The Talk

Siva did not have a pleasant morning. Ram was in one of his moods, Java was nowhere to be found, and dealing with her 'husband' had made her miss her rendezvous with the city sheriff. To top it off, she has an actual headache and wants nothing more than to take a nap. When she gets to her room, she finds her keypad bypassed and inactive. Unsure of who was waiting for her she braces herself and opens the door. She finds Ved sitting at her desk swiveling around in her chair and lets out a sigh of relief, her shoulders visibly dropping.

"Hey Siva!" He says, so cheery he sounds manic and fake. She shakes her head and motions for him to move. "What?" He asks with faux innocence. She eyes him warily as she makes her way to the bed.

"Go away, Ved. Whatever it is, it can wait." She tells him as she sits down and starts removing her boots. When he doesn't get up she looks at him crossly. "Beat it!"

"I just thought you would like these nail design things I found when I was on patrol this morning. Looks like something you'd wear." He tosses over a small package. Siva looks at him suspiciously before examining it. Inside was a lovely magenta and hot pink set of butterflies that would fit perfectly. They were gorgeous, but she also knew Ved enough to know this "gift" would carry a price tag.

'They are so pretty...' she thinks to herself. Besides, it had been quite a while since Ved tried to bribe her. He had troops of his own now and was afforded more freedoms and rations. She was a little curious as to what he could want that he couldn't get himself. Siva sighs. "Fine. What do you want?"

He swivels in her chair. "Nothing big, just a talk." He requests.

Siva looks at him even more suspiciously. "A talk?" She asks incredulously.

"And maybe some advice?" He pleads before swiveling in her chair nervously.

She stares at him a moment and then laughs. "Advice? Since when do you ever listen to a thing I say?" He just shrugs. She thinks for a moment and then smirks. "This wouldn't have anything to do with that virt girl you've been drooling over, would it?"

Ved tries and fails to look nonchalant. "I don't know who you're talking about." He says as he swivels again to avoid eye contact.

"Uh huh. And I'm the Queen of Sheba." She replies with a flip of her braids.

Now came his usual sour expression. That was the Ved she knew. "Are you gonna help me or not?" He whines.

"Alright. Take it easy. What's on your mind?" Ved opens his mouth and then shuts it again. Multiple times. He squirms in her chair like he is about to be grounded. He won't quite look at her either. It would have been funny if Siva's head wasn't pounding in protest. She rubs her temple. "Well, out with it. You brought a bribe and everything."

He mumbles something under his breath. When she asks him to repeat it, she was met with more mumbling.

"Itfabushtsec."

"What?"

"Issabutysfx."

"Stop mumbling, it's just us."

He groans. "Itsaboutsex."

Siva sits up in shock. She didn't hear that right. "What?"

"It's about sex, okay? Do I need a sign?" He asks exasperated.

She flinches backwards and shakes her head. "No! Ewwwww! No. Just no." She tosses the nail pack back at him like it was covered in plague and she grimaces so hard even her shoulders shake.

"Oh come on!" He argues as he tosses the pack back onto her bed. He gets out of her chair and starts pacing next to her.

Siva waves her hands vigorously in protest as she shakes her head. "Nope. You're too young. I can't have this talk with you. We are not having this conversation."

He scoffs at her. "Because you're a saint who never did anything when you were my age?"

Siva makes a face at him for the comment before pointing towards the door. "You have an older brother! Go have this conversation with him!" She directs.

Ved groans and flops dramatically onto the bed next to her, laying across her bed horizontally. "I tried to! Who do you think I asked first? The second Jay figured out it was about a girl he went into this whole weird spiel about love and commitment and being responsible..." His whole body cringes as he frowns. "I think he thought we were having a moment, so I walked away."

Siva can't help but giggle and looks over at him. "Your brother means well. At least you didn't ask Ram."

Ved rolls his eyes. "Ram freaks out when he has to simulate kissing in reality space. He doesn't have any answers for me." Siva nods in agreement.

"And you can't inquire from the other guys in our militia because?"

"How would that look? I already have a harder time getting them to listen to me because I'm younger than them." Ved complains. "Besides, I don't trust them to tell me the truth. To not mess with me." He admits. It goes unsaid that he doesn't have any friends here, not really. Just kids he gives orders to and people he takes orders from. His brusque personality and the increasingly arrogant attitude he's developed don't do him any favors. He looks over at her and she feels him nudge her arm with his knuckles. "The only people I trust enough to ask are you, your sister, and my brother." Siva gives a small grin.

"And Java already brushed me off."

Her grin is gone in an instant. Siva's eyes go wide and she sits up. "You tried to ask my sister about sex?" She asks incredulously and looks him over for signs of violence. She shakes her head in disbelief. "You're lucky she didn't knock you out. How did that go?"

Ved lets out a disgruntled sigh. "She wouldn't even let me ask anything. She cut me off, cracked her knuckles in my face while demanding I don't impregnate anyone, and told me to never bring it up again. So happy your sister has such a high opinion of me." He adds sarcastically. "What's the big deal? You guys trust me enough to run units during battle and work on high priority programming, but now I am too young to ask about stuff I would have learned in secondary school?"

He had a point. He wasn't exactly swimming in good sexual education choices, but she just couldn't. Not when she can still see the shadow of the twelve year old she first met. She looks away and crosses her arms. "Fine. You are very clever and can half decently delegate orders, but I can't do this." She motions with her hand for him to leave.

"Seriously? Come on, Siva." He begs. "If the virus had never happened, I could have looked this up on the internet, but you guys are all I have and everyone else has blown me off." He grabs her elbow and tries to force her to face him. "I don't need an entire lesson, just some specific information. Please?" Siva glances over and pouts. He looks so genuinely upset, deflated and embarrassed it breaks her heart.

'I am such a sucker' she thinks to herself. It was clever to focus on her. She was the softest. "Okay, but no one else better find out I talked to you about this." She warns.

"Conversation never happened." He swears, pretending to zip his mouth shut.

Siva motions for him to sit up next to her so they are more level. He's always been taller than her, though now the gap is nearly a foot and not a couple of inches. When he is settled next to her, she begins. "So what is it that you need to know?" Ved shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat. Siva rolls her eyes. "If you can't talk about this you're too young and immature for whatever it is you want to do."

"We've already done it!" He blurts out angrily.

Siva can't help the look of repulsion that passes over her, mouth distorting in disgust. She shakes her head and the motion moves downward as she cringes. "Was that necessary? I didn't need to know that." She tells him sharply, immediately regretting her decision.

Ved ignores her and continues on regardless. "Okay, so we hooked up, and I thought everything was going okay, but now I'm not so sure. How do I know she... enjoyed herself? And if she didn't, how do I do better?" He manages out, desperation etched onto his face. He's glowing red from embarrassment.

Siva looks at him curiously and purses her lips. This was new and definitely not what she was expecting. His questions, when overlooking the grossness they implied, were oddly kind of sweet and attentive. Especially for Ved, who usually had the empathy and tenderness of a rowdy toddler. She isn't sure where to even start and hopes he doesn't provide any other details.

"Well?" He demands impatiently.

"Give me a second. I honestly expected you to ask me something less complicated."

"Less complicated? I just want to know how to get a girl off!" He says sourly.

Siva rolls her eyes and scoffs. "You do realize women do not just have a button you can hit once that makes them orgasm, right?" That makes him huff and Siva sighs. "Every person is different and is into different things. You have to pay attention and see how their body responds to figure it out."

Ved stares at her for a moment. "So that's it? That's all the advice you have to give me?"

Siva glares back at him. "I'm sorry to tell you that getting a girl off takes time and effort." He lets out another groan and throws himself flat onto her bed again, face first. "What is going on? I thought you would be over the moon some girl is even letting you near her nethers."

Ved snorts and turns his head to look at her. "If someone told you sex with you was just 'okay', would you be happy?" He asks acridly.

Siva feels herself swallow a laugh down before she forces her face to go neutral and she shrugs. "There are definitely worse things she could have said." She tells him diplomatically. He continues to frown which makes her frown. Siva knows she shouldn't indulge his sulking, but she has literally never seen him get upset like this before. She sighs. "Fine, I suppose there are certain areas that most females tend to like touched."

Ved perks up at that statement. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. So there is this area above the labia-"

"The what?" He asks.

"The little fold things by the opening, kind of look like lips." The stare Ved gives her is blank and a mile long. "You... do know what a girl looks like down there, right?"

The silence in the room is almost deafening.

Siva throws her hands up in the air. "I thought you said you guys have done it!"

"We did. Once." He answers with a shrug. "She didn't really let me get a chance to go down there once our clothes were gone. She just pulled me over and... it happened."

'Oh boy' Siva thinks to herself. She lets out a long sigh and puts her hand over her eyes that are getting more photosensitive by the minute. "Before anything else, go to the med bank and go grab one of the anatomy books." She directs him. When he doesn't move, she hollers. "Am I speaking Swahili? Go!"

Ved makes a mad dash out as Siva finally takes her boots off and gets more comfortable. When he returns, he has a huge medical textbook. He also has a small cup that he hands to her as well. "For your migraine." He explains.

Siva eyes him suspiciously but happily swallows the pills before flipping through the medical text book. She holds the book open to a close up of female anatomy, a strange mix of skin and hair spread for examination. "So this is what you are working with."

Ved winces. "That's attractive." He says sarcastically.

The book shakes in her hand. "Shut up before I throw this at your head." Siva scolds before moving on. "This part here is the opening, these things over here are the labia, and this," she explains with special emphasis, "Is the clitoris. It is tiny but it is literally the most sensitive part of a girl's body. Most can't get off without it getting stimulated."

Ved's eyes go from where her manicured nail is pointing to in the book and to her and back. "So... what do I do to it?"

"Stimulate it." She repeats. "You're a smart boy, I am sure you can figure it out from there." Siva shuts the book with a hard slam and hands it back. "You must really like this girl if you're going through all this trouble." She teases.

Ved gives another big sigh as he takes the book back. "I don't want her to think I suck at this stuff." He says quietly.

His answer is said so forlornly it makes Siva frown again. She reaches out and pats his arm. "You can't be so hard on yourself. No one is expecting you to be an expert at something you've only done once."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Besides, the only way to get better is by doing it." She says brightly.

"If she ever wants to again. She doesn't seem interested anymore."

"Well, be nice and don't seem so keen on it and see what happens. It's different for girls." She sighs. "I was so sore the first time I did it I never wanted to try it again." She admits before she realizes what she is saying and closes her mouth.

"Did it... hurt?" He inquires curiously.

"Yes. More than a little. Did your girl have trouble walking or bleed afterward?"

"No." He answers, looking quite horrified. She nods her head at him.

"Then you honestly didn't do too bad." She assures him. Siva rubs her temple as she shakes off the memory. "Okay, we are done. My head is killing me. Go put the book back and turn the lights off as you leave." She orders gruffly. "And seriously, not a word to anyone we had this talk!"

Ved nods and gets up to leave.

"Siva?"

"What?"

"Thank you." He says quietly before hitting the lights and leaving.

Siva puts her head down, but can't get comfortable. She gets up and drags herself over to her bathroom. She needs a damn shower. And something strong enough to bleach her brain.