Chapter 11: Curiousty
The word “next time” became a tiny engine in Riley’s chest, humming away for three weeks straight. It powered her through calculus and the soul-crushing boredom of her part-time library job. It flickered every time she saw Jordan, which was often—holding hands in the school hallway, sharing a milkshake after football games, kissing goodnight in his car parked safely around the corner from her house.
But the kissing goodnight had started to feel like a prelude to a conversation they weren’t having. Her body, now a map with a few known landmarks, wanted more exploration. The memory of that night was a closed, perfect locket. She wanted to pry it open and add more to the collection.
Headquarters was in a state of low-grade, persistent buzz.
“We have data,” Joy announced, projecting a soft, golden flowchart onto the main console. “Positive reinforcement from the primary event. Riley is seeking deeper connection. This is a natural progression!”
“Progression toward what?” Fear squeaked, pulling up a medical encyclopedia. “Oral sex introduces a 0.0001% chance of STI transmission even without ejaculation! What if she chokes? What if he… tastes bad? What if she’s bad at it and he tells his friend Drew and Drew tells the entire offensive line?”
“If that little punk says one word, I’ll burn his playbook to ashes,” Anger muttered, but he looked more worried than angry. He kept replaying the moment Riley had Googled “how to not gag” on her phone in the library bathroom. “This is performative. She’s researching like it’s a final exam.”
Sadness watched the console, where Riley was scrolling through a badly-written article on a pop culture website titled “5 Ways to Up Your Game.” “She wants to give him something,” Sadness said softly. “A gift. But she’s turning her own body into a homework assignment. That makes my heart feel heavy.”
Riley’s research was clinical and chaotic. She learned terms. She read confusing, enthusiastic testimonials on forums she immediately closed out of shame. The overwhelming, whispered message from the universe of the internet seemed to be: guys love this. It’s the ultimate thing. You should want to do it. Be a cool girl.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. The idea was strange, vaguely medical, and tinged with a power she didn’t fully understand. But the idea of Jordan’s reaction—the look on his face, his hands in her hair—that part sparked a curious heat in her stomach.
So, as a joke, she told herself, she started to practice.
It happened on a Tuesday evening, home alone. The house was quiet. It felt absurd. She stood in her bathroom, looking at her own wide-eyed reflection in the mirror, a banana in her hand.
“This is stupid,” she whispered to the girl in the glass.
The girl didn’t disagree.
She brought the banana to her lips, her heart hammering with a ridiculous, disproportionate urgency. She took a breath, put the tip in her mouth, and immediately pulled it back out, laughing a single, sharp “ha!” of embarrassment. The peel smelled waxy and fake.
“Depth calibration is off!” Fear yelped, watching the console. “Abort! This is a fruit-based simulation, it’s not transferable!”
“Oh for the love of—just let her figure it out,” Anger said, turning his back, but his shoulders were tense.
Joy wrung her hands. “It’s initiative! She’s trying to build confidence!”
Riley tried again, slower. She relaxed her jaw the way the article said. She pushed a little further. Her throat clenched instinctively, the gag reflex triggering at the back of her tongue. She choked, pulling the banana out, coughing dryly into the sink.
Tears of frustration, not sadness, sprang to her eyes. This was so dumb. Why was she doing this? To be good? To be loved? The questions sat sour in her mouth, worse than the faint banana taste.
She threw the fruit into the trash can and brushed her teeth aggressively, the mint scorching away the shame.
Later that week, they were in Jordan’s basement, a familiar nest of worn couch, video game consoles, and the perpetual smell of laundry detergent and teenage boy. A movie was playing, something with superheroes, but neither was watching. Jordan’s arm was around her, his fingers tracing idle patterns on her shoulder through her t-shirt.
Her mind was a thousand miles away, stuck in the bathroom.
“You’re quiet,” he said, his voice a low rumble against her ear.
“Just tired,” she said, the automatic lie. She turned her face into his neck, inhaling the scent of his soap. “Jordan?”
“Hmm?”
The question was right there, on the tip of her tongue. Do you want me to? Would you like it? What if I’m terrible? It felt like trying to spit out a stone. She couldn’t make the words line up.
Instead, she said, “Is there… stuff you want to try? Like, now that we… you know.”
He went very still. The hand on her shoulder stopped moving. The movie’s soundtrack boomed with an irrelevant explosion.
“Uh,” he said. A long pause. She could feel his heart pounding where her cheek was pressed against his chest. It was fast. “I mean. Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. Whatever you want.”
It was a non-answer. A safe, diplomatic, terrifying non-answer.
Headquarters descended into chaos.
“He’s terrified!” Fear cried, jabbing a finger at Jordan’s elevated heart rate readout. “He doesn’t want to pressure her! Or worse, he has a specific list and she’s not on it!”
“He’s being respectful, you purple nightmare,” Anger shot back, but he was watching Jordan’s facial expression closely. “Kid’s scared too. This isn’t a one-way street.”
“They’re talking,” Joy said, hopeful. “Communication is key!”
“But they’re not,” Sadness murmured. “They’re both pretending to be okay with not saying anything. It’s so lonely.”
Riley pushed ahead, the words tumbling out in a rush. “I was just wondering. Like, I hear guys… like some things. Specifically.”
Jordan finally looked down at her. His eyes were dark and unsure. “Riley,” he said, his voice careful. “You don’t have to… ‘hear’ stuff. We can just… figure out what we like. Together.”
The kindness in his voice almost undid her. It was so much better than the slick, confident advice from the forums. It was real.
“But what if I want to try something?” she pressed, needing to claw her way out of this vague, foggy place. “And I’m awkward at it?”
A slow smile spread across his face, dissolving the tension. “Babe, we’re awkward at everything. The first time I tried to unhook your bra I think I gave you a friction burn. Remember the nose bump?”
She did. It had been mortifying and hilarious. She’d laughed so hard she’d cried.
She smiled back, the tight coil in her chest loosening a little. “That was pretty bad.”
“See?” He kissed her forehead. “We’ll be awkward together. It’s kind of our thing.”
They settled back into the couch, the moment passing. The superhero saved the city. The credits rolled. But the conversation, incomplete as it was, hung in the air between them, a door now cracked open.
That night, back in her own bathroom, Riley looked at her toothbrush. She didn’t pick up a banana. She just looked at her reflection, really looked. The girl who had a boyfriend who was scared, too. The girl who wanted to give a gift but didn’t want to lose herself in the wrapping.
She thought of his words: Together.
It wasn’t about training. It wasn’t about performance. The realization was simple and seismic.
She picked up her phone and texted him.
Riley: So if I wanted to try that thing… the one guys supposedly like… you’d be okay with stopping if it was weird for me?
The response was almost instantaneous.
Jordan: Yes. Obviously.
Jordan: And for the record, the idea is… really hot. But you are always, always the boss of your own mouth.
A laugh bubbled out of her, loud and relieved in the quiet room. She wasn’t preparing for a test. She was negotiating a sleepover. She was drawing a map, and she got to hold the pencil.
In Headquarters, Joy beamed, a sunburst of pure, warm light. Fear was quietly decommissioning his gag-reflex failure slideshow. Anger gave a single, approving nod. Sadness wiped a small, blue tear from her cheek—not from sorrow, but from the poignant relief of a vulnerability honored.
Riley got into bed, the ghost of banana-gagging gone, replaced by the solid, palpable truth of Jordan’s “yes” and “together.” The engine in her chest didn’t just hum; it purred, idling smoothly, ready for whatever came next, on her own terms.