“You don't have to stay here,” she told him on her last night. He was sitting in a chair, pulled up next to a bed, facing the TV. Tate was stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. He shrugged.
“I know that. I would like to stay,” he replied.
“To the bitter end?” she laughed.
“To the bitter end.”
“You can't take me to the airport, I probably wouldn't be able to stop crying long enough to find my plane,” she joked.
“Then I should definitely take you.”
“Sandy,” she warned.
“There is time to go back. Time to fix this,” he assured her, his eyes trained on the TV. It was on mute.
“No. That time passed a long time ago,” Tate told him. He shook his head.
“No. He's upset, but he would forgive you. He is very forgiving,” he said.
“I don't want to be forgiven. I shouldn't need to be, for feeling a certain way. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be with someone. It's horrible, and it's sad, and it hurts – but it's not wrong,” she explained.
“It is when it's all a lie, though, and you're doing it just to hurt somebody,” Sanders pointed out. She frowned.
“You think that's why I'm doing this? Just to hurt him? Sandy, he'd have to have a heart, first, before I could hurt it,” she snapped.
“He has a heart. He has shown it to me many times. You, however, have been purposefully blind to it.”
Ouch, okay, that kinda hurts.
“It was always more sex than anything. He said that a dozen times, maybe a hundred times. He just wanted me for sex, I was only supposed to be sex to him, just sex, sex, sex. Do you understand how that makes me feel?” she asked, tilting her head back to look at him.
He had taken off his jacket, and his arms were folded across his chest, bunching up his tie. She was wearing her underwear and a loose tank top. Normal evening wear for the pair.
“You wanted that relationship as well, in the beginning. You changed it, and he went along with it. It was never entirely about something as ridiculous as sex,” Sanders told her. She laughed.
“Sandy, there was nothing ridiculous about the sex Jameson and I had,” she snickered. He frowned.
“I shall take your word for it.”
“That's another thing that sucks about this whole situation,” she said, looking back up at the ceiling.
“What?”
“Sex. I think he's kinda ruined me for other men.”
“Good.”
“Stop. How am I supposed to ever have a normal relationship? Hard to do that, when there's only one person I can think about having sex with,” she sighed.
“You could just be having sex with him, problem solved.”
“Sandy.”
“Not everything is about sex, Tatum. The world does not revolve around it.”
“It kinda does.”
“You make it that way. He makes it that way. But it doesn't have to be.”
“It's hard with a person like him. He makes me feel like that's all I'm good for, all I'm worth to him, so I feel guilty, but then it's so good, I can't stop wanting it, so I feel even guiltier. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever had sex like that?” Tate asked, putting her hands behind her head.
“No,” Sanders finally replied after a long pause.
“Well, okay, but like ..., you've had really good sex, and it's basically like that. Imagine the best sex you've ever had, and then imagine that person treating you like trash,” she urged. He was silent for a long time.
“I can't do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I can't.”
It hit her like a lightening bolt. She sat straight upright. Turned her head to face him.
“Sandy ..., are you a virgin!?” she exclaimed. His neck turned bright pink, but he didn't look at her.
“There is nothing wrong with that,” he said quickly.
Oh. My. God.
It made complete sense. If anything, the idea of Sanders having sex was actually weirder than the idea of a twenty year old virgin. But he was right, a large chunk of Tatum's world revolved around sex. She just assumed everyone had done it, including him. Especially him. He was wealthy and he was good looking; those two things alone would make women overlook his personality quirks and social oddities. She had watched women overlook them. Why had Sanders never taken the leap!? Tate was shocked that Jameson hadn't simply hired a hooker and locked the two of them in a room together.
Kinky.
She suddenly felt so guilty. For touching him inappropriately. For parading her body around in front of him, for flaunting her sexuality. God, all the times he had walked in on her and Jameson. She had thought it was funny. She had assumed that none of it was anything he hadn't seen and done before, himself. It must have made him so uncomfortable.
“No, no, of course there's nothing wrong with that,” she agreed quickly. “I'm just surprised, that's all.”
“Why?”
“Just ..., because. I hate to tell you this, Sanders, but you're kinda hot. And the way you spend money -,” Tate started.
“Jameson's money,” Sanders corrected her.
“Doesn't matter to chicks, they love that shit. Sexy guy in an expensive suit dropping money, that's all they see. I just assumed ... I figured ... I mean, Jameson ...,” she stammered. He cleared his throat.