Sitting by my dining table, across from me in his chair with his head and eyes lowered to the bulge that still slightly protruded from behind his pants, Charlie looked nervous and so confused. It had taken me a moment to get over as well, but in hindsight I should've seen it coming. Then again, I hadn't expected him to go as far as to touch me.

"Alright, Charlie," I begun with a calm voice to let him know it was all going to be okay. Actually, more than okay. After we had had this talk, I suspected he wouldn't ever not be okay again. "Before we begin this talk, I just have to ask you a few questions. You've never experienced this happening to you before?"

Charlie shook his head, keeping his eyes down. "Is it... is it dangerous?"

I swallowed a lump and the urge to reply 'that depends on your size', and instead went for the appropriate approach; "No, it's completely safe and very natural, I promise you that. With that said, do you, ah... do you know how babies are made, Charlie?" There was really no point in beating around the bush.

Charlie looked up at me with a small frown and then eased up. "Yes, of course. An egg from a woman gets fertilized by a healthy sperm cell from a man. Then the scientist inserts the fertilized egg into the female subject's womb and—"

"Whoa, wait, okay, I think that's enough," I said and cleared my throat when Charlie frowned confused and closed his mouth again. "That's... is that what they told you in there?"

"No, that's how I was made."

"You—wait, what?" I struggled for words. "You were made as... who's your mother, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Creature 1733-N."

I blinked. And blinked again. Then felt my heart twist inside my chest. "You... you don't know your mother's real name? How about your father?"

"Creature 1309-L," Charlie prompted again, the pinch between his brows growing deeper. "What's wrong, Carly? Your heart is beating arrhythmically."

Yes, yes it was, because dear God in heaven, he didn't even know what his real parents' names were. The poor man didn't know what he had missed out on, had no fucking clue that this was all wrong. "I, uhm. I'm fine. This isn't about me," I said, swallowing hard to regain my composure. "I just had to ask you these questions before I begin... explaining."

"Explaining what?"

I took a deep breath. This was going to be more difficult than I thought. "Well, Charlie. The way you were created is just one way of making a baby. It's the clinical way of doing it, an option some humans use if they can't conceive naturally."

"Naturally?" He tilted his head in confusion.

I nodded. "Yes. Naturally. You see, uh, when a man and a woman like each other very much..." I strategically avoided using the word love just yet, "... and they want to have a baby, they do this thing that we humans call having sex. I suppose the better word for it is 'coitus', but sex is what we commonly call it when we discuss it."

"Sex..." Charlie said with a thoughtful expression. "What is it? How does one have it?"

I cleared my throat and tried my best to ignore the blush on my cheeks. Here came the awkward part. "That's why I have this box," I said and now slid forward the box I had brought with me before coming back into the living room. It was a box I had prepared for this step, the step I knew would be a big one. When I opened the lid, Charlie peaked inside curiously. "It's full of everything you need to know to understand sex and reproduction – the way all living, breathing creatures have done it since the beginning of time."

Charlie's face was set in a constant frown as I talked. I didn't know what was going through his head at the moment, but I suspected it all ended in question marks. He looked as I pulled out a pamphlet normally used to introduce young teenagers to sex, then a pamphlet explaining the making of the baby. He stared at both when I put them down in front of him.

"I want you to read these," I said and pushed them towards him. "To begin with. When you're done with that, I have some..." Breathe, Carly, "Videos I'd like you to watch as well. Two of them are instructional, one of them is a demo. If you don't feel comfortable watching them, though, that's completely okay and we'll just come back to them another time. For now, just read the pamphlets."

"I want to watch them," Charlie said, blinking at the pamphlets with a curious face. "I want to learn. If this is part of being human..."

Oh, it was a part. A very big part. Almost too big in some cultures. "It is, Charlie, but it can be very overwhelming. This isn't like any of our other lectures or lessons. It's much harder—" I cringed at my accidental pun, "—eerm, and a little more difficult to understand. I don't want to overwhelm you."

Charlie absorbed my words with a little frown, but nodded slowly. "Okay..."

"Okay. Then, if you prefer, you can go upstairs to read and watch the things I gave you yourself. I could also be there with you, but trust me on this one when I say I think you'd rather do this alone." Was it selfish of me to recommend that just because I really didn't want to be there when he started watching the demo, aka, the porn?

Charlie looked a little confused, but then nodded again. "Alright. I will watch these alone."

"Excellent. When you're done, come downstairs again and we'll discuss what you've just seen and how you feel about it, alright? If you have any questions, just ask away. This is one subject where you truly can't be too well informed."

"Okay," Charlie hesitantly replied and then slowly stood up, taking the box with all the adult content with him. He was about to grow up so fast and he had no idea. "I will come down afterwards."

"Good. And remember, don't feel obligated to watch it all. You can stop at any moment if you feel you don't want to look on."

He nodded one last time, still looking that strange kind of puzzled, but then trotted upstairs, climbing the stairs with his box.

My heart cried a little as I watched him go. That was the last of my innocent Creature I'd ever see. After this, he would never be the same.

I sighed to myself and rubbed an aching spot above my eyebrow. "They grow up so fast..."

~~~

The videos weren't that long, but all together, plus with reading the pamphlets, it took about an hour and a half before I heard the creak of footsteps finally moving upstairs. It had been dead silent the whole time I had been in the kitchen pre-cutting the vegetables for dinner tonight, but finally I heard the door open and footsteps coming down the stairs. Was it just my imagination or could you actually hear on his feet how he had changed?

I shook the thought away and waited to speak up until I heard the footsteps enter the kitchen and come closer – maybe because I needed a last moment to prep myself. "So? Did you watch all of it?"

My sentence was barely finished before I felt a pair of hands grasp my hips and yank me around. I gasped in shock and dropped my knife when I was instantly crowded by Charlie's broad body and height locking me against the counter. His magenta eyes were dark and nearly scared me when they looked down at me with a look I'd never seen on his face before.

"Charlie, what are you—"

His lips were on mine before I could finish that thought. Rough and dominant, the former innocent Creature in front of me kissed me, using no restraint or no control to claim my lips. His tongue plunged into my mouth and I let out something akin to a screech as he dived in and left nothing unexplored. But that wasn't even what made me screech. No.

– It was the fact that this Creature who had never kissed before was currently kissing the shit out of me like I'd never been kissed before.

Almost involuntarily and definitely submissively, my eyes shut and my body eased under him. He took my small gesture as a cue to go deeper, his mouth locking against mine and his lips sucking. He pulled on my bottom lip and flicked my top with the tip of his tongue before he dived in again, pressing his tongue against mine in a battle I wasn't even fighting. He won; fair and square. He won.

I didn't know what the hell was happening, all I knew was that this was so wrong. Charlie was driven and frenzied as he kissed me, his hands riding up my sides, finding and cupping my breasts, giving them a firm squeeze that in no way could make me hold down the moan I had been holding in since his lips touched mine. It came out hoarse and needy, and his response was a throaty groan. He found my nipples that poked through my bra and shirt and pressed his thumbs over them, rubbing them until my knees begun shaking and my panties moistened.

I had to stop this. Right now.

"Charlie!" I broke apart from his lips but instantly regretted it when his lips descended on my throat instead and started sucking – rubbing his tongue against my burning flesh until it probably bruised and left a mark. Oh, God. "Charlie, stop! You can't—we need to—"

Crrrreeesh

My shirt was torn apart by hands that didn't waste a moment to cup my full breasts and squeezed them again, causing a surprised cry to rip from my throat.

Holy shit! My mind screamed when his lips instantly moved lower, Charlie crouching down to lock his mouth over my bra-clad nipple, sucking on it through the fabric. Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell! "Charlie!"

I had to stop him. Right now. He wasn't himself, he seemed possessed, out of control. Something had awakened inside him, and God if I knew what that was. But it wasn't for me to... handle.

"Charlie!" I shouted when his mouth switched to my other breast, an earnest groan rumbling at the back of his throat. My hands found his hair and I struggled to yank him off me, but it appeared my ripping at his hair only spurred him on; he moaned deeply and scraped his teeth over my hard bud. I nearly dissolved into a puddle. "Ch-Charlie, stop! You need to listen and stop what you're doing! Do you hear me?"

"I'm listening," He hummed against my breast, barely moving away from it to speak. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," I breathed when he latched on again, drawing a whimper from my lips when I was so close to coming. My breasts were so sensitive and his mouth was... too hot. "Yes, Charlie... I mean, you need to stop! You need to get off me and let go, right now. Oh, God."

"What's stop?" He murmured pinching my other nipple between his forefinger and thumb. "And why do I need to do it?"

My mind momentarily forgot about being mushed jelly when I managed to process his words; What's stop?

He didn't know what 'stop' meant? Hadn't he heard me use it before? Hadn't he used it before himself? I ransacked my mind for a moment where he had spoken the critically important word. And came up blank.

"Charlie, pull back. We need to have a serious talk."

My buzz was gone, just like that. The horribleness of what he had just said killed it, but Charlie didn't know.

And that only painted a very vivid picture of how awful he had been treated in there.

They had never taught him stop. 

Pulling slightly away from me and lifting to my lips again, Charlie cupped my face and looked down at me. His eyes were hooded, his orbs glowing in a sultry magenta color. I could hardly think when he looked at me like that, but the horror still rung in my head. "Tell me what I'm doing wrong, Carly. I'll do better. Teach me what to do."

And that. I definitely couldn't think when he said that. My brain got scrambled when he placed a soft peck on my lips, brushing so gently against them. Holy hell... "Char... Charlie, you, uh—we need to have a talk and you need to, uh, quit touching me. Please?"

He blinked twice, but then slowly pulled back with a frown. "I don't understand. I'm doing what they did in the videos. Aren't I?"

"No, I..." Lord give me strength, I needed to clear my mind and my throat. I started with the latter. "Charlie, you weren't supposed to, uh... do what they did. You just had to understand it, and I don't think that you fully do."

"But I do. The male grows erect for the female he would like to impregnate. I like you Carly, and you're a female, so I'd like to impregnate you."

My face flushed red. Hell, my whole body did. Everything inside me wished I could dissolve into nothing, just like my mind and words seemed to have, struggling to spit something—anything out. "I, you, that's, we, uh..."

"I didn't understand that," He frowned again, now blinking confused; he had obviously never turned a woman into a stuttering mess before. "Are you okay? Your body is—"

"Tat-tat-tat!" I said and pushed a hand over his mouth to shut him up. The last thing I needed right now was to hear what his amazing senses were picking up from my body. "Look, uh, can we sit down? I think we need to, and I, uh..." that's when I remembered my shirt was torn and my breasts were on full display. "Can you... can you go wait in the living room while I go put on a shirt? This can't ever happen again, Charlie, and we're going to talk about why that is when I'm properly clothed."

"But..." He begun confused, blinking almost crestfallenly when I grasped the broken pieces of my shirt to try and cover up what I could. "I..."

"No buts right now, Charlie. Go wait on the couch, I'll be right down, okay?"

After a long moment of looking at me, Charlie finally took a step back and nodded. That's when I noticed the thick bulge behind his pants again, straining uncomfortably, making my cheeks flush red once more. Holy hell, that was just...

He turned away and started walking towards the living room, and that's when I remembered I had a job to do, other than stare at his blessings.

Shirt first. Then a long talk.

A very, very, very long one.

~~~

I knew that introducing Charlie to sex would be hard – both literally and mentally. A part of me was convinced he hadn't been ready for it, but his body had been, and there was no avoiding it when it started telling him. Showing him those videos and having him read those pamphlets had been to enlighten him, not to make him horny.

But I guess one thing came with the other, and now I had to deal with the consequences.

But finding out that Charlie had never been taught the word 'stop' had been heartbreaking and immensely infuriating. It proved yet again just how they handled things inside that facility when they didn't even teach their Creatures that there was such a thing as enough and stopping. It was a place where the periodic time table was the alphabet song and basic science was quantum physics. I couldn't do anything about it – but I could instill the importance of that word in his mind now and teach him to obey it no matter what.

Especially when it came to things such as sex.

"When somebody says no or stop, it's important that you do as they say," I explained to him as we sat on the couch, his erection thankfully having gone down a bit, helping me to keep a better focus and probably helping himself as well. "It's a way of telling the other person you don't want or like what they're doing and that they have to stop it. No matter how you feel yourself, you have to. If the other person doesn't want it, then that's it; both subjects should be enjoying themselves, and if one isn't, then it's reason enough to stop. You always want to make sure that what you're doing is with the other person's consent before you do it. Do you understand?"

Charlie nodded slowly. "Yes."

I sighed, relieved. "Good."

"So... can I please have your consent to impregnate you, Carly?"

I nearly choked on my breath. "No, Charlie, that's not..." I sighed again and palmed my face. Just when I thought I had made progress. "You and I aren't going to be doing... that. We're not going to be having sex or going to be making any... babies. What I made you watch in those videos were to demonstrate and give you an understanding about what sex is. You should've come to me and asked your questions before you... kissed me." More like jumped me.

But you weren't complaining before, were you? My inner sex-starved goddess purred. I shut her right up.

"But I didn't have any questions," Charlie voiced and looked at me. "I understood it all. The video expressively told that when two people were attracted to each other, they liked to enjoy sex. The other video explained how a child was conceived, and the last video showed me. You always make me try the things you teach me, so I thought..."

"I can see why you would think that," I granted him, looking down at my lap in embarrassment. You couldn't blame him for thinking that, given all our previous lessons. Especially the one where I stressed intimacy and touch between humans and the importance of it. I had practically set the poor man up. "But this is one lesson that you and I won't be... doing. This lesson is purely for the day you have to live out there alone by yourself and start looking for the woman you'd like to spend your life with." I reminded myself to talk to him about homosexuality another time. "Do you understand?"

Charlie thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes..."

"Alright then. Do you have any more questions for me?"

"Just one," He said and let his hand drop to his crotch and cupped his visible bulge. "How do I make this go away if I can't use you?"

Again, I almost gagged on my breath. 'Use you'. He had no filter, and I couldn't decide whether if that was hot or a little unnerving. "Ahh, well, uhm... some men use cold shower to, ah, cool down."

"But I'm not sweating?"

"It's an expression."

"Oh. So... cold water?"

I nodded. And then swallowed hard when I knew I was going to regret this; "And they also masturbate."

Understandably, Charlie frowned. "What?"

I took a patient breath. "You see, Charlie; Sex isn't just for reproduction. For many couples it's actually only for the fun of it. Sex is very pleasurable, it can cause a man or woman to achieve what's called an orgasm. It's a sort of high where the male or female, uh, feels so intense pleasure it creates a chemical reaction in the brain. They reach an orgasm by stimulating each other – or sometimes just themselves."

"How?" He wanted to curiously know. And bite me for almost spitting out; 'I'll show you.'

"Well, it's different for each gender and there are different methods," I explained and coughed a little when he tilted his head to the side, listening intrigued. Good lord, was this how my parents felt when they had to give me the talk? And I thought I had had it bad. "Let's take the male in this instance. He, uh, or his partner, use their hand, to uh..." I felt my cheeks crisp up. I could hardly get through the sentence. "Tug on himself. He or she grabs the penis and stimulates it by rubbing the foreskin back and forth repeatedly until, uh, the orgasm or climax is reached. Then, that should hopefully, and in nine out of ten cases, soften the penis again." Unless you had a stamina of a horse and crazy endurance.

"So I... tug?" Charlie asked a little hesitantly. "That's it?"

I wasn't going to go into the depths of oral yet. Not by a long shot. I believed he had had enough info for one day. "Yes. I can find you a demo if you'd like to see exactly what I'm talking about and get a better visual, but..."

"...Yes?"

I wanted to say 'but I'm not sure that's a good idea, given what happened last time I gave you a video', but instead I decided to say; "But I'm not so sure if I should. I mean, if you feel you can handle it, then okay, but I just don't want to overwhelm you with too many images. Sex is about discovering what you like yourself by exploring your own body, not by studying what others do. That said, it can be educational to get a rough idea of how to do things."

"Oh," He said, creasing his brows for a moment. Then he met my eyes with more confusion. "How come you can't show me?"

I coughed awkwardly. He basically just asked me to jerk him off. "Because sex is between two partners who like each other—"

"I like you."

"—and who are appropriate for each other," I finished and steeled him with a firm look. He rose a brow. "You and I, Charlie, have a professional relationship. I'm your guardian and caretaker and you're my... job. I have to teach you—"

"So why don't you?" He asked, leaning forward a bit to capture my eyes with his deep purple ones. My mouth closed. "I'd like you to teach me how to masturbate, Carly. Please will you?"

"I-I..." I had to clear my throat again. "Charlie do you remember when we talked about nudity and how people conceal parts of themselves?" When he nodded, I continued; "Well, sex is kind of like that. You can't just ask people to do that for you, it's not... proper. Not unless you are intimate with the other person. You and I aren't intimate and we won't ever be, and that's final. I can't help you with this personally, I can only give you material that can show you how and of course answer any question you have. Please tell me you understand that."

Charlie sat still for a long moment, taking in my words. I could practically see the cogwheels turning inside his head and the deep confusion within his eyes struggling to understand. Then finally, he leaned back into the couch and gave a small nod. "I understand."

The feeling in my gut told me he didn't, but just said he did so we could move on from this. We had barely scratched the surface of this step, hadn't even talked about attraction, flirting, and of course, most importantly, love. I was afraid to bring that up to him, but I knew some day I had to. "Alright then. I'll find some material for you to learn from then, to get an idea of what masturbation is. I'll bring it to you after dinner and you can feel free to scour it at bedtime. Sound good?" He nodded.

I didn't even want to think about the fact that he would most likely be spending tonight touching himself and exploring the first strands of sexual pleasure, so I tried to steer my mind onto what was on the menu right now.

Speaking of menu.

"I'll go continue dinner then. There's some time before we eat, how about you watch some cartoons?"

Charlie didn't protest, only silently nodded and slowly turned towards the TV, clicking it on as I stood up. I heard Phineas and Ferb's intro song begin to play and I exhaled when I felt a sense of normality return – even if it seemed slightly forced.

Today had been a challenging day, both for me and Charlie. He had learned a lot and so had I, but there was one lesson above them all I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to have been without.

Knowing what his lips felt like against mine.

• • •

Writing this chapter... I swear every sentence was like an obvious rimshot, you can't imagine how hard it was for me—
Fuck, there I go again.