It's Time to Talk About our Feelings

Your best friend of four years lies poised atop you. Her hips rest snugly between your thighs, and her propped forearms fit in the dip between the mattress and your ribcage. Your hands are snaked around her underside.

Your relationship with Pearl prior to yesterday had never been all that physically affectionate. She’s not quite as allergic to physical contact as some people you’ve known, but the most touching you two really ever did was the occasional joshing shove or her smacking you upside the head when you were being a dumbass. At your grad ceremony, you wrapped her in a prolonged, fake-teary hug specifically to piss her off. She groaned the whole way through.

It’s only been a day since then, and in that time your bodies have gotten to know each other more intimately than you could have ever anticipated. Like puzzle pieces, they fit together (in more ways than one), so naturally and primally at this point your entire being is zeroed in on Pearl, just Pearl, splayed on top of you, skin-on-flushed-skin.

You don’t want to remember a time when you were so frugal with your touches. You’re here now, her body cradled in yours. You can feel her dancing, drumlike heartbeat as it thrums against you, sending vibrations up your body. Your own heart beats back in kind.

Your gazes remain locked on each other, marking a battlefield of taught lust and rampant teenage hormones across the short distance between your eyes.

You both breathe the same air, occupy the same space, in a tangle of limbs and erect body parts. Your yet-insistent hard-on still strains through your jeans in-between your two bodies. Involuntarily, she presses her torso back against it.

Part of you wants to wrap your legs around her hips and your arms around her back and hold her here, drink her in. Savour her. Or maybe just enter her again. But the troubled look on Pearl’s face forces you to dispel your desires.

A war between her immediate desires and her sensibilities plays out across Pearl’s features. As if she can’t decide between satiating her body’s yearning for release and fulfillment or her commitment to having one last night of normalcy and maybe deciphering where your futures stand. It’s clear the dilemma is tearing her apart.

The Double Dash victory theme continues to loop in the background.

After a tense moment, Pearl pries herself out of your grip, grimacing like it causes her physical pain. Then, she pushes herself away, collapses next to you, and turns to face the wall.

Your body already misses hers.

You lean forward to turn off the console before lying back down and exhaling. Not sure of where to put your hands now that you have no soft bottom to hold, you fold them carefully atop your chest.

The two of you lie awkwardly side-by-side, your bodies calling for each other, but your brains trying not to think how close you came to actual sex. Repeat sex. Glorious, animalistic, raw repeat sex.

Moments ago, the air smelt palpably of friendly competition and mutual arousal. Now, you taste only the tangy twinge of guilt, confusion, and sexual denial as it washes over the mattress and its two occupants.

Finally, Pearl speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice is raspy, low, uneven. Quiet, yet loud among the heavy silence.

This kind of open and confusing emotional vulnerability is quite unfamiliar to you, especially when it comes from the girl who only texted you ‘lmao get rekt’ when she heard you fractured your wrist in gym last year. Feeling uncomfortable in this bizarre new territory, you fall back on a weak attempt at levity.

“Try telling that to my poor dick.”

Without looking, she flicks back an ankle and kicks you hard in the shin.

Ow. Okay. Fair. Not the time.

Seems like confronting your feelings is quickly becoming a necessary aspect of this connection between you two. My, how this friendship has taken a strange turn. To be fair, it is kind of (completely) your fault.

“…I’m sorry too.”

You let the apology hang in the air.

Eventually, Pearl speaks again.

“I think I tried so hard to be back to normal that I just overcompensated. We…”

She exhales shakily.

“We had sex. Things aren’t ever going to be normal between us again.”

You turn your head towards her. She’s buried her face in her hair, and her voice muffles through it.

“I am… miserably horny and I can’t even do anything about it. I spent all day trying to ignore my body but it just won’t shut up and I can’t even touch myself without your permission.”

…Right. That’s your fault too. You’ve really reworked this girl, haven’t you.

Her spiel continues, coming out in a rush.

“…And now you’re here in my room where we fucked and now all of a sudden whenever I’m around you my ovaries feel like they’re fucking melting and I barely even knew I had ovaries before and all I can remember is your stupid fucking cum inside me and knowing that you’re turned on too, because of me-”

At this point, Pearl has curled herself into a ball, arms hugged around her knees. One heel presses desperately against the place between her legs.

God, now you’re really at a loss. Should you apologize again? If you reach out to comfort her, will she shove you away once more, or will she finally snap and just jump your bones?

Have you just completely fucked (hah) everything beyond oblivion? Does she want you to revert the entire last 24 hours? Could you even do that? It’s too late, you’re asking.

“Would you take it all back if you could?”

You have no basis to tell whether it’s an even remotely appropriate question to ask right now, but you have to know.

The silence around you turns from still to suffocating as you await an answer. After the longest ten seconds of your life, Pearl responds.

“…No.”

Well that’s something, right? Maybe pushing your friend to sleep with you isn’t the end of the world?

…God, that feels like such a douche thing to say. Hesitantly, Pearl continues.

“My mom always told me that whenever I decided to have sex, it should be with someone I cared about, someone I’ve known for a long time, and I should feel completely ready so I could do it with no regrets, and all that. And I always figured that was bull.”

A strand of hair gets into her mouth, and she spits it out.

“I figured I was too standoffish and rude for anyone to actually like me that much before they slept with me, so I was ready to just punch my card to a one-night stand and live on those forever. But last night you used my consent, and it was like some switch flipped in my head. And all of a sudden I wanted you, you were the most enticing person I had ever laid eyes on.”

Awkwardly, she fiddles with the strings of a hoodie lying next to her head.

“I had never felt more ready and willing and content and comfortable in my life. And so we… did it. And you told me you were going to finish inside me. And I let you. Wanted you to. And it felt natural and right, giving myself to you completely. It felt like I was having sex with someone who actually liked me as a person, but thought I was hot at the same time. Enough to have his baby, even.”

She attempts to shrink further into the mattress.

“So, no, I wouldn’t take it back. As weird as it is to say, you’re probably about the best person I could have had my first time with. There are far worse people to lose it to than the guy who’s been my closest friend for basically ever.”

You stew a while, processing this. You hadn’t really thought that far into it, but she’s kind of right. In a weird way, this feels like a natural evolution of your pre-established relationship. Friends + benefits.

“Mom also said to be sure I used protection, so I didn’t exactly follow everything she said. That makes me feel better.”

Friends + very risky benefits. Oh boy.

Pearl lowers her legs and rolls to lie flat on her back. You turn your head to join her in staring at the ceiling.

“God, I can’t believe I lost my virginity to you.”

Okay, ouch.

“Seriously, before yesterday you were just some guy to me. Some dude I hung out with sometimes. Literally nothing hot about you.”

Okay, a very brutal double ouch. You had never thought too hard about Pearl’s looks before this week, but if pressed you would have said she was at least passingly attractive. And she became a lot more than that once she wasn’t buried in a thousand layers.

“…And now?” you ask.

Pearl turns her head to look at you. You do the same. She looks you dead in the eye.

“Now, every time I look at you my vagina turns into a fucking fire hydrant.”

Ouches rescinded. You are the certified pussy whisperer. Heck yeah. All it took was a light sprinkling of ultimate power.

Your glee must be apparent on your face, cause she squints at you through her blush and turns away. “Yeah, yeah, live it up why don’t you.”

Gladly.

Switching gears, she casts a look around the room. “Y’know, I had to use like a gallon of febreze in here so that I wasn’t constantly distracted by the smell of us doing it.”

You sniff the air. Now that she mentions it, there is indeed a light fruity scent about the place.

“You mean you don’t usually smell like fresh papaya after sex? I’m shocked.”

Pearl turns on the defensive. “Hey man, my sex goop smelt fine. It was your stuff that smelled like bleach. Imagine that leaking from you.”

You grin at her. “Well, apparently the smell of bleach really gets you going.”

Pearl glares at your cheek and punches you in the shoulder.

Good to know you’ve graduated once again to being able to physically touch each other. If you’re going to stew together in mutual arousal, you ought to at least have fun with it.

“Ugh. I don’t care what it smells like. As long as it gets me pregnant.”

...Right. That. The elephant in the room.

The fuck-up that might rearrange both your entire futures.

Jeeze, you really weren’t thinking straight last night. You were thinking with your dick, and some primal instinct kicked in and said ‘wow hot female wouldn’t it be really great if you put your baby in her wait you can literally do that holy shit BREEEEEEED’ and everything after that was kind of hazy. But now that you’re marginally less lustdrunk, the whole weight of what you’ve imposed on her seems daunting. Unfair. You’ve pushed this girl into potentially carrying and caring for your own spawn.

Creating life is no small potatoes. Are either of you really ready for this? You’re both still teenagers, for crying out loud. Are you really about to push your best friend into the rigours of pregnancy, birth, and childcare? The same friend you watched get a D in Home Ec. because she literally could not boil an egg? Are you really about to saddle her with that massive of a responsibility?

The still stiff member between your legs says yes. Please. That would be très sexee. But the entire point of this internal monologue is to make a decision without his input.

“Pearl, are… are you really sure about this, having a-”

“Yes.”

Wow, that was… that was zero hesitation. Huh.

“Dude, I already told you, you’ve got me on board. You can’t back out now.”

Gulp.

“But like… you’ll get all big, and stuff.”

Pearl looks at you like your brain is made of rocks.

“Yes, Chase, that is kind of the whole premise of being pregnant. My entire internal ecosystem is going to rearrange itself so I can create an entire other fucking human inside of me. My belly isn’t really gonna have anywhere to go but out. Bigger tits too, probably.”

You resent how easily you can picture that.

“Besides, are you really going to tell me I wouldn’t look fantastic pregnant?”

Nope.

“…Kind of the opposite, actually.”

“You’re goddamn right.”

Well, at least she feels good about herself. And about her body changing drastically.

“But… do you really-”

Apparently sick of your questions, Pearl pushes herself upright and grabs your jaw, forcing you to look her in the eye.

“Yes, I want this. I want you to fuck me repeatedly and unload literal gallons of cum inside me until your stupid fucking sperm penetrates my stupid little egg and you knock me up with your stupid fucking child. Whatever you’re thinking now, you really should have thought of it before you gave me an impregnation fetish. Are you satisfied?”

Responding is kind of difficult when she’s gripping your face this hard.

“…Yes, ma’am.”

Pearl lets go and flomps back down onto the bed.

“You better be, cause I’m sure as hell not done with your magic fucking penis.”

Beneath your belt, the penis in question pulses back in agreement. What on earth have you gotten yourself into.

“So then… how are you even gonna handle taking care of a child? I wouldn't exactly call either of us ‘mature adults’.”

“Hey, speak for yourself.”

You raise an eyebrow and pointedly glance back and forth between Pearl and the box full of her uneaten pizza crusts. She follows your gaze.

“What? They’re icky.”

Right, this girl, the mature, responsible adult.

“If you think pizza crusts are icky how are you gonna handle diapers and baby vomit?”

“Trial by fire.”

…Well at least she has a plan?

“Look man, I won’t pretend like being a mom at eighteen isn’t the scariest, most daunting shit in the world, but… I still want to do it. I’ll have my mom, I’ll have my sister.”

Tentatively, she places a hand on her lower stomach.

“This kid isn’t going to grow up without a loving family, and I’ll do everything in in my power to serve them the entire world on a silver platter.”

That’s… wow.

It’s strange, and a little awe-inspiring, to see Pearl speak about something with such fervor. This is the same person who refused to spot you thirty cents when you didn’t have enough cash for lunch last week. And now she’s hoping to give all of herself to ensure the meaningful life of another.

Maybe this will be good for her, after all.

She refluffs a pillow and places it behind her head. “I dunno, dude. I never in a million years thought I’d be the first of my peers to have a freaking kid, but… it’s like my life has meaning now. All of a sudden I have direction. A purpose.”

And yet, with all the changes of the last two days, you’re feeling a little directionless yourself.

“Besides, I didn’t hand in any college applications, and I’m terrified of the workforce. I’ve got nothing to do with my time but have babies anyway.”

“Truly, you are a misogynist’s wet dream, Pearl.”

This time you manage to dodge the shoulder slap before it connects.

Not willing to let you get away scot free, Pearl lunges after your retreating body but misses and instead lands on the edge of the pizza box, flinging discarded crusts every which way and causing a cascade of crumbs down her face. You stand in the corner, out of the blast zone, away from her ire and dying of laughter.

Almost comically, Pearl blinks through the muss of her jet black hair peppered with pizza remains. She yells that she’s going to shove your tongue where the sun don’t shine, but her threatening aura rather loses its edge when she’s propped up like some kind of pizza banshee. Your laughter only increases in volume, and she finally caves and joins in.

It’s clear you both needed this.

Eventually, your mutual laughter dies down. Pearl sniffs her hair.

“Shit, I’m gonna need another shower.”

You glance around. “Dude, I think your whole room needs a shower.”

Pearl takes in the state of her bedroom. The neat stacks of clothing have been mostly toppled through all of your roughhousing, and are now further messied by crusts and sauce. A sprinkling of crumbs dusts her carpet. One lone piece of pineapple sits dejectedly atop a Junji Ito hoodie.

“…Fuck.”

Another twenty minutes later, and you’ve both made decent progress in salvaging the state of the room. You dragged a vacuum out of the hallway closet and applied it liberally to her floor and mattress, Pearl gathered all the affected clothing and built a mountain atop her laundry hamper. You held the pizza box open as she stood over it, shaking her hair free of saucy dandruff. All in a day’s work.

Once the bedroom no longer looks like a Dominos’ dumpster, you both collapse back onto the bed. And now you’re back at square one. So of course Pearl decides the moment is right to plunge the convo right back into a state of ‘unnecessarily emotional’.

“…Honestly, my biggest concern is that this kid will grow up without a father.”

Oh.

“I’m not going to **** you to stick around, to be part of your child’s life. But I really hope you are. I know what it’s like to grow up without a dad.”

Her voice becomes a murmur.

“I would never wish that on a child of mine.”

Pearl doesn’t really talk about her dad much, but you’ve gleaned from family photos and memories shared that he was taken out of her life very abruptly when she was little, and his sudden **** really messed the whole family up.

It’s not a far reach to assume that going through such an incredible loss so young in life played a part in shaping Pearl into the cynical person she is today. You love her for who she is, but sometimes it still seems like there’s a tiny piece of her missing.

Perhaps that's part of why you gravitated towards each other all those years ago. Because you had something in common.

Shit. Fuck fuck shit. She’s right. If you are going to follow your dick and give her a child, then you need to contribute to its childhood. For the sake of all three of you, there can be no other choice.

“I think you know what that’s like, too. Growing up without a parent.”

Yeah. You do.

You press your palms against your eyelids and take a long exhale to steady yourself.

“Okay. Yes. Fair. Pearl.”

You lock eyes with your friend.

“If you end up… with child, because of me, then I will be there. I won’t abandon you. I wouldn’t, even if I wasn’t the father, because I’m not a shitty friend. You won’t do this alone, I swear to you.”

A beat passes between you two.

Pearl taps her fist against your knuckles. “Thanks dude, ‘preciate it.”

Man, you both suck at this.

Many concerns yet nag at you. Practical ones: about where you’ll even have the space to take care of a baby, about how two broke teens are going to finance the life of a growing, defenseless ape.

“But like, how the hell are we even going to have the money for this? We’re not exactly rolling in dough.”

Pearl gives you a ‘seriously?’ kind of look. Confused, you continue.

“I mean, cribs, baby food, doctor’s appointments, mountains of diapers, all that stuff costs money that we definitely don’t have. Or I don’t, at least. And I really don’t think you want to be mooching off your mom forever.”

It graduates to a ‘oh my god you’re serious and also very stupid’ kind of look. Not understanding the problem, you double down.

“Okay yeah, she’s well-off, I get that, but c’mon, we’re adults now. And we can’t both work full time if we’ve got a newborn and-”

The look has officially ascended to ‘holy shit you’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever laid eyes on’. What on earth are you getting wrong?

“Look, I can see if Pita Pit will take me back but after the hummus incident that seems unlikely and it would only be minimum wage anyway-”

“Chase.”

You slow down. “…Yeah?”

“You could literally own the entire economy if you wanted to.”

Oh. Right. Huh.

“Not that you should, cause that would be a nightmare, but you could very easily claim an allowance from some billionaire who couldn’t care less and just let us live off that forever. Make life real breezy. Except it won’t actually be all that breezy, because we’ll have a screaming infant to take care of.”

Maybe you really were worried about nothing. Good thing you’ve got Pearl with you to set you on the right path.

A path with a screaming infant lying in the road. Full speed ahead.

“Seriously, dude, I’m kind of counting on you to let me never work a day in my life. Especially since I’ll be raising your hellspawn.”

Fair, but you feel obligated to defend your (yet) nonexistent child.

“Woah there, Ms. Mooch, that’s my kid you’re talking about. I resent the implication that they’ll be anything other than a perfect angel. You should feel lucky to bear them.”

She snorts. “Okay, I’ll remind you you said that when your kid barfs on my carpet. Or swallows a lego. Or drives their first car into a ditch.”

You point an accusing finger in her direction. “Hey, that’ll be from your half of the genes. I have no control over any of that.”

“You’re such a dick, you know that?”

Of course you do, but far be it from you to ever admit to it. That would mean to admit personal flaw. And you are a flawless person.

“Funny, I thought you were growing rather fond of my dick.”

A smile and an eye-roll. “Call it a love-hate relationship. It is about to stick a demon-child in me, after all.”

“Oh, all of a sudden you don’t want to give birth to the antichrist? You’ve changed, Pearl. You’ve changed.”

She laughs and side-eyes you. “Uh huh. I wonder who’s been changing me?”

Touché.

Pearl picks up a shirt by her shoulder, gives it a sniff, and sends it sailing in an arc to join its stained brethren atop Mt. Hamper. “How’s that going, by the way?”

Your quirk your brow.

“The whole ‘owning stuff’, dipshit. How’s ultimate power? Are you Apple CEO now or something? What all have you claimed this day?”

Oh. That.

“I got Starbucks, and enough gas to get over here.”

“…And?”

“And that’s it.”

She seems almost disappointed by your lack of creativity. “That’s it? You spend yesterday messing with the souls of each of your friends and now today you get mundane four dollar shit?”

You shrug. “After the first rush of power faded and I wasn’t high on graduation and soda I kind of wised up. Or maybe it’s like you said, and the power made me all chill about it like it made you guys chill about it.”

Her face says she’s not buying it.

“You’re scared.”

Are you?

You were feeling apprehensive about everything shifting and your friends growing apart after grad, and at first maybe you figured your newfound abilities could fix a lot of that. Stave off change. But it seems evident that with these powers, change is inevitable anyway. And not for the better, if you’re not careful.

“…Maybe a little.”

She sits on this a while. You nibble on one of her remaining crusts in the meantime. You’re evidently far past caring about sharing each other’s germs at this point.

“I get it, but also, that’s stupid.”

Tactful as ever, Pearl. You swallow and let her continue.

“Okay, yeah, you can really fuck people up in some weird-ass ways. Like, you haven’t actually always owned my consent, have you.”

You still.

She notices.

“C’mon, Chase, our relationship wasn’t remotely sexual before yesterday. I wouldn’t have even been able to look you in the eye, let alone be your casual bud, if I knew you knew about each and every time I pleasured myself.”

She pauses, like a new thought just struck her.

“Wait, you didn’t own my fashion sense before yesterday either, did you?”

…Should you be jumping out the window in panic right about now? She has yet to start gouging out your entrails in rage. That could change at any moment, though.

“…No.”

She breezes right past that like it doesn’t even matter. “But that’s the point, though. If the me from two days ago could see me right now she’d be fucking livid.”

There’s a tree like four feet outside her room, you could make it. Is the lock on the pane jimmeable or should you just brute **** the glass?

“And she’d be wrong.”

…Huh?

“Yeah, this shit is weird and fucked but also kind of awesome? Because of your weird-ass powers, I’ve got a clearer plan for the future than I’ve literally ever had or ever thought I could have. I look like a slut, but because I look like a slut I’m more comfortable in my own skin than I’ve ever been.”

Comfort me, O pizza crust, you are the only thing that makes sense in this world.

“You can claim stuff from anyone and uproot their lives and shit, sure. But you’d have to go out of your way to do any serious amounts of damage. Any mess you get yourself into you can just claim your way out of, and maybe even improve people’s lives in the process. As long as you make sure no one’s suffering, whatever that may may look like, you’re guilt-free in my book.”

Maybe Pearl should have been given these powers instead. Or maybe that would have been far worse for the world at large. Who’s to say. You’re in completed undiscovered moral territory here.

For the time being, you feel inclined to follow her lead. She seems a lot more confident about this than you are right now.

“So… you don’t hate me or anything?”

Pearl seems to consider the question. That’s not a good sign.

“Well, again, if you were to return everything of mine you currently own, then yeah I’d be pretty fucking pissed. But I’d also be worse off for it. So like… how about going forward you just be more upfront about your intentions before you go messing with my head?”

That shouldn’t be too hard. But, the implications of what she’s asking you to do…

“Pearl, are you basically… giving yourself to me? Like, to do whatever with?”

Not literally, you’re not about to claim your whole best friend, but this kind of unfettered permission is not something you ever expected nor know what to do with. But you guess technically the alternative is doing stuff without her initial approval, so…

Fuck this is weird.

Pearl lets out a long breath. “Yeah. I guess I am. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I trust you. I figure four years of being friends ought to mean something to you.”

More than she knows, you suspect.

“So yes. I give myself to you. Don’t know if it’ll be the worst decision of my life or the best one, but it’s sure to be the most interesting. You’ve already got my consent, anyway.”

She pulls your shoulder towards her so you can stare directly at each other. Once again, your vision is filled with just Pearl. The dusky curve of her lips, the pleasant roundness of her face, her blue, blue eyes open and ****.

“You’ve got the keys to my soul, Chase. Use ‘em wisely.”

It seems you are not capable of being serious for more than five minutes at a time. “Does that mean the keyhole is in between your legs?”

“Oh my god.” She pushes you away again, rolling her eyes. “Guess it’d be an apt comparison since you’ll be doing all your thinking with your dick anyways.”

You grin at her, which she purposefully ignores. “And you know you’ll enjoy the whole thing.”

She lets slip a small smile. “Ugh. Yeah, maybe I will.”