I held my breath as the doors closed, shutting me into the tiny, confining space, leaving me at the mercy of technology, of the design of some nameless engineer that I'd never ever met and would never see. The floor dropped away, taking my heart with it and I breathed a sigh of relief while silently praying that the journey would continue at a steady pace, that the cable holding the lift wouldn't break.
Deep in my mind, I always berated myself for the irrational fear that accompanied me every time I got in a lift. I'd climb stairs given the choice, or avoid going somewhere altogether, but sometimes it couldn't be helped. This was one of them and I hated it. I wiped my sweating palms on my short flared skirt and swallowed hard. The lift came to a stop.
I panicked and the doors open and I sighed again as I realized it was just stopping to let someone in. I only half glanced at the girl that stepped into the lift. Short, petite, nicely dressed. She smiled at me and I half returned what was intended to be a smile, but that probably came out as an ugly grimace given my state of mind.
The doors closed and I held my breath again.
"Don't like lifts?" the girl asked me nicely as she took in my reaction. All I could do was shake my head.
"Well trust me, we'll be fine, I've been here a thousand times and never had a problem." I appreciated her trying to help but really couldn't focus. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, wringing my hands together and we stopped. There was no ding. No whirr, no quietly opening doors. We stopped suddenly, almost violently. I nearly fell with the unexpected change in motion. I felt the other girl reach out to support herself or me, I wasn't sure who. It was just a hand on my arm.
I turned to her, a scream barely restrained within my throat. Just as I met her eyes, the lights went out.
Out came the scream. The other girl pulled me into a hug, dragged me close to her. One hand was around my waist, the other supporting the back of my head as she pulled my mouth down into her neck to help keep me quiet so she could talk.
She reassured me, talked with me. To this day I have no idea what she said. I think she threatened to slap me. I didn't care, all I knew was that I was going to die. And then I felt her hand on my breast.
It was so unexpected, so different, so beyond anything I could have anticipated that I stopped screaming.
"What are you doing?" I gasped as her hand continued to gently fondle my breast.
"Stopping you screaming," she said. I couldn't see her and I didn't know what to think. I was stunned. "Can I talk to you calmly now?" she asked me.
"Um, yes, I think so," I said and her hand stopped playing with my tit. A small light came on at that point, sort of just illuminating the small space without quite making anything clear. It was a kind of creepy light and I half went to scream again, but her eyes held me and I bit back the scream.
"Don't panic yet," she said, "Let me call and find out what they know. She held my hand now and moved to the telephone beneath all the buttons. She took the phone up and pushed the call button. I only heard her side of the conversation.
"An hour?!" she demanded into the phone, "I have a girl here who's petrified of lifts and you're telling me an hour?" I started to tremble; an hour; in this place. That was like a life sentence to me. "You'd better, please," was the last thing I heard her say.
She turned and took both my hands in hers. "They said they'd be an hour. There's a big blackout on and they have a lot of problems to get to, but I told them they'd have to hurry up. Don't panic. I'm here too and I'll make sure you're ok," she said to me. In retrospect, I have no idea how she intended to ensure that, but I think it was all just to keep me from screaming and blowing out her ear drums again.
"Let's at least get comfortable," she said, lowering herself elegantly to sit on the floor of the lift. I took a little more notice of what she was wearing as I lowered myself to sit with her. She wore a nicely fitted pair of jeans and red, spaghetti strapped top that left me with just enough view of her cleavage as I sank down to the floor, my legs still trembling. "I'm Natalie," she said, smiling, "And you are?"
"Um, sort of. I', Nikki," I said, my voice trembling as I glanced around the lift again, expecting to drop down the shaft at any moment with no warning.
And from there, she started chatting to me. Nothing extraordinary, just chatting, about anything, I take it now, to keep my mind from where we were and the situation that we were in. As a consequence, I found that I did most of the talking. I did at one point in the discussion ask what she did and she told me that she was an actress. I didn't recognize her though and my queries as to whether she was in anything that I'd be likely to have seen just drew a wry smile and a shrug of her shoulders. She diverted the conversation at that point and I didn't think to pursue it.
I was just starting to relax and believe that she'd was right and we'd be ok when the dull emergency light flickered. There was a whirr as if the lift were going to start, but all that happened was it seemed to drop a couple of inches and stop again, scaring the absolute shit out of me. I screamed again and this time, saw the look of frightened shock that crossed Natalie's face. That did nothing to instill confidence in me.
Natalie took my hands again and tried to calm me, but it was too much. I was hysterical. She slapped me!
It worked and I stopped screaming as I stared at her in mute incomprehension.
"Sorry," she said and her eyes showed that she genuinely meant it.
"Its ok," I muttered, "Sorry that I lost it again."
"Hey its fine, I just didn't think that trying the same thing twice would work," she said, blushing slightly.
"You mean groping me?" I laughed.
"Uh yeah, I have no idea what possessed me, it was just like, how can I shock this girl enough to stop her screaming," she explained.
"Well it was certainly unexpected if not unpleasant," I said, my eyes glancing down to my lap at the admission.
"Well, I'm glad that I didn't offend you too much then," she said, staring at me somewhat awkwardly. I took a deep breath.
"Actually, I like it. I am ... um ... well I prefer girls to boys," I admitted.
"Oh!" Natalie exclaimed.
"Yeah, um, though not many people know, like I haven't confessed to my parents or anything, you know, I'm not 'out'," I blurted, scarcely believing that I had just told this complete stranger.
"Oh ok, that's fine," she said, smiling at me, "I meet lots of people with different sexual views as an actress."
"Yeah I guess you would," I said.
We talked about it for a while after that, me explaining how I'd discovered that I liked girls, telling her about some of my early experiences. I didn't even notice how she hung on my every word, or that her hands were pressed into her lap firmly, applying pressure to her crotch.
"Would you kiss me?" she said at one point, glancing down at her hands, her voice almost breaking.
"Really?" I asked. I had spent a fair bit of time admiring her by this point and certainly hadn't expected to be lucky enough to have her show any interest in me. She was beautiful and confident and being so kind ... I knew that I wanted her.
"Yes, I'd like to experience it ... a girl's kiss that is. I've wondered about it off and on and I think this might be the best and most private chance I'll ever get."
"Well sure," I replied. Butterflies danced in my stomach as we wiggled our bottoms across the floor of the lift toward each other. I leaned in over my lap as she did the same and our lips met half way between us.
Her lips were wonderful and soft and parted eagerly to accept the probing of my tongue as I set about exploring the kiss with her, feeling her tongue reciprocate. It wasn't a particularly long kiss, but it was gentle and lovely and I found my body melting in reaction to it.
"Wow," she whispered as we slowly parted from each other. "That's just ... wow," she said, giggling slightly.
"Oh yes, it certainly is," I said to her, smiling. She leaned in again. I met her eyes and smiled at her before leaning in as well, to kiss her again.
"Do you know," she said to me after the second kiss. "That when I grabbed your tit before it was the first time I've actually felt another girl like that? That's why I did it. I was eyeing you off as I got in the lift. You looked so hot and when you got hysterical, I just thought, I have to shock her ... and I want to touch her. From there it was just another split second until I put the two together."