Page 97 of Stags

“I’m not a baby or anything, Stockton. I’m twenty-one years old.”

He nodded. “Yeah. True.”

“I guess you’re so much more experienced than me,” she whispered. “How many people have you been with?”

He coughed, letting go of her hair. “Oh, we’re doing that, are we?”

“Well, you know that I’ve only been with one other person,” she said.

“Me too,” he said. “Just Maibell.”

“Oh,” she said and she was surprised.

“I might kind of suck at it,” he said in a low voice. “Maybe that’s why she cheated on me. Maybe that’s why she dumped me.”

Rora shook her head. “I don’t think so. I really—”

“Well, when we eventually do it, whenever that is,” said Stockton, “I want you to tell me. Like, be honest.”

She shook her head. “Okay, well, how about we just give each other feedback while we’re doing it.” Even though, last time, in her only other experience, she hadn’t been entirely honest about it. The part where Bruin had put his cock in her, it had been overwhelming and a strange sort of experience, pleasurable but raw, just on the edge of not-so-pleasant, truly. Even so, she’d wanted it, wanted the not-so-pleasant part of it, and she wasn’t sure if she’d want that with Stockton.

That had been an experience, something with a stranger, a gauntlet to cross, a rite of passage. But this would be about the two of them.

Even so, she wanted to do it, if only because she wanted to know if it would be different with him, very different than it had been with the older stag who had taken her for the first time. She hoped it would be different, she supposed, but she wasn’t sure in what way she wanted it to be different, not exactly.

He shrugged. “Okay, I guess so. Like, if I’m not doing something you like, you’ll just tell me?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“That seems so fucking obvious,” he muttered. “I might actually be very bad at this. Let’s not tonight, okay? Let’s wait? I think I’m too nervous.”

“About me?” She couldn’t help but admit that Maibell’s words had stung. She was not as svelt as the other doe, and she knew that Stockton had told her that she was gorgeous, and that he had specifically said on other occasions that he liked the softness and the heft of her, that he liked women to be shaped the way she was shaped.

She wanted to believe him—no, she did believe him.

But she couldn’t help but wonder if Maibell had some insight into Stockton. Had he decided that a fat, practically-a-virgin doe who had told him that she was convinced something was wrong with her would be a sure thing? Had he lowered his standards because he didn’t want to experience the pain of infidelity? Was he dating down?

She didn’t mean to think these thoughts, but they slipped into her head without her permission. She could not shut them up.

“Aren’t I safe in that way?” she said. “You probably think I’m easily impressed. After all, you’re my first boyfriend.”

“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “I don’t think you’re easily impressed.” He paused. “But I guess I would like to think you’d be safe in that way, because I want to think that you like enough things about me to excuse it if I’m not perfect in every way.”

“That is true,” she said. “And you are perfect.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Do you… is it Maibell who made you doubt yourself like this? Because she slept with someone else?”

He let out a huff of air. “I’m being dumb, really.” He eyed her. “I like you because you’re real, and you’re easy to be around, and I don’t usually feel this pressure to be something I’m not with you. But… what do you want with sex, anyway? Like, what do you even like?”

“What do you mean by that?” she said.

He considered. “I don’t know. If you’re going to want someone to be, like, rough with you or something—”

“No, I don’t think so,” she interrupted.

“Good, because I don’t think I like that,” he said.

---