Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

By Rebecka

It was half an hour later. Agnes and I sat side by side on the seat directly behind Mr. Sanford’s driver’s seat, wrapped in all four blankets, staring out the doors. Strangely, they hadn’t iced up the way the windows had. I didn’t understand it; I was just grateful.

“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked. The words came out barely recognizable. Both Agnes and I were erupting in uncontrollable spasms of shaking. I had my hands jammed in my pockets, and my chin buried in the zipped up collar of my coat. My legs were freezing inside the thin lining of my Levi’s; my toes were numb.

“Sure he is,” Agnes replied unconvincingly. “He’s probably reached a house, called the police, and is on his way back right now.”

Outside, the second flare sputtered and died. Without thinking, I stood up, yanked open the doors and dropped down into the well. We were starting on our second half hour. How long could someone, even well bundled up as Mr. Sanford was, survive in this cold? On the good side, I could still see where he’d plowed through the snow, which I hadn’t been able to fifteen minutes before. The wind blew just as hard, but there was less snow obscuring my vision. Unfortunately, the temperature hadn’t improved at all.

“Mr. Sanford?” I hollered. I heard nothing but the howling wind. Digging the flare out of my pocket, I freed the lid and struck the top across the button. Even before it had begun to properly spew fire, I pitched it into the flare crater, scrambled back up the steps and wrenched closed the door.

“Jesus Christ, it’s cold outside!” I jammed my hands back in my pockets and sat down beside Agnes. She immediately flung the blanket around my shoulders and secured it in the front. For the hundredth time, I cursed my stupidity in not bringing my gloves. No, what I cursed was my laziness in not looking for them this morning.

“Thanks,” I said through chattering teeth. As I had been for the last half hour, I was intensely aware of our close proximity…and the discomfort it caused us both. Agnes had remained quiet throughout the ordeal, speaking only in reply to a comment or question. It was driving me crazy. What was also driving me crazy was the growing certainty that I liked being wrapped in a blanket with her.

“What if he really doesn’t come back?” I moaned. I forcibly pushed aside the scenarios running in my mind about Mr. Sanford wandering around in circles, stepping into a hole and breaking his ankle, collapsing exhausted and frozen into a snow bank.

“Don’t talk like that,” Alice chattered back. “He’ll be fine. We just have to believe that.”

What I believed was just the opposite. But then I’d always been a pessimist. I always saw the worst possible outcome.

“Are you and Paul, like the real thing?” she asked unexpectedly.

I blinked, and then shrugged under the blankets. “Don’t know. Guess so, I guess. We like each other.” The truth was, Paul was more steady company for me than a boyfriend, and I was more a body to feel up and attempt to stick fingers and a prick into, though so far I’d successfully resisted the latter, much to Paul’s chagrin. So far, however, he’d come closer that anyone else to claiming my virginity.

“What about you?” I asked, not cruelly, but in an attempt to keep her talking. “Anybody special?”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. That’s gonna happen here.”

“What about before you got here?” I asked. She was only a year or so older a resident of Minnesota than I was. If Agnes had stood a chance of scoring a boyfriend anywhere, it had to be Florida.

She shrugged. “It was better there than here. At least there, I had some friends. Here I’m the only Jewish girl in the whole damned school.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “You really think that’s the reason? I’ve never heard anyone mention your religion before at all. I didn’t even realize you were Jewish. Not that it matters. It’s not like you’re black or Hispanic or anything.” I grinned. There were no blacks in our class, and only one or two Hispanics. In my old school in Atlanta, I had been in the minority.

“What do they talk about then?” she asked wryly. “My big nose?”

“No. About you being a lesbo.”

She was shocked wide-eyed, her mouth opening in protestation… until I laughed.

“Bitch! I can’t believe you said that. It’s not true, is it?”

Continuing to laugh, I shook my head. “Your secret is safe with me. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

She was red to the roots of her hair. “I’m not a lesbo. I’ve never been with a girl before. I don’t like girls.”

“You like me,” I interrupted.

“That’s different,” she said, pouting. “I just thought you’d be a nice person to talk to.”

“I’m not?” I wondered.

Her face redden even more. She mumbled, “I don’t know. I’ve never talked to you before.”

“We’re talking now,” I reminded her.

“Only because.”

“Only because is as good a reason as any,” I said. “Why not take advantage of it?”

She hunched under the blanket and leaned away from me. I took my hands out of my pockets, grabbed the overlapped ends of the blanket and pulled them tighter together. It forced her back against me.

“Maybe I like talking to you,” I said. “Have you considered that?”

She hunched her shoulders even more. “You didn’t seem to earlier.”

“I kinda got taken by surprise,” I said. “I never for a minute suspected you had any interest in me.”

Her face was now scarlet. I could actually — or imagined I could — feel the heat radiating off it. Slowly, I moved my left hand in search of her right, found it and forced my fingers between hers, entwining them together.

“I think maybe I like you having an interest in me, Agnes.”

Startled, she inched her head around. “What?”

I told her about my revelation of earlier, of discovering that I had suppressed my own interest, had experienced jealousy and insecurity, even about the battle of the voices.

She blinked at me slowly, guardedly.

“Do you think I’d lie about something like that? Under the present circumstances?” I scooted in tighter against her, found her other hand in the folds of blanket and gripped it also, though through a layer of blanket. I drew my legs up beneath me and sat on my feet; Agnes did likewise.

“These seats are really cold,” I said. “Let’s tuck the blankets under us.” Though difficult, with only one hand each to accomplish the task — the others desperately clutched the blankets together in the front — we somehow managed.

“Better,” I muttered. I dreaded when the flare burned out again and I’d have to get up and replace it. It couldn’t be more than twenty degrees in the bus. The cold was absolutely glacial. Breath billowed out whitely with each exhalation, almost looking crystalline. My teeth refused to stop chattering. Agnes was shaking like a tree in an earthquake.

“Maybe we should put our heads under the blanket,” she suggested.

“What a great idea,” I agreed, shouldering the blankets up and over my ears. Though we had to hunker over almost double, the blankets were just large enough to enshroud us like a cocoon. Right away I could feel a difference in my cheeks and nose, which embarrassingly, wouldn’t stop dripping. I sniffed loudly.

“God, I hope we don’t get frostbite.”

Agnes shook her head. “We should be okay as long as we have these blankets around us. The warmth of our breathing should bring the temperature up. I already feel warmer, don’t you?”

I hadn’t noticed any lessening of my shaking. It was like every muscle in my body had a needle stuck in it with an electric wire attached. I imagined this was what being electrocuted felt like. I found her hands again and gripped them tightly. “If we get out of this,” I said. “From now on, you and I are eating lunch together every day.”

She coughed out a laugh. “That’ll go over big with your friends.”

“Fuck my friends. They’re not trapped here with me on this bus. They’re home, safe and sound with their iPods and cell phones and boyfriends. Totally oblivious.” I turned to look at her in the darkness. “I’d like you to send me every one those emails, Agnes. I want to read all of them. I don’t know if I’ll reply to any of them — there were so many — but I’d like to know what you wrote.”

Agnes groaned.

“What?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Why?”

“You have no idea what I wrote in some of those emails, Ellen.” She hesitated saying my name, and I realized it was a first for her. “I really poured out my heart. Even if we were best friends forever,” she said anxiously, “there is no way I would have sent more than one in five of those emails. Mostly, they were my electronic diary.”

“So?” I objected. “I’d let you read my diary.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Diaries are private. Too private.”

I was quiet a moment. I wondered if I could even imagine the things she had written, or whether I wanted to. Maybe I was better off not knowing. On the other hand, I had never done anything worthwhile enough to start my own diary. An indicator of my shallowness?

“Can I tell you something?” I said.

“What?”

“I’ve never had a real girlfriend before. Someone I could share secrets with. Most of the people I hang around with are more interested in their nails or the skirt they bought last weekend or their hairdos than they are in listening to a friend’s problems… or even in being friends. The people I hang around with — including myself — are more plastic than Barbie.” I snorted. “Barbie is Mother Teresa compared to some of us.”

It was Agnes’s turn to be silent. I felt her obvious embarrassment, her uncertainty of how to respond to a confession like that. “Forget I asked. It’s not important,” I told her.

She was quiet a moment longer, and then asked in a hesitant voice: “Would you want to see the latest ones, or see them in order?”

I grinned in the darkness. “From the beginning, please. I’d like to see how your infatuation with me has progressed over the last five months.” I giggled, to make sure she knew I was joking. I heard her giggle back.

“Okay. That sounds cool.” I could hear the continued embarrassment in her voice, the uncertainty, but also a tinge of hope.

Responding to a command disguised as an impulse, I leaned sideways and attempted to find her mouth. When the reality of what I was doing hit her, I heard a gasp. She jerked away, but then, very slowly, leaned back toward me again. Made clumsy by the darkness, our mouths finally found each other. As soon as they touched, I closed my eyes and held my breath. Her lips were so soft, their touch so timid. My shoulders reacted to a shiver. I drew her closer while I bent my head farther sideways and increased the pressure on her lips. I knew with certainty that she had never been kissed before, not like this, not by someone attracted to her. My heart pounded. I felt incredibly squirmy, as though my body might at any moment wrest control from my mind and attack the object of its desire. As many boys as I’d kissed, not one had lit a match to my insides like Agnes was doing. It felt like a flare had erupted.

“Oops,” I said breathlessly, breaking the kiss. My lips screamed at me in protest. “I forgot about the flare. I need to check it.”

I could feel Agnes’ rapid breath on my cheek; practically hear her heart beat in her chest. She had begun to shake again, but in a different manner than she had previously. The way I was now shaking,

“Thank you,” she whispered, and not about the flare.

I kissed her quickly and pulled the blanket down so that I could check outside. Sure enough, the flare had gone out. I was startled how frigid the air had become outside our little cocoon. Digging in my pocket, I extracted the third and final flare from the open package, shrugged out of the blanket, stumbled to me feet and dropped down into the well. Agnes grabbed the lever through the folds of blanket and worked the doors open even as I freed the plastic cap and struck it across the chemical button. It took two tries. This time, instead of pitching the flare out into the snow, I held it above my head and scanned the nightmarish landscape. Despite Mr. Sanford’s assurances otherwise, it looked like the backside of the moon.

“Mr. Sanford!”

Listening, I heard nothing but the shriek of wind and the hissing, popping flare. The wind had not diminished since the last time I’d looked outside but, though I wasn’t positive, it appeared that most of the snow in the air was being torn from the tops of snowdrifts and from the bare braches of trees. I gauged the visibility at twenty yards, roughly twice what it had been before. Encouraged, I yelled again, waved the flare back and forth over my head and, after listening carefully and squinting against the wind, pitched it forward into the crater. I was surprised when Agnes joined me in the well.

“Do you see him?” she asked.

“No,” I had to admit, dully. “The snow is letting up, though.”

“I can see that. How deep do you think it is?”

I liked having her standing there with me; the cramped floor space meant we had to be in contact. To my surprise — and pleasure — she wrapped the blanket around me and held it closed with her arms around my lower rib cage. Even through the thickness of her parka and mine, I could feel the pressure of her small breasts against my back. That, and a smile I couldn’t restrain, made my face redden.

“Three feet, maybe,” I mumbled. Reaching up, I located her hands in the folds of blanket and gripped them. I drew her to me; she nuzzled her cheek next to mine, her chin over my shoulder and I shuddered, and not from the cold. I shivered twice as hard when a moment later she kissed my neck just below the jaw line, to which I responded automatically by squirming and trying to squeeze her out, giggling. My face grew fiery hot.

“Stop that!” I protested.

“You can’t be afraid someone will see,” she said teasingly.

“I’m not! I’m ticklish!” I giggled when she kissed me again, then spun about inside her arms and wrapped my arms around her waist. I looked directly into her chocolate-brown eyes. It hadn’t occurred to me before that we were the same height. She leaned forward and kissed me. I kissed her back.

“Mr. Sanford would die if he came back to this,” she said, mischievously.

“More like, he’d die to see this,” I argued. “Men get off on girls kissing girls.”

“More like, you giving a blow-job to your boyfriend would get him off.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. And I’ve never given him a blow-job.”

Despite the levity, my face reddened again. Purposefully or not, Agnes knew how to make me squirm. It seriously made me squirm wondering where this was going, and just where it would end up. As much as I’d like to believe myself a courageous person, I couldn’t see us walking down the school corridors, hand in hand, smiling contentedly. She read my thoughts — or my expression.

“Were you serious about being friends? I don’t expect you to suddenly declare yourself to the world as being in love with me.” My face blistered again. “I’ll be happy just to be talked to,” she went on, smiling shyly, “maybe invited to your table once in a while for lunch. I don’t expect you to humiliate yourself. I’ve seen too many movies to expect everything just to fall in place. Considering that you want things to fall in place.”

Despite my embarrassment, I maintained a connection between brain and tongue. “I wouldn’t be standing here with my arms around your waist unless I was genuinely attracted to you, Agnes. It took something like this tonight to make me step back and take a hard look at myself. I’ve never been happy with guys. I’ve known that for a long time, but never allowed myself to see past the disgruntlement to figure out where it was coming from. I’m not even sure that’s a word, but I can’t think of one better to describe how I’ve been the last four years. Ever since I grew boobs. Ever since guys started pestering me. You know how girls talk about nothing but guys and sex?” I grinned at her dour expression. “Well, I’ve never been into guys like all of my girlfriends are. My enthusiasm was just a little bit made up. I just wouldn’t let myself admit what I really was interested in.”

I bit my lip. Had I just told a lie? The truth was, I seemed no more attracted to girls than I was to guys. If I was being honest with myself, could I remember a single instance of looking at a girl and being sexually attracted to her? I didn’t think so. Except for Agnes.

“Maybe…” I said haltingly. “Maybe what I am is not really a lesbian, but someone who responds to only one certain person. That person could be a guy, or someone of my own sex. It wouldn’t really matter, as long as the response is genuine. The truth is, I’ve never responded to anyone until now. I think maybe you’re my person, Agnes. You may be my soul mate. Does it feel that way to you?”

I didn’t know what her response would be, but it couldn’t have been better than Agnes closing her eyes, leaning in and kissing me like I was a princess. The air evacuated my lungs without me breathing, my knees turned to Jell-O and everything inside me melted, like chocolate. It honestly felt as though Agnes was holding me up. I was beyond pliable.

“Mmmmm,” I moaned weakly. Agnes ran her hand up my back and cupped the back of my neck. I moaned again. I was trembling, trembling pitifully. On their own authority, my hands moved up her sides and located and took possession of her firm, small breasts. Now Agnes began to moan. The flare had once again ignited in my gut and I swear I had the horrible, maddening desire to be naked inside that blanket with her, for her to be naked.

I fought my hands to keep them on the outside of her coat, rather than unzipping it as they wanted to do. Never before in my life had I wanted hands touching my bare breasts like I did now. When our mouths opened and allowed the melding of our tongues, it was the most wonderful moment I had ever experienced. I stopped breathing and I swear my heart stopped beating. How long we remained with own mouths joined and our tongues dancing, I don’t know. The passage of time had no meaning. When finally we did break, we both stood panting, foreheads together, our breathing ragged and irregular. It was a long time before I opened my eyes.

“Don’t you ever kiss anybody else like that,” I rasped out. “Don’t you ever.”

She laughed weakly. “I don’t know how to kiss. At least, I didn’t know I did. I’ve only kissed one boy before, and that was like two years ago; a kiss so he wouldn’t have to embarrass me by shaking my hand. I didn’t know anything could be like that,” she said, laughing. “I think I had an orgasm.”

I laughed, she joined me and we didn’t stop laughing for a full minute. I glanced briefly over my shoulder, both to check the flare, and to make sure we didn’t have an unexpected audience. The truth was, I was so wet between my legs that I might as well have had an orgasm. It was embarrassing. I’d be supremely embarrassed to have her know she’d done that to me. Not ever having experienced an orgasm before, I couldn’t wait to experience one with her. I told her so.

Blinking, she turned red. “Obviously, I never have,” she muttered.

“Not even by yourself?” I wanted to know.

Intimidated, she shook her head.

“Well, I haven’t either. Obviously, I’ve been saving that for you.”

Now she really did turn red.

The flare burned out during our next kiss. Reluctantly, I surrendered her breasts (she had yet to touch mine, unfortunately), dug in my pocket for the unopened package of flares, and struggled ineffectually to get it open. Finally, knowing I had no choice, I turned around (grumpily), freed my hands of the blankets and wrestled the package open. I did so at the expense of two of my nails.

“Motherfucker,” I mumbled irritably. Then I gasped and jumped a little bit as Agnes released the blankets, put her hands over my breasts, and cupped them through my coat. My face turned red with the unexpected pleasure of it. I was amazed how natural her hands felt on my breasts. “I like that,” I said gratefully.

She whispered in my ear: “I liked it when you held mine. Sorry to cheat you. I definitely got the better part of this exchange.”

“Stop it,” I said, going beet red once again. After the scalding it taken in the last few hours, I was surprised I had any face left to burn.

With Agnes meticulously acquainting herself with my chest, I removed a flare from the pack, returned the others to my pocket, broke loose the plastic top without bothering to peel the red banding first and struck the button. I had to make myself search the snowscape for any sign of Mr. Sanford, call his name twice into the emptiness, and listen for any response over the persistent wind. I was really becoming upset, as was Agnes.

Where the hell was he? Why hadn’t he come back? Should we go out looking for him? I voiced this last question to Agnes, who bit her lip.

“Do you think we should?”

“I think, we’d end up just like he did,” I admitted, sorrowfully. I was back to blocking visions of him lost in the snow. I didn’t know how anyone could last five minutes out there, much less forty-four minutes. I was beginning to loose whatever hope I’d had. Depressed, I pitched the flare into the ever-widening crater.

*****

Back in our little cocoon, we passed the time kissing and making romantic small talk. I told her about my miserable love life, she told me about her non-existent one. We played with our inside set of hands; the outside set were instructed not to release the overlapped blankets under penalty of death. Inside our little cocoon, it became warm enough so that we both stopped shaking. In an unguarded moment, I made a chancy admission.

“I’d like to lose my virginity to you, Agnes.”

I felt her stiffen, her breath stopping momentarily. “Really?” she whispered.

“If we were in bed, I’d be all over you. I’d give you a great big hickey right here.” Awkwardly unzipping her coat six inches with my left hand, I touched the side of her neck, right between her jaw line and shoulder. On impulse, I leaned in close and attached my mouth to the very spot. I waited for her reaction.

“My mom would kill me.”

“Maybe, but I bet she’d celebrate too,” I said laughing. I felt the tempo of her breathing quicken, grow deeper, her heartbeat accelerate. Consciously or not, her head tiled away from me, invitingly and I reattached my mouth to her neck. I sucked lightly, letting my teeth touch her skin.

“I want you to do it,” she said raggedly. “But I also know that tomorrow everybody in school is going to be talking about Bus 9899 and how Agnes Ahlberg and Ellen Olson were the only two students on it when it crashed. Everyone, you boyfriend included, will know where this came from. They won’t think that Mr. Sanford gave it to me.”

Fuck, I thought irritably. “Then I’ll just have to put it somewhere no one will see it.”

Releasing the blankets, I found the tab of her zipper and pulled it halfway down her chest. She gasped, and then gasped again when my fingers sought out the upper two buttons on her blouse and released them. Pushing aside the collar, baring her shoulder, I placed my mouth alongside her bra strap and began to suck, sinking in my teeth and drawing her flesh into my mouth. She groaned, and then groaned louder as my right hand stole inside her parka, freed another button on her shirt and slid inside. Her breast was even smaller than I’d thought; unable to cup it, I simply laid my hand over it and enjoyed the warm firmness of her flesh.

Releasing her grip on the blankets, Agnes placed both hands on my waist; the unsecured blankets fell away, exposing our heads. Without releasing her shoulder, I twisted to look momentarily out the door and then returned full attention to her hickey and breast. My own right breast, found through the thickness of my coat, filled her hand. A moment later, her hand slid up beneath the waist of my coat, under my sweater and up to my bra-covered breast. I protested when the hand didn’t stop there but released the front catch on my bra and released me.

“No!” I complained, releasing her skin. In the reflected glare of the burning flare I could make out an oval bruise, darkening nicely. I fought to get my hand under her bra but was an instant behind her own hand. She laughed as she claimed first prize.

“Bitch! I was first.”

“You were slow,” she taunted.

“I was preoccupied,” I corrected. She had my nipple between her fingertips and was rotating it gently back and forth. It obediently hardened for her. I curled my fingers and found her own little fingertip. It was nice and hard, and surprisingly big. I could tell from sense of feel that her areole was small, the size of a quarter, maybe, and delightfully rough. I tweaked her nipple playfully; she tweaked mine. We both said “Ouch” together and laughed. To my chagrin, she reached up her back and popped the catch on her bra. It loosened over my hand and I fondled her nipple with complete freedom.

“If someone were to see us now, I’d be very embarrassed,” she said.

“Me too,” I agreed. Ignoring the cold, I unzipped her coat and pushed the left side over her shoulder. As she protested weakly, I finished unbuttoning her shirt, and opened it also, forcing it over her left shoulder. I raised her bra, exposing her breast to both the cold, and my hungry gaze. The blankets had settled around our waists, leaving us completely exposed to view.

“You’re not going to take off my shirt,” she said with some alarm.

“You’re right. I’m not going to.” Placing my left hand in the middle of her back, and my other against her left shoulder, I pushed and pulled at the same time, forcing forward the left side of her chest. Grinning, bending over, I placed my lips around her nipple and sucked it into my mouth. She groaned pleasingly. If I were a boy, I’d have a raging hard-on. Instead, I had flutters in my belly and a sopping wetness between my legs. Again, I felt the dread of acute embarrassment. Never had I been so wet. Never had I known such wetness was possible. I was a wetness factory. I desperately hoped that Agnes suffered the same problem.

Releasing her nipple, I kissed it gently on the tip and ran my tongue around the border of her areole. It was very dark, the exact size of a quarter, and perfectly round. Tiny bumps gave it a moonscape look. Between the cold and my attention, it had shriveled and hardened in a way I knew must ache terribly. I knew that because my own nipples ached terribly. Leaning back, I observed my handiwork.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how aroused I am,” she whispered huskily. Forcing her shirt back over both shoulders, while at the same time lifting her bra out of the way with my thumbs, I completely bared her petite breasts to any eyes capable of observing them. She was tiny, smaller even than my twelve-year old sister. Why that should excite me was a puzzle. I guessed it was one reason for her inferiority complex. I’d feel inferior with breasts that small, too. But maybe it wasn’t the size that mattered; maybe it was because they were mine, never having been seen before nor touched. My property, as mine were unquestionably hers.

“You’re embarrassing me,” she said, reddening as I ogled. “Imagine if Mr. Sanford walked up to the door right now.”

I continued admiring her breasts. “I’m sure he wouldn’t complain.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t congratulate me, either,” she said, wryly. “The flare just went out.”

“Fuck,” I sighed in the sudden darkness. I looked over my shoulder, back at her breasts, over my shoulder again and then far off into the darkness where an hour before, Mr. Sanford had disappeared. I had two flares left. I needed to light one. Mr. Sanford might even now be trudging the final twenty yards to the bus, blinded by my inactivity.

Releasing her shirt and bra, I grabbed the blankets and pulled them up around her shoulders. “Get the door?” I asked.

“Sure.” Rising, she shuffled to the lever and grabbed it through the protection of the blankets. My teeth were chattering, and the air stealing through the V of my unzipped jacket had gooseflesh erupted all across my chest and my nipples hard as diamonds. I wouldn’t doubt they’d cut glass. I didn’t want to try. Reaching inside my shirt, I closed the clasp on my bra and zipped my coat all the way up to my chin. Once warm in our little cocoon again, Agnes could free me and do as she pleased. The thought excited me terribly.

Igniting the flare, I held it high and waved it back and forth, yelling for Mr. Sanford at the top of my lungs. Agnes joined in, and I felt sure that if Mr. Sanford were somewhere out there stumbling around, we’d surely catch his attention. A futile five minutes later, I pitched the flare across the snow and backed up the steps into the bus. Agnes closed the doors again. We spent another silent minute watching without hope. We both knew the score. Mr. Sanford had either frozen to death, gotten hopelessly lost, or was unable to find his way back through the raging storm. Both the wind and snowfall had wound up to their prior intensity and reinstituted the white-out. Unable to stand it anymore, I guided Agnes toward the bench and we sat down.

“We’re alone, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Until they find us,” I said morosely.

She looked at me with tears in her eyes. Putting my arms around her shoulders beneath the blanket, I drew her to me; she laid her head on my shoulder and whimpered softly.

“I don’t want to die, Ellen.”

“We’re not going to die, Agnes. Once we wrap ourselves up in the blanket, we’ll be fine. Remember: it can’t get any colder inside the bus than it is outside. When we cocoon ourselves, we might as well be camped around a toasty campfire. Believe me,” I said, laughing. “If there were marshmallows here, we could roast them over each other’s red-hot coals.”

Giggling, she nodded enthusiastically. “What you did to me a little while ago? I thought I’d spontaneously combust, I swear I did. My heart was pounding like a heavy metal drum set. This is my first time doing anything. No one has ever even seen my breasts, not even my mom. Well, except at school, that is,” she said, her humor failing. “God, I hate gym.”

Steering the conversation away from this uncomfortable subject, I said: “You know, my brother has pictures of me in the nude.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

I nodded dejectedly. “Little prick. I took pictures of myself one afternoon after school, last October. We all did. My group at school. Really stupid, I know, but…” I shrugged. “You know how girls are.”

She smiled, dryly.

“Anyway, the agreement was that we’d email them to everyone in the group, to prove that we did it, password protected, you know, so that no one but us would get to see them. We all promised never to show them to anyone else, under penalty of death. Worse actually; anyone who broke the rules and let someone not in the group see them…” I drew my finger across my throat. “The rest of us would strip her naked in the Whole Foods Supermarket in town and make her run up and down the isles naked.” I giggled. “I’ve done that before you know: in my bra and panties.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Another girl thing,” I said. “You better get used to it if you plan to hang with me. We do some pretty stupid things.” I grinned, devilishly. “Some pretty exciting things too. I could see you Isle Running. You’d be a natural, Ag.”

She guffawed, her face reddening. “And why would I ever want to do that?”

“Because I do?”

She looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure your friends are ready for me to go ruining their fun, Ellen. I’d look ridiculous, running up and down an isle in my underwear. Any guy who saw me would fall down on his butt, laughing his head off. I’m not exactly a Victoria’s Secret model.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” I chided. “You’re a lot better looking than you think you are. And sexier, too. You know Dana?” I asked, referring to Dana Hillborne, the latest addition to our group.

Agnes nodded carefully.

“She was a lot like you, until last spring when Tricia and Bodie invited her to a party. Shy, unsure of herself, doubtful. Now she’s as stupid and reckless as the rest of us. And accepted,” I added significantly. “Once someone invites you into the gang, you become one of us.” I waited out her hesitation. “If that makes you uncomfortable, I’m fine with a gang of two. You and me. I don’t need stupid and reckless to make me happy.”

She blinked, tears brimming her eyes. “You’d do that for me? Really?”

My own eyes teared. “I’d do just about anything for you. Believe me.”

Embarrassed, she looked away, trying unsuccessfully to fight her grin. To keep from embarrassing herself further, she said: “Tell me about your brother. How’d he find your pictures? Did he find all of them? Or just yours?”

I winced. “I kept all the other photos in their protected files, but hid mine in my user folder, in a folder labeled — are you ready for this? Naked Pictures of Myself!” I laughed caustically. “Can you imagine my brother’s face? Can you imagine anyone being that stupid?” I laughed again, and now she joined me. “I was so humiliated a month later when I snuck into his room and signed onto his laptop and found a picture of myself posing topless. He had set it as his goddamn desktop! I about died. I actually shrieked, the moron that I am, and thank God there was no one else in the house. Thank God, he wasn’t in the house! Can you imagine him catching me?

“Anyway, they were all there, in a folder on his desktop called Ellen Nude. He wanted me to find them, of course. He purposely disabled the sign-on screen so that I could get right to the desktop without any problem. He knows what a snoop I am. He skunked me, and he knows it.”

Trying to hide her mortification, Agnes said: “How do you feel about it, knowing he’s seen you nude? Doesn’t it bother you?”

“It does,” I admitted. “And it doesn’t.”

She looked at me, mystified.

“You don’t have any brothers,” I guessed. “If you did, you’d know.” Changing the subject again, I asked: “Have you ever snapped yourself nude?”

Her eyes widened in horror. “No way! Are you kidding me?”

I shook my head. “The first time I get you alone, I’m making you do a striptease. Right down to your birthday suit, little girl. Not just that,” I went on, ignoring her look of panic, “But I’ll dress you first in this really sexy, slutty schoolgirl outfit: white shirt, black mini skirt, black thigh-highs, really sexy bra and panties. Do you even own a pair of thigh-highs? A thong? How can you not own a thong? I have a drawer full of them. Well, I used to,” I said, shrugging. “They’re out of fashion now.”

Without looking first, I arose and undid my belt, lowered my zipper and ran my jeans down to mid-thigh. Although her eyes bugged out, and she blinked disbelievingly, she didn’t try to make me stop. I looked down at my beige panties and said: “I mostly wear hip-huggers now. Or boy-shorts. Boy-shorts are so cool.” I unzipped my parka and pulled up my sweater, revealing the matching bra I wore underneath. Her eyes grew bigger and her mouth formed a perfect O. I just had to laugh at her. “What are you wearing?”

She shook her head empathically.

“I showed you mine,” I objected. Slowly, I wiggled back into my jeans and pulled up the zipper. To my surprise, my sweater had remained pushed up over my bra, and I purposely thrust out my chest before pulling it back down and smoothing it over my tummy. My heart was going a million miles an hour. I wanted so badly for Agnes to get up and mimic me. I was ready to beg.

Gulping loudly, still continuing to shake her head back and forth in denial, even as she got awkwardly to her feet, Agnes let the blankets slide off her shoulders to the seat cushions. Then, hesitantly she touched the buttons of her shirt. At some point over the past fifteen minutes, she had also refastened her bra, closed the buttons on her shirt and tucked in her tails. I could see her breathing with difficulty. I could see the thud of her heartbeat in a vein in her neck. I smiled, remembering the tattoo I’d left right beside her bra strap. Her eyes followed mine.

“You better hope no one sees that,” she grumbled. “You went a little overboard, didn’t you? It looks like a black hole. It’s threatening to devour my entire shoulder.”

I laughed. “I’d be a lot more worried about the next one I intend to give you, Ag. That one will be a lot more visible than the one on your shoulder…and a whole lot more compromising,” I added, laughing wickedly.

I moved toward her, two very deliberate steps, raising my hands. She retreated, running up against the seat cushion. “Ellen,” she warned, her voice cracking into the falsetto range. “Don’t you dare!” She squat down to retrieve the blankets and wrapped them around herself protectively. “I’m warning you! Stay away from me!”

Grinning, I slowly drew the two sides of the blankets aside, and stepped into her personal space.

Continue on to Part Three

By hornykate

{ This story was originally posted at Lesbian Lolita in July 2012 }

My fascination with my daughter Jenny’s panties started two years ago. She was eight, and in those days I’d regularly get a pair of her panties from the wash basket and take them to bed, and there I’d smell, lick and suck on the gusset until I quietly but intensely orgasmed. Sometimes after I came, I’d inch them into my cunt and fall asleep with them partially inside me. Once I actually worked them into my anus (but only once!).

I think I may have been developing an obsession (!), and for two years I’d been thinking of how to move things on without putting the fear of God into her. After all, she’s my daughter and I love her with all my heart. But, maybe irrationally, I didn’t want Jenny to learn about sex at the hands of some young spotty adolescent who wouldn’t appreciate my little girl as he manhandled her secret parts.

And then one night, something happened.

I’d gone to bed  with a pair of Jenny’s panties, as normal. I’d chosen a particularly cute pair, always turned me on more.

I’d hardly started with my routine when the door slowly opened and in came little Jenny. There was no reason for her to come to me. It’d happened before in times of stress; thunderstorms, bad dreams, the usual. But tonight? All was calm, as was she. And there she was, in my bed, in her little makeshift pyjama set — a sky blue T-shirt with matching loose-fitting shorts.

I asked if she was okay, and she whispered “yes,” then after awhile she was asleep.

I felt I was in new territory. I was in new territory. I couldn’t very well start masturbating with Jenny’s panties while she was so close to me… but I was feeling so horny.

I spoke to her again, no response. I put my hand on her leg and gently shook it, no response.

I kept my hand on her leg, just above the knee. She had quite thin legs, typically gangly, on the verge of filling out and becoming womanly. I stroked her leg in a motherly fashion (I told myself) but my touches were increasing in proportion to my heart rate.

Her legs were already slightly parted, but then they eased open slightly more. Was she asleep? This was so risky.

I softly whispered her name again. Nothing.

I was now stroking the inside of her left thigh, the one nearest to me, slowly moving my hand higher, to what end I hadn’t figured out. Where was I going? What was I doing? Then the magical moment when my fingers slipped beneath her shorts and I felt the wisps of soft pubic hair. When did I last see her naked? Why was I surprised that she had pubes? It was like stroking a peach.

By this point I’d eased her left leg over my right. I felt like I was falling down a ravine as my fingers gently touched her virgin cunt. And there was my second surprise. She was wet. She felt wet and open. I softly, gently continued my caressing, amazed at my own temerity, at my willingness to seduce my own daughter.

“Mummy?”

I froze. I stopped. Stock still. Like a statue. The only part of me that continued moving was my thumping heart.

“That feels nice, Mummy.”

I didn’t feel any sense of relief at her words. I think I was still in shock.

“Don’t stop, Mummy, please.”

Had she been awake all this time? It didn’t really matter, she was clearly awake now.

“Baby,” I said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

But I still hadn’t moved my hand. And then I felt Jenny’s hand on mine.

“Don’t stop,” she said again.

So I carried on stroking her wet little cunt. Her arms came above the bedclothes and pushed them down, until we were completely uncovered. I’d moved my hand so I was inside her shorts from the top, this felt more comfortable. I was cupping her little sex while my middle finger was caressing her clit. Her breathing deepened, as did mine.

I had to talk, we couldn’t continue this in silence. I had a feeling that if we carried on in silence, then went to sleep in silence, we’d wake up in silence.

“Are you okay, baby?” I asked.

“Yes, it feels wonderful,” Jenny said.

“Don’t worry, Mummy,” she continued, as if she was reading my mind. “this is our secret.”

My finger was now inside her cunt. Her whole sex was so wet, I almost couldn’t believe it.

“I want to taste you,” I whispered, “I want to lick you, would you like that?” She just nodded.

“Tell me.” I said. “Tell me you want me to taste you.”

“I want you to taste me, Mummy, I want you to lick me.”

She was lying on her back, I eased her T-shirt up to reveal her little tits. They were small but evident but as she lay back, they were as flat as a two year old’s. I licked her nipples, and kissed down her stomach.

“I want you so much,” I told her as I moved even lower down her body. “Are you sure about this?” I asked.

“Surer than anything,” she said and I metaphorically leaped into the ravine as I put my head between her legs.

I kissed her on her inner thighs, tracing the hard sinews that joined her thighs to her pelvis, and I was shaking as I took the first taste of my beautiful daughter. She spread her legs as wide as she could and a whole world of possibilities opened up before us.

*****

We woke in the morning, not to silence but to smiles and a hug. I’d gone down on my ten year old daughter and made her come twice. The thought made me wet.

I pulled her to me and wrapped my arms around her little body and we held each other. Her pyjamas had disappeared in the night, and we lay naked in each other’s arms.

I eventually went for a shower, and then downstairs to make breakfast. There were still chores to do. She was off to school, though I’d decided to skip work. I would’ve been useless anyway.

It was when she came into the kitchen that the reality of what we’d done really hit home, for she was in her school uniform and she looked, once again, like my ten year old daughter. Just a little girl.

She seemed fine, but I was fast becoming a mess. I held it together til she’d gone (a friend’s mother came to pick her up) but once I was alone, I cried. It wasn’t a cry of despair, or sorrow, or even happinness. I don’t know why I cried, I just did. It was as though I’d hit my mental funny bone, and I didn’t know whether to laugh OR cry.

I got through the day, but as the time went on I became increasingly anxious. Would Jenny be okay when she got home? Would she be thinking about me? About our night together?

Eventually the door opened and closed. Jenny walked into the living room where I sat, tense as a carriage spring. And she came and knelt in front of me. We looked at each other, just gazing into each other’s eyes.

“Is everything okay, baby?” I asked, in what sounded like a hoarse whisper.

“Everything’s wonderful Mummy.” A slight pause. “Isn’t it?”

Then I did what I should’ve done last night, but surprisingly didn’t. I kissed her. Imagine a hot summer’s day when the heat makes everything seem silent and still, and you see a butterfly alight on a flower. That’s how delicate our first kiss was.

“My heart’s beating so fast,” I whispered between kisses.

“So’s mine,” she whispered back.

So I put my hand on her little chest and felt her heart through her school blouse, then kissed her more deeply. I opened my mouth and she did the same and then we were kissing like lovers. Our tongues touched, nervously, like debutantes at the first dance. I’d stopped feeling her heart now, but was instead stroking her breasts, her small, beautifully formed breasts. I could feel the fabric of the training bra we’d only recently bought. My mouth left hers and I began kissing her cheek, her neck, then I was kissing and licking her ear and she was literally panting. I whispered her name in her ear. I kept saying it.

“Oh Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. I want you so much, baby. I’ve been thinking about this for so long.”

“How long, Mummy?” All this was in soft tones.

“Dont hate me for this baby, but since you were eight, I’ve wanted you.”

“Oh, Mummy. I want you, too.” While we’d been kissing, Jenny’s hands had been resting on my knees, and she now slowly began easing my skirt up my legs. Then I felt her right hand stroking my thigh, higher and higher, til she was caressing my inner thigh.

“Touch me.” I whispered, and she did. Her fingers began stroking my cunt through my panties, which were soaked.

“You’re wet, Mummy.”

“It’s how you make me feel, baby.”

She moved her head to whisper into my ear, “I’m wet too, Mummy. And that’s how you make me feel.”

We kissed again, both of us moaning and whimpering into each other’s mouths. I slid my hand beneath her short pleated skirt and, with little ceremony, into her little panties. And she was wet. I slid a finger inside her and I could feel on my hand that the insides of Jenny’s thighs were slippery with her juices.

She had by now worked her way around the front of my knickers and had a finger in my cunt, sliding it in and out.

“Taste me.” I said, “put your finger in your mouth and taste me.”

And she did. Then she did it again, and again.

“I like how you taste, Mummy,” she said.

We kissed again, tongues meeting. I wanted to drink her saliva, I wanted to taste her cunt, I wanted to drink her piss, I wanted everything. I wanted to devour her, completely, I felt so boundlessly in love with her.

That afternoon on the sofa in the living room, we did taste each other. I went down on her, and, at her insistence, she went down on me. It’s a sin, I know. It’s wrong, I know. But looking down at my ten year old daughter, head between my open legs, as she licked my cunt, it wasn’t a sin. It wasn’t wrong. It was the most right thing in the world. I didn’t want to dominate her life, I didn’t want to abuse her. I wanted to teach her. I wanted to love her. I wanted us to love each other. And we do. We feel complete.

And I still take her panties to bed.

The End

By No One

The next day, at lunch break, Melina was sitting at a table with Abbie and their friend Alicia, as per usual. She hadn’t found the opportunity to have that talk with Abbie yet—or perhaps more honestly, she hadn’t found the courage to create that opportunity.

She’d considered calling the girl the previous night, but had ended up deciding that she needed more time to think about exactly what she wanted to say. Now, half a day later, she didn’t feel any more confident. On the contrary, the thought of trying to express her feelings to Abbie filled her with dread. Still, she couldn’t start blurting this stuff out in front of Alicia, anyway.

“Oh hey, Anna’s over there,” Abbie said suddenly, nodding towards a table on the other side of the cafeteria. “I need to talk to her about something,” she added as she got to her feet, leaving Melina silently fuming next to her.

“Okay, tell her I said hi,” Alicia said as Abbie walked away.

“What, are you friends with that bitch, too?” Melina spat out before she could stop herself. She regretted the harsh words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

Alicia stared at her with eyes wide as saucers. “Whoa! What? Is this Melina Thompson using the B-word? What did Anna do to you? Killed your cat?”

Melina cursed herself for opening her mouth at all. “No, she… nothing. I just… don’t like her,” she mumbled.

Her friend looked at her dubiously, then glanced over her shoulder at where Abbie and Anna were now talking, before turning back to Melina with an even more suspicious expression on her face. “Is she stealing your girlfriend?” she asked bluntly.

It was Melina’s turn to stare wide-eyed. “What? My… my… what?” was all she could manage as she felt her cheeks burning.

Alicia nodded, as if she’d deduced everything she needed to know from Melina’s expression. “So I was right. You and Abbie. Huh, wow. I’m not totally oblivious, you know, even though you guys often think I am. It was pretty obvious something new was going on between you two lately. Just wasn’t sure what until now.”

“Oh,” Melina said, a bit overwhelmed, though at least Alicia seemed to be taking it in stride. “Um, well, she’s not… really my girlfriend, exactly.”

“No? Well, you might wanna fix that, ‘cause it sounds like this is upsetting you a lot,” Alicia said, glancing again towards Abbie and Anna.

Melina let out a deep sigh and buried her face in her hands. “I know! I just don’t know how to tell her…” she said dejectedly.

“Easy, you go, ‘Yo babe, you’re my bitch now, cool?’” Alicia offered, completing her recommendation with a goofy grin and a finger-gun gesture. “Gotta show that confidence.”

Melina burst out laughing. “Wow, that’s really… wow. That would sweep any girl off her feet for sure. Should have asked you for advice sooner.”

“Obviously! So, what’s going on then? If you’re not girlfriends… what, you just sleep together?” Alicia asked in the teasing tone.

Melina’s cheeks, having just started cooling down, suddenly flared up once again.

Alicia’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God, you do! You sluts!” she exclaimed, sounding more delighted at the juicy gossip than actually scandalized.

“Shhh! Keep it down!” Melina hissed, glancing around. Luckily, nobody seemed to have heard anything. “We may have, erm… done… some stuff,” she understated.

“Uh-huh, ‘some stuff,’ holy crap. Like, all the way? Well… I don’t know what counts as all the way between girls…”

“I… guess so?” Melina offered, unsure herself, though she was pretty certain they were way past that.

“Wow,” Alicia commented simply, looking rather stunned.

“Well, what? It’s, um, really nice,” Melina explained timidly. “Don’t you do… stuff… with Noah, now?” she added. Her friend had been hanging out with the boy a lot lately, and as far as she knew they were “going out,” though the fact was certainly kept secret from their parents.

It was Alicia’s turn to redden a little. “No! Well, not like that. We… kissed some.”

“Oh. Well, you’re missing out,” Melina said, winking. “Maybe anyway. I don’t know if boys are any good…”

Alicia laughed. “Well, look at you. Total lesbian now, huh? You know, Abbie I can kinda see. You? I’m a bit surprised.”

Melina didn’t know how to take that. “Um, I don’t know if I’m… what you said, but… well, just, Abbie is pretty amazing.”

“In bed?” Alicia teased, a big grin on her face.

Melina giggled. “Well, that too.”

“Hmm, well, your amazing girl is walking away with her new friend,” Alicia pointed out, nodding towards something behind Melina. “Maybe you should have a talk with her.”

Melina quickly craned her neck and spotted Abbie and Anna walking out of the cafeteria, looking like they were chatting amiably. She frowned, then took a deep breath and got to her feet.

“Yeah, I should. Now, before I lose my nerve,” she decided, though her resolve already felt rather flimsy at best.

“Good luck,” Alicia said, giving her an encouraging smile.

Melina began walking at a fast pace in the direction Abbie had taken. Getting to the end of the corridor, she turned into the main hall and spotted the two girls walking towards Abbie’s locker. She followed, staying a bit behind; she certainly didn’t want to have that conversation in front of Anna.

She saw the two girls pause at an intersection, and she stopped as well, pretending to read some notice taped to the wall and feeling silly for spying on her best friend like this. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Abbie and Anna finished up their chat then went in different directions. It seemed petty, but she was relieved that there didn’t appear to be anything flirty going on as they separated.

As she hurried to catch up to Abbie, Melina ended up walking straight into a teacher who was turning the corner, sending the papers he was carrying flying everywhere.

“Oh, crap! S-sorry!” she exclaimed, crouching down to help him gather the errant sheets.

“No harm done, but maybe you should slow down a little,” he said once he had his papers back in order.

“Sure, sure,” Melina agreed before walking away at an even faster pace.

She had lost sight of Abbie. She reached her friend’s locker but the girl wasn’t there, then continued on to her own locker, thinking maybe Abbie was waiting for her there. No such luck. She frowned, puzzled. Taking a look around, she finally spotted Abbie walking down a side corridor and entering a bathroom.

Melina sighed in relief. This was good. That small bathroom was tucked away at one end of the school and usually didn’t see much traffic. Maybe they would have some privacy there.

She slowed to a more leisurely walk to try to get her thoughts in order before talking to Abbie—and to give the girl time to do her business. By the time she reached the door to the bathroom, though, her mind was still in a useless jumble. She sighed and pushed the door open before she lost the little courage she had.

A few seconds after coming in, she heard a toilet flush, then Abbie came out of one of the stalls. The girl briefly looked surprised to see her standing there, but then her expression turned to a bright smile.

“Hey you,” Abbie said cheerfully.

“Hey. Um, can I talk to you a minute?” Melina asked, her heart beating faster and faster.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Um, well… I need to tell you, err… I… I mean…” she said, failing miserably to actually say anything. “God, this is hard,” she finally mumbled. Idiot. I really should have rehearsed something, she thought.

Abbie was looking at her worriedly. “What’s wrong, Mel? You’re freaking me out.”

“Sorry. I just… I… don’t want you to fool around with Anna, okay?” she finished in a rush. That wasn’t the whole of it, but it was a start at least.

Abbie’s eyebrows rose up. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Why, though?”

“Because… I don’t want to share what we have… to share you, with anyone else,” Melina admitted timidly.

A smile slowly spread on Abbie’s lips. “Really? That’s… that’s cool. Are you… saying what I think you’re saying?”

Melina felt her cheeks turning crimson. “I… guess so.” This was it, the big moment. She nearly ruined it by bursting out laughing when she remembered the silly line Alicia had suggested. That wouldn’t do at all. “Do you, um… want to be my girlfriend?” she said instead.

She had never felt as anxious in her entire life as during the next few seconds, with Abbie staring at her wordlessly. Thankfully, her worries were soon laid to rest when the happiest smile she’d ever seen appeared on Abbie’s face.

“Are you really serious?” the girl asked, eyes shining bright.

“Y-yes,” Melina assured her, feeling pretty certain that was the right answer, judging by her friend’s reaction.

Abbie suddenly threw her arms around Melina’s neck, and gave her a long hug that threatened to steal the breath from her lungs. “Oh my God, yes! I’ll be your girlfriend!” she exclaimed. When she released her hold a little, it was only to offer a kiss instead.

Melina felt quite uncomfortable about kissing in such a public place, but considering the circumstances, she allowed her friend—no, her girlfriend now—to draw her into a long, tender kiss.

“Well… great then!” Melina said afterwards, a bit at a loss for words. They smiled at each other, Abbie looked so happy. “So, no more flirting with other girls now,” she teased.

Abbie nodded eagerly. “Of course,” she promised, though she then looked away guiltily. “Um, I may have… exaggerated a little… about the flirting part.”

Melina frowned, suddenly wary. “What do you mean?”

“Well… maybe Anna didn’t really flirt, exactly… um, at all. I kinda just wanted to see how you would react,” Abbie admitted hesitantly.

Melina’s frown deepened. “What? You lied? Abbie, what the hell? I’ve been broken up about this since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to really upset you,” Abbie said miserably, sounding like she meant it. “It was just a spur of the moment thing. I guess I just wanted to see if you’d be a bit jealous… and then, maybe if you’d want to be more serious about us… Um, kinda like what just happened. So, well, I guess that all worked out, huh?” she added with a hopeful smile.

Melina didn’t know whether to get angry or laugh. In the end, she went with the latter—it was rather sweet in a way, she supposed. “So this was all according to your master plan, huh?”

“More or less.” Abbie shrugged sheepishly. “I guess I’m kind of a genius.”

“An evil one, maybe! But why didn’t you just tell me if you wanted to get, um, serious?”

Abbie hesitated. “I didn’t want to freak you out. We’ve been best friends for so long, and I mean, you weren’t even into girls until a few months ago so… I guess I didn’t want to push you and risk losing what we have,” she explained.

Melina thought about it. She didn’t really know how she would have reacted if Abbie had come out and said she wanted to be her girlfriend before now, truth be told. A lot had changed in the past day, but now she was very happy with the new situation. “Well, now it’s done, and I’m not freaking out,” she said, smiling. “But no more lying,” she added sternly.

“I promise,” Abbie said, grinning back. Then her lips were on Melina’s, kissing her before she had time to protest.

Melina indulged her new girlfriend with another admittedly sweet kiss, though she kept an eye on the bathroom door to be safe. While she longed to exchange passionate kisses with Abbie, the current circumstances were far from ideal.

“Okay, okay,” she said, chuckling. “I wanna kiss you too, but… we can’t do that out here.”

Abbie glanced at the door. “You’re right,” she agreed. That said, she grabbed Melina’s hand, dragged her towards one of the bathroom stalls and pushed her in, before closing the door behind them.

“What are you doing?” Melina asked, amused, though she was pretty sure she got the idea.

Abbie stepped in very close. “Kissing my girlfriend,” she answered. “In private.”

With that, their lips met again. This time, Melina let her passion flow unrestrained. She slipped her tongue into her partner’s mouth and they shared a long, ardent kiss. Abbie pushed herself against Melina until her back hit the wall of the stall. Their bodies were molded to one another while their tongues were entwined in the sexiest of dances. Melina felt tingly all over, and fervently wished they had even more privacy.

Abbie seemed to be thinking the same, and was none too shy about it: her hand came up to fondle Melina’s breast through her blouse, making her moan into their kiss.

“We can’t…” Melina said weakly once they came up for air. “What if someone comes in?”

“No one’s here,” Abbie said reassuringly, though her mischievous smile suggested she was very much enjoying Melina’s embarrassment. Her hand continued its caresses while she brought her mouth to Melina’s ear and teased the lobe with her tongue. She’d discovered that was quite the sensitive spot for Melina, and she very much enjoyed making good use of that knowledge.

Melina bit her lip. On one hand, she really wished Abbie would stop. She was mortified at the thought of getting caught doing things like this at school. But at the same time, she really wanted the girl to keep going, feeling her lust burning ever hotter inside her. It was a very conflicting moment.

Abbie had even bolder ideas, though. Her hand went down and slipped under Melina’s skirt, suddenly pressing against her panties.

Melina’s eyes went wide and she let out a small yelp. “Abbie! S-stop!” she said urgently, snatching her friend’s wrist. “We can’t do that, even in here!”

“Hmm, well, I’ll stop if you really want me to,” Abbie whispered seductively in her ear, “but that would be pretty mean, no? Your panties are already wet, Mel, and now you’d want to spend the whole afternoon all horny and with no one to take care of you? When I could just slip my fingers into your hot, wet pussy right now and make you feel sooo good? Is that really what you want, baby?”

Melina swallowed hard. She was pretty certain she’d just become twice as wet listening to her girlfriend’s dirty talk. The girl was right, unfortunately; Melina had sat in class when all she could think about was sex before, and it was no fun at all. She felt her misgivings recede to the back of her brain, as the rest of her mind filled with urgent lust. She glanced at Abbie, who gave her a guileless smile, though her eyes shone with mischief and desire.

“Dammit,” Melina whispered, before letting go of her friend’s wrist. She fervently hoped no one would come in.

“Good girl,” Abbie said, grinning widely. “Or more like bad girl, I guess!” she rectified, giggling. Whatever the case, she didn’t waste any time slipping her hand into Melina’s panties and pressing her fingers into the folds of her hungry sex.

“Aah!” Melina moaned involuntarily. She quickly brought her hand up to cover her mouth.

Abbie laughed again at her reaction, but didn’t relent in the least. Her fingers roamed up and down Melina’s slit, pausing at times to rub her engorged clit. After some time, she slowly pushed her index finger inside Melina’s sex, looking into her eyes as she did so.

Melina held her lover’s gaze with some difficulty, as her head seemed to want to loll back on its own. Her pussy clenched pleasantly against the invading digit and Abbie’s palm rubbed against her clit. It felt amazing, and her legs were already getting a bit shaky. Thankfully for her nerves, the mounting tension inside her seemed to indicate that this would be a rather quick session. She had to admit that the unique situation was probably turning her on at least a little.

It was at this moment that they heard the bathroom door opening. Both of them froze, exchanging wide-eyed looks. There were footsteps, then the sound of another stall opening and closing.

Melina didn’t dare even breathe, though that was proving difficult since she’d already been getting rather out of breath before the interruption. She was watching Abbie’s face as a small smile crept onto her friend’s lips and a playful twinkle shone in her eyes. Oh no, Melina thought, shaking her head vehemently at the girl, but that only made her smile widen.

An instant later, she felt Abbie’s finger slowly curl inside her, gently rubbing her most sensitive spot. Melina inhaled sharply, and quickly added her other hand over her mouth. She tried to glare at Abbie, but didn’t feel she was very convincing with her eyes glazing over with pleasure.

She strived very hard to remain silent but it was an arduous task. Abbie was really putting her through a delicious kind of torture, and Melina had to wonder if her new girlfriend might be more than she had bargained for. In any case, she really hoped her hands were enough to muffle her gasps and whimpers.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and she couldn’t make out any sound from the other stall until she heard the louder noise of the toilet flushing, followed by its occupant washing her hands. Just as the bathroom door was mercifully opening, the footsteps paused and an amused voice said, “Dunno who’s in there but… have fun!” before the door finally creaked shut.

Both Melina and Abbie burst out laughing as soon as they were alone.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you did that,” Melina exclaimed, trying to sound angry but not quite managing it.

“Don’t give me that,” Abbie retorted. “I’m the one with a hand in your panties, remember? And you are soaked.”

“What? N-no way.” Could it really have turned her on that much?

Abbie laughed. “Oh yeah, you’re enjoying this way more than you’re saying. Or do you want me to stop now?” she teased.

“Don’t you dare!” Melina shot back. She pushed Abbie’s hand hard against her sex to emphasize the point.

Abbie grinned. “You better finish quick then, before someone else comes in.”

Whatever reply Melina might have given was cut short when Abbie covered her mouth with hers. The passionate kiss also doubled up as a useful way to muffle Melina’s moans, which were getting rather loud as Abbie gave up on the slow and gentle approach.

The girl’s finger rapidly thrust in and out of Melina’s pussy while her palm grinded against her clit. Abbie knew exactly what Melina liked and how to get her off, very quickly bringing her to the edge of ecstasy.

Melina’s last coherent thought was that her new girlfriend definitely scored very highly for knowing her body so well. Her limbs started shaking violently, and she held on to Abbie for dear life, not trusting her legs to hold her up. Her mouth slipped away from the other girl’s, and a blissful cry was set free, her mind too busy exploding with pleasure to concentrate on being quiet.

Abbie dutifully held her up until she had finished trembling. She then gently took her hand out of Melina’s panties, and nonchalantly sucked her finger clean, before flashing the most innocent of smiles.

Melina stared at her girlfriend for a moment, still in disbelief of what had just happened. Through the lustful haze still clinging to her mind, she decided that the girl deserved some of her own medicine.

“You! You… dirty girl!” was the best accusation she could manage. She took a few steps towards Abbie, half-stumbling, half-pushing the girl against the stall door. Her hands came up to fondle her girlfriend’s chest, making her gasp in surprise. She leaned in close and slipped her tongue into the girl’s mouth.

Unfortunately, their kiss was immediately interrupted by the school bell.

They paused, lips less than an inch from each other.

“Well, shit,” Abbie said.

“Crap,” Melina agreed.

They would barely have the time to get to class. The school was quite strict with lateness, and there would be a punishment if they dawdled. Their parents might even be called if they delayed too long. As much as Melina wanted to get some vengeance on Abbie, she really didn’t want to have to explain the reason why she missed part of a class. Regretfully, they stepped away from each other.

“I guess you’ll be the one who has to be horny all afternoon then,” Melina teased. She supposed it was some sort of revenge—though not the most fun kind.

Abbie stuck her tongue out at her. “You better make it up to me tonight.”

“Tonight? What about your thing with Anna?”

“Oh, crap. I forgot all about that already.” Abbie sighed deeply. “Well, actually… maybe I’ll just tell her something came up after all.”

Melina grinned. “Great idea!” She still took the time to give Abbie a nice parting kiss before hurrying out of the stall. “See you tonight, then.”

“See you… girlfriend,” Abbie said, sounding immensely pleased with that last part.

They exchanged bright smiles, then quickly ran off to class.

* * *

Melina’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the doorbell ring. It seemed silly, but now that they were officially girlfriends, the prospect of meeting Abbie made her feel at once more excited than usual, and a little nervous. They would more than likely get up to the same things as usual, so she wasn’t sure why it should make a difference, but it did.

Of course, most of the nervousness was probably due to the little surprise she had for her lover. She got up from the couch and hesitated an instant, trying to build up the courage to actually go through with it. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to herself and made her way towards the front door.

The thought crossed her mind that she would be in big trouble if it wasn’t actually Abbie at the door, but her mom who had forgotten something—her keys?—or even a complete stranger. She paused cautiously out of view, peeking around the corner, and was relieved to catch a glimpse of her friend through the small window next to the door. Reassured, she hurried to the door and pulled it open while remaining hidden behind it.

“Hey,” Abbie said, smiling as she stepped in. “Why are you hiding behind—Whoa!” she exclaimed once she found Melina standing only in her bra and panties behind the door. “Well, hello there!” She laughed. “I guess your mom already left, huh?”

“Yep. I thought I’d get a little head start,” Melina explained coyly. She had considered getting even more of a head start and greeting her girlfriend completely naked, but she had ended up deciding against it—not solely to save herself some embarrassment, but also she figured it might be more enticing to keep some parts hidden for now.

Abbie certainly seemed pleased with the surprise, her eyes roaming appreciatively over Melina’s body. “That’s a nice welcome! I like it.”

Melina grinned. “I thought you might,” she said, before wrapping her arms around Abbie’s neck and pulling the girl into a kiss.

Abbie responded passionately, pushing Melina against the wall and grinding her body against her as she slipped her tongue inside Melina’s mouth for a deep, intense kiss.

Melina grinned inwardly. It seemed Abbie was quite horny, unsurprising after getting all worked up at lunch break and not getting any. Melina grabbed her girlfriend’s butt and pulled her harder against her. It looked like they would not waste any time getting down to “business,” not that she had expected otherwise.

Abbie gazed at her with lust-filled eyes when they came up for breath, then reluctantly took a step back. “Um, we should probably go somewhere other than the hallway,” she said. Grabbing a bag she’d brought from the floor, she added, “I have a couple things for you, too.”

“Oh?” Melina said, curious. She took Abbie’s hand and dragged her towards the living room, where they both plopped down on the couch. “What things?”

Abbie opened her bag, then glanced at Melina, looking a bit nervous. Finally, she fished into the bag and came out with a rose. “Here,” she said shyly, handing Melina the flower.

Melina gaped at the gift. She hadn’t expected a romantic gesture like this at all. She found it very sweet, but now felt kind of bad. Should she have gotten something for Abbie? Is that what girlfriends did? The thought had never even crossed her mind. She brought the flower to her nose, it smelled lovely. “You bought this for me?” she asked, moved.

A guilty look crept onto Abbie’s features. “Well, um, I’m totally broke, so… I kinda stole it from your neighbor’s yard on the way here,” she explained sheepishly.

Melina burst out laughing. She felt better knowing it had just been a spur of the moment thing. “That’s still very sweet, thank you,” she said while carefully putting the rose down on the coffee table.

“Careful, these things have thorns, did you know?” Abbie warned, looking unhappily at her thumb. “It was kinda harder to pick than I expected.”

“Aww, did you hurt yourself?” Melina took Abbie’s hand to inspect the damage. There was a drop of blood pearling on her thumb. “Poor baby,” she said, before bringing the injured finger to her mouth and giving it a kiss, then going one step further and gently sucking it into her mouth.

Abbie quickly seemed to forget about any pain she’d felt. She bit her lip as they exchanged looks filled with desire. “I feel better already,” she said, pulling Melina to her and offering her tongue to replace the thumb in her mouth.

Melina gently pushed her lover down on the couch as they shared an ardent kiss. She then moved on to nuzzle Abbie’s neck while her hands explored the girl’s body, caressing her thighs, her stomach, her breasts. She smiled when she noticed her girlfriend’s breath accelerating.

Moving further down, Melina lifted Abbie’s shirt, and kissed her flat stomach. She teased the cute belly button with her tongue, knowing that never failed to turn her friend on. As if on cue, the girl’s hips started pushing up against her urgently, but Melina wasn’t quite ready to go there just yet.

Instead, she kissed her way up along Abbie’s ribs, pushing the shirt higher as she went, until she reached her lovely breasts. Once again, the girl had forgone wearing a bra, and Melina had to smile at the sight.

She gave a languorous lick around one breast, slowly spiraling in towards the sensitive nipple. After making sure the small nub was as stiff as possible, she licked her way across Abbie’s chest and repeated the operation on her other boob.

Abbie moaned softly, a delight to Melina’s ears. She did love making the girl moan—and scream, but they’d get to that soon enough. She kissed her way back down her girlfriend’s body, once again giving her belly button a few licks. Teasingly, she slipped her tongue under the waistband of Abbie’s shorts, making the girl gasp and raise her hips.

Melina giggled at the needy reaction. She undid her friend’s shorts and hooked her fingers in the waistband of both shorts and panties. Abbie was only too eager to lift her butt to help get the garments off.

Melina paused a moment to appreciate the view of her girlfriend’s sex, already glistening, then she leaned in and kissed Abbie’s inner thigh. She poked her tongue out and slowly licked her way up to the little hollow where the thigh meets the hip, then stopped. Moving to the other leg, she did the same thing there, moving her tongue tantalizingly close to Abbie’s pussy, but again stopping just short.

“God! You tease!” Abbie whined, lifting her head to look at Melina with pleading eyes. “Please! I need it so bad.”

Melina grinned at her. She considered tormenting her lover a little more, but decided to be merciful. She gave her a great big lick, slowly trailing her tongue from the bottom of her sex to the very top.

“Oh God, yes!” Abbie exclaimed, finally getting what she desired.

Melina used her hands to spread the girl’s vulva, then slid her tongue in and out of her sex, trying to go as deep as possible. She felt Abbie’s hand on the back of her head, gently pushing her even closer, and smiled inwardly at how horny her girlfriend was.

She trailed her tongue up to tease Abbie’s engorged clit, receiving louder moans in return. Slowly, she slipped a finger inside her lover’s sex, and soon Abbie was pushing her hips back in a steady rhythm.

“Ah! Ah yes! Try—Ah! Try with two fingers,” Abbie managed to say breathlessly between moans.

Melina paused for an instant. “Yeah?” They’d only ever used one finger before, but she supposed it was something to try. She’d seen in videos that it was definitely possible and seemingly enjoyable.

She slid her middle finger out of Abbie’s pussy, squeezed it against her index, then very carefully pushed both fingers back in. Her girlfriend’s sex gripped the fingers tightly, but her abundant excitement made slowly sliding in and out fairly easy. “How’s that?” Melina asked, curious.

“Mmm. Feels big… but really nice,” Abbie sighed. It wasn’t long before her hips began bucking again to meet Melina’s thrusts.

Smiling, Melina leaned in again and resumed flicking her tongue over Abbie’s clit, delighting in her girlfriend’s increasingly urgent moans. As the excited cries became louder and more frequent, Melina intensified the movements of her tongue and fingers to match, causing an erotic feedback loop with only one possible outcome.

With her intimate knowledge of Abbie’s body, she knew that the girl was getting very close now, and she also knew just how to take her over the edge. She clamped her lips down on her girlfriend’s clit, sucking on it, and pushed her fingers into Abbie’s pussy as deep as she could.

The effect was immediate: Abbie let out a great cry and her hips started bucking wildly. Melina held on as best she could, determined to give her lover an intense orgasm that made the long wait worthwhile. Her efforts were quite appreciated, judging by the sounds of ecstasy ringing in her ears.

Once Abbie had quieted, Melina crawled up to snuggle, holding her girlfriend tenderly as she came down from her orgasmic high. As she often did in these moments, Melina felt a deep intimate connection with Abbie. She was filled with intense affection, with… love. She laughed out loud, wondering how she could have been so blind to what she was feeling before.

Abbie looked up at her curiously, an eyebrow raised.

Melina shook her head shyly, at first hoping Abbie wouldn’t ask what she was thinking about. No, she then thought, enough being silly about this, I should tell her. She gazed into her girlfriend’s eyes, and said simply, “I love you.”

Abbie’s eyes went wide with surprise, then a big smile spread on her lips. “I love you, too,” she replied.

Melina felt elated. She’d suspected that would be Abbie’s answer, of course, but to actually hear the words filled her with more joy than she could have imagined. Judging by the expression on Abbie’s face, it looked very much like she felt the same.

They beamed at each other for a moment, then kissed, tenderly at first, then with growing passion. Their tongues met, and Melina felt her lust, which had subsided a little during the sentimental moment, roar back to full intensity. Abbie’s hands came up behind her back to unhook her bra. Melina was amused to note that despite starting with way fewer clothes on than her partner, she was the one getting her underwear off last.

“Your turn now, lover,” Abbie whispered seductively.

“I’m all yours,” Melina said, feeling tingles of anticipation running all over her body.

Abbie smiled, then leaned in for another hot, intense kiss. Meanwhile, her hands were not idle, coming up to caress and fondle Melina’s breasts, kneading the sensitive flesh.

Breaking the kiss, Abbie lowered her mouth to Melina’s chest, and started flicking her tongue over her already very stiff nipples, sending sparks of pleasure throughout her body.

One of Abbie’s hands came to rest on Melina’s knee, then she slowly dragged her fingers, feather-light, across her inner thigh and up to her panties. Melina let out a gasp, which soon turned into a loud moan when her lover’s hand pressed more forcefully against her underwear.

Abbie grinned at her, then gave her a few soft kisses on the neck, making her way up until she could suck gently on the earlobe. 

Melina shuddered all over at the contact with her secret sexy spot. Her breath was coming in hard and fast now, with all the delicious stimulations on her body: Abbie’s mouth at her ear, one hand still fondling her boobs, and the other pressed between her legs. She wanted even more, though, so she hooked her thumb in her panties to pull them down.

Abbie grabbed her hand, stopping her movement. “Nuh-uh. Keep that on for now.”

Melina raised a puzzled eyebrow at the girl. “Really?” she asked dubiously.

“Remember, I said I had two things for you?” Abbie said, moving away and grabbing her bag. When she pulled out her phone, Melina felt even more confused.

“I found a little app you might like. See, with this you can make the phone vibrate for as long as you want,” Abbie explained, tapping at the screen to demonstrate, and her phone started rumbling in her hand.

Melina looked from her girlfriend’s face to the phone and back again, more perplexed than ever. Maybe her lust-filled brain wasn’t thinking at peak capacity, but she couldn’t fathom why Abbie had stopped the wonderful things she’d been doing to talk about some stupid app. “So… you found a way to drain your batteries real fast. Great?”

Abbie gave her an exasperated look. “No, silly. It… vibrates? Sounds familiar?” she said, showing off what she had in mind by gently pressing the phone against Melina’s inner thigh, near the edge of her panties, and tracing little circles with it.

“Oh!” Melina exclaimed, finally catching on. “It’s for… Oh! Really?”

“Uh-huh. Well, they call it a ‘personal massager’ or whatever, but you can guess what that’s code for,” Abbie explained slyly. “Probably not as good as a real vibrator but… I bet we can have some fun with it.”

“Mmm. I’m willing to be your guinea pig,” Melina offered, smiling, at last on board with her girlfriend’s plans.

“I bet you are.” Abbie winked. “See? That’s why you need your panties, ‘cause hey, I love turning you on, but I’m not getting my phone all wet and sticky,” she added, making Melina giggle. “Now, let’s see how this feels…”

Abbie lightly dragged the buzzing phone from Melina’s thigh onto her panty-clad sex, watching intently for a reaction.

Melina gasped. “Whoa. That feels… kinda weird… but also nice.” She could feel the vibrations penetrating her sensitive flesh. She’d never felt anything quite like this, but it was rather pleasant.

“Mmm,” she purred when Abbie pressed the device against her panties a little harder. “Oh yeah, I could get used to this.”

Abbie grinned. She seemed to be enjoying herself quite a bit, experimenting with different movements in various spots.

“Oh!” Melina exclaimed when the improvised vibrator was pressed against her clit. “God! That’s… really good.”

“Oh? This spot right here? I’d never have expected,” Abbie teased. She made small circular motions over Melina’s clit with the buzzing device, eliciting quite a few gasps and moans.

Melina could feel the vibrations and accompanying waves of pleasure spreading through her lower body, inside her pussy, even inside her clitoris somehow. It was magical. Her smartphone was already probably her favorite possession. Now, if it could do that? No other object would ever come close. She had the impression her panties were quite thoroughly drenched with excitement, and vaguely wondered if Abbie’s phone would really be okay, but she couldn’t quite muster the will to care at that moment.

After enjoying the wonderful sensations for a few minutes, she was quite ready to ascend all the way to heaven. “Can you make it go faster?” she asked around a moan.

“Um, no, that’s as hard as it goes,” Abbie replied sadly. 

“Oh,” Melina said, disappointed.

“Guess these things weren’t really made for this.” Abbie chuckled. “I can help, though.”

Melina felt the crotch of her panties being pulled aside, then one of Abbie’s fingers easily slipping right up into her wet, eager sex, forcing a loud cry out of her. “Oh God, yes! Mmm, Abbie,” she moaned as her girlfriend started moving the finger in and out of her. “Did I say I love you yet?”

“Mmhmm. Say it again, though,” Abbie demanded as she thrusted her finger in as deep as it would go.

“Aah! I love you!” Melina cried out. The tension that had been slowly building up inside her suddenly ramped up to near explosion under the care of Abbie’s expert fingers. The girl knew just the right spot to rub to drive Melina wild, and the vibrations on her clit were only magnifying the effect.

Abruptly, Melina’s body went all rigid and her mind exploded with bliss. Her pussy clenched around her girlfriend’s finger, feeling like it was filled with pure pleasure. The rumbling phone made it feel like her whole lower body pulsated to the rhythm of her orgasm.

After a fleeting moment that felt like a delicious eternity, Melina slowly came back down to Earth. She felt Abbie gently pull out from inside her, then come up to snuggle against her, just like she’d done before. Melina held her lover tightly.

“And I love you, too,” Abbie said sweetly, finishing the thought from earlier.

They simply gazed into each other’s eyes for a long moment, smiling and enjoying the intimacy.

“I’m so happy right now,” Melina finally said.

“Me too, you have no idea. Let’s stay like this forever,” Abbie replied.

“Okay,” Melina agreed, chuckling.

Maybe forever wasn’t very realistic, especially with her mom coming back home eventually. They could certainly enjoy the moment, though. Melina was confident there would be many more like it in the coming weeks and months. Maybe even years.

An image suddenly flashed in her mind: Abbie and herself in this very same position, but years later, on their own couch, in their own home. The thought made her smile. Yes, no more fears. This was the future she wanted.

For now, though, admiring the beautiful girl next to her, she had to wonder if they had time for more fun before her mom really got back…

The End

By No One

Melina was lying on Abbie’s bed, her friend’s head resting on her belly. She idly played with the girl’s blond hair while listening to her talk about her weekend at her mom’s.

Such tenderness had become common for them over the summer. Little caresses, even little kisses had sneaked into their habits when they were alone, even when they didn’t intend to take things further.

At first, it had caused a lot of uncertainty and soul-searching for Melina, but she had since decided to stop questioning and overcomplicating things. Now, a few months after they’d started fooling around, she was completely comfortable with the situation. So they were a bit more intimate than most friends, so what? It wasn’t anyone else’s business, and it didn’t need to have a deep meaning for their relationship or her life. She just went along with whatever felt right and natural, and was much happier for it.

“So, Mom said maybe I could get a new laptop for my birthday, since that one is getting really old and crappy,” Abbie was saying, gesturing towards the computer on her nightstand.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Melina replied as she was toying with a strand of Abbie’s hair, braiding and unbraiding it. “Hey, that’s right, it’s your birthday next week.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t you forget it,” the blonde girl said, giving Melina a poke in the ribs.

Melina giggled, swatting her friend’s hand away. “So you’ll be officially a teenager, huh?”

“Yep,” Abbie said, then sighed. “Still don’t look like one, though. It’s not fair, how come I’m the older one but you grow way faster?” she asked, reaching out above her head to grab one of Melina’s boobs to illustrate her point.

Melina let out a surprised laugh, then caught her friend’s wrist to stave off the assault. She’d had a bit of a growth spurt over the summer, and was quite happy with the results. “Oh yeah, you’re older by like a month,” she reminded Abbie. “And anyway, I thought you liked these,” she added, pushing the girl’s hand back against her chest.

Abbie laughed with her. “Well, yeah I do,” she admitted, giving the breast a playful squeeze. “I just wish mine would grow some too, or at least that I’d get a bit taller.”

“You’re fine. You’re still a hottie,” Melina tried to reassure her.

Abbie turned over suddenly to look up at her, eyebrows raised. “Really? You think so?”

“Well yeah, of course…” Melina said hesitantly, a bit surprised at her friend’s reaction.

“You just… never really said it before.”

“Oh, really? Well, I mean… I guess I thought you knew,” Melina explained awkwardly. She hadn’t really meant to make a big deal about it, but now Abbie was beaming at the compliment. Had she really never told the girl how pretty she was? She supposed she’d been too shy at first, and then afterwards it might have slipped her mind. This was getting a bit embarrassing, though, so she tried to change the subject. “So, what do you want for your birthday? Other than a laptop, I mean. I don’t have money for that.”

“Hmmm,” Abbie made a show of pondering the question for a moment. “Scarlett Johansson in my bed?” she finally suggested with a hopeful smile.

Melina snorted, eyeing her friend’s poster of the actress on the wall. “Oh yeah, sure, let me just give her a call.”

“You’re the best.” Abbie grinned, then lifted up Melina’s shirt a little to deposit a kiss on her stomach. “Or, you know… maybe you in my bed would also be acceptable.”

Melina chuckled. She didn’t feel too bad about being second fiddle to the admittedly gorgeous actress. Besides, Abbie had a much better chance with her than with Scarlett. “I’m already in your bed,” she pointed out.

“Mmm, good point!” Abbie said, as if the realization had just hit her. She crawled on top of Melina and straddled her hips. “What am I gonna do with you then?  Any ideas, straight girl?”

Abbie still liked to tease her about that, even though after months of fooling around, it was quite clear that, at the very least, Melina wasn’t wholly straight. She stuck out her tongue at the girl in response.

Abbie giggled. “Oh? Is that your idea?” she asked, before she bent down and sucked the offered tongue into her mouth, just as Melina had hoped she would.

Their tongues tangled with some passion, and soon Abbie’s hand came up to caress those breasts she envied, making Melina moan into her mouth.

Reaching out behind her friend’s back, Melina pulled on the hem of her shirt until it was blocked by her arms.

Abbie broke the kiss to smile at her. “In a hurry?”

“Yeah,” Melina replied huskily. She’d been a bit horny ever since she got to Abbie’s, but now the kiss had kicked her lust into overdrive.

She pulled her friend’s shirt completely off when Abbie raised her arms to allow it. The girl wasn’t wearing a bra, as was usual for her when she wasn’t at school, much to Melina’s delight.

Their mouths met again, then Melina’s drifted off to kiss the other girl’s neck, her collarbone, then finally her revealed breasts. Her tongue teased one nipple, already stiff with excitement, making Abbie gasp and shiver in pleasure. Her boobs might be small, but Melina knew they were quite sensitive. She had learned to put that to good use.

“Mmm, Mel,” Abbie moaned as Melina’s tongue continued its caresses.

It was at this moment that they were interrupted by a phone ringing. They exchanged an annoyed look.

“Ignore it?” Melina suggested hopefully.

Abbie peered at the screen of the phone on her bedside table, and sighed. “It’s my dad, hold on,” she said as she reluctantly got off Melina’s body to pick up the phone. “Hi, Dad.”

Melina could vaguely hear a voice replying but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“What? Can’t you use your phone to—” Abbie began, then paused. “Okay, okay, hold on,” she continued after listening for a moment. She opened her laptop and seemed to be looking up something on the Internet.

Melina, a little annoyed at having been interrupted, decided to put the time to good use and took off her shirt, then her bra. She caught Abbie’s eye, and the girl grinned at her, momentarily distracted from her search.

Enjoying diverting her friend’s attention, Melina unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down along with her panties, leaving her entirely naked. She was very pleased with the lustful look the other girl was giving her.

Abbie eyed her body up and down, biting her bottom lip, until the voice from the phone reminded her she was in the middle of something. “Uh, yeah, just a sec,” she said quickly, turning her attention back to the computer.

Melina crawled up to her friend and sat behind her, pressing her naked body against Abbie’s back. She reached around and undid the button on the girl’s shorts, then pulled down the zipper.

Abbie had a hard time trying to stifle her giggles. “No, I’m not laughing at you,” she said into the phone. “Mel is being, um, funny,” she added, elbowing Melina. Finally, she seemed to find what she was looking for. “Okay, here it is,” she announced and gave her dad an address. “Sure. Yeah, later.”

Abbie threw her phone on her pillow, and leaned back into Melina’s arms, letting out a sigh of contentment. “He forgot the address and didn’t want to use data on his phone,” she explained. Though Melina couldn’t see Abbie’s face, she could almost hear the eye roll in her voice. 

But Melina didn’t really care about the reason for the call, as long as it was over. Her hands still at Abbie waist, she gave a suggestive tug on her friend’s shorts.

Abbie giggled and helped her take off the garment, her panties along with it. “Well, aren’t you horny,” she said, turning her head to give Melina a kiss.

“Yeah, well, you were gone all weekend,” Melina complained.

“Aww, missed me? Had no one to take care of your… needs?” Abbie teased.

As a reply, Melina raised her hands to her friend’s chest, caressing that lovely flesh, and gently pinching her sensitive nipples.

“Mmmm. Okay, I missed you too,” Abbie admitted amid little gasps and moans. “Oh, hey, since we have this here, want some… inspiration?” she asked, nodding towards her laptop.

Melina chuckled. Occasionally they looked at naughty sites while fooling around. It’s not that they really needed the inspiration, but still, it was fun and exciting from time to time. “Um, sure, if you want,” she answered.

Abbie opened her favorite site, navigating with some difficulty due to Melina’s busy hands still pleasuring her. “Um, ‘two redheads love pussy,’ maybe?” she asked, reading the title of one video.

“Hmm, dunno. I like blondes,” Melina replied, kissing her friend’s hair.

Abbie turned her head to smile at her. “Maybe something with a blonde and a brunette then,” she suggested, twisting one of Melina’s brown curls around her finger. She scrolled down until she found something suitable and clicked on it, then leaned back against Melina.

On the screen, the two women in question were sitting on a bed, idly chatting in an awkwardly acted scene. Melina didn’t pay them much attention, instead concentrating on kissing Abbie’s neck while continuing to caress her nascent breasts. Her friend’s little moans never failed to turn her on even more. She let one of her hands veer south on a slow journey across the other girl’s belly, until it reached the treasure between her legs.

Abbie moaned loudly at the contact, pushing her pussy against Melina’s hand. She was already very wet. Her squirming around didn’t leave Melina indifferent either: Abbie’s back rubbing against her stiff nipples, the girl’s butt bumping against her sex; Melina was soon just as worked up.

In the video, the women had wasted no time taking their clothes off, and were now making out passionately. The blonde had her hand between the brunette’s legs, fondling her slippery-looking pussy, much to the latter’s vocal delight. She stopped her ministrations suddenly and brought her slick fingers to the mouth of her lover, who enthusiastically licked her own arousal off them. Giving her partner a teasing smile, the blonde woman then got up and walked off camera for a moment.

It had been a very sexy display, and Melina wondered how Abbie would react if she tried something like that. Her hand started moving up as soon as the thought entered her head, but she stopped herself halfway, hesitating.

Abbie took hold of her hand and, turning to look straight into Melina’s eyes, brought it to her mouth. She slowly sucked on two fingers, using her tongue to carefully clean up every trace of her honey. “Didn’t think I’d do it?” she asked once she was done, grinning.

Melina shivered at the erotic sight, her lust inflamed even more. She leaned forward for a hungry kiss, but it was soon broken by a sudden gasp when she felt Abbie’s hand slip between her legs.

The girl flashed that sexy, naughty smile of hers as she pressed her fingers into the folds of Melina’s sex. She then brought her hand back to her mouth and slowly licked her index finger clean. “Yum,” she said, then offered her equally slick middle finger to Melina.

Turned on as she was, Melina didn’t hesitate. She took the offered digit into her mouth and sucked on her own juices while looking into her friend’s eyes. She saw that Abbie seemed just as excited by the display as she’d been. They grinned at each other.

“Well, don’t stop what you were doing, though,” Abbie said, grabbing Melina’s hand and putting it firmly back on her yearning sex.

Melina got the message and resumed her caresses on her friend’s slick pussy, drawing a satisfied moan from the girl. She wasn’t left wanting either, as Abbie soon returned the favor, her hand moving between Melina’s thighs in very similar motions.

As they played with each other’s sex, Melina glanced back at the laptop screen and saw that the blonde woman was back, holding some sort of pink cylinder. “What’s that?” she asked breathily.

Abbie turned towards the computer to take a look. “I think it’s… a vibrator,” she said slowly.

Indeed, the woman on screen turned a knob on the device and it started buzzing. Smiling, she pressed it against her lover’s pussy, forcing a long, low moan out of her.

“Oh, wow,” Melina said, wide-eyed. She had vaguely heard of vibrators before, but had no concept of what they were actually like until now.

“Well, that looks fun!” Abbie said cheerfully.

Still with a busy hand between each other’s legs, they watched on for a while as the woman with the vibrator pleasured her partner. First she rubbed the toy along the brunette’s slit, teasing her clit with it on the way up, then she slipped it inside her lover’s pussy. All the while, the brown-haired woman was letting out blissful moans.

“Now I kinda want one of those,” Melina said, getting a little out of breath from watching the sexy video and the wonderful things her friend’s hand was doing to her.

“If you get me something cool for my birthday, maybe I’ll get you a vibrator for yours next month,” Abbie offered.

Melina snorted. “Oh sure. Who’s gonna sell that to a 12-year-old?”

“Excuse me, I’ll be thirteen. They’re, like, obligated to sell to me, or something.”

“Pretty sure that’s not true,” Melina pointed out, amused.

“Well, fine, maybe not,” Abbie admitted. “But I’ll see what I can do. Only if you’re nice, though… and only if you share,” she added with a wink.

Melina laughed. There was no way her friend could really deliver on that, she thought, but it was a fun fantasy. “Oh, how nice do I have to be then?” she asked huskily.

Abbie turned to face her and grinned. Once more, she brought her hand, fingers slick with arousal, to Melina’s mouth.

Obediently sucking each finger clean in turn, Melina gave the other girl what she hoped was a very sultry look. She figured she’d succeeded pretty well at turning her friend on when she saw Abbie biting her bottom lip, returning a lust-filled gaze. She couldn’t deny she was quite excited herself by the naughty act of licking her own love juices.

As soon as she was done, Abbie pushed her down on the bed, and pressed her lips against hers. Their tongues joined in a very passionate kiss that sent a thrill through Melina’s body. She really loved kissing her friend, she had to admit. It never failed to make her all tingly inside.

When the kiss broke, they smiled at each other, then Abbie straightened up. Looking pointedly at Melina’s sex, she said, “now it’s my turn to taste you.”

Melina giggled and dutifully spread her legs for the other girl. “Isn’t that you being nice, though?” she asked teasingly. “I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.” Over the summer, she’d learned very well that it could be as enjoyable to give as to receive. Making Abbie moan sexily in response to her tongue movements had quickly climbed the list of her biggest turn-ons.

“Well, nobody’s stopping you,” Abbie replied as she casually rotated around and straddled Melina’s face. The invitation was quite clear.

With Abbie’s enticing pussy mere inches above her face, Melina could smell the girl’s arousal. A few short months ago, she would have never imagined taking pleasure in another girl’s intimate aroma, yet here she was, inhaling deeply of the erotic scent before lifting her head and giving her best friend’s nether lips a deep, passionate kiss.

Abbie let out a long moan as she enjoyed the feel of a tongue exploring her folds for a moment, then lowered her mouth to Melina’s sex to return the favor with much enthusiasm.

Melina groaned into her friend’s pussy as she felt that familiar-yet-always-amazing sensation emanating from between her thighs and spreading through her body. Abbie had a really talented tongue, she thought, not for the first time.

The position was called a 69, Melina had learned. They’d done it a few times before, and she found it very intimate and sensual. As she was reminded at that moment, though, it also sometimes made it hard to concentrate on your task when your partner was making you feel so good at the same time.

Trying to remain focused through the haze of pleasure, she lapped at Abbie’s sex as best as she could, giving long licks the length of her slit and pausing to tease her clit on each pass. Judging by the muffled moans she heard, she was doing a satisfactory job of it. 

She certainly had no complaints about her friend’s dextrous tongue either. She couldn’t concentrate on the specifics of what Abbie was doing to her, but she knew it was quickly bringing her near ecstasy. When she felt the girl’s lips clamp down to suck on her clit, a loud moan was forced out of her and her head fell back on the bed.

“Ah! Abbie!” she managed to shout before her orgasm reduced her to incoherent mewling. She was taken by surprise by the intensity of it, which made her squeeze her eyes shut in a long moment of bliss, then left her panting.

She slowly opened her eyes when she felt movement on the bed, and saw Abbie turning around to face her while still straddling her head.

Grinning down at her, her friend said, “Well? Finish the job, you lazy bum.”

Melina didn’t have much choice in the matter when Abbie knelt lower and pushed her pussy against her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment. This was certainly new… but hey, she was quite willing to go along with it.

She slid her tongue out to roam deep into the folds of Abbie’s sex, paying special attention to her pleasure button, of course. Looking up from this angle, she had a very sexy view of her friend’s beautiful body. She saw that Abbie was looking down at her as well, and they held each other’s gaze as Melina’s tongue made the girl pant faster and faster.

“Oh yeah, Mel. Yes. Yes!” Abbie moaned as she gently rocked her hips back and forth against Melina’s mouth.

Sensing the other girl was getting very close, Melina grabbed her butt to hold her in place while she licked at her clit for all she was worth.

“Oh! Fuck!” Abbie shouted, arching her back. She lost her balance and toppled forward, ending up on all fours as she broke her fall with her hands.

Melina smiled inwardly, pleased with herself. It always excited her when Abbie was turned on enough to say dirty words—though she herself was still usually too embarrassed for dirty talk. She held on to Abbie and kept up the assault of her tongue unrelentingly while the girl cried out her pleasure for long moments. It sounded like a really good one. She only let up when Abbie rolled away and collapsed on her back next to her.

Remembering the laptop, she glanced over and saw the video had finished while they were otherwise occupied. That was usually what happened in these situations.

“God… that was so good,” Abbie said haltingly, trying to catch her breath.

Smiling, Melina crawled up to her friend and gave her a sweet kiss.

Abbie smiled back, then giggled once she took a good look at Melina. “Um, sorry, I kinda messed up your face there,” she said, sounding at once guilty and amused. She leaned in again for another quick kiss, then used her tongue to clean up her juices around Melina’s mouth and cheeks, making her giggle as well.

“Um, that was okay, right?” Abbie asked uncertainly after she was done. “Like, over your face like that?”

“Yeah. It was, um… kinda fun,” Melina replied, giggling again.

Abbie grinned and kissed her once more. “I…” she began as they looked into each other’s eyes afterwards, then shook her head. “Um, nah, nothing.”

Melina gave her a weird look, but shrugged it off. Instead, she snuggled up close to Abbie and laid her head on the girl’s chest. They were both still rather sweaty, but she didn’t care. She loved this part. Sex was amazing, of course, but cuddling afterwards was also very special. So warm and intimate, like they were the only two people in the world. She had never felt so close to someone as she did to Abbie in these moments, and she felt like she could stay like this forever. A small voice in the back of her mind pointed out that these were not the kind of feelings you had for a friend, but she ignored it.

They remained in that position for a while, Melina idly tracing circles on her friend’s belly, while Abbie played with her hair. After some time, Melina glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table and reluctantly sat up.

“I should probably go. I still have some homework left and I promised Mom I’d get back early to do it,” she said sadly.

“Aww, but I was comfy,” Abbie complained as she got up as well. Both of them began to put their clothes back on.

Melina smiled. “Yeah, me too. Hey, are you coming over tomorrow night? My mom has that weird… flower arrangement class, or whatever.”

“Oh, um…” Abbie hesitated. “Sorry, I kinda promised I’d go over to Anna’s…”

Melina blinked at her, confused and disappointed. “Who?”

“Anna. You know, that new girl who just moved here? She’s in math with us.”

“Oh, right, her.” Melina vaguely recalled the girl. Glasses, brown hair. Kind of cute, she supposed. “What, you guys are BFF’s already?”

Abbie laughed. “Relax, she’s not replacing you,” she said with a wink. “She just missed the first week of school and she’s a bit lost, asked me to explain some stuff.”

“Aaah, I see,” Melina said, nodding sagely. “The old ‘help with the math stuff and put the moves on the new girl’ routine, right?” she teased.

For a brief instant, Abbie gave her a sidelong thoughtful look, then she turned cheerful and said, “Hey, maybe I will! She looked kind of interested.”

Melina blinked again, unsure if her friend was being serious. “Wait, what? R-really?”

“Yeah, she was kinda… flirty, I guess? What can I say, I’m a hottie, you said it yourself,” Abbie said smugly, shrugging helplessly at her own attractiveness.

Melina wasn’t finding this very funny anymore. “So, you’re going to… with her?”

“We’ll see. Maybe,” Abbie replied nonchalantly. “Unless… that’s a problem?” she added, waiting for Melina’s reaction.

“I… well, I mean…” Melina had no idea what the roiling emotions she was experiencing meant, let alone how to express them. Inexplicably, though, it felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“Doesn’t mean we have to stop doing it,” Abbie reassured her with a smile.

“Better not,” Melina mumbled. “I… I… I guess it’s okay then… Not really my business. I guess,” she finally said with a half-hearted shrug. If it didn’t change anything between them, why should she care what Abbie did? The terrible feeling wasn’t going away, though.

Abbie gave her an unreadable look for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, then,” she said simply.

They finished dressing up in rather awkward silence, then Melina made her way to the front door.

“Hey, hold on there, not so fast,” Abbie called out.

Turning to face her friend, Melina found Abbie’s lips suddenly upon hers. She wasn’t really in the mood for this anymore, but the other girl proved insistent, and she let herself be drawn into a long and admittedly very nice kiss. Mollified a little, she rewarded Abbie with a small smile.

“See you at school,” Abbie said, smiling back.

“Yeah. Bye,” Melina said before going out the door.

On the walk home, she tried to analyze her feelings. Part of it was anger. She was mad at Abbie. Why should she be, though? It’s not like they had ever agreed to be, well, anything really. They were best friends, and they fooled around. If Abbie wanted to do it with someone else too, it didn’t change that. Why should it bother her so much?

What if Abbie started to like this other girl more, though? What if they started dating? Then she’d be left alone. Well, they could still be friends but… After getting used to having wonderful sex regularly, it would be very hard to adjust.

No, that wasn’t it, though. Even if things didn’t get serious between Abbie and Anna… Just the thought of her friend being with someone else was making her blood boil. The intimacy she shared with Abbie, their connection, that was something special between them. She didn’t want to share that with anyone else. Abbie was hers. Really, how dare this skank try to come between them?

Melina stopped short mid-step, surprised at the strength of her emotions. She was jealous, she realized. Very jealous. What did it mean, though? She and Abbie weren’t girlfriends… Were they? Was she… in love with her best friend? She didn’t know what to think anymore. How did you know if you were in love?

Maybe if… you want to be with the other person all the time, and you feel an intense closeness to her like with no one else, and you have amazing sex and want to cuddle forever afterwards, and you feel incomplete when you’re separated? Any of this sounds familiar? said the little voice in her mind, the one she’d been ignoring all summer. It was getting its revenge with dripping sarcasm.

Shut up, she told the voice, feeling like an idiot.

She’d been content to just let things happen, to go along with the flow. She’d even refused to think things through when the line of thought had made her uncomfortable. And now, if she didn’t figure out how she really felt and acted on it, she would risk losing it all.

“I think… I need to have a talk with Abbie,” she said out loud to herself.

Continue on to Chapter 6

By Rebecka

{ This story was originally posted at Lesbian Lolita in January 2010 }

God, I hate the snow. When I was fourteen years old, my best friend and I were trapped on a bus in a snow storm. It was the middle of January, the temperature was arctic (even before the snow), and I’d already seen more snow than an Atlanta girl was used to seeing in a decade. The problem was, I was no longer in Georgia.

“Minnesota sucks,” I grumbled.

Paul, the boy who sat beside me and who was my de-facto boyfriend, laughed condescendingly. “Wuss. You haven’t lived until you do it on the side of a ten foot snowdrift.”

I showed my disapproval by elbowing him in the ribs. “Asshole,” I added, when he laughed again. The truth was, I was utterly miserable being cold.

The snow had begun as a gentle flurry around ten, and had grown into a howling monster by the time school let out early at two-thirty. I was totally miffed that they would even have school on a day where a foot or more of snow was predicted by three o’clock. Only in Minnesota.

“Actually,” he said, gazing out the window at the brutal white out. “This is pretty radical, even for Minnesota.”

A lake-effect storm gone psycho; they were now predicting up to four feet with snow-drifts eight feet high by midnight. Unbelievable.

Twenty minutes later, Paul got off the bus half a block from his house — reluctantly; he liked leaving me on the bus no more than I liked being left — waited in the whirlwind until the bus pulled away, waving at me unhappily, and then trudged toward home with his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed into the pockets of his parka. It bothered me seeing him so miserable; I was really getting to like Paul.

For the next hour and forty-five minutes, the bus crept forward a foot at a time, discharging students lucky enough not to live in Mesaba Estates, while I ran my battery down to a flashing outline relentlessly texting Paul and my other friends, barely paying attention as the ridership of Bus 9899 dwindled to fewer than a handful of students. Scowling out the window into the now perfect darkness, I clamped my arms across my chest, pressed my lips into a straight line, balled my fists against my ribs and tried to keep my nostrils from flaring unattractively. Not that anyone would look at me and see. The driver was too wrapped in driving to look anywhere but out the icy front windshield.

Twenty minutes later, the only other passenger on the bus beside myself was Agnes Ahlberg, the one person on the route who lived farther from the school than myself. As she always did, Agnes sat alone by the window, five rows from the back, on the opposite side of the bus.

Agnes was peculiar. She wasn’t pretty, but neither was she ugly. The truth was, Agnes could be cute if she wanted to be. However, she always wore her dark hair parted in the middle, chose drab, out of fashion clothes, and looked totally devoid of makeup, even when she had some on. She was a seriously blah girl that boys either ignored or ridiculed, and who girls made fun of. In the half-year I’d been at school, I’d talked to her maybe twice, three times at the most. We’d never had a real conversation.

Looking at her reflection in the glass, I felt guiltily sorry for her. Like me, she had her arms crossed over her chest, and was staring out the window, unseeing, by the look of her reflected face. I watched her out the corner of my eye, afraid to be caught looking.

Two things happened at once. The driver, a string bean balding man in his late fifties,yelled “Shit!” and then suddenly the bus was sliding sideways, the front end going right and the rear end going left, the tires on the locked wheels making a grinding sound as they plowed through the built-up snow and ice, the noise becoming twice as loud as the bus, going nearly perpendicular to the road now, extended both sets of wheels into the gravel shoulders.

I grabbed the top of the seat ahead, sensed Agnes doing the same thing behind me. I was too afraid to speak, too shocked to cry out. Looking back, I locked eyes with a wide-eyed Agnes.

We hit something with a sickening jolt, and suddenly the bus was no longer going sideways but backwards. Agnes and I screamed at the same time and so did the driver, though his scream was more an angry denial than an expression of fear. I watched as he twisted the wheel first one way and then the other, having no effect whatsoever on the attitude or direction of the bus. It slid off the road and headed down the embankment, which thankfully wasn’t steep enough to tip the bus over onto its side. It was steep enough, however, to pitch me off my seat into the isle and fling Agnes against the side of the bus. I grimaced as I heard what could only be her head smacking the window. Being thrown around as I was, I was unable to look back and see if she was injured.

“No! No, goddammit, no!” The driver, still fighting the wheel as though it could make any possible difference, had finally found his voice. More profanities spewed from his mouth as the bus took a particularly hard lurch crashing through a line of saplings planted on the hillside. The impact bounced him off the ungiving wall, and halfway off his seat. He kept one hand on the wheel while planting the other on an outcrop of the dashboard. Nothing he did had the slightest effect on the bus’s trajectory. And then suddenly it was over.

Oh, my God, I thought frantically. We’ve stopped. I looked out the windows to make sure this assumption was in fact, correct. It was. To my amazement the bus had remained upright, coming to rest on almost perfectly level ground. Listing only slightly, it apparently had the right front tire on the highest ground, and the left rear tire on the lowest. How in the name of God we hadn’t tipped over, I didn’t know.

The driver coughed explosively. Pushing back into his seat, he twisted around to look back at us. Still coughing, he choked out, “Are you girls okay?”

I looked back at Agnes, who looked on the verge of hyperventilating. She was fingering the left side of her head gingerly. She winced, but nodded.

“We’re all right,” I confirmed. “What about you?”

“Okay,” he answered. His coughing fit had subsided. I wondered if it had been a reaction to fear, because I felt like I should be coughing too. In fact, I think I was seriously close to throwing up. I looked back at Agnes.

“Are you okay?” I said. I asked this not in the way of a curious bystander, but as a friend. Peculiar or not, Agnes had just gone through the same horrible experience that I had. I felt an instant bond with her, if not of friendship, then at least of camaraderie. We had survived.

Carefully, I got up and brushed off the back of my jeans. My elbow hurt, and so did both of my butt cheeks. So did the outside of my left thigh, where I must have hit it against the opposite seat going down. My back also felt stiff, as though I’d almost thrown it out of whack.

Wincing as she examined the extent of her lump, Agnes smiled tentatively. “Where are we?” she asked. “Do you know?”

I had to admit that I had no idea. Turning to the driver — his back was giving him problems too, from the looks of it — I asked the same question of him that Agnes had asked of me. He looked dubious.

“Well, I think we’re off Broad Neck Road.”

Anxiety shot through my chest at the question mark in his voice. “You think? You don’t know?”

Rather painfully, the driver shrugged. “I know we turned off Route 3. The trouble is, it was snowing so hard when we turned that I couldn’t make out the sign. There were no landmarks that I could identify either. It was a complete white-out, for God’s sake. I had to count off distance by the odometer and when I saw a road where Broad Neck was supposed to be, I turned. I wasn’t positive, but the turns in the road seemed right, and I knew we must have been coming up on Wentworth when we went off.” He hesitated, unsure.

“How far did you go up?” I asked. Right after we had moved in, I had idly checked the distance on Dad’s odometer from the school to home. The distance from Route 3 to Wentworth was a mile and a half. Though I hadn’t been paying close attention, I was sure that we had gone a mile and a half down Broad Neck, maybe even two miles. Oh, God. Were we lost?

“Relax,” he said, smiling tightly. “Even if we’re on the wrong road, it’s not like we’re on the backside of the moon. We didn’t slide that far, and anyone passing will see the headlights. They’re pointing right at the road.” We all looked through the front windshield at the whirling, driving snow. I wondered if the lights could be seen from twenty feet away, much less up that long hill to the road. Seemed to me anyone up there would be concentrating hard as could be on the snow-covered pavement right before him or her; not sightseeing.

“Besides…” He indicated the radiophone that he used to communicate with the dispatcher and the school. “I’ll call in and they’ll send a wrecker out for the bus and a 4×4 to get you girls home. We can’t be more than a hundred feet from the road. Nothing to worry about.”

In my old school district in Atlanta, the buses had all been equipped with GPS tracker units on the roof, and 3D displays on the dashboard. You couldn’t get lost, even if you tried. Here, you had to depend on the radiophone if something went wrong; or, on your cell phone. Remembering that mine was dead gave me a new, queasy feeling. I pulled it out and flipped back the lid to check. It was dead, completely. It had died in my pocket. I couldn’t even call my folks to tell them what was going on.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Any minute now, Mom would start having conniptions. I turned to Agnes. “Can I borrow your cell phone? Mine is dead.”

She smiled in apology and shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t have one.”

I looked at her in astonishment. “You don’t have one?”

She shook her head, blushing, lowering her eyes out of embarrassment. I didn’t know anyone, not even here in Minnesota that didn’t have a cell phone. I turned to the driver, whose name I now remembered was Mr. Sanford.

“Could I use your cell phone to call my mom? Mine’s dead,” I said, holding it out as proof.

Nodding absently, he dug in his coat pocket and came out with a cell phone, which he flipped open. Looking at the display, he wrinkled his forehead worriedly. He held the cell phone up and away from him, turned in a quarter-circle, and then turned completely around. Then he walked down the isle toward us moving the cell phone to either side of the bus, scowling more and more deeply.

“The tower must be down. I usually get three bars out here, no matter where we are.” He looked out the window in the general direction of Route 3, where the cell phone towers were. “Bad luck,” he said, holding out the display so that I could verify that he was telling the truth. The phone was a beat up old Samsung; I was amazed it worked at all. Sure enough, there were no bars showing.

Suddenly, Mr. Sanford turned around to stare at the handset of the radiotelephone. He hurried back up the isle to the front, Agnes and I right behind him.

Please! I thought. Please, please let that phone be working!

Snatching up the handset, Mr. Sanford pushed the transmit lever on the side and spoke into the handset loudly and clearly: “Dispatch? 9899. Over.”

Nothing but static answered the callout. “Dispatch? 9899 here, calling an emergency. We are off the road somewhere east of Wentworth on Broad Neck Road. Do you copy, dispatch?”

He released the transmit lever and we listened to more static. I thought, maybe, that I heard a faint voice attempting to answer. If so, it sounded from the far side of the moon.

Bending over to check the dial, Mr. Sanford called out again. When there was till no answer, he rotated the switch to a second frequency and called out on that. The results were no better. Each time his call for help went unanswered, my stomach cramped a little harder, and my hands shook a little more, until I felt right on the edge of panic.

“Are we trapped out here?” I croaked. “Please tell me we aren’t trapped out here!” I cast a frantic look at Agnes and found her staring back at me with big, slowly blinking eyes.

“It’s okay,” she muttered. “Even if we are, it’s not like we’re going to freeze to death or anything. The engine’s running, and we have plenty of gas.” She and I and Mr. Sanford all looked at the dashboard at the same time. Seeing the needle on the gas gage resting at just over half a tank, I released a shuddering sigh and relaxed. If worst came to worse, we could run the engine for a while, get things warm and toasty, and then shut it off for a while. It would surely last until we were rescued.

After trying the third and final frequency with the same result, and then going through all three channels one more time, Mr. Sanford resolutely replaced the handset into the cradle and cursed mildly under his breath.

“Either the weather is doing this, we’re too far out, which I don’t believe is possible, or something happened to the antenna when we crashed. Whatever the cause–” He folded his arms deliberately across his chest. “–we’re stranded here until the storm is over, or until they come looking for us.”

Another thought occurred to me. “What about food? What about water?”

Looking surprised, and then thoughtful, Agnes returned to her seat and grabbed her backpack off the floor. She hunted through it for a moment and brought out an unopened bottle of Dasani. It was only 12 oz, but it was something to drink. Seeing it made me remember the half-full bottle of Diet-Coke in my own backpack.

“I have a pack of cookies in here somewhere too,” she said. She located not one, but two packs of Oreo cookies in the smaller front pocket. She continued looking, but finally shrugged and said, “That’s it, sorry.”

We both looked at Mr. Sanford, who shook his head. “Worst comes to worst, we melt snow. It’s not like we’ve any shortage of frozen water.”

Snowballs for dinner; how yummy.

I told them about my half-bottle of Diet-Coke, not wanting anyone to think I was holding out on them. I only wished that I had two packages of cookies in my backpack instead of the half-ounce of pot I was holding for Paul. I guessed we could eat that if we had too. That idea made me grin, wryly.

While Mr. Sanford returned to the radiotelephone, and alternately his useless cell phone, Agnes and I sat down in a seat a few rows back and bundled our arms across our chests. Despite the heat blowing out the floor vents, it felt not much warmer than fifty degrees in the bus. I experimentally opened my mouth and blew out air. I was alarmed to see mist. It was colder than I had thought. Agnes leaned forward and looked at the floor, then up at the frost-encrusted windows. For them to be frozen over like that, the temperature outside must have really plummeted.

“This is scary,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen snow blow this hard.” She wiped the window with the heel of her hand; it did nothing whatsoever to clear the frost, only made scrape marks that, if anything, worsened things. Looking at it first, Agnes rubbed the side of her hand against her pant leg and then put it back in her pocket. It occurred to me that Agnes was no more a Minnesota native than I was.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

She sighed wistfully. “Florida. I hate it here. Where about you?”

“Atlanta,” I admitted. “What part of Florida?”

“Sarasota. You moved up over the summer?”

I nodded. Though she looked at me with quick, semi-embarrassed glances, she had beautiful, big brown eyes, the color and warmth of chocolate. Her skin, though peppered with tiny dots of acne across her forehead, was otherwise flawless. Like many girls with very dark hair, she had a hint of a mustache; it wasn’t unattractive, however, it was just there. The few times she had smiled, she had displaced a very nice set of teeth. I wondered how a girl as inherently attractive as Agnes could be so insecure, so timid, so off-putting.

“I’d give anything to be in Florida right now,” she said, shivering. I thought of bikinis and waxing, spaghetti-straps and shorts and sandals. I wondered if they even sold sandals in the state of Minnesota.

“What made your folks move up here?” I asked.

She shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “My dad got his own congregation here. That, and it was almost like moving home again. We’re originally from Wisconsin. He hates hot weather almost as much as I love it. It’s just not fair,” she moped, thrusting out her lower lip.

I had to laugh. “What do you mean by congregation? Like a church congregation?”

She nodded. “Synagogue. He’s a rabbi. My mother teaches–”

“You’re Jewish?” I broke in, startled.

She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Agnes? Ahlberg? Yeah,” she added, drawing out the word condescendingly. “What did you think I was?” Her lips curling up at the corners; I loved how her eyes twinkled as she smiled.

Feeling my face redden, I answered thickly: “I don’t know. I thought-”

“That I was Greek?” she interrupted teasingly. “Yugoslavian? I guess I have the coloring for a Yugoslavian. Actually, I’m from Poland, by way of Sweden. My grandparents emigrated just after the war. Mom and Dad were an arranged marriage, actually. Does it bother you that I’m Jewish?”

“Well… no,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t think it bothered me. Looking at her more closely, I didn’t understand how I could have not known she was Jewish. Suddenly, her unpopularity made more sense. There are not a lot of Jews in Minnesota.

“I’ve never had a Jewish friend before,” I admitted.

“Is that what I am now?” she asked, almost caustically. “Your friend?”

“You don’t want to be?” I countered. A smile tugged at my own lips.

Her smile broadened, began to show teeth. “You’re sure it’s allowed? I mean, after all, you are blond and beautiful. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize your good standing, or your good seat at lunch.”

Though said teasingly, her words had bite. I sat at a table jammed from one end to the other with all my friends; most of the time, Agnes ate alone or with a small group of equally nerdy friends.

In reply, I said: “There’s room for one more at my table. Or we could always start our own table. Nerds on one side, all the cool kids on the other.”

She couldn’t help herself. With a startling radiance, a smile broke across her face. My right hand rose of its own accord, and with no instruction from me whatsoever swept the hair on her left side back behind her ear. My left hand came up and did the same to the hair on her other side. Startled, she blinked and jerked slightly backwards away from me. Embarrassed, I shot a glance forward and was relieved to see Mr. Sanford bent over, examining the settings on the radio. He had the microphone in his hand.

“Sorry,” I said, looking away. “I shouldn’t have done that.” Agnes had self-consciously — or subconsciously — swept her hair back behind her ears, securing whatever I had missed. I felt my face begin to redden hotly. I looked down at my clamped-together hands, wishing I were anywhere but on that bus. Agnes sat back against the seat and looked at the window.

“I should move,” I muttered, almost unintelligibly.

“Please don’t.” Her right hand shot out and hovered just above my clasped hands. She moved it back, though left it hovering over my thigh. I was appalled. What had I done?

“Can I show you something?”

I nodded stiffly.

Picking up her backpack, Agnes unzipped the main compartment and removed a small, white laptop computer and sat it on her lap. I recognized the Apple logo. Her fingers fumbled at the catch, finally the lid into the upright position, where it displayed a sign-on screen. With visibly trembling fingers she typed in her password and hit the Return key. The desktop appeared. She paused, trembling. Suddenly she shut the lid again. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” I enquired. I didn’t want to admit that I was as confused as I was embarrassed.

“What I was doing.”

“What were you doing?”

“That’s what I can’t show you,” she said cryptically.

“Agnes…” I fought to keep my hand in my lap where it belonged, not across the narrow space separating her from me. “You should show me, Agnes.”

“I’m too embarrassed,” she complained. In fact, her face had gone beet red, redder even than mine had been a minute ago. She started to return the laptop to her backpack; I reached across and caught her right wrist.

“You should show me. It’s okay, I promise. We’re supposed to be friends, remember?”

She laughed bitterly. “I don’t think we’re that good of friends. Please let go of my hand.”

Instead, I forced her to return the laptop to her thighs and fought with her to reopen the lid. She resisted me with something akin to mild panic.

“It’s okayI” I assured her. “Whatever it is, I’m not gonna think bad of you.”

“Yes, you are,” she said decidedly. “You’re never gonna want to talk to me again.” Regardless, she released the lid and let me lever it into an open position.

“Type in the password,” I coaxed.

“No.”

“Please, Agnes? I want to see.”

“No, you don’t,” she said unequivocally.

“Yes, I do.”

Stubborn, she just shook her head.

Pulling the computer off her lap onto my own lap, I typed combinations of letters close to what I had seen her enter. Frowning, her forehead creased and her eyebrows pulled into a straight line, she watched while I tried combination after combination. I was just about to give up when it hit me: I typed in my last name.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

Agnes looked away, groaning softly. I stared at her, blinking. When the desktop was firmly in place, I moved the cursor around using the touch-pad, trying to think what to do next. I looked over at Agnes again.

“Here,” I said, “show me.”

Wordlessly, she reached over and directed the cursor to the Mail icon in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. She clicked it, and a moment later a window popped up, covering the middle of the display. I skimmed down the unfamiliar list of addresses and headers, looking for anything of interest. I saw nothing. It was just typical correspondence from friends and acquaintances of hers, interspersed with junk mail.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Again silently, she moved the cursor so that it rested above the Drafts folder on the left side of the screen. When she removed her hand and replaced it in her lap, I clicked the link. Blinking, I gasped. Filling the Drafts folder were email after email addressed to me.

“Agnes,” I said. “What is this?” I looked at her, and her lips were trembling. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her jaw quivered as though she’d burst into sobs at any moment. Unbidden, my hand stole over to her lap and gripped her clasped hands. “Don’t,” I said very softly. I looked from her face, to the screen and back again.

The latest email in the queue, dated last night at 10:45 P.M., read:

Dear Ellen,

Another boring day. I’m sitting on my bed propped against the headboard and a stack of pillows. I’m in the pajamas you like so much (the white ones with the blue stripes?), watching a repeat of Grey’s Anatomy. Lexie just kissed McSteamy and I am absolutely livid over it! I want to throw the remote at the screen! What is wrong with that girl?

Anyway, today at lunch you glanced over at me and I managed to get my eyes away from you just in time. You were talking to Sara, who had a really nasty look on her face, the kind she gets when she’s teasing me or talking to someone when she know I can overhear. I wanted to give her the finger, but oddly enough, I don’t think it was me she was talking about.

One thing I have to give you: although you normally look at whoever she’s sniping about, you usually look as though whatever Sara’s saying bores or irritates you. Also, you are never mean when talking to un-cool people like me, like Sara and your other friends are. I like that about you. You’re different. In many ways, you’re more like me and my friends than you are like Sara and her friends. Not that I think you’re drab. You are the most un-drab person I can imagine. It just hurts me to see you hang around those B’s and know I’ll never be a part of your group, never be good enough for you.

She went on to describe her evening, including an argument with her mom, a yelling match she’d gotten into with her brother — I couldn’t imagine Agnes yelling at anyone, brother included — and difficulties with her homework. I also read about the ten times she had wanted to call me on the telephone and hadn’t the nerve, the heartbreaking hopelessness she felt, knowing that I’d never in a million years call her.

It made me want to cry, and at the same time, go sit at the back of the bus, as far away from her as I could get. Never once, had I ever suspected anything.

“I don’t understand,” I muttered honestly. “We don’t even know each other. How could…?” The improbabilities made my head spin. There were so many emails.

Scrolling down the list I realized that a day hadn’t passed in the last month that she hadn’t written me something. Often, there were two or three, even four emails in one day. Turning my head, I looked at her, dumbfounded. Then I pushed the laptop away and stumbled out of the seat and made my way to the back of the bus.

I didn’t understand. Worse, I didn’t understand my reaction. No, that’s a lie; I understood my reaction fully well: I had freaked. I was overwhelmed. Floored by the unexpectedness of the discovery as well as by the significance of it. This girl was in love with me. In love, or hopelessly infatuated, which for a teenager amounts to the same thing. It was so totally not what I expected.

Confounded, I sat with my arms clamped over my chest, my legs clamped together, staring at the window. Ahead of me, Agnes remained where I had left her in her seat. Although I paid no attention to her at all, I could tell without looking that she was really shaken up, possibly even crying. Peripherally, I could see her hunched over, looking at the floor.

Why had she showed me the laptop? Why had she led me to the emails? Was she crazy? What was she thinking about? How could she possibly think I was interested in her? I wanted to jump up and scream Lezzie! Freak! Dyke! Go get your pussy somewhere else!

The question, unbidden and coming out of nowhere, rocked me back in my seat:  Then why the hell did you touch her hair?

You touched her hair, tucked it behind her ears. What the hell did you think would happen?

I didn’t do that, I objected.

The hell you didn’t! You led her on, and then freaked when she responded to your advances.

I sat bolt upright. Indignantly I set that voice straight right away. Bullshit! No action of mine resulted in that girl filling her head and her computer with nonsense! Did you see that shit? She’s been writing to me since the start of school. When did I ever so much as smile at her or say more than hi? Today was the first time we ever said more than ten words to each other. The only time I even notice her is when she says or does something stupid. She’s nothing to me.

Really, the voice asked. You think that’s true?

I sat, fuming. Where the hell did this voice get off telling me I didn’t know my own mind? Since when had I ever thought, or cared about Agnes Ahlberg? God damned little cunt-licker.

For another ten minutes I remained rigidly in denial. Then, slowly, as my anger drained away, I began to experience doubt. If I was to be truthful with myself, wasn’t it true that I was unusually aware of someone I claimed to have no interest in? Although we shared no classes, why did I always seem to notice what clothes she wore, the state of her hair, her lack of makeup and who, if anyone, she was conversing with? Anyway, I had to ask myself, was I sometimes bothered seeing her crack a smile or have her dullness otherwise lifted talking with another girl? (I had never, that I could remember, seen her talking to a guy.) And why did the face looking back at me from the frosted over window, though blurry and somewhat distorted, look so miserable?

With a suddenness that made me jump, the engine died and the lights went out. Ten rows ahead of me, Agnes gasped and started out of her hunched-over position. Mr. Sanford muttered, “What the hell?” and looked around the interior of the bus, now lit only by an emergency light mounted front and rear on the ceiling.

I stood up, uncertainly, and then sat back down again. Now what? I wondered.

Setting aside her backpack, which she had been holding in her lap, Agnes slid off her seat and walked cautiously forward, stopping right behind the driver’s seat. Mr. Sanford was trying to restart the engine, but it wasn’t even turning over. It made no noise at all, not even the clicking noise my dad’s car made when the battery had died. I wrapped my arms tightly around my chest and looked down at the floor. With the engine stopped, heat no longer blew out of the vents. I began to shiver.

“What’s the matter?” Agnes croaked, alarm in her voice. “Why won’t it start?”

“I don’t know, honey,” Mr. Sanford said distractedly. “We have plenty of fuel.” He tapped the gas gauge, and then examined all the other gauges on the dashboard, his finger following his eyes. “I’m afraid it could be electrical.”

“Isn’t the engine a diesel?” Agnes surprised me by asking.

Mr. Sanford grunted disagreement. “Propane. It needs electricity, just like a regular gasoline engine.” He stared at the dashboard, muttering, thinking hard. “The only thing I can think of is the alternator went out when we hit that stranded car.” So that was what the impact had been that spun us completely around. He half rose out of his seat to look out over the hood. “We hit on the left side, where the alternator is. If it was damaged or the belt came loose…” He shrugged and sat back down. “The engine would run on the battery for a while, until it ran out. I think that’s what happened.” He did not sound happy. It fact, he sounded very worried.

“How long will the emergency lights work?” Agnes wanted to know. She looked at the fixture above the windshield, then at the one above the rear door. Our eyes met for an instant. I looked away, half a second too late.

“Eight hours,” Mr. Sanford said. “More or less. They work off a separate battery.” He looked over his shoulder at Agnes. “Don’t worry. We’ll be out of here way before then. I promise you.”

Agnes shook her head forcefully. “How can you promise that? We’re stranded here. We’re not even sure we’re on the right road. You weren’t able to raise anybody, and now we don’t even have lights to show anybody where we are.”

The rising panic in her voice was unmistakable. Shaking off my stupor, I slid off the seat and shuffled up the isle. She had just begun to speak again in a high, cracking voice when I touched her shoulder. She jumped and screamed sharply.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “The bus is insulated, right, Mr. Sanford? It shouldn’t get below freezing in here. We can easily hold out until someone finds us. We have your water, and my Diet-Coke, and like Mr. Sanford said, we can always eat snow if we really get thirsty.” I squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll be fine.” Her fear I could handle, but I wanted to flinch away from the look of pain and betrayal in her eyes. I smiled. It felt horribly forced and wooden.

“The trouble is–” We both looked at Mr. Sanford. “No matter how well the insulated the bus is….” He paused to look at the already glazing-over windshield. “The temperature is going to continue to drop until it gets quite uncomfortable in here. I’m sure they’ll find us before the drop in temperature becomes life-threatening–” He held up his hands defensively. “But I don’t think I can take that chance.”

“What do you mean?” I asked dubiously. He didn’t expect us to leave the bus, did he? That seemed suicidal.

“I have to go for help. I’ll–”

“No!” Agnes and I wailed in tandem.

“You can’t go out there!”

“You’ll freeze to death!” Agnes cried.

“You won’t even be able to find the road!”

“And what if no one comes along? There’s hardly any houses along that stretch of road.”

“Even if it’s Broad Neck,” I persisted. “Which we’re not sure it is.”

“You’ll freeze to death!” Agnes repeated.

Sanford stood up. “I have a responsibility to you kids. To make sure you’re safe. You won’t be safe as long as we’re stranded in this bus without heat. I have boots, I have a heavy winter coat; my ski cap and woolen gloves will keep me plenty warm. I’ll be fine,” he assured us.

“Bullshit!” I shot back. “You’ll kill yourself, and leave us here alone to freeze. You’re shirking your responsibility, not honoring it!” ”

Looking pained that I would use such language, Mr. Sanford shook his head and pulled his parka off the back of his seat. Agnes looked close to panic again, but also undecided, biting her lower lip. She looked from me to Mr. Sanford and back, plaintively. I shrugged. If Mr. Sanford wanted kill himself, what could I do about it?

“This is really stupid,” I grumped.

“Really stupid,” Agnes echoed. I noticed a plume of steam in front of her mouth, and tried not to think about that.

Mr. Sanford said: “Inside that compartment are blankets.” He pointed to a large square door built into the bottom of the dashboard. “Wrap yourselves up in them. There are flares in there as well. I’ll mark my path up to the road so that I can find my way back. They burn for fifteen minutes each. I’ll take half and leave half here with you. When the one closest to the bus go out, pitch out a fresh one. Even in the snow storm I’ll be able to find my way back.”

He squatted and flipped back the catches holding the door closed. Right in the front was a stack of plastic wrapped blankets. He grabbed one and tossed it to Agnes, another to me, and two more, one for each of us. Taking one out of the plastic bag, I shook it out and wrapped it around my shoulders. The other I clutched under my right arm. Agnes held her own against her chest, looking very unhappy.

“This is really stupid, Mr. Sanford.”

Mr. Sanford pulled out a red plastic box, flipped open the top and removed a package of flares. There were three of them side by side in the package, protected by a plastic blister pack. Examining them for a long moment, he stuffed the package into his pocket, and then removed the others. There were four packs altogether, twelve flares in all. He pitched the box back into the compartment, resealed the hatch and stood up.

“Do you know how to light a flare?” He looked from one to the other of us.

“I’ve seen it done on television,” Agnes admitted doubtfully. “You scratch the top of the cap across the top of the flare.” She pantomimed the action, her movements no more certain than her voice.

“Exactly,” Mr. Sanford agreed. He separated the top flaps of the blister pack, took the plastic tabs in the fingers of each hand, and pulled the packaging apart. Indented plastic buttons on either side held it together. He held out one of the flares to Agnes, but she shied away. I took it instead.

“Show me,” he said.

Clumsily, I peeled the red fabric band holding the plastic top to the flare and dropped it on the floor. The cap slid off easily, revealing a red button atop the flare that would ignite when struck by the rough surface on the cap. I would not want to ignite it on the bus.

“Not here,” Mr. Sanford said, grinning. To my surprise, he winked at me. Despite knowing that it was simply an effort to ease my mind, I blushed a little bit, looking away in embarrassment.

“Okay. Let’s give this a go.” Mr. Sanford showed Agnes how to lever the doors open with the emergency handle, then had me step down into the well, where he joined me. “Go ahead,” he said.

Looking very unhappy about it, Agnes struggled with the lever until the doors inched apart and let in a blast of frigid air and snow. Flakes peppered my face, making me blink. I held my hands up for protection, squinting my eyes, which teared almost immediately. My unprotected hands began to sting.

“Do it quickly. You don’t want more cold air getting in than you absolutely have to.”

Taking a deep breath, still squinting, I held the flare outside the open doors and clumsily struck it with the top of the cap. Nothing happened.

“Damn it!” I cried, striking the top of the flare again with the same result. From behind me, Mr. Sanford reached around and took each of my hands in one of his and, after holding them steady a moment, deliberately and forcefully dragged the striker patch across the chemical bottom. With a whoosh, and a stink of sulfur, the flare ignited.

“Oh, my God!” I cried, looking away, blinded. I hadn’t expected it to be so bright. Still holding my hand, Mr. Sanford pitched the flare fifteen feet out into the snow. It’s own weight and the spewing fan of brilliantly burning gases made it sink immediately out of sight. I hadn’t expected that either.

“Dammit! That’s no good!”

“Just wait, sweetie.”

A moment later, the snow began to glow red and suddenly there was an erupting volcano fifteen feet from the bus.

“The flare is made of sodium chlorate. It burns anywhere, even under water. Nothing can put it out.” He had let go of my hands and backed up the stairs, where he took the lever from Agnes and closed the doors against the snow. “It’ll burn for fifteen minutes. When it dies you strike another one and throw it out. You have six flares, which means I have an hour and a half to find help and get back here.”

“What if you don’t?” Agnes asked in a strangled voice. “You won’t survive out there for an hour and a half. You won’t make it fifteen minutes. Please, Mr. Sanford, please don’t go!”

For a moment, I thought Mr. Sanford might cave under her pleas, but following a moment’s indecision, he jammed his woolen ski cap down over his ears, zipped his parka up to his chin and fastened the Velcro straps, and donned his gloves.

“You kids take care of yourselves. I’ll be back before you know it. Close the door behind me and don’t forget to light the next flare.” And without further, he banged open the doors, jumped down into the well, crouched and leaped as far out into the snow as he could. Stupefied, I watched him struggle through the thigh deep snow up to and past the burning flare, watched him wave as merrily as if he was off on a skiing expedition, and finally disappear into the swirling, cascading darkness.

“Fuck!” I said angrily. Grabbing the door close mechanism, I banged the bi-fold doors closed with a vengeance.

Continue on to Part Two