Someone To Love

Afterglow

In the morning, after our first incredible night together, Cruise sleeps silently next to me as I get up gingerly to use the bathroom. I watch his back rise and fall as the newborn sun adheres her pale light to the curve of his skin, jealous to have him.

I scoot off the bed and take a few careful steps.

Oh. My. God.

Shit, shit, shit!

FIRE!

There's a freaking fire in my vagina - as if somehow my soft, silky flesh was replaced with live coals, and I find it very fucking hard to convince my body to take the very next step.

I try not to whimper out loud as I scuttle to the bathroom.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" I mouth the words as I close the bathroom door.

What the hell was that? Did he perform exploratory surgery while I was freaking sleeping?

I snatch my compact off the counter and slide the mirror in places where mirrors and, therefore, glass should never venture.

It looks normal enough. I mean, it doesn't look mutilated - I'm not bleeding or anything.

Crap. I must have done something wrong. There must have been some step I missed, like prepping my insides with barbed wire in the event he decides to draw his unholy weapon. Obviously, other girls are privy to the tricks of the trade because if anyone else felt like this the morning after, all coital options would be swiftly taken off the table. The entire human race would have died out long ago if women's asses reaped the benefits of a forest fire each time they had sex.

For a second, I contemplate calling Lauren or Ally and confirming my theory because clearly I did not get the fucking memo on how exceptionally horrific intercourse could be. Surely, there's got to be some quick fix - emphasis on the quick. Obviously, Cruise is expecting more of the same and more than likely in just a few minutes.

I made the decision last night I wouldn't be going to math later. It's my only class today, and it's so not worth ruining all this good mojo between Cruise and me. The I love yous alone warrant me to abort the entire spring semester.

I need to find a cure for said ring of fire before he decides he wants to dip back into cupid's cupboard and discovers an inhospitable environment.

Cupid's cupboard. More like Pandora's box of horrors.

Think, think! Maybe it's his inordinate size? Didn't Ally say he was built like a Redwood?

I so should have let him use the rubber. I'm so stupid! I'm like some vaginal martyr. Maybe all condoms come equipped with some special lubricant that's supposed to quell the morning after pain?

I start the shower, and my thighs shiver with terror.

"Fuck," it comes out frail. I spot a bottle of ibuprofen and don't hesitate in downing two with water straight from the sink. Bathroom water. Everyone knows it's equitable with human sewage.

I gag down the pills.

I can totally envision the live amoebas swimming their way into my intestines. I can just picture them waving back at me like some happy Sea Monkey family as they go on to terrorize my digestive system at random.

Perfect. I'm going to die of parasites because I don't know the first thing about how to maintain sanity in my nether regions. Who knew sex would be the first class I'd flunk. They should totally hold a seminar for dumbasses like me.

I hobble my way into the shower and let the blistering hot water needle over me, in an effort to take my mind off the fact a live grenade went off in my pelvis while I was innocently sleeping. I try to focus in on the curative properties of the molten lava that's spraying over my skin, subtle as a welder with a blowtorch. And, in the event I thought scalding my skin would somehow diminish the white-hot pain throbbing inside me, I was sadly mistaken. Instead, it magnifies the fact my vaginal walls have morphed into sandpaper. I start in on a shiver. Oddly, it feels as though I've just dipped myself in an ice bath because my poor body is so damn confused and wounded.