Page 82 of Kiwi Gold
“Yes. But peopledodo other things, right? The kissing and touching and all, like in films? At least, Daisy and Gray always do. But they’re having relations. Intercourse.”
“You do it on any timetable you like,” I said. “That, I’m sure of. And if you’re asking whatyoushould do? Do what feels good to you.”
“Like what?” she asked. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what there is!”
If ever there was a conversation that would have made Lachlan laugh, it was this. Maybe I could ask him to do another session when he got back from Saudi Arabia and educate both of us. A slide show, possibly. A PowerPoint, with diagrams and bullet points and a Q&A afterwards. He thought advising his little sisters was bad? I’d bet he’d never seen anything like this.
I said, “Well, kissing, for one thing. If he’s not experienced, either … not experienced at all? That’s what we’re expecting? The person you have in mind, for your … experimenting?”
“Yes,” Oriana said.
I said, “I’m guessing he’ll have looked at some porn, at least, if he’s living out here.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “That wouldn’t happen. That’s such a big sin.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “It almost certainly would. For one thing, he’ll probably want to know what he’s doing at least as much as you do. I don’t think real sex is necessarily exactly like porn, though, so he could get some wrong expectations. You could see how kissing goes, first. Tell him you want to take your time, to take it slow, and that you want to be able to tell him how it feels, and ask how he feels. There’s kissing, and holding each other, and touching each other’s bodies, and …” I stopped.
No. Just no. Don’t say any more.
“Go slow,” I repeated instead. “See how everything feels. If you’re both on the same page with wanting to wait, tell him you’ll stop when he wants to, and make sure he’ll stop whenyouwant to. If you do that, if you find out together? I reckon it’ll work.”
There. I had to take a breath. Minefield, safely negotiated. Reasonable advice, possibly. From the blind.
She sat a minute, thinking it through, and I was somehow saying, to my very great surprise, “If you do decide to go further, you can also watch that porn together at some point to get an idea. To know what it looks like, and what things you can try. Keeping in mind that it can be a bit … outlandish.”
She stared at me in astonishment, and I opened my mouth to say, “Let’s get ready for the Weavers, shall we?” and instead said, “But the best thing would probably just be for you both to read about how to have an orgasm. How a woman has one, that is, because a man’s not much of a mystery. You can find heaps of articles, I’m sure. Especially if you’ve never had one. An orgasm, not an article.” Like I hadn’t, before I was married, and for a long time after it, too.
“You mean spill seed?” she asked. “Women don’t spill seed, though.” And looked completely confused.
“At Mount Zion,” I said slowly. “Do they talk about sex being pleasurable for women?”
“Not exactly,” she said, “but Daisy says it is, even though it hurt before, with her first husband. She says it’s lovely with Gray, though. I thought it must feel good, like eating something wonderful, or climbing into bed when you’re cold and tired, but it feels odder than that in my body just to think about. More like needing to sneeze, but not sneezing. I can’t even tell if it’s a good feeling or a bad one. It’s just …odd.Is that normal?”
I had achieved the impossible. I’d hired the only person in New Zealand more clueless than me about sex. “Women have orgasms,” I promised her. “You don’t spill seed in the same way, but it’s every bit as much of an orgasm. The way your body’s reacting, those feeling you’re having, is part of it. Sexual arousal, is what that is. I’ll find some articles for you,” I decided, because who knew what she’d run into on her own and think was true? “But tell him it’s important that he reads them, too, because like I said, pleasure is easier for a man. When he puts his penis in your vagina—” Yes, I was saying the words, exactly like Yasmin in the car, meaning that I’d either lost the necessary amount of inhibition to address the situation or had regressed to blurting things out like a six-year-old—“When he does that,” I went on, “that rubbing feeling he’ll get will make him have an orgasm, but it probably won’t for you, not by itself. So I’ll find you some articles. About female stimulation, and positions, and what he needs to do, and so forth.”
It sounded lofty. Helpful. Or, possibly, wildly inappropriate. No, almostcertainlywildly inappropriate. With myemployee.What had I beenthinking,answering this? The girl had a perfectly good sister to ask!
“Oh,” Oriana said. She looked at once both gobsmacked and supercharged, and I wondered for the first time if the partner, whoever he was,was going to be able to keep up withher.
I wanted her to find out before she made that commitment. That’s what made me tell her, “You may want to read the articles together, and learn how to have an orgasm by yourself, too, because every woman’s body is different, at least that’s what they say. That way, you can show him what works for you, and know that it’s possible.”
“You mean …” She almost whispered the word.“Masturbation?”
Which was when the doorbell rang. The Weavers. With baby.
Pity I wasn’t in the baby zone anymore. Also, the serenity Inow needed might be too much to ask from the whale sounds.
36
REINDEER GAMES
Lachlan
The Fairmont Riyadh is a great pinkish thing squatting between the city and the airport, its domed center flanked by the two outstretched, window-studded arms that are its wings. I wasn’t admiring its LEGO-robot architecture at the moment, even though for once, because it was the dead of winter, the temperature in Saudi Arabia wasn’t actually surface-of-the-sun hot. Moderately oven-like, that’s all. I was in the thoroughly air-conditioned hotel gym instead, starting out with a slow jog on the treadmill and preparing to sweat a bit and get loose on this Sunday morning, after twenty-four hours in the air from Auckland and in preparation for another twenty-four going home on Tuesday. A long way to go for a meeting, but the Saudis liked their deals personal, and I wanted this contract.
It wasn’t just the money. It was the place, and it was my nose. If I couldn’t find gold in Mali, one of the richest countries for those deposits in all of Africa, I should hang up my exploration hat. I wouldn’t have to, though, because I already knew where I wanted to look, and I was sure.
If I got the contract.
