This is another long one, more than twenty-four thousand words, which is why it's in Novels and Novellas. It contains depictions of straight, lesbian, and group sex. If that's not your thing, stop now and turn around. If you're still here, I hope you enjoy...
Jaq.
She walked to the end of the street and stepped into the bus shelter out of the fine drizzle. Checking both ways along the road, she moved to the back corner of the small concrete building. The stench of piss and cheap cider made her gag, so she quickly reached down and pulled her long socks from below her knees, to mid thigh. Pulling the tails of her white blouse out at the waist, she rolled the waistband of her skirt a couple of times, until the hem was just above the tops of her socks. Checking the street again, she loosened her tie and unfastened two buttons of her top. Her shoulder bag yielded a small mirror, eye-liner pencil, and lipstick.
Her fingers shook a little as she applied a thick line around each eye, then painted her thin lips black. Satisfied with her new look, she put away her makeup and watched the bus approach.
The rain was heavier now, and there were hurried footsteps running up behind her as she climbed the step and showed her student card to the driver.
"University campus," a voice gasped behind her. The driver issued the ticket and the bus pulled away from the curb.
The damp red-head smiled as she took the seat in front.
* * *
"Good morning," the balding man said as he entered the room. "I'm Bob Pickering. You can use Mr Pickering, Bob, or professor, I'm not fussed which. I'd like to know all your names, please," he said, opening a folder, "so I can begin to get to know you all."
He pointed to a man close to the front of the lecture hall. "We'll start with you."
He checked off names from his list and got a little information from each student.
She was the last one he came to. "And you are?" he said.
"Jaq Bailey," she said.
"Jack? How are you spelling that?"
"J A Q. Short for Jaqueline. I don't like my name that much."
Professor Pickering nodded. "Noted. I'll try to remember. Are you local?"
"I just moved here from London, with my mother," Jaq said. "But I grew up around here, as a child."
"Well. Welcome to you all. You have your reading list for this semester, and I hope you have already sourced the main course books. We'll start, today, with..."
The door burst open, and a bedraggled girl staggered into the room.
"S-s-sorry I'm late," she said. "They told me the wrong building."
Professor Pickering smiled and glanced at his list. "Ms Andrea MacKinnon, is it?" he asked.
"Um, yes. I prefer Drea."
"Noted, Ms McKinnon. Please join us."
"You were on the bus," Drea whispered as she took the seat next to Jaq.
"Mm Hmm. I'm Jaq," she said, as the professor launched into an outline of the year's syllabus.
* * *
Jaq grimaced at the lukewarm, bitter coffee. She pushed it aside and retrieved a can of cola from her bag. Drea joined her at the cafeteria table, sliding a loaded tray of food across the Formica top and dropping into the seat next to Jaq.
"You're going to eat all that?" Jaq said.
Drea smiled. "I missed breakfast, and I won't have time for dinner. I'm working tonight."
Jaq nibbled her tuna sandwich as she watched the small woman pack away three courses. Drea was at least four inches smaller than her and, though she had a nice figure, was by no means fat.
"Where do you work?" Jaq asked.
"A filling station in King's Heath. I work seven till midnight." Drea pushed away the tray, belched, and giggled. "Sorry!"
Her eyes drifted to Jaq's left ear, and she reached up and touched a small piercing. "This is a tragus, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Jaq was a little uncomfortable with the girl's touch, but it would be rude to pull away.
"What's this called," Drea said, stroking the long bar piercing the top of her ear in two places.
"That's called an Industrial. It hurt like hell."
"I think I want one of those," Drea said, pulling back her explosion of crinkled red hair to show unmarked pale ears.
"Get one, then."
"Can't. Mum won't let me."
Jaq gave her a quizzical look. "You're eighteen. You can get what you want."
Drea shook her head. "Not while I live under her roof. She won't let me have tattoos either. I'm here on a scholarship, or we wouldn't be able to afford for me to come at all."
"Well," Jaq said, clearing her rubbish into a bin. "I'll get you an Industrial piercing when you get your own place."
Drea smiled happily as she cleared her tray. "What do you have in the other ear?"
Jaq pulled back her hair, longer in her right side, and showed a total lack of piercings. Drea gasped as she spotted the small, red heart tattooed on the ear lobe. "That's beautiful."
"My mum doesn't think so," Jaq said. "She almost had kittens when I got it done. I was only sixteen."
"How? You have to be eighteen, don't you?"
"Friend of a friend was learning. She didn't ask too many questions."
* * *
Jaq and Drea parted company as they got off the bus. Jaq wandered up the street to number 42, letting herself in and shedding her jacket by the door.
"Mum?"
There was no reply, These days there never was. She found her mother in the lounge, still surrounded by packing cases from the house move. Akari Bailey was perched on the couch, a forlorn figure, hunched over a photo album, tears dripping from her cheeks onto the plastic coated pages.
"Mum."
"Oh, hello love. I didn't hear you come in. Do you get off for lunch?"
"Mum, it's almost five o'clock. Have you been here all day?"
Akari closed the album and placed it beside her on the couch. "I have some nice chicken for out dinner," she said, standing. "I'll go and start it while you get changed." She looked more closely at her daughter, now. "Is that what you were wearing this morning?"
Jaq looked down at her short skirt and thigh-high socks. "Kinda. Dress is a lot more informal at Uni. I changed it a bit."
Akari nodded and turned towards the kitchen. "I wish you'd grow your hair. That boy's style doesn't suit you."