Unhinged

Jazz Tells Me To Man up

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"Sex is a beautiful thing" she presses her small butt against the pool table, holds a stained stick of Marlboro Light up to her fire red lips and inhales.

I flip through an old magazine, I'm not much of a COSMOPOLITAN reader. This magazine fucking sucks actually.

"Is that so?" I cast the magazine to the side, it lands on the edge of the suede forest green couch, slips, and falls down in a heap of pages and color onto the worn wooden floor.

"Hell yeah, you just gotta try it again," Jazz swings her small hips from side to side to the rhythm of the sultry music bellowing from the hidden speakers. This bar, Jakes, doesn't attract much attention, but that's why Jazz likes it so much. She flips her long flaxen curls off one shoulder and collects it onto the next, she looks like she's having sex with an invisible man. She takes another puff from her cigarette, blows it out slowly with closed eyes and then smiles as if in a daze, "Just gotta hop back up there Kid. You have to learn how to move your hips, you get on top sometimes, show him who's boss. Feel it, work your hips, learn how to move slow and then fast."

She demonstrates with her hips and I cover half of my face in embarrassment, there's this guy with greasy black hair and a crooked ass nose watching her from the bar. Jazz doesn't see him, she moves her small body like she doesn't care, "First time always sucks. Don't you let anybody lie to you. This is like a monumental moment for you! You should be ecstatic! You just became a woman."

But how does sex make you a woman, or a man? It's awkward, and grossly intimate...and the look on Noah's face when I started crying. God...he was horrified like he'd done something wrong, he leaped up and then he saw the red, "The fuck is this...are you bleeding?"

I bit my lip and pulled my knees up tightly to my chest. My black shirt was still on, but he'd unhooked my bra, pushed it up my shirt to my neck. I hooked the bra back, avoided his brown eyes, his white face and slid off the couch.

"Lizzie. Lizzie! Hey I’m talking to you damnit!" Noah touched my arm, I yanked it away and searched blindly for my underwear and yoga pants on his cool floor. He couldn’t see me as well as I could see him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ignored him, my fingertips touched something soft and silky, my underwear. I slipped them on clumsily, “Can you talk to me? Say something to me!”

“I’ll clean it up, where are your towels?” My foot hit soft fabric, I stooped down, rose up and held it up to the few rays of light, my yoga pants.

“Fuck the towels, why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

I scoffed, “Like you didn’t know,” and pulled my yoga pants on one leg at a time.

“But I didn’t…” He sat there on the couch, bare ass naked, with his hands palms up reaching for something, his dark curly hair framed by a halo of silver white light, “I didn’t.”

As if he didn’t feel the resistance, as if he didn’t feel the break, as if he didn’t feel my body still, as if he didn’t hear my deadly breathing.

“Whatever, it’s nothing. Do you have a towel or something?”

“I’ll do it,” he whispered, his eyes stared, but they saw nothing.

“Ok,” I shrugged, slipped on my sandals, found my bag and left out without saying good bye.

“Liz! Oh my god what’s wrong?” I blink and I’m back to today and Jazz is mopping my face with a wet tissue.

“Nothing,” I push her hand away, “what’s wrong with you?”

Her blue eyes widen, “You’re crying.”

I wipe my eyes with one of my long sleeves and laugh, “Are you kidding? My allergies are going haywire again. Fucking Texas always makes me weepy when seasons change like this.”

I’m a horrible liar.