“And I...” My face turns red and I swallow down another wave of nausea. “I queefed. Really fucking loud.”
Lex grips my hands tighter. “Which is a totally normal body response.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I agree. “But my first time, in front of my first boyfriend,andall the popular girls?” I shudder.
“You’re right. That’s fucking awful.”
“There’s more.”
Lex’s brows shoot up.
“They all started laughing at me, and I was trying to get my clothes on, and I was so drunk and embarrassed, but for some reason my body had sucked in a shit ton of air and I just kept queefing. I couldn’t move without it happening. When I was finally dressed I queefed all the way out of the bedroom and down the hall and down the stairs and out into the night. And they laughed the whole fucking time.”
Lex is silent as my story sinks in.
“I went home and I cried and... and then I made the mistake of looking at Facebook the next morning.”
After a moment of silence Lex asks, “What was on there?”
My eyes prickle with tears. “In all the pictures of us together at the grad party were comments...” I close my eyes, my shoulders climbing to my ears. “Comments calling me... Queef Queen.”
Lex gasps. “No!”
I nod. “Every. Single. Picture.”
We’re silent for a long moment, the story hanging in the air as flashes of all those comments flood my memory. I close my eyes and give my head a shake.
“That’s why you don’t have social media,” Lex states, finally understanding. I nod. “Is that why you went to university in Alberta?” she asks.
“More so because of needing to get away from my mom, but it was an added bonus to be so far away from my new reputation. I’d been accepted into Simon Fraser, but I went to Calgary instead. I just had to leave it all behind.”
“Didn’t you have any friends at school who could have... I don’t know, protected you? Said something?”
I shake my head. “I’d been so preoccupied by trying to be cool and popular that all my ‘friends’ were superficial. The second the Queef Queen thing happened they all turned their backs on me.”
The best friend I’d had since elementary school was no longer my friend by that point. I’d fucked up our relationship long past being able to fix it. It was my fault our friendship ended, and I deserved everything that happened to me.
Lex releases my hand. I blink a few times, caught off guard by the tears slipping down my cheeks. She gets up from her seat, comes around the table, and joins me on my side before wrapping her arms around me and pulling me in for a hug.
“That’s so fucking terrible,” Lex says, the angry note to her voice sending shivers down my spine. “You were cursed before you even lost your virginity and you’ve been stuck dealing with the fallout ever since?”
I bite my lip, not sure what to say.
Lex pulls away so she can look me in the eye, her big blues fierce and determined. “Don’t worry, okay? We’ve gathered lots of data. All I have to do now is run a few tests and then we should be closer to an answer about what’s going on and what to do about it.”
I wipe at my tears, feeling a bit lighter now that I’ve shared my story with Lex—at least, part of it. She didn’t judge or blame or try to minimize what happened. Instead, she’s being pragmatic, taking control, and finding a way to fix my fucked-up situation.
I sit a bit straighter, wiping at the corners of my eyes. “Really?”
Lex nods. “But it will take a week or so for the results.”
“That long?” I slump.
“Good things take time,” she chides.
“So... no more dating, I guess.” I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through my days without a date with Lex to look forward to.
“No more dating. Unless you want to go on a second date with one of the guys. There’s been some messages—” Lex moves to pull her phone from her bag, but I interrupt.