Second Hand [manxboy]

Chapter 12

"I tried to get my tongue pierced and went to some shithole place, and they screwed it up," Nico relayed yet again. "It ended up getting infected too so I had to stay home."

Ashley didn't seem quite so taken to the story as some of his classmates had been, but she let it slide. "What prompted the new piercing? I thought you were being pretty open about things with your dad. You could have just asked to have it done."

That was one hole in his story. "I was just being stupid." Nico shrugged then. What he really wanted to talk about was a different issue. "And I kind of got... suggested into it anyways. The guy I've been..." What did he call it even? "Involved with, wanted to do something sort of special with me. I'm pretty sure he wanted it to be a date type thing, and even though I was trying to make it clear it wasn't..." he just didn't know what to do about Mac anymore. "But he wouldn't stop asking so I said yes. And my dad kind of dropped it, not really knowing someone else is involved."

"What do you think he would do about it, if he knew you were involved with someone?" Ashley asked. "Do you want to tell me more about who it is?"

So many immediate answers. Mac would probably be very dead, or very in jail if he said the wrong thing. "Um. My dad would not be okay with it. I... he knows I'm gay, but I don't know if he's had to face the reality that that means I actually do things with other guys... and then—it's kind of... the guy, is older, and I guess it might be like a... position of trust thing?" He remembered words like that from when he was younger.

"A teacher?" Ashley asked immediately.

"No." Mac wasn't one yet, anyways. "I don't want to tell you who it is. I mean it's all consensual, aside from me being seventeen—but I've never said no to him."

"Well why not?" she challenged him. "You don't like him in that way, and he's obviously causing some problems."

Nico tried to think on that for a moment but could only shrug again. "Well there's no reason not to go with it. I mean, sex is sex. I still get pleasure from it."

"So if anyone approached you, you'd say yes?" she wondered.

Nico hadn't really thought of it like that. "Well..." he frowned. The reality of it was, he probably would. He said yes to anyone for the right price really. "Does that make me a slut?"

Ashley shook her head quickly. "It doesn't make you anything you don't want to be. If you want to consider yourself that, and find pride in it—pride in being openly sexual and not ashamed about it, because sexuality is part of human nature... then take to that label if you want. But in today's society a lot of people think of a slut as someone who can't control themselves and it has a negative connotation, and I don't think that's how you should be viewing it. You've had traumatic experiences, and so sex has never held all that much meaning. But wouldn't it actually mean something to you if you stopped doing it with whoever, and actually waited until you could do it with someone you actually want to be with?" she stopped partially to catch her breath, and only to tack on another question. "Do you have anyone you feel like it might be worth more with?"

Miroslav. But he wasn't going to tell her that—she'd met him. His hesitation seemed to be enough though, so she went on. "And I'm not saying it always works out with the person you want to be with. But if they found out about this, you're probably afraid of them thinking badly of you. Do you want to put yourself in that position, where they were suddenly shocked and appalled? Or wouldn't you want them to respect you in some way, for being able to say no?"

Nico swallowed hard. Miroslav probably wouldn't be shocked at all. But the world Miroslav worked in—Nico squeezed his eyes shut. It would be very easy for Miroslav to simply think of him like any other common whore. "He doesn't like me back," Nico muttered.