clean pain, you know? It hurts, but in a good way.”

Tawny scoffed. “A good pain?”

Rora nodded. “I get it, yeah. That’s how I feel when I confront the fact that no one’s ever going to want me.”

“Oh, come on,” said Eiren, giving her a look. “That’s not true, that’s just a fear you have.”

Rora stirred her straw in her drink, shrugging. “And how do you know that’s not the feeling you’re having? That clean pain? It’s not truth, it’s just confirmation of something you were already afraid of.”

Eiren flinched. She gazed at Rora for a long moment. “Nope. It’s different. ‘Cause, when you just said that? Clean pain. You’re one of those types who’s quiet and unassuming and then just comes out with super insightful shit occasionally, huh?”

“I think both of you are just wallowing,” said Tawny. “Sorry! I know people don’t like hearing things like that, but there’s no reason to feel any kind of pain, clean or otherwise.”

“No?” said Eiren. “Well, if you don’t feel pain, what do you do with it?”

“Get mad,” said Tawny, lifting her glass. “Come on, girls, I know it’s not socially acceptable for women to feel this emotion, but it is entirely freeing. Let’s drink to anger.”

Eiren laughed. Despite everything, she found Tawny imminently likable. She clicked her glass against the other woman’s. “To anger.”

Rora clinked too, grinning at them both shyly. “To anger,” she said, and she looked a little bit like a mischievous angel.

“Anyway, what do you think?” Tawny eyed them both. “Should I let that cocky son of a bitch mount me if I run into him out there?”

“That’s not really up to us,” said Eiren.

“Coward, take a side,” said Tawny, giggling.

“No,” said Rora. “I didn’t like him.”

“What about his friend?” said Eiren. “He seemed nervous. Just a baby, really.”

“He seemed really familiar to me,” said Rora. “I could have sworn that he was this guy I knew, who used to date my friend Maibell, but then he acted like he never met me before.”

“Weird,” said Eiren.

“I must have him confused with someone else,” said Rora. “Anyway, he seemed sweet, or sweeter than the other one, anyway.”

“He’s too young for us,” said Tawny to Eiren. “But maybe perfect for Rora.”

Eiren sipped at her drink. “I think, if it were me, I would totally let him fuck me.”

Tawny laughed, throwing her head back.

“But also,” said Eiren, “you’re trying to get pregnant. You want that guy to be the father of your child? Because can’t these things get messy? Even if you conceive your child in a situation like this, courts come down on the side of DNA. If he wants to, he can claim rights and dual custody and all of that.”

“Oh, he would never,” said Tawny. “I don’t think I have to worry about that. He’s not the type.”

“He said he was an attorney,” said Rora. “So, he might be awful to go up against in court.”

Tawny nodded. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. I will not let that buck near me.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I did?” said Eiren.

Tawny’s jaw dropped open.

“Okay, that was a joke,” said Eiren quickly, sipping her drink. It had not been a joke, but she’d seen that if she wanted to retain Tawny as a friend that was the only way to go.

She didn’t understand women like Tawny, people who were so convinced that they were right about everything that they had no patience for anyone else’s point of view. But if she were to try to change a person like that, she’d become them, imposing her idea of right and wrong on others, regardless if they agreed. So, she was a live-and-let-live type.

She would inconvenience herself to keep the peace. It was worth it, she thought. There was a line, of course. Like everyone, she had boundaries.

Someone like Tawny’s boundaries were so narrow and confining, however, that everyone had to tiptoe around her.

Even so, while Eiren wouldn’t be Tawny, she sometimes envied people like that. Those sort of people took less shit than Eiren herself did, and Eiren could not deny that.

“No, it’s fine,” muttered Tawny. “I don’t care. If we go out to the midnight run, it might even be so dark we can’t even recognize them.” She giggled. “I can’t deny something about that is hot.” A pause. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging here. Back me up. It is hot.”

“It is,” agreed Eiren, raising her glass.

Tawny clinked hers against Eiren’s.

“Sorry,” said Rora, hunching up her shoulders. “I’m just nervous, I think.”

“You should find that Stockton guy,” said Tawny. “You said he seemed sweet. You guys could go back to his room. There is no reason to lose your virginity in a rite like this.”

Rora shook her head, pulling her drink in against her chest as if it could shield her. “No, no, no. I could never do that. How would I even approach him?”

“Here’s a line I’ve used with a hundred percent success rate on men of varying species,” said Eiren. “‘Hey there, you busy? You want to fuck me?’”

Tawny dissolved into giggles and Eiren followed suit.

Rora waited until they were done and then said, witheringly, “I don’t believe you’ve ever said that.”

“I…” Eiren shrugged. “No, not in those words, exactly, but my point is just that you’re making it too hard. It’s easier than you think it is.”

“Yeah, but we’re being too hard on her,” said Tawny. “I remember how it feels. There’s that whole point of time, when you’re young, when you think that you’re not good enough, and you have so much insecurity. When men treat you badly, you think, ‘It’s me.’ But it’s never you. There’s never anything wrong with you.”

“There have to be things wrong with some women,” said Rora pragmatically. “And besides, I have tried things. My friends and I, we’ll all go out to the bar together, and men will come up and they will approach everyone, all of them, but never me. Sometimes, I just end up in a conversation with one of my friends’ boyfriends. I’ve asked them what’s wrong with me, and they always say nothing.”

“Have you asked them if they’d fuck you if they weren’t dating your friends?” said Eiren, snickering.

“Oh, moon and sun, that’s a great way to end up without any friends,” said Rora.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” said Tawny.

“Anyway, no one knows what it is,” said Rora. “I don’t think it’s a conscious thing, you know? I think it’s subconscious. And that whatever it is, I give off some kind of repellent. Maybe it’s a scent thing.”

“No,” said Eiren, shaking her head, her voice gentle. “No, look, Rora, this is just a thing that women worry about—that people worry about. People worry that they’re not good enough. Not just in love or attraction, but in everything. People get worried about that all the time. And it’s really normal, but you’re good enough. There’s nothing repellent about you.”

“I have to agree,” said Tawny.

“Well, I figure, we’ll find out,” said Rora. “At midnight. As long as that’s true, then someone will want to mount me tonight. But if no one does, then I’ll know I’m right and that something about me does repel men.”

Eiren looked the girl over. She was resisting the urge to say anything to her that might acknowledge any imperfections, because she knew that there was nothing significantly imperfect about Rora, and that Rora herself would have been much harder on herself than Eiren would be, but that any confirmation of that kind of thinking would make Rora think her flaws were worse than they were.

Tawny had no such inhibitions, clearly. “Okay, maybe you’re a little chubby, but it’s very nice, I think. Men like that, actually.”

“She is not even chubby!” Eiren protested. The girl wasn’t. She was young and she had baby fat, maybe, and she was full-figured, maybe, but she wanted to reach across the table and strangle Tawny for having said that.

But Rora only shook her head. “I know I’m not the most attractive woman in the universe or anything, but I also know that people who are less attractive than me find people to love them. I don’t think that’s the reason.”

“Okay, well, that’s all I was saying,” said Tawny, looking a bit chagrined. “You really aren’t chubby.”

Rora shrugged. “I mean, a little, maybe.”

“Well,” Eiren said to Rora, “I hope this weekend proves to you how desirable you are, and how little there is wrong with you. I really hope that.”

Rora gave Eiren a wistful look. “I wish for that to be true, too. But I’m afraid it isn’t.”

“Oh, sun and moon,” groaned Tawny. “Stop that, stop acting like there’s something wrong with you.”

Except they all thought it, Eiren knew.

She didn’t bring it up, because she had sensed that Tawny thought she was hiding the fact that she thought she was damaged. Tawny projected an air of toughness to the world, acting as if nothing fazed her, and a lot of people probably believed that was true. Eiren happened to know, however, that everyone felt fazed now and again.

But Eiren wondered.

What if there’s nothing wrong with me either?

There had been a time when she kept ruminating on the idea that people didn’t seem to want to commit to her for some reason, and she’d had a string of bad boyfriends who were extremely aloof, it was true.

But then, somewhere along the way, she’d clicked on enough of those videos on Tiktok claiming that if you fell for the wrong sort of man, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, that you’d keep being attracted to men who didn’t want you.

So, she started noticing, then, that there were men out there who seemed interested in her. She hadn’t been selecting them as part of the pool of men because she was never interested in those sorts of men.

She had a horrifying realization one day that perhaps she was only attracted to men who didn’t want her, as if that was a prerequisite to her feeling any kind of attachment. And if so, she was setting herself up for misery.

She resolved, at that point, to start giving these men that she wasn’t interested in a chance.

So, she did.

But they always seemed sort of pathetic to her, no matter how she tried to argue with herself that it was not pathetic to be attracted to her, that it did not mean that something was wrong with someone just because they wanted her.

After forcing herself to stay in two of these relationships for four months each, waiting for some kind of attraction to develop, she began to think that attraction was a thing that could not be forced.

You either wanted someone or you didn’t.

Maybe it was a scent thing, like Rora was saying.

No amount of getting to know someone made her hot for him. That was something she just knew, within minutes of meeting a guy.

She hoped she wasn’t getting hot for a guy only because she was picking up on how much the guy didn’t want her, though. That would be tragic on a whole other level.

But, well, she was really doing the same thing as Rora was.

She had thought to herself, If it’s true that I’m doomed to never want someone who wants me back, then maybe I can make the best of it.

This, the rite, it was a way to get sex without having to wade into all of that. It made things simple. It took out all sorts of awkward elements. It cut to the chase.

“I think something’s wrong with me, too,” said Eiren with a little shrug. “You know, I’m almost thirty. If I were going to have had a committed relationship with a man, wouldn’t it have happened by now?”

“Oh, whatever,” said Tawny dismissively. “Just because a thing hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it’s impossible. How would the Wright brothers have reacted to hearing that, huh? New things happen every day .”

Eiren felt herself smiling. “You know? That’s very true.”

“After all,” said Tawny. “Here we are doing this for the first time.”

“Yeah,” said Rora.

“To firsts,” said Eiren, lifting her glass.

“To firsts,” the others echoed, clinking their glasses.

Then all of them drank deep.

The night was still young.