Rosie was new to the area, so Matthew and his friends adopted her. This was a large group with a core of about twenty, plus numerous part-time members. Most of the core had been to university together, and had developed a very relaxed, touchy-feely kind of relationship. Hugs and kisses were bestowed freely, for any or no reason. It became fairly apparent almost immediately that Rosie wasn't going to be comfortable with that, and the group respected that almost unconsciously, and stuck to handshakes and waves. Matthew was curious as to why, but when he asked she just shrugged and looked miserable, and said she wasn't really sure. He didn't like making her look miserable, so he stopped asking.
One day as they were walking back from the pub he felt her take hold of his hand, and he smiled happily but didn't comment. They walked along like that for a bit, in silence.
Suddenly she spoke. "I've been thinking about why I'm not as, you know, comfortable as the rest of you with hugging and stuff. If you're interested."
He squeezed her hand as he looked at her, still grinning slightly.
"Only if you want to talk about it."
"Well, I think so. I mean, I think I want to check if my thoughts sound reasonable."
Matthew looked around. "Well, it's a beautiful night. You can share your thoughts with me and sister moon up there, and then we can have a cup of tea if you want."
She looked at him sharply, checking his ear. "Sister moon?"
He laughed. "Sure. The moon's female tonight, so she's my sister. But give her a few weeks, she'll undergo a sexchange and she will be a he for another couple of weeks. Anyway. You were about to say?" They'd reached his house, and went round the back. Rosie sat at the picnic table, and gathered her thoughts.
"When I was young, my brother grew faster than his mind could keep up with. He was majorly clumsy, just because he didn't know where his arms and legs ended. Did you go through that?" Matthew nodded, grimacing slightly at the memory. "He'd walk far to close to me. Not necessarily touching, but I could feel him right by me, and it would drive me up the wall. Everyone just told me not to be so sensitive, and that I obviously just had a larger-than-normal personal space."
"You don't agree?"
"Oh yeah, I agree. I need a huge amount of personal space, for a city girl. But why do any of us need personal space anyway?"
She paused, pushed her hair back, and considered her next point. Matthew leaned against the wall, and watched her, intrigued.
"OK. So, I read somewhere that all humans give off a field of heat. You can sense it, across the room with sensitive equipment, or from about a cm with your hand. So, we're all just, ummm.. interacting fields." She glanced at him, embarrassed by the way that sounded. Matthew was gazing at the moon intensely, but as the pause grew longer he looked at her.
"Go on. It's an interesting idea in itself. Where it comes into your reasoning is extremely so."
Rosie wasn't exactly reassured, but carried on. "Well, yeah, OK. " Her hands started to move across the table, emphasising her points by rearranging invisible objects into new patterns. "What if... I could feel other fields quite intensely? Because, when you hug, the fields are going to mix, right? Which would be quite an intimate feeling, so not something to share with everyone you meet." He was mesmerised by her hands, recognising them as a distraction from her face, yet willing to be distracted. Matthew was also thinking quite hard about what she was saying.
"So, that means you're not actually against hugging as such, you just need to get to know someone before you hug them?" She nodded, and sat on her hands self-consciously. "I think that may just be the most long-winded way of asking for a hug I have ever heard!"
She started to disagree, then stopped, and moved to stand near him. He pulled her into his arms, and she leant her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist for a minute or so. When she pulled away, he let her go easily. She grinned at him.
"You're probably right." She looked around her. "Race you to the top of that tree?" Matthew laughed, and took off in answer. "Cheat! Cheat!!" And she followed him, slightly less gracefully.
And if any of their neighbours had been awake, they'd probably have told themselves that there definitely weren't two people playing tag over their gardens at all, and it was all just a trick of the light.