Thought.is

I keep a mental list of everyone I’ve slept with, and people sometimes tell me this is silly—that a blowjob is just as intimate as intercourse. I think that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Holding hands with my middle school boyfriend while I rode his skateboard down the street was more intimate than the sex I barely remember having on the last night of summer in Yosemite.

I’m a little fixated on my number. I’m neither ashamed nor proud of it, but I’ve always had a sense that it’s a number of deep significance—that every time it changes, I change. Within the first few moments I’m with someone new, the thought unfailingly crosses my mind, if only for a moment: you’re Number X.