2Annie snuggled up against Jeff, enjoying her naked body pressed against his. She smiled as she lightly traced patterns against his skin, remembering what had just transpired not too long ago. After over five years of denying their attraction to one another, and then another month and a half of dating, she had been afraid the anticipation wouldn't live up to the reality when they decided to finally sleep together tonight. Luckily she had nothing to worry about, because on a scale of one to ten, she was sure what had happened was a good solid twelve.
Unfortunately, the memory of their first time together couldn't keep her from focusing at a problem that was now at hand. And that was having to spend the night without any of her stuffed animals. For as long as she could remember Annie had always has a stuffed animal to hold as she drifted off to sleep. She had them when her mother cruelly said teenagers were too old for stuffed toys. She had them when she was in rehab. She had them when she was kicked out of her house and had to sleep in above a sex shop while hearing gun shots. They were a great source of comfort for her and enabled her to sleep through the night. She had never gone a night without at least one stuffed animal in bed with her.
Until tonight.
Annie had thought about ever since she and Jeff started going out, and knew the night would come where they'd have sex and spend the night in bed together. She knew it wasn't exactly a secret that she owned a bevy of stuffed animals. But she didn't want Jeff to think of her as the kid he used to call kiddo and would pat her on the head. She wanted him to continue thinking of her as a grownup. Someone who wasn't afraid to wear a low cut cocktail dress and held conversations on politics and could make him hard simply by rubbing her foot up his leg. So she had decided that when they did finally sleep together, it would be just with her and none of her fuzzy friends.
She just didn't take into account how hard it was going to be.
Annie turned onto her other side, careful not to wake Jeff. She took hold of one of his pillows, hoping it would do. But it just wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same.
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"Are you okay?" Jeff asked the next morning. "You look tired."
"I'm fine," Annie said, struggling not to yawn. Truth be told, she had barely gotten any sleep at all. But she wasn't about to tell Jeff that. "I just need some coffee."
"I'll make a pot," she said as he put on his robe and left the bedroom.
Annie sat on the bed and pulled her legs into herself, hugging her knees as she listened to Jeff in the kitchen. She knew she wouldn't handle another sleepless night. But she also didn't want Jeff to make fun of her about needing stuffed animals to sleep.
Maybe we can sleep at my place tonight and I can get one after he falls asleep, she thought.
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"Maybe tonight we can spend the night at my place," she said as she sat down at his kitchen table.
"Why?" Jeff asked as he poured two cups of coffee and handed her one. "We're by ourselves here. If we stay at your place Abed will be there.
Crap, she thought as she realized that. She sipped her coffee as another idea started to form.
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Annie sank into the bed sheets as the waves of ecstasy pulled back from her. While she had definitely enjoyed their second time together (okay, technically it was their third since they had sex twice the night before), it hadn't been quite as good as it was their first time. Mostly because this time her mind was on other things.
She wanted for Jeff to fall asleep, only half enjoying it when he ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her behind her ears. Finally she felt him turn onto his back, and it wasn't long when his breathing pattern let her know he had finally entered dreamland.
Annie carefully untangled herself from Jeff and tiptoed over to the overnight bag she had brought with her this time. She pulled out Ruthie, her beloved kangaroo. She stood here for a moment as she looked at her marsupial friend before setting her phone alarm so she woke up around 5:30am, her plan being to put Ruthie back in her bag before Jeff woke up. She got into bed with her kangaroo and phone so she would turn off the alarm as soon as she heard it before wrapping her arms around it and falling into a uneasy sleep.
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Jeff slowly opened his eyes as he looked at the clock on his night table. 3:27am. It took him a second of wondering why he was up when his bladder let him know exactly why he was awake. He carefully got out of bed so Annie didn't wake up and went to the bathroom.
A few minutes later Jeff came back into the bedroom. He started going to his side of the bed when he looked at Annie, figuring something was different with her from before. It took a moment of looking at her in the dark before he realized she had her arms wrapped around a stuffed animal.
Suddenly it all clicked together. Her unable to sleep the night before and wanting to them to spend the night at her place. She needed her stuffed animals to fall sleep.
He smiled a bit as he looked at her when his smile slowly went away. If she liked to sleep with her stuffed animals, then why didn't she just say so? Why did she try to hide it from him? It wasn't like he didn't know she had tons of stuffed animals. He'd even been formally introduced to Ruthie already. So why hide it?
Then just as suddenly, he figured out why. She thought if she slept with a stuffed animal he would think less of her. That he'd think of her as just a kid.
It might have taken a while, but Jeff did not think of her as a kid anymore. She might still like cute things, but she was a mature adult. And needing a plush animal to sleep wasn't going to change that.
He thought about telling her this when she woke up, when another idea came to him. He quickly looked up on his phone what time the nearest toy store opened before getting back into bed.
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"Annie!" he called out as he came back into the apartment. "I got breakfast!"
"I'm in the shower!" she called out.
"Okay." He put the bag of breakfast sandwiches on the table before going into the bedroom with his other purchase. He looked through her overnight bag and pulled Ruthie out, carefully putting her on the already made bed before putting her soon to be companion next to her.
He waited several minutes before he heard the water turn off, then another couple before Annie walked into the bedroom in a robe and towel turban. "Hi Jeff. Do you mind giving me a few minutes to change-."
She stopped talking as he stepped aside, revealing Ruthie on top of the bed. And next to the kangaroo was a stuffer koala bear. She brought a hand to her mouth as Jeff came behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Please don't try to change for me Annie. I know you're afraid if you're yourself I'll might think of you as a kid. But I like you just the way you are. I like the part of you that's serious and mature and I like the silly funny part of you. You don't have to try and be someone you're not."
Annie relaxed into him, feeling a huge weight lift from her at his words. She turned around and kissed him, loving that Jeff liked her just the way she was, stuffed animals and all.
That night, she fell asleep as soon as she got into bed, and slept more peasefully then she'd ever had before.