Emma arrived at my apartment at six after she finished work. I’d expected her to look exactly like she did earlier in the day, but nothing could be further from the truth. She’d gone home, changed, and fixed up her hair and makeup… and it took me less than a second to realize her level of mastery compared to my own fledgling attempts. She even made Samantha look like an Altima next to a Camaro.

“Oh, trainwreck,” I muttered as she walked into the room. I managed to get the door shut, but could not quite manage to pick my jaw up from the floor. “You are gorgeous!”

The blonde smiled. “Kid, I want you to see what you’re up against,” she said, gesturing down at herself. “In this city, there’s a thousand girls like me and a thousand more hotter than that. Looks will only get you so far in the business. You need to know people. You need to grind.”

I didn’t know what looks had to do with delivering pizzas, but I kept my mouth shut. Emma was far smarter, prettier, and had the distinct advantage of having always been human, whereas I still felt like a truck out of asphalt. Besides, she was my acting teacher and my life coach, and I was going to listen to her until she gave me a reason to doubt her wisdom.

Emma eyed me curiously when I failed to respond. “You’re quiet today.”

“I’m just worried about last night,” I sighed. 

“If you told me everything, then things are fine,” she snorted. “Sex can be awkward for anyone.”

There it was again - the mythical human sex. My firefighters had talked often and at length about the subject… enough that I knew it to be an enjoyable action between men and women. Exactly what it was and how it applied to Samantha and I was beyond my ability to conceptualize. That had to change, and it had to change now. I’d been fumbling in the dark for three days, making a fool of myself and embarrassing the people that cared about me. People that I already felt something for.

“Sex,” I repeated. The word hung like a cloud over everything. “Can you explain it to me?”

“What? Sex?” Emma laughed.

I nodded.

She laughed again, but stopped when I didn’t join in. “Fuck, you’re serious?”

“I know it’s between men and women, but I don’t know what it is,” I explained. “And I keep feeling strange around other women… I have dreams… urges…”

“Wait, Red… are you coming out of the closet?” Emma asked.

“What?” I asked, looking back at the bedroom door. There wasn’t a closet out here, and Emma could see that I wasn’t in the other one. 

“Gay,” Emma replied forcefully. “Red, you’re gay. You like women, not men.”

The only man I’d met for any amount of time so far this week was my boss, Larry, and I didn’t like him at all. He was arrogant and mean, and treated Samantha poorly. If not liking him meant that I was gay, then perhaps I was. “I don’t think I like men,” I said slowly.

“God, you need a therapist, not a wannabe actress… But I need the money,” Emma said, taking a deep breath. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I will teach you all about dating. We’ll recreate your date from yesterday and I’ll show you what you should have done. There are different rules for each person, but it’ll be a good baseline. First, though… you need to understand what it is that dates are for.”

Emma tapped away at her phone for a few seconds and then handed it to me. 

I took one look at the screen and nearly dropped it.

“I take it you’ve never considered that before,” Emma said.

“No,” I whispered, my eyes glued to the screen. On it, two women were… I didn’t even have a word for it. It was like my dream with Samantha, but everything was redlining far beyond what I thought was possible. There were fluids, tongues, breasts, and fingers in places that I had not thought possible. The sounds that the two were making made me feel incredibly strange. There was an ache inside of me as I watched the two women, and I realized that what they were doing to each other was making me feel the same way I’d felt in the car with Samantha. I wanted to feel what they were feeling. I swallowed, but my mouth was impossibly dry as all of my fluids seemed to move downward.

“That is what sex is like between two women,” Emma said. “Well, once you get more experience.”

“How?” I managed to ask.

“That’s what we’re going to practice. This is… let’s call it the final stage. If you have several things go well during a date, or perhaps over several dates, you might move to a point where you can do this. You can’t skip those other steps - or at least you shouldn’t - but we’ll work on what signs you should look for so that you know what you can do with someone.”

The women on the screen had moved on to using sticks on each other’s personal areas, and I felt my cheeks flush. It felt like such an invasion of their privacy to watch, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. My slit below was already wet, and I wondered what it would feel like to have something inside of it like these women did. I had never even considered that it might be used for something other than using the bathroom. One of the women on the phone began shrieking loudly, and suddenly the video was too much. I hastily handed it back to Emma, feeling incredibly turned on, but also dirty for having seen it in the first place.

“I don’t know if I can ever do something like that,” I said quietly, my voice weak and breathy. I couldn’t get the images of the pair out of my head.

Emma set the phone down and walked towards me. Her hips had a rolling motion that seemed designed to set my heart revving. She was every bit as pretty as Samantha - more, even. Samantha had a vivacious, friendly, fun energy to her. Emma, though…

Emma was unbelievable.

She stopped in front of me, eyes a few inches above mine, and her finger reached up to my chin, lifting my face to look directly into hers. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but stare into her eyes. Her head tipped forward, and I wanted her lips to touch mine more than anything in the universe. Instead, she moved past my face, breath hot on my cheek. I could feel her lips against my ear, and I nearly lost my balance. Things were happening to my body that I could not process. I knew that I needed something, everything from her, but I was frozen to the spot, putty in her fingers.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, and her voice was sex in my ears. “I’ll teach you what to do.”

I shuddered, wanting to reach out to her, but it would have been easier for me to go back to my broken truck body than it was to move at that moment.

Then she moved her head down and her lips touched my neck gently, speculatively. 

“Ohhh,” I yelped involuntarily. Her touch was so soft, and I leaned into her. I needed more. So much more.

“You need” kiss “to learn” kiss “so much more” kiss “about women,” Emma breathed, punctuating words with her lips as she kissed her way down my neck.”

My steering systems were completely offline. The subroutines controlling my brain had malfunctioned. The sounds coming from my throat could barely be called human anymore. I would have given her anything, had she but asked. Yet still her kisses continued, and it felt so good. If even these small pieces of intimacy felt like this…

What would sex feel like?

I could still see the women on the phone.

I could feel my nipples hardening, aching to be touched.

I could feel the wetness between my thighs.

“Please,” I gasped, reaching up to hold Emma tightly, our breasts pressing together with the soft fabric of her shirt in between us.

But Emma pulled away, pushing me back until I was at arm’s length again. 

I blinked, body still full of urgent need. “Wha… why?” I managed to ask, taking a step forward. 

She reached out and held me away again. “No.”

“No?” I echoed, feeling a crushing weight of expectation and desire. I wanted her so badly, and everything was faltering. 

Emma shook her head, and the gas drained from my tank faster than I could have believed. My heart was still racing, my body still wanted her, but in an instant my head and heart were destroyed and I was filled with despair so immense that I wanted to cry.

“Why?” I managed to ask again.

“So you know,” Emma said seriously. “That this isn’t a game. These are real feelings, real desires, real moments between people. Think how you feel right now, how much you wanted it, and how it felt when you couldn’t have it. Your friend went through that twice last night.”

Oh, Scrapheap. Samantha.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Emma continued. “You didn’t know any better. You’re new to this. But keep this as a reminder - it isn’t something to get into lightly. You need to know what you want. You can’t always let your body dictate it for you, or you’ll end up hurting yourself… or someone else.”

“I… think I understand,” I said. Like a new truck, I’d let myself go chasing after a Mustang with zero sense. Zero inhibitions. Zero chance. Both of us could get hurt, because I didn’t even know my own capabilities. I was a pretty girl - I knew that from how people interacted with me. But I didn’t know how that affected others, as surely as I didn’t know how Emma affected me the way she was now. 

Emma smiled, perfect teeth beaming. “Don’t get yourself down, kid. I’m going to teach you how to use what you’ve been given… and when I’m done, you’ll have them all twisted around your finger.”

“That was not a fun lesson to learn,” I sighed. “My heart is still beating so fast. I… I don’t even know what I wanted, but I definitely wanted it from you.”

She nodded. “Sharp lessons are best. You’ll remember it better.” She reached out again and took my hand. “Now… are you ready to continue?”

I took a deep breath, not sure I could handle another lesson like that, but I nodded in return anyway. I needed to know this.

All of it.