The Sun and the Moon [Wattys 2015 winner]

Chapter 4: Good Catholic Girl

After my court appearance and kiss with Ryan, I drove for a half hour along the beach up north to Santa Barbara and went back to work. The life of a lawyer sucked sometimes. Actually, it sucked most of the time. No wonder I was clueless when Ryan asked me about passion. I wouldn't know what passion was if it sent me a text. Nevertheless, I managed to get more trial preparation done and felt confident that I was on track for the following week.

After wolfing some pretzels in the break room at work for dinner, I finally stumbled in to my house in the hills at 11 at night. My house welcomed me as it always did. It was an adorable adobe with two bedrooms and one mint green vintage tiled bath, but cost a fortune because of where it was located. It had white stucco walls and a red roof on the outside, with turquoise green trim around the windows. The yard was small and cute and the gardener certainly kept it in order.  But I was never around to enjoy it.

Inside, I had a comfortable living room with dark brown leather couches and cushy twill armchairs--that I never sat in because I was working all day. I had a galley kitchen with small, high-end appliances--that I never used because I was working all day. And I had a luxurious bed that I had shared for only part of one night in the last several years. And this was only partly by choice.

Yeah.

No wonder I was depressed.

When I walked in, still, I felt good to be home. All day I had ignored the throbbing between my legs that had been steadily increasing. Even though I was working, I kept having daydreams about Ryan and his kiss. And his abs. And his tented pants. All. Day. Long.

Dammit.

I felt so sexually frustrated. Okay, I had been sexually frustrated for a very long time. At least I admitted it. Today, Ryan certainly brought it to a head. Now I did not know what to do.

Frankly, I was tempted to take care of it myself. I never did. That's against the rules.

Okay, so about my rules. I realized that they were, well, prudish. They were arbitrary too. I didn't care. I came up with my rules to keep my feminism and my dignity and my badassery and I was not about to change them. I had sex. On my terms.

At least that's what I told myself when I came up with those rules.

Okay, so I came up with those rules in high school when I still thought French kissing was gross. I had been too stubborn to change them.

Maybe there was more going on with my rules than I admitted to myself.

Fear.

Guilt.

A need to keep myself safe and protected.

A need to not be vulnerable with anyone.

A need to not trust anyone.

No one ever talked to me about sex. I mean, yeah, I had sex education in school, but I did not have anyone to talk to about it. And I felt that I should not do certain things.

This contradicted some very strong hormones that lead me to lose my virginity when I became legal. Um, yeah, lawyer. And there were a few guys in college. And then him. But I didn't want to think about him.

So there. Yes, I had sex. But I had never been too creative or allowed any guy to be too creative with me. Like at all creative. Like oral sex creative. Which I admit was not really pushing the bounds of sexual creativity at all.

Frankly, at my age, it was embarrassing, but I still felt guilty about sex. I was raised Irish-Catholic. I was raised to believe that anything pleasurable is bad. It was like a woman was not supposed to be openly sexual. When that belief was ingrained in you, it was hard to believe anything else. If it felt good, it must be bad.