The Impact of Intimacy

Chapter Four - Research

After hours of kissing on that damned burnt orange sofa, we'd finally broken apart. My lips were more than a little swollen, and my heart was pounding, but I'd felt completely satiated as I sat back against the plush cushion.

"I like kissing you." I confessed.

"Well, that's good because I like kissing you too..."

"So what comes next on the sexperimental list? Getting all touchy-feely?" I tried, and failed miserably, to sound detached. My voice was all breathy and hopeful in more than a few parts.

"Yeah...I think." He rubbed the back of his neck. "But I'm honestly kind of worn out from tonight. Mind if we pick it back up some other time?"

"Totally." I faked a yawn and pushed my arms up and over my head. "I'm spent."

Truth be told, I knew there was no way I was getting any sleep tonight. Between kissing my only friend, making a sex pact, and smoking weed for the first time in my life - my heart was positively racing. Not to mention, the insecure part of me that would toss and turn all night wondering why Hudson Kincaid hadn't wanted to take things further. Was he lying about enjoying kissing me earlier? Was I a...bad kisser?!

I pushed open the slider to my bedroom and was surprised when he followed me inside. Sure, he'd slept on his cot of comforters and pillows on my floor most every night for the past few odd years, but that was before we'd kissed.

"You're staying?"

"Yeah....if that's still cool. My dad will be getting really feisty at this hour."

"No, yeah I mean...it's fine." I tossed an extra pillow onto his pile for good measure.

"Just make sure you lock the slider." I added awkwardly, even though he always did. Every morning, I'd hear the bolt unlatch when he snuck out as my grandparents started their puttering around the kitchen. Considering neither, grandma or grandpa were stupid, I was sure they had their suspicions, but neither said anything. Over the years, they'd seen how belligerent Buddy could get.

"Got it." Hudson almost seemed as awkward as I felt as we both crawled under the covers in our various positions. "Hey, Bailey?"

"Yeah?"

"Goodnight."

I smiled a little into the darkness. "Goodnight, Hudson."

I was right about the not getting any sleep part. In fact, I didn't get any sleep any other night that week either as Hudson snuck in and slept on my floor. It was like the second our lips had met, I was instantly connected to him in a different way - a physical way. One I wouldn't understand until I was much older, and much more gone...

***************

Two weeks before our graduation, Hudson dragged me across county lines, and to the only sex shop within a one hundred mile radius.

Aside from that night in the shed, we hadn't kissed, hadn't discussed the arrangement, we'd just continued on with our pre-hookup lives. Tests and assignments, and avoiding the popular kids, and survival sleepovers. Nothing sexy. Nothing beyond what we'd always been. Pleasant. Platonic. Plastic. Speaking of plastic...