Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Degrassi.

What I've Learned

"Eli, over here," I heard Clare call my name as I paid for my lunch and grabbed my tray. She patted the seat next to her, but across the table were Jenna and Alli, who weren't exactly his favorite people to hang out with. I noticed Adam sitting with Connor and Dave across the caf and nodded towards them, giving Clare an apologetic smile.

"No Clare today?" Adam asked, as I sat down next to him.

I shook my head. "I'd rather sit with you guys than listen to Jenna and Alli talk about pregnancy, swollen ankles and whatever guy Alli is currently hooking up with."

Dave laughed. "Dude, Jenna is enormous. She looks like she's going to go into labor any second."

"She's in remedial gym with me now," Adam said. "and she was trying to do archery but her stomach kept getting in the way."

I groaned. "Guys, I sat with you to avoid talking about this kind of stuff."

"At least Jenna got one good thing out of getting knocked up at 15," said Conner. "Giant pregnancy boobs."

"Gross," I said. "The last time I sat with her she was complaining about stretch marks and I don't even want to think about what that means."

"That's the worst thing about these school uniforms," Dave said, taking a bite out of his tuna fish sandwich. "All the girls are so covered up. I mean, checking out Alli's rack was pretty much the only thing school had going for it, and now she's practically dressed like a nun."

I looked back over at their lunch table, but it definitely wasn't Alli I was thinking about. Clare was waving her arm around animatedly as she told them a story, and I couldn't help but notice the slight movement of her breasts under her way too buttoned up polo shirt. I couldn't help but remember the dress she had on when we worked on our Romeo and Juliet project, the first time that I kissed her over four months ago. Though Clare never wore the flashy outfits that Alli liked, that dress was cut just low enough that when I moved closer to kiss her, I could see all the way down her cleavage. It had taken all the strength I had not to raise my hand up and touch her…

Adam punched me lightly on the arm, and I realized all three guys were staring at me. "What?" I rubbed my arm where Adam hit me.

"Dude, you're so lucky you have a girlfriend," Dave said. "You've got to let us poor single dudes live vicariously through you. I've been going through boob withdrawal. It's been like a year since I've seen a real live one in person."

I snorted, thinking it had probably been a lot more like never for Dave, but I stopped laughing when I realized it had been a lot longer than a year for me, but there was no way I was going to admit that to them. "A gentleman never kisses and tells," I said, stealing a French fry from Connor's plate.

"Besides, he doesn't have anything to tell," Adam said. "He's dating a girl with a purity ring; the only way he's going to get to second base is if he gets married."

That reminded me why I shouldn't get drunk with Adam and Drew when their mom is out of town, because the guy can't keep a secret for anything.

"Seriously?" Dave said. "I'm surprised. I mean, I figured Clare was a virgin but I kind of figured she was an 'everything but' kind of girl."

"Uh, and why exactly are you thinking of what kind of girl my girlfriend is?" I felt my hands form automatically into fists, but kept them in my lap, not wanting to start a fight which would a.) piss of Clare and b.) cause me to lose one of the few friends I had.

"I don't like her if that's what you're thinking. It's just after last year, I figured a girl who was into sex toys was probably up for anything."

"WHAT?" Adam and I yelled at the same time. I could feel people starting to look over at our table, and I lowered my voice. "What the fuck are you talking about Turner?"

"You haven't heard about this? Last year, Clare got caught with a vibrator at school."

I couldn't even say anything.

Adam scoffed, "You're full of shit."

"No, he's right. I was there," Connor said. "We were in math class, and she knocked her bag off her desk, and there was this buzzing sound and Mr. Armstrong thought it was a cell phone, so he opened up her bag and pulled out a vibrator."

"It had to be a prank. It couldn't have been hers." I couldn't imagine any scenario in which my innocent girlfriend Clare owned a sex toy.

"No, I really think it was," Dave said. "Cause the next day, Holly J was making fun of her and Clare told her that maybe she wouldn't be such a bitch if she tried it sometime."

I looked over at Clare with my jaw dropped. Could it be possible that Clare was a secret nympho? Well, okay, not a nympho, but she clearly was a lot more interested in sex than I was giving her credit for. I saw the ring on her finger and I thought I knew what that meant. Maybe she wasn't ready for sex, but if she was doing that, maybe she was ready for some of the many other things I spent my nights dreaming about. It had gotten so hard to keep myself from touching her when we made out that I had pretty much stopped seeing her outside of school, the Dot and the front seat of Morty, where she gave me the most intense goodnight kisses as I gripped the steering wheel in frustration.

Maybe it was time to see what Clare was thinking. Ignoring the guys, I walked over to Clare and bent down to whisper in her ear, "Come over after school. I need to see you." Her cheeks turned red as she nodded. I gave her a quick kiss on the neck and walked out of the caf and went to my locker and tried to get the image of Clare using a vibrator out of my mind. Three more classes. I can make it that long.

We had only been in my room for about two minutes before my lips were on hers.

I had her pressed down against my bed, my chest leaning over hers, but my hips off to the side, trying not to grind myself onto the bed. I couldn't keep myself from kissing her, across her jawline, down her neck, pulling the collar of her shirt aside, to press my tongue against her collarbone. I felt the tension and relief all at once, glad I was finally kissing her the way I had wanted to for weeks, but realizing why I had been holding myself back. I wiggled trying to get myself into a better position and cursed the person who decided that skinny jeans were a great fashion trend.

Clare kept kissing me, releasing little breaths and moans as she ran her fingers along my spine. I moved one hand from her arm over to her stomach, wishing that I could feel her soft skin there as well. She murmured and as my hand moved up, underneath her breast, but not touching it, I could feel her back arching into my touch.

She wants this. I mean, I think she wants this. Or at least, instinctively she does. But I've spent a lot of time making things work with Clare over the past four months and I don't want to do anything to screw this up.

Reluctantly, I pulled back from her and laid flat on her bed.

"Eli?" She moved closer to me, lying on side and propping herself up on her elbow. I could see her blue eyes filled with concern. She glanced down at my body, and I realized that probably should have stayed on my stomach since she could definitely see me, hard through my jeans.

"Why'd you stop?" She asked, softly.

I didn't even know where to start. Clare, I want to rip that ring off your finger along with all of my clothes and bury myself in you. Or maybe just, please let me run my fingers against your breast, even through your clothes if that's all you want. But since all of my thoughts would scare her off and my curiosity got the better of me, I asked her the question that had been on my mind all day.

"Clare, did you bring a vibrator to school last year?

She immediately collapsed off her elbow and buried her face in my chest. I could see her red cheeks and pulled my arms around her.

"Clare, it's okay, I don't care. I just wanted to know if it was true."

She glanced up at my briefly, I guess to see if I was mocking her, but I kept my trademark smirk off my face. "Yeah, but it wasn't mine."

"How did you bring someone else's vibrator to school?" I couldn't keep the laughter out of my voice and she glared at me for a second, before her face crumbled into a laugh.

"This is the most embarrassing story ever. It was all Alli's fault."

"Why am I not surprised?" I mumbled, and she hit my arm lightly.

"We were hanging out at Connor's house, working on our robot project, and Alli and I needed to go to the bathroom. We went upstairs and she dragged me into Mr. Simpson's bedroom." I gave her a look of confusion. "Mr. Simpson is Connor's guardian; his parents live in a town that doesn't have a gifted program so he is staying with him so he can go to Degrassi. Anyway, she wanted to snoop around and she dropped her pen and under the bed she found the…thing."

Clare's cheeks were flaming and I gave her a quick kiss. "Mr. Simpson's wife came up the stairs, and we didn't have time to put it back so Alli put it in my bag. She was in the bedroom while we went to the bathroom so there wasn't anything we could do."

"So you stole the principal's vibrator?" This story just got better and better.

Clare rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm sure it was his wife's, and he wasn't the principal then, and it certainly wasn't intentional, but yes."

I smirked at her, "Well they probably used it together anyway."

"Eli!"

"So, why'd you bring it to school?"

"I couldn't leave it at home. My mother totally snoops in my room and if she found it, I would have been grounded for the rest of my life. I was going to give it to Ally and make her deal with it."

"But then it got turned on in math class?"

"Yeah." She grimaced. "It was the most humiliating moment of my life. Connor was there, not to mention K.C., and the whole class was cracking up. Mr. Armstrong sent me to the principal's office and The Shep called in my mother."

"How did that go?" I couldn't imagine Clare's uptight mother dealing with this at all.

"Well, at school it was really bad. But when we got home, we had a serious talk and she answered some of my questions."

"Such as?" I poked her in the side.

"I think I've already done enough secret revealing today."

"Well, I'm glad you told me." I kissed her gently and smoothed my hand along her back. I was wondering if I could ask any of the million follow up questions I had. What happened to the vibrator? Did you try it? Would you let me do that to you?

Clare sat up and leaned against the wall behind my bed. "You know, we've never really talked about…sex."

Just hearing her say the word made me want to pull her down on top of me, but I kept myself in check and sat up next to her. "What do you want to talk about?"

She played with a loose thread on the edge of my blanket. "Have you?" She asked quietly. She cleared her throat and asked again a little louder. "Have you ever had sex?"

She wouldn't meet my eye, so I grabbed her fidgeting hand and pulled her toward me. "No," I said, honestly.

She let out a breath. "Wow, really?"

"What kind of guy do you think I am?" I smirked at her in mock horror.

"I dunno, I just thought you and Julia might have."

I cringed a little bit at the sound of her name, but squeezed Clare's hand to let her know I was alright. "We were only together for six months before she…we were waiting for the right time, but it just never came and then she was gone." I could feel a tear prickling at the corner of my eye and knew I had to change the subject quickly. "Did you and K.C.?"

Clare's eyes widened. "No!"

"Well, why not?" She was so fun to tease.

"So many reasons. Because I wasn't in love with him, because he left me for Jenna, because we were never really alone together." She give me a sly smile. "Because he wasn't as good a kisser as you."

"Wow. So that's all it takes," I pulled her for a kiss, and she pushed me away with a giggle.

"Seriously, Eli. All we did was kiss. That's all I wanted to do with him."

"You know, Clare, there are two very interesting things I'm learning about you from this conversation. The first is that you just said "with him" as if you'd be interested in doing more than kissing with some other guy." Her eyes widened as she realized what she had just revealed. "But what I find more interesting," I paused, running my finger across her hand and placing it on her purity ring, "is that you didn't mention not being married as the reason you didn't want to have sex with him."

She looked at her intertwined hands. "Well, I probably should have, since that would have been my number one reason when I was with him."

My voice caught in my throat. "And has that changed?"

"Eli, I'm not ready to have sex with you." I opened my mouth to tell her that I wasn't asking for that reason, but she moved her finger over my lips and continued, "But it's not because we're not married. It's just because I'm not ready."

She laughed at the look of shock on my face. "My parents got married when they were 19. My mother never finished college, and now look at them. I don't want that. I want to go to college and have a career and marry someone that I'm 100% sure I'll spend the rest of my life with. And I know from just kissing you, that waiting until I'm 30 to have sex just isn't going to be possible. If there's anything I've learned in the past year, it's that being with someone you love is a lot more important than waiting for a ceremony."

"How will you…and I mean this with no pressure whatsoever, but how will you know when you're ready?"

"When I'm with the right person and the time is right and we've got condoms and I'm on the pill." She laughed at my dazed expression. "Don't worry. I'll let you know."

I want to tell her that I love her, but I know she'll get the wrong idea and think that I am just saying it to get her to sleep with me, even though I feel it so deeply in my heart. So I just lie down and pull her on top of me.

"So do you have any other shocking news for me? Or is the talking portion of this evening over?"

She kissed me and it felt even better after we've talked. For some reason, there was one last question on my mind and I pulled my lips away to ask. "So, about this vibrator. Did you get to try it out?"

"Eli!" She tried to capture my lips again, but I held her shoulders away. "Of course I didn't."

"Because you don't do that or because it's gross to use your principal's sex toys?"

"Eli, oh my God."

"Clare, just answer the question."

"I did not use the vibrator."

I pulled her back down on top of me and moved my mouth very close to her ear. "Do you use something else instead?"

She was the one who moved away this time. "Eli, we can't talk about this."

"Just tell me," I whispered again.

Clare closed her eyes. "I've tried it a couple times, but it didn't really work."

"Oh my God, Clare, that is the hottest thing I've ever heard." I couldn't believe that she does that and that she admitted it to me.

"What about you?" I couldn't believe how confident Clare seemed to get as this conversation went on.

"Oh all the time, I usually get the desired result though." I lightly bit her on the neck. "Especially when I'm thinking of you."

"I meant, have you done that to a girl?"

Ugh, I was hoping we could skip over these details, but I knew I had to tell her the truth. "Yeah." I could see the wheels turning in her brain and thought I'd spare her having to ask another uncomfortable question. "But just, you know, with fingers. Not with my mouth. That's all she did to me too, the equivalent, I mean."

"Okay. I'm sorry I asked that."

"I don't want to hide anything from you, Clare. And I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable. If there's anything I've learned in the past year, it's that I can't change things that happened in the past."

"I don't…mind that you've done that." I could hear the hesitation in her voice, and I stroked her cheek with my fingers. "I'm just jealous that you haven't done that with me."

"Oh, Clare," I breathed. "Your wish is my command."

This time when I kissed her, I didn't hesitate. I ran my hand under her shirt and savored the feeling of her skin under my fingers. I slipped under the cup of her bra and teased her nipples into hard points. When Clare moved away, I tried to apologize but the words got caught in my throat when she pulled her shirt over her head. She let me unclasp her front hook bra and reveal her incredible breasts to me. I nipped at her with my teeth and tongue and Clare moaned louder than she ever had before. When her hands wandered down and stroked me through my pants, I thought I was going to die.

"Eli," she whispered into my ear. "What do you want to do?"

I want to rub my fingers inside you until you scream my name. I want to spread your legs and lick until you can't take it anymore. I want to look into your eyes as I push into you gently and then go faster until we finish together.

I was ready to take a chance this time. "I just want to take off all your clothes and hold your naked body against mine."

Clare gasped. I thought I had gone too far, but then she said, "Okay."

She helped me take off my shirt and unbuttoned my jeans. We stood nervously and removed the rest of our clothes. She stretched out over me and I moved my hand from her shoulder down the curve of her back. I couldn't believe how soft and smooth she felt against me. I wanted to listen to her heartbeat and put my lips all over her body.

"Clare. I just want you to know that I'm willing to wait forever for you, but there's one thing I can't wait for." I took her face in my hands and looked into her beautiful blue eyes. "I love you, Clare."

"I love you, too." Her eyes shone and I was afraid she was going to start crying, but she turned her attention to my lips. As her tongue brushed against mine and her body started to move against mine, all I could think was how to thank Adam, Connor and Dave for helping me have the best conversation of my life without telling them any of the private details.