What to Expect

Carmen seemed so unconcerned about her impending parenthood, that Amy was starting to feel stressed on her behalf.

"So how did it happen?"

"What, do you need a biology lesson?" Carmen said. "Joking. I've always been turned on by the feeling of a guy cumming inside me. I mean it's physically intense, like it really does the trick for me, but also, like, it's physical proof that he's climaxing, and that it was me who brought him to orgasm. And that is just the hottest thing, when I'm cumming right along with him. You know?"

Amy glanced around to make sure they were alone within earshot. She couldn't believe Carmen was talking about this so explicitly, but it just seemed to be who she was.

"No, I--" She caught herself before admitting to this girl that she had never had a man cum inside her before. But Carmen carried on, not noticing.

"And then, whenever there was a risk of pregnancy--past tense now, you see--that was even more intense. When he's releasing his sperm inside you, and you know those sperm could get you pregnant, and you feel it happen, knowing you might get pregnant from it, and you want it, oh my god, it's the most. It makes me have the hugest multiple orgasms ever. Like almost to the point of blacking out."

Despite herself, Amy was getting wet in her chair. She was suddenly having a lot of ideas that hadn't seemed like good ideas a minute ago. She wanted to go to Alonso and tear his clothes off and have raw, animalistic--but told herself she was just sympathetic to Carmen's story. These weren't her own attitudes towards pregnancy risk and cream pies. Her porn viewing tended to skew that way, but that was different. This was the real world, where those things were for people other than her. People who made life-changing mistakes.

"Sorry, you were asking when it happened?" Carmen said. "Okay, so I know the weekend that it happened, but...I couldn't tell you exactly which time it happened or whose baby it is, because we had a lot of fun that weekend. It's okay though, because the two guys at the cabin were cousins, so it's basically the same genes either way."

"Oh my god," Amy said without thinking.

"I know, right?" Carmen said. "And now I'll always have a memento from that experience."

Amy typed up her notes afterward, because she was too distracted during the interview itself to write anything down.

She didn't know where this story was heading. She went into it expecting cautionary tales, but she'd talked to a Christian fundamentalist and a Satanist nymphomaniac, and both of them had embraced motherhood knowingly and willingly.

It almost made Amy start to feel like the weird one, for being so decidedly against reproducing, and being so careful to avoid it. And yet, when Carmen talked about the things that turned her on, it resonated with something in her too.

Amy and Alonso were now regularly playing their game of condom "roulette". So far, she had always been able to tell when he had a condom on, even when he tried to psych her out. Which meant half the time, their trysts could be consequence-free.

As for the other half of the time, Amy knew that any contact between his bare cock and her vagina was a risk. At first, she was good about putting a stop to it right away. Then they'd do other things. She even tried anal once, to at least check it off the list.

But over time, she found herself not speaking up immediately, when he pressed himself into her without protection. She knew it was a risk, but it was a moderate risk, a calculated one, instead of the all-consuming fire of complete submission.

Once, it went on long enough that she felt his hands tighten on her hips in a way she recognized. It was almost time, but there was still a chance to stop him short, and she knew it was cruel at that point, cruel to both of them really, but she felt like she had to. He pulled out as soon as she asked him to, and disaster was averted. Probably anyway.

The next time, she really wanted to feel him in her, but not risk getting that close to the edge.

"Can you just...leave it in for a little while?" she suggested.

"Sure," he replied.

It was comforting and peaceful just feeling him inside her. And still exciting, in a different way. She could feel every contour of his penis inside her, and every movement. Every twitch that meant more precum seeping into her milieu.

"What shall we do in the meantime?" he asked, answering his own question by tracing a line across her stomach with his finger.

Her abdominal muscles undulated under his touch, making her vagina tense around him. She knew he felt it by his quiet grunt, and how he firmed up more inside her. So she carefully tested out her vaginal muscles, trying to flex each one individually, seeing what made him react.

His grunts were coming faster now, as their sexes conversed delicately. Every jolt between them sparked little aftershocks through her, like many peaks in miniature. She'd have been content to keep this up for hours.

Suddenly she felt him swell up, more abruptly than she was expecting. She knew the options before her in that moment, and her mind nearly got carried away contemplating the path in which she said nothing, did nothing, and got to feel his seed filling her deep inside.

Instead, she pulled herself off of him, knowing that there was no time to even ask him to retreat. She knew she had judged it right, when she felt hot liquid across her thigh. She tore off the blindfold, to see his semen dripping off her onto the sheets.

"Did any get inside me?" she asked.

"You tell me," he said.

"Did it?" she asked. "I need to know."

From what Carmen had described, it seemed like something she'd feel, but she couldn't be sure without experiencing it--as far as she knew, anyway--and right now she needed to be sure.

"No, your timing was impeccable, dear," he said. Then he started singing, "I need to know, I need to know, tell me baby girl...Oh right. You're too young to remember that song."

She still wasn't sure how much comfort to take in that, but if neither if them thought he ejaculated inside her, she supposed that was she best they could do. Even so, she couldn't stop fixating on it. If one of his swimmers reached her egg, would she feel that at all?

She wondered what she would do if it happened. She'd be just like the girls she was interviewing. Not that she was all that different from them in general. Although they certainly came from all different backgrounds.

Her next interview was with Lucy. She was a blond girl from Utah.

"So I'm doing a story on teen sex and pregnancy," Amy told her.

"Well, I can tell you about pregnancy, obviously, but I didn't get pregnant by having sex."

Amy was a bit confused for a moment, and tried to make that add up. "If you don't mind...how does that work exactly?"

"Jacob and I--he's my best friend--we're saving ourselves for marriage," Lucy said. "So we weren't having sex."

"Then what were you having?"

Lucy sighed. She'd probably explained this a thousand times before. "We were soaking. You know, you put it in to soak? That's all it was. That's all it ever was. And yet now..." She gestured at herself, visibly pregnant. Her formerly athletic figure had quickly filled out, to look more like Amy.

"Are you saying Jacob never...?"

"Never what?" Lucy asked, really not getting it.

"Never...well...ejaculated?"

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. We never even got close to that point. That's not what soaking is," Lucy said. "Soaking isn't sex. It's just a pleasant way to pass the time until you can have sex someday. With your spouse."

And yet, that was pretty much what Amy had recently tried with Alonso, and they had both been almost to the point of orgasm by the end.

Seeing Lucy in the family way was a chilling wake-up call for Amy. She'd gotten way too lax about this, and she wasn't feeling comfortable with the risks she'd already taken. She risks that might already be taking root inside her.

The next time she went to Alonso's house, she managed to bring a twenty again, finally.

He took it, but looked confused. "I thought we were enjoying ourselves."

"No!" she said. "I mean, we were, but we shouldn't have. There's too much at stake."

"What has you so worried about this now?" he asked, sitting with her, putting a comforting hand on her back.

"I talked to this girl at school who, from what I can tell, got knocked up by a guy's precum. They were doing what we did the other day."

"That will not happen with me," he said. "Believe me, I've been married five times. You know why I moved to the States? Because back in Spain, I was in poverty from trying to keep up with all the child support payments. Every woman I've been with has gotten pregnant at some point. But never from that."

This was a lot of information Amy hadn't had before, and she found herself getting a bit hung up on the fact that every single woman he'd been with had gotten pregnant. She really was playing with fire.

"This other guy, probably he rubbed one out before he went to see the girl. That's when it's dangerous. He probably still had sperm cells hanging out in there from before. I never do that." He said it with such conviction.

"Okay, hand me the blindfold and flip the coin," she said. "But you better pull out in time."

Knowing Alonso's track record made her simultaneously more afraid of where this was headed in the long term, and more comfortable with taking the kind of risk today that they'd already taken in the past.

"I'll pull out as soon as you tell me to," he said.

She wondered what would happen if she simply didn't tell him to. That would be a mistake, but she couldn't be sure of herself anymore either.

Then he was in the bed lying beside her, rolling her towards him.

"Or if you're on top, it's up to you," he said, guiding her up over him.

He reached down between them to guide him in for her. She could feel that he was naked inside her this time. It was a thrill, but she really did have to be careful. She started gently rolling her hips back and forth, feeling his flesh slide against her walls. He started moving in concert with her at first, his cock pressing eagerly up into her center.

She was quickly getting worked up, but she couldn't just ride him with abandon. She had to keep paying close attention to how his body reacted to every movement of hers. But that also made it more passionate, more intense. Every move she made was calculated for its effect on herself and on him.

His tension was building, she could feel his fingers digging into her hips. She felt him swell up inside of her. She knew that to keep herself safe, this was the right moment to dismount. But pulling herself up off his cock was the hard option. It would be so easy to just not do that. Every woman he slept with wound up pregnant; she may as well enjoy it.

But then...nothing. He stopped thrusting up into her, and managed to pull himself back from the edge. Disaster averted, at least for now.

"I could've had you there," he said.

"Then why didn't you?" she asked.

He had already won, and the spoils of victory were his for the taking whenever he liked. He had pushed her to the point beyond reason where she'd willingly accept it. If not this time, then maybe the next time. It made her feel corrupted, but also it drove her wild.

"Because I'm enjoying this more," he said. "And because when I knock you up, I want you to choose it more affirmatively than that. Otherwise, you might not keep it."

When, not if. At his words, the orgasm that Amy was studiously keeping at bay could no longer be contained. It hit her fast and hard. She was shaking and bucking and moaning, desperately hoping that he could weather the tempest inside her. She felt her body squeezing and caressing him, betraying her.

I'm not a breeder, she reminded herself. So why does my body react this way? She remembered what he had said. She was built for it. It was sure to happen sooner or later. She was starting to wonder if maybe he was right.

When she came down from her high, she felt him approaching his again. She realized that she now had a certain power over him too. She had found a line he wouldn't willingly cross. But she didn't want to torture the poor man.

She realized she'd already pushed her luck much further than she should have. So when she felt him swelling up again, she pulled herself off him with great reluctance, and brought her mouth down on him. She could taste herself and his sticky, salty precum. It was a relief, because she knew what his semen tasted like, and this wasn't it. A moment later, he put a hand on her head and exploded in her mouth.

Monday morning, her friend Jill was standing by her locker. Her flannel shirt was straining at the buttons now. "I heard about this little project of yours, through the support network."

"Support network?" Amy asked, before she realized. Of course the teenage mothers had a club. And now that was a social circle that Jill was a member of. "Oh."

"I'll do an interview, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but I don't want my name published. I don't want anybody knowing it was me."

"That works for me," Amy said. "Jill, I meant to apologize for how I reacted."

"I can tell. You're changing, and that's what matters."

Amy knew what she meant. Her interview series was an attempt to show Jill she could do better at understanding the other side of the issue. But Amy also felt like it was changing her on a more fundamental level. For god's sake, she'd be pregnant with Alonso's child already, if he hadn't held back. And sooner or later, if Alonso's predictions were true, Amy would be changing even more, as motherhood would mould her body around it.

"Tell me what happened," Amy said, when they found a spot to talk privately in low voices.

"I thought I was doing everything right," Jill said. "I was on the pill and Craig was good about always using condoms. But then there was one time the condom slipped off inside of me. So I had to get a morning after pill. There was another time that it tore during the act, and we didn't find out until afterwards. Those emergency pills make me feel awful, by the way. When I missed my period, I realized that the pill wasn't the right dose anymore. I had grown and gained weight since I got it prescribed. That time I got an abortion pill and stopped it short."

"Wow. I had no idea," Amy said. What she meant was, you didn't tell me any of this at the time.

"I was ashamed, and I thought I could handle it myself," Jill said. "It's not something anyone has a right to know."

Amy nodded. "So what happened differently this time?"

"Well, you know that Craig is off at college already, so we're long distance. I was only with him the once on Thanksgiving weekend. And he wore a condom like usual. We didn't notice anything wrong with it at the time, but it must have sprang a leak or something. I didn't notice for like a month and a half, because I didn't know anything had gone wrong. Maybe if I'd caught it earlier, I would have aborted again, but at this point? I've got a foster family lined up. I'll give birth sometime this summer and be back on my feet for college in the fall."

"That's...badass, actually," Amy said.

By now she'd heard a bunch of pregnant girls talk through their plans for how to handle it. They had each found some way to make it work. But Amy was impressed with Jill. Amy thought, when I get pregnant, that's how I want to handle it. And then she realized where her thoughts had strayed, and she felt disgusted and ashamed with herself.

"Thanks," Jill said. "Are you cool with this?"

"Yeah," Amy said. "As long as you're not recruiting me for the club."

Amy was having a hard enough time staying out of that club as it was. She worried that with a little pressure, she might tip.

Jill laughed. "Of course not. I know you're more of a never-ever kind of person. But I want you to know that if you ever find yourself in the family way, you can count on me. I'm here for you."

Amy gave her a tight-lipped smile. She didn't feel like such a never-ever kind of person anymore. She could still hear Alonso saying it was going to happen sooner or later. She had even been ready to let it happen. In the moment, she almost wanted it. That scared her, but also excited her more than she wanted to even admit to herself. Nowadays all her most explosive fantasies involved feeling her lover spread his seed deep inside her. Or waking up already pregnant with his child. She was having a lot of trouble reconciling all of this with who she thought she was, the kind of girl who would never get into that situation.

In the days after talking to Jill, Amy thought a lot about contingency plans. Whether she'd abort or carry it to term. Whether she'd keep the baby or give it away. She knew a pregnancy could take a while to detect; she might already be pregnant from the risks she'd taken with Alonso. Neither of them thought he had ejaculated inside her (if he was a reliable source), and she wasn't 100% sure about his claim that his precum was sterile. Sure, she'd tried to put herself in the shoes of her interview subjects before, but these plans weren't just thought exercises anymore.

But also she felt bad for Jill. Jill hadn't even realized in the moment that she was taking a risk. To Amy that seemed like being cheated out of the opportunity to choose it in the moment. When she got pregnant, she wanted to know it was happening.

And as she said, Jill had done everything right, and life still found a way. It had been an uphill battle for Jill to stay childless, and eventually she had to surrender. Amy wondered how long she could fight that battle herself. Or if she should even try.

Amy counted ahead. If she got pregnant before the end of senior year, she might have to skip a year of college. But that'd be fine. Lots of kids took a gap year.

The next time she went over to Alonso's house, she told him, "We don't have to flip the coin anymore, unless you want to."

"Really? What changed?" he asked.

"I'm not pregnant, if that's what you're thinking," she said. Not yet, anyway. Though they were both obsessed with it apparently. "You've proven that I can trust you when it matters most."

She knew she might be overselling the extent of his virtue and judgement and self-control, but she wanted it to be true. And she didn't want it to all be on her all the time.

"So the training wheels are off?"

She nodded and smiled. "Oh, the training wheels are all the way off."

He climbed onto the bed with her and kissed her. He kissed her all the time, but this felt different. She wasn't his pupil anymore. She was an equal now in his eyes.

He kissed his way down her body, making her shiver and writhe. This wasn't a big change. They'd be doing basically the same thing as before, but with her eyes open for once. But they both knew there probably wasn't going to be any coming back from this. Amy wasn't sure he'd wear a condom with her ever again, and she was having trouble regretting that like she would have before.

He tongued her clit until she squeezed his head between her thighs and her hips bucked uncontrollably. When he finally let up, his face was smeared with her juices, and she could feel much more where that came from.

"You know you're ovulating, right?" he asked.

"What?"

"Your juices are stickier this time of the month. You also get hornier, and more willing to take risks," he said. "You didn't know?"

She blinked. It was news to her, and yet it explained so much. "No, I--"

It was something she hadn't noticed about herself, but it was also valuable information about how this could play out. She'd be at her most fertile today. It meant the risks they took would be riskier, but it also meant that if she decided to get pregnant, there'd be a higher risk of it happening when she intended it to. She thought about Jill getting knocked up without even knowing it at the time. That wasn't how Amy wanted it to go for her.