Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [113]
“You stayed uncomfortable around him even after the two of you were having sex together. I think it’s one of the reasons I didn’t like him. I guess I thought if you were that conflicted, then it wouldn’t last.”
I shrugged. “I don’t remember being uncomfortable around him afterward.”
She just looked at me.
I had the decency to squirm. “Okay, maybe I was. But it’s not true that I stop being uncomfortable after having sex just once. It takes a few sessions, a little ‘montonous monogamy’ for me to truly relax.”
She smiled. “Point taken. The best sex is after you’ve learned a few things about each other.” She looked at me, very serious again. “You really haven’t had sex with him, have you?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?” she asked.
I looked at her.
“Anita, after the little show he just put on, I’d do him.”
I looked at her harder.
“You say he’s been sleeping in your bed, with you and Micah, right?”
I nodded.
“For how long?”
“About four months,” I said.
“Four months of climbing between your sheets, and you haven’t fucked him?”
“Pick a different word, okay? If we’re going to have this talk, pick a different word.”
“Sorry, okay, you haven’t made love to him, that better?”
I nodded.
“Why haven’t you made love to him? He obviously wants you to.”
I shrugged.
“No, I want an answer on this one. Has Jean-Claude decided to draw the line at sharing you with this many men?”
“No,” I said.
“Micah has a problem with it?”
“No.”
“Then why not?”
I sighed. “Because when I first let Nathaniel move in, he was like a wounded puppy, something to take care of and help heal. He was so submissive that he wanted someone to run his life and order him around. I’ve got enough to do to run my own life, so I sort of demanded he change, become more independent. He did it, he’s doing really well.”
“He’s a lot more confident than the last time I saw him,” Ronnie said. “I mean he’s almost like a different person.”
I shook my head. “He’s a stripper, he has to have a certain level of confidence in himself.”
She shook her head. “Nope, had a roommate in college that stripped her way through school on the weekends. She had a terrible self-image.”
“Then why did she strip?”
“It made her feel like someone wanted her. Her childhood makes yours and mine read like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Yeah, stripping made her feel good and bad all at the same time.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“She graduated, found a job, found religion, and is now married with two kids and an attitude so holy that you can’t have a conversation with her without her trying to convert you.”
“They say that no one is as holy as a reformed sinner.”
“Stripping isn’t a sin, Anita. Being naked isn’t a sin, it’s the way God sends us into the world, how bad can it be?”
I shrugged.
“Sex isn’t a sin either, Anita.”
“Intellectually I know that, Ronnie, but part of me just can’t shake my grandmother’s voice. Sex was evil, men that wanted to touch you were evil, your body was dirty. It was all bad, and the nuns didn’t help change that attitude.”
“I guess once a Catholic always a Catholic,” she said.
I sighed. “I guess.” Truthfully, I thought a lot of the damage had been my grandmother’s doing, and my stepmother, Judith, who made every touch some sort of favor. Physical touch was not a big thing in my family after my mother died.
“You feel guilty about Nathaniel, why?”
“I’m supposed to take care of him, Ronnie, not screw him.”
“Anita, you can take care of someone and still have sex with them, married couples do it every day.”
I sighed again. “I don’t know why he weirds me out, but he does.”
“You want him.”
I covered my face with my hands and almost yelled, “Yes, yes, I want him.” And just saying it out loud like that made me cringe inside. “He started life with me on the I’ll-take-care-of-him list, not the future boyfriend list.”
“Don’t you and your boyfriends take care of each other?”
I thought about that. “I guess so. I mean, I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Why are you so busy trying to find reasons to talk yourself out of Nathaniel?