Five Things I Can't Live Without by Holly Shumas

than about Martin’s plight. “So how did you wind up sharing a room with Martin?”

    “It was a Sunday-afternoon wedding, but I had to be there the day before for this spa-day bachelorette party and the prewedding dinner on Saturday night. And between the spa day and springing for a wedding gift, the whole affair was costing me a fortune, so when Liza called a few weeks back and said she had this harmless guy for me to share a room with, I agreed. I wasn’t thinking that anything was going to happen. He’s still heartbroken, I’m still heartbroken—”

    “Precisely why something was going to happen.”

    “How do you know anything happened?” she asked coyly.

    “If it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be dragging out this story.”

    “So Martin is a textbook harmless guy, like Liza said. He’s the groom’s cousin from the Midwest, stocky and corn-fed and soft-spoken. He flirted with me sort of ineptly during the prewedding dinner, and of course, we both had a few drinks, and then we went upstairs to the room together.” She paused dramatically. “The shocking thing was not that he moved in. It’s the way he moved in. The door shut behind us and he pounced. He grabbed me and pushed me up against the door and jammed his tongue down my throat.”

    “Classy.”

    “I know, right?”

    “So you told him to stay on his side of the room?”

    “No. I made out with him for a couple of hours.”

    “Why? Did his technique improve?”

    “It did, actually. I was into it for stretches of time.”

    “The endorsement every man wants to hear.”

    She shrugged. “He’s the first guy since Dustin. What could I expect? It’s good to get it out of the way with someone who doesn’t matter and who I’ll never see again.”

    “I just hate when these guys skip the preamble. It’s one thing if you’ve had some seething sexual tension all night long, but it doesn’t sound like that. What made him think he could just jump you?”

    “Circumstance,” she said with certainty. “Weddings. All the movies about weddings. I was going to be a bridesmaid.”

    “He didn’t even wait until you actually were a bridesmaid.”

    “He couldn’t. This was his moment of opportunity. I was driving home the next day right after the wedding.”

    “So you made out with him for a couple of hours, and then what?”

    “That’s it.”

    “You didn’t sleep with him?” I asked, a little surprised. I’d just figured that if she wanted to get her first rebound out of the way, she would have gone all the way.

    “No. I made it clear that wasn’t happening. Like, he kept trying to go down and I kept saying, ‘No, I don’t want you to do that,’ and then, ‘No, I
still
don’t want you to do that.’”

    “Have you noticed how the tides have turned on oral sex in the last couple of years? They’re all leaping face-first down your pants now.”

    Larissa considered. “You know, that’s really true.”

    “Remember dating five years ago? Men didn’t try to go down before you’d had sex. Now it’s just a regular part of foreplay.”

    “I’m not into that,” she said emphatically.

    “Into oral sex?”

    “Not before we have sex the regular way. It’s too intimate.”

    “I agree. All of a sudden men act like that’s between third base and home plate and I think it’s more of a grand slam.” I paused. “So why didn’t you sleep with him?”

    “Because of Dustin.” She lowered her eyes. “I know, I know. It’s just, the kissing was fine and I was getting turned on, but I also felt like Dustin’s image was barely at bay. It was like, I wasn’t actually thinking about Dustin, but I could, at any second, and then it would be unbelievably painful and I’d start crying and I’d be there with this stranger to comfort me, not Dustin. I thought if I had sex with Martin, Dustin would definitely break out of his pen.”

    “Maybe it would have been cathartic. You’d be there with someone who gets what it’s