Subclasses Ch. 13

"Uhh no. Sorry, Babes, but if I have been infected by the two of you, you're the one that infected me, not Sarah."

"Good to know," Bea says.

Claire looks confused again. Crap. "'Infected'? What? Are we contagious?!"

Beatrix huffs a laugh. "No, that's not what Gabs was talking about. Don't worry about it," she says dismissively.

Claire's face turns indignant. "I will worry about what I want. Tell me what you mean."

Bea laughs again. "Sorry, Baby Girl, but that won't work without my consent. Nice try though. Wait, no, I should not be encouraging that kind of thinking." She sighs. "Ah well."

Claire pouts with puppy dog eyes. "Pleeeeease?"

"No."

Claire turns to me. "Tell me what she means, Sarah."

Her voice sounds so much like Beatrix's, I almost do as told automatically. I take a breath. "Nope, sorry, Claire. Bea knows better than I do what your parents would deem appropriate for you to know."

"So it's about sex...." Whoops. "In that case, I guess I'll just have to ask the internet. 'Dear reddit, my sister and her two girlfriends were joking around. One is my sister's sub and calls her "Mistress", and the other said that if she had been infected by them, she'd been infected by my si-'" She cuts off as a throw pillow hits her face. "Hey!" She looks at me and I point innocently at Gabi, who startles at being framed.

"Trust me, Baby Girl. I'll tell you what we're talking about in a couple years."

"You mean when I lose my virginity?" Claire pouts.

"Something like that," Beatrix says with a fond smile. "And there's no rush on that, okay? Virginity isn't real. You'll have sex when you're ready and not before."

"What if I'm ready now?" Claire asks haughtily.

"Are you?" Bea asks genuinely.

Her sincerity halts Claire in her tracks, and she thinks for a moment. "No." She shakes her head slowly. "No, I'm not."

Beatrix nods. "Good. I am proud that you know that, and I trust that you will know when you are ready."

Bea's a good sister, I think, impressed. That was a really respectful way of handling the situation, giving Claire trust and volition over her own life. Of course, I hedge, that only works because Claire is a mature young woman raised by a sex-positive family. My mind wanders, trying to guess the percentage of fifteen-year-olds for which that approach would work. I bet it's higher than I think.

"When did you lose your virginity, Sis?"

If Bea is surprised by the question, she hides it perfectly. "Last week," she says frankly with not a hint of discomfort or shame.

"Really?" Claire asks. "You never slept with Amy?"

I start, realizing that the question had never occurred to me. She and Amy had dated for a year-and-a-half and were secretly engaged to each other, yet Bea had told me I was her first.

"Nope, we never did. I think I was ready to, or at least, I thought so at the time, but Amy wasn't, and I didn't push her. I don't know this for certain, but in hindsight, I think Amy might be ace. Even if she isn't, I'm actually glad we didn't sleep together. I may have been ready to have sex, but Amy wasn't the right person to have sex with." Bea looks at me, appreciatively. "I've found my right person." She grabs my hand from my lap and squeezes it.

"What about Gabi?" Claire asks.

"Yeah! What about Gabi?" Gabi asks, likely earnestly but hedged with plausible-deniability teasing.

Bea looks at Gabi then back at Claire. "We don't know yet. Like I said, we haven't had time to discuss it." She looks at Gabi then, and I see sincerity weave into her expression. "I do like you, Gabrielle, and I would like to see where this goes if you and Sarah do." She looks at me, I nod, and we both look back to Gabi.

Gabi blushes. "I ... do too," she says in a hushed tone. "I would like that a lot," she chokes out.

We smile at each other, then, and time passes. Just the three of us in a room all our own.

"If you're done eye-fucking each other," Claire says, reminding us that she exists, "there's one thing I still don't get. How did you get here from uni?"