Can't Say No

Your hands. Your hands on my hips, around my waist.

Your lips. Your lips grazing my cheek, my hair.

Quite honestly I am more interested in the girl I’m having a conversation with.

Your sweet nothings are just that. A small distraction from the fact that we are supposed to be here as friends.

I don’t think about how you are my friend’s brother.

I can’t think about the fact that we are not in a place where I am comfortable with people I know.

You are older than me. You are an adult and I am a child in your eyes. The way you call me baby isn’t a love sonnet but a statement.

You check with me every step of the way and I only give you affirmation. Why don’t I think? Just taking two seconds alone in the bathroom to contemplate this sudden shift in the night should have been enough.

But no, I am too busy in the mirror with what I look like to you to even consider what I look like to myself.

You kiss me, but your lips are wrong. Too soft, too giving. Your stubble hurts. You didn’t bother to shave? This is my first. I’ve never kissed a man before, not like this, and I close my eyes to seem less awkward, but there is no warm glow in my belly. There is no bright light or amazing realization of my womanly wiles, I am still me at the end of it all.

This is not what I had intended when I came here tonight. I tell my friends what has happened, and they all seem to think we now are together, but I just don’t know how to say no. I’ve never had to say no, because no one had ever given me the opportunity to say yes.

I feel cheapened. I, who ten minutes ago would have sworn PDA wasn’t in the cards for me, feel like a bit of a slut. I am not a prude, but how can I look in the mirror now that I have broken what was once such a basic instinct to be repulsed by this.

You are probably a very nice person. But every time I think of you I get this same ache in my stomach where that glow should be. I hope you aren’t nice. I hope you won’t call, just so that my new collection of experience doesn’t also include saying the dreaded “N.O.”.

Is that bad?