When she pulled back he didn't move his hands still hovered over her hips as if he was being held back from touching them. His eyes were closed and his head tilted as if he was still kissing her. She wanted to cry, how could she have done this to him? She had no right to take away his first kiss when it was never offered to her.
"Why did you kiss me?" He asked softly as he looked at her. She bowed her head and couldn't think of an answer. His voice sounded so very lost as he couldn't fathom a single reason why some one would want to kiss him. She sighed and put her head on his shoulder.
"Oh sweetie, I kissed you because I wanted to. That was your first kiss wasn't it?" She sighed, if she had known it would have been more special instead of jumping him in an elevator cab. She felt his hand rise up and rest on her shoulder for just a second and then it was back by his side.
"Yes, yes it was my first kiss in the sense you mean it." He sighed as he looked to the ceiling tiles. He was two months of being thirty, had an IQ of 187 and yet right now he felt like the kid in first grade that ate the paste without it being a dare.
"I'm so sorry." Penny said as she put her hand on his knee. He stiffened his posture for just a second and then relaxed. He turned to her and saw that her green eyes were almost completely swimming with tears that were waiting for the signal it was time to fall.
"Why should you be sorry? Did you kiss me out of pity?" He said, he didn't know whether to be angry or humiliated by her possible answer. She sobbed now and then as she looked at him she swallowed it just as quickly. His eyes searched hers looking for some clue to what was going on, but he might as well have been blind for all he understood of her expression.
"It wasn't pity Sheldon; I told you I did it because I wanted to." She jumped to her feet now and moved to the far side of the cab and picked up her bottle of wine. She turned her back to him as she took a more then healthy mouthful. Maybe it was a mistake to have kissed him but she didn't regret it; not for one moment. She heard him stand now and knew he was coming towards her.
"You kissed me simply to see what it was like?" He said softly, he was close now and she could feel his breath on her neck; she closed her eyes to fight the tears off. Why did he find it so hard to understand, he could understand why quarks did whatever quarks do but couldn't understand why a woman would kiss him. She suddenly felt trapped, more trapped then being simply stuck in an elevator and felt this conversation could continue in circles if she allowed it. But yet she didn't know how to stop it.
"Yes okay Sheldon I kissed you to see what it would be like. I kissed you because it felt right and I wanted to do it." She said deflated by the vortex of images and thoughts buzzing round her head. The one image that seemed to continue was the thought off how good the kiss had become after the initial shock they both had felt, how it felt right; how it felt like she had kissed him before perhaps in one of those past lives her psychic had told her she had had. Now when she closed her eyes and continued to feel his breath on her neck she could imagine his hands on her, him taking her in a warm embrace and kissing her so passionately that she thought her heart would explode from want.
His hand reached for her shoulder and then stopped before it rested; he thought about it again and brought his hand back down to his side and went back to sit in his corner. 'interesting' he thought to himself though that was too small a word for how he found this situation. He watched her as she stood looking at the blank grey wall and wondered what it would be like. What would it be like to have someone choose to kiss him on a daily basis; what would it be like to be able to hold someone. An hour or so ago he would have physically baulked at the idea and ranted about contact being the main form for the spread of diseases but now, after feeling how soft her lips were against his, how his breath hitched when she had touched him; he thought that maybe being close to someone wasn't that bad.
"Penny I think I understand; according to Rowland Miller's Intimate Relationships text, the propinquity effect can be defined as: "the more we see and interact with a person, the more likely he or she is to become our friend or intimate partner." This effect is very similar to the mere exposure effect in that the more a person is exposed to a stimulus, the more the person likes it; however, there are a few exceptions to the mere exposure effect." He said regaining some of his usual composure. She turned to him and gave him a look he knew all to well; it was a look that said 'I don't speak Martian'
"Okay then in lay mans terms since we have spent a great deal of time together a friendship was formed and from that feelings have developed. Thus you have either consciously or unconsciously grown fond of me in terms that you wish to acquire me as a potential mate." He said soundly. She looked at him and took a deep breath.
"Sheldon, please stop talking like you are referring to monkeys on the National Geographic. In as you say lay mans terms I have a crush on you." She said it out loud and didn't even know it, she had a whopping great crush on a man she once described as a giant preying mantis.