A few nights later I go to Ben's house.  I'm conflicted about going because I know if I go we will want to have sex and I haven't figured out if I'm just going to say no or if I'm going to also tell him that I don't want to have sex with him because I am afraid that I will give him a sexually transmitted disease.  Ben's door is unlocked so I go straight up to his bedroom.  He's totally naked and totally happy to see me.  We kiss and then I sit on his bed and he crouches down next to me and we talk and then I lay down and he runs his hands over my stomach and we keep talking and he asks what I want to do and I say that I just want to lie next to him and I scoot over and lies down next to me.  We are still talking and he is still touching me but I don't touch him back.  I know he knows there is something on my mind but I can't bring myself to say it until I turn away from him and then turn again so that I am on my stomach.  I did a really stupid thing, I say, and Ben asks what it relates to, is it work, and I realize how worried he must be because I've done a lot of really stupid things in the past, so I just blurt it out: I had unprotected sex with someone who probably made many poor choices before me.  I'm sorry, I say, I am so sorry.  Ben says it's okay.  But I did the thing that I made you promise never to do, I said.  He says he's worried about that from the beginning, that the tail would wag the dog.   I ask Ben if he wore condoms with the other Nina and he says that he did and that he ran across the box the other day, there were still some left, and he noticed that they were so far past their expiration date that even the foil package was rotting.
I can touch Ben now that I've told him what I need to tell him so I do and then we kiss and then get on all fours over him and tell him to move closer to the center of the bed and he does and then we kiss some more. Are you glad to have me back, I ask, and Ben says he doesn't know he has me back and I think about the guy I met just the day before and don't say anything back.  Ben says that in this light, in the dress that I'm wearing, with my hair the way that it is, hanging over him like this, I look like Marilyn Monroe.  Then Ben tells me that he loves me so much that sometimes it makes him want to cry.  Because I've hurt you, I ask, but he says no, just because. This is something he's never told me before.  We talk about Marilyn Monroe, if she was smart, if she was talented, and then we kiss more but every time Ben touches the crotch of my underpants, I pull away because I don't want to expose him to whatever I've been exposed to but then Ben asks if I'll have sex with him if he uses a condom and I say yes even know I know that a condom won't protect him from everything I might be carrying so he goes and gets one of the ones that I gave him the other day out of the drawer of his dresser and he puts it on and we make love.  I'm so sorry, I say again after he's pulled out and Ben says I shouldn't be too hard on myself and then he touches himself and laughs and says I hope the condom is still inside you because it's not on me so I reach down and pull out the condom and hand it to him.  We keep talking until it's late and then Ben walks me downstairs and he says, again, that I shouldn't be too hard on myself, and he kisses me good-bye and I go home.