TASTE

Part 6 of 6: The End

Janet stood up abruptly and walked across the room, only stopping after she was a good distance away from me. I sat up on the sofa, confused, and called out to her. She had her back to me and did not appear to want to talk. When she finally turned around, her expression looked pained.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I—"

She was having difficulty putting words to her thoughts. I feared the worst but didn't interrupt, hoping she could find them.

"—I—I'm—I'm so sorry," she said at long last. "I need to pee."

Janet darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. I heard her run the faucet, while I just stood there with a full-blown erection, feeling completely useless. What'd just happened? One second, we were in the moment, and now everything was up in the air.

With Janet still in the bathroom, I stopped the movie, powered off the TV, and recycled the empty beer cans. There wasn't anything else I could do, at least not till she returned. Had I done something to offend her? Worse, had I hurt her? I mulled over a few excuses I could use in my defense. Before I could settle on one, Janet emerged from the bathroom. She didn't look like she'd been crying, which was a good sign.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just needed a sec."

I told her to take as many seconds as she needed. This put a smile on her face, and she managed to relax a little.

"Did you know," Janet began, "it was four weeks ago today I knew I wanted to sleep with you?"

I tried to remember back to four weeks ago. What had happened then that would cause her to want to sleep with me?

"Nao had left, and I met your brother for drinks. Do you remember?"

How could I not? That was the night I'd seen Janet naked for the first time—albeit in a grainy, low-res webcam video.

"Tommy was concerned for me. For all his faults, he's never been unkind. He suspected I was holding out for him and reiterated that I needed to move on and find someone."

This was information Janet had already shared with me. Where was she going with this?

"But here's the part you're not gonna believe—"

Janet hesitated for a second.

"—Tommy, your brother, said I should hook up—with you!"

My jaw dropped to the floor. She was right; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Tommy was okay with me hooking up Janet?

"It's ludicrous, right? I told him he was crazy for even coming up with the idea. But he told me to hear him out. To him, it made perfect sense. First, you and I are both adults—single, sex-deprived, consenting adults. Second, we both feel the same way about casual sex. It's not like we're gonna catch feelings afterwards. And third and most importantly, you're someone familiar to us that we trust and are comfortable with. It would certainly be safer than hooking up with a complete rando from the Internet.

"I guess it did make sense in a twisted way, but I still didn't take him seriously. I thought he'd had one too many beers. Or maybe he'd simply lost his mind. I asked him every question and raised every doubt I could think of. Didn't he think it was weird? Wouldn't he be jealous? What if our friends found out? Even worse, what if our parents found out?

"He had an elegant response for everything. It became clear by the end of our conversation that he'd given this a lot of thought. Secretly, I think the idea of us hooking up turned him on. Truth be told, the idea turned me on too, and it didn't seem fair to ask him questions I couldn't answer myself. There was, however, one question I needed him to answer—the same one I'll ask you now."