Chapter 23 Fore-Play
Fore-play
By the time we reached the climactic hole (pun absolutely not intended), I’d made nine perfect shots and come in at two par on the other nine.
Hudson, for all the fun he was having, did not fare so well. At the Mars-themed green, with its rotating rover protecting the cup, it took him twelve tries to finally get it in.
He was, it turned out, excellent at getting a hole in one in my hole, but not so great at any others.
Which meant that I’d gotten eighteen uninterrupted answers to my most pressing questions, all while he ogled me from behind as I bent over to line up my shots.
He grew up in rural Kentucky. His parents divorced when he was five. Without reliable childcare, they both took him on their dates with potential new partners. He didn’t resent that fact, but he did wonder what effect it had on him growing up.
After the fallout over his and his girlfriend’s tech security company, he took his buyout, freelancing and working on contract so he’d never be tied to a desk again.
(Briefly, on that point, I wondered if this was part of his I don’t want people looking too closely at me thing.
Did he really not want a desk job? Or did he just say that so he could be surface-level agreeable, survive a brief stint at a company, and leave before anyone could meet the man beneath the friendly persona?)
He wanted a dog but couldn’t get one with his consulting schedule. His home base was a tiny apartment in rural Colorado, but usually, if he had time between jobs, he traveled instead of going back there.
He loved driving, the mountains, hole-in-the-wall restaurants with questionable health ratings but amazing dishes, and cookies with potato chips in them.
Every month, since he moved too often to properly volunteer anywhere, he spent one Saturday going through GoFundMe and anonymously donating to random projects or fundraisers. He’d sent sixteen different high school marching bands to Disney World that way.
When I asked him what he thought his greatest failure was, or his greatest weakness, I waited for him to feed me bullshit like “I care too much” or “I give other people everything and they barely give me anything in return.” You know, one of those weaknesses that’s really a humblebrag.
Instead, he finally copped to my accusation.
“I never really thought of this as a weakness, but maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m too afraid to let people get close. I like to be liked. But I don’t want to be examined. Whether or not they mean to, people always judge. I’m afraid of coming up short.”
His body language told me that follow-up questions would not be permitted on a mini golf course. However, it still baffled me that a friendship whisperer who could melt the hardest-hearted engineer was afraid of people not liking him.
Out of respect for his boundaries, I didn’t push further on that particular point.
It didn’t feel fair to keep digging at a wound that had clearly not yet become an eschar.
Lighter topics followed. I learned favorite foods (pineapple, bacon, and hot honey pizza), dream job (being a vineyard dog or a bookstore cat), love language (“That’s ridiculous pseudo-science peddled by religious weirdos…
but that being said, words of affirmation”), greatest accomplishment (restarting after leaving his company), the last playlist he listened to (a collection of upbeat one-hit wonders, because he doesn’t want anyone to ever be forgotten, not even cheesy 1980s bands), and his most embarrassing moment (“I shit myself on a bus once after being discharged from the hospital. There was this medicine they gave me that wrecked my stomach and I was too poor to get a cab at the time, so I took the bus but it took too long—hey, stop laughing! You asked!”)
I’d also learned something I long suspected.
I loved making him laugh.
Just like he was laughing when, at the final hole, he pointed at me and exclaimed, “You’re a total mini golf sharp!”
The final hole was a rocket ship, impressive in size, scale, and theme, pulled straight from a 1950s B-movie. Its central door was carved out on one side, so you could see the hole you were shooting for. The inside was painted black with thousands of stick-on glow stars.
“I’m a mathematician,” I retorted.
As it turned out, mini golf, a game that literal children played for fun, was incredibly easy.
It was even easier when one had three advanced degrees in the sciences and math.
Mini golf was nothing more than angles, force, momentum, and watching your date bend over in tight pants. Four things at which I excelled.
“Next time, I’m taking you to an arcade and I’m going to absolutely destroy you in Dragon’s Lair.”
“All right, computer nerd. I’ll make sure to lose as graciously then as you are right now.”
The two of us wandered around the grand decor of this final green, taking our time before shooting our last shots. Maybe because it looked so cool, this space-age scene tucked away in a random suburb. Or maybe because neither of us wanted the date to end.
“It’s not so bad, right?” I asked. “Telling me about yourself. Look, I haven’t run away screaming yet. I still like you. Maybe even more now that I heard about that bus story.”
The tips of his ears went pink.
“All I’m saying is,” I continued, “I think you can trust me. And I think you should. At least enough to let me in and know you better.”
“Yeah, well…Same.”
Called out. I tipped my head in a touché gesture.
“All right, then. I’ll give you a freebie. What do you want to know about me?”
“What would your dream date be? Assume that you can have anything you want—sky’s the limit.”
I’d never get over the weirdness of it—that I could handle sex no problem, but the minute he was nice to me, I instantly went lightheaded and dizzy.
“I’ve never thought about that. I guess it’s sort of like my virginity.
I never thought about how I would lose it because I never felt like I, you know, would get anything special,” I said honestly.
Then, as we looked up at the sunset, I felt my head tip sideways onto his shoulder.
“But this…this is pretty close to what I’d imagine. ”
“Mini golf?” he asked. I could almost hear the raised eyebrow at that one.
“Sure. A weird sci-fi setting, a new game that I absolutely rule at, and a hot guy staring at my ass all night? If I get sex and bagels in the morning, then I’m pretty sure we hit the exacta on this one.”
“Bagels.”
“Mm-hmm. Everything with garden veggie cream cheese. Or blueberry with butter, if I’m feeling dessert-y.
” Spinning away from him, I stepped across the green to inspect the rocket ship closer, almost tripping over several “moon rock” obstacles on the way.
“Listen, I didn’t get to go to birthday parties or playdates.
For a long time, food was the only fun I got to have.
Sometimes, it still is. I have very high standards. ”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, about that sex part…”
As if summoned by a sex siren, he was on me in an instant. Throwing aside his club, he stood behind me, dragging his hands up my hips. The gesture might have looked innocent and flirty to anyone passing by, but his energy—as well as his cock, which pressed proudly into my backside—radiated want.
“We can’t really have sex here,” I giggled.
“That was what you offered me if I won. It stands to reason that you’d be interested in such a thing.”
The giggles continued. Really. Imagine it. Us. Having sex. Here. It had been a joke!…Right?
Hudson turned me around.
“Haven’t you noticed how quiet it’s gotten around here since I went to get more balls after the Black Lagoon green? I might have paid off the owner to let us have the place to ourselves.”
I had noticed the quiet, but I’d thought it was one of those rom-com-y it felt like we were the only two people on earth things, not a real phenomenon.
“You didn’t,” I breathed.
“Your physiological response,” he said, reminding me about our recent kink experiment, “indicated you’re excited by sex in public. This felt like good training wheels. Outside, in public, but no risk.”
My stomach twisted with a fierce wave of lust. He was right. The slut in me did like the prospect of sex in public, but the louder Goody Two-shoes in me screamed that it was a terrible idea. There were too many unknowable factors, too much unmitigated risk.
But if he’d accounted for those factors and risk…
“C’mon,” Hudson said, taking my hand in his and leading me toward the rocket ship.
Inside, the shoddy construction was well on display. The walls were cardboard-thin, the starry-sky painting on the walls and ceiling was chipping in places, and the conical design meant that every breath echoed. Disney World, this was not.
But the shape also meant that the walls were curved at such a degree that if you were in the deep bend of the wall, you couldn’t be seen from the outside. Partly public, partly private.
Hudson had learned one of my kinks, remembered, heard the serious desire beneath my earlier joke offer, and found the perfect place for me to explore that safely.
I cleared my throat to keep the emotion out of it. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“I think much weirder people have had much weirder sex in here. Minnie was happy just to get paid for it.”
Laughing, I fiddled with the cuffs of my sweater. I was going to do this. I was going to have sex with Hudson in a mini-golf rocket ship.
My eyes drifted to his big hand, which was wrapped around his golf club. A thought occurred. A ridiculous premise, really.
It was so dirty. So unexpected.
And yet, I wanted it. I was instantly wet. Not just wet. Soaking.
“Can I be vulnerable for a second?” I asked.
“Please do.”
“She said she has to return the new golf clubs, right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How much do you think it would cost to buy this one off her?” I asked, approaching and letting my fingers brush over his. “I don’t think anyone else will want to use it once we’ve done what I have in mind.”
A wrinkle appeared between Hudson’s eyes. His glasses slipped down his nose slightly. Then he relaxed when he realized my meaning.
I didn’t want him to fuck me. Not with his cock, anyway.
“Think of this as part of your sex toy education,” I explained.
“Anything that can be a dildo likely will be used as a dildo at some point. It can be instructive to experiment with nontraditional toys. One never knows what one might learn. What do you think? Do you want to try it? And I mean really think about that before you answer. Don’t just say yes because I want it. ”
His smile was infectious. I knew whatever was about to come out of his mouth was the truth. “Scout, how could I say no? You know what they say about having sex in a rocket ship, don’t you?”
I cringed as the joke came flying at me, too fast to evade. “Don’t—”
“It’s outta this world.”
Eye roll of the century. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
So I did.