chicating

“I swear, it happens to everybody,” Jen still felt the heat in her cheeks and wished she had a moment to…either put a cool cloth on her forehead or finish herself off, one of the two, though the juxtaposition of sick-child thoughts and horny, frustrated lady thoughts made her uncomfortable indeed.
Michael snorted. ‘Maybe that’s not quite the gotcha that you think it is. You are the common element there, you know.” She hated that she still wanted him, even while he was feeling sorry for himself and making jokes at her expense, but he was never more appealing than while scruffy from the lab.
“Yeah, you know, you’re right,” she said, picking up her boring-but-tasteful briefing skirt from where it landed in their passion. She tried not to think about the night before, how being in his arms again felt like winning a prize in a contest she’d forgotten she’d entered. Last time she’d even slept well here, even on a sleeping bag and with all the equipment blinking away. It was better not to think about that; better to focus on the stiff neck and the bruises on the weird parts of her body and how late she was. Someone from CNN covered for her while she slipped in the back and leaked some story about an accident with her Ambien. “That’s why this is a mistake we shouldn’t repeat.” She told herself her eyes teared up because she pulled her hair back too hard.

“Would you still think that if, well, you know.” For a scientist, Michael was finding his technical vocabulary inadequate.

“It’s not about the mechanics, Michael. I’m not some prom queen wanting to blow up my life because of bad sex.”

“Okay, so you admit it was bad?”Michael replied. “You can tell me more if you want to; I can take it.”
“You’re our best science adviser, a decade deep in a cloning project…no, you can’t. And it wasn’t bad so much as…um, incomplete.”

“I haven’t gotten an Incomplete since 9th grade. I had mono.”
Suddenly Jen felt jealous of the girl that got to kiss Michael as a lanky bookish teenager. Even if she’d been the same age and in the same state, she might have been in trouble for talking to her seatmates.Might not have seen him going to Science Club on her way to detention. Jen had been one of those stories parents and teachers live for, kicking in to gear for undergrad. “Oh, sweetie, who’d you kiss?” There was a shocked little silence.
“I think it’s a myth that mono spreads only from kissing.