VIRGIN Chapter Two
Cole had yet to find a word for how she felt for Mason. It had only been two weeks, and Cole was too perceptive to mistake limerence for something more enduring, something like love. This had its bones but none of its certainty, a fondness still growing cartilage, figuring out how to stand. It felt different from her usual obsessive feelings that had accompanied other fleeting crushes, of which she had many. This was more of a trance than a feeling. Even the possibility of an interaction with Mason carried a charge, a hum that steadied Cole even as it hollowed her out. It never held the plainness of true intimacy, and in that space, both Mason and Cole were mesmerized by a more profound yearning, an electric tenderness they’d occasionally give way to.
What Cole felt for Mason was distinct and eager. Ignited by attraction, sure, but fueled by an involuntary emotional pull, shared interests, and a secret third thing. Whatever the word for it was, from the moment they met, Cole felt it in her whole body, which is likely why it went numb when Mason ended things, leaving Cole alone with an old friend: rumination.
Mason and Cole’s two-week whirlwind didn’t break from the predictable rhythms of any other new romance, often toggling between the easy ebb of talking and the ardent flow of touching. She found their physical connection dizzying, a constant slutty current rushing right underneath everything, compelling them to one another. In between losing each other in the blurred edges of touch, the two would find themselves chatting, usually laughing. Occasionally, Cole would cry, or Mason would end his sentences with, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
One night, Mason noticed a tattoo on Cole’s arm of a name followed by some numbers, separated by some dots. It was a bible verse. “Are you religious?” he asked. She wasn’t, but she didn’t know how to tell Mason she was raised in a cult. Because that might lead to telling him about her mom—a woman who, in the aftermath of rape, had gone looking for answers, how she and an unborn Cole found a community that promised healing and, instead, prescribed a vicious theology. She didn’t want to tell Mason about the cult, or her mother, or the fact that her mom was dying of a very curable cancer because she didn’t believe in medicine. Religion seemed easier, like something ordinary people did. So, when Mason asked if Cole was religious, she did what anyone, insecure and caught off guard, would do: she lied. Offering an answer least likely to raise any more questions and tossing out a simple, “Yeah.” A word she now regretted on this picnic.
At the park, Mason explained that he also grew up a big, dumb Christian and, as a result, was now a smart, devout Atheist. “I could never date anyone religious,” he said, a little too proudly, before monologuing about how people actually create their own meaning, citing a YouTube video where Benny Safdie talks about God.
He explained that, furthermore, Cole’s ‘everything but’ virginity was a concern. That, despite loving his dick in her mouth, they clearly weren’t sexually compatible. Her technical virginity was a warning to Mason that Cole was no passive Christian, but a scary devout follower (and possible republican).
To say that Cole was a virgin because of her beliefs wouldn’t be a complete lie, but it would also be too simple—an untruth with more layers than she could yet understand.
