Shut Up and Talk

Chapter 10

"Do you categorise orgasms?" I asked. It was a boring Thursday in the southern French town of Valence and Ian was waiting for his mechanics to finish up with is car. "Like you categorise hurricanes and earthquakes?"

"Categorise orgasms? Are you having me on?"

"I genuinely want to know."

"No, no, no."

"No, you don't categorise them, or no, you don't want to talk about them?"

"The latter."

His uneasiness didn't deter me. "Losing my virginity wasn't anything special. Suffice it to say I didn't have an orgasm. To be honest, I don't think I've ever had one."

Ian blanched and squirmed. "You've already said too bloody much!"

"I'm wondering if maybe what I thought was an orgasm with Ben, my last boyfriend, really wasn't. Or maybe it was a mini orgasm?"

"Stop talking about it! You're making me want to puke. Don't you have girlfriends you can talk to?"

"How many girls have you had?"

"Jaysus!"

"You must have an idea. Estimate."

I could tell he was thinking about it. "Maybe a couple of hundred."

I coughed violently. "Two hundred?"

"I'm estimating!"

"Shit, you're busy."

Ian's face suddenly lit up. "Back in my first year of racing I hung out with Gilbert a lot. We used to play seven in seven. I had better luck than he did. Probably bagged seventy-five that year alone."

"Do I want to know what seven in seven is?"

"Seven birds in seven days."

"Ugh. I had a feeling."

"The winner got a thousand pounds from the loser."

"Was it an honour system?"

"Sure, we never lied about it. One week we nailed the same fine thing."

"I'm sure she tells the story proudly."

"What about you? How many men have had the honour?"

"A nice girl never tells."

"Not that many then."

"I don't see why you need to know."

"It's all right for you to ask me, but I can't ask back?"

"Fine. Two," I mumbled.

"Two? I had two last week!"

Time to defend myself. "I was sort of in a long term relationship with one. The other guy was someone I dated casually."

"Two? Really? Just the two?"

"Cut it out!"

"I thought there'd be more. With those lips I figured you'd see more action. I loathe kissing, really hate it and there's only two reasons I'd kiss a girl. One's to shut her up, the other because I like her, but I'm curious about your lips."

"You can stay curious."

"Two, eh?"

"You're a whore!"

Ian shrugged.

"So you sleep with them and that's it?"

"Yeah, what else would I do with 'em?"