Page 41 of Sex Ed

‘No.’

‘Did you move the bookcase into place and realise you’d crushed her chihuahua?’

‘No, she doesn’t have a dog. This could go on a while,’ he tells me, his face still looking like he’s in pain. ‘I shook her hand. I was in her bedroom, and she’d dumped all her underwear on the bed. I took that as a sign to leave so she could sort her stuff but then she kissed me to say thank you and I think there was a moment. Maybe? But I freaked out so offered her my hand to shake.’

‘Well, that’s good in a way. You didn’t take advantage. It may appear gentlemanly.’

‘But I was in her bedroom. I can’t read these things. In the back of my mind, I thought what if she kissed me or initiated something and then I…’

‘Shoot my load too quickly over her new flatpack drawers?’

‘Nice,’ he says, scowling at me. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands running through his hair.

I notice the forearms again, but I also laugh. I have to because this is how I will deal with all of this. It has to be funny. ‘So you’re telling me you completely overthought it all and left. Pretty much like Sunday…’

‘I didn’t leave on Sunday!’ he retorts with indignation in his tones.

‘You went to your kitchen. I don’t know what you did but you left.’

‘Mia, it was kinda embarrassing.’

‘Dude, it was your first time. Chill.’

‘I can’t be that word. I don’t even understand it. How?’

I want to tell Ed that I can get some weed and it would help, but he’s always in this high state of motion and anxiety. He needs to eat pizza in bed and watch shite with me, that would be a good start. I beckon him over to the bed and he comes over and collapses in a heap. I wrap my arms around him.

‘So what if I get to know her and then I have sex with her and it’s over in seconds. There’s no point…’ he moans.

‘Ed, every time you meet a new person, the sex isn’t always on point. It’s not like a film. You build that trust, you learn what that person likes and it gets better.’

‘But I have zero skills, zero practice. I feel like a surgeon operating on a real-life patient when all I’ve done is practise my stitching on cushions.’

‘You’re telling me you shag cushions?’ I ask.

‘NO! It’s an analogy, aren’t you supposed to be an English teacher?’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be a Biology teacher?’ I jest.

He sits up, takes a cushion and throws it at me, spying a box of potato wedges on my bedside table and stealing one for himself. I want to tell him there’s dip for those, but I know that’s not his style – no sauce. ‘What’s been your longest relationship?’ he asks me.

I puff my cheeks out. ‘Eighteen months maybe? I was fresh out of university. His name was Ben.’

‘Did you have good sex with Ben?’

‘Yes, when he wasn’t having sex with other people…’ Ed’s eyes widen. ‘It was good sex because I also loved him. There was a comfort and an intimacy there.’

I pause for a moment to think about Ben. A chance to reminisce about orgasms and spontaneous freeing sex but clouded by a moment when I found messages on his phone from lots of different women and I threw a cereal bowl at his head.

Ed curls into a ball on my bed and I pat him again like he’s a large dog taking up space.

‘That’s the difference between you and me. All that breadth of experience, you know that sex gets better because you’ve acquired skills, you know what to expect… I have none of that,’ he continues.

I think about the moment when he just lay there inspecting my vulva, taking it in like he had to memorise it for a school exam. He may be right. You can read as many books, watch as many sex scenes and download as much porn as your firewalls can handle but it’s nothing compared to actually doing it.

‘When I first had sex, I didn’t know what semen was,’ I admit to Ed.

Ed laughs hysterically. ‘What did you think it was?’

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