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A girl from his grade approaches him in the library after school, where he always waits for Stanley to be done with detention. She interrupts his reading of a fascinating new arrival about the history of first-aid and asks him to follow her out into the hall. Which is a terrifying request to someone like Ford, but the girl has always been nice to him in the classes they share, and even tells his bullies to knock it off when they try anything in her vicinity, so he allows himself to be lured away.
The girl asks if he's ever kissed anyone before. It's an out-of-nowhere question that throws him off. He blinks at her before telling her no, of course not. A little crease develops between her brows, and she asks if he would like to. He waits for the punchline, but it never comes.
His first kiss is slow and methodical, the kiss of someone who is trying to teach without words. It's the gentle press of lips and the tentative opening of the mouth just enough for a tongue to slip out and swipe across his bottom lip. It's the rushed parting when footsteps echo at the other end of the hall and send both parties panicking.
It's a pity kiss. It's a kind gesture, a favor even, from a girl at school who feels bad for him and wants to give him his first kiss because it's sad that he hasn't had it already by the time he's seventeen and waving off the guidance counselors college recommendations.
That's why Ford figures it feels so bad.
He and Fiddleford have been having sex with each other for quite some time before they finally kiss. It's simple college experimentation, exploring awkward and intimate things with another person who is just as inexperienced and just as eager to learn.
They're relaxing after a "study session" as Fiddleford likes to refer to it, only because it makes himself laugh, when he asks if Ford would like to kiss him. It's not a question he expects or really has the answer to, but after a moment of deliberation, he says yes.
Ford has never kissed another man.
That's why he figures it feels like nothing.
"Can we try it again?" Ford asks in the middle of a session later that week. He's admittedly been thinking about the kiss ever since it happened, though not in the trashy romance novel way where it sends butterflies fluttering in his stomach. No, it feels more like the cold dread of knowing something is wrong.
Fiddleford gives him an odd look, a curious raise of the brow, but says yes. Actually, he says, "If you're sure." And Ford is always sure.
The kiss is better. It's soft and warm and wet and sends a pang of excitement through his loins.
But really, it's still just the mashing of lips together with the occasional meeting of tongues. It's nothing special. It doesn't feel special.
It must show in the way Ford scrunches his nose as he pulls away. Fidds just laughs and reaches a hand under his shirt to direct their attention somewhere more useful of their time.
It's humiliating to say Ford tries it in his dreams. He's nearly thirty, has two PhDs, and he's utilizing an incredible aspect of the human brain that a god has been kind enough to teach him to practice kissing.
He frames it as an experiment, to make it less embarassing. What conditions are required to make a kiss enjoyable? He tries a variety of partners in a variety of situations, some realistic, some fantastical, and some just an empty void that houses the concept of touching another pair of lips to his own.
It all falls flat. At best, it can be fun under the right circumstances (though all those circumstances were sexual in nature, meaning the kissing wasn't for its own sake).
At worst, he feels like he's lying- like he's a kid hiding his hands in his pockets and pretending to be normal.
The less said about the Illithid he met in Dimension X=3!, the better. But he will say that at the very least, tentacles make kissing a much more interesting experience.
They're tending to the vegetable garden when Ford tells a good enough joke that Fiddleford feels the need to lean over and plant a kiss on his cheek, like a reward for making him laugh.
It gives Ford pause. He wonders.
"Actually," he says. "Could we try on the lips again?"
It takes a moment for recognition, memory, to cross Fiddleford's face, but when it does, he smiles and nods.
The kiss is nothing more than the quick press of lips- no tongue, no saliva, and no expectation.
Somehow, its the best kiss Ford has ever had.
"I didn't hate it," he says, not unkindly.
Fiddleford laughs, not unkindly. "That's about as much as I can ask of you."