Emergency Medical Dad

LXXIII: late november

JESSIE

 It's a little daunting, the prospect of having to talk to Jorgen about sex. But I suppose we've talked about more complicated things, citizenship, moving, routines, whether or not we're likely to be compatible in a living-together situation. We talked about my mom and about his brother and all sorts of other things that are sensitive so talking about sex with him shouldn't be that bad.

I say, like my palms aren't sweating from my perch up on the counter watching him cook. Though that could just be me being attracted to him. I'm not entirely sure. The problem with having almost no experience and a lot of it be under my mom's watch is that I don't know what feelings are what. I was always just told that most of them are bad.

So him standing there, shirtless, covered neckline to ankle to wrists in tattoos, his back flexing a little with the way he just flicked the pan, I'm not sure if I'm nervous or attracted to him. Maybe both.

"Alright," he spins, sizzling pan in one hand, two plates in the other. Oh, that's just attraction.

"Yep," I look away from his collarbones and down to the plate he's holding.

"I made a few, but they're easy to just fry up, I have a bunch frozen that I made earlier in the week, so if you want more I can make more," he hands me a set of chopsticks and then sets out a little dish for the sauce he uses on these, some homemade concoction that I'm not entirely sure the ingredients of but honestly it's too good to care.

"You're blushing," he glances back at me from the fridge. "It's not going to be that awkward, trust me."

"Oh, I," I shut my mouth. "It wasn't about that, specifically."

He frowns, setting the now-full dish of sauce down on the counter next to my leg, "then what are you blushing about?" His elbows come down to the counter on either side of his plate, rocking his hips back to lean most of his eight on his arms. I watch his shoulder move to pick up his first dumpling with the two chopsticks that look rather fragile in his long fingers.

"Ah," I swallow, deciding that maybe staring at him right now isn't doing a favor to a supportive stream of thought. "So you know how my mom was like... weird with me getting into relationships?"

"Not much of it, you haven't gone into too many details," he looks up at me, hair sloppily tied up instead of its usual tight style that keeps it out of his face. This is messy and there's a little curl falling into his eyes.

"Right," I mumble. "She kind of made it seem like being attracted to anyone was a sort of sin in a way because of the implications so I never... like I suppose I just pushed it down to please her and," I purse my lips. "Sometimes it's a little hard to know what I'm feeling about someone."

"Alright," he starts, a little tentative. "So you suppressed being attracted to people at her wishes because she thought it would mean that you would start having sexual thoughts about people. Yes?"

"Yeah."

"And now because you've never explored that feeling you're confused as to what it shows up as and when it does appear you're confused by it being there."

"Also yes."

"So you're saying this now because," he knows, of course he does.

"Um," I waffle. "You're just standing there, shirtless, you know," I put my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh off the awkward.

"I am," he's fighting a smile. "Are you telling me something?"

"Yes."

He stands up straight, leaning in and kissing my cheek, "I'll take the compliment. Even if it was phrased a tad odd."