Story add-on!!! Please Join

[pupdog96]

HI! I love reading add-ons so im deciding to start one!!! YAY!

It was the perfect weather. The sun was just setting and you could see the pink off of the ocean's horizon. I had been laying out on my beach towel for a couple hours by now and I was getting kind of hungry. I was getting up when I saw someone else coming up the beach. He was jogging and listening to music so I decided to watch him to see if he noticed me. While passing by, I he winked. I don't know if it was to me or if he had something in his eye, but it was on my mind the rest of the walk to my house.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

Great idea!  Here goes . . .

I threw together a little plate of leftovers, and, while the microwave warmed them, poured myself a glass of wine.  My parents were out of town again.  I don't know if they're really so dumb they don't know I drink (I'm 17), or if they think it's OK as long as I don't drink too much, or if they're just giving me enough rope to hang myself.  Regardless, I'm afraid of getting sloshed enough to do something stupid (I'm especially afraid of getting pregnant), so I limit myself to one or two glasses a night, just enough for a nice, light buzz.

As I raised the glass to my lips, I caught sight of just how beautiful tonight's sunset really was.  It was red and gold and purple, and colors I'm not even sure they have names for splashed all over the sky and the ocean.  When the microwave beeped I took my dinner and wine out on the deck.

As I ate, I watched the sunset and wondered about the guy I'd seen.  He looked to be a few years older than me, but not much.  From what I'd seen, he seemed cute and kind of rugged-looking.  As I sipped the wine, I wondered what his name was.

Jeff   

[KathyS]

---

Jefferson_Thomas wrote:

Great idea!  Here goes . . .

I threw together a little plate of leftovers, and, while the microwave warmed them, poured myself a glass of wine.  My parents were out of town again.  I don't know if they're really so dumb they don't know I drink (I'm 17), or if they think it's OK as long as I don't drink too much, or if they're just giving me enough rope to hang myself.  Regardless, I'm afraid of getting sloshed enough to do something stupid (I'm especially afraid of getting pregnant), so I limit myself to one or two glasses a night, just enough for a nice, light buzz.

As I raised the glass to my lips, I caught sight of just how beautiful tonight's sunset really was.  It was red and gold and purple, and colors I'm not even sure they have names for splashed all over the sky and the ocean.  When the microwave beeped I took my dinner and wine out on the deck.

As I ate, I watched the sunset and wondered about the guy I'd seen.  He looked to be a few years older than me, but not much.  From what I'd seen, he seemed cute and kind of rugged-looking.  As I sipped the wine, I wondered what his name was.

Jeff   

---

The buzz in my head was humming away, and the ocean made happy sounds on the shore.  I loved this time of evening. The air was especially warm tonight, which prompted thoughts of a late night swim.

This end of the beach, where I live, is pretty secluded, and after dark it's really great for skinny dipping.  I decided that's what I'd do.  I stacked what few dishes I had, in the dishwasher, taking me only a couple of minutes, then grabbed my towel out of the laundry room, setting a race against time.  For what, I didn't know.  I jumped down the steps, two at a time, heading straight for the water.  Living on the edge of this sandy beach was a privilege. I didn't think much about it, as something I had, and nobody else did.   

I wondered, again, about that guy I saw today.  I wondered where he lived.  I'd never seen him around before.  Oh well, probably just someone who wandered into the neighborhood.  We get people cutting in and out, between the houses, all the time.  Surfers who think our waves are so cool, better than a mile down the road at the public access beaches.  He's probably just scouting out the waves, I thought.  But that wink?  Hmm.  Was he scouting out me?  Big flirt, that's all he was!

I dropped my towel as I ran to the surf, then taking a big lung into the cresting wave I hit something hard.  Yikes!  What the.....???  

Kathy

[Whisper-Lynn]

      As I started, my eyes began to burn.  My brilliant sunset was gone, the sound of waves crashing upon the shore just a soft music coming through my window with the morning sun.  I pushed on the hardwood floor of my bedroom, made my way up onto my knees and felt for a bump on my forehead before standing to my full height.  A dizziness engulfed me and I was unsure if it could be entirely credited to my graceful exit from my bed of if the mystery boy from my dream had something to do with it.

      Normally I don't remember my dreams.  Only on the rare occasion that I have a nightmare will a subconscious image stick with me, not to mention that the selection of actual half naked boys in town this time of year leaves very few who stand out.  So imagine my frustration when he invaded my thoughts during my entire morning routine.  In the shower I'm pretty sure I shampooed my hair twice because I couldn't remember if I had already done it, I burned three rounds of scrambled eggs before compromising with a bowl of cereal, and caught myself zoning off during my favorite television show, (thank goodness for DVR).  This is the kind of effect I usually have on guys, not the other way around. At around eleven, the phone rang.

      Zane had been my summer hook-up going on three years now.  It was the best voice I could've heard at that moment.  Zane and I had known each other since he started staying summers in the house across the street when we were nine.  We instantly connected and a couple years ago took the plunge.  Things just worked with me and Zane.  Neither one of us wanted anything serious, (with anybody), so there was no weirdness or jealousy, we were just comfortable with each other and were free to have fun.  I was just reveling in the timely distraction when I heard a knock at the door.  Putting Zane on hold in the middle of hearing about the big bon fire that we'd be going to later tonight, I answered the door expecting a delivery or certified letter for my Mom, an investigator's work's never done, and there he was.  Holding a certified letter, donning a strangely flattering DHL outfit, my dream boy.  "Damn".

[tiffany57]

Wow... this story is awesome! Great job everyone!

[Jefferson_Thom…]

Thanks, Tiffany!

Jeff

[pupdog96]

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tiffany57 wrote:

Wow... this story is awesome! Great job everyone!

---

i agree! I'm gladd i started it!

[Whisper-Lynn]

Thanks!  I think this is my favorite post of all that I've contributed to!

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     I woke up in Zane's arms, my head on his shoulder.  I looked over at the clock.  As we sometimes did, we'd made love over and over, literally half the afternoon, until we'd fallen into a blissful, utterly-spent sleep.  I looked at him.  He woke up and our eyes met.  The look in his eyes almost made me want to try to make love yet again, even though I knew we'd never be able to.  We smiled at each other and then kissed, a long gentle one.

     I finally broke our kiss long enough to announce, "I'm starving!  I'll scrounge up something to eat."  I got out of bed and started toward the kitchen.  "What time does the bonfire start?"

     Zane reminded me, "Hey, don't bother with a lot of food now; people usually bring lots of food to these things."

     I'd forgotten.  Of course I wouldn't have to try to whip up a gourmet meal for Zane and me out of leftovers; there'd be lots of hot dogs and stuff at the bonfire tonight.  Still naked, I took a glass casserole dish of lasagna out of the fridge and put it into the microwave.

     While it warmed, I put ice and lemonade into glasses.  Zane came out of my bedroom, and put forks and napkins on the kitchen table.  For the hundredth time, I admired his naked body.  Slender without being skinny; muscular without looking like he takes steroids.  I love being his friend with benefits.  He caught me checking him out, and when he finished setting the table he came over, took me in his arms and kissed me.  As we kissed, I actually started blushing at how aroused I was becoming.  I kept reminding myself to save it for the bonfire tonight.

     The bonfire.  I winced at the thought of how dumb I'd sounded earlier today when my mystery guy from the beach delivered a certified letter for my mom.  I'd opened the door and squeaked, "Hi!"  I thought I'd sounded like a cartoon character.  There followed a dorky exchange that went something like:

     "Sarah Davidson?"

     "You want my mom."  No!  Please don't fall in love with my mom; I want you!  And she's still married to my dad, you homewrecker!  "I mean, she's my mom."

     "Oh.  Well, can you sign for this?" 

     "Sure!"  Squeaky cartoon character again.  Do something!  Ask him out or something!  Do something!  "Uh . . . uh . . ."  It'd be a lot easier to talk to you if my heart weren't pounding so hard!  "There's gonna be a bonfire on the beach tonight.  Maybe you could come?"  Please meet me there, take me in your arms and --

     "I'd love to.  I'll see you tonight."  Then he was gone.

     When I clicked the phone to take Zane off of hold, he was laughing.  "I don't think your hold button works right!"  He'd heard everything.

     I gritted my teeth.  "Just get over here."  And I meant every word.  When the doorbell rang, after I checked the peephole, I answered it naked.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     After we ate, Zane and I took a shower together.  It's nice, of course, but neither as sexy or romantic as it sounds.  For one thing, there really isn't enough room, at least not in my parents' shower, so you spend a lot of time waiting for each other so you can get under the water.  Zane gently soaped me up.

     I grinned up at him.  "I think those are clean enough now," I said.

     "Hey, you want to be clean if you meet someone tonight," he replied cheerfully.

     "Meet someone?" I laughed.  "After this afternoon, I can hardly walk!"

     "Just taking good care of my woman," he said.

     I looked at him.  Neither of us said anything.  I wasn't "his woman" any more than he was "my man."  We were great summer hook-ups, but that's all we were; there weren't any strings attached.

     "Sorry," he mumbled.  We didn't say much else as we finished our shower.

     And that hadn't been the first time things had almost gotten weird between us.  We have a rule:  when either of is dating anyone, we try to keep our hands off each other.  We haven't always been successful.

     Last summer, Zane had been dating this girl Cassie.  Cassie and I weren't close friends or anything, but we always got along well.  One afternoon, Cassie's mother had caught her and Zane in the act.  She had freaked and grounded Cassie for, like, the rest of her life.

     About a week later, Zane and I were at a bonfire on the beach.  Without thinking, I leaned over and kissed him.  We were far away from anyone else and one thing was very much leading to another when, maybe ten feet away, I heard Cassie's voice call, "Zane?"  Unknown to Zane, she'd been begging her mother to let her go to this one bonfire and her mother had relented just this once.

     Zane panicked and rolled off of me, his bathing suit around his ankles, his intentions toward me very obvious, even in the dim light from the distant bonfire.  He tried to apologize, but Cassie screamed some insults I won't repeat (which we deserved), kicked him and ran off crying.  By the time I fumbled my bikini top back on and ran after her, she was gone.

     I felt awful, like some big slut.  I spent the next week or so calling, texting and emailing Cassie trying to apologize and begging her to forgive me.  I honestly hadn't meant to hurt her.  Zane and I had been friends with really nice benefits for a long time, so I just didn't think of myself as infringing on Cassie's turf, even though I clearly was.  Cassie dumped Zane and never completely forgave me.  It was just dumb luck that the (somewhat true) rumors about me died down before school started that September.  Zane and I resolved to more strictly observe our hands-off-during-relationships rule, not to mention trying to be more careful about having sex in public.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     By the time we finished our shower, Zane and I were looking forward to the bonfire, the awkwardness between us gone.  Zane selected a bathing suit from the small stash of his clothes we keep hidden in one of my dresser drawers (someday my mom will probably find it and freak out, but til then it's kinda fun living on the edge).  I threw some beer, white wine, hot dogs and vodka into a cooler, locked the house and we set off down the beach.

      Sunset was at least another hour away when we arrived, so we wandered around saying hi to people we knew.  Mrs. Anderson greeted us warmly.

     Mrs. Anderson is one of those people who's always nice.  She has always been almost like a second mother to me.  I met her one day when I was little.  I was bicycling home from school when I hit a patch of gravel I hadn't noticed and went flying over my handlebars.  Mrs. Anderson happened to hear me crying and came running.  She brought me into her house, washed the sand and other gunk off my scraped arms and put some soothing goo on them.  Then she helped me walk my bicycle the five or six blocks to my house (I was too scared to ride it), and made sure I ended up safely in my mother's arms.  I've always been grateful to her, and she's that nice to everyone.

     Tonight she was firing up a grill.  "Did you bring anything you want me to cook?" she asked us.

     "Thanks, Mrs. Anderson," I replied, getting the hot dogs out of the cooler and handing them to her, thinking I hadn't let her see the beer, wine and vodka.

     But as she accepted the hot dogs, she grinned and winked at me.  "Just don't get wasted and do anything dumb," she said.  How grownups sometimes know exactly what you're planning is beyond me.

     Zane and I continued toward where they were building the bonfire.  He kissed me.  "Why don't you go look for your mystery guy?" he suggested.  "I'll help them finish stacking the wood for the fire.  If neither of us hooks up with anyone, let's meet by Mrs. Anderson's grill when we get hungry."  We kissed again and went our separate ways.

        I wandered around, looking for my mystery guy.  Instead of him, I caught sight of Mrs. Clark.  Mrs. Clark isn't like Mrs. Anderson at all.  She was stumbling around with a guy my age, their arms wrapped around each other, her head on his shoulder.  I thought, "My God, she's already drunk!  Not to mention throwing herself at guys half her age."  I rolled my eyes and continued searching for my mystery guy.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     After an hour, I still hadn't found my mystery guy, and I was beginning to think he wasn't coming.  Fortunately, I'd run into some girlfriends and we'd begun talking.  I'd opened the cooler, and we'd started in on the wine (at this hour, we weren't yet in the mood for the total-oblivion effect of vodka).

     "Like, why are boys so stupid?" Jessica demanded.  "I was practically naked!" 

     Our friend Charlotte, who is more experienced than the rest of us put together, replied gently, "Jess, honey, you undid one button."

     "Which he didn't even notice!  He went right on playing that stupid game!"

     Charlotte just laughed and rolled her eyes.  Her ideas about getting what she wants from guys do not involve subtlety.  And if a guy isn't interested, she just moves on to one who is.  The only guys I'm sure she will not sleep with are guys already in relationships; I've seen her turn them down. 

     Brenna said, "God forbid you should ever just not be in the mood.  I wanted to kill Jason last night!"

     "What happened?" Jessica asked.

     "He just would not take 'no' for an answer!  He was acting like a pig!"

     "What did you do?" 
 

     "Told him if he didn't stop, I'd tell his parents he got me pregnant!"

     I gasped, "C'mon, Brenna; his parents would freak!"

     "Exactly!  It calmed him down right away!"

     "You'll be lucky if he doesn't dump you or something!" Willow exclaimed.  Willow is the only member of our group who's still a virgin.  Except for the girls with strong religious beliefs, we think she's the oldest virgin in the whole school.  We don't understand what she's so afraid of, but we respect her decision.  We spend a lot of time hugging her while she cries.  She gets dumped a lot.  Charlotte has even offered to share guys with Willow.  She has told her, "You go right on loving everything from the waist up; I'll take care of everything from the waist down."  So far, Willow has declined.

     Charlotte said, "Hey, I think they're about to light the bonfire."

     She was right.  It was nearly dark.  I hadn't realized we'd been talking so long.  I said, "Is anybody else hungry?"

     "Yeah; let's go get some food and watch the fire."

     As we walked back toward Mrs. Anderson's barbecue grill, I wondered where my mystery guy was.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

I finally took some time on weekends to finish this story.  I'm going to post it in many sections tonight.  I hope people like it.

This story suddenly took on a life of its own and took itself in a direction completely different from what I think the original poster intended, and for that I think I owe Pupdog96 an apology.  I hope I didn't ruin your story!

Pass the popcorn; here we go . . .

Jeff

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     I was getting discouraged.  It was late, I was tired and I had wandered around the bonfire on the beach for hours looking for my mystery guy without finding him anywhere.

     My friends had pretty much deserted me.  Charlotte had hooked up with some random guy who looked about 15 (so had Mrs. Clark); Brenna and Jessica had left with their boyfriends; and Willow had seen some guy she liked, but had refused to give her virginity to, making out with another girl and so had gone home crying, as usual.  Even Zane had hooked up with some girl I'd never met.  I realized -- rather belatedly, I guess -- that I just wasn't having any fun at this bonfire anymore.  Everyone else certainly was, but I wasn't.

     I decided to text Zane that I was going home, even though I didn't want to interrupt what I was sure he was doing.  As I fumbled through the outside pouch of the cooler I'd brought, I realized I'd even forgotten my stupid cell phone.  What a dumb thing to do!

     I got mad then, mostly at myself.  No wonder my stupid parents were always lecturing me about maturity and responsibility and all kinds of other irrelevant nonsense -- I couldn't do a simple thing like remember my cell phone.  And everybody in the world except me was having fun!  I opened the cooler, took out the bottle of vodka and took a large swig.  As it burned my throat and brought tears to my eyes, I laughed and reminded myself not to do THAT again anytime soon!  As I started walking home along the beach, I took several much smaller drinks of vodka.  I began to feel better.

     I realized I was expecting my parents home the day after tomorrow.  I would go straight home, go to bed, try to get up early tomorrow and straighten up the house a little before they got home.  Sure, they can be jerks sometimes, but even they don't have to come home to a pigsty.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     I'd been walking maybe ten minutes.  I had just put the vodka bottle away for good when I heard a cheerful voice call out, "Hi, Alex!"  My name is Alexa, so most of my friends call me Alex.

     My heart leapt.  The voice belonged to the only adult I'm always happy to see, except for Mrs. Anderson.  His name is Sebastian, of all things (who does that to their kid anyway?), and he's the only adult I know I can completely trust.  I've confided dozens of major secrets to him over the years (like when Zane and I took each other's virginity), and he's never once betrayed a confidence.

     "Sebby!" I cried.  It's a nickname I gave him when I was about nine years old just to annoy him.  It works.

     I ran up the steps to his deck, tossed the cooler on to a chair, flung my arms around him and squeezed like crazy.  It always feels good to see him.  He gives some of the best hugs ever.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     Sebastian and my parents and a woman named Grace were best friends in college.  The four of them hung out together all the time until it became obvious that my parents were more interested in each other than in anyone else.  Sebby and Grace dated for a while, but the guy she really wanted was my dad and he was totally into my mom so the group sort of broke up, but Sebby and my parents stayed friends.

     Sebby used to babysit me when I was little.  He's a writer, so he works from home and doesn't mind juggling his schedule to fit me in.  Anytime my parents both had to go out of town at the same time, I would bicycle home from school to find Sebby waiting for me at my dining room table, banging away at this silly old-fashioned portable typewriter.  He would always have a snack waiting for me, usually involving something chocolate (my favorite food in the world), and he would always take his hands off that stupid old typewriter and talk to me.  It got so we could talk about anything:  boys, school, boys, homework, boys, my friends, boys and, of course, boys.  He always gave me good advice when I wanted it, never betrayed a confidence and sat and listened when I just needed to vent.

     When I was little, we would play video games when I came home from school, or watch TV together.  When I was older, he would help me with my homework.  On the first floor of his house, where there's supposed to be a bedroom, he has this enormous library containing, I think, at least one old-fashioned dead tree  book about every subject that anyone has ever written anything about.  He still has, no kidding, two complete sets of ancient hardcover encyclopedias.  His library is where he does a lot of his research for the books he writes.  He has to have this gadget that controls the humidity, else the damp salt air here at the beach would ruin all those silly, old-fashioned paper books.  I keep telling him to convert them to digital, a suggestion that absolutely horrifies him.  He starts babbling about sacrilege and heresy while I start laughing.  He does cheat, though -- he also has a lightning-fast Internet connection in his library.  All kidding aside, though, that goofy paper library helped me get really good grades.  No one else in school had access to so much old trivia!  

     When he babysat me, he usually let me decide what to have for dinner, so he ended up good-naturedly suffering through tons of burgers, pizza and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Then I discovered this little Italian restaurant.  I thought the candles made from old wine bottles were the coolest thing I'd ever seen.  I made him take me there over and over again.  My pre-pubescent mind had no way of knowing it, of course, but at a very young age I was "dating" Sebby.       

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     My mother was always terrified that someone would break in and kidnap me (never happened), so either Sebby would spend the night in our guest room or I would spend the night in his.  I always preferred the latter.  He had better video games and much better books than we did.  I would just lose myself in his library.

     One night when I was around 7 or 8, something weird happened that changed my life.  I've never liked thunderstorms, and there was a particularly bad one that night.  When it finally died down, Sebby, as he usually did, lovingly tucked me in and read me a story until I fell asleep.  A couple of hours later the storm came back and woke me from a nightmare with a ferociously-loud clap of thunder.  I let out a scream that would have woken the dead, ran down the hall to Sebby's room and threw myself into his bed.  I was terrified.  Nothing in my life up to that moment had ever felt as good as Sebby's strong arms around me or his soothing voice gently telling me over and over that it was just a storm and that everything was going to be OK.  I finally stopped trembling and crying, and fell asleep.

     I woke up -- still in his arms -- a very different little girl.  I could not have begun to explain it, but I knew I never wanted to spend another night anywhere except in Sebastian's loving arms.  I'd felt loved; I'd felt safe.  Nearly every time he babysat me after that night, I used to make up an excuse to sleep in his bed.  "What if a storm comes?"  "What if a burglar breaks in?" 

     "What if I tell your parents what a clingy little crybaby you've turned into?"

     I'm not proud of this, but several times over the years I had to settle the issue by crying.  Usually, Sebastian would roll his eyes and say something like, "This time, stay over on your own side of the bed."

     "No!  You're supposed to take care of me!  That means making me not scared anymore!"

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     When I was eleven I developed a huge, slobbering crush on Sebastian.  I thought about him constantly.  I wrote, "Mr. and Mrs. Sebastian Rutherford Wentworth III" (yes, that really is the poor guy's name; what were his parents thinking?) over and over in a notebook in the most garish shade of red ink you ever saw.  I invented the world's flimsiest excuses to go see him.  I would lean over as if to kiss him on the cheek and "accidentally" miss and kiss him partly on the lips.  I lay awake in his bed late at night tying to devise ways to seduce him.  He, of course, being a gentleman, kept pretending nothing was going on.  He would hold me when I cried, of course, and watch out for me and prepare snacks for me and help me with my homework, and tell me everything would be OK, but nothing else.  Eventually my unrequited crush simply ran its course, and he went back to being babysitter, friend, advisor and comforter.  I was able to go entire nights at a time with his arm around me without wracking my brains trying to come up with a way of mustering the courage to tear his pajamas off.

     I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was fully thirteen years old before I suddenly realized, to my horror, how incredibly inappropriate it was for me to still be sleeping snuggled up in his arms the way I was.  I made myself sleep in my own bed after that.  

I missed him.     

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     I gave Sebastian a good long hug.  His arms felt so good around me.  For a moment I felt like a little girl again -- snuggled up in a place where nothing could hurt me.  Finally I let go.

     Sebastian poured me a glass of wine and we sat down.  He put his arm around me and I leaned my head against his shoulder and took a sip of wine.  He has this way of knowing exactly what I want and whether or not something's troubling me.  He asked, "So, you feel like talking about it?"

     At first I didn't.  I just wanted to sit there on that ugly outdoor furniture with his arm around me and watch the moonlight and listen to the waves.  But as I started to try to put my feelings into words, I found myself wanting to talk more and more.  I ended up telling him everything:  that I sometimes wonder if I want to be more than friends with Zane; that I sometimes worry that Charlotte will catch something from all the guys she sleeps with; that I'm afraid Willow will turn into a bitter old spinster; that I was mad at myself for forgetting my cell phone; that I was upset because I couldn't find my mystery guy; and that I was angry and envious that everybody else -- even desperate, pathetic Mrs. Clark -- had hooked up with someone at tonight's bonfire.  It seemed terribly unfair that I had been left out, seemingly on purpose.  I started to cry.

[Jefferson_Thom…]

     Sebby started talking.  I'm sure that, as usual, he was offering very sensible advice that I should have listened to.  But talking things out had put everything in much better perspective for me.  I suddenly realized what I really wanted.

     Please don't ask me why I did what I did next.  It was one of the craziest things I've ever done in my life.  Maybe it was the moonlight, the warm salt air and the cool breeze.  Maybe it was just how right Sebastian's arm felt around me.  Maybe talking had made me realize that I was even lonelier than I'd realized.  Maybe I was mad because everybody at the bonfire was having fun except me.  Maybe I realized that I'd been in love with Sebastian Wentworth literally most of my life, since I was around four years old.  Maybe I was just drunk.

     Regardless, I sat up, squirmed around and faced him.  He stopped talking, right in the middle of sentence and looked at me, wondering what I was doing. 

     I leaned over and kissed him.  Not an innocent, little-girl kiss on the cheek, the kind I'd given him literally thousands of over the years, but a very big-girl full-on-the-lips kiss.  I gently parted his lips with my tongue.

     For a second he didn't do anything, and I was sure I'd made a horrible mistake.  I'd never be able to face him again.  Maybe I could just laugh the whole thing off:  "Fooled you, there, Sebby!"  Maybe I could say I was on some sort of medication:  "Well, the bottle says one of the side-effects is uncontrollable stupidity." 

     But he finally started kissing me back; then he put his arms around me.  Five minutes later, we were carrying our bathing suits up the stairs to his bedroom.