Chapter 1: The Research Proposal

We originally met on the day she was born, or I guess more accurately, on the day she came home from the hospital, since that was two days later. We were next-door neighbours, so I was brought to meet her by my mother, as our two mothers were the best of friends, as well as next-door neighbours.

We grew up together, played together, got in trouble together, decided we were 'icky' as puberty approached, and became friends again as the hormones settled and we matured, at least as settled as hormones get in teenagers. We taught each other everything. I taught her how to skip stones, and catch frogs, and hold a garter snake to avoid the teeth, and how to bunt, and catch fly balls, and throw a near-perfect spiral. She taught me how to ride a bicycle, because my balance sucked, and how to clean a cut, and sew on a button, and how to sneak out of my room across the porch roof and down the trellis.

Even though we taught each other things about sports, neither of us was very athletic. We did play with the other kids on the street, but we were each typically the last ones picked as the teams were formed, and neither of us went for organized sports in school, beyond the mandatory physical education classes. In truth, we were both a little geeky; we studied a lot together, and helped each other with school assignments, and pointed each other into areas of research that might be interesting.

Strangely enough, as geeky as we were, it extended mainly to our minds and brains, and not our looks. That's not to say that we were magazine cover page material, but I was above average in height, and actually fairly muscular, a legacy of my Dad's genes. He had turned me on to weight-lifting as a way to maintain the muscles, and jogging to keep the cardiovascular areas in check, and I found I actually enjoyed the two activities. They were both sufficiently mindless that I could think of other things while I did them, often holding conversations in my head as a way to work through some thorny math problem, or review some passage of history.

She, on the other hand, had a fairly lean frame, and a swimmer's build, this being an inheritance from her mother, and her love of stroking her way up and down the length of our local aquatic centre pool. As with me, she claimed that swimming was a fairly mindless activity, and she could use the time to think, at the same time as she exercised. Her hair was beyond shoulder length, and very curly; taming it was nearly impossible, so it either floated everywhere around her face, or was pulled back into a ponytail, although much of it often escaped from the rubber band she typically used. Her face had a scattering of freckles, in keeping with her green eyes and the reddish tint of her hair; her lips were quite full, and coupled with the slightly angular planes of her face, gave her a quite exotic look.

We were so comfortable with each other that our parents thought nothing of letting us go anywhere in the city, as they knew that we would look out for one another. We could finish each other's sentences, and had developed a shorthand method of speech that tended to frustrate our parents, as they could only ever pick up about half of what we were saying. In short, we were much closer than brothers or sisters ever got, and probably even closer than best friends ever got. We truly were soulmates, but didn't recognize it at the time.

Things started to change the summer we turned sixteen. We were halfway through high school. We'd survived the first years, and were now firmly entrenched in the milieu, so we were comfortable with whom we were amongst our peers. Neither of us stuck out in any strange way, and we were both very near the top of our respective classes, so our parents had no worries about our academic performance.

One day in early July, about a week after school had finished, I was on my back in the garage, lying on a bench doing reps with about 150 pounds. I wasn't trying to stress myself; this was more of a warm-up weight. The garage door was open to let some air in, and I had taken off my t-shirt, so I was in shorts and sneakers. A few minutes into my workout she appeared in the driveway. I didn't hear her as she approached, since she was wearing sneakers, along with a t-shirt and shorts. I finally caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turning my head, saw her standing in the opening of the garage, staring at me, her lips slightly parted. Her tongue flashed over her lips once, and she swallowed. Her eyes seemed to be opened a little wider than usual. I looked at her questioningly, raising one eyebrow as I continued to lift and lower the weight. We seldom needed a lot of verbal communication between us.

Her eyes followed my every movement, but they seemed to keep pausing at my chest, sweeping over my pectorals, and down to my abdominals. After a moment, when she still didn't say anything, I lifted the weight up far enough to hook it back onto the rack, and then stood up, reaching for a towel. As I swung around to face her, it seemed that her breath caught momentarily, and I was concerned that something was wrong. I was about to ask if everything was all right.

"I don't think I've ever seen you without a shirt on," she said, as her eyes stared at my sweaty chest. As she started coming closer, I brought the towel up to start wiping the sweat off. As she reached me, she brought up a hand and took the towel from me, then started to move it over my chest and abdomen, wiping the sweat away. Her eyes never left my chest. I absurdly thought that I should go into some kind of bodybuilder pose, flexing all of my muscles, then realized that would be a stupid thing to do, and would certainly shatter the moment.

She tossed the towel aside, then tentatively reached out to trace a finger around the line of my chest muscles. "How strong are you, and why didn't I know this?"

"I don't know how strong I am. I've never really tried to push it. That bar I was lifting was 150 pounds, and that was light for me. And you probably didn't know it because I don't run around going 'Look at me, 'I'm strong' like the football players."

After a moment's thought, she made a 'hmmm' noise, then reached for my hands, placing them on her waist, just above her hips. Looking back into my eyes, she said, "Lift me." I looked at her quizzically, and she said, "Just do it."

I thought, 'If you say so.' I braced myself slightly, then tightened my grip on her waist, and lifted her straight up into the air until my hands were at the level of my shoulders. This put her feet several inches off the ground. As her chest went by my eyes, I absently noted that her breasts were fairly large; for some reason I had never paid attention in the past.

After a moment or two, she said, "Okay, you can put me down." As I started lowering her, she put her hands on my shoulders, and as our eyes came level with each other, she softly said, "Stop." Her feet were a couple of inches off the floor at this point, since we were about three or so inches different in height. As I held her, she looked into my eyes for a moment longer, then moved her hands to cup my face, and leaned in to kiss me, somewhat forcefully. I could feel a low moan from her throat, then her lips opened and her tongue came out between them. Without thinking, I followed her actions, and moved my tongue to meet hers, at the same time as I moved her body into full contact with mine.

She moaned softly again as our bodies pressed against each other, and her kiss became stronger. Not quite understanding what was happening, I held her while our tongues fenced, and then she pulled her head back, and broke the kiss. Licking her lips, she tenderly looked into my eyes again for a second, nodded, and turned her head to look down. I got her message, and lowered her to the floor.

She stepped back, and looked me up and down, then asked, "You could hold me like that for that long without getting tired?"

"Yeah, I guess. You're not that heavy. Why so surprised? I've lifted you up before." This was true; I had boosted her up into trees, over fences, and up rock walls any number of times as we grew and played together. I had also piggybacked her a few times, such as when she had stepped on a nail and needed a tetanus shot. I had carried her home so that she could be driven to a clinic.

"This was a little different." I raised an eyebrow at her again, as I didn't see the difference. She shook her head and stepped a little closer, placing her hand on my chest again, palm flat this time, just over my heart. She raised her head to look into my eyes, and I looked down into hers. Something serious seemed to be going on here, and I wasn't getting it.

"We, ... uh, ... we," she started in a halting fashion. I waited, a little surprised, as she was never at a loss for words. Rather than trying to complete the thought, since I had no idea where she was heading, I just stood there quietly. After a second or two, she stopped, and seemed to reach a decision, then went on, in a clear voice.

Chapter 2 »