Page 96 of Sinful

He smiled faintly. “What did you think would happen?”

I bit my bottom lip. “Well… lots of girls in Alderwood talk about blood and pain upon their first time. But that didn’t happen to me. It was like my body was already used to the act.”

“That’s because most of the other girls probably lost their virginity to assholes who were too selfish to get them fully ready.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s because their purity was being torn away. But for me… it’s like I never had any purity to begin with.”

Sebastian raised a brow. “That’s bullshit, Rose.”

“What?”

“The whole concept of purity and virginity. It’s bullshit. Fuckingbullshit.”

“It’s not.”

He sighed and rubbed his jaw. “Look, I’m sorry, I know this destroys your entire worldview, but I promise you—it’s all bullshit. Virginity is just a social construct. You aren’t different now, and you didn’t suddenly become a dirty or impure person. You’re stillyou. You’re just a version of you that’s had sex. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe that,” I muttered. “Purity exists.”

“Believe it or not. Doesn’t matter. It’s still the truth,” he said, lightly shrugging. “Trust me, those motherfuckers up at Alderwood wouldn’t knowif you were a virgin or not.”

“Yes, they would. The healers conduct purity tests. I’ve passed all of mine before, but I know I wouldn’t now,” I murmured, stomach lurching at the thought of lying on that cold altar with a healer’s hand between my legs. I hated those proving rituals so much, but they were a necessity.

Sebastian chuckled. “Even if you tunneled right out of here and begged them to test you, they wouldn’t have a clue whetheryou’re a virgin or not. Not unless you openly told them that you fucked me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it fuckingis.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “Do I really have to explain this?”

“If you’re going to make a wild claim, then yes, I think you should be prepared to explain it.”

“It’s not a wild claim. It’s a basic fact. Girls aren’t born with fucking freshness seals over their pussies. If they were, and it wasn’t broken until sex happened, then how the hell would they get their period? How would the blood come out?”

“I—” I stopped abruptly, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He had a point. “There’s stillsomethingdown there.”

“Yeah, for some women. For others, there isn’t. It’s all down to genetics. Every woman is different.” Sebastian reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. He clicked on the screen a few times, and then he handed it to me. “Here, just read this. It explains it better than I can.”

I stared at the words on the screen. “What is this?”

“Just. Read. It,” he said through gritted teeth.

He turned his attention to his sandwich. My own sandwich sat on my lap, half-eaten as my attention remained on the phone screen. It featured a digital encyclopedia entry on the hymen. I read the whole thing twice, brows dipping in a frown.

Sebastian finally looked over again and read several words aloud. “The state of the hymen is therefore not a reliable indicator of virginity through virginity testing,” he said. “See? Now click those blue words.”

I tapped on the words ‘virginity testing’. The screen flashed and changed. “Oh. Wow. It’s like—”

“Magic. I know. Now read it.”

I swallowed hard and returned my attention to the phone. Sebastian leaned closer, reading alongside me. “See this part?” he said, pointing to a section in the article called ‘two-finger test’. “That’s the main way they check. They think if they can fit two fingers in, then the woman must’ve had sex before. But it’s a load of shit. Like I said, all women are built differently. You could fuck a hundred guys and still struggle to get evenonefinger in during one of these so-called tests, depending on how relaxed your body feels at the time.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” I muttered.

“It’s true. Trust me. If you asked one of your healers for a purity test, that’s what they’d do, right? The two-finger test?”

“They would try. That’s how the proving ritual works. They put their hand between your legs and see if they can…” I trailed off again, blushing to my roots. “Well, I’m sure you can guess.”

“Yes, I can. And you’re always nervous and tense during these proving rituals, right?”

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