Okay, so, I guess now that I've started writing this down, I can't stop. I promised Bailey I'd tell the honest truth, so here it is.
As soon as Bailey had started to undress, I'd started to get, you know, well . . . hard. I knew it was only natural, but I couldn't help but feel guilty and embarrassed at this because Bailey was sick. She was dying. So, wasn't it perverted to think about having sex with her? But the honest truth is that I thought about having sex with Bailey endlessly. I couldn't help it. In mornings when I showered in the cottage's little bathroom, I made myself come imagining what she looked like naked. And, now, here she was, completely undressed in the early morning light.
I didn't move. I just sat there in the cottage's tattered armchair, feeling the warmth of her body in my arms. When she felt that I'd gotten hard, she kissed my lips a little more intensely than before, and she pressed tighter against me.
"I don't want to die without ever being with you," she whispered. Her voice actually quivered when she said this. Then she looked up at me. "That sounded really melodramatic, didn't it?" She laughed.
I smiled back at her, and she laughed again. For a moment she rested her head against my chest. Then she pulled herself into my lap and hugged me tightly, wrapping her legs and arms around me all at once.
"I'm serious, though," she whispered. "I don't regret much in my life. I don't regret leaving home with you. I don't regret going to California. I don't regret doing what I did to the cop, so I could be here, with you. But I do regret being afraid to have sex with you. I don't know why I was so afraid—I've really wanted to, for a long time. And I trust you. I left home to be with you so I could really live before I die. And I honestly can't imagine a better way to be alive. I know you won't hurt me, even though I'm really nervous about how it will feel. And I know you won't love me any less if I don't do it right, or of my symptoms make my body do weird things. I want to make love with you. I want you to teach me. Will you show me how? Right now? Before it's too late?"
The way she was pressing into me—I could feel the shape of her vagina against my penis even through my pants' fabric—and the way she'd whispered about how she wanted to have sex with me, it all made me really worried that I was about to come. I could feel it building up. Coming at that moment would have ruined everything. And the last thing I wanted to think about right now was coming while Bailey was bringing herself to confess all of these important things about her life, and facing her death.
I pulled away, very slightly, to release the pressure between her pelvis and mine. She looked up at me, her hair partly hanging down over her face and covering one of her eyes. I reached out and put the loose strands behind her ear.
"We'll teach each other," I said. "Are you sure, though? Don't do this just because you know I want to. Honestly, I love you. Whether we have sex or not, now or later, I'll love you the same." I was telling the truth. Besides her being cured, I don't think there was anything I wanted more than to have sex with her, as embarrassing as that sounds. But, still, I would have been horrified if she ever forced herself to do anything that she didn't want to do, just for my sake. "I mean, I really, really want you to do only what you want to do."
"I know," she whispered. "And I really, really want to have sex with you. I don't want to wait any longer." She looked up at me again, this time a faint hint of confusion in her expression. "But what do you mean we'll teach each other? You already know how."
"What do you mean?"
"You've already, you know . . . with Megan."
She thought I'd had sex with Megan?
"No." I shook my head. "We never, you know, went all the way. This whole time you thought I'd had sex with Megan?"
Bailey pulled away and cross her arms over her breasts, confused. "She told me you did! Why would she have told me that? You mean you've never . . ."
"No," I said. "I thought you knew that. I haven't had sex yet. I mean, Megan and I sort of came close, then things got weird between us, and we broke up before it ever happened. I don't know why she told you we did. I guess she wanted you to think that we had sex? Maybe she thought that you wouldn't be interested in me if you thought that. I don't know. But, look, forget about Megan. Lets not talk about Megan right now."
Bailey shook her head. "You mean, honestly, you've never had sex either?"
"No," I shrugged. It was the simple, slightly embarrassing truth. I'm already nineteen, but I'd always thought that one day it would happen for the first time with Bailey. "I've really never had sex either," I said.
To my surprise, Bailey smiled broadly and looked like she was about to cry. She put her arms back around me, kissed me, and nodded. "Okay, we'll teach each other," she said, suddenly speaking very, very quietly. "We can do that, right? You and me? We can do anything, right? It'll be our thing, and no body else's..."