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She shot me a look. “What, with lesbians? And bisexual women?”

“Actually, yeah.”

Her expression softened into curiosity. “Seriously? Isn’t that, like… just being straight, then?”

“Not really. Attraction is about the person, not the shape of their genitals… although there’s nothing wrong with liking genitals one way or the other. But it’s more like… we all have a lot of internalized feelings around a woman’s pleasure, don’t we? Society doesn’t exactly praise the vagina. There’s kind of a narrative of that it’sickyexcept as something for a straight guy to put his dick into.”

“I mean,Idon’t think that.”

“Not on a conscious level, but it gets to you. Gets to all of us. It was honestly kind of weird and awkward for me my first time with a woman, too. But—a couple of things. One is that there’s no one right way to have sex, and you shouldn’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable. And two is that vaginas, just like… body fat, or a woman’s body hair, are something that you realize pretty quickly isn’t actually as gross as society makes it out to be.”

She stared at me for a second before she said, “Wait, so it was even awkward for you?”

“Yeah, the first couple times. A lot of us have been there. It was hot to watch, right? Even if you did have holdups about touching?”

She drew invisible shapes on the table surface, looking down. “I mean, yeah,” she said after a minute.

“Pretty sure if you’re totally not into it, you don’t get turned on watching something like that.”

“Was Ryan like that too?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re asking me how much your sister liked pussy her first time.”

She seemed to think it over, genuinely weighing the options, before she said, “Yeah.”

“Different people do have different family relationships… she was definitely the outlier.”

She perked up. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, zero hesitation, all in…”

She laughed. “I literally cannot believe her.”

“She’s going to kill me for telling you this, but her face when she finds out will be worth it.”

“I wish I was brave like that.”

I stopped. “Do you? You wish you could bring yourself to get Allison off all she likes?”

“Uh.” She scrunched up her face. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Didn’t you?”

I saw the consideration play out over her features before she blushed harder and shrugged, looking away. “I dunno. Either way, I went and made it awkward now.”

“Allison is just running away because she’s too scared of how much she likes you.”

“I mean, you can say that, but she’s still running away, however you spin it. BecauseIcan’t keep it in my pants when somebody obviously likes me. I’ve gotten told a lot I’m shallow and superficial, and I guess I went and proved everyone right.”

“Stella, it literally could not be more normal to enjoy being overtly liked. Everybody wants to be liked, at least by someone, in some way. And if someone you find attractive is clearly into you, everybody likes that.”

She looked down. “I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds silly to not be into it.”

“Allison’s going to kill me, but I can give you her address. If you show up at her place and tell her you’re still nervous around intimacy with women but that you want to try, and ask her to show you how it’s done, you could probably spend the entire day between sensual, passionate sex and languid sunbathing on the beach, get dinner with her tonight, and do it all again later.”

“It doesn’t count if it’s on vacation, right?”

I laughed. “You know, Stella? If that’s what you need to tell yourself, sure.”