“Please not now”, I asked as Mike tried to lift up my shirt.
“Why not?”, he asked in a rejected tone. He stopped trying to lift my shirt up, but his hands didn’t move away. I sighed and shifted his hands away to give him the message.
“First of all my dad is coming home in an hour”.
Mike looked at me with a blank face and an expression that asked, “So?”
How come when boys thought about sex they just think about the moment and nothing else? I knew what his thoughts were about, so then I told him mine.
“I don’t think I’m ready. And even if I was, I don’t want to be rushed. What about just staying in each others’ arms and feeling safe, instead of worrying whether or not we’re going to get caught.”
Mike shrugged and said, “Sure, my parents are going away this Saturday. Maybe we can do it then.
I couldn’t believe. Did I have to slap his head to make him get the point? I decided at that moment to really show him what I thought.
I gestured with my head for Mike to look inside my bedside table. From the look on his face you would have thought he looked like a little kid on Christmas with a stack of presents under the tree. Boy was he surprised at what he actually found there.
If pictures were worth a thousand words, then the pictures he found were worth millions. There were pictures of the kids I usually babysat, pictures of random kids in the park playing and laughing, and my favorite, a picture of my mom smiling face next to mine holding me in her arms.
When he didn’t say anything for a while, I took it as an opportunity to speak. I took a deep breath to release what I had held inside until some pressure came along.
“Remember when I told you that my mom had died a while back. Well, she died of AIDs. Right around the time I was conceived, the world my mom lived in didn’t have much knowledge about things like, HIV and AIDs.” I took a moment to take another breath and continued.
“Have you ever really thought about what happens after sex? I’m not just talking about STDs; I’m talking about being a parent, actually having a baby. I want to be a mom one day, but not now. It doesn’t mean that I’ll never have sex. Someday when it feels right, but it just isn’t right now. Understand?”
By then Mike had was sitting up and staring at the wall of my room with a blank expression. It makes me wonder how the two sexes ever survived together when one of the sexes never actually talk to the other.

Mike then turned to look at my face, and said in a sedated tone,
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how that sounded. Sometimes I say stuff without thinking first and I guess I was just overexcited.”
Or maybe not, as my face reflected the emotions I was feeling: surprised, confused, and relieved.
“Hey, I promise to take it slow from now on ‘til you’re ready, if we still get to make out?”, he said with a hint of vulnerability in his voice.

I couldn’t help the grin that escaped to my face and kissed him softly on the lips. I took his roughs, but yielding hands and pulled him off the bed. I flicked my head toward the door and asked,

“You want to go the living room? We can take things slow by making popcorn and watching a movie? Maybe share a few kisses, the chocolate kind. ”

Mike grinned and said yes. We walked through the door and went with no regrets.