“How could he do that though? I mean, how would they fit?”
“They wouldn’t,” another girl adds. “I definitely don’t believe you.”
Daisy stays quiet in the middle of the pack, kicking the calm ocean with her feet.
“Let’s ask Lily,” Cleo offers. “She’s older and has a boyfriend. I’m sure she’d know. Lily!”
The nearest girl splashes water on my chest, and I hesitate before sitting up to face the string of girls. I really, really don’t want to talk about sex with Daisy’s friends. This whole trip was about me not thinking about sex, and yet, it still surrounds me, even when I don’t bring it on myself.
Harper, the closest to me, explains their debate. “Katy says that her ‘boyfriend.’” She uses air quotes. “Put four fingers inside of her. Is that possible?”
I squirm a little, my float knocking into the unflappable Ryke who gazes up at the sky, sunbathing during this debacle. While I’m here, two seconds from unclipping my tube and floating down the ocean as far away from this boat and conversation as possible.
“Ummm…” My arms turn into a giant red welt. “Everyone has different bodies.”
“Did you just call my vagina loose?” Katy snaps at me. What?!
“No!” I say. “Of course not. His fingers could have been small.” I cringe. That wasn’t better. Ohmygod. If I dive from my tube and go underwater right now—will that be really weird?
“Well how many fingers does Lo usually use?” Cleo asks. I must turn a darker shade of red because Cleo adds, “Don’t be embarrassed, Lily. It’s just sex. How else are we supposed to figure all this stuff out if we don’t talk to each other?”
Daisy straightens up in her tube, dropping her feet in the middle and resting her chin on the teal plastic. “How did you learn about sex? Did Poppy and Rose talk to you about it?” She sounds a little bummed, as though she missed out on some monumental sister-bonding experience by being the youngest.
She’s mistaken. Poppy never talked to me since she was so much older and spent more time with boys on her own than she did teaching us about them. And Rose—I always believed she’d judge me for sleeping around. Not talking to her may just be my biggest regret.
I learned from the internet, porn, and gossip magazines like Cosmo. Wikipedia helped too. I wonder if it would have made a difference if Poppy or Rose talked to me. Maybe I wouldn’t be so ashamed, but then again, maybe nothing would have changed. I’ll never know. As much as I hate to even think it, Cleo’s right. Girls shouldn’t be embarrassed to talk about sex.
“Who cares who she learned it from,” Katy snaps before I can find a suitable reply for Daisy. “I want to know more about Lo. Have you done it doggy style? I heard it feels better.”
“Ew, isn’t that, like, in the butt?” one girl cringes. “That’s supposed to hurt.”
“Doggy style can be in the vag too,” another girl pipes in. “Duh.”
Secretly, I give Ryke’s inner tube a little nudge. He sways and grabs onto mine to steady himself. I face him and hiss, “Save me.”
He rests his head back on this tube, ignoring me.
I feel myself being left out to dry. “I. Will. Drown. You,” I whisper.
Suddenly, he sits up. “I’m going to get some food.”
“I’ll join.” I suppress my smile, and after a short paddle, we end back on the yacht. I spread a towel across one of the lounge chairs on the sun deck and lie back to dry off.
Ryke rubs a towel through his hair and then tosses it on the adjacent recliner. “You sure know how to avoid people. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m trying to be better about it, but some things still make me uncomfortable.” Especially since Lo isn’t here to help ease me into this new, terrifying social world. Having him by my side would make for a smoother transition. I wouldn’t feel so…unhinged by people. “And how can you not be uncomfortable by that?”
“It takes a lot for me to get rattled. I wasn’t about to swim away from them.”
“You just did.”
“Because you asked me to.” He sets his feet on the deck, sitting and facing me while I relax long-ways on the lounge chair.
“So you really would have stayed there while I described sex with Lo?” I ask in disbelief.
“You’re forgetting that I basically watched him grope you,” Ryke reminds me. Yeah, I remember now. When Ryke first met Lo it was under odd circumstances. “I’m a journalism major. In my profession, I can’t be turned off by weird or uncomfortable situations. I just have to fucking deal. And that’s something I’ve been pretty good at most of my life.”