This isn't weird.

Call of the Void

"I was probably too young," Millie admitted, pressed for details of her first time. "But I wasn't like, some innocent lamb being pressured, or anything like that. My sister was a cheerleader so I went to a lot of away games. So we were at a basketball game at a way bigger school, and I asked the guy at the concession stand if he wanted to sneak into an empty classroom and do it. He gave me a free snow cone. Before I asked, I mean. Not after."

"Why?"

"Because I said I liked his Doctor Who shirt."

"I'm not asking about the snow cone."

"Oh, right. A lot of reasons, I guess. I grew up hearing over and over again that no guy would marry a woman who didn't save herself for her husband, and that sounded pretty good to me. And general teenage rebellion, you know. And I had access to way too much smut on the Internet so, there was that. I knew I didn't want it to be someone from my school, or a total jerk, and he seemed really sweet. Plus, I suspected that he otherwise didn't have much chance of getting laid in high school, anyway, so it felt like a good deed."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"It was okay, considering. Took a few tries to figure out how to get the condom on right. Second time was better. We met up a few times after that, but he wanted me to be his girlfriend, so I told him my family was moving to Ohio and avoided the games at his school after that."

"It seems like you were very in touch with what you wanted, for such a young age."

"It was more that I was in touch with what I didn't want."

"And when did you know you were attracted to women as well?"

"I think I always knew. Maybe I even knew that first. I was sort of surprised when I got old enough to realize that not everyone got crushes on the same sex, but it was common enough in media by then that I understood it wasn't just me. It was frustrating to have to keep it a secret, but I didn't really struggle with it, like, shame or identity wise, like Sally did—"

"Sally?"

Millie froze, looked at Rebecca, then down at her tea, wondering if she had been dosed with some sort of truth serum. Every time she opened her damn mouth, privileged information just came tumbling right out. "Sally was my, um. My first love."

"How long were you together?"

"Close to two years. We were... Well. It was harder for her."

"How so?"

"Her family was more religious than mine. My dad was prone to bouts of religious mania now and again, when he said he was going to get sober, but it only ever lasted a couple weeks at a time at most. But Sally's parents were hardcore Catholics. And she... She didn't like guys. At all. Sometimes she was really resentful that I had the option to have a quote-unquote normal relationship and still be happy. But for her, there was no future where she could be with someone she loved and be a part of her family. And stupid and starry-eyed as I was, you know—teenager in love—I really thought she was going to choose me."

"But she didn't."

Millie shook her head. "No. I mean, we had plans and everything—we thought we'd have time to figure it out, you know, in college or whatever. But after my dad caught us—she was so terrified she was going to get outed to her family, she wouldn't answer any of my calls... So that was that. I heard she's married now, with a bunch of kids."

"That must have broken your heart," Rebecca said.

"Sure. But... she was worth it," Millie said softly, then frowned and straightened up. "Wait a minute, I thought we were talking about sex. How did feelings get dragged into this?"