Safe Sex Stories is Condom Monologues’ fiction series about intimacy, communication, and safer sex as part of real desire, not an interruption of it.
The balcony at the little repertory theatre had a radiator that knocked twice every ten minutes, a carpet patterned with red diamonds, and a view of the lobby bar where everyone pretended not to be watching everyone else.
June found Ari there after the second act, leaning against the brass rail with the folded program in one hand. He had circled three typos in the cast bios and drawn a small star beside her name.
“Is this a review?” she asked.
Ari looked caught, then pleased to be caught. “It’s a program with strong opinions.”
“About my performance?”
“About proofreading. Your performance was unfairly good.”
June took the program from him. She had met Ari six weeks ago at a friend’s reading, then again at a mutual friend’s moving party, then once by accident in the pharmacy aisle while both of them were buying throat lozenges and pretending that was normal. Tonight he had come alone and sat in the back row, which felt less casual than either of them had admitted.
Downstairs, someone laughed too loudly. The lobby lights flickered once. Above them, the old chandelier made every face look temporarily brave.
“Can I say something without making the balcony weird?” Ari asked.
“The balcony was weird before we got here.”
“Fair. I wanted to kiss you after the reading. I wanted to kiss you at the moving party. I wanted to kiss you in the pharmacy, but that felt like a setting where no one should make life decisions.”
June folded the program along its original crease. “You are very considerate of retail lighting.”
“I try.”
She smiled, and the smile gave her away before the words did. “I wanted that too.”
He did not move until she stepped closer. When they kissed, it was soft at first, all the noise of the lobby slipping down a hallway somewhere. His hand stayed at her waist where she had put it. Her fingers found the lapel of his jacket. The radiator knocked twice and made them laugh into each other’s mouths.
“Still yes?” he asked.
“Still yes.”
After the curtain call and the awkward congratulations and the director’s speech about donor retention, they walked to June’s apartment under a warm rain that turned the sidewalks silver. Ari carried her prop bag without making a ceremony of it. She liked that. She liked the quiet, the fact that he did not try to turn the whole night into proof of anything.
At her door, June paused with her keys in her hand. “I want you to come up. I also want us to talk before we get carried away.”
“Good,” Ari said. “I like carried away better when it has a map.”
Inside, she put the kettle on because the apartment always seemed less dramatic with tea in progress. They sat on the kitchen floor with their backs against the cabinets and told each other the practical things. June said she was not seeing anyone else, had tested negative in early May, and wanted condoms for penetration every time. She had a latex sensitivity once years ago, so she preferred non-latex condoms and water-based lube. She liked direct check-ins and hated anyone treating consent like a mood killer.
Ari listened without performing shock or expertise. He said he had tested negative in April, was not seeing anyone else, and had non-latex condoms in his overnight bag because hope and anxiety had packed it together. He asked whether she wanted him to slow down if she got quiet. She said yes, quiet could mean she was happy, overwhelmed, or thinking, and asking would never ruin anything.
“Anything off-limits tonight?” he asked.
“Rushing,” she said. “And pretending we know each other’s bodies already.”
“Then we don’t.”
That answer did more for her than any line could have. They moved from the kitchen to the bedroom with the rain tapping the air conditioner and the theatre program still tucked in Ari’s jacket pocket. June checked the condom wrapper herself: sealed, in date, with the little cushion of air intact. They used lube, paused when they needed to, laughed when the fitted sheet tried to stage a rebellion, and kept asking small questions that made the room feel safer and more electric at the same time.
Afterward, Ari held the condom at the base as he pulled out, tied it off, and wrapped it before throwing it away. June lay beside him in the blue dark, one knee hooked over his, listening to the radiator settle.
“For the record,” he said, “your balcony scene was also unfairly good.”
“You already reviewed it.”
“I have notes.”
In the morning, she found the program on the kitchen table. Under the star beside her name, Ari had written: Excellent use of exits, entrances, and asking first.
June added a second star and left the program where he would find it.
This Safe Sex Stories piece is a work of fiction. All characters are adults. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is coincidental.