Sixteen. It's amazing how Jessica couldn't count these men on her fingers anymore. Rationalize it whichever way you could, either way; she was upset that the number had gotten this high. In retrospect, Jessica could slowly remember the faces of the fourteen men that had shared her most intimate memories. Four tumbled clumsily and quietly with her as her roommate slept on the other side of the room. Six were faceless nobodies found on the outskirts of whatever club she was frequenting. One took her virginity that cliché evening following prom. The final five men, however, had names, had faces, and had stories behind them.
Paul was number twelve. They were both working on their Masters degree at a University in Chicago. Some harmless flirting and uninteresting conversation convinced Jessica that a casual lay was riding on her feigning interest. After a very expensive dinner at some upper-class slut hangout and a couple glasses of wine, they lay on Jessica's futon in her empty apartment. His fingers fumbled with the ties on her stringy black dress, both of them giggling in between kisses. At twenty-four, she was hardly a schoolgirl in demeanor, but now, half a bottle deep with a man she hardly knew or cared about, she felt new at love-making.
