I need to know if it was really because it was her first time

The alarm went off at 5 A.M. Sarah was already up, making coffee. We barely spoke as we got ready, trading the bathroom in silence. I watched her put on her work clothes, eyes glassy and distant, and I wondered if she was thinking about him, or if she was just sick of me already. I burned my tongue on the coffee and left early, just to get away.

And it didn’t help that on Monday I had to face the consequences of that pervert pig demoting me back to trainee.

When I walk into the office my manager had posted my name on a whiteboard in block letters under the heading “Negative Examples.” When I asked why, he licked his thumb, wiped it along the board, and told me that if I wanted to be remembered for something, I should be careful what it was. Then he “assigned” me a new supervisor, which is to say he promoted the guy I’d just finished training myself. Kid only nineteen, at most, and every time he gave me an order he did it with a smile full of orthodontic hardware, like he was the sun and I was the patch of sidewalk his mother had just begged him not to piss on.

When I asked if this was permanent, my manager laughed and said, “Should’ve treated him better while you had the chance, don’t you think, Liam?” and then made a show of angling his jacket closed before walking off to the breakroom. I spent the rest of the morning running paperwork between departments, then spent the afternoon on punishment duty in the mailroom, culling out the spam and credit card offers everyone was too important to open themselves. The new supervisor made sure to walk past at least once an hour, ostentatiously timing me on his phone and making remarks about “poor productivity levels.”

After eight hours of that, I was so angry I couldn’t even fantasize about quitting, only about the things I would have done to the manager’s car if I ever had privacy and a hammer.

When I got home that night, the apartment was shrouded in a strange, almost dead hush. Sarah’s shoes were at the door, damp and tipped over, and I could hear the distant hiss of her shower, the scrape of the curtain rings, the muted thud as she dropped a shampoo bottle to the tile. I wandered through the silence, every muscle in my body tight with what had happened at work. I needed to unwind, to distract myself, but instead I ended up in the kitchen, spinning a plate between my palms and replaying every humiliation of the day over and over. My manager’s smirk, the braces gleaming on the kid’s teeth, the way even the secretaries whispered when I passed in the hallways. All because of that pig, Wiley—if he hadn’t pulled whatever strings he pulled, none of this would have happened.

I tried to focus on something else, but anger pulsed through me like a second heartbeat. It felt like I was still vibrating when Sarah finally appeared, hair wet and stringy, a towel wrapped low and loose around her hips. She didn’t seem to notice me at first, digging through the laundry basket for something to wear, but then she looked up and caught my stare. I couldn’t stop myself. The words tumbled out before I could filter them, and I heard my own voice echo, raw and too loud: “Sarah, I NEED TO KNOW IF IT REALLY WAS BECAUSE IT WAS YOUR FIRST TIME!”

She froze with a pair of socks in her hand, eyes wide in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “You’re still on that? Can’t you see it makes me uncomfortable? Can’t you just let it go?”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t. NOT UNTIL I KNOW!” I said, and I felt my fists clench, veins standing out on the backs of my hands.

Sarah put her arms across her chest, shifting the towel higher. She glared at me, but beneath the anger there was something else—a kind of deep, weary sadness I’d never seen before. “And how do you plan on finding out, smart man?” she spat, the words like ice.

By this point in time the rational side of my brain had long left the building, I needed to know why it was so sexy, I needed to know why it was better with him. I NEEDED TO BEAT HIM FAIR AND SQUARE TO PROVE I WAS THE BETTER MAN. I needed to win, even if the only way to do it was to make myself into someone I’d always sworn I wasn’t. “I need to listen to you have sex with him again,” I said. The words came out flat, but inside I was shaking.

Sarah stared at me, almost laughing, but not quite. “Too bad we didn’t record it,” she said, her voice brittle.

“No,” I said, “I meant listen to you having sex with him when it isn’t your first time.” I could hear my own desperation, but it didn’t stop me. “I need to know how it is for you. I need to know if it’s really better. I need to know if it even meant anything, or if it was just some accident of chemistry, or hormones, or whatever.”

She just looked at me, and all the color drained from her face. “You…actually want me to have sex with him?” She looked like she might be sick.

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t stop. “I need to know.”

Sarah stood there for a long minute, shivering, the towel bunched in her fists. She didn’t yell. She didn’t even cry. She just dropped the socks and said, quietly, “I need some time to think about this.” She turned and walked toward the bedroom.

As she slowly walked off I said, “I don’t think I can sleep with you again if you don’t.” Causing her to freeze for a moment before shutting the bedroom door behind her.