After a quiet afternoon and evening that were spent cuddling on the couch, Mike and El were preparing to spend their second night together in his basement. He felt bad about it, but the past two nights sleeping with El left him...well, he felt there was more to be desired. He found that every time that he snuggled next to her, he had to fight back the urge to do something stupid. Reminding himself that now was not the best time, far from it actually, he resolved to hold in his urges for the time being. El was in a lot of emotional distress right now, and he needed to be there for her. He could not be just thinking about sex right now.
El was in the bathroom changing into her pajamas (which she had borrowed from Mike), and Mike was sitting on the couch, already changed and waiting for her to come out. The thought of her naked in the bathroom made him feel aroused, but he jammed those thoughts away.
Suddenly the phone rang. Startled, he whipped his head to face it. He walked toward it and picked up.
"Hello?" he said.
"Mike? It's Will."
Mike's eyebrows rose up a little bit. "Will? Why are you calling so late? Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," he assured him. "I, uh...I was wondering if I could talk to you. Just the guys, no girls. Maybe tomorrow?"
Confusion and worry ran through his mind. "Yeah, sure, I guess. What's this about?"
"Are you alone right now? Is El with you?"
Glancing at the still closed door, Mike replied in a hushed tone, "Yeah, I am. Why?"
He heard Will take a deep breath. "My Mom told me about what happened...in the Russian base, with the gate."
He felt is pulse quicken. What was he talking about? Did something happen that he didn't know about?
"What?"
"I think that...I think there's a chance Hopper might still be alive."
"What the fuck? How do you know?"
"I'd rather tell you in real life. Just me, you, Dustin and Lucas. I think this is something that the girls should stay out of."
"Okay, where do you want to meet? Tomorrow, I'm assuming?"
"El is still crashing at your house, right?"
"Yeah."
"Is there anyway you can get her off your hands for like, an hour?"
Mike pursed his lips, raking his mind for an idea. "Maybe I could see if she could go to Max's for a bit? I'll try to swing something. What time are you guys gonna come?"
"I'll call the others. How's one o'clock?"
"Sure. I gotta go. Talk to you later, Will."
"See you."
He placed the phone down just in time to hear the bathroom door open and see his love walk into the room. She was wearing a pair of shorts that Mike had lent her, and a loose white t-shirt.
"Hey," he smiled at her.
El gave him a half smile back, and crawled onto the couch beside him. Mike pulled out the couch and set up some pillows and sheets for them to sleep in. He climbed under and patted the spot beside him, inviting El to join. She walked over and slipped in beside him.
El was exhausted, emotional, and sick of life. And she was worried that her attitude was rubbing off on Mike. Like she was spreading her misery to him. He hadn't shown any signs of it, but she was still thinking about it. She pulled the sheets up to her neck, keeping a healthy distance from Mike. She felt bad about clinging to him for the entire day and wanted to give him space. But she wanted him.
Needed him.
And on top of that, she was being met with a familiar desire to kiss him.
Hard.
She didn't know why, but she was craving an escape at the moment. She wanted to pour out all of her emotion and frustration and anger into her boyfriend's lips with the ferocity of a wild animal. Just to forget about all her pain just for a few moments while she kissed the boy she was sure she loved. But she didn't know how to initiate. She had been a blubbering mess the whole day, like a stupid baby, and for all she knew she would start kissing him and he would hear her farther's voice in her head telling her to stop. Or Mike would push her off. Or something.
And if she did come onto him, he would probably be hesitant and confused. He would wonder what she was doing, but she knew what she wanted. She didn't want him just to distract her, she wanted him for a reason she could not explain.
Because she loved him, probably. In all honesty, she couldn't describe why exactly she was feeling. Maybe it was simply because it had been half a week since they had properly made out on her bed.
Not wanting to be too direct, she decided to drop a hint. She rolled to face away from
and pressed her body against his. His warmth soothed her skin, and she felt her lip curl in spite of herself. Mike responded by wrapping his arms around her torso. Although the gesture was kind and warm hearted, and would have left her content on any other day, right now she desired more. She wanted more than just to spoon.
She decided to try something that she had never done before. She wiggled out of Mike's hold and stepped out of the bed.
"Where are you going?" Mike asked her when she started to make her way to the bathroom.
"I'm gonna change shirts, I'm hot," she replied, without turning her head back. She stepped into the bathroom and left the door open a crack. She slipped out of her shirt, exposing her naked breasts. She slipped her bra back on that was hanging over the sink. She looked at herself in the mirror, feeling a tad self-conscious.
She was fourteen years old, and while she was sure that she still had a small bit of ways to go in terms of physical development, she was no stranger to the hormones that were associated with being a teenager. Especially in the last couple months, she had felt herself being slightly disappointed with just kissing. What she knew was that she wanted more, yet she didn't really know exactly that was.
She stood there, continuing to evaluate herself in the mirror, wondering if this was a smart decision. She liked to think that she had good sized breasts; they certainly weren't flat, but they weren't so large that they hung down or anything like that. It was enough for her to grab them and get her hands full. And she was hoping Mike would like them as well.
But what she did know was that boys found breasts attractive. And hopefully, if maybe she exposed herself a little bit, Mike would take the hint. So she nodded to herself and stepped outside into the basement. Mike had his eyes closed, but was facing her direction.
She cleared her throat. "Mike? Is it okay if I wear this to sleep?"
Mike opened his eyes groggily and was met with a wonderful sight. He opened his mouth to speak, but found trouble finding words to answer her. After a solid three seconds of him staring at her, he was finally able to make a sound. "Yeah, sure."
El walked toward him, and he couldn't keep his eyes off her tits. Holy shit, they looked good. They were so shapely and not to small but not too big. Enough for him to completely fill his hands with. He wanted to rip the bra off her so bad. Why would she wear that? Did she want him to initiate something?
His question was answered when El moved into the bedsheets with him. She leaned her back to him again like they normally spooned, except this time she placed one of his hands right on her breast. Mike was shocked. He tentatively rested his hand against the fabric, able to feel the soft flesh in his hand.
"Go ahead," El whispered to him. The feeling of his larger hands against her breasts was indescribable. She wanted desperately for him to go underneath, but she also didn't want to overstep any boundaries.
Feeling her tits being caressed by the loving hands of her boyfriend, she lightly moaned into the bedsheets, in complete ecstasy. She felt his thumb glide right over where her nipple was, which elicited a feeling that gave her chills.
Unable to fight the urge anymore, she rolled over onto him and attacked his face fiercely with hers. She grabbed his shoulders and pressed her tongue into his mouth, and they touched in a moment of pure bliss. They had only kissed like this a couple of times before, and whenever they did El felt like she was floating on a cloud. And right now, she was lying on top of him, topless, gently moving against his body. She wasn't quite sure why she was moving this way; but it felt right.
Suddenly, she felt a growing presence against her lower half. Something stiff and hard was poking at her thighs through Mike's pants. Even though El had never formally learned about sex education, she was aware that boys had a body part called a penis, and she had a vagina. She wasn't quite sure what they were used for, apart from peeing, but when her part and his made that ever-so-small amount of contact she felt waves of pleasure shoot all over her, from toes to the tips of her hair.
So she continued to move against it, feeling it still grow. She couldn't help but let out a small vocalization of pleasure when it poked her right on the spot, to which Mike hummed back at her through her mouth.
The accumulation of stimulation on all her senses made all her problems seem to fade away, like steam rising into the air. In that moment, Hopper, Billy, the cabin, the battle at the mall all seemed to become distant memories, and it was because of the boy beneath her. She continued to vigorously massage his lips with hers, and ran her fingers through his wild hair.
Suddenly, Mike's breath quickened and he started to buck his hips upwards lightly. The action caught El off guard, but she welcomed it. He parted from her lips and arched his back, and let out a muffled groan into her neck, and suddenly she felt a warmth near her center. But before she could even think about what it was, Mike suddenly fell silent. His eyes shot open and he stared at her, and he took off toward the bathroom.
Mike slammed the door behind him.
"Shit shit shit shit shit," he cursed in a whisper. "FUCK!"
He dropped his pajama bottoms and looked at the mess on his thighs. He had been so caught up in his intimate moment with El that he had not realized that he had drawn himself completely to climax. He had shot semen all over himself and on his pants, and had ditched her when it happened. She was probably out there, confused and upset, and he was in here, with a growing feeling of awkwardness and fear because he had no clue what he was going to do. He had no change of pants with him in the basement, and El was waiting outside.
Fuck, he thought. He quickly hatched a plan in his mind. He was going to stay in the bathroom for a few more minutes, hopefully El would fall asleep in that time. He would go up to his room and change, and hopefully none of his family would notice. And he would come back, get into bed, and sleep the rest of this nightmare off.
He opened the door, and it seemed that El was asleep, or she was just ignoring him. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, and went upstairs.
El awoke the next morning with one thing on her mind; seeing Max.
After the strange events of last night, she decided that it would be best if she knew more about sex and penises and such, because after last night she was dying to know more. Most of all, she wanted to know what on Earth had happened to Mike. She glanced at the digital clock on the table and saw that it was half past nine. She wiggled out from under the sheets and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and scrawled a note to Mike that she left in his hand in his sleep. She changed clothes and slipped out the back door.
She made her way to Max's in good time, just over fifteen minutes. She approached the door and knocked on it. No one answered. She knocked again. Again. Still no answer. She huffed out an exhale of defeat. She didn't realize that she might not be home. She turned around to walk back down the driveway, but came face to face with Max instead.
''El? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?" she asked.
El smiled. "Yes, everything is good. I was just...wondering if we could…" she struggled to find the right words. This was kind of embarrassing. "Talk? About something?"
"Yeah, sure," she replied. "What's up?"
El hesitated, wondering if this was a good time. Her brother had just been killed, and maybe she was not very emotionally stable at the moment. But she was acting fine, and wasn't even at her house.
"Are you sure?" she questioned, wanting to be positive that she could talk to Max about this. "It's a...weird subject."
Max laughed at this. "Yeah, El, it's fine. I just got back from Lucas's. Tell me what's on your mind."
If Max was honest, what she had said was a partial lie. She wasn't feeling one hundred percent fine; in fact, not even fifty percent. But it was a lot better than yesterday, and she knew that the more she kept herself occupied with other stuff, the less she would feel sad about Billy. She was counting on a morning of being sad on her own in her room, but maybe she could have some fun with El, and try to talk about some stuff. They were going through similar things right now. Maybe that's why she was here.
"Can we go inside?" El tentatively asked, to which Max nodded. After entering her desolate house, they made their way to her bedroom, and El sat down on the bed and Max pulled up a chair from her desk, which she sat on backward, leaning her arms over the backrest.
El took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to start this conversation. "Remember when you told me about...about 'happy screams?'"
Max cocked her eyebrows upward. She wasn't expecting this. "Yeah, sure. Why?"
"And you said that...Billy does things with girls when they're alone?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"What kind of things?" El blurted. She saw Max furrow her brow. Maybe she was being too forthcoming.
"El, what happened with you and Mike?" she asked, smirking.
"What?" El questioned pretending to be confused. Alas, lying was not something she was good at.
"El, you wouldn't be asking me about this unless something happened. What happened?" she pressed, scooting her chair forward to sit closer to her friend.
El cursed herself for letting Max see right through her. She was hoping to have this conversation on neutral grounds, but now Max was going to be asking her a bunch of questions. She didn't have a problem with it, but it was kind of awkward for her to talk about. She felt so ignorant and naive, and would probably make a fool of herself.
"Well, I've been sleeping with Mike the last couple nights," El began.
"Wait," Max cut her off, her tone increasing in urgency. "What do you mean by 'sleep with?'"
"We both slept on the pullout couch in his basement," she responded, wondering why Max had gotten so worked up about that statement. Max exhaled, and looked relieved.
"Okay," she said. "Continue."
She looked at her feet. This was when the conversation had the potential to become weird for her. "I had a really bad day yesterday. And Mike was taking care of me, and the day before that, even though I was really mean to him a couple times," she recalled, remembering her blowout on Mike's lawn.
"And I was still upset. But I wanted to try to...make myself forget about it for a bit."
"Distract," Max corrected.
El had heard that word before. She recognized its meaning. "Yes," she said. "Distract. And I wanted to...to make out with him."
She searched Max's face for any sign of reaction, but she was still looking at her with indifference. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. "But I didn't know how to...start. And I thought that maybe he would be confused if I went to him. So I was just confused. I wanted to tell him that I wanted it without making it seem weird. I was worried that he would be...mad. Or something. I don't know, I feel stupid."
Max reached over and put a hand on El's. "No, you're not stupid. I've been having some similar thoughts about Lucas. These are...hard times. And sometimes people have trouble thinking and making decisions during times like that."
El smiled. She was thankful for Max comforting her like this. "Thank you," she said gratefully. Max nodded and smiled.
"So what did you do?" she asked.
"Well," she continued. "I don't know much about...boys and girls. And the...the parts. But I know that boys like…" her voice dissipated, trying to find a way to say it without coming across as a total moron.
"Tits?" Max finished for her.
"Ti-tits?" El repeated unsurely. She had never heard that word before.
"Breasts," Max corrected herself, smiling a little bit. "It's a slang word for breasts."
"Oh," El replied, nodding. "Yes. Breasts. So I went to the bathroom and I took my shirt off and went to sleep with Mike with just my bra on."
Again, she searched for Max's face for a reaction, but there was none. It made her wonder what sort of things her and Lucas were getting up to. "Do you think that was a good idea?"
"That depends," Max replied, folding her hands. "Did you guys make out?"
"Yes."
"Did he like it?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"Yes."
"Then it was a good idea," Max concluded. "I'm assuming he felt them up a little bit, right?"
El thought of last night, having Mike's hands caressing them. She felt warm and fluttery inside at the memory. "Yes," she replied dreamily.
"And you were okay with it, right?"
"Yes," El confirmed.
"Then it's fine," Max assured her. "El, I know that a couple days ago I told you that...that things boys and girls do together are gross, and about the 'happy screams,' but I have a confession."
"What is it?" El asked, her interest piquing.
"I know that I told you that it was disgusting and stuff but I guess...I guess I had a change of heart a few days ago. I also stayed at Lucas's house for the last few nights, and we...did some stuff."
El considered what she said for a brief moment. "What kind of stuff?" she asked. "Did you guys...did you guys do 'sex?'"
Max laughed. "No, we aren't quite there yet. But we did something else. Or maybe I should say, I did."
"What did you do?"
Max felt her cheeks go crimson. She really did not want to describe what she did to Lucas to El face to face, with words. She remembered the offer she made to her about her Mom's cosmo magazines, and had the perfect idea. "One second, I'll be right back," she said, and darted out of the bedroom to the bathroom, where the magazine rack was located. She grabbed all the magazines she could find, and walked briskly back to her room, where El was still perched on the side of the bed.
"Here," she said, handing her a stack of nearly a dozen magazines. "This stuff will tell you all you need to know about sex. And probably even more."
El eyed the stack of paper in curiosity. It would take her probably days to get through everything, probably more because she was still a slow and shaky reader. But nonetheless, she was thankful for Max's help.
"I put a sticky note under the section that describes what me and Lcucas did last night," she said. While still unsure if telling El was a good idea, she was confident that she would keep it to herself. Plus, she was her best friend. She needed someone to talk to about this stuff.
"Thank you, Max," El said, and stood up to hug her. Max reciprocated.
"Your welcome, El," she said. "But just promise me one thing."
"What?" El asked.
"Make sure Mike doesn't force you into anything that you don't want to do."
El nodded her head, positive that Mike would never do such a thing. "I won't."
Meanwhile, four teenage boys were collected in the basement of the Wheeler household, after listening to Will recount what his Mom had told him about there not being a body, and that Hopper could still be alive somewhere. Lucas, Dustin, and Mike had sat on the couch, and Will had stood before them talking, as if he were giving an in-class presentation.
"...and I don't know what to do with that information," he finished, out of breath from talking for nearly three minutes straight without stopping.
His three friends sat in silence, for a moment. Mike considered what Will had said. The idea that Hopper could be alive made him feel emotions. He felt hopeful that he could still be out there, somewhere. He really hoped for that. As he had previously discussed with El earlier, he regretted how he treated Hopper during the summer and the chance to make that up was something he would take in a second.
But thinking logically and realistically, he was likely dead or in a russian prison on some remote island. The chance of him coming back were minuscule, to say the least. The fact that Joyce hadn't seen a body didn't confirm enough to draw conclusions. What if his body just ended up somewhere else where Joyce didn't see? Or what if the explosion had completely vapourized him into atoms? Or he was taken by the Russians?
Telling El would give her false hope. She would spend the rest of her life wondering about Hopper, praying for him to come back when he almost definitely wouldn't. Telling her this news would just prolong her pain. The best thing they could do for her would be to keep it a secret so that she could go through the grieving process and then move on. It would be the best for her, and Mike knew that for a fact. His mind was made up.
His inner thoughts were broken when he heard crack followed by a hiss. He looked over and saw that Lucas had just opened a can of Coca Cola.
"Seriously, dude?" Dustin asked. "I still don't get how you can drink that."
"I don't know how you can't. This stuff is the shit."
"Guys!" Will interrupted, and their three heads whipped back toward him. "What do you think?"
Dustin spoke first. "I think we should tell El. It's her fuckin' Dad, she should know. How can she go around thinking that he's dead when he might be alive? That's not fair to her at all."
Mike jumped in when he heard that. "Exactly! Emphasis on 'might!' How can we give her false hope like that?"
"It doesn't matter! Friends don't lie!" Dustin shot back. "And having her believe he's dead when he might not be is a lie."
"Do you really believe Hopper is alive?" Mike retorted, almost yelling now. "Do you really believe that?"
"Yes."
The room fell silent.
"Look," Lucas said. "The way I see it, each way has an upside and a downside. If we tell her, she'll know the truth. But she could very well be living the rest of her life hoping that he will come back when it will probably never happen. Or, we could let her be, and she'll get over it in a few months, and she won't have any false hope, and no extra pain."
"How do you know it's false?" Will joined the conversation, taking Dustin's side.
"Even if he isn't, he might as well be. If he's alive, he's definitely in some Russian POW camp across the ocean."
The room erupted into anarchy and arguing, and Mike could feel his blood start to boil. It was him who had been with her for the last three days. It was him who had seen her as a crying and emotional mess for so long. His friends had no idea what they were talking about. His friends didn't know jack shit. In an outburst of anger and an attempt to protect El, he shouted out.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and his voice cut through the noise like a hot knife through butter. All three of his friends quieted immediately, and turned to meet his shaky gaze.
"I have had to see El more upset that she has ever been since I fucking met her for the last seventy-two hours straight. The fact that Hopper is gone has completely fucking ripped her the fuck apart. Leading her on by saying that he might be alive, after all the grieving she has already gone through will only drag out her pain and grief. What she needs to do is to finish the process, and then move on. Not cling onto it."
He found himself almost fighting back tears of frustration. What Dustin and Will were proposing was not in anyway good for El. He thanked God for Lucas, because once again, he was the one who had his back in this predicament.
"Okay, fine, I guess you're right," Dustin leaned, and Will nodded. "We're sorry. You know El better than any of us."
Mike nodded his head, content with the outcome of this conversation. "Good."
The boys sat in a somewhat awkward silence. "Where is El right now?"
"Max's," Mike replied.
Lucas squinted his eyes. "What's she doing there?"
El was walking back to Mike's house after a long conversation with Max. She was holding a large back filled with the Cosmo magazines. She was looking forward to reading them, but she was feeling a little bit of skepticism as well. Whatever she was going to uncover in them was something that made people uncomfortable. Whenever she had tried to talk to Hopper about any of it, or one of her friends, even Mike at times, they got all squirely and tried to get her to change the subject, or told her to ask someone else.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that all the people she had talked about were boys. She had gathered that they were different when it came to this sort of thing. She found herself thanking Max for her help. She also found herself wondering if she was to bring up the subject with Mike once she knew more about it, if he would still have a similar reaction.
She came to the backdoor of Mike's home and was about to knock on the door, but heard yelling coming from inside. She recognized Mike's voice.
"...what she needs is to finish the process, and move on from it. Not cling to it."
There was no more voices for a couple seconds, but then she heard more talking. She couldn't make out the words of her friends, they weren't yelling like Mike had been. She knocked on the door.
"Oh, shit!" she heard Dustin's voice through the door.
"Shut up!"
The back door swung open and she was greeted by Mike. He smiled, and his eyes moved to her giant bag of magazines. "What are those?" he asked.
El's heart started to beat faster. She hadn't planned for Mike to see the magazines.
"Nothing, just...some books Max gave me."
"Oh. Okay," he replied, without further question.
Phew.
"What were you yelling about? To the others?" she said, giving Mike a question of her own. Mike suddenly looked visibly uncomfortable, and she noticed that the others also had strange expressions.
"Nothing, we were just...talking about a DnD campaign Will and I are planning."
"Oh," she replied.
But she had a feeling that her boyfriend was lying again.
