A Date With Angel and Other Things ...

by J. Judkins

  Kim returned with a combination pizza and renewed determination. That determination faded the instant she opened her front door and crossed the threshold.

  She had another golden opportunity before the pizza box was opened, but less than two minutes later, that elusive moment passed her by before she could grasp it.

  And now they were eating. Kim couldn’t do it now. That would be rude. She’d confront Angel once they were done. This time, she meant business.

  But fate couldn’t be denied. Angel picked up her book again before Kim could finish gathering her courage. Her narrow window of opportunity had closed, once more. There was nothing she could do. She personally hated it when other people walked up to her and started talking, not caring that she held a book in her hand. She couldn’t do the same to Angel.

  Kim waited for another chance, but Angel didn’t notice and paid no attention to her. She wanted to interrupt, but had mixed feelings about the matter. On one hand, she was glad Angel shared her interest in books. But on the other hand, that devoted interest denied Kim her chance to clarify her position.

  And now time had run out. Kim went to take her shower.

  Once it was over, she sat alone in her bedroom, waiting. This was literally the last chance to confront Angel. Within minutes, Angel would finish her own shower. If Kim couldn’t muster the inner strength needed to confront her and set her straight, she was doomed.

  The water stopped and Kim held her breath.

  This is it.

  Angel walked in wearing a towel which Kim suspected doubled as a washcloth. The effort was marginally better than her being naked, but not by much.

  "I thought you’d already be in bed," said Angel.

  Seriously, she must have plastered the towel on. Nothing else could explain it.

  "Kim?"

  "What?"

  "I thought you’d already--"

  Kim spoke in a rush before her courage could abandon her. "I was waiting for you,” she said. “I wanted to ask you about that ‘we’ll do it soon’ comment you made."

  "Oh. We don’t have to do it tonight."

  It took a moment for Angel’s comment to sink in.

  "What?" Kim sputtered. "That’s not what I meant!"

  Angel waited patiently, saying nothing.

  “I don’t think I made my position clear, and I wanted to make sure we’re both on the same page," Kim began again. "We’re going to get in bed, and we’re both going to sleep. Right?"

  “We are?”

  “That’s right.”

  Angel regarded her silently for several seconds, as if weighing her words. "Is this really what you want?"

  "That’s what I was wanting to tell you. I just want to sleep. Got it?"

  "With me?"

  "Yes, with you," Kim snapped. Surely Angel couldn’t miss my emphasis on the word “sleep,” could she?

  "We don’t have to, if you don’t want to."

  And there it was. This was precisely what Kim was worried about. Angel wanted to do more than just sleep in the bed, and it was vital Kim put the brakes on that idea and kill it once and for all.

  "Yes, we do, Angel. I insist. Beds are for sleeping. There’s nothing wrong with two people getting into bed and just going to sleep. We’re going to sleep all night long. And nothing. Else."

  "Earlier, you told me you wanted to wait."

  Kim threw back the covers. "Nope. Want sleep.”

  “I’d like to be certain--“

  “Listen, Angel,” Kim sighed, “I didn’t get any last night. But don’t worry, I’m not blaming you. It’s getting late, and I was hoping to make up for lost time."

  Angel’s face lit with a smile of understanding, and Kim relaxed.

  Angel hit the light switch as she passed, and the room was cast into darkness. Kim felt rather than saw Angel climbing into her side of the bed.

  A few seconds went by.

  "Angel? Are you naked?"

  "Yes. Feel?" Angel seized Kim’s hand and ran it along her body from thigh to breast.

  Kim snatched her hand back, her face flaming. "Yes, I feel it! Thank you!"

  "You’re welcome. Would you like a kiss goodnight?"

  "Seriously? You want to do that now?”

  "Then we can sleep for the rest of the night," Angel whispered.

  Kim tried giving Angel a suspicious look, but all she could see was a vague shadow. There had been something odd about Angel’s voice. It contained a hint of something she couldn’t readily identify. It almost sounded...hungry. Or predatory. Or something.

  She gave a hint of a nod, wondering if Angel could even see it.

  Apparently, she could. Kim felt Angel shifting position on the bed as she moved closer. Then closer still. Soon, Angel was right on top of her.

  Literally, right on top of her!

  Angel didn’t simply lean over Kim. She slid her body over hers in a way that caused Kim’s breathing to catch and her heartbeat to spike. Technically, she wasn’t actively pressing herself against her but she certainly wasn’t using her hands and arms to support herself.

  She gave Kim a gentle, lingering kiss, followed by another lingering kiss. Kim generously and magnanimously decided to allow it. She’d already decided kissing wasn't so terrible, and it was just a goodnight kiss, after all. She did her best to ignore everything else about her situation that was clamoring for her attention.

  If she had to label it, the kiss could be considered one long continuous kiss. Nothing to panic over, and she had agreed to it, she reminded herself. Besides, she wasn’t exactly suffering through it. She found herself kissing Angel back because to do otherwise would have been rude. Plus, there was that whole “pretend you’re in a relationship so Angel doesn’t get suspicious” thing the two of them had going on. Nothing wrong with a kiss or two. Or one extended one. Or one extended one that showed no signs of stopping. Kim wasn't quite at that alarmed state yet. Not quite yet.

  Kim’s lifelong experience pretty much started and ended with Angel, which meant she could only compare tonight’s kisses with the ones from before. She concentrated on analyzing them clinically and logically. If every kiss was amazing, one could say “amazing” was the norm, or the standard from which all others were judged. Therefore, these kisses were normal. Ordinary. Mundane. Certainly nothing to get worked up about, except these ordinary kisses in particular were seriously impairing her ability to breathe properly, and she kept thinking inappropriate things.

  Kim kept her hands fixed at her sides, not wanting to do anything that might be interpreted as encouragement. She tried to concentrate on her irritation. And she was irritated, she decided. Angel was deliberately lying full length atop her, her breasts were pressing into hers, and it was all very, very distracting.

  The fact that Angel was naked didn’t help, either. Not in the slightest.

  Finally, Angel shifted from kissing her mouth to kissing the rest of her face and down her neck. Kim used the opportunity to complain about Angel not propping herself up. "Don’t your hands work at all?"

  That turned out to be a mistake.

  Angel leaned away from her, but not to stop. She rested on her side which allowed her freed right hand to slowly slide its way up Kim’s stomach. It bunched up her shirt as it went, leaving the garment gathered around her neck and her breasts exposed.

  Angel’s goodnight kiss progressed further down Kim’s chest. Kim was no expert, but she was fairly certain goodnight kisses were not supposed to include kissing her breasts. They weren’t supposed to go anywhere near her breasts! But it was happening anyway. If ever she needed proof, this was it. This was the final clue Kim needed to expose Angel’s plan to the light of day. Her hidden agenda was no longer hidden.

  We’ll do it soon.

  Oh, yeah. That had been her first clue. But this was another clue, a blatant clue, no further proof required. If Kim didn’t stop her, clearly Angel was going to have sex with her, and she distinctly remembered a time in her recent history when she didn’t
want that to happen.

  Kim resolved to do something. It was past time she took direct action.

  She began by pushing against Angel, but hesitated, not wanting her actions to be misinterpreted as encouragement. While Kim considered her problem, her hands meandered up and down Angel’s naked body, trying to avoid stopping at sensitive areas that might give Angel that mistaken wrong impression.

  Kim’s hands decided independently of her brain that Angel’s breasts were the perfect location to push her away. But once they got there, they completely forgot their mission. Kim was forced to concentrate to exert full control over them to pull them away, but the instant her mind focused on something else, the hands returned on their own volition.

  So that was out. Kim desperately needed another solution.

  Since Angel was preoccupied between caressing, kissing, sucking on and just plain playing with one breast and then the other, Kim was completely free to speak up and tell Angel to stop it, knock it off, or otherwise just quit it. Kim gathered her strength and made the effort, but once again, fate conspired against her. She couldn’t seem to get enough air.

  She found herself holding her breath whenever Angel did something unexpectedly pleasant, then gasping and trying to catch her breath once the moment had passed. This likely gave yet another mistaken impression to add to the growing list that Kim was thoroughly enjoying herself and couldn’t get enough of it, which ran directly counter to her intentions.

  In desperation, Kim tried forcing herself to breathe normally, taking measured breaths despite her natural inclinations. This also didn’t work as planned. She realized she really did need the oxygen quite desperately, and once again found herself gasping and panting and rushing to catch up.

  Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. She moaned, giving voice to her pathetic nature, then gasped again at something amazingly delicious Angel did with her tongue at that moment.

  In a way, she could understand it. Guess it couldn’t be helped that she would enjoy someone kissing her and finding erogenous zones she had no reason to pay attention to before now. But all of that aside, she was vaguely sure this wasn’t her idea and she didn’t want to do this. At all!

  She was also aware that Angel’s right hand which rested on her stomach wasn’t roaming around anymore. The hand was slowly making its way south towards somewhere where it had no business going, assuming they even had a real relationship. Which they didn’t!

  "Take it slow," Kim finally managed to gasp out.

  Angel paused. "What?"

  "Don’t you remember? We agreed," Kim gasped, sucked in air, then tried again, "we agreed to take it slow."

  Angel gave her an exasperated look, then went back to what she was doing.

  Kim groaned, her senses fogging over with pleasure again. She nearly lost herself to it, it felt so amazingly wonderful. A part of Kim’s brain thought, Well, we tried, but that part of her mind was enjoying itself far too much to be trusted to make an informed decision, so she ignored it. Unfortunately, more and more of her body wasn’t seeing a problem with the situation anymore.

  Angel’s hand still rested on the lower half of her stomach, a constant burning reminder of the danger she was in. It lazily eased closer, now brushing the edge of her panties and starting to slip inside. Since Kim was so hyper aware of its presence, it gave her time to realize why its progress continued to be so painfully slow. She blinked in sudden realization. All the pieces fell into place.

  Kim found her voice once again. "The phrase ‘taking it slow’ doesn’t mean ‘make love to me’ slow!" she cried.

  Angel stopped at once.

  Kim had a perfect view as Angel raised her head and blinked at her. Her body complained loudly about the disruption of sensation. Kim ignored the complaints with difficulty, fearing she wouldn’t mind overmuch if Angel ignored her and went back to what she’d been doing.

  "What did you want it to mean?" Angel asked.

  Kim didn’t answer right away. She still had yet to recover, and was taking full advantage of the break to get her breathing under control.

  Angel continued to wait for an answer, and Kim realized she’d been given a golden opportunity. This was the moment she was waiting for. Angel was giving her all the time she needed to come up with a well thought out explanation, backed up by logic, reason, and inescapable conclusions that couldn’t possibly be misinterpreted in any way, whatsoever.

  Instead of doing that, Kim said, "It means, we don’t rush into sex right away. We take our time.”

  "You want to delay it? Again?" Angel demanded.

  "We have time, right? Let’s enjoy each stage of our relationship."

  Angel actually growled in frustration. "I was enjoying it now."

  "Yes. Well…"

  "I didn’t think I would enjoy it so much, but I did. I really did! I loved kissing you. I looooved touching you. I loved the cute noises you were making. Are you sure we can’t--"

  “Cute noises?” Kim echoed, incredulous. "Yes, I’m sure!"

  "You said you wanted to sleep with me. We didn’t even get to the sleeping part."

  "When did I say that?"

  "Tonight."

  "No, I didn’t!"

  "Several times."

  "You’re making that up!"

  Angel spoke in a perfect mimicry of Kim’s voice. "There’s nothing wrong with two people getting into bed and just going to sleep. We’re going to sleep all night long."

  "That...that doesn’t...I don’t sound like that," protested Kim, unnerved at how accurate Angel sounded.

  "You sound exactly like that."

  "The word sleep doesn’t necessarily mean sex, Angel."

  Angel spoke again in Kim’s voice, "Sleep means sex, I told you that, yesterday."

  "Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?"

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kim woke before the morning alarm. She switched it off. Angel didn’t stir, and Kim saw no reason to disturb her.

  She stumbled out of bed and down the hall towards the bathroom. Memories of last night played in her mind, of things she dared not try to forget for fear of repeating their mistakes. While she couldn’t blame the fiasco last night entirely on Angel, she could certainly try.

  So how did Angel nearly succeed last night?

  In the end, it was a lot of things adding up one after the other. Kim agreed to a goodnight kiss, so Angel kissed her. Trouble was, she didn’t stop. The longer it went on, the more Kim didn’t want it to end.

  So how do you fight something like that, other than never getting into that kind of situation in the first place?

  Her books were no help. She couldn’t think of a single example of someone in a relationship trying their best to avoid being seduced if a character was the designated romantic interest. Nobody wanted to read about someone successfully avoiding sex throughout the book. They gave in, eventually. Maybe they regretted it later, but they still gave in. Lack of sex didn’t sell.

  No, if the reader had to endure literal hours of setup, flirting, sexual innuendo and close calls, they expected a three or four page payoff written in explicit detail. If the author had them fall into bed and skipped ahead to the next morning with a barely described heated kiss, the readers felt justifiably cheated.

  Kim glanced back at the hall leading to the bedroom. There was still no sign of Angel.

  Since resistance while it was happening was a flawed strategy, she needed to focus on preventing situations like that from ever occurring in the future.

  First, avoid giving Angel any encouragement. Try not to kiss her so often.

  Second, avoid agreeing to goodnight kisses. Especially avoid them if Angel is naked and lying in bed right next to her.

  Kim disappeared into the kitchen and made herself a quick sandwich. From there, it only took a few moments to make final preparations to leave. She was still half expecting her self-appointed girlfriend to find her and kiss her goodbye before she walked out the door.

  She stood at the door and w
aited, listening.

  Any second now.

  Still nothing.

  I’m not actually waiting for Angel, am I?

  Once Kim realized this was exactly what she was doing, the spell was broken. She yanked open the door and slammed it after her with a little more force than was necessary.

  Kim took the stairs to the ground floor and unlocked her mailbox. Nothing but junk mail.

  As she sorted through it, she found herself inadvertently glancing back up the stairs where Angel still slept the morning away. Angel only kissed her goodbye once. Why should she expect a second time? She didn’t even like kissing her all that much. In fact, she never asked for a girlfriend in the first place!

  The sound of an opening door startled her, causing her to fumble with the letters in a sudden panic. She relaxed when she saw who it was.

  Betty Morrison emerged from the apartment across the hall from where Kim stood. She was an older woman, happily living with her husband Mark and their two teenage children. Kim knew Betty worked at a department store, but details were sketchy.

  Betty locked the door behind her and turned to Kim, smiling a cheery smile. "Good morning, Kim. Still haven’t won the lottery?”

  "Not yet. Still have to work."

  Another door opened on the level above them. Both looked, then both openly gaped as Angel hurried down the stairs.

  Hard to miss her, considering she was completely naked.

  In a remote, rational, and sane corner of her mind that wasn’t gibbering to itself in crippling horror, Kim wondered if Angel was attempting modesty as she hurried down the stairs with one arm held across her chest. Then the answer came to her. Modesty was still a foreign concept to Angel. She simply hadn’t wanted her breasts bouncing as she took the stairs.

  "I heard you leaving. I was hoping to catch you," Angel said.

  Kim didn’t move.

  Without further word or explanation, Angel reached out to Kim. She framed her face with her hands and drew her closer.

  Still Kim didn’t respond. She didn't resist. She couldn’t react. She still hadn't blinked. She was, in fact, still attempting to recover from her first initial shock when Angel cruelly added still more shock by kissing her as if Kim were her everything and she couldn’t get enough of her.