He says it like he is asking the time
Casual. Almost bored. As if the answer is a stamp I should already have on the back of my hand.
So go on then. What is your body count?
I take a sip first. I always do. Gives my face something to do while I clock whether this is a joke, a test, or the start of a speech he has been rehearsing since some podcast told him women lie.
Because he does not want a conversation. He wants a number so he can decide if I am allowed. Allowed to be pretty. Allowed to be taken seriously. Allowed to sit here and still be the sort of girl he can introduce, not just the sort he can take home.
The sex is already on the table. That bit he is fine with. It is the respect he is metering out.
It is a shortcut dressed up as honesty
People love calling it a fair question. Honesty. Transparency. Values. I have heard all of it. Usually from men who cannot name three things about my actual life and still want a full audit of who I have been naked with.
I work shifts. I split a flat. I know what I earn before payday and what disappears after. If we are doing honesty, start there. Start with whether you text after. Whether you get weird when I pay. Whether you can say what you want without turning it into a performance.
A tally is easier. One figure. No follow up required. He can slot me into good, risky, or write off, and still feel like he did due diligence.
That is not honesty. That is lazy homework. He wants the mark without reading the essay.
The language is doing half the judging already
Body count. Like we are talking about wreckage. Like the people I have slept with are damage I am dragging behind me.
Some of them were a laugh. Some were a mistake I would not repeat. Some I liked more than I admitted in the morning. One made tea and I nearly asked him to stay, then I put my heels on because staying felt like handing someone the quiet I cannot sit in. That is not a casualty list. That is just being thirty and not made of stone.
Online they treat it like maths. She is this age, therefore by that age she will be this. As if nobody ever gets knackered, gets promoted, gets bored, gets sad, gets a year where they cannot be bothered. Desire is not a standing order. It does not leave the account the same amount every month.
I have had stretches where I wanted it all the time. I have had stretches where I wanted my own duvet and nobody in it. Both still count as me. A digit cannot hold that, which is why the digit is useless.
Ask him his. Watch how fast it becomes a story.
I do now. Straight back.
And yours?
Suddenly his is context. Lads holiday. I was single. It did not mean anything. When it is mine, meaning is the whole point. When it is his, meaning is optional.
I am not naive. The script is different. A man with a list is experienced. A woman with a list is supposed to look like she has learned a lesson. Same act. Different moral.
If he cares because of health, say health. Tests, timing, what we do next. I can have that talk without flinching. I would rather a clinic sentence than a purity quiz.
If he cares because he thinks a number tells him whether I can be loyal, he is guessing. I have met girls with one ex who could ruin a man for sport. I have met women with a long list who would not stray if you paid them. The tally does not know the difference. He is pretending it does so he does not have to find out the slow way.
Count the ones who stayed kind
That is the only inventory that has ever been worth anything, and I still would not put it on a first drink.
How many asked if I got in. How many did not treat the end of sex like a shift finishing. How many could hear the word aftercare without rolling their eyes. How many did not go cold because I was still a person in the morning.
Kind is rarer than filthy. Filthy I can find. Kind and filthy together is the one that wrecks me, because then I start wanting breakfast and I hate how soft that sounds in my own head.
A body count does not measure that. It measures how much he thinks I have been handled. As if being wanted a lot is the same thing as being ruined. As if I am stock that loses value every time it leaves the warehouse.
I manage a warehouse. I know what stock is. I am not it.
What he thinks he will find out
That I will get bored. That I will compare. That I cannot attach. That I am chaos in a decent coat.
Some weeks he would not even be wrong about the chaos. Not because of how many people I have slept with. Because I fill silence. Because sex is the easy language and asking to be kept is the one that sticks. Because I can be cocky in a pub and still check a chat like an idiot on the night bus.
None of that fits in a number. So the number becomes a way to skip the bit where he has to deal with an actual woman.
If my past is a problem, say my past is a problem. Do not dress it up as a compatibility quiz you invented after a clip. I would rather a clean no than a man trying to catch me out with arithmetic.
When I will talk, and when I will not
If we are seeing each other, if Saturdays keep happening, if we are past the version of me that only exists under club lights, I can talk about my life. What I have done. What I will not do again. What I want that I pretend I do not.
That is a kitchen conversation. Not a cover charge.
I will not do a roll call for someone who has not asked what I do, where I live, whether I even like him. I will not shave the truth down so he can relax. I have been tempted. Make it smaller. Make it sweeter. Make myself easier to file.
Then I am on the way home, catching myself in the dark window, and I cannot stand the girl who edited herself so a man could feel safe. He can feel unsafe. That is allowed. What is not allowed is me becoming a tidier version of my own nights.
Better questions, if he is actually in the room
Do you like sex, or do you like the idea of being good at it?
Do you stay after?
Do you go quiet when something is real?
Are we dating, or am I a secret with a good mouth?
Can you say what you want without making me guess?
Those take longer. They also tell you if I will like you in daylight. The body count question is popular because it is quick and it sounds dirty enough to feel intimate. It is not intimate. It is admin.
If you are worried I have a high drive, just ask. I do. Some weeks more than is convenient. That is not a confession. It is a fact. If that scares him, he can find someone who treats sex like a special occasion and I can finish my drink in peace.
What I actually say
Depends. If I already know he is a story for the flat, I smile and tell him none of your business. If I like him enough to be annoyed, I say you want a number so you can decide if I am allowed. That one wipes the casual right off his face.
If I am feeling precise, I tell him the useful version. I have had sex. I have had plenty. I liked a lot of it. I do not regret fun. I regret unkind. If he needs a digit to treat me like a person, he was never going to.
I am not proud of a tally and I am not sorry for one either. Pride and shame both want an audience. Most of those people are not even in my phone.
Count the men who stayed kind. Count the mornings I did not have to perform. Count whether he asked how I was, or only whether he was good.
That figure tells more than a tally.
Next question. And if the next question is still the same one, I am putting my coat on.
