Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn Page A

toward the open attic window. That window faced directly down to the backyard. There was indeed enough light from the moon and a nearby streetlamp for Lavinia conceivably to have seen. But still. No way. Lavinia was not a voyeur like that. She slept through everything.
    “I heard some weird sounds from the window, so I got up to see what was going on. I saw you. With Bryan. Doing … you know.”
    Way.
    Why did Bryan have to be so noisy?
    Instantly, Very went on the defensive. “Really, that was nothing.”
    “It was something to him, probably.”
    “Are you mad because you liked him?” Why had Very assumed Lavinia wouldn’t care? Or had Very known Lavinia would indeed care, but chosen to disregard that by assuming Lavinia would simply never find out about the minor indiscretion?
    “I’m not mad,” Lavinia said. “Just disappointed in you. For mind-fucking us all, especially Bryan, so regularly. What you do with your ‘skill set,’ as you call it, is your business.”
    “Listen to me,” Very said, feeling a tinge of desperation. Why she needed Lavinia’s absolution, she didn’t know. “It doesn’t count. It was just a thing. To close the box. To help him let go.”
    “To help you let go,” Lavinia said. “Now he’s only going to be more confused.”
    Lavinia was so precociously ignorant. Very wanted to explain to her virgin friend the logic behind pleasing a boy in that certain way, which Very considered to be one of her master crafts (at least, based on former conquests’ reviews) after JavaScript, HTML, and site-hacking. Sex, real sex, not oral sex, should only happen with someone special. Getting a boy off the not-real way was actually a method to stave him off, even if it might seem the opposite. It was a way for the giver to maintain control over the receiver’s pleasure while simultaneously allowing the receiver to feel satisfied and grateful, but not attached. At least, that’s what Very told herself at the time. She hoped for Bryan not to be the one exception to this rule that had proved scientifically solid in her experience to date. (She knew if anybody would be the exception, it would be Bryan. Damn.) Real intimacy, at least according to rumor, though not necessarily what Very knew from her own experience, was the kind that made your heart explode in shimmers and glows along with every precious, beautiful inch of your flesh, and that experience should be reserved for those with whom a person felt a mighty connection, for the El Viruses of the world. A mouth on someone’s genitalia? That was nothing .
    Still, it was possible that nothing hadn’t been Very’s wisest move. She couldn’t deny it. Those tricky demons shouldn’t have been trusted. But it wasn’t like she hadn’t given Bryan something quite sweet in return. Right?
    Lavinia turned over on her side on the giant attic bed, so as not to look at Very any longer. “You can have Bryan. I wouldn’t want him now, anyway. I feel sorry for him, though, being so completely whipped.”
    “He’s not whipped! He understands there’s nothing between us. If you decided you liked him again, I know he’d totally like you, like, come around to like -like you. I’m totally out of the way now. For sure!”
    Lavinia put her hand up behind her back for Very to see the Stop signal. “Really. Don’t do me any favors. Let’s not talk. I want to sleep.”
    She’d assumed Lavinia was just PMS-ing and it would all “blow” over the next day, but Very couldn’t believe it: Lavinia’s silence was indeed lasting into the next day. Very couldn’t stand it. She’d seated herself next to Lavinia in the car so Lavinia would know she didn’t harbor bad feelings. Bryan had seemed to want to crawl into the backseat and not be noticed, anyway.
    “So are we going to stop at Target or IKEA?” Very asked cheerfully.
    Not cheerfully, Bryan finally found his voice in the back. “No! Let’s just get back to the city as quickly as possible,