The silly grin on Kyle’s face told me he’d had a similar experience with Nell at some point. “I love those kinds of dresses.”
“Almost as much as I love yoga pants.”
“Whoever invented yoga pants had to have been a guy,” Kyle said.
“No shit. So you and Nell…?”
He shook his head. “Same as you. We’ve messed around, gotten pretty close, but we haven’t had sex yet.”
“But you’re going to.”
He nodded without looking at me. “Yeah, we will. Not sure when or where yet, but yeah. I know she wants to, and I know I do, obviously.”
“Obviously.” I smirked at him. “Have you gotten all her clothes off?”
He shook his head. “Not all of them all at once, no. I’ve seen all of her at one point or another, but it’s always been with other clothes on.”
“Have you made her…you know…” I trailed off, not sure how to put it without sounding either stupid or like a tool.
Kyle wasn’t going to let me off that easy, though. He wanted to see me squirm. “Have I made her what?”
“Have you made her come?” I said it in a rush, staring at my thumbnail, knowing I was blushing like a little boy.
Kyle’s grin was equal parts shit-eating and embarrassed. “No, we haven’t gone quite that far yet. I think we’re both kind of afraid if we let it go that far, we won’t stop.” He gave me a curious look. “Why, have you?”
I nodded, looking down at my feet. “Yeah.”
“What was it like?” He sat forward.
“It was f**king awesome,” I said, laughing. “It was like watching her just…lose it. It was cool.”
“How’d you…you know…get her to…make her—” He obviously couldn’t say it, which made me laugh.
“I honestly don’t know. You just touch her in the right place, and you can tell she likes it. Keep doing that, and eventually she’ll just…” I shrugged, grinning awkwardly.
“Touch her…down there?” He seemed eager and awkward. I felt odd talking about, explaining it, telling him about something I’d done and he hadn’t.
I nodded. “Yeah.” I laughed with self-deprecation. “I honestly had no f**king clue what I was doing. I was just…trying to figure out what she liked, and then she was going crazy.”
“Did she scream?” Kyle asked.
I could only nod, remembering. “Yeah. Pretty loud. I don’t think she meant to. Good thing we were in the middle of nowhere.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what Kyle was asking.
“Has she…have you—” He cut himself off and grabbed a coaster off the coffee table and hurled it at my head. “You know what I’m asking, you f**ker.”
I laughed and swatted the coaster away. “Yeah, I know. And yeah.” That was as much as I’d say.
“But you haven’t actually done it, though?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Aren’t you guys worried you’ll go too far?”
I frowned at him. “Dude, it’s…it’s not like that. It’s not something that you can just go ‘whoops, I slipped!’ You get carried away, yeah, but you can’t, like, accidentally take off all your clothes and accidentally have sex. I mean, once you start crossing physical lines, in terms of how far you go, it’s pretty much impossible to go back, though. I’ll tell you that much.” I cracked my knuckles, and then tossed my phone in the air and caught it. “I mean, at first, just holding her hand and kissing her was exciting, right? And then once you know how awesome kissing is, you want to keep doing that. Then, once she lets you touch her a little bit, then you want to kiss her and touch her. Outside the clothes at first, right? And then once you feel her skin, it’s…touching her on the bra isn’t enough.”
Kyle nodded his understanding. “That’s what I’m saying. You just want to keep going further.”
“Yeah, but going from making out and, like, groping or whatever, to actually having sex? I personally don’t think you can just ‘end up’ doing that. Just my opinion.”
The conversation drifted after that, but I could see the wheels in Kyle’s head whirling, much as they were in my own. For all that what I’d said to Kyle was true, Becca and I had been skirting the fine line between “messing around” and “having sex,” and I knew we had to either slow down or go all the way. We couldn’t keep up the balancing act much longer.
The fact was, I’d imagined what sex with Becca would be like, and I wanted it. Badly. And I was pretty damn sure she felt the same way.
* * *
Becca
I stared at the foil packet of pills in my hand, my emotions a roller-coaster within me. I’d had my cousin Maria take me to a clinic to get birth control, which was, honestly, one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Sitting in that waiting room, then sitting on the crinkly-paper-covered table/chair, getting examined…ugh. All of it taken individually wasn’t too bad, but knowing I was doing it with the intention of having sex with Jason, and knowing the doctor knew? I was so nervous I could barely breathe, barely swallow my own saliva.
Maria was a comfort, explaining what was going on, what would happen, all that—it was helpful. She was several years older than me, and was willing to take me to the clinic in secret. She told me it was best to wait till I was older, and that even birth control wasn’t one-hundred-percent effective, but she’d rather I be on the pill knowing I probably would be active anyway. She also told me not to let Jason pressure me into anything, and to come to her if I had any questions about anything.
I couldn’t tell Maria that I was putting more pressure on myself than Jason was. I knew he wanted to have sex, and I did, too. Even in my own mind it was hard to explain the way I felt about having sex with Jason. I wanted it, badly. I knew how it felt to touch him, to be touched. I knew what it felt like to have an orgasm, what it looked like when he did. I knew all this. We’d crossed every line there was, pretty much, except actual intercourse. I could easily imagine what that would be like, and I had, in fact, fantasized about it all too often. I’d even touched myself, imagining Jason above me.
We both knew where our physical relationship was going, that it was only a matter of time. So why wait? Why keep putting it off? Why keep torturing ourselves? Jason kept telling me not to feel like we had to until we were both ready. Which…felt like pressure, to me. Unintentional pressure, but there nonetheless. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I didn’t want him to feel like I didn’t want to be with him, but there was a sense of fear surrounding the whole thing. I was sixteen and a virgin; once I crossed that line, I couldn’t go back. It felt like the last step to growing up, to being a woman in truth. I knew I’d still be me, essentially. But how would it change me? I already felt different just from what he and I had done together.