City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

did feel very nice to be stroked. I liked the effect his touchhad on my breasts—the way the skin got all rosy and toasty.
    “I’m going to put your breast in my mouth now,” he said. “This is standard.”
    I wished he hadn’t said that. He made it sound like a procedure . I’d been thinking a lot about sex over the years, and in none of my fantasies did my lover sound like he was making a house call.
    He leaned over to take my breast in his mouth, as promised, whichI also found that I liked—once he stopped talking about it, I mean. In fact, I had never felt anything quite so delicious. I closed my eyes again. I wanted to keep still and quiet, with hopes that he would just continue offering this delightful experience. But then the delightful experience ended suddenly, because now he had started talking again.
    “We’re going to take this in careful stages,Vivian,” he said.
    God help me, but it sounded like he was about to insert a rectal thermometer inside me—an experience I’d once had as a child, and which I didn’t want to be thinking about just now.
    “Or do you want this over with swiftly, Vivian?” he asked.
    “Excuse me?” I said.
    “Well, I would imagine that it’s alarming to you, to lie with a man for the first time. Perhaps you wish for thedeed to be done swiftly, so that your discomfort will be fast over? Or would you like me to linger and teach you some things? Some of the things that Mrs. Kellogg enjoys, for instance?”
    Oh, dear God, the last thing I wanted was to be taught the things that Mrs. Kellogg enjoyed! But I truly did not know what to say. So I just stared at him dumbly.
    “I need to begin seeing patients at noon,” hesaid, not at all seductively. He seemed irritated with my silence. “But we do have enough time for a bit of creative dallying, if that interests you? We will need to make a decision soon, though.”
    How is one supposed to answer that? How was I supposed to know what I wanted him to do? Creative dallying could mean anything . I just blinked at him.
    “The tiny duckling is frightened,” he said, hismanner softening.
    I only slightly wanted to kill him for the patronizing tone.
    “I’m not frightened,” I replied, which was true. I wasn’t frightened—just baffled. My expectation had been that I was going be ravaged here today—but this was all so labored . Were we meant to negotiate and discuss every point?
    “It’s all right, my tiny duckling,” he said. “I’ve done this before. You’re awfully bashful,aren’t you? Why don’t you let me chart the course?”
    He slid his hand down over my pubic hair. He palmed my vulva. He kept his hand flat, the way you keep your palm flat when you’re feeding a sugar cube to a horse, because you don’t want the horse to bite you. He began to rub his palm over my little mound. It didn’t feel that bad. It didn’t feel that bad at all, actually. I shut my eyes once moreand marveled at this slight but magical uprush of lovely sensation.
    “Mrs. Kellogg likes it when I do this,” he said—and again, I had to stop experiencing pleasure in order to think about Mrs. Kellogg and her doilies . “She likes when I go round and round in this direction . . . and then round and round in this direction . . .”
    The problem, I could clearly see now, was going to be the talking.
    I debated how to get Dr. Kellogg to stop speaking. I couldn’t very well ask him to be quiet in his own home—and especially not when he was doing me this tremendous favor of puncturing my hymen for me. I was a well-bred young lady who was accustomed to treating men of authority with a certain deference: it would have been highly out of character for me to have said, “Could you kindly shut up?”
    It occurred to me that perhaps if I asked him to kiss me, that might silence him. It could work. It would keep his mouth busy, without a doubt. But then I would be required to kiss him, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to kiss him. It was