Author's Note: Happy New Year, guys! Thank you all for answering my intensely personal question! It was so interesting to hear back from you all and to talk to you about it, and some of you have some fucking sweet stories. ;) I asked because I wondered what reading the sexy times was like for the readers and how you all perceived them, and how that changes based on your experience. For example, I'd seen a couple stories where one character licks off her fingers after the other one comes on them, and I was like, "NO ONE does that! Do YOU do that?! Who does that?!" Haha so I don't know, do any of YOU do that? Anyway I try to make our sexy scenes as realistic as possible – as realistic as having sex with either of them would be, anyway. ;)

So, question of the week: If you've had sex before, how old were you when you first did it? Any regrets? If you haven't had sex, what do you think is a good age for your first time? (And seriously, don't feel bad for not being there yet…of everyone I know, the older that kids are when they first do it, the better the experience is… and who doesn't want that to be a good experience?!) Enjoy!

Chapter 9 - To Evaluate

It's the next day and we're at Edinburgh Castle, the three of us. The boys are in the castle somewhere too, but I've lost track of them and I'm distracted anyway. Jamie is with us, as she usually is these days. It's a funny thing for me to think about, wanting someone there with me and Tegan, as a kind of buffer. It's an insane idea when you think of it, needing a third person there when the two of us were conceived alone together and grew alone together and have been alone together all of our lives. Now things are different and this shy, quiet girl is with us like a life raft. Sometimes I'm so grateful for her, for her presence, for what she does for Tegan, for what she does for me, for us, and then other times I resent her for being there all the fucking time and hate her for being allowed to have things I will never be allowed to have. And then I resent the fact that I feel like I need someone there between me and Tegan at all, and I just can't make up my fucking mind.

I watch them gazing at the Stone of Destiny together as I hang back, needing to think, wanting to observe. It fascinates me, watching them together. There is a kind of easy familiarity between them and the intimacy I see there gives me a pang of jealousy and I have to remind myself not to be bitter about it, because there is closeness and intimacy between people and then there is like the completely fucking inexorable pull of gravity and that is what Tegan and I have. Tegan and I orbit each other, and sometimes the orbit is tight and close and sometimes things knock us off course and the orbit is wider but that gravity is always there. And so I remind myself of that and I feel better when I see them leaning over the stone, saying something to each other, smiling. Tegan says something I can't hear and Jamie gives her a sardonic look; Tegan laughs. She's said something cheeky, no doubt, and she likes Jamie's reaction. For the millionth time, I think of the other night when we were so high from those cupcakes. It's been a couple of days and it is still too much for me to make eye contact with Jamie for more than a second or two and I'm relieved that she has the good sense to feel the same way. I still absolutely cannot believe that I let all of that happen, that I made that happen, and though I think I'm doing a good job of hiding my complete mortification, sometimes it slips out. I mean, it's usually my job to be responsible, reserved, measured... Tegan is the one that acts on her crazy impulses and feelings, not me. I don't know what got into me that made me think that doing any of that was okay, even if I was more stoned than I've been in a good five years, at least. Now every time I see Jamie I cringe at the thought of what she saw us do, of what she saw me do, and I wish to God I was safe and hiding behind my locked doors in my bedroom in Montreal where there is no temptation and no witnesses to all of the twisted things I want.

But when I'm alone I recall that night and it's a different thing altogether. She was there with us and she was okay. She wasn't shocked or disgusted; she didn't run off or throw up or even look away; she stayed. She stayed and I could see that watching me and Tegan together turned her on, and being watched by her turned both of us on and seeing her and Tegan touch each other was something new and I could never have predicted how it would make me feel but the surprise was that when Jamie kissed Tegan while her fingers slipped down into Tegan's pants, I wanted them both. I wanted to touch them both, I wanted to get in between them and I wanted to feel Tegan the way she felt for Jamie, and I wanted to feel Jamie in the way that Tegan felt her, because Tegan is a different person for her than she is for me. And seeing and knowing the way they are with each other is a new side of Tegan that I need to know, and I wonder what other parts of Tegan I have missed over the years, that I still don't know somehow. Jamie is tender with Tegan in a way that squeezes my heart and even now, as I follow them through the corridors, stopping to peer at displays of regimental garb, I can't help thinking again that if Tegan could just be with Jamie, maybe she could have a happy, normal life and not be trapped between this fucking gut-shredding need and the soul-destroying guilt that comes with it. She could just be with a girl who is so obviously so fucking in love with her that it makes me kind of want to cry for her, for how much I can tell she loves Tegan and for how restrained she manages to be most of the time. Well, all of the time except for when we inadvertently drug her and drag her to bed with us. Because there's nothing missing there, there's no obstacle. They're attracted to each other; they make each other laugh; they have good sex; they have a sweet, affectionate relationship. And when Jamie touched Tegan that night, I could see no inner conflict, no self-loathing, because there is nothing wrong with her touching Tegan and when she did it, when her fingers touched Tegan right after mine had, she looked at Tegan's face and it was like all she wanted was to be close to Tegan and to make Tegan feel her and just watch her in that moment and feel her body and that's what happened and there was nothing wrong with it, nothing to be ashamed of. And I was jealous of that because I want the same things but having them comes with those dark feelings and I can't separate them.

And I can see that Tegan loves her, I can see it. But is it the same kind of love that Jamie feels for her? Because I can see what that is, that love that Jamie feels, I can see it all over her and it's heart-rending. Is it the same? At the same time I ask myself that, I know it can't be, because as fucked up as it is, too much of Tegan is taken up by me. She isn't free. I've just, like, colonized her in the same way that she has colonized me and it's beyond anything we can do anything about. And the next obvious thing to ask is, well, what if I just got out of the way and just fucked off and let them be together? If I just stayed away, could Tegan just be with Jamie and be happy? If we were normal, the answer would be yes but we are not fucking normal. We are in this sick fucking mess together and if you don't know what it's like to need something the way we need each other then you're fucking lucky because you have a choice and we never did. And the reason why it's okay for me to say that Tegan would die without me is because I would fucking die without her and we're the same.

And then we're out into the light again and it's a relief, as we circle around that huge cannon at the top of the castle. Tegan sees that I'm lagging behind, and gives me a questioning look and all I need to do is give her the right look in return and I get a half smile and she's fine, she knows I'm okay and they continue their chat. Jamie has been awkwardly avoiding my gaze since the other night and I don't blame her. I didn't touch her and she didn't touch me but now I've seen what her face looks like when she comes, and she's seen me, and that's something I don't even like Tegan to see, and we've seen each other touch Tegan and kiss her, and it's too much for me just now. We were fully clothed but what we saw is way more than seeing each other naked. I saw Tegan squeeze Jamie's hips with her thighs, Jamie's body pressed down into Tegan's, her hand moving under Tegan's jeans, while Tegan pushed up against Jamie's body and moaned into her mouth. They kissed each other breathlessly, intensely, and seeing Jamie kiss Tegan like that made me understand her. And when I see Jamie run her fingers lightly over the barrel of that cannon like I saw her run them over Tegan's skin, it occurs to me that she and I share a weird, unspoken connection and that is knowing Tegan, loving her that deeply, and yet somehow not quite being able to have her. Not only that, but she is the only person who knows about our fucked up situation and she's the only one I can start to almost relax in front of. I don't know if I'll be able to get used to touching Tegan in front of her, even just innocently, but with those cupcakes in my bloodstream, that constriction in my throat, that panic, that twisting feeling in my stomach was gone and I just wanted Tegan and it didn't matter that Jamie was watching. In fact, her eyes made it all seem okay for a moment. I almost laugh when I think that if we could have cupcakes and Jamie in bed with us all the time, we would never have to wake up from that delirium, and we could just live and we wouldn't have to be insane.

The other thing I think of when I see Jamie and Tegan together is Emy. I've been consumed by this madness with Tegan for so long now that I've almost forgotten what it was like to be with someone, to touch someone and be touched and to not feel afraid, or guilty, or ashamed. The last time I felt like that was with Emy, and it was good and comfortable and safe and she loved me, and I loved her as much as I could. If I felt a pang of guilt when I was with her it was a much different kind, one brought on by the fact that I knew she couldn't have all of my heart the way that I had all of hers, even if I was still in too much denial to really know why. And all of this fucked up insanity has just shown me that I'm not enough for her and I never was. So I guess she tried as hard as she could for as long as she could but she just needed more than I have and more than I am and I failed. But now it seems inevitable that I would, and I'm sorry for Emy and for everything she put into making our relationship work when it was hopeless from the start because she was unlucky enough to fall in love with a sick weirdo like me. She deserved better all along and I hope she gets it someday.

At the Prisons of War exhibition, it all hits me and almost knocks me down. Prisons. Jamie says something about the torture and execution of witches and it's morbid and funny and Tegan laughs and gives her real smile, not the gummy one she does for photos, the real smile she has that is so different from mine and my heart is a lemon and all the juice is being squeezed out of it. I can't breathe for a second and the weight of that feeling almost smothers me because it doesn't make sense that when she does that thing with her labret piercing, all at once I want to rip it out of her face, and I feel angry because she provokes me, she pushes buttons in me that other people would never be able to find, that they don't even know exist, and at the same time she's mine, she's just mine and she literally makes me forget to breathe sometimes which is just fucked up, because she's my fucking sister, for fuck's sake. And so I want to strangle her, I want to smother her with my body, I want to wrap my limbs around her and drown her with me, I want to rip out my own hair, I want to pound my fists against her chest, I want to hold her and touch her and smell her and taste her and tear her clothes off and say I need you need you need you need you, you're mine! Mine! That word, love, was invented to describe emotions that are allowed to exist and so it doesn't begin to describe this fucking prison that we're in.

Then, they're clowning around a little; Tegan tries to trip Jamie up, stumbling in front of her, and Jamie clutches the shoulder of Tegan's shirt, pushing and pulling her at the same time and in a flash I am sixteen again, in our room down in the basement. Tegan had just played that song for me and it was a painful song and I was feeling the ache of it, and I looked at her face as she sat there, biting her lip and looking at the floor and fiddling with her tuning pegs. A strand of hair was stuck to her lip and without thinking I just reached out a hand and brushed the hair away from her mouth, my fingers grazing her lips for the first time that I can remember, so soft, and then my stomach rolled over a little because of the way that made me feel. My heart was pounding and her face was red and her eyes reflected my fear but until that moment I had no idea what it meant to be compelled to do something. And it was like my body was being remotely operated because I saw myself lean in close to her and when my lips pressed against her lips I felt a wave of heat from my face, down through my throat and all the way down inside my size forty jeans. I kissed her and she kissed me back, but then her lips trembled a little, and that made me remember who I was and who she was and I was engulfed in panic. I jumped back off the bed, and took a step back, frozen, and her eyes reflected that too but she set the guitar down, got up, and took a step towards me. Sara, she said, her voice trembling too and she took another step towards me and reached her hand out and I took another step back! Because she'd sung that fucking song and it did something to my brain and I'd kissed her like I'd lost my mind! So she stepped towards me and her hand was reaching out for me, soft, gentle, her face all flushed and her eyes all scared like my stomach felt and I backed into the wall and then I couldn't back up any further. So she stepped closer again, and since I couldn't step back, I put my hand out in front of me, maybe to block her? I don't know.

She said my name again and shook her head and I know why she shook her head because who could possibly understand what was happening to us? I could feel a tightness in my chest and it was making me breathe quickly, kind of panicky, and then there was this thickness in my throat and I thought I might fucking cry because I'd kissed her and she was my sister and she was coming towards me and I wanted her to come towards me but if she kept coming I would have to push her away and I didn't want to push her away but what the fuck else could I do? Her eyes were a bit shiny too, maybe because she saw mine. And when she took another step and then we were only a foot apart, I put my hand on her chest to stop her from coming any closer, but she took another quarter-step closer, pushing against my blocking hand and then somehow my fist closed and clenched her t-shirt because I couldn't push her away, but I couldn't let myself pull her closer, either. Another quarter step and I feel her breasts press against mine and it's like something deep inside me had been liquified. Was she going to come any closer? She couldn't! Don't come any closer! I almost wanted to cry it out. Now her face was so close and if I looked at her eyes and felt my own guts, I knew that we were both lost. And then, with her face right there, the desire to kiss her again was smothering me, but she's the one who leaned in closer and I had another moment of panic where I raised my hands quickly and placed my hands on both of her cheeks and I held her face and stopped it there. She took a breath too, and you know what? She was relieved! She was relieved because I'd stopped her, and then while my hands were on her face, her hands were on my wrists and just for a second I thought we'd escaped. I was relieved too; I lay my forehead against hers and closed my eyes and took a deep breath and so did she. It felt almost safe to rest like that for a moment, her hands hotly clutching my wrists. It was almost safe the way it had felt safe when we were kids and we curled up against each other in that huge waterbed. Did she want to hold my hands against her face? Did she want to pull them away? Did she even know? I didn't. She said something in a tiny murmur, I. . . Sara. . . do it again. . . and I didn't say anything because my heart was pounding in my throat and I was struggling to breathe. So she was the one who moved, shifted her head and moved closer and then, suddenly, her lips were on mine again and we were lost. You don't really know what another person's lips will feel like when you've never kissed anyone before, and I felt light-headed because of that and because she was Tegan. I kissed her back then with the same intensity that she kissed me; the dam had burst, and we were two little kids standing on the side of the creek, watching the dam wash away on the current and wondering how such a flimsy wall of sticks and dirt had managed to hold for sixteen years in the first place.

Then our arms were around each other and I thought we would suffocate each other. I could hardly breathe. My hands were in her hair; her hands were around my body, encircling me. I felt her tongue with my tongue and it shocked me, and we slid down the wall and fell to the floor next to the bed, and I needed to touch her so badly, though I couldn't explain why and I still can't. I don't know who was controlling my body because it couldn't have been me. I unzipped her pants and looked at her face and she was all red, her mouth open a little, breathing heavily like I was, there on the ugly green basement carpet. She watched my eyes and I watched hers as my hand, inexplicably, impossibly, slid down over the warm softness of her stomach and down, even lower, and into her underwear.

When my fingers touched that part of her that I'd never even imagined before, I found her all hot and wet down there and her eyes shut tight like I'd hurt her but she was still clutching at my shirt, that stupid tiger shirt, like I clutched at hers, and she pulled me forward and pressed her face against my chest and the moan I heard from her throat was muffled against my body and I felt its vibrations and something clenched inside of me too and my fingers only kind of knew what to do but they knew enough, I guess. They slid and circled against her there and I couldn't believe it, and she squeezed me and clutched at me and made sounds I could never before have imagined her making for me and actually I think I made some of those sounds too. My heart was pounding so hard that I thought I might black out. Her breathing got quicker and her voice sounded like her face had looked just before she pressed it into my chest. My fingers moved a little faster and then she was squeezing me, harder, squeezing the breath out of me and then her moan became a somehow painful muffled cry. We were both shaking. It was fast. I didn't know it was fast at the time because fast compared to what? But it was fast. But then some of the intensity ebbed away, and we were breathing hard, erratically, and the fear flooded back in to fill the space left by that intensity and then suddenly it all seemed sick and insane and I can't tell you how much I hated myself for what I'd just done. I pulled away from her; she let go of my shirt and fell back onto the carpet, and covered her face with her hand. I should have kissed her, held her. Now I hate that I didn't. I don't know but I thought she was almost ready to cry. She probably did. I got up, sorry, angry, just drenched in panic, and left her there, still shaking on the carpet. That tiger t-shirt disappeared and I never looked for it again but I knew what had happened to it.

And it's a second later and thank God we've passed out of that torture chamber and into the Great Hall. It's spacious and opulent and that oppressive feeling starts to dissipate and there is a strange moment: they are looking at a painting; Tegan says something about the painting and Jamie laughs; Tegan looks at me, bites her lip, and winks; I smile because she's so cheesy; Tegan moves on to the next painting and Jamie looks back, hesitates, raises her eyebrows. She's awkward, uncertain, but she's checking me, am I okay, are we okay, is this okay? I give her a smile, and she half-smiles back, with a quick nod, before looking away. And in that moment I want to be naked between them, in the back of the bus, no matter what that says about me.