says.
Babe! Call me!
I love you!
God I love you!
And … nothing. His words made me feel nothing. I was done with him. Done. Over him and that life. Over that me. I deleted his texts. I’d never text him again. Never. Never. Never. Never. I could not think of one reason I’d ever need to say a word to him ever again. I wanted this to be true. I just don’t know if Paul would let it be true.
* * *
Benedict.
I want to think about Benedict, not Paul.
I get to go meet Benedict.
Which in theory is awesome.
But then I realized I had volunteered to go into the woods alone on skis. I mean, who the hell am I? What exactly was I willing to do to spend time with him?
Anything.
Fucking anything.
I’m insane.
I don’t care.
* * *
And you know, after I got over the terror that the Abominable Snowman was going to rise up at any moment, the skiing wasn’t bad. I’ve always enjoyed looking at nature, but now I was in it. Gliding through endless trees, the snow, the silence, the cold. Instead of having a panic attack about being out here by myself, everything inside me began to calm, to get as quiet as the forest.
And then I saw the warming hut and, well, I’m still me and I, well, I got turned on just at the sight. Took off my skis, knocked on the door just because, I don’t know, and then pushed it open.
There was a bench to the left and a window to the right. The entire hut was the size of my bathroom at home. Big enough for …
For what? What did I think was going to happen here? You can’t have sex with him! I mean, you can’t. I’m not going to. He would think I’m such a slut if I even talked about it. So no way.
I did take off my jacket and those stupid puffy snow pants. It was warm enough in here. Not really but it’s okay to be a little cold for the sake of not looking horrible.
What if he didn’t show up? What if his parents found out? What … Crap, I’m going nuts and I’ve been here two minutes. Calm, Pen. Calm. I’m sure he’ll show up. We’ll kiss, we’ll talk for a bit. Definitely no sex. We’ll both get bored I’m sure and then we’ll go and you’ll see him again after dinner.
So …
Yeah …
I waited …
And …
I heard him. Heard him approaching. Should I open the door? Wave? No. No. Just sit here. Act relaxed. Pretend you’re not thinking about what his penis looks like. Pretend you’re not some sex-starved chick waiting in a tiny hut in the middle of the woods hoping he steps in here and rips off your clothes. Oh-my-god, you have to ask him some dumb question about nature or something as soon as he walks in here or your mind will …
* * *
He walks in. Oh. Wow. Those eyes … into me, he, my, how do I say this … his eyes, Benedict the dork’s eyes … they are … he has … they’re “fuck me” eyes. Like mine. For me.
He steps in, picks me up, and kisses me.
Tongue, hands, my legs around him again, my mouth, my lips, they want to be inside his lips and mouth, and his eyes are open and mine are and we fall, stumble, and we’re on the ground.…
I’m on top of him, kissing him; he’s leaning up, into me. Everything tingles. Inside, yes, of course, but outside too, my skin, my head, my eyes … but I can barely feel him because of those ski pants of his, which I would take off, but I can’t, he would know I’m a crazy sex freak—but maybe he is too! That stare, this kissing, maybe he is … but I can’t risk putting myself out there … I want him too much, not just his body, I want every molecule of his soul.…
“Benedict…” I say in a breath when our mouths are free. No idea what else I’m going to say, but we can’t just kiss forever. We could. Maybe we should. Just kiss forever. But he doesn’t kiss me again, maybe I ruined it, but someone should talk … or not … Yes! But not me …
“I’m sorry I wasn’t a gentleman. I wanted to be a gentleman.…”
“What do you mean?” I ask, even though I know, sort of …
“… I just saw you and I had to kiss you. Obviously, I didn’t have to. But yes, ummm … I want to be eloquent and witty right now like characters in books but I’m just very, very, very…”
45
BENEDICT
“… very…” I’m not sure which word I should use. I don’t want to be false. But I don’t want to be crude either. So I said, “… very … excited by you.”
But Penelope said, “What do you mean?”
This was very frustrating! I’m the one that has no idea what I’m doing! But, no, Benedict, you can’t blame her. She told you to be you; she told you she loved your brain. But I cannot just tell her my penis is excited by her. “You make my thoughts excited … and my life. I’m very, very excited by my life right now because of you. I thought I was always excited about my life but now I see my old life as very safe and predictable. You are the opposite of safe and predictable. Which is very, very exciting. I wish I could think of another word for ‘exciting.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Uh…”
She laughed. Then said, “I was just going to keep saying ‘What do you mean?’ so I could listen to you talk. I love watching your lips as they form words, your eyes as your brain thinks of those words. That must sound so weird. I’m sorry.…”
“Pen, you always apologize. You told me yesterday that I shouldn’t change. Which was the most important thing I think anyone has ever said to me. I like to say grand things, but I think that’s really true. And I want you to know I feel the same about you. The exact same. I love how you express yourself. Telling another boy that you like watching his brain think of words might be weird, but to socially awkward Benedict Pendleton, it is the best compliment ever.”
She loved what I said. I could tell because her eyes were glistening. I kissed her tears because I really liked when she did that to me yesterday. Then she said, “What do you mean?” Which was very funny. I laughed. I never laugh at other people’s jokes. I never get the jokes or I never feel comfortable. But I got Penelope’s. I feel so comfortable with her. What does this mean? Oh, ummm, this … I feel … ummm … something is happening to me … my body, it is opening up and closing down at the same time … this … is …
46
Penelope
After he laughed at my joke, Benedict got this look, and then he started stumbling through words under his breath, and I just knew. Just knew what he was feeling. I shouldn’t know, but I do and it sounds stupid or like I’m full of myself, but I know. I know, I know, I know.…
I knew he, at that second, had fallen … I just have to say it. He fell in love with me. I knew it. Just knew it. Even though people say it and think they feel it and who the hell knows what love really is, but WHATEVER it is, Benedict was feeling it and I had been feeling it ever since yesterday. He’s like this genius, this one-of-a-kind warrior of truth, but he’s also just this kid, this kid who right now is so terrified he can’t talk … and I’m barely talking and …
“Benedict…”
“Yes?” he said with these eyes as big as the earth.
“I love you too.”
* * *
And for a moment, he stayed silent. He nodded, just kept nodding, like some voice in his head was talking.
“Pen…”
“Call me Penelope.”
“But…”
“Only you get to call me it. Only you make me like it.”
He smiled. “Penelope…”
“Benedict…”
“Love…”
“Love.”
“It feels differently than I thought it would,” he said.
“What did you think it would feel like?”
“I thought it would be very logical. That two people decided it would be mutually beneficial to have mutual feelings.” I laughed, he laughed, and went on. “But instead it feels like I could stay in this warmin
g hut with you for ten thousand years and never want to leave. Which is not very logical.”
“I love that you’re not logical with me,” I said. Which was cheesy, but also kinda original so that made it less cheesy. He kissed me again, a little kiss, but it restarted that hunger of his, almost at once, and his hunger restarted mine, and his kissing is so good, it’s so good it should be enough, but it being so good almost makes it impossible for me not to want more … but he’s still innocent, this boy, this amazing boy, but this boy who I just witnessed the very second he fell in love with me … so we should just kiss, just kiss, just kiss and kiss and kiss and …
47
BENEDICT
… kiss, we kissed. We were very good kissers together. I know this is the first girl I’ve ever kissed, but I don’t see how if I kissed every girl on planet earth that I would ever find someone who kissed me like Penelope kissed me. I should tell her that. That sounds romantic.
* * *
Do you want to know what’s not romantic? Penis Benedict said: I AM IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN TRAPPED IN THESE TIGHT SKI PANTS. I KNOW YOU WANT TO BE A GENTLEMAN BUT THIS IS TORTURE. INHUMANE TORTURE!
* * *
Ignore him. Yes. I should. Obviously. Penis Benedict would ruin everything. But maybe I just tell her.…
48
Penelope
He said, “You make me so excited,” in between our kissing. That’s the second time he’s said that. If it wasn’t Benedict, I’d assume he was giving me the universal guy code of “Please touch my penis,” but Benedict couldn’t know that. He couldn’t. Yes, I could feel him. I knew how hard he was. But he’s so innocent, right.… Yes … If I did something, suggested something, it would freak him out. My freakiness would freak him out. I like him too much to scare him off. So I can’t. I just can’t.
But …
Don’t, Pen.
But … how could he really love me if he doesn’t know that part of me?
He couldn’t.
He could!
No, he couldn’t.
So I have to. Just have to say something. I love how his brain works. I have to see if he loves how my brain works.
“Benedict…” I pulled away from his lips, still caressing his face with my hands.
“Yes…”
“I’m not normal.”
“I’m not normal either!”
“But you’re not normal because you’re brilliant and you say what’s on your mind and … other great stuff … I’m, I think … I have … thoughts … I…”
“Penelope,” he said, and, wow, I really did like him saying my full name. “I know love may not be logical, but I still am. And I could not love it that you do not judge my thoughts but then judge your thoughts.…”
“People do, everyone does…”
“Yes, ummm, okay, let me say it a different way. I’ve thought about this a lot recently. I’ve thought about all the times I’ve judged people and I realized I only did that because deep down I didn’t feel confident about myself. So we judge to inflate our self-worth. Thus, if I ever judge you, you can say, ‘Benedict, why is your self-worth low today?’” He smiled, and, damn, what the hell, this kid, this man, wow, what the …
“Benedict, that was genius, do you realize what you just said? Do you?”
“Yes, I think, ummm, now I’m not sure.…”
“You know. You KNOW stuff. I think it, and then you say it, and I feel like this world isn’t totally screwed. If two kids like us, if we could just put stuff out there…”
He kissed me. He loved hearing me talk, didn’t he? Yeah, he did, and so it’s time, Pen, it’s time.…
“So,” I said, “what you just said, and how you looked at me when you walked into the warming hut, all of it. Do you know what it does to me? It makes me feel everywhere. My whole body just tingles everywhere. And I’m just gonna say it, it makes me throb, down here.…” I drifted my hand down to my groin, just grazed it, his eyes followed down, held there, then came back to me. I had said so much, if he was going to run off it was too late so, what the hell, I might as well say more. “And yeah, I’ve read about girls like me. Women. But they’re all older, grown-up, and it’s not the same. None of my friends talk about it. No teenage girls online talk about it the way I think about it. So I feel like a freak. Like I’m screwed up. So screwed up. So I’ve never talked about it. Not with Paul. Never. But I’m telling it to you and I’m so scared what you’re going to think of me … but I had to tell you. I had to.”
“So…” he started, and all my abilities to read his mind were gone. God, I hope he doesn’t hate me. “… I was very scared to talk about my penis because I thought you would think I was a dork or a jerk for talking about my penis. But you talking about your vagina makes me feel like I could talk about my penis. Which I don’t think is normal … but I like being not normal with you.”
“I like being not normal with you too,” I said. So lame, maybe not, I don’t know, screw it, I love it. And now: “So, Benedict, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, I’m not sure if it’s hot or dorky or whatever, but I want to tell you all my thoughts, all the dirty thoughts.”
“Yes. This is the best idea ever.” He laughed and I laughed.
I went on, “I want to undo your pants. I want to see it. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.…”
“I want that. Penis Benedict wants that very much.”
“Penis Benedict?”
“I didn’t mean to tell you about Penis Benedict.”
“Do you have a voice in your head that you’ve named Penis Benedict?”
“Yes. You think I’m crazy. I am crazy. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you’re fucking crazy and I love it. We’re crazy and we’re alive and we have penises and vaginas and I’m going to undo your pants now and I’m just talking, talking, talking, talking like I think in my head except I’m saying it out loud and a boy is hearing me say it as I unbutton his pants and unzip his pants … and…”
“I can help pull them down,” he said.
“Yes, help me pull them down, and I’m just going to touch your underwear because I know that feels good for you, doesn’t it?”
His face went to this blank, serene place. “It feels so good.”
“God, I love you, Benedict, I love talking like this, I love being here like this, I love touching you. Is it okay if I pull down your underwear?” He nodded. “And there’s your penis … it’s…” And I almost couldn’t say it because it’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever thought in my history of freaky things, but I was beyond the walls I had been trapped behind my whole life, I was free, and once you’re free, you can’t stop being free, so I said, “It’s beautiful, Benedict. You have a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful penis…” and …
49
BENEDICT
I came. Four seconds! How embarrassing! It took forty minutes in the bathroom yesterday! Took all the hot water! Took all the lotion! But today, when even four minutes would have been acceptable, it took four seconds. But the touch of her hand against my bare penis was too magnificent. And not just her hand, her telling me how beautiful my penis was. It overwhelmed any chance I had to not become overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said.
“I went so fast. I’ve read about men with this problem.…”
“First off,” she began, “I’m sure you don’t have that problem. This is the first time a girl has ever touched you. We’ve had, like, twenty-four straight hours of foreplay. It would be weird if you didn’t go fast. Second, it turns me on that you’re turned on by me. That my touch…”
“And your voice.”
“And my voice … that I could do that to you. That I made you come so fast makes me feel like I have this power. That sounds weird.…”
“You do have a power,” I said. “Umm, so even though I orgasmed so quickly, you are still turned on?”
“Yes, like the most turned on I’ve ever been. You do it for
me. I’m going to say something strange, but screw it, we’ve already said so much, but I’ve been fantasizing about you since you said that thing to Stacy in the hall on Tuesday.”
“Fantasizing about me?”
“Masturbating.”
“You masturbate?” I asked.
50
Penelope
Crap. Benedict is weirded out by me fantasizing about him. Maybe. Please don’t let him hate me, please, please … “Yeah,” I said, “I’m sorry.…”
“Sorry? You should not be sorry! It makes me feel much better about masturbating in the shower yesterday for forty minutes thinking about you.”
“But you’re a boy; boys are supposed to masturbate.”
“So should girls! I know I am very inexperienced. But I have read a great deal about this and studies show that it is very healthy for girls to masturbate. But most teenage girls feel ashamed about it, so they don’t do it. Penelope, you are very evolved. I’m the luckiest boy ever to have an evolved girl like you to be the first one to touch my penis. A girl that wasn’t as evolved would have made me feel bad about coming so fast, but you made me feel good about it.…”
I kissed him. Had to. I leaned into him again. I knew he was done. If this was Paul, the TV would be on already. But I was still so horny, maybe if I rubbed against him …
He said, “I don’t want to make you messy, so I am going to pull my underwear back up so that it can clean my … semen up.”
I laughed. “I can’t believe you just said the word ‘semen.’”
“That’s very dorky probably.”
“Yeah, maybe, Benedict, like if this were a movie people would probably think you’re a dork for saying that word. But fuck them. I think saying things just like they are is the opposite of dorky. It’s cool. No, ‘cool’ is not a good enough word. It’s evolved.”
“So we are both evolved,” he said.
“Yes, your brain, Benedict … I don’t just love it … I want…”
“It turns you on?”
“Yes…”
“Can I touch you like you touched me?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But all I could do was nod. He laid our coats and pants on the ground, making a sort of bed. Then he lifted me up and laid me on it before moving on top, his arms on each side of my shoulders. Then he leaned down and kissed me before maneuvering back between my legs and reaching for the button on my jeans. It took him a while.
The Nerdy and the Dirty Page 15
