Nicole threw in a kitschy hat and ran the zipper across her bag. It was hard to pack for a trip when they told you everything you needed would be given to you once you got there.
"So I'm lost," her roommate Penny said, agitated, for the umpteenth time. "Where are you going, again?"
Nicole's chores at last completed, she reached for her joint, smoldering on the coffee table ashtray, and took a shallow puff. "It's just a country getaway," she said with hoarded breath. "Halloween fun." She offered Penny the spliff.
"I get that. I mean, we were gonna go to Heather's costume party, I even bought a witch getup special for it, but I don't even care about that. The part that's weird to me is where you say you might be back in a day or two, or you might never come back at all."
"Yeah, it's complicated. I'm trying out for something. If I wash out, I'll be here for class Monday. If it's a smashing success, I'll be gone for who knows how long. I mean, I'll send for my things and pay up for the rest of the semester's room and board; I'll do right."
Nicole took another puff. Easy, she scolded herself. You don't want to lose focus, not now. Not during this conversation. "You can't tell me what it is you're trying out for? What if somebody calls for you?"
"I'd rather not. I don't mean to be rude, and you know I'm fond of you, but I only met you a month ago. It'll be fine."
Changing her mind, Penny put out her hand for the joint. She hit it with squinty eyes and pursed lip, as though no one had ever shown her how. Still, she harshed and a plume curled out of her nostrils. "I guess we had a different idea of what was going on here." Water welled in her creamy verdant orbs, giving Nicole a flash of guilt and a spark of awakening. "I mean I've told you. I was never with a woman before I met you. You're, like, the firstβanyoneβto really have me."
Nicole moved in on Penny and the two, practiced, mingled lipstick. Nicole tasted cannabis and toothpaste in his pretty roommate's mouth. Penny's body slackened. A tension eased out of it.
"The boys don't count anymore," she stammered, close to Nicole's ear, a hitch in her voice. "Not since I met you."
Nicole collected the J, took one last snort, and snuffed it out. "I'm confused," she whispered into her roommate's parted mouth. She gathered her hands around Penny's face and regarded her at an inch's breadth. "You can't feel anything for me. Please. I don't know what I'm doing."
Penny fumbled for Nicole's sex and, like every time, Nicole closed her thighs jealously. Bartering, she gathered Penny's breasts in her palms and massaged them until Penny relented. Penny sighed in Nicole's ear, sailing on velvet wings.
Nicole chased her roommate to the bed, stealing kisses. She slipped her digits up Penny's skirt, gathering its laundered hem in the underside of her knuckles. Beneath Penny's underpants, her fragile slit massaged Nicole's intruding fingers, lit up with the shock of the sudden invasion. Penny stumbled, nearly falling.