Chapter 16
When the four of them stumbled out of the car at 3 am, Kate and Tyler went to their room in the building next door. June followed Travis down the hall to his room. When Travis spoke, he bounced around talking about different things. He started subjects where he expected to shine.
June feigned interest. She was nodding with a smile. June was glad Travis was talkative, trying to fill the silence. It meant she didn't have to. Instead, she let her mind run a few different ways. "Had I shaved today? I wonder if I have raccoon eyes. Does he have a girlfriend? Should I ask?"
June paused at the moral dilemma. June was then thinking about her open relationship with Nick. "Isn't this what I thought would happen." June thought. Part of her was disappointed. The other part of her was unsure what her end goal with this was. The alcohol was seeping from her blood to her head. Alcohol had a numbing effect that people loved to use to get out of their heads. It was enough to distract June from thinking too hard about the potential consequences.
June and so many girls, who went home with a guy for a one night stand, get swept up in the idea, mistaking it for passion when it was just sloppy. It was a game where there were little upside and many downsides. Casual sex had been normalized. Giving up their body to random men for a future "Are you up?" text is degrading. Giving sex for external validation lowers your self-worth. Girls chat in circles, decoding texts, soothing a friend by saying, "You're so much better than him." But they don't act like it. Instead, they blame men for being pigs, but it's easy to be a pig when it's the path of least resistance.
The idea of an open relationship at a young age is sugar-coated as getting more experience. "Being open-minded." June was very much afraid to face her fear of commitment. Or address the fear that she thought she wasn't good enough for Nick. Or even the fact that she liked Nick but June didn't love him anymore. Being single under these terms, was keeping one foot in the door and one foot out. She was permitting herself to search around while having a safety net. It wasn't uncommon for a young woman to have many guys they were talking to. Even women in relationships have reliable male "friends." Who they know would make a move if the window was open.
It didn't matter that June had a boyfriend for three years. None of it psychologically prepared her for how she should act when she was finally single again. Instead, it was like June picked off right where she left off. As if she was a crazy 16-year-old again. A boyfriend pillow would have probably done the same trick with less damage.
Maybe if June's head and heart were aligned, she wouldn't be so careless with how she saw herself. She could trust her feelings of discomfort. Listen to the creeping anxiety feeling when she thought about what was wrong or right. Instead, she acted upon whims.
June knew she didn't need to follow Travis into his room. She knew she could have stopped him at any point. But June was so stubborn. She was chasing the wrong hunch. June didn't want to sleep. She wanted to feel something.
Love or excitement. Oxytocin that's released when you are intimate with someone. Typically June didn't feel anything at all. She didn't know that it wasn't the alcohol that numbed her. It was the artificial hormones she'd been taking for the last three years. Years of hormonal birth changed her sexual drive altogether. It depleted her body of nutrients. Made it impossible for her to lose weight. It numbed her from most sensations.
Travis unlocked his door. They moved in inside with the lights off. June let him push her against the wall to kiss her.
When you kiss someone, it's like your body can already tell if the two bodies are compatible. It's a test. A great kiss, the mouths melt together—the grooves of one fit in the other like a piece of a puzzle eager to play.
But June felt like Travis's lips were too thin. Instantaneously she thought about how strange it was to have his mouth on hers. She felt his lips were too small. Their teeth were banging together awkwardly. When he put his tongue in her mouth, his saliva tasted off. When Travis used his hands to remove her shirt and feel her chest, his hand felt clammy and cold against her skin. She felt like ice was moving across her skin.
Travis started taking off his pants, then her bra. June could feel his hard-on pressing against her thigh. But she had no desire to put it in her mouth. He reeked. Something about the smell of his sweat made her turn her nose. He tossed her clothes onto the piles of trash on the floor. Travis turned her around and bent June over the side of his bed. He rubbed June's back and butt. Travis spat into his hand and slapped it on June's pussy lips.
When he thrust into June, she squirmed in pain, gripping his sheets as he pushed into a dry canal. He mistook her cries into his pillow as pleasure and went faster. June was shivering, squeezing her legs together as he gripped her hips. His sweat and hot breath on June's back as he got lost in her. June hid her face in his sheets and squeezed her eyes, giving out little fake moans but waiting for it to end. He drove himself harder into her. June liked rough sex, but this time she liked it because it meant he wouldn't take his time.
It took only a few minutes until Travis finished. Travis shouted, giving out a deep grunt of satisfaction and then collapsing on top of her, shaking.
She didn't feel alluring or empowered as he finished. June nodded when Travis mumbled, "That was great." He pushed his hair out of his eyes and handed her a tissue while pulling out of her. He laid in a daze on top of his sheets. June had no idea when was the last time he'd washed his sheets. How many girls had he done the same thing to right then and there? She would never know.
June got up to reach for her clothes on the floor.
"You don't have to leave. You can stay if you want." Travis reached for her.
June laid back down as if on command. But every inch of his skin that touched hers felt like small bugs crawling up and down her.
"I'm not big into cuddling," June said with half her body hanging off the end.
"Okay. Yea. Did you finish?" Travis asked boldly. June held back a laugh. She was dry as the Sahara desert.
"Yes. Once." June said, turning her head away from him.
"Oh, with the way you were moaning. I thought you finished at least three times." Travis replied. Still unbothered, he laid back, putting his hands behind his head. He was pleased with himself.
June was used to faking it. After years of experimenting with Nick. She could never get herself to finish, with Nick or alone. June used to tell Nick that she was a giver. That she felt enjoyment from giving him pleasure. But maybe that was to help him so he wouldn't feel bad that she never finished.
June felt for years disconnected from her body. She researched stories online. Women who had medical issues. Or women who also felt they never been able to finish. That dry vagina was a symptom of menopause. Or it was an arousal issue, not hormonal.
June laid there. She felt hollow.
"I'm going to go," June said. June fought back the tears that were building in her throat. Travis didn't fight her on it. He was nodding off.
June shivered, naked and cold on his floor. On her hands and knees, she tried to use night vision to gather her clothes on the dirty floor. June found pieces of clothing between beer cans and other condom wrappers. Each moment that passed, June felt like she was on the brink of losing it. The feeling of a panic attack creeping in. She dressed as fast as the clothing would appear. Travis didn't move to help her.
June tried to hide her face when she passed other people in the hall on her way out. On the ground floor, a group of guys was hanging out in the common area. June heard a voice say, "What the fuck" as the door closed behind her. June felt like she couldn’t make her feet move fast enough. It was close to 4 am, and she was running across campus to get to her room.
Outside in the cold, June wished she was wearing more clothing than the thin piece of cheap fabric. Her arms bare and shivering in her crop top. The tight leggings did nothing to protect her skin from the cold win. She despised the sound of her little heeled black boots that crackled shame against the cold sidewalk. June knew public safety guards were in the distance or watching on the cameras. Probably equally as disgusted.
June prayed that she didn't have to see Travis again. As June walked, she couldn't hold back the feelings that were bubbly over. She let out a cry because she knew nobody else could hear.
Horror filled every inch of her. June wished she could not be this person. She was condemning herself because she allowed that to happen to herself. Failing herself. She could feel her soul separate from her. As if it wanted nothing to do with the pain June was causing herself.
Casual sex is demeaning because you choose it in the first place. Travis wasn't some misogynistic womanizer. It didn't matter if she dated him. She knew she wouldn't have interacted with him generally in the first place. But June was responsible for herself, and here there was nobody else to blame.
The last time she felt this way was after she lost her virginity to Eddie. Both violations of her innocence. Both times she laid there and let happen. If she were as smart with boys as in school, maybe she wouldn't have made the same mistakes. These mistakes lead to a nihilistic attitude about relationships. She could pretend she was confident, strong, and bold. But what would have been empowering was pushing him off and leaving. What would have been liberating was telling him that she couldn't hook up with someone she didn't have feelings for. Asking him to take her out or get to know her first. To put her values before her need for instant gratification. Both times felt the same because they were tipping points. June felt like an idiot.
June knew there was nothing to be proud of what she did. She couldn't shake the thought that none of it was worth it.