Page 81 of Sizzle Reel

She turns back to me. “How are you feeling about all this? I know we always talked about a hook-up with Valeria, but it really seems like she’s connected with your cinematography. The D.T.R.’ing is a pretty huge, complicated step, and it could affect your career too.”

Despite the blasting A/C, heat crawls up my neck. “I mean, I feel fine. Why?”

We move to the lingerie display. I flip through for my size.

Romy leans into me. “Just—I’m just musing and thinking that you could become anyone’s girlfriend, technically.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “But this is Valeria Sullivan. I’d just be, y’know, gentle with any relationship stuff. If I were you, I’d hold on to what she can do for you. For your art.”

The conversation feels hauntingly like what my parents were saying. Take your professional opportunities while you have them. My stomach turns. My time with Valeria isn’t running out, is it? “I’m focused on the relationship right now. Valeria’s not going away. Having sex won’t change the way she feels about my art.”

“But it can—” Romy chomps down on her lip, cutting off her own words. But I can fill them in; that honey-soaked complicate things rings in my ear. Complicate things romantically and—god, I can see it so clearly, like an image from an old nightmare: Valeria dropping me, Brendan fading with her, me back to scraping for rent, back to groveling at nowhere-bound assistant jobs to get chewed up and spat out by someone worse than Alice. Forced to spend nights awake knowing I crushed my own dream right when it was in my grasp. Romy and I wouldn’t be able to live together and—

“Look, I’m feeling really good about everything,” I say, slapping myself out of the thought loop. I dig a nail into the flesh of my palm, grounding myself with the sting. “About the sex.” I seek out Romy’s gaze, but it feels like I’m grasping at straws for some shred of assurance I know I’m not gonna get. But I keep talking, keep fumbling. “Besides, aren’t you the one who told me to go for the relationship in the first place?”

There’s a moment of silence. “Yeah. Okay.” Romy tilts her head like she’s studying me. “What is going on with you and this sex thing? I thought you were already having sex. You know, that thing where you exchange orgasms?”

The conversation about what dating Valeria could do for my career hangs in the air like dust in the store, but I’m relieved—ecstatic, really—to change the subject. Finally, I find the teddy in my size.

“Well, yeah, we’ve done…you know, hand stuff. But not, like, real sex.” I say the words sheepishly as I display the teddy to her.

“Okay. Ignoring that you still don’t think fingering is sex for one moment.” Romy grabs another teddy off the display to feel the fabric, as if I’ve already bought the one in my hands and it’d be a violation of my space if she were to touch it. “Have you mentioned you haven’t eaten pussy before?”

My stomach tightens. “I’ve been reading stuff online.” Romy’s hands move slowly up and down the fabric. I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be wearing the teddy and have her touching it. Heat slithers up my neck.

“You also need to tell her that.” Thank god, she folds the lingerie and puts it back. “Assuming you feel ready for that. You’ve clearly established that you two exchange favors. Plus, you know, open communication.”

I drape the teddy over my arm. “I was hoping we could just use a strap.”

Romy raises her eyebrows a moment. “Very…bold and pillow princess of you.”

“Is it?”

Romy’s expression softens. She pinches the bridge of her nose. “No, no, I was kidding! It’s not bad. It’s just…it’s a thing that you’re still so nervous to perform oral sex. You gave B.J.s to some of those guys you dated, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re not diametrically opposed to genitals. So it’s just telling me you’re still, I don’t know”—she glances at me, her jaw flexing—“not ready for more than hand stuff. Oral should never be something you’re scared of, even if you decide it’s something you’re not into.”

“I’m not scared of oral.” I pause. “And I’m trying this on.”

We walk to the dressing room.

“And it’s okay to be,” Romy says. “It’s the one thing you’ve never had to do in any way. A first solid foray outside of sexual cis hetero normativity, shall we say.”

“But I’m not scared of it! I just…” I close the curtain on the dressing room. Remove my clothing and slip into the teddy. “I like the idea of the strap. That’s it. It’s still valid sex, right?”

“It is, just—”

I step out of the dressing room and Romy goes silent. She’s having a startled, bug-eyed, Jesus Christ sort of reaction. I’m taken aback. Since when does Romy react to me in underwear like this?

“Wow, you look incredible,” Romy says.

My whole body goes warm at the compliment—a heart-beating-a-little-faster, tingly kind of warm.

“Thanks, Rom.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not done talking about the sex thing. You haven’t been out for that long and—”

I return to the dressing room before she can finish her sentence. Strip out of the teddy, get back into my clothes, and head out with it in my arms. A definite buy.

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