75"Steve, what is... Sex?"
This is not what I wanted to deal with today. El is a great kid and all, and she's super easy to babysit. Most of the time, she's watching television - the kid has an unhealthy obsession with soap operas, and I'm not too big to admit that I'm sorta hooked on them now, too. I've been coming around Hopper's for most of summer vacation, hanging out with El when no one else can. Mrs. Byers works all the time, Jonathan and Nancy are busy sucking face and making intense eyes at each other wherever the hell they are. I used to waste my days hanging out with Tommy and Carol, bullshitting and getting drunk or high or both and riding around Hawkins. Parties. Girls. Now my life is filled with the daytime television targeted at stay-at-home-mom's and old people. It's boring, but it's comforting in that nothing changes and no one dies. I don't have mullet-wearing punks trying to jump me, I don't have demons from alternate dimensions trying to kill me.
Nope, just fourteen year old girls who have yet to grasp the concept of what's appropriate and what's not.
Literally, the things that come out of this girl's mouth astound me. Like the time she asked me what a boner was - "Lucas said that just because Mike has a boner for me, doesn't mean I get to pick what we do all the time," - or the time she asked, with her big innocent brown eyes and the strange, child-like wonder and curiosity that just totally slays me - "Max said that you're a pussy. But isn't that a cat?" Why couldn't she be interested in world politics? Or pop culture? Honestly, I could probably help a lot with the whole crazy-curly-hair thing she's got going on. Take her to the mall, get her out of all the flannel and overalls and Chucks. But whatever, the kid grew up in a labratory with a number instead of a name. Who am I to judge?
I choke on the soda I'm drinking when she asks, and immediately my eyes well up with tears and I wheeze. She sits back, startled, and her eyes go wide as the Eggos she's obsessed with as I pound on my chest and try to get my air back.
"Jesus," I mutter, under my breath. I've learned that she's quite sensitive and takes tone better than words, so I know it's important to be careful when it comes to how I speak to her. The time I got after her for making a mess in the kitchen is a glaring reminder, as she'd used her freaky mind-powers to slam her bedroom door and the lightbulb overhead in the kitchen exploded into a million pieces. When I can finally breathe properly, Eleven tilts her head to the side, silently questioning whether I'm ok or waiting for me to explain.
How do I explain sex? It's phenomenal. Feels better than anything on Earth. Especially with Nancy, her small body beneath mine and so eager and responsive. Like no other girl I've ever been with. But she's not mine, and the reminder twists my stomach and I feel my mouth turn down with distate. Eleven is studying me like I'm some kind of puzzle she's trying to put together (so far, we're working through a thousand piece number of some pretty but boring scenery, and it sits on a card table in the corner with the edges all put together but the inside a mess of pink and purple and red and green confusion).
On one hand, I want to tell her all of that - that sex is natural, and beautiful, and nothing in the world compares to being buried inside the wet heat of a beautiful girl who wants it just as badly as you do. But, she's fourteen, and she's got that strangely intense relationship with Mike, Nancy's little brother. I mean, I was having sex at fifteen, but Mike's a total nerd who plays Dungeons and Dragons and acts way less mature than I was at his age. I was already going to senior parties when I was a freshmen. I was dating girls and getting my hands up sweaters with frightening ease. I highly doubt he's got the balls to put the moves on El, no matter how much he may want to. And I'm certain he does, because I see the way he looks at her like she's the only person in the room - or the planet. It's all hand-holding and shy smiles and the silence stretching between them that seems to be filled with more than words. I don't get it. I probably never will.
I'd like to think that Nancy and I had something like that...
"Sex is a biological urge to procreate," I say instead of any of my thoughts. This, at least, is true. It's scientific and Hopper can't murder me for corrupting his daughter. She could see this on the science channel, or in one of the biology textbooks procured from the library or stolen from one of the classrooms in Hawkins High. Glancing at El, I realize she has no clue what that means. Sighing, I sink further into the old, musty sofa and run my hands through my beautifully cultivated hair. It is my pride and joy.
"Pro-cre-ate?" Eleven asks, cocking her head in a way that reminds me of a dog. Eyebrows knit together.
"Have babies," I supply. Then, because it's obvious that she's still sorta foggy, I realize I'm going to have to talk the birds and the bees with Eleven. This was not how I wanted my day to go.
"Moms and Dads." Eleven nods, like this makes all the sense in the world. "Moms and Dads have sex and that makes babies."
OK, yeah. Maybe this won't be so bad.
But then my big mouth gets the better of me. "Well, not just moms and dads. And not just to have babies. Sex is fun, and it feels good, so sometimes people who like each other just do it for that." I am not thinking of Nancy Wheeler and the sway of her slender hips, her tiny waist, the way it feels to have her ass grinding against me while she -
"So, Mike and I should sex." Eleven nods, like her mind is made up, then turns her attention away from me and back to the small television set where someone is professing their love or dramatically announcing their terminal cancer or getting kidnapped.
"Um, no. I definitely didn't say that."
"Mike and I like each other." She shrugs one shoulder, blinks and the television switches channels. I am certain I will never get used to that.
"Yeah, well you're kids - sex is for adults."
Slowly, she turns her head and lifts one arched eyebrow at me, challenging. "You are not adult." If she wasn't who she was - socially stunted, the Chief of Police's adopted daughter, girlfriend to my ex's little brother, friend of the group of misfit kids who have seemed to adopted me - I might have thought she was being a bitch. But that's just El, and she's blunt as fuck, and she's not wrong. Deep down, she just wants to be like the rest of us, to understand. Living in a cage her entire life, being experimented on and basically forced into a hell dimension where things were trying to kill her - well, its totally understandable that she's far from normal. The fact that her group of friends are also over-imaginative dipshits that don't know how to stay out of trouble or alive doesn't help matters.
"Well, I never said I had sex, either." Ha, gotcha kid.
"You said it feels good. You have." Well shit.
El stands and ambles across the cabin, which is basically one big room save for the bathroom and her bedroom, into the kitchen area where she opens the fridge, stares for a moment, then closes it again. "What does sex mean, Steve? How do you sex?"
Listen, I get it. She wants to know - surely, and grossly, she has hormones burning through her pubescent body as strongly as every other young teenager. And she has no idea what it means, or why its happening, and I kinda feel bad for her. Imagine waking up with a hard dick and no idea what the hell it means - certainly, it would be terrifying. I just don't think I'm the person for this conversation, because I am an eighteen year old guy that is hired to babysit. I'm not her parent or Mrs. Byers or some other female that could much more easily relate all of this pertinent information. It would be much easier if a demogorgon smashed through the wall and swallowed me whole with it's mouth-face.
"Sex is - it's something - well," I scratch my head and search for the right words, "it's something you do with someone you love, like I said. It's for - when you're older -"
"How older?" Her eyes narrow and I know she's testing me.
"Old enough to drive a car, at least." There - that buys a couple years. I settle in, feeling a pinch more confident. It would be so much easier to have this conversation with Dustin, who eats up everything I tell him like gospel. "So, when you and the partner of your choosing, who loves and respects you..." Yeah, that's good shit, I congratulate myself. "Well, remember when I told you what a boner is?"
Her cheeks flood with color and she nods, biting her lip. She is still hanging onto the handle to the door of the fridge, hanging on my every word.
"Ok, so the boner goes into the vagina. You know what that is...?"
"P-pussy," she says, like she is testing the word out.
"Yes, exactly. Um, and so the boner goes into the pussy..." I am blushing now too, which is rare and umcomfortable, but we've made it this far and I just have to get it over with. "So yeah, boner plus pussy until everyone orgasms. And then you get pregnant. And then Hopper kills you."
A long silence stretches between us. I cross and uncross my legs, touch my hair, stare at her waiting for some kind of response. No one ever had this talk with me - I found a bunch of my dad's old Playboy's and kinda worked it out on my own from locker room talk and movies. Far more comprehensive and straightforward, and hopefully, because she doesn't say anything but comes back over to flop down on the other end of the sofa, it's over with. I'm not sure how much more my heart can take.
It seems like we are back to watching television. I try to relax, after a while, because she's chewing on her lip and staring at the screen and I sorta wonder if maybe I dreamed the whole conversation. I hope I did it right, and I try not to think of Nancy fucking Jonathan or El fucking Mike, because my brain might explode and that's the last thing we need. I'm finally starting to get back into the show - another soap but different station - when El's small voice breaks into my thoughts again.
"Steve, what is orgasm?"
I'm going to kill myself.
Thanks for reading! Might add chapters depending on the response. Let me know!