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.

"So, J, you and Isabel looked pretty cozy at the dance." Kelly wagged his eyebrows at Jensen.

Jensen threw a pillow from the back of the porch swing at him. "I don't kiss and tell."

"Ahhh, so there was kissing then!"

Jensen's only response was a smirk. Then he turned his attention to me. "What about you, Chipmunk? How was Jeremiah? Was he a perfect gentleman or do I need to hunt him down and tell him what's what?"

Jeremiah was my date to the Freshman Formal. I was really excited when he asked me, thinking maybe I'd finally get my first kiss. When he disappeared halfway through the dance, I went looking for him. I found him snuggled up with Chloe Baker, a new girl that just moved to town over the summer.

"Don't waste your breath. He ditched me for Chloe Baker."

I admitted it nonchalantly, like it wasn't a big deal, but the truth was it really rattled my confidence. With my two closest friends off discovering girls, I felt left out. I didn't have girlfriends to talk to. It was kind of lonely sometimes having two guy friends. My sister and I weren't close, so I couldn't even go to her for advice.

"Ahhh fuck him!" Jensen gripped my knee, his way of offering solace, I supposed. Then the subject was changed, and the awkwardness forgotten.

Later, after Kelly went home, Jensen asked if I wanted to play P-I-G. I almost said no because he had the look on his face that meant he was up to something, but it was hard to deny him anything.

"What are the stakes?" He tossed the ball to me. Since the days were becoming shorter, the darkness had already settled in, the streetlights casting a warm spotlight over the cul-de-sac.

I shrugged. "Just play for fun?" I wasn't in much of a mood for a competitive game.

"Nah. That's boring. How about if I win, I get to show you something?"

"That sounds sketchy. What are you going to show me?" I dribbled the ball a few times, waiting for him to elaborate.

"It's a surprise. You'll have to trust me." His devilish grin did nothing to ease my nerves, which must have been written across my face. He chuckled before stealing the ball from my hands and shooting it toward the basket. When it went in the net, he threw his hands up in victory and stood in his place to mark his spot. "From here, Chipmunk."

I retrieved the ball and took his spot on the ground. "I never agreed to it, J. This is coercion. Let the record state that I am playing under duress." I shot and missed.

"P!" Jensen ran after the ball. "That's a P for you." He sunk in the next two shots, purposely shooting from spots he knew I regularly missed from.

"You're an ass, Jensen Anderson," I declared when I earned the final letter, losing the game. "Now hurry and show me whatever creepy thing you had to trick me into seeing."

Grabbing my hand, he pulled me behind his house and into the little forested area between the cornfields. I gripped his hand tightly as the shadowed night settled around us. "J." My whispered voice stopped him in his tracks.

He faced me as he walked backwards. "It's fine, Teddy. Just trust me."

We walked a few more steps before he stopped at a fallen tree that we used to explore when we were younger. He motioned for me to sit and then he sat next to me, our thighs touching. He held my hand in his and stared at his thumb as it made circle eights on my palm. Finally, he looked up at me. I could barely make out his face in the dark.

"You know kissing isn't that big of a deal, right? I mean, the first time seems like it is. But, really, it's not that big of a deal after that. I know you were nervous about kissing Jeremiah. I thought about doing this before the dance just so you wouldn't be nervous. But fuck that jerk because he didn't deserve your first kiss anyway. Not that I do. But I just don't like you being taken advantage of, and I want to help you. Ok?"

I gulped. Was he saying he was going to kiss me?

"Teddy? Ok? You have to tell me ok or I won't do it." His voice was quiet, but he was so close to me in the dark that I could feel his breath on my face.

"Oh, ok," I stammered. "Yes."

Then his warm lips pressed softly against mine for a brief moment. When he pulled away, I blinked a few times. "Is that it?"

Jensen huffed out a laugh. "No, there's usually tongue, too."

I was glad for the darkness when my cheeks heated with a blush. "Oh. Why didn't you show me that part then?"

He leaned in, the tentative, closed-mouthed kiss from before replaced by something different. This one was more confident, his mouth harder against mine. Then his mouth parted, and his tongue licked across my lips.

I gasped, surprised. He placed a hand on the back of my head, holding me in place, and swiped his tongue against my lips again. This time I opened my mouth and let him in. I met his tongue with mine, and we shared my first kiss behind his house in the cover of darkness.