things. Like suddenly attacking him physically in his barn and losing my virginity to him. Like...like meeting with him in town and going down into the basement of the old museum together.”
“Are you sleeping with him or are you on an episode of Scooby-Doo with him?” Rose asked.
Pansy glared at Rose. “Can you not mock my nervous breakdown?”
“I’m your little sister. I feel like mocking your nervous breakdown is basically my function.”
“This isn’t like me,” Pansy said. “You should all yell at me and tell me that it’s out of character. Check my pupils. See if I’m on drugs.”
“Are you on drugs?” Iris asked.
“No.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you that there’s anything wrong with what you’ve done,” Sammy said, resolute. “It might be good for you to do something out of character. Because it might be good for you to experience this, and experiment in this way. Because who am I to tell you that your choices are wrong? Anyway. It doesn’t much matter. If it doesn’t work out, you move on. And you chalk it up to experience.”
She had no idea how she was supposed to chalk up something so intimate as having another human being inside of her body to experience.
She had no idea how she was ever going to erase the memory of West’s hands burning over her skin. Of how vulnerable it made her feel to know that she had come apart in his arms like that. That he had seen her that way. Sammy didn’t understand. She didn’t understand how exposed she felt. How utterly and completely raw.
The first time the newness of it all had protected her in a way. She’d been able to let herself be consumed by how foreign it was to be intimate in that way physically.
This time, it had been...different. That she’d wanted it again knowing how it was, how intense, how all consuming, made it different. And rather than being able to shield herself even more, she’d been less able to do so.
West had reached down into parts of herself that she hadn’t even known existed. And while she had been gasping and panting against him, he had been witnessing a moment of self-discovery that she was almost embarrassed to have witnessed herself.
How was she supposed to go on with her life knowing that that man was wandering around the earth knowing those things about her? How was she supposed to erase what it looked like when he lost his own control from her head? That moment when his face contorted with pleasure and he... How?
“Look, it always feels like a big deal at first,” Sammy said. “And I know that I said it wasn’t a big deal. It isn’t. I think someone needs to say that to you. Because it really doesn’t have to be. So whatever it is in you that’s telling you that you need to make it a big deal because you’re trying to be a good girl, or whatever, banish that. But whatever emotions are telling you it feels like a big deal, you can embrace those.”
Iris snorted. “You don’t make any sense. She feels bad, it was a big deal for her. End of story. Her feelings don’t have anything to do with it really. Which ones you trust and which ones you discard. What’s society, what’s her. What does it matter? She feels like crap.”
“I don’t know,” Pansy said. And suddenly, a realization washed over her, all warm and perfect. “I don’t feel bad,” she continued. “And that’s part of what confuses me. I really quite enjoyed myself. I really did. I liked being with him. And... Today I put myself in his path in hopes that it would happen again. I can’t deny it. As much as I would like to. But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do from here.”
“Have sex with him again?” Sammy asked.
“If she feels bad how’s that going to help?” Iris rounded on Sammy.
“I don’t know,” Sammy said. “In my experience sex can make you feel a whole lot better.”
“And then it makes you confused,” Pansy said. “And makes you feel like you’re a stranger unto yourself.”
“Does it?” Rose asked, round eyed.
“I had sex with him in the museum.”
“Oh my gosh,” Iris said. “You didn’t. I bet that’s against the law.”
“I know,” Pansy said. “I’m sure we violated laws. Decency laws. I am always decent, I am never in violation of laws. Never. And yet... I am. And I kind