(FORWARD: This is my second submission to Literotica. It's about 16,000 words when completed, will feature public nudity, female, and a public sex scene. I hope you enjoy it like I do. Votes and comments are appreciated, but please try to offer comments and criticism as if we were sitting down together, face to face in a public place. Thanks.)
It was the first time she had been back in her hometown in 8 years, and Natalie Cramer had more energy than she ever expected, an electricity in her system that defied the jet lag and the hours of anxiety she had felt when trying to get to sleep the night before. After a short assignment in the morning, she had the day free to get to the airport and jet back to Lampton, Pennsylvania, in hopes of catching dinner with her friend, Louise. She hadn't seen Louise in five years, when she had talked her friend into coming out to Los Angeles to see how she was living, then in only modest success. It had been almost two years since she had talked to Louise, at least before her friend found her again on Facebook and they had picked up where they left off. Dinner would be really exciting—at least as exciting as anything ever got in her hometown.
As she waited at the bar in the Blue Moon, she felt a little strange to be in such a familiar place and seeing no one she recognized. She wondered if Calvin Maines still owned the place or if he had sold it or moved on. She had first come to the restaurant when she was 5 years old, and they had eaten there just about every month since, right until she moved to California. Whenever she talked with Mom on the phone she would hear about the big events, who died, who got pregnant, who cheated on whom, but little things like whether Cal still owned the Blue Moon or not were never reported—she supposed if she found out tonight she would end up calling Mom, who now lived in Orlando, and update her for a change.
Finally, a half-hour late, Lou came into the restaurant—and walked right past her. It wasn't that she hadn't looked toward the bar, she searched the bar for her, but kept walking all the same. Natalie ran a hand through her hair and went to the main room of the restaurant, tapped her friend on the shoulder, and beamed her a smile when she turned around.
Lou's mouth was open, her eyes looking her up and down, and she
still
didn't seem assured it was her old high school friend. Tired of the anticipation, Natalie threw her arms wide and wrapped them around Lou.
"Oh, god, Nat... what happened to your hair? Look at you!"
"Yeah, I keep it kind of short these days." Back in her last year of school her hair had reached halfway down her back, sometimes braided, sometimes hanging free, and it had been a very pale peroxide-blonde color, before she stopped dyeing it and let it retain its midnight black color as a short bob these days—too many blondes out in L.A., black seemed to make her stand out more.
"And your glasses are gone."
"I finally found a pair of contacts that didn't hurt," Natalie said, smiling. It probably wasn't just those things, she thought; her clothes had become a little more stylish, baring her shoulders like her current purple blouse, and her bra actually produced cleavage, as opposed to the flattening misadventure her high school bras had been. L.A. had given her skin a good color, and who could say, maybe she had a lot more confidence since her success had found her.
"Yeah. Pretty," Lou told her, smiling. "I never noticed your eyes were so blue."
"Well, I can't take any credit for that."
They sat down together and mulled over the menu for a long time, to the server's irritation, getting distracted by quick questions and answers. Lou hadn't changed much at all, she was still an intimidating, big-eyed, large-chested blonde, just as she had been in high school. Back then Natalie had done everything she could to be like Lou, the fun girl that everyone talked about, including stuffing her bra and coloring her hair. No one would have guessed that Natalie would find success as a model and Lou would turn around and head back home in defeat. Of course, Natalie wasn't about to bring that up—it had worked out for both of them, she believed, she had found life in L.A. to her liking, and Lou had gotten married and started talking about a family.
"Oh, shit. I didn't know you had gotten divorced from Kyle." Three or four questions about how Lou was doing after their meal arrived finally brought out that surprise. The last time Nat and Lou had been talking, the couple had been going to counseling, things were starting to work for them again. Natalie knew that Lou had suffered a miscarriage, but it didn't seem to dissuade them both from trying again. "He seemed so nice. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was boring." Lou cleared her throat, and it was funny how easy it was to read her even all these years later. There was a secret she was keeping, and Natalie asked her to tell her more, with that tone that said she already knew what she was hiding. Rolling her eyes while she chewed her food, Lou swallowed and said, "Okay, it wasn't
entirely
his fault... I did cheat on him."
"Whoa! You? That's so..."
She nodded, and then Lou went on, "I know. It was wrong. But it wasn't just that, there were other things going on. Like, he was having this email relationship with another girl from the bank, this kind of emotional affair—he says it wasn't physical, but who knows. And before I found out about that, I was sensing he wasn't as attracted to me as before... our sex life was getting so dull..."
"No, please, tell me everything," Natalie said with a smile.
"Well, you've never been married, you've probably never had these problems." Not true, Natalie told her, she had sustained a three-year relationship with a musician that had become tedious by the end, she could relate. "Exactly. I mean, I took belly-dancing classes, strip-for-your-man classes, all kinds of things, just to make him interested. We tried role-playing, I bought books by the dozens. Finally, I found out about his email girlfriend, I got tired of trying. I was still friends with Jed from the football team, so—"
"You are fucking
kidding
me," laughed Natalie, then apologized for finding it funny. "I'm sorry, but Jed? We used to do an impression of that guy behind his back. You said he cut his hair with a weed-wacker."
"Maybe so, but he's a nice guy," Lou said. She checked her watch, the third time she had done so since sitting down at the table, and then she went on, "It wasn't like I wanted to marry him. I did it to feel desirable again. Or maybe just to hurt Kyle, who knows what goes on in this head of mine..."
Staring down at her half-finished grilled chicken salad, which paled against the way she remembered it tasting, Natalie said, "I never thought I'd see the day when Louise Kelly didn't feel desirable."
"Well... those days are gone, along with my ex-husband," she said with a smirk. "Talk about me... I never thought I'd see the day when meek Miss Cramer was a swimsuit model."
"I'm not a swimsuit model. Those were just a couple of pictures where I
happened
—"
"I've got pictures of you in a swimsuit on my cell phone, don't deny it."
Natalie's face had flushed red, and she kept shaking her head. "I do magazines, circulars. Not fashion magazines, you know, but catalogues and ads. That's it. You asked for something recent and I sent you a couple of the swimsuit shots I did. I added them to my new portfolio, so I thought... you know."
"What else do you do? Like J. Crew stuff?"
She was reluctant to say, but she nodded. "Sweaters. Jeans, a lot of jeans. Occasionally... you know... underwear..."
"Lingerie! Oh my god, you do lingerie... why not just do a centerfold?"
Quietly, Natalie chewed her food, waiting for a man at the nearest table to look away, and when he finally did, she whispered, "It's actually easier to get paid to do the internet these days. Centerfolds are going the way of landline telephones."
"No shit... have you done internet porn?" Natalie was quick to say she hadn't, but the way Lou stared at her, she could tell there was more to the story.
"I did a couple of photographs for a friend's project in a human anatomy study college class." As Lou was quick to laugh, she had to explain it fast. "They were topless only. Full body shots, but I was wearing a thong. They were a private thing, just for exhibition in his class, then he destroyed them... well, all but a couple he saved for himself."
"Must have been a good friend."
"Not that good," she said, then she laughed as Lou's eyes met hers. The server brought them the bill when Lou signaled him, then she checked her watch again. "That's like the hundredth time you've checked the time."
"Sorry, don't take offense. I told you I might have to work tonight, and I do. I hate to bail out on you. I need to get there early because a girl backed out on me and I'm trying to find someone at the last minute. It totally sucks."
"Ouch. Nothing I can do, right?" Lou looked up at her, smiled thinly, then shook her head.
"I know you've got a lot of stuff you want to do. And you've got to be tired from the flight—"
"I'm not tired at all," said Natalie, and when she thought about her plans for the evening, it was almost depressing. "I had planned to hang out with you tonight. Basically—no pressure. The only other thing I wanted to do was drive by the school. I don't know anyone else in town, or you know, I haven't seen them in forever. Can't knock on Tom Davenport's door and say, 'Hey, remember me? Of course you don't, but I had the craziest crush on you—"
"You really don't know anyone else? I guess your parents have gone to the great ice floe in the South..."
"Har har. Nice. You know I was never that popular anyway. I'll probably be the only one at the reunion tomorrow that needs to wear a nametag."
Lou smiled wider, then shook her head. "Oh, they definitely won't recognize you, darling. I didn't. Talking about my crappy life has made me feel better, though, so thank you, I'm just sorry I have to..." She continued to stare at Natalie, who was scraping together the last of her salad into a pile in the bowl. "You could come down and hang out with me. At work. But it will be a bit of a trip, I can promise you that."
"Local banking has gotten wild, has it?" she said, then hoped it hadn't sounded bitchy, she didn't mean it that way. Lou kept staring at her, teeth clenched, holding something back. "Did you quit the bank? You were doing so well there..."
"Kyle was doing well there—especially with that slut Joan Miller," Lou sighed. "I did leave the bank. I couldn't stand it, being humiliated on a daily basis by those two. But I was bored with it as well. I told you I took all those classes, well... I guess they sparked some entertainer vibe in me. I was always outgoing in high school, so..."
