(I'm no good at Gimp or Photoshop, you'll just have to imagine that Iris has thistle-colored eyes. Though I do now have an anime-ish avatar depicting Iris.)

Author's note 1: I do not yet know if this story will end up having sex in it or not. I am far more turned on by romance, and am pretty much a demisexual or grey ace(look it up), so it could go either way. A multi-chapter story. Also, Rianna (the older woman) is a black woman with brown eyes and hair in many tight braids.

Author's note 2: The people of these planets don't age quite the same way we do, so Rianna is 30 but looks in her early to mid 20's.

*

Prologue:

In the year 2532 AD, the planet Paxum was colonized after the terraforming machine finished its work. Once barren stone, Paxum is now a lush, peaceful world free of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other sexuality or gender identity discrimination, body shame, and sex shame. Even discrimination against paedosexuals/paedoromantics ended, made possible by teaching kids over and over again the importance of consent and bodily autonomy. Therefore rape, and other forms of assault, are rare, and corrected when they occur by means of rehabilitation or neural pathway reconstruction, as the case requires, and respectful, consenting relationships between adults and minors is socially accepted.

Paxum is also a post-scarcity world, using technology to provide all the essential worldly needs for all citizens and visitors, leaving most people free to pursue their own interests, whatever that may be.

This planet shares the solar system with another, virtually identical planet called Lucem. Lucem's inhabitants are genetically engineered to be... different... from the people of Paxum, but saying how would spoil the surprise.

We start our tale on Paxum, in the city of Lavernia, in the year 2914 AD...

*

Chapter One: Those Eyes

At last, the space elevator made it all the way safely down to the planet's surface, and its passengers poured out. Finally, after years of ansible calls and letters, years of having to wait months for packages traveling via hyperspace courier, and years desperately yearning to be together, at long last the two lovers were together under the same sun. Ecstatic, they ran to embrace each other, the younger – finally emancipated from her wretched life among the barbarous capitalists of Greshnok 4, leaped into the older woman's embrace as though they were long-lost mother and 12 year old daughter, rather than lovers whose relationship was despised by the evil hegemony of the girl's home planet.

After several minutes of tearful union under the light of Paxum's sun, they pulled apart, and the girl joyously said, "Rianna? Hey Rianna... Paxum to Rianna!"

I blinked, confused. That was not what the text of my book said. I looked up and saw one of the other librarians I worked with was talking to me, which had been the source of the erroneous dialog.

"Oh, there you are," the older woman, Aren, said, seeing my eyes slide into focus on her face, and understanding dawn on my mind. "Rianna, we have a patron looking for 'Dargon's Extended History of 21st Century Earth,' and I'm busy processing and cataloging new materials right now."

I looked over where she gestured with her hands full of books, and felt a swooping sensation in my gut at the vision before me. For the patron in question was (at least in my opinion, anyway) a truly gorgeous 8 or 9 year old little girl with almond-shaped eyes, black hair with pink-dyed streaks through it, and the most amazing violet eyes I'd ever seen. I don't mean the blue-that-seems-violet of Homo Sapiens Terrae, the original sub-species of Homo Sapiens, but instead the mauve or thistle color found in Homo Sapiens Pacis and Homo Sapiens Luminae, the sub-species endemic to Paxum and Lucem, respectively.

The girl in front of me also wore a diaphanous, glittery silver one-piece dress that would have been gaudy on some people, but complimented her. The dress bared her arms and legs, and her underclothing could be seen beneath it, but her face and those gorgeous eyes were what drew my attention. I normally can't tolerate eye contact, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of hers.

Aren, the coworker processing the new materials, chuckled at the doubtlessly dumbstruck look on my face as she worked at her console, and my chestnut-brown skin turned a redder shade of brown in my cheeks. I felt silly; I hadn't had this powerful an attraction to a child since I met my last girlfriend 5 years ago. No, correction: even that reaction hadn't been this strong.

Though I wanted nothing more than to sink into the crust of the planet, I looked away from the little girl and her knowing grin, and got up.

" 'Dargon's Extended History of 21st Century Earth,' you said? Follow me, please."

Despite not looking at her, I could sense the girl following me as I went to the right shelf. Suddenly it occurred to me to wonder if she identified as a girl or some other gender identity, since you can't assume based just on your perception of another's gender presentation. Somewhat hesitantly, I turned my eyes toward the girl to see if she had the customary gender-identifying badge on, which she did. "Hi," it said in text that bounced slowly from side to side, "my name is Iris; please use she/her/hers today."

So female-identifying, at least for today, which didn't surprise me; kids on Paxum are encouraged to play with gender. Most eventually settle to one or another, though some remain gender non-binary. It told me nothing of her genitalia, of course, but while it would be nice to know, it'd only really only relevant if we were going to have sex. Otherwise, it would only be relevant to my imagination later tonight. I wasn't too bothered about it, though; I actually prefer the mystery.

"So," Iris said, apparently trying to make conversation, "whatcha readin? It looked like lots of fun."

"Oh, um, 'Quantum Entanglement of the Heart' by Lindsay Roman."

"Ah," was all she said, but I sensed something more; she was bursting to blab spoilers, but resisting that urge.

I raised an eyebrow. "You've read it?" I asked, a little incredulous. It's not that romance novels are kept away from children on Paxum, just that it seemed above what I would have guessed her reading level was. Then I realized what book she'd asked for, and I was even more impressed. With a reading level that high, I became even more interested in her. There's a lot more to a relationship than someone's looks, after all, and intelligence was an important one for me.

"Oh yes I've read it! I've read it seven times!"

"Wow. This is only my third time around," I answered, running my hand through my braids.

"Ooh, what's your favorite part?"

"Aside from the space elevator scene?"

"Obviously," she drawled, rolling her eyes at me.

"Well, I especially love the part where the agender Neveskite uses the whistleblower's information to blackmail the CEO of Greshnok 4 into emancipating Arliata from her abusive family. I love it when the bad guys lose."

"Yeah! And then when the CEO goes back on his word and tries to shoot the Neveskite in the back, but the Neveskite escapes with the emancipation papers and releases the leaked info to the Mesh anyway, which helps the Rebellion crush the government and start installing Matter Assemblers for the people to be free of the tyrannical capitalists!" She'd said all that without breathing, so I wasn't surprised when she took a hurried breath before she finished, "I love that!"

"I hear the sequel, 'Quantum Superposition,' is due out next December."

Iris shoved her fists in her mouth to muffle a squeal of delight. "Really? You're sure?"

"Really really. I follow Lindsay Roman's three-vlog, xe posted about it last night."

"YES! Awesome!" she jumped up and down with excitement, and I chuckled; her excitement was adorable.

I finally noticed we had stopped walking a minute or so ago, and looked around to get my bearings. "Oh. We're here. Dargon's book should be right..." I scanned the shelf with my fingers as a guide, "...here." I pulled it out and handed it to her, so she could look at it. "Paper or ebook?"

She blew an exasperated yet amused raspberry at me. "Would I be here if I wanted the ebook?"

"Well," I explained, "some people come here to browse, preferring browsing paper books to three-vee browsing, and then get the ebooks, so it's a standard question around here."

"Silly people," she said, flipping through the thick tome.

I grinned. "Well, anything else you want?"

Iris nodded without taking her eyes off a page in the thick history book. "Yes, actually. I love Lindsay Roman's stuff, but I'm kinda in the mood for something slower, more romantic, without all the action and conflict."

"Asexual romance, or sexual?"

She looked up, her expression thoughtful. "Ace for a change. That stuff usually relies heavier on actual romance, it's not all 'fiery passion' this and 'he tore her clothes off' that. Sex can be fun, but I prefer romance." I was liking this girl more and more every time she spoke, and it was making me grin like a loon.

"I take it, by your love of Lindsay Roman, that normal for-kids romances aren't your style?"

"Ugh," she made a disgusted face. "Gawd no, I don't read below a high school level except once in a triple blue moon, and even high school reading level is 'slumming it' for me." Oh my god, I thought, she's gonna make me cream my panties if she goes on like this.

"Well," I said, trying to maintain my composure as I led her off to the 'asexual paedoromantic romance novel' section of the library, "in that case, let's see... oh, one more question: hetero, homo, bi/pan, trans/genderqueer, and/or poly?"

She stroked her chin adorably as she thought about it for a few moments. "Anything but hetero." I chuckled approvingly. "Oh, and I prefer girls or feminine non-binaries. I guess that makes me more of a lesbian."

"Okay then, so based on our shared love of the Lindsay Roman books, and those preferences, might I suggest 'Babes In The Woods'?"

I handed it to her, and she read the blurb, which ended in a 'meh' face. "I don't fancy other kids much. I like, uh..." she turned red and looked at her shoes (which were a lovely glittery silver like her dress), "I like older women."

I blushed, too, though of course it was harder to tell on me. "Oh. Er... okay..." I looked around a little more, at first to look somewhere else, then for a book. I finally found one I thought she might like and handed it to her, saying, "This one is called 'Under An Alien Moon.' It's about two people, a child and her adult lover, who are both immigrants to Paxum from other planets. It's a beautiful story; a bit sad in places, but when I read it, I didn't want it to end, it was so good. Good thing it's over 1000 pages long."

Iris hefted the enormous tome, which was a couple times thicker than Dargon's history book (mainly because the pages of Dargon's book were more than twice as large, and was only volume 1 of 100), her eyes wide, and said, "Holy MOLY! It's enormous!" I thought for a moment that I'd greatly misjudged her reading level, but she finished, "I'm gonna need the ebook version of this one for sure! It's way too thick to read comfortably in paper format."

Looking back, if I had to pick the single moment when I truly began to fall in love with Iris, that would be when it happened. My eyes watered slightly, and I clutched a random book from the shelf to my chest as I sighed quietly with dawning lovesickness.

I feel no shame in admitting I did indeed masturbate in my bed that night while thinking about Iris, but astonishing even myself, I never pictured her nude or pictured her visible underclothing even once the whole time. No, the thoughts that went through my head as I touched myself were of her face, her eyes, and replaying the conversation we'd had that afternoon. But I also felt sad, too, because she was gorgeous and intelligent and kind, and I felt certain she would never fall for a hopelessly shy library science nerd like me. But I was perfectly willing to accept being her friend; I just wanted to be around her, to bask in her brilliance and have lovely long, interesting conversations with her.

Every day for the next fortnight, Iris returned to the library, ostensibly to read, but spent most of her time discussing literature, history, science, philosophy, or three-vee shows with me. I'd never had so much in common with a child before, though my last girlfriend was quite intelligent too, and we still kept in touch as friends with the help of the Mesh and three-vee chats. It would be unfair to call either girl more intelligent than the other, especially as there are many different kinds of intelligence, but I will say that Iris and I had a lot more interests in common.

In fact, I was a little suspicious of Iris's intelligence after a few days, and here's why: Paxites and Lucites were genetically engineered for a longer lifespan, living between 170 and 230 years, depending on diet, exercise, and other factors. To partially offset this in terms of projected population growth, the two sub-species were also genetically engineered to age half as fast as Terrans once they reach age 8, for a period of 20 years, and thus do not reach physical adulthood until age 30. So I wasn't sure Iris was actually 8, like she said she was.

There was something else slightly odd about her as well, that I couldn't quite place at first. She seemed to have already settled on identifying as female most of the time, and though I do love a good mystery, I can usually work out in time a person's birth sex after a few weeks, barring mutations that caused a person to be intersex. But with Iris, however, the clues didn't add up at all, not even to intersex. Some days I was certain she had a girl cock between her legs, and other days I saw glimpses of clear cis-girl camel toe. She even seemed to be teasing me, confusing me on purpose, though I didn't feel it would be any politer to ask that than it would have been to ask about her genitals. After all, we weren't even dating, much less about to have sex. Not that I cared what the answer was, for thought I am partial to other trans girls like myself, I like cis girls as well. But the mystery of it was driving me crazy, for while I still got more excited at night thinking about her face and our conversations, thoughts of sex with her were starting to enter into it as well. I tried hard not to let my nightly activities influence how I was with Iris, though, since I still thought she was way out of my league.

*

The month of July was almost over when Iris came in one day, sat down on the checkout desk in front of me, and blurted out, "So I think we should go on a date," right in front of Aren, my coworker, who giggled and went around the corner to pretend to give us privacy while "secretly" eavesdropping on us.

I raised an eyebrow at her forwardness. "Oh you do, do you?" I said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.

"Yes I do. I fancy you, I know you fancy me, we get on like duth-duth birds in freefall, and all these romance books make me ache for some real-life romance."

I blushed again. "Well, er... yes, I feel that way too. Um... so what did you want to do?" I was nervous, so nervous I was twirling some of my braids in one finger.

"I know just the thing. You mentioned you like pole dancing, and I like that too, and well... the Lavernia Metropolitan Centre For the Fine and Performing Arts has the Mocksville Children's Dance Troupe next weekend, and my parents have agreed to get us tickets next weekend, if they get to meet you sometime before then first."

"Er... so our first date is... meeting your parents?"

"Well, that won't be a real official date of course, just a sort of pre-date. You could just come over sometime, maybe for afternoon tea."

"Didn't I meet one of your moms once?"

"Yeah, Matria. But that was before we met, and she and you barely spoke."

"I would be delighted to, but, er... I work through Friday."

Aren suddenly showed up again and said, "I see no reason why I couldn't handle things here for an afternoon by myself."

With that taken care of, I thanked Aren for her help, and Iris and I set a date to go to her house to meet the family.

That was Monday, and our date was set for Thursday, my only day off that week, courtesy of Aren. Thursday was our slowest day, and an intern from the local high school would be there that day to help if we had an unusually high volume of patrons that day. We spent the next two days fairly normally, the only difference – aside from our mutual excitement and nerves – being that Iris touched my hands and arms a lot, like she was already anticipating the Thursday pre-date going well.

*

On Thursday morning, I woke up in a near panic, laying there in bed staring at the ceiling, worried. I hadn't even had a single date with the girl, and already I was in love. I wanted – I needed – the date to go well. Iris could, of course, date me even if it didn't go well, but it would be a lot easier with her parents' knowledge and consent.

I didn't know how long I lay there in bed, but eventually I was forced up by my stomach grumbling loudly. I know I got up and ate, but to be honest I have no clue what I had or what I did that morning beyond trying on every outfit I owned, and even printing out several new outfits from the clothing printer, before finally settling on a simple black dress with red lace, about ten minutes before I had to dash out the door to meet Iris at the library, where she would guide me to her house.

When I approached the library, I saw Iris sitting outside on a bench waiting for me. She had her black hair done in a simple braid down the back with a red ribbon tied to the end. She wore a lovely sundress with rose-petal print, and had on white buckled sandals. On one arm I saw a white leather purse clutched to her breast, something I had noticed her do with her books when nervous and excited. Something else we had in common, in fact.

Seeing me, my dear sweet Iris jumped up and ran over to hug me in a sort of almost-tackle. I picked her up in my arms and lifted her as high off the ground as I could, making her giggle. Setting her back down again, I sat down to rest on the bench for a few minutes, and we talked, about our usual sort of things, mostly.

Just before getting up to go, I asked her if she fancied getting a piggy back ride. She giggled at the silliness of it and agreed, so I knelt down and she climbed up onto my shoulders. I grabbed her legs, she clutched my head, and I stood up and began carefully to walk away with her, the both of us giggling now.

And that is how we went to her house, Iris perched atop my shoulders, her panties flashing everyone, both of us giggling as she steered me along like her own personal vehicle, her little legs occasionally bumping against my boobs. Before long we were there, outside her house, and I had to put her down again. As I did, I thought I felt a slight bulge against my neck that may have been the sign of a t-girl, but I couldn't be sure of what I felt.

It did not take long to get to her house, especially as we were both giggling and joking the whole way there. We were practically atop it when she looked up, realized where we were, and said, "Down now, please." I let her down and she ran over to the door and yanked it open, shouting to her parents that she was home, and that I was with her.

The house was on the large side of moderately sized, possibly a five-bedroom, two-bath house, and was a lovely cream color, with a wooden porch and maroon curtains. Iris let me in, and I came inside just as one of her parents – one of the women, apparently – came in from another room. She introduced herself as Matria, and I recognized her. Matria looked like a taller version of Iris, with the exception being that she had brown eyes, where Iris's were that thistle color. We shook hands, and I introduced myself to her.

I then noticed another woman, a ginger with bright red hair and a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks, wave from the sofa by the window. "Hi," she said, grinning. "I'm Taanlen. Saw you and Iris coming from here. You and she seem to get on like paired joker-birds; that's always a good sign."

Before long, we were joined by the father, who came as a bit of a... well, not shock, just surprise. I don't know what I had been expecting, but a man shorter even than Matria, and very androgynous, was not it. He would have made a lovely woman, but didn't make a bad man, either, especially with those lovely thistle-purple eyes of his, and his excellent bone structure. He introduced himself as Derris, and led us into the dining room for tea.

On some planets, nobody has afternoon tea, or only a few regions do. An ancient tradition, it actually means a light dinner. Tea may or may not be actually served, depending on the taste of the individual or family. This being a hot summer's day, we had iced tea with our meal.

The meal consisted of cold-cut sandwiches, potato salad, corn on the cob, and fruit salad, which was delicious enough to limit conversation until most of it was gone, and only then did we all realized that they'd failed to introduce me to the brother, Avra, who favored his mother – the ginger – in looks, but also had violet eyes.

All through the meal and most of the pleasant discussion afterwards, the ginger kept looking at me with what I recognized as aesthetic appreciation and lust. I was not, therefore, surprised when she brought the conversation over to sexuality.

"So," she practically cooed at me, "are you teleio as well as paedo, or not?"

I blushed yet again, though of course I doubt anyone noticed with my dark skin tone, and I fidgeted with my fork. "Well, yeah, I'm panchrono as well as pansexual. But, sorry, I... I'm not poly," I said sympathetically.

"Damn," she cursed, disappointed. "Oh well, worth a shot. Iris, babe, you are one lucky little girl, to have the fancy of a looker like that one. And, from all Iris has told us about you, brainy to boot."

Feeling my cheeks go even warmer, I quietly said "Thank you."

"Well," the ginger continued, after getting looks of confirmation from everyone else, "looks like everyone agrees that you come across as really good for Iris. But, standard warning: if you hurt her, I'll have your head on my wall and your teeth as a necklace. Understood?"

I must have looked terrified, because everyone laughed, and the ginger said, "sorry if I frightened you, I didn't mean to scare you. Not that much, anyway."

"Taanlen can be a little intense, but she's mostly harmless," Derris explained, sipping his iced tea. "So, pole dancing," he continued, "wonderful art. I did pole dancing in my youth, just as an extra-curricular, mind you. Though I did get fourth place in my school's pole dancing finals in my senior year. Haven't gotten back on the old pole for years, though."

"One thing I'll say about pole-dancing over ballet," Matria said, fondly eying her husband, "is they've yet to make ballet an Olympic sport."

"They should, though!" exclaimed Iris. "I tried it a few times myself, but I don't have the strength for it." She looked sad as she said this.

"Yeah, I said, "the things those dancers do are incredible. I would never have had the strength for it either," which made Iris brighten.

"So," I continued, "where'd you go to school, anyway? It must have been some other country, given your slight accent."

The five of them shared significant looks before Derris spoke. "Yes, we're all immigrants. Well, except for Iris and Avra here, they were born in this country. But, uh, Iris doesn't want us to say where we're from, just yet. You'll know eventually, just not yet."

"I don't mind at all if you're foreign. Hell, we're all of us foreign to this planet anyway, and even if you were from someplace like Greshnok 4, I wouldn't mind. I'd be fascinated to know what it was really like there, though, if you were."

They all chuckled at that before he continued. "No, no. Not Greshnok. There are reasons, reasons you'll know in time, one way or another, for the secrecy. But that's not it."

I leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "Are you on the run from dangerous enemies? Are you political exiles? Whatever it is, your secret is safe with me."

Everyone guffawed at this, even to the point of snorting on occasion. A couple had tears in their eyes before they finished. Finally, once everyone calmed down, Derris wiped his eyes and said, "Ah, oh, nothing like that. It's nothing we need to keep secret, just something Iris wants to be on the down-low for now."

I shrugged, mystified but hiding it. "Okay, if you say so."

Conversation wandered in other directions for the next couple of hours, at the end of which Matria gave us two tickets to the pole dancing event for our first proper date.

"You're not coming with?" I asked.

"No. We'd like to watch it, of course, but it's not our date, it's yours. We can always watch it the next night. Also, look at your tickets."

I did, and saw a familiar red-orange symbol of a small heart inside of a larger heart, the ancient Child Love symbol, dating back to the 20th century, but with a different color. On Paxum we use that to let the staff of places know that minors had parental permission to be on a date with someone, but to keep an extra eye on them just in case. It was a safety measure, but also denoted a level of trust, so I was at once impressed by their caution and heartened by their trust. Of course, in our close-knit neighborhood, I'm sure the parents got plenty of information on my character by asking around.

The ticket itself was e-scrip, and she had added her digital "signature" to it with a number indicating trust level 3, indicating she thought I was trustworthy but it was a first date. Such trust-numbers were familiar to me, and I was pleased to get a 3 so quickly into the relationship. I wondered if they'd talked to my ex-girlfriend, with whom I was still friends, and their family. Remembering that some parents get to trust someone with their child enough to even stop using the CL symbol altogether. I hoped I'd be able to earn that kind of honor someday, but a three so soon was heartening, and I was getting ahead of myself anyway.

"A three already? I'm honored."

"You're welcome. Iris has a knack for judging a person's trustworthiness, but we like to 'check her work' so to speak."

"Mama? May Rianna and I go into the toyroom to play?"

"Of course, dear."

Stowing the tickets in my purse, I followed Iris down some spiral stairs into a toyroom half the size of the floor above, a door and wall dividing off the other half.

"Wouldn't it have been faster to ask to go to the playroom?"

Iris blushed. "The playroom is for sex and kink stuff, and is through that door over there. The toyroom is right here," she said, indicating the room we were in.

Well, that much was obvious, though I didn't say so. I saw the reason for the name difference. I looked around. The room was very well kept, but still had lots of toys visible, and a great big wooden toybox in one corner. There were also giant cushions for sitting on, a VR computer platform in another corner, and a robot-building set in another.

"Normally I make robots or design stuff on the computer, but I like other stuff too, so we can do whatever," she said. Then quickly she amended, saying while blushing, "Anything with like the kids toys, that is. Nothing kissy or sexy yet."

"Okay," I responded with a slight grin, and started looking around, even poking through the things in the toybox. What can I say? Having things in common with kids works both ways, sometimes. But it's not a prerequisite, or even an indicator; even lots of strict teleiophiles (people only into adults) are into 'kids stuff.'

"Ooh," I said, pulling out a box I'd found in the toybox, "is this what I think it is?"

"If you're thinking it's Autonotinies, then you'd be right."

I opened the box, which folded out into a dollhouse, and took a set of finger-sized little robotic dolls out of their case.

"I played with these sometimes at a friend's house when I was a kid, but I never had my own set." I considered the options. "What kind of family should we make?" With that, we set off on the serious discussion of making our little Autonotinies family, using elements from both our families. Like her family, there were two mommies and a daddy, but I added five children, two of whom were trans girls.

"Okay," I explained, "this one represents me. The other t-girl is my sister, four years my junior." I sighed nostalgically. "She was my first. Just kisses and fondling for several years. I wasn't interested in sex back then, but had nothing against it. She wasn't interested in sex either, at first. So it wasn't until she turned 13 that she asked if she could, uh, give me a blowjob. I let her, with Mom and Dad's permission. It was fun, but I didn't cum. Then she asked me to return the favor, and I did. It was my first taste of semen."

Iris started to giggle. "Let's add that to the story!"

"Okay," I agreed.

If you've never played with Autonotinies, then let me explain. They are tiny humanoid robots; you set them up and program them with voice commands, then press the red button and they go about their lives.

As it turned out, Iris had several expansion packs. Before long a school, an office building, and a library were added next to the small house. We set them off, and they began walking around living their little automaton lives. Every now and then we would command them to do silly things like funny dances, to write naughty words on the board at the school, or run around chasing each other. After Iris added a few dozen more of the little robots to the game from another expansion pack, I even had them worshiping me as their Goddess and building me an altar out of plastic, interlocking building blocks. I was just about to have one pretend to sacrifice another one to me on the altar, since they can't actually hurt each other on purpose, when Taanlen came downstairs.

"Sorry, squirt, but it's getting late. Rianna will have to go home, cause you have to go to bed, little lady."

Iris 'awwed' at her, but Taanlen was insistent, so we commanded the Autonotinies to shut down, and I helped her put them and all the expansion packs away. She then guided me up the stairs and over to the door.

"Are we gonna do dinner before the concert?" she asked me.

"I dunno, I'd forgotten about that part." I looked to Matria for help.

"Well," she asked, "do you want to take her out somewhere to eat, or eat with us here, or should we eat separately?"

"Hmm... well, the traditional thing to do is dinner and then a show, so yeah, I can take you out to dinner, Iris. Where should we go?"

"I want tacos!"

I chuckled at the choice. "Tacos don't really scream 'date food,' but if that's what you want, then I'd love that. Where should we go for tacos?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Taco Tavio's, of course!"

"Taco Tavio's it is, then."

We stood by the door, which was open. I bent down and gave Iris a hug, which she returned gleefully. "I'll see you Saturday night, Iris."

"Goodnight, Rianna!"

I kissed Iris on the forehead. I was about to stand up when she stopped me and kissed me on the cheek. I touched my face near the spot, blushing again. Not trusting myself to say anything else, I waved and left. She waved back, and watched me go. I didn't see her close the door.

That kiss... I felt light and fluttery. I practically floated home, I was filled with so many wonderful feelings. And when I did finally get home, I barely noticed myself change into my nightclothes and lay down on the bed. I felt so amazing I didn't even feel like masturbating, I just thought about Iris for at least an hour, my heart going pitter-pat, until I drifted off to sleep. That night, I dreamed of her and I sitting together in a field of wildflowers, her warm weight on my chest, and my fingers running through her hair.

(To be continued)