Mutual Benefits Ch. 07 – First Time – by BashfulScribe..,

Whatever it was that Milo had to tell me, he clearly felt as awkward as I did discussing it in the middle of a hallway, even though the halls were mostly empty by this point. Class was about to start, and I wasn’t one for skipping, but curiosity won over me. Before long, we were back in our little elevator hallway, with him looking from wall to wall, thinking about where he’d begin with this.

“I’m not normally one for drama,” he began, “but I think this is important for you to hear. So, you’ve… been doing stuff with Taylor, right? No need to say what.”

I nodded, staying silent.

“So, this could be nothing, or this could be something, but Taylor’s been kind of… dropping hints that she’s gotten… ” He sighed. “How do I word this…?”

“She’s been telling you guys that she’s been having sex with me?” I offered. It was weird, thinking of her making me swear to secrecy then blabbing to her group.

Milo shook his head. “Not quite. She’s been… uh… I guess the word is ‘bragging’ to her friends that she found a guy that she can control. Sh-”

“Wait, control? What does that mean?” I asked.

“She was basically saying that – okay, so, Taylor has a thing with guys. She usually goes from guy to guy, looking for them to have sex with her. But she usually just ends up being their good little girlfriend or something. So, she wanted her own thing. A guy she had wrapped around her finger.”

“Okay…” I replied slowly. “And you all guessed that it was me?”

“No, I don’t think the others care.”

“So why do you?” I asked, in a calculated and removed tone.

He stared at me for a bit. “I guess because if that was me, I’d want to know. I’m just nervous if you give your first time to her thinking it’s special or something, and you only find out after that she – actually… Have you two had full-on sex yet?”

“What’s full-on sex?” I asked.

“Fourth base. Train in tunnel. What our Sex Ed class likes to pretend doesn’t exist.” He stared at me for a bit. “Penis in vagina.”

“Oh,” I replied dumbly. “Um, no, we haven’t. Just oral and stuff.”

“Well, congratulations I guess,” he replied. “I just kinda jumped to worst-case scenario in my head, and figured that if this was me, I’d want to know about it. If, like, the sex meant more to you or something.”

I wasn’t exactly clear on this. I mean, it was a little insulting that she was bragging about having sex with me but I wasn’t allowed to say it, but I guess if I said I had sex, it would be clear who, and if she did, it wouldn’t be as obvious.

“Also, again, I hate the drama train as much as you do, but in case she hasn’t told you… she has a boyfriend.”

“Joel, right?” I asked.

Milo looked surprised. “Oh, so she did,” he mumbled. “You know what? Good for her. I’ll be honest, I thought she would try to hide that. Love Taylor to death, but she, uh… yeah, sometimes, she just likes to hide the stuff she’s less proud of, or stuff she thinks you don’t need to know. She, uh, likes to dodge responsibility a lot.”

“Well, Joel also isn’t her boyfriend, they’ve only gone on one date, right?” I asked.

“Maybe like half a week ago. They’ve gone on two dates since. They’re really hitting it off. Facebook official and everything,” Milo replied.

I stayed silent, and Milo picked up on that. “That wasn’t disclosed, huh?” he suggested.

“I didn’t even find out about Joel through her,” I bitterly confided. “I bumped into him in the hallways.”

“Well, th-”

“Literally bumped into him.”

“…Well, that’s Taylor for you, I guess. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to drive a wedge between you two, but… In case you’re one of those types where your first time means something to you, yeah. I’d rather you have, like, caution than regret.”

I nodded. “What do you think I should do?”

“I’m one of those assholes that think you shouldn’t sleep with a girl who’s dating another guy,” he joked. “It’s not my place to judge, but that’s where I’m at.”

“So, either way, you were looking for whoever Taylor was fooling around with to stop doing stuff with her,” I concluded.

He shrugged. “Kinda, yeah. I’m not just doing this for you. You seem cool and all, but I barely know you. And I like Joel, and I want things to work out between them.”

“Hey, it wasn’t exactly my idea to be doing stuff with Taylor,” I defended myself, only realizing afterwards that in actuality, it was kind of my idea. “Especially not while she’s with another guy.”

“Right, but now you know. So, y’know, keep it professional. School year is ending soon anyway, should be a piece of cake.” As the conversation went on, it was clear through his tone that this wasn’t as much ‘friendly advice’ as it was ‘a gently worded command.’ “I’m sorry that she didn’t tell you the whole thing, or blabbed about using you, even if no one but me knows.”

There was a thought. “How do you know no one else knows? What if someone from your group pieced it together?”

Milo smiled. “Because if they did, they’d have asked her by now. None of the girls in the group know how to keep any secrets to themselves.”

That was not a comforting thought at all, especially given everything Milo just told me about Taylor. I thought to myself about what he said, and realized, maybe that was why Morgan was acting differently towards me. Maybe she knew.

“What about Morgan?” I asked. “Do you think she knows?”

“I can’t answer if you ask about anyone other than me. I just think the group doesn’t know.” He paused. “Why Morgan specifically?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. She’s… maybe it’s stupid, but she’s been acting weird around me lately. I feel like I may have upset her, or maybe she’s angry that Taylor’s hanging out with someone like me… a bit ago, she even came to my job – I work at GameStop – and I swear, it was like she didn’t even need to buy anything. Call me paranoid, but it was like she was just there to spy on me or something.”

Milo’s grin began at the start of my rant, and by the end, it was practically ear to ear.

I hesitated. “And call me crazy, but it sure seems like you know something here.”

Milo chuckled bashfully. “Quinn, uh… I’m sorry, I honestly am, but I don’t think I have the right to be the one to tell you what’s going on there,” he told me, his grin never stopping.

“So you do know something!!” I protested loudly.

“I… have my guesses. I really shouldn’t say it though, okay?”

“No. Not okay,” I complained.

“Believe me, relax. It’s not like there’s a conspiracy against you or something. I’ll say… I’ll say that it isn’t a bad thing, okay?”

I stared at him in confusion.

“Look, we’re getting off topic here. All I’m saying is, you should probably stop doing stuff with Taylor. She has a boyfriend, like full-on official boyfriend. You don’t like drama, and… and other reasons. I’m counting on you to do the right thing here.”

“It doesn’t sound like you came here to give me a choice,” I told him.

“If you’re half as good of a person as I think you are, you’ll know there really isn’t a choice at this point,” he rebutted.

***

“How was lunch?” I asked Kevin as we started to walk out of the school together.