To Flee or Not to Flee

I'd noticed it before. It was impossible to miss. When she jumped onto my bed the short kilt-type skirt she had taken to wearing would ride up and part of her underwear would be exposed. Today her panties are white, yesterday they were yellow. I briefly wondered what colour they'd be tomorrow for I knew she'd be here, she was here in my room every day after school — she'd been coming to my room every day after school since grade one.

Frederica Shirstiuk and I have been neighbours since my birth two months after hers, eighteen years ago. We live in a small subdivision just north of town where, for the first eight years of our lives, we had been the only kids so, quite naturally, we grew up together, played together, learned together.

Frederica is a lot smarter than I am, or she would be if she didn't insist that I know everything she does. And that pretty much describes our relationship: she pushes me: to learn, to be a better athlete, to be more serious, more ambitious, more responsible, more dedicated — she is my own personal army recruiting poster: she is determined that I become all that I can be.

I suppose I should be thankful. And I guess am, in a way, but I'm tired of being an over-achiever. Frankly, all I want to do is get through my senior year then rest on my oars for a lap or two, party, drink too much, and lose my virginity on some big titted nymph who wants it as badly as I do.

Badly doesn't quite describe it. And I think Freddy wants it bad, too. I kind of have the impression that if I scratched her belly, she would roll over and lie on her back like my dog does and invite me in. But that's not going to happen. My body is the only thing of mine she doesn't possess and I want to keep it that way. And I think she knows it, I think she knows that if I give in to the lust that is fraying my nerve endings every moment of the day, she will own me lock, stock and fucking barrel. And I think that's what she wants.

Why do I think that? It began a couple of months ago when she started finding every possible excuse to rub up against me, especially when we worked at the computer together. And then there's the underwear thing. What are the chances that when a girl throws herself on a bed her skirt will land above her panties every time? In the past two months she's been 60 for 60.

I felt a familiar flash of guilt when I looked over at her, or more specifically, when I looked over at her ass. Fred treats my room like her own. She's lying diagonally across my bed reading, her plaid skirt covering only one cheek, the other barely concealed by a white panty that's partially gathered in her ass. I was glad I had masturbated, as I did most every day before she comes over, and I knew I'd probably masturbate when she left.

"It's alright, but it's not great. Pull it up on the screen."

I did as I was told, as I always do, for two reasons: one, if I didn't, I'd get an argument, which I'd lose, and two, I did as I was told because I knew that her edits and comments on my essay would improve it a lot, they always did. She made me better, in every aspect of my life.

We spend so much time at my computer together that her chair never leaves the lucite sheet that lies over the rug beneath the chairs. When she sat down, I got up to make some sandwiches because from past experience I knew what she'd do: she'd turn on Word's 'Track Changes,' thoroughly edit my essay — even change large chunks of it, and then, like a patient professor, she would review all her changes with me and I would, inevitably, accept them all and voila, I would get an 'A'. I always did.

In the span of a lifetime, how many days can one point to when his life radically changes? One, thee, five, certainly no more than five. My first day of radical change occurred 18 years ago when I was about month old and my life first pressed up against Fred's, the day that started our duality. This day is the second, I knew it the moment I walked the plate of sandwiches into my room and saw the computer screen had changed from the black and white of text to the multi-hues of porn.

She was studying the two women locked in a groin-to-face embrace as intently as she did everything. "You keep this stuff on your computer?"

"DIal-up modem," I said, as if she would understand that you can't always wait through the busy signals.

"How much of this do you have?" She couldn't seem to take her eyes off the screen.

"Some," I said, too embarrassed to tell the truth.

"All lesbians?"

I shrugged as casually as I could, "Kind of a mixture."

"Why lesbians?" She seemed genuinely curious, as if the picture itself didn't supply the obvious answer.

"The sum is greater than the parts." I wasn't sure I knew what I meant.

"Can I see some others?" She rolled her chair a little to the left so I could roll mine in front of the screen.

I sat down, putting the plate of sandwiches in front of the terminal. I took my time finding the file but my mind was flying at mach speed because it struck me that I had never seen her look at a boy, never once — as far as I knew she'd never even had a date. She and I went to a few dances together but never as 'dates,' just friends. Could she be a lesbian? Was that possible? The thought shot through my body in a sexual charge. I don't know why but it thrilled me because it made her more sexual and somehow less threatening. My fingers fumbled for the data base and in an instant the screen filled with tiny thumbnails.

When I hit the slideshow button, it never occurred to me that I was clicking on my fate.

She was a little slack-jawed as she leaned into the screen and her breathing was a little heavier and a little more rapid. The pics were clearly getting to her — and getting to me as a result.

"God, they're hot. Can you slow them down?"

I changed the setting from five seconds per slide to ten and watched a few flash by, "Is that slow enough?"

"Slower," she said, as her eyes absorbed every pixel on the screen.

I set the slides to 20 seconds and waited, "OK?"

She waited for a few slides, "God, yes."

I was looking at the screen but I was watching her fingers. If they had been mine they would have been massaging my prick through the course denim of my jeans, waiting for the moment when I would pull at my belt, push down my pants and grip an erection ready to explode. Her fingers were disappointingly limp on a plaid skirt pulled high above her knees.

But not for long. The fingers on her right hand crept to the hem of her skirt and when they teasingly caressed her thigh, her chest heaved and I could hear a wistful sign leave her lips. I took the cue. She wanted to be alone, I had no doubt and I wanted to be alone, too, in the washroom across the hall where I could stroke my prick while imagining Fred with one of these girls — for Fred has a viscous body that would look great pressed against …

But I didn't get far. As I got to my feet, the fingers that had been brushing her thigh caught my shirt and pulled me back on the chair. "Don't go," she said, "what do you usually do when you look at these pictures?"

"What do you think?" It seemed a particularly naive question.

"Here? In front of the screen?"

"It was only weird the first time."

She didn't look at me, she just kept her eyes locked on the babes floating by every 20 seconds. "Then do it."

The thought was crazy. She always had an intense look on her face, as if everything in life is absolutely serious. Now, if anything, she seemed even more intense. "What do you mean 'do it?' Masturbate? Here in front of you?"

"Not in front of me, with me. I'll do it too."

"You're kidding?" That's all I could think to say, even though I couldn't remember once in our 18 years together when she did.

"Come on." She rose a little from the chair, pulled down her panties, kicked them to the floor and when she sat back down she opened her legs and when her right hand disappeared under her skirt she let out a sigh.

I was mesmerized by all of this. This was so far out of character for her that I was shocked into absolute stillness.

"Come on," she demanded, looking at me for the first time. "I don't want to do this alone."

As I've already said, I always do what she says and now wasn't the time to protest. I lowered my jeans but kept my underwear on and hooked the elastic below my balls. When I came, and it took maybe three strokes to pull that off, I shot a rope of cum that arced across the two feet dividing us and landed mostly on her leg. Moments later her cum pooled on the lucite beneath her chair.

We were absolutely still for a minute. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I sneaked a peak at her, expecting to see a glimpse of shame or embarrassment, although I had never see either on her face before. And not this time either. Instead, her eyes, still studying the screen, seemed alive with excitement. Then she bent down, picked up her panties and I felt my prick harden again as I watched her wipe her glistening fingers on them. Then she sprang to her feet. "Look through my edits. If you have any questions we can go over them tomorrow." And she was gone.

It was a pretty tough night. The image of her lying back in the chair with her legs apart and her fingers in her pussy was hard to shake. But what was even harder to forget was the look of unalloyed rapture on her face. You've got to remember that Fred is a really intense, really serious woman driven to excel. Seeing her captured by the unbridled joys of her own passion was so unexpected, so out of character, that it shocked me. Stunned me. And it really, really turned me on. Fred fucking herself. Wow, I didn't think it possible and now that I knew it was, well, she didn't seem like the same person. For the first time in her life, she seemed … desirable. Fred desirable! That was a lot like finding your sister desirable. But, wash my mouth out with soap, she was.

And there was another reason I didn't get any sleep last night: I was trying to figure out what she was up to. Fred isn't a schemer, but she never does anything without a purpose. Nothing. So why is she rubbing up against me so much; why is she showing me her underwear every day and why did she leave behind her panties last night, after cleaning her fingers on them!

I discounted my first theory as being ridiculous, but I couldn't formulate another. I tried to look at her actions from every possible angle but the only conclusion I could reach was that she was trying to seduce me: she was trying to get me to fuck her because if I did, she would own me, and I might just as well slip a ring on her finger. It seemed ridiculous, as I said, but that's the only thing I could come up with.

There was one other reason it was a tough night. If she was trying to entice me, it was working. I don't know how many times I flogged but I do know that each time I had her panties next to my nose. Her scent was as intoxicating as her earlier actions had been. I couldn't get my damn prick to behave.

I thought about my theory as I did something the next morning that I never thought I'd ever do. I thought about her attempts to possess me as I washed Fred's panties, washed them not to rid them of her scent, but to rid them of the evidence of my lust.

When she came through the door after school she didn't throw herself on the bed, as she usually did. Instead, she went directly to her computer chair. "I want to do that again." She was smiling at me, a kind of mischievous smile that I had rarely seen on her.

I had a line ready in the unlikely event she would make this request. I was going to say something like, 'Are you sure? Maybe I should leave you alone this time,' but, instead, I went to my chair, with more eagerness than I wanted to show, and in a matter of seconds the slideshow began again.

I had concluded last night that Fred was no lesbian, but I couldn't figure out why she would like the pictures, why a heterosexual woman would get off on pictures of other women. The only reason I could come up with fit into my over-all theory: she was trying to seduce me and her masturbation was just another arrow in cupid's quiver. Call it vanity if you want, but that's the only explanation that made any sense to me. But was I right? I had decided that if we repeated the event, I would watch her carefully. I wanted to know what her fingers were doing on her body, sure, but I also wanted to know what was going on in her head, too.

About a half dozen images had flashed by when she pulled off her light blue sweater and threw it on the bed. When she did, she saw her panties, which I had left out for her. "Oh, I wondered where they got to."

I can be a real dweeb at times, like now, "I washed them for you."

She smiled, "Thanks," she said, and she rose off the chair and pushed her skirt to the floor and when she sat back down she began to lightly stroked her pussy through her panties.

I didn't actually see this, I more or less sensed it because, not wanting to appear too interested, I kept my eyes on the screen.

But then she did something that changed everything. She swiveled her chair to face me and when I looked at her, so help me, her eyes were like two smoldering magnets that drew me in: everything inside me seemed in an instant to be sucked through my eyeballs to float the few feet between us and I knew in that moment that I had lost every vestige of control. She owned me. It scared the shit out of me. When she said, 'Johnny, I love you,' I ran.

I didn't get a chance to study her when she came through the door the next day. I wanted to read her face to discover what yesterday had meant, whether she was embarrassed, disgusted, pissed off at me. But when she jumped on my bed her skirt settled just above her knees and she said, "Did you look at my edits?" referring to the work she had done on my essay two days before.

I remained in a chair in the corner, where I'd been since I'd come home from school. We had spent most of our lives together, literally — in class, after class, on weekends and holidays, and, as I've said, all the time she was pushing me to try harder, to be better. That's who she is: bossy, pushy, ambitious. Or is she? It was in the middle of a sleepless night, after playing and replaying a thousands times her words 'I love you' that it occurred to me that maybe she isn't bossy and pushy, maybe, in insisting that I work harder, she wasn't giving vent to a bossy personality but simply expressing her devotion to me: she wants the best for me and she was willing to work hard to make the best come true. "Look, Fred …"

"Look, I did what I wanted to and said what I wanted to say. I just wanted you to know, OK? It doesn't change anything. I know you don't love me; that's just too bad for me. I'll get over it. But we have two months to go and I want to make the most of them, OK? So can we just move on?"

"DO you love me?"

She had been talking to the bedspread but now she looked up at me, "Yes. I've loved you for years."

"But like a brother, right."

She was talking to the bedspread again. "Nice try."

I shifted awkwardly in the chair, "But how do you know you love me? I mean, are you even old enough to know what love is?"

Her head seemed to hang even lower, as if in utter defeat. "When I think about myself, when I think about my life, you are always there, beside me. My day is empty when I'm not with you. Without you beside me my life has no meaning. I call that love. I guess you'd call it stupid."

"Come on, Fred. But is that love? I mean, I can say the same thing but that's because we've spent so much time together — for so long. We just rely on each other, like good friends do."

"Yes, well, that's probably it. You're just a good friend," now she looked up at me with her fierce intensity, "a good friend that I think about every second of the day, one that makes me wet when you touch me, one that I would give both arms if I could spend the rest of my life with."

God, I wasn't ready for this. It was creeping me out. "You don't know that. You've just never spent any time with anyone else. And neither have I. We need to spend some time apart, we need to grow, we need some freedom."

She rolled down and lay on her back, looking at the ceiling, "You may need some freedom. I don't. I could never love anyone like I love you, John." Then she sprang up to a sitting position, "But so what?"

I had to know, "Why did you do what you did yesterday? I mean, if you wanted to tell me you love me why didn't you just say so and kiss me or something?"

She laughed, without humour, "And scare the hell out of you? If I kissed you and told you I loved you you'd still be running." She shrugged, "I've been wondering how to tell you for months. I've tried everything but say the words. I wanted you to take the initiative, I wanted you to come on to me. My mother has been buying me fancy underwear all year. She said that might do it. But it didn't. You were never interested in what was under my shirt or skirt. So I practiced for a week throwing myself on my bed so my panties would show." She laughed her empty laugh again, "It worked, just like all my rubbing on you worked. Nothing. So, when I saw that picture on your computer it just occurred to me that I could use that as a hook to show you that I'm not just a good student and a decent athlete. I wanted to show you that I'm a sexually charged woman who will do anything for you."

I was scared. Flat out scared. This was the first really serious conversation I'd ever had and I was lost, I didn't know what to do, what to say. I hated to see the sadness in her eyes and I hated worse that I was the reason for her sadness, but I couldn't just give in. "I need some freedom, Fred. And so do you."

"No I don't."

"Well I do. I need to stop achieving and start living. I need to start partying, drinking too much, chasing women …"

She was looking at her lap, sad and defeated, "Fine, have at it, just call me when you want me to come and get you."

"What do you mean 'come and get me?'"

"Go and party and drink and chase to your heart's desire and at the end of the day call me and I'll come and get you and take you home."

I pressed the issue, "What happens if I catch what I'm chasing?"

Now she looked at me, "Then I'll collect you when you've finished, clean you up and put you to bed."

Shit. "I don't want that, Fred."

"Nor do I, but I want you and if that's what it takes …"

"Fuck," I turned away, thoroughly frustrated.

"Good idea."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know."

I looked back at her, and sat forward in my chair trying to reason with her, "Come on, Fred, let me off the hook here. Tell me you understand that I need a little space."

She leaned towards me and gave a mirthless laugh, "Space. That's been our problem all year, Johnny. Space. There's been way too much of it between us. We should be in each other's arms right now. We should have been in each other's arms all year."

She got up on her knees and reached out to me. There was pain in her eyes, and fear, too. And I hated it. I'd never, ever intentionally hurt her but she was boxing me into a corner. If I held my ground our duality, our friendship as we knew it, would be over. If I took her hand I'd be very close to the point of no return.

A flash of anger shuddered through me, and she must have seen it because she put her hand down.

"Why are you so fucking sure of yourself and I have so many doubts?"

She sat back on her heels and said calmly, "Because I know you better than you know yourself, and I love everything about you."

"What," I didn't try to conceal my anger, "and I don't know you?"

"No, you don't," she said calmly. "You haven't a clue who I am, you haven't a clue how much I love you, you haven't a clue how much you need me."

This was the moment. I knew it and so did she. Our 18 years together had come down to a single moment and a single choice. If I got up and walked out of the room that would be the end of it.