Sub Rosa
an excerpt

Right now, these school desks seemed pretty comfortable. I’m sure my dress was crumpled and my hair messed up, but I find it hard to care about those things after having an amazing orgasm.
Nate didn’t seem to be basking in the glow nearly as much as I was. He was frantically trying to button up his shirt and his hands were shaking slightly. I observed him for a moment, but he wasn’t really getting anywhere and I took pity, so I sat up and pulled him towards me to stand between my legs while I straightened out his shirt.
He was giving me a strange sort of look, and most remarkably he still hadn’t said anything. He’d been vocal enough during.
“You know,” I said as I did up the last button, “If I were any other girl this would be a serious blow to my ego.”
He remained silent as I started on his tie, that lay discarded on the table. “Or are you always this quiet after sex? I wouldn’t know…”
“Look, Callie…”
“Oh no! Please tell me you’re not breaking up with me!”
“Callie, this isn’t funny,” he said. He looked almost angry.
“I know it’s not funny, it’s fucking weird. I’m just trying to make the best of it.”
“I have a fiancée. We’re getting married in the spring.”
“I have a cat. His name’s Schrödinger.”
“Callie!”
“What? I thought this was the part where we share previously undisclosed and irrelevant information.”
“Irrelevant!”
I pulled on his tie, perhaps a bit more brusquely than absolutely necessary. This was his guilt trip, not mine. All I needed to know was that I’d just had amazing sex with the guy I never quite dated in school.
“Look, it’s irrelevant to me. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve had a great time. We’ve satisfied our curiosity. We’ll probably never see each other again. Let’s just leave it at that.”
He was silent again while I finished straightening out his collar. The intimacy of it made this feel a lot like a lover’s spat, but it wasn’t. I knew that and so did he. I gave the collar one last brush.
“And you don’t get to blame me for this, or hate me. You wanted this,” I said, getting off the table. I tried to straighten out my dress, brushed a hand through my hair to get it to lie flat again. I doubted that it was doing me much good.
Suddenly, a loud noise came from somewhere downstairs. It was muffled, and I know it had been a while, but it sounded like a gunshot to me. And I hoped that it wasn’t. More than anyone else I hoped that it wasn’t a gunshot, that it was just some kid setting off firecrackers at his school’s big party.