Her Perfect 10

by Brianna Cash

  And trying to remember it all for the next time?

  I’m past the point where I want to write down some notes as soon as it’s over; I now wait until I get a minute alone.

  Maybe my sex life with each girl was routine, but not one of them can say I wasn’t able to make them come at least once every time we had sex. I figure out what she likes, what makes her eyes roll back in her head, what makes her come undone, and use that knowledge to my advantage.

  I really don’t want to do that much work with someone I’ll never see again.

  That’s one more reason for me to not have a one-night stand.

  Sliding off my stool, I turn toward the exit. Tonight was a complete waste of my time.

  “Hey, leaving so soon?”

  The cute girl in front of me is flashing a hopeful smile my way. Penny’s face pops in front of my eyes, and guilt washes over me just for being here. But why am I feeling guilty? She already found someone new. And she insulted my bedroom skills!

  She also used that word: boring.

  And the other one I’m quickly starting to detest: predictable.

  Screw Penny and her words and insults. She already found someone else. Before she even told me she didn’t like what we were doing. There’s nothing wrong with me answering this girl’s question.

  I can do this. At least get this girl’s number and talk to her for a few minutes. No one would expect me to do that.

  Her hair is a shade or two darker than Penny’s. Her eyes are blue, while Penny’s are a dark brown you could stare at forever trying to figure out exactly what they remind you of. Penny didn’t have a lot of curves, but this girl’s silhouette could be the outline of an electric guitar.

  My fingers tug at the collar of my button-down shirt. I’m way too dressed up for this place. Why’s she talking to me? Why does she care if I’m leaving soon?

  I find her eyes again, nodding slightly. “I was thinking about it.”

  “Can I change your mind?” she practically purrs, her hand on my chest as she curls into my side. I can smell the sweetness of her shampoo, or lotion, or something. It’s too sweet. Sickeningly sweet. But that just means it’s ok if I mess this up. She’s only practice.

  Oh my God, did I just think that?

  I’m turning into an asshole. She’s not practice. She’s a person! She deserves to be more than a test run as I figure out what the hell I’m doing. Maybe she’s my soulmate. Maybe she didn’t have her own lotion and it’s her friend’s. Maybe she’s going to break my heart and tear my world in two.

  Wait. Penny just did that. Didn’t she?

  Hmph. I guess she didn’t. It stung, yeah, but I’m not heartbroken. Interesting.

  Is it possible this girl is using me as practice? That I mean nothing more to her than some random guy in a bar? How do I feel about that?

  Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore. Except there’s a part of me that wants to follow SD’s demands. To live a little. To not be as safe and rule-abiding as I’ve always been.

  Is it weird that I want to prove something to someone I’ve never even met?

  Yes. It’s totally bizarre. But the feeling is there anyway, and now that I’ve acknowledged it, it’s even stronger than before and it’s not going away. It’s telling me to answer this girl and give her a chance to practice on me. If only to find out what it’s like.

  “I’d love for you to try,” I finally tell her.

  She convinces me to not only stick around a little longer, but also walk her home. And I kiss her back when she pulls me inside her door. I kiss her for a long time. Her hands roam over every inch of me before I let her down easy, refusing the invitation to her room.

  I’m not that kind of guy.

  But I’m not as…unimaginative as Penny and SD thought I was, either.

  I won’t say the other word. I never want to hear, say, or think that other word ever again.

  Sadie

  Sunday afternoon, I’m stuffing my face with a still half-frozen Pepperidge Farms chocolate cake when my phone chimes. I ignore it because I’m busy. Busy eating chocolate cake and mopping up snot and tears from the sob story on TV because I’m emotional and pissy, all at the same time. It’s probably a text from my mother, telling me it’s time to come home for another one-on-one with my only other family member.

  I don’t want to visit her. I don’t want to do anything except sit here with a rapidly vanishing cake and cry my way through the worst of my feelings until a red river opens up and declares my vagina a no-go zone because it’s an aqueduct of gushing blood.

  Ok, yeah. Maybe that was too much…

  I still don’t want to visit my mother.

  Besides. Alena’s bridal shower is next weekend. I’ll be staying in my childhood home, so I’ll spend more time with Mom than either of us can probably tolerate.

  Roxy and I are two legs of a tripod. Alena, the last leg that got stuck in our hometown, is getting married. Why the hell she’s doing that, I have no idea. We’re only twenty-eight. Too young to be settling down with one person for the rest of our lives. And the shower is a party for everyone, guys and girls. I have no idea who I’ll be walking down that aisle with, but I pray he’s decent and not some ugly dweeb. Alena’s husband-to-be, Rob, is a giant nerd. He’s cute in a geeky way, but I bet he’s got some ugly friends.

  Yelling at the TV, I insult the main female character. Who cares if the guy had a secret daughter she didn’t know about? That doesn’t change who he is! If she loves him, it shouldn’t matter!

  Oh, who the fuck am I right now? I don’t believe in this sappy shit. And it certainly shouldn’t make me cry!

  I fucking hate it when my hormones and emotions gang up on me.

  My phone chimes. Another new text. I sigh and check it before I forget. Neither one is from my mother. One’s from Roxy, asking if I want a ride to my mom’s this weekend. After an affirmative reply, I check the other text. The one from Mr. Vapid.

  OC736: I didn’t chicken out.

  No way!

  Sadie: You fucked someone?

  OC736: I kissed someone. And got groped by very determined hands that almost went too far.

  Ha! I love it! He’s not as dull as I thought.

  Sadie: Did you like it?

  OC736: The groping? Not exactly. It wasn’t awful though, if I’m being honest.

  Sadie: Did you think of your ex?

  OC736: Before I convinced myself to talk to the new girl, yes. After, not once.

  Sadie: Mission accomplished, Mr. Prissy-Pants. Congrats.

  OC736: How was the devilishly handsome guy?

  What?

  Oh yeah. I told him I was going home with someone. There’s no way that happened. Last night, I stayed in, went to bed early, and slept a solid ten hours straight. Not that I’m going to tell him that.

  Sadie: Fantastic. Not the best I’ve had, but close.

  OC736: That means you get your own congrats as well, yes?

  Sadie: Sure. Congrats to both of us. Why don’t you bake us a cake or something?

  OC736: Why don’t you tell me what’s in your little black book?

  When I don’t answer, he sends another request. One that, against my better judgement, pulls my lips into a smile.

  OC736: Tell me your secret, and I’ll bake you a cake.

  Sadie: What kind of cake?

  OC736: Whatever kind you want. Just tell me where to send it.

  Sadie: What if I live in Siberia?

  OC736: That’ll make things difficult. I’ll still try…

  Dammit, isn’t he sweet?

  How to keep him wanting more without feeling rejected? There’s no way I’m telling him more about my LBB. At least not unless another assignment makes it easy to do so.

  Sadie: Thanks for the offer, but you’re too late. I ate almost an entire chocolate cake today. I should probably stay away from them for a while.

  OC736: Mine would’ve been better.

  Sadie: Don’t di
ss my frozen cake... I’ll stop giving you sex advice.

  OC736: I only kissed someone. It was a decent kiss, but definitely not sex.

  Sadie: Mine would’ve been better.

  Shit, I shouldn’t have sent that. I wasn’t thinking, only repeating his remark about the cake. But if I’m honest, it’s probably pretty damn true. I’m a great kisser.

  OC736: A kiss from you would’ve been better? Or your advice was better than what I did?

  I didn’t even consider he’d take it that way. And what does it matter if I talk about my kiss being better than some girl’s? He’s just a guy I’m writing to and will never meet. I have every right to brag about my stellar kissing skills.

  Sadie: Both.

  OC736: You’re not interested in me, remember? Too vapid. Insipid. Lame. Prissy. Dull. Unimaginative… And whatever other adjectives you add to the list.

  Sadie: Still would’ve been better from me.

  OC736: I’ll keep that in mind the next time I decide to go out and…let loose. Maybe I’ll look into tickets to Siberia. There’s no way traveling to another country to kiss a pretty girl is dull.

  Chuckling in my quiet living room, I almost wish there was someone out there who would go to such lengths to kiss me. That someone would love me so much they’d do absolutely anything to feel their lips pressed against mine. Even if it meant crossing oceans and time zones and spending a shitload of money for a simple kiss.

  Then I remember: I’m super emotional right now.

  Life has taught me there’s no such thing as real love.

  And even if there is, it never lasts.

  Chapter 4

  Assignment #3

  What are your last thoughts before you fall asleep?

  To: oc736@solc.edu, profmereeder@solc.edu

  From: sd275@solc.edu

  Subject: Assignment #3, What are your last thoughts before you fall asleep?

  Dear Mr. Not Quite So Tedious,

  This is a fun question.

  There are different parts to falling asleep. There’s the part when you’re lying there, trying to quiet your mind, but you’re going over your day, trying to make sure you didn’t forget something. There’s the part when you finally drop off into sleep, where you consciously aren’t aware of anything anymore. And then there’s the part in between those two, where you’re somewhat conscious, but if you let things go and don’t try to control them, you win. (Winning is falling into that peaceful slumber, in case you didn’t know.)

  Years ago, I was in a car accident. It was a big accident. It shut down a major interstate for over six hours. No, I wasn’t driving, and no, it wasn’t my fault. My friend was driving, but it wasn’t her fault either. We couldn’t have avoided it. In my dreams, I sometimes see it happening in slow motion, but I wonder if it’s actually what I saw. I never remembered the minute leading up to the accident until I dreamt about it, years later, so it might be a repressed memory. Or it might be my imagination.

  For weeks, I heard the accident every night as sleep would take me. The screeching tires, the hard crunch of metal, the exploding glass... When it happened, it was so loud I couldn’t hear anything else, but I must’ve been screaming. My throat was sore for days afterwards.

  Right after the accident, before help came, my friend, the driver, kept grabbing my hand and calling me the wrong name. She kept calling me our other friend, the one that didn’t come with us. She kept asking what had happened and squeezing my hand, and I kept trying not to panic, because her right eye was swollen completely shut. She needed reassurance that someone else was living through the nightmare with her. That’s why she needed to feel my hand in hers.

  Someone, some stranger, a witness to the accident, came to my missing window, and asked which way we’d been heading. That was the stupidest question I’ve ever heard. We were heading home. West.

  The collision caused us to spin, pointing us east.

  This stranger asked if I had a phone, if I could call for help. He was an idiot. Of course, I had a phone. It was somewhere in that wrecked car. The car that had spun so far we were pointing in the wrong direction. The car that no longer had a windshield, windows, or any glass that wasn’t shattered. The car that was very obviously demolished.

  After reassuring me he would get help, he left. Left me alone with my friend, who was clueless as to what had happened. Leaving me feeling lost and so very afraid.

  There was so much blood. It was everywhere. It was streaming down my friend’s face in rivers, enough for me to figure out even in my panicked mind that she had some kind of head wound. I kept telling myself that head wounds bleed a lot. It didn’t mean anything. She could be fine, we just had to stop the bleeding. Otherwise she’d lose too much blood.

  Where the hell was the help that person had promised to get?

  I couldn’t get out of the car to find help. I couldn’t stop the bleeding, either. My right hand, my entire right side, wasn’t responding to my brain’s commands to move.

  And her side of the car was smashed. There was no way her door was going to be opened by anything other than the jaws-of-life.

  So, I sat there, holding her right hand with my left one, talking to her, reassuring her over and over, every time she regained consciousness and asked the same fucking questions, that I was with her, and no, I wasn’t Roxy, I was me, the friend she obviously didn’t want there. But I didn’t say that. I said help was on the way, and we were going to be fine.

  Over and over, I told her those same things. Until I was crying tears of frustration. Where the hell was the help that was supposed to be here? There should be blaring sirens, flashing lights, lots of people in uniforms. Ambulances, police, firefighters, someone, to get us out of the car and make sure we were ok. Someone should be on their way. Someone should already be here, for Christ’s sake!

  She was bleeding! She had a head wound! She kept passing out! She kept asking me the same Goddamned questions because she was only conscious for two minutes at a time before she passed out again, only to wake up a few seconds later and start the whole shitty cycle all over.

  Where the hell was anyone that could help us?

  I didn’t even care at that point if they were professionals. I prayed, begged to God for someone, anyone, to come. To save us, to talk to us, to make us feel like we weren’t alone and completely helpless. For someone to come see what happened to my friend and tell me it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked.

  It seemed like hours later when the first siren cut through the silence outside of that demolished car, but it was the best sound I’d ever heard. Help was finally coming. The nightmare would finally be over.

  I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re either asking yourself how the hell this is an answer to a fun question, or you’re caught up in my story, wondering how it ends.

  You don’t get to know how it ends. That’s not the question.

  The question is: what are your last thoughts before you fall asleep? And ever since that fateful night, my brain occasionally tortures me in those moments right before sleep claims me.

  Once my mind starts shutting down, and I’m in that state of semi-consciousness where I can control what happens and wake up, or let it all play out and fall farther into unconsciousness, my brain takes me on a car ride.

  It’s a terrifying ride.

  I’m always in the driver’s seat, because I’m the person in control.

  Sometimes, my brain will send me hurtling down a windy hill at breakneck speeds, swerving around obstacles, with so many near misses, I don’t know how my heartbeat isn’t drowning out every other sound and thought. Sometimes, I’ll be driving into oncoming traffic, doing my best to avoid being hit, horns blaring, wipers going a mile a minute, because on top of everything, it’s also raining buckets. Sometimes, a deer will jump out in front of me, or a dog, or a bear, some large animal I don’t want to hit, because it would hurt me, but also that poor animal, and no animal deserves to suffer like that.

  The
kicker?

  I’m the one in control.

  When you’re barreling down the road in an out-of-control car, what do you do? Slam on the brakes, of course. And the exact second I go to step on the brakes? That’s when I fully regain consciousness and sleep evades me.

  In order to fall asleep, I need to give up all control, and let the crash happen.

  Sometimes, falling asleep can be an absolutely wrecking experience.

  Sincerely, Entirely, Me

  To: sd275@solc.edu, profmereeder@solc.edu

  From: oc736@solc.edu

  Subject: Assignment #3, What are your last thoughts before you fall asleep?

  The last thoughts I have before falling asleep are usually about what the next day holds. I run through the list of things that need to be done. I wonder how messed up my desk will be at work; people like messing with my OCD-like personality by moving things around. I wonder how many times I’ll get yelled at; my job is talking on the phone to people that are almost always upset or angry. I try to think about what life could be like if I was doing something else, something better.

  When I was young, my mother tried to get me to pray every night before I went to bed. It didn’t stick. I pray when I need to, which is probably the worst kind of religious person. But I usually think about my family, the people I love. I hope they’re doing well. I hope they had a good day, or week. I hope my sister’s accomplishing her latest goal, whatever step she’s working on at that particular moment. I hope my niece didn’t get bullied in daycare and will smile the next time she sees me. I hope my brother’s happy. I hope my parents are still able to handle their workload, since it exploded a few years ago.

  Sometimes I think about different dreams I’ve had, or that I would like to have. It would be amazing to control them. I would especially love to fly, if I could control what happened in my mind while I was asleep.

  The past week, since I recently became single, I’ve been wondering what my ex is doing. If she’s with the new guy she found, who’s apparently better than I am, at least in bed. I wonder what my future holds. I wonder if I’ll always be as unimaginative as she, and you, say I am, or if I can change that.