Page 117 of The Black Flamingo
or, maybe, like me, no one admits
to being a virgin. We let
people assume we have
experience by acting confident.
Whenever my phone buzzes
I check to see if it’s from him
and if it’s not, I put it down again.
I only met this guy last night
and now he’s all I can think about.
He’ll be heading back home,
two hundred miles away,
to his job in construction.
I take apart the night in my head.
Was there something I said
or did wrong? Were we wrong
to rush into sex? Should I have
left him wanting more until
the next time he came to visit
Simon?
Then I realize I don’t know Jack
or Simon’s surname and
we never swapped numbers.
When he left this morning
saying he would message me,
did he know he wasn’t going to?
It feels like the one and only time
my mum slapped me. More shocking
than painful.
That evening, I go to the busy
Students’ Union bar hoping to see Simon.
