18 going on 38

chapter 16

"I wanna have sex but I don't want you to hit me." Carina almost laughed as Maya barged through her front door. It had been a couple of weeks since they had decided to try and be more than friends and Carina had a feeling this would be coming up soon. She started pacing the floors and Carina kept eating her noodles as Maya muttered things to herself. She knew it was best to let Maya get all her thoughts out before interrupting.

"You probably can't even have sex right now, what am I talking about?" She shook her head as she stopped. Carina turned around to look at her.

"Sorry." She smiled sheepishly. "Hi. How are you?" She went over to the couch and kissed the top of Carina's head.

"I'm good. You're very entertaining."

"I figured I wanted to get it over with."

"Ma-"

"No, oh god that sounded horrible. I just meant that I'm building it up so much in my head and it's getting more and more scary each day, but I also want to do it more and more each day and I don't know."

"Well we can have sex. I can have sex, but I'm not really very mobile at the moment so you would have to do most of the work."

"I don't even know how." Maya said dejectedly as she sat down next to her.

"Hmm. Are we going to have another sex talk?"

"Please no. That felt wrong." Carina laughed.

"We can have one with demonstrations." Carina smirked. "You can touch me and I can say if I like it, and I can touch you and show you how you like it."

"I- uhh-"

"Too much for your brain?" Carina teased.

"I really want to." Maya said again.

"But?"

"But, I don't look- listen, my body is not, it doesn't look great right now."

"You're always beautiful."

"But-"

"No buts, you think I feel great about my body right now?" Carina nodded to her stomach.

"That's different, you look beautiful no matter what."

"And you think I don't feel that about you?" Carina raised her eyebrow.

"Oh." Maya said dumbly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, always."

"Can we have the lights off?"

"Yeah, if that's what you want."

"I do."

"Okay, then we'll have the lights off. Okay let's talk about consent."

"What like no means no, Carina I'm saying yes."

"Okay, good, that's great but it's more layered than that." Maya furrowed her brow. "Okay, so what's most important is that consent is an ongoing thing, okay? So if either of us want to stop or slow down at any point the other person backs off immediately, no questions asked."

"Okay." Maya smiled. "That sounds good."

"Yeah, and if one person does something the other person doesn't like, we let them know, right?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Immediately. It's not fun if not both of us is having fun."

"Got it." Maya said. "Stop or slow down immediately. Tell you if I don't like something."

"Yes."

"Like hitting me?"

"Maya." Carina laughed. "I promise I will not hit you. I'm sorry you saw that video before you were ready. I'll be gentle."