Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            I’m embarrassed. I have no idea what to tell him, and for a second I consider lying. Pretending that I’m a fucking sex goddess. Twenty orgasms in a trench coat. But Jack is lie-repellant, and he’d know, and it’d be even more mortifying than the truth: I have no idea how he can make me come.

            My mind turns to J.J., and here’s a truth I’m not going to admit out loud in this fancy open-plan apartment: I don’t even know if I have the capacity to like sex. I never wondered, because me enjoying something was never a priority.

            “Is this something you do with every girl you sleep with?” I ask bitterly. “An entrance exam?”

            “Sometimes.”

            “Sometimes?”

            “Other times it’s more trial and error.”

            Something heavy twists in my stomach. “And after that?”

            “After that, I do what they like. Have them do what I like, if they’re up for it.”

            Jealousy. That’s the feeling—I’m jealous of these unnamed girls. In my mind they all look leggy, stunning, smart. Worthy of being fucked by Jack.

            Unlike me.

            I turn away and step to one of the million windows. I don’t know how he stands it, the nakedness of this place. It’s a fishbowl. He needs curtains.

            “Elsie.” He’s behind me. I see his reflection in the glass, holding my eyes like in a mirror. “You have a pattern of doing things you don’t enjoy for the sake of others, and I need to be sure the two of us don’t fall into it. I need to know that you’re not initiating anything with me because it’s something you think I expect. And I need to be certain that you don’t feel like you have to be some . . . fantasy lay whose only focus is my pleasure. That you’re in a place where you’re able to acknowledge and articulate your needs.”

            I let my forehead fall against the glass, watching my eyes cross over my nose.

            “You should tell me what you’re thinking,” he says after a while, much more gentle than a minute ago.

            “Why?”

            “Because I want to know.” He sighs. “And you promised you’d try.”

            Right. Yes, I did do that. Stupidly. “I’m thinking . . .” I turn around. Drum my nails against the windowsill and close my eyes when I can’t bear to look at Jack. What am I thinking at any given time? The more I try to grasp my own mind, the faster it goes blank. “I’m thinking that two things can be true at once: you want to protect me, and also do it in a patronizing way. I’m thinking that by trying to respect me, you ended up making a decision for me—like everyone else before you. I’m thinking . . . that I don’t really know you, not yet, but sometimes, when I’m with you, I feel like you know me better than I do myself.” I swallow. “But I’m also thinking something else.”

            “What?”

            I open my eyes. He is—I want him. For myself. I have no idea in what shape, timeline, texture, but I do. “I’m thinking that I don’t know how you can make me come. But it would be fun to find out together.”

            I’m exhausted from all the thinking, overthinking, rethinking, unthinking. So for the first time in my life, I just let my mind white out. I step out of my head and into my body, savor the absence of formulas and prediction models, and just do it.

            Grab the hem of my dress.

            Take it off in one fluid motion.

            Drop it until it crumples at Jack’s feet.

            It’s a big gamble. I’ve never done anything this brave, stupid, reckless before, but this is Jack: having so many of my firsts. And it doesn’t even matter if the second my clothes are off, I’m all out of courage. I stare at the fabric, too scared to move my eyes anywhere else, letting the tension stretch, the pressure build, till I hear a low “Elsie.”

            I glance up.

            I’m not insecure about my body, probably because I am so busy being insecure about every little thing I do, say, broadcast. But if I were, if I had any doubts about whether I’m attractive, pretty, desirable enough to him, they’d dissolve like sugar in water.