I never meant to have sex with Benji. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t plan for it and I didn’t plan on doing it again. It just happened. And I wish I could say that my first time felt right and natural and pure, but it didn’t. I can’t even say that it was traumatic or painful. The best word for it was pleasant, or perhaps something more benign, like nice. We came together and we came apart and it was just nice. In a way I was relieved to have it over with, that milestone in my life ticked off and filed away in as efficient a manner as possible, and to be honest I couldn’t see what the big deal was. But I always got the feeling Benji felt differently. I think it might have meant much more to him than I could imagine.
We were sitting in his bedroom late one night. Benji was on the bed and I was on the floor. Groundhog Day was on the television. Mrs Connor was somewhere in the house but you wouldn’t have known it; I swear that woman always wore slippers just so she wouldn’t be a disturbance to others.
I’d seen Groundhog Day before, at least a dozen times. It was the kind of film you could slip into like an old dressing gown, a faithful, trusty companion you knew would deliver the goods every time without fail. Groundhog Day would never let you down. The gentle softness of its repetition was soothing and reassuring.
Bill Murray’s arms wrapped around Andie MacDowell’s body and suddenly Benji’s hands were on my shoulders, massaging, kneading, both apprehensive and eager at the same time. The longer I let it go on the harder his grip became, until the constant friction on my shoulders felt like it would set my skin on fire. Benji had never touched me before, not even to brush past me. I sat, frozen, completely surprised and unsure of my next move. I kept watching the television. Benji continued rubbing my shoulders.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, not turning around.
‘You seem tense,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. I could tell he was trying to sound confident, but his next sentence came out as a croak. ‘Does that feel good?’
It didn’t feel bad but it wasn’t great either. There was no spark, no butterflies in my stomach, just a vague, uncomfortable awkwardness.
‘Yeah, it does. Thanks,’ I managed to say, still watching the screen. I moved my shoulders slightly to adjust Benji’s pressure, but didn’t pull away. Bill and Andie were in a full embrace now, love was all around, and I felt myself being seduced, by the movie and the actors and everything they told me love should be and the love that was being offered to me now. I felt Benji’s breath on my neck, smelling of the half-eaten bowl of popcorn that sat next to him on the bed. Slowly his mouth came down, and I tilted my head up to meet him, and we kissed, teeth clunking. I found myself trapped in his embrace, twisted like a pretzel. In a single moment hundreds of questions crashed through my mind and were just as easily discarded. A romantic song swelled from the movie that had been forgotten in front of us and I thought to myself: is this how it is going to happen? And before I knew what was happening, it did.
Benji pulled my T-shirt over my head and I raised my hands to let him. His hands went down to my breasts and he squeezed them like melons at a supermarket. He turned me around and I let him, let him bring me up to face him, and I kept my eyes closed because I wasn’t sure I wanted to look at him. I felt him kiss my lips, the top one and then the bottom one, and then my neck, his hands running down my back. I felt his hands on my scar, the scar that ran down my front, the scar from where the seatbelt had pulled me back so tight it almost cut me in two. He lingered on it, running his fingers up and down the crusted skin, and finally I pulled his hand off.
I let him bring me up onto the bed. The popcorn was kicked to the floor. I lay flat on my back, undid my jeans and pulled them down, happy to have my gaze concentrated on the button and the fly and the challenge of working my tight Levis down over my hips. Benji was already in his boxers (how that happened so fast I’ll never know) and his chest was flat and hairless. He pulled down my underpants and kept kissing me, stuck a clumsy finger between my legs. I looked up at the posters on his walls, at Fall Out Boy and Green Day, anywhere but his face. After some rummaging around in his boxers he was finally inside, and it only lasted a second because a moment later I felt stickiness all over my legs, and Benji rolled off and was lying next to me, panting.
‘Sorry,’ he said, looking at the ceiling and running a hand through his hair. I bent over and pulled my underpants back on.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, even though I wasn’t sure which bit he was apologising for. I joined my hands on my stomach and lay there, unsure what to do next. The Sonny & Cher song ‘I Got You Babe’ started to play from the movie and I had the sudden urge to throw the television out the window.
We lay there like that for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling, our hands crossed on our stomachs. Then Benji turned and wrapped his arms around me, and I stiffened. Once again his breath was on my neck.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, then kissed my cheek, and I didn’t say anything. I guess we both fell asleep, and when I woke up Benji was gone. I pulled on my jeans and walked out into the kitchen. Mrs Connor was frying eggs and the smell made me feel sick. Benji was sitting at the marble bench on a stool, eating a bowl of Cheerios, a surly look on his face.
‘Hey Mrs Connor,’ I said, and when she turned to me her smile was so wide it looked like someone had slashed it with a knife.
‘Hilda,’ she cried, putting the spatula down and walking towards me. Before I could say a word her arms were around me, squeezing tightly. I started to squirm a bit and she released her grip, but not before putting her hands on my cheeks and looking me square in the eyes. ‘Are you hungry? Do you want breakfast?’
‘Um, sure,’ I said, and she hugged me again. Over her shoulder Benji glared at me, seething over his bowl of cereal, scooping it violently into his mouth and letting the milk run down his chin. And we never spoke about it again.
Now I wish I had told him to stop. At the time I thought he’d said what he did because he thought it was expected of him, something the movies told him he had to do, the same way Groundhog Day told me if someone embraces you like that, the right, natural thing to do was return it. But I was wrong. Benji gave me something that day, and I chose to accept it, but I didn’t really mean it. Although we never spoke of it again, it hung between us, like the dead cat swinging in the garbage bag, but more putrid. It was the stench of dishonesty. It wasn’t the first time I had betrayed Benji, and it wouldn’t be the last. I liked to think I had no choice. Now I wasn’t so sure.