“That’s not—it was a complicated situation?—”
“Ryan.” Marvin holds up a hand. “I’m not judging. I’m orienting. Give me a second to adjust my worldview, because upuntil thirty seconds ago, I genuinely believed you were going to die a virgin.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m being honest. You’ve never shown interest in anyone. Not once. Not in high school, not in college. I’d started to wonder if you were asexual, which would have been completely fine, but this is—” He gestures at the screen. “This is new territory.”
“It’s new territory for me too.”
Marvin studies me through the camera. His expression shifts from shock to something more measured, more brotherly. “Okay. So you want to have sex with Oliver. What exactly do you need from me?”
Here it is. The moment I’ve been dreading and building toward since I picked up the phone. I grip my knees tighter and force the words out.
“I need you to give me the talk.”
Marvin blinks. “The talk.”
“Yes.”
“The birds and the bees talk.”
“Yes.”
“Ryan, you’re twenty years old.”
“I’m aware of my age.”
“You have access to the internet. You know how sex works. You’ve taken biology. You probably know the Latin names for every reproductive organ in the human body.”
“Knowing the Latin names for things and knowing how to actually use them are very different skills, Marvin.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious. Dad never gave me the talk. Mom died before she could. You were too busy building your social empire to notice I existed. I learned everything I know from a health textbook and a very clinical Wikipedia article that used the phrase ‘penile-vaginal intercourse’ enough times to put me off the entire concept forever.”
“JesusChrist, Ryan.”
I barrel forward before I lose my nerve. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never kissed anyone. I’ve never touched anyone. The closest I’ve come to physical intimacy is what happened this morning, alone, in this room, thinking about—” I cut myself off. “The point is, I have no practical knowledge. And if—when—something happens with Oliver, I don’t want to be fumbling around in the dark, clueless and terrified.”
Marvin is quiet for a long time. Behind him, the New York skyline stretches out in a haze of glass and steel. A siren wails in the distance, rises, fades.
“You really want me to do this, don’t you?”
“I really do.”
“The actual talk. The full talk. Mechanics, safety, communication, all of it.”
“All of it.”
He exhales slowly, his cheeks puffing out. “This is not how I saw my day going.”
“It’s not how I saw mine going either, and yet here we are.”
Another pause. Then Marvin straightens up, squares his shoulders, and assumes the persona of Professional Marvin. Capable Marvin. The version of my brother who can handle anything. It’s so strange to see, he might as well be a Martian.
“Okay,” he says. “We’re doing this. But I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
