Starting With You

6. There's usually tongue, too.

Teddy

A WARM HAND GRIPS MY NECK, A thumb running over the pulse point on my throat, as a tongue licks over my hard nipple. Teeth nip at my tits, causing me to gasp, and then lips softly kiss the bitten skin.

"Fuck, Teddy. When did you get so hot? Have you always been this hot and I just didn't notice? I'm a fucking idiot."

I wake up drenched in sweat, the dream lingering like the decade old memory that won't die. I reach into the drawer next to my bed for my vibrating friend, knowing from experience it's the only way to dispel the unwanted thoughts.

"Fuck. I need to get laid."

How long has it been? Months? Probably closer to a year by now.

I'm not big on one-night stands, not that I'm opposed, but I'm not very good at them. I get awkward afterwards, not sure on the appropriate protocol. Leave right after? Stay the night and slip away in the morning? Cook breakfast for him? Give him my number? It's just too stressful.

But I'm also not great at relationships either. The longest one was in college, and it lasted almost a year. I've had a handful of other shorter ones, all ending amicably. There hasn't been a big heartbreak in my life, no one that broke my heart beyond repair. I just seem to fall into friendship with most guys instead of a steamy love affair.

Both these scenarios aren't great for my sex life, so my vibrating friend sees lots of late nights and early mornings. And, ok, afternoons sometimes, too. It's not that I don't like or want sex, because I do. I like it and want it very much. It's just that I don't have a long line of participants knocking on my door.

These thoughts ruin the mood. I throw the vibrator back into the drawer with a frustrated sigh.

Maybe I should go out with Jackson. I'm pretty sure he does not have genital warts. And what was with Jensen anyway? He's so confusing and frustrating lately. All the little touches and his possessive behavior is messing with me. What the hell is going on with him? 

If I didn't know better, I'd think he was jealous.

-

Teddy, age 15

I PULLED MY LEGS UP UNDER ME on the Anderson's porch swing to ward off the chill of the brisk fall evening. Jensen sat next to me, slowly rocking the swing back and forth. Kelly was perched in a wicker chair opposite us, his long legs eating up the distance between us so that his big feet stuck up where mine should go on the ground.

Lately, I'd been noticing their changes. Puberty hit like a bitch over the summer, and we all suffered the consequences.

Besides their changing voices and random zit breakouts, the boys were filling out. Their bodies were slowly becoming less boy and more man. I blushed furiously every time I found myself checking them out in a non-friendly way. Jensen and Kelly were cute. Like really cute. And all the girls in our freshmen class were noticing it, too. I didn't much like that, especially since my boys were noticing girls, too.

Except me. They didn't seem to notice me. Not like that anyway.

I'd also undergone changes over the summer, but mine weren't quite so obvious compared to some of the other girls in our grade. Where once they were flat chested, now they had boobs. I glanced down at myself where my shirt was barely rounded over my boobs. My sister, Sarah, was a late bloomer, so I was guessing I would follow the same trajectory.

It's not that I wanted boobs. I saw the way guys ogled the girls with big chests. It kind of made me feel uneasy. I just didn't want to be overlooked either.