When we got to the dining room, I had to close Violet’s mouth again. She was too impressionable. It was an impressive we were at, but still.

The food was already served, an older lady greeting and telling us to enjoy it before leaving through a door that probably led to the kitchen.

Me and Violet were sat besides one another with Mathilda facing us from the other side. She chuckled as she saw us adjust our portions by having Violet pouring half of her food on my plate. I tried to push most of my bell peppers to her plate, but she blocked me.

“Don’t be picky,” she told me with her eyes.

I can’t win all the time and we were with someone we still didn’t know all that well, so I didn’t fight her reluctance and accepted the fact I’d have to eat my least favourite food. If only it was made by her. She had a way to make it taste a lot less yucky. Was it technique? A specific species she used perhaps?

My hands were still shaky from the movie as I took a portion of food in my mouth, some of the peppers mixed in to try and mask their flavour.

Urgh! Bitter!

“Want me to take them out of your plate?” Mathilda asked.

“No, it’s fine,” I said, thinking Violet would give me an earful later when we were alone. Besides, I wasn’t a kid to be treated that way.

The rest of the food was good though. Not as good as Violet’s cooking in my—very­—biased opinion, but still good. I’d like it best were it not for the bell peppers.

“Babe, could you pass me the salt?” I asked, thinking that, maybe, by adding a bit of salt, I’d make them more palatable.

She handed me the salt pitcher, but she was looking at me weird.

What? Can’t I not even add salt to the food?

It wasn’t that, but what else could it be? She was looking a bit red, so maybe she was feeling embarrassed by me asking?

“Do you also call her babe?” I heard Mathilda ask.

I looked at her with the fork in my mouth, the realisation of why Violet had reacted the way she did making me want to apologise to her a thousand times before crawling into a hole.. I had messed up and called her by her sweetheart name.

“Erm…h-hon… honey…” Violet squeaked very meekly while looking down.

Mathilda showed the widest grin but didn’t press the subject any further, but instead continued to talk about the movie we saw and what others we could watch. By the end of the meal, we had another three lined up.

During the first, I didn’t pay much attention, only enough to confirm the difference in quality between VHS and laserdisc, but then I rationalised I shouldn’t be all that bothered by my mistake. It’s not like we actively hid our feelings for each other. We did before, but now we were comfortable enough to not fuss over what others think. I’d still talk about it with her once we were out of Mathilda’s home, just to be extra sure things were ok and to remove the last lick of guilt in my conscience.

After three movies, we decided it was time to bid Mathilda farewell for the day.

“Are you sure? I don’t mind you staying for longer,” she said in a lamenting tone. “You could even spend the night here.”

“Sorry, but we are supposed to have diner with our family,” Violet explained, glossing over the fact we were the ones cooking today and that we also still had to buy groceries.

Now, I had to find the right moment to bring up my slip up.

The trip back was a no go due to the bus being full of people, the streets surprisingly lived in, and so was the supermarket.

Or maybe I’m being self-aware?

Even now, as we entered her street, there was a lot of people around, some on the other side, others passing us by as each one of us held one side of the grocery bag.

“Abby, if you’re still thinking about… that, then let me tell you, it’s fine. I wasn’t expecting you calling me that in front of her, but it’s not like we don’t act in a way that’d make it weird.”

“…Ok. I just wanted to be sure you were fine with it.”

“…I am. And from here on out… no matter what we might do or say in public that comes naturally to us, don’t worry about it.”

“…”

“…What?”

The reason why I was staring at her all love struck was because I had a strange sense of pride over her own personal growth. From someone who was so uncomfortable with even the slightest skinship in complete privacy to someone willing to support my neediness and even indulge in her own urges.

“Hehe, now I can’t wait for our bedtime.”

“W-wha­­­—? What dou you mean!?”

I could tell her I was feeling like pressing our foreheads together and rub noses as I snuggled to her. I could, but I wouldn’t. Leaving it to her imagination was far more amusing, and would result in even more fun later when she could finally put her hands on me after leaving her ideas stew for the next three or four hours.

“Abby?”

“I told you, I’m not tellin’,” I kept teasing.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Then, what?”

She looked at me with her mouth twisting side to side before shaking her head and telling me to never mind her.

From the teaser to becoming the teased. What was she about to tell me before she second-guessed herself?

I was already in bed, waiting for her to join me as I watched her take her top off. It had finally reached the hour for us to play.

“Tips on the first hug!” I cheered as I latched on to her.

“Pfft, fufu. At least let me properly get on my—”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

We both got a bit of a scare when a surprisingly loud crack or pop came from the bed as she rolled to her side with me on top of her.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Urgh, please get up,” she asked, looking like she’d murder someone.

Protruding close to centre but more to her side was a lump that wasn’t there before.

“Stupid mattress,” she hissed under her breath.

“What now?” I asked.

She told me we were to flip it around, the lower side now coming to the surface. This one didn’t have a lump. It had two.

“Right, this wasn’t the first time this happened,” she sigh.

We flipped it around again and then rotated it so the bottom became the head part. And after having to redo the bed, she wasn’t looking like she was in the mood of doing anything.

“Sorry for making you sleep in such a lousy bed.”

“You don’t make me, I sleep here because I want to.”

“Yeah, I know and that wasn’t what I meant. I just wished everything you have to put up with in this house wasn’t all so rundown.”

Why was she sounding so negative? Was she always like this in her mind?

I told her I didn’t care about her household lack of high-end amenities, in fact, I enjoyed them.

“Maybe we should have accepted Mathilda’s offer.”

“…Is this all because of how nice Mathilda’s place was? How mine also is?”

“…I guess I’m just being stupid for no reason.”

I could kinda see where she was coming from. It was easy for me to say it didn’t matter because when you have a lot, it doesn’t bother you as much being in a place with less with you knowing and understanding why that is. Violet was the opposite. She had the bare minimum, and anything she had, it had to last for as long as possible. Seeing my old place, the new one and now Mathilda’s place was rubbing on something she was very conscious of.

“This might not be much of a consolation, but at least you have a nice family waiting for you at home. Having money is nice, but more often than not, it involves sacrificing something else, and that usually is family. I had and have my dad, but not too long ago… well, you know. And as for Mathilda, her parents very rarely come home. She practically lives alone in that house with only a housekeeper and another person or two of the staff coming around during the day.”

“Are you telling me she’s alone in that house right now?”

“Most likely, yeah.”

“Oh… Now I feel bad about refusing her invitation.”

“…Mind if I sleep on top of you tonight?”

That was half a joke because I was pretty sure that spring would feel like it was stabbing her. We had previously slept in that manner many times before, but only for short naps, not a whole night.

“I’ll just sleep on the couch today.”

“Didn’t you have a guest mattress?”

“It’s stored in my dad’s bedroom and I’m guessing he’s already asleep,” she told me as she got up.

I reached out and grabbed her hand, telling her she couldn’t go. I couldn’t tell her it was because I might get scared due to the movie we saw in the morning, but she quickly figured me out. It’s like they say, one bad thing never comes alone.

“What if we camp outside?”

“You mean, at the back of the house?”

It had been a long time ago that I went camping for the last time, the place had a high wall, the nights were mild outside, and I saw a bunch of those candles that keep mosquitoes away while tidying up the place sometime ago. It’d set a romantic mood, assuming she’d go for it.

“Hmm… maybe if we take a few blankets to serve as a mattress…” she thought out loud.

We still discussed a few other possibilities, but none of them could beat the novelty of my suggestion, so we decided to give it a try.

Oliver was very confused by our goings on, but he was a lazy cat, so he stayed in his own bed, curling his head close to his chest and covering it with his paws while we carried the stuff we needed.

It was a nice makeshift bed we made and the candles let out a nice citrous scent as they burned, illuminating our resting spot with a mild light.

The best part however was the fact we could see some stars. It was one of the advantages of living in the fringe of the town. We couldn’t see them as clearly as if we were in the woods instead, but we could still see plenty of them.

“This sure is nice,” I commented while she kept petting my hair as I rested my head on her shoulder.

“Yeah…”

There was a pause between her words and a kiss to my crown followed by many others to my face as I moved my head to look at her. She was back into the mood, so we started to play again, only this time things were feeling a bit different.

“You ae so beautiful,” she told me with her nose brushing mine as she hanged over me.

I combed her hair to one side to better see her face and noticed her eyes were staring at me with a different shine to them. Then it happened.

“Mmh! Mmh…”

She kissed me. It was very sweet and soft, like she feared I’d crumple into dust if she were to apply more force. And it was long, like she didn’t want to break them apart.

“Mo—Mmh!”

She didn’t even let me finish asking for more, and she wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to stop.

“You used your tongue,” I mumbled as I covered my lips with my hand during a break for both of us to catch some air.

“S-sorry, I… I lost my control for a bit…”

“…I liked it,” I said, surprised. “Didn’t you think they were yucky though?”

She stroked my cheek, approaching her face to mine again while telling me that, true, she thought of them as such, but after trying it out with me, she had changed her mine. So we kissed again, our fingers intertwining like our lips. Until…

“Do you want to do it?” she asked.

“You mean… you want to make love with me? Tonight?”

She nodded firmly.

It was all happening so fast, but I had waited for something like this for so long. I was so happy…

Some time later, after a lot of awkwardness of us figuring out how to do it, we were back to the same position we were in before all had happened. School did a good job teaching us how it worked between a boy and a girl, but two girls? To their credit, the main subjects of sexual education were the prevention of passing around STIs and STDs and human reproduction, not how to actually do the deed. Such classes would most likely be rightfully illegal.

It felt like a dream that I just had my first time with her, and yet, her heartbeat under my ear and her fingers running up and down my side, tickling and giving me chills told me it was all reality.

“You know,” she began before making a short pause. “I had thought about talking with dad about us before confessing to you.”

“Hehe, you’re too serious,” I giggled before remembering something. “Ah! Do you think he might have heard us?”

She pointed at the window that made me worry about it and told me it gave access to a small closed he always kept shut and that she didn’t think we made much noise at all.

“Were we inside though…” she drifted as she returned her arm to under the covers.

Good think the mattress broke on us then.

I kissed her jaw, prompting her to look at me, her head now in good position for another proper kiss.

“Do you feel any different?” I asked.

“Hmm… personally, no. I thought that maybe I’d feel more grown up after we had sex, but… not really.”

“Yeah, same. And we didn’t have sex, we made love.”

“Erm, is there a difference?”

“…The feeling behind it…”

She looked at me, slightly dejected before saying she was sorry, getting me deeply confused.

“I wanted to say… before we even kissed… I wanted to say that… that I love you, Abigail Gardener.”

If happiness could kill, I’d be dead tenfold right then and there.

Suffice it to say, after such a heartfelt moment, we had another round before we resumed our first ever pillow talk.

“…I feel more connected to you though. And strangely at peace. You’d think I’d be stressing out before, during and after, but no. I’m just… everything is quiet and calm inside me.”

I totally got what she meant. It felt like not only our bodies melded together, but also our minds, spirits and hearts. It was very strange, but peaceful, like she put it.

“Wanna do it again?” she asked, slightly rotating her body to be the one partially on top.

“Hehe, ok,” I told Violet while pushing her to her back. “But I wanna be topsies this time.”

When I woke up from a night of not much sleep thanks to my girlfriend’s appetite, it was to her talking with someone.

“Oh, hi Oliver,” I greeted, joining Violet in his head rubbing session.

Quite casually, she kissed me on the lips after giving me my good mornings.

“Hehe, I wasn’t expecting that,” I said in the middle of my giggling fit.

“Dad saw us,” she told me, putting a stop to my laugh. “I don’t think he knows—nor is he mad, but don’t be surprised if he says something.”

That explained how Oliver got outside. As for Papa Stan knowing, our clothes were all under the sheets, and you couldn’t see through it, so there was no way of knowing we were in our birthday suits.

I asked if she told him anything about why we went to sleep there to begin with.

“I, erm… I was half asleep, but I think I did. I’d certainly would have remembered if he got angry, so…” She picked Oliver up and looked at me, her face a bit red. “He went fishing so… do you…?”

She was surprisingly carnivorous, my shy Violet. Either that, or I was too cute for my own good.

Nevertheless, if she was going to act like that, it was hard to say no, even if I’d have preferred being worked into the mood instead of asked.

Violet hesitated for a bit, but she got up, me being able to see all of her. I was confused by that and asked if we were going back inside after seeing her walk to the door.

“I’m just putting him in his bed or something,” she told me with one hand on the door handle.

“Why not do that after we make love?”

“…He’d be watching us…”

She’d still get flustered over the weirdest things, huh? Good to know some stuff would never change.

Come to think of it… yeah… It’d definitely feel weird.