Backseat Screwing

I finally understood why no one wanted to be Mamie’s sexual partner. It was strange. Her grades were allegedly good (I didn’t have a way to verify it). She was knowledgeable. She had connections to the Union. More importantly, she was hot. The size of her breasts was fulfilling enough. Her figure was well-maintained. She smelled of roses, though I had to get close to catch a whiff of them.

Did she have any deformities underneath her clothes? Nope. Was she awful in bed? Hmmm… Good with her mouth, good with her hands, good with her… That was enough to make my point. Yes, there were awkward moments. I tried to pick her up twice, both ending in failure. At least we had a good laugh about that. Well… not just a laugh…

“What are you doing? This is too much force.”

“You really need to go to the gym more frequently.”

“Do you know that you moan like a girl? Unless your client is bisexual. She won’t like that.”

“You are going too quickly. What if you climax before she does? Do you know how unsatisfying it would be?”

“Soft already? Do you have erectile dysfunction?”

The last one was kind of her fault.

I thought about it after we did it, when Mamie had fallen asleep next to me.

Maybe being fake friends with benefits isn’t so bad after all.

It was hot the first few times she questioned my competence in pleasuring a woman, but it just got annoying after that and ruined the mood. The lingo I had learned from my Expressive Arts lectures would ask me to think about what ‘character’ Mamie could workshop, utilizing this obsessive need to backseat screwing.

Whatever the solution, tomorrow’s me could deal with it. A problem for another day. But this wasn’t procrastination. More than her body heat from our skin rubbing against each other, a warm feeling inside my heart persisted throughout our intimate contact. The sensation was definitely far from pleasure, a bit uncomfortable even, but it made me think that even if she continued ruining our sex like this, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Before I could pick apart this ridiculous thought, tiredness overwhelmed my eyes, and I sank into the softness of the mattress and drifted off to sleep. So, maybe there was a bit of procrastination.

On normal days, I would wake up at around nine. At eight, if I had classes at ten. That was the ideal, of course. Approaching the third week of college, it was one event after another that occupied my mind, corroding away my peaceful sleep time.

But after the night I had spent with Mamie, I woke up at around five thirty. It wasn’t because of any alarms that either of us had set. Mamie sat up, ruffling the bedsheets, and slipped off the bed. That was all it took to pluck me from sleep.

Should I pretend not to notice? What if she is a spy on a secret mission?

She was already working for the Union to deliver criminal evidence, so I wasn’t that far off. My lips moved before I could draw a conclusion. “You’re up early.”

Mamie paused. The lights were off, and the blinds blocked any stray glow from the street, so I had no way of knowing what face she was making. “Sorry for waking you. I have somewhere to go. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” Her voice sounded softer than any other time she had spoken.

The half-asleep state plagued my brain, so it was a big ask for me to interpret the hidden meaning behind what she said. I could barely load my memories of Professor Silva’s teachings. “Is it a secret? Can I come with you?”

That was something I would never say when my head was clear. It was too desperate. Too needy. Something not just any sigma male teacher would warn against, but my social sense would also complain about how much of myself I was showing.

Yet I still said it and felt no regret… for three seconds. Then, the regret crawled back with a vengeance. The cold space in the air overwhelmed me with its mocking emptiness. The combination of silence and darkness led me to wonder if reality was buffering.

“Sure,” she finally said with a sigh.

“Um… I don’t know if it is too late to ask this. But we aren’t going to another shady place again and doing something that risks our lives, right?”

Laughter smashed through the stale, awkward atmosphere. “Who do you think I am?”

Someone who would bring strangers to shady places and do something that risks ending people’s bloodlines?

***

The rooftop. Our destination ended up being the rooftop of the Commitment Block building. But the dorms were in the Intimacy Block. So wouldn’t a normal person get up to the top of the Intimacy Block instead? The structure of the two blocks and the view from them were nearly identical anyway.

Good question. A good question with no answers other than: “I like this better,” from the unreadable person before me. She had stopped by her room to change into fresh clothes, wearing a plain, wordless T-shirt again. Her dark green hair streamed in the early-morning breeze, and her gaze was set on a faraway place, over the fence, where the rest of the city dwelled. The sky was stained with a dark purple, and a shred of sunlight sprouted from the horizon. We could have just watched the city from my room, but I knew she would just defend this with “I like this better” again.

“I come here sometimes to think.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood next to her, fiddling with my fingers. What was I supposed to do here? Maybe I shouldn’t have asked to follow her. “What’s there to think about?”

She should start with how much unsolicited advice she gave during sex.

“A lot of things. But right now, it’s mainly about how I give unsolicited advice during sex.”

My eyes widened, and I was sure my expression was on par with someone who had just been told that they were adopted.

“Do you think I’m that dense? Why did you think I was so against us being real friends with benefits?” She flashed a rueful smile as the rising sunlight reached her face, causing her melancholy to pop out more.

“I thought you just despised me. Or that you were a hopeless tsundere. Or-”

“Fine. I get the picture. Sorry for being so cryptic. I… I didn’t want to get to this point. I only wanted us to be friends, without the benefits part. Can we go back to before last night? Can we pretend nothing happened? I’m… I’m so sorry for being such a know-it-all. In the heat of the moment… No, I’m not going to excuse it. I’m just sorry.” She refused to look at me, hiding her eyes through a downward stare.

The right answer was to tell her it was okay. That her buzzing critiques of my bedroom performances didn’t bother me at all. A stock response that any socially competent person would dish out. But for me, what I would say was…

“It’s okay. I’m not bothered by them.”

She made a sound too faint to hear under the amplifying gusts of air. I could guess that she might be scoffing at the insincerity.

“I’m not just saying this to be nice. Sure, it was annoying. It ruined the mood. And many of your future clients would definitely give you a one-star review or something. But that wasn’t a problem, because-”

“I swear if you say that it’s because I’m hot. I’ll throw you off.”

“Some people might be turned on by that. Just saying. And yes, I was going to say that you’re hot… wait! Let me finish!” She grabbed my shoulders. I knew that she wouldn’t actually commit murder here, probably. It was still better to lower my chances of dying.

“Then, finish.”

I didn’t want to test her patience with a sex joke, so I continued to explain myself. “Even with your unnecessary commentary, I know I’ll look back at that time fondly. It’s a bit cute how you have so many opinions even when you were… copulating. Shit, that’s a stupid word to use. My point was, it was intimate.” Were these my real thoughts? No clue, but it felt right to say it.

“Wow.”

“Right?”

“Wow. That’s so utterly empty.” She finally turned to me, and her wide, beaming smile betrayed her. Her facial muscles twitched, probably trying to turn her expression into a frown. “We are literally studying to become escorts, an occupation where we aren’t paid to be ourselves. We are paid to be whoever our clients need us to be. We are their therapists, their friends, and their fantasies all at once. So, I guess I have to tutor you more, since you’ll probably fail miserably if you continue with this mindset.”

After she finished her speech, we sat in the sweet silence that neither of us wanted to acknowledge. She twirled her hair strands, the grin on her face becoming goofy. Eventually, she must have finally caught herself making such a ridiculous expression, because she steeled her face and cleared her throat. “Anyway, let’s go. I have to prepare for the Union visit. Oh, remind me to take the duffel bag to the Union President.”

“Union visit?”

“The executive members of the Union are coming to visit. Why else do you think that classes are canceled today?”

“Wait, classes are canceled today?”

“They’ve sent out an email notice for this.”

I fumbled for my phone, checking if what she said was true. There it was, the email about the visit, sent after the one about my imminent expulsion. I must have been too distraught to read my other emails carefully, but even so…

“Shouldn’t they tell us this kind of stuff earlier?”

“They did. At the welcoming tea party.”

Oh…