Giselle

Anne couldn't decide how it had happened, whether she'd seduced the girl or the girl had seduced her. Either way it was amazing. Secret, strange, miraculous. How had it happened?

After the divorce she'd been left with the house and a reasonable income. From young trophy wife to discard in two short years, but she guessed she'd come out okay. She still kicked herself sometimes for the fact that she'd actually loved Roger. She supposed she'd let that fool her into thinking the feeling was mutual.

Anyway, she'd become friends with Dori and Lenny, the couple next door. They'd taken her under their wing a bit when Roger dumped her and it was comfortable to have friends she could just hang out with. She wasn't ready for a return to the whole dating business—all the effort of romance and pursuit with the fear of having it turn out like Roger. The whole game required a certain joie d'esprit that she was still a ways from recovering.

Dori and Lenny were older; actually, in some ways she had more in common with Giselle, their daughter. Just going into her sophomore year in college in the fall, Giselle was bright, pretty in an almost boyish way: dark eyes, dark hair, sharp lines at chin, cheekbones and nose. A swim-team and gymnastics nut, which Anne had been, too. They talked about those things when Anne went over to visit. Anne wasn't old enough to be the girl's mom, more like an older sister kind of thing. Part of the pleasant feeling of going over there was knowing she'd get to see Giselle, get to bask in the glow of her youthful optimism, her wide-eyed expectations of life's open possibilities. She needed to recapture some of that herself.

So when Dori and Lenny planned a monthlong trip to France for their anniversary that summer, and asked if Anne would keep a friendly eye on things including Giselle, she was happy to oblige. She supposed they were concerned lest they come home to the kind of suburban disaster a nineteen-year-old left at home for several weeks was bound to get into. Giselle was a pretty stable kid, but that didn't mean she couldn't be taken advantage of by friends who knew her parents were away. Visions of house-wrecking parties danced in their heads. It had happened to others in town.

Anne didn't think any of that was likely but she was glad to have an excuse to just be around with Giselle while her parents were out of the picture. She liked having a "little sister." They could be friends, even if there was just shy of a decade separating them. She gave Giselle a key to her house. "Come on over any time. Use the pool, hang out. You don't need to knock."

To her delight, Giselle took her at her word. She came home from her volunteer shift at the regional aquarium—she had worked her way up to being one of the divers in the big tank—to find Giselle puttering about the kitchen. A colorful proliferation of vegetables was strewn about near the cutting board and Giselle had a glossy cooking magazine open to a gourmet barbecue recipe she wanted to try.

What a treat! How sweet!

She'd fired up the grill on the patio and they'd worked at preparing the meal together, fixing the complicated marinade, clattering about with pyrex dishes and measuring spoons. She'd poured herself a glass of wine while the meat sizzled and Giselle had said she'd like a glass too. Anne only hesitated for a moment. It was the least of transgressions—Anne's own parents had allowed her a glass with dinner from the age of sixteen or so—really, it wasn't a transgression at all. Except that it did somehow just mark this as a different kind of get-together, a kind of equality in the relationship, a signal of parity between friends.

The evening get-together on the patio quickly established itself as a routine, as did the sharing of a glass or two of wine. It was less than a week later, though, that Anne needed something stronger. Coming home from a meeting with her lawyer in a foul mood. Roger trying to screw her out of a few things that were most definitely and explicitly codified in the settlement, just being the controlling bastard he'd turned out to be, but it raked all the bad feelings up again. Giselle sunning by the patio, the chilled chardonnay already open and sitting in the ice bucket. They'd had the usual routine of making dinner together and she tried to keep it light and friendly but Giselle knew she was on edge about something. A lot of it came spilling out during dinner. There was still a half bottle on the patio table but by the time she'd poured out a spate of feelings about what had happened she needed something with more of a kick to it. "You go ahead," Giselle said. "I think you need something to relax you. I don't like seeing you like this."

She was on her second Mount Gay cuba libre when Giselle gave her the neck rub. The girl had returned from taking the dishes into the kitchen and instead of going back to her seat she'd come up behind Anne's patio chair. Anne felt her presence there, started to turn when the girl's hands touched her head, pulled her hair back and away, then circled gently, thumbs rubbing along the spinal line at the nape of her neck.

She stiffened then relaxed, surprise at being touch melting into warmth. All the tensions of the day had found their way into those muscles, and now it was easing under the gentle massage.

"Giselle, that's so nice," she murmured.

"No need to talk. Just relax. Sip your drink. Relax."

Giselle was a remarkably good masseuse. After a while the intensive deep massage faded into a soothing light stroking of fingertips along the lines of her neck, her shoulders, down her arms and back up again. A warm glow enveloped her. A shivery little tingle as fingertips traced the sensitive spots just below and behind her ears. A place where, when a man kissed her there... She pushed that thought away. But the touch warmed her and she felt the gooseflesh tingle across her skin.

"Where did you learn that?"

"Ms Marshall showed us." The swim team coach, Giselle had mentioned her before. "Relaxation technique. Kills the butterflies before a match. You can be revved up for it and relaxed at the same time. One of her little secrets."

Secrets. Anne was vaguely aware that the girl touching her like this marked a change in their relationship. A closer feeling, a sweetness born of physical contact. Intimacy. Her barriers were down and she let it bloom in her. From massage to this more delicate, sensual touching. Certainly it was not meant to be erotic, but it was certainly sensual, pleasurable. Not that clear of a distinction. Soon it would stop, anyway. No need to do anything but relax and enjoy it. She made a small sound as the fingertips went back to that spot behind her ears, tracing delicately. The rum was hot in her belly, making a warm glow all over.

"Like that?" the girl asked, tracing the line down along her neck to her shoulders, then back up again.

"Mmmmn," she sighed. Another wave of goosebumps swept across her skin. A nice thing, let it go, let it be. Tight tingle in her tits as her nipples crinkled and went erect.

A warming in their relationship. A nice thing. Just from the sensual pleasure of a massage, a strong drink and a well-deserved purging of tension that had built up too long. At length the fingers trailed off and the girl went off to finish picking up the rest of the dinner things and straightening up, leaving her basking in the warm glow.

It was sweet, and friendly, and Anne told herself it signified nothing more than a deepening of the friendship that had blossomed between them. Any other feelings were, well inappropriate. Quite understandable of course. It had, after all, been months since she'd been with anyone besides her buzzing little bedside-table friend. No great wonder that being physically handled, and so sweetly, had had certain effects on her. It surely didn't mean anything beyond what it so apparently meant.

To be sure, the whole thing had left her with a need inside that she tried to take care of after Giselle went home for the night. Her own hands touching her smooth places, her sleek and sweet places. Wanting to have someone else appreciate all that, sad to have to do it herself. For the first time since Roger left: sad rather than relieved to be left alone to do it. That need to be wanted. She caressed herself as if she were someone else, imagining being someone seduced by her beauty, the elegant curves of her tits, her thighs. Touching the softness, smoothness, marveling at it. How it would feel, to be the one touching a woman like that. To be doing it, the first time, hands sliding along her thigh, seduced by satin smoothness, daring at last to side up and up, to cup, ah... So hesitant yet so daring, to cross that erotic and forbidden threshold. Oh here, yes? Yes, like that, oh please, oh god. Oh god. Giselle...

~*~

Of course there was nothing to it really. She always tried not to be too critical of her own "night thoughts," but she did feel a little embarrassed at herself the next morning. She had to set it in proper perspective. She'd been a little drunk or she wouldn't have had those thoughts. To have fantasized beyond the girl's intentions like that was a bit discomfiting, but hey, better not to get into a whole thing about it. Everyone said it was natural to have such feelings from time to time, and after all, look at the circumstances. Try to push it too far down like something shameful and you risked having even weirder things happen, some awkward comment or misunderstood gesture. Big sister, little sister, that was the relationship. And the lovely generous massage just made it warmer, closer, realer. That's all.

And okay, objectively speaking, well, it was interesting that the girl had—and really it was a nice thing—with total innocence and exquisite delicacy erased the barrier of physical touch between them.

~*~

So, yes, there was inevitably this difference between them when the girl came to visit the next time there. She was surprised at how nervous she felt, though. Still, that was probably natural enough, this question and heightening of awareness. A new thing had happened, and antennae were alert for signals, a sense of approach and retreat, approach again.

Iced tea and summer sounds, lazing by the pool. Giselle had come by to find Anne already out on the patio.

"Can I join you?"

"Help yourself." Anne was on her preferred sunning chaise; there was another one on the other side of the patio.

"I don't want to be over there, though. I want to be close to you."

That was sweet. Anne got up, pulling the straps of her top back on to her shoulders. They dragged the other chaise over. Somewhat to her surprise, Anne found that Giselle was pushing it right up adjacent to hers so that they formed a wide sort of bed to lie down on. She didn't comment on this. The last thing she wanted to do was rebuff the girl or in any way make Giselle self-conscious or embarrassed about the closer intimacy she'd introduced between them. It was a little odd, but it was also endearing.

They lay out sunning themselves for perhaps twenty minutes. Anne was on her front, head turned to the side when she felt their sunning platform shift. Giselle turning over to do her other side, she assumed, hearing the squirt of the tanning cream tube.

But it was her own shoulders the girl's hands came down on.

What made it different this time was the silence. No prelude, just the girl assuming she could do this for Anne. Even stranger: Anne's own silence. The girl taking the liberty and Anne accepting.

There was a feeling that maybe she should find a way to gently head this off. There was a tension in her own head, the part that said Don't misread this, struggling to assign what was happening to the same category as the other night's innocent massage, versus the part that picked up on all kinds of signals that this was something different. The silence, the assumption that it was okay to just... Just do this partly because it was a nice, friendly thing to do to help out, but also partly because she just liked, well, touching Anne. Liked touching her back, her arms, her skin. Just touching.

Metal creaked on concrete again as the girl shifted to a better position for what she was doing. Moving over onto Anne's chaise, swinging a knee across to straddle her. Oh softness. Warm silk skin, her inner thighs scissored over the backs of Anne's legs.

Anne struggled to maintain the idea that this was just a practical if physically intimate activity. She didn't have to do anything. She could lie here and not do anything. A deep involuntary breath, almost a gasp, as the girl unfastened the strap of her top. She felt a tremble, a tingle all over. Giselle was just pushing the bands off her back, removing the obstruction to the sun, to the lotion. But her hands kept sliding on Anne's back even after the area was thoroughly covered with moisturizing sunscreen, squeezing her muscles. A massage again, lovely. Only not just that, really, was it. Hands gliding long, down to the incurve of her waist and back up again. Her own arms moving to cross above her head; the girl taking this as an invitation. Sliding her hands up along the outsides of her biceps, then returning lower down along Anne's sides. Anticipation, then a thrill as the fingertips slid across the outswelling of her breasts, making no effort to avoid them. Just sensual play but also nice, arousing, and the tingling weightless feeling intensified, filling her with a sweet lassitude. The question of surrender, of whether she was being seduced or not or what was going on... But the feeling made it hard to marshal her thoughts. She should make some move to stop this, some word or whatever was necessary to ensure nothing... unsettling or... or otherwise wrong and unintentional was about to happen.

The hands sliding up again, then down, the same path, this time a little more deliberately sliding in to encompass the outcurve of her tits and Anne felt all the longing of this last lonely year as a deeper note below the hum of sensuality. More of that. More of that please, whatever it means or doesn't mean, I don't care. Just more.

Fingertips returning to her back. No pretence of massage now, just sensual touching, tracing lines of muscles, spine and hips. Fingertips tracing curves and circles, appreciating all this. Appreciating, just exactly that, the way Anne had needed so badly. Not fair, not fair. Head buried in her crossed arms as the tracing traveled down along her sides, the incurve of her waist and outswelling of her breasts again. This time—oh—lingering there. Oh dear, oh please, oh god. Tracing a delicate line up the sensitive underside of her arm then back again. Curves and circles to say what a nice shape this is, isn't this a nice shape. Tingling heat, tits tingling, nipples pressing hard against the mattress and tingling heat moving down deeper into her.

This was getting out of control. This was a terrible mistake. But silence conspired to keep it going, both of them silent except for breathing. Anne could hear the girl's breath now, becoming heavier as with some physical effort but there was no real exertion here, just... arousal. Anne became aware that the girl's weight over her thighs was shifting slightly, rhythmically. Pressing now, just pushing her pelvis down a little, again and again. Anne knew that feeling, she was having it herself, that squirmy little wanting feeling like an itch that made you want to press the spot against something, push and push. The girl astride her, shifting her hips, a little impatient movement, because that spot wanted pressure, wanted friction as her fingertips teased the sides of Anne's tits.

This was the moment to make it stop and Anne knew it. The moment now where if it didn't stop then it had to go forward. She was scared of the wrongness, the consequences, but she felt so weightless, so desirable, a girl touching her like this, the excitement and mystery of that, of what could happen next, scary but thrilling. It was wrong but the wrongness tingled and flared with the intensity of the strange, of something totally new and unfamiliar and exciting in its sweetness and taboo novelty.

It was the girl who slowed things down, drawing back from the edge. Straightening her back, her hands coming to rest at the Anne's waist. Was that it, then? She should feel relieved, she did, but there was a big emptiness in the middle of it. The girl sitting back, then the snap of the flip cap of the plastic bottle. Oh god. She'd just been reaching over for the lotion. Anne's head against her forearm, waiting for whatever was next. Felt the girl moving to the side, swinging her leg off so she was no longer straddling. And then squirt again and the cool liquid traced a line along the back of her right calf.

"Want me to stop?" the girl asked.

No, she shook her head.

Now it was legs that were being appreciated. Long lovely legs. Anne's best feature, she'd always been proud of her legs. Oily hands starting down at her ankles, moving up onto her calves, slowing at the boundary of the backs of her knees and Anne beaming out telepathically yes yes, go higher, appreciate me, please, there too. Just a tease—the girl being a tease now. Actually teasing! Waiting, hesitating, making them both aware that this was a boundary she was going to cross. And then finally oh darling, crossing it. Extra little squirt and the cool line up the center of one thigh and down the other, and the hands following, flowing along her warm and smooth, a girl's hands on her legs, her thighs, oiling them soft and gleaming in sunlight. She loved to have her legs appreciated, the svelte smoothness stroked and caressed. This same pattern as before: the initial massage, to be followed by—Anne was tingling for it now—the sensual touching, tracing of fingertips. Oh please, Giselle, will you do that, are you going to do that here too? Oily hands running all the way up to just under the tight arc of her rear, all finished now, the skin thoroughly covered with a thin film of tanning oil but would she... And then, oh please yes, a long delicate fingertip trace along the outside of her thigh all the way down to her calves and back up again. Just a sensual trace crossing the almost ticklish backs of her knees, then up and up to the smoothness of her thighs, the sensual skin there, like satin like silk, to be appreciated, savored. By a girl—oh god a girl doing it, and not just any but Giselle, lovely Giselle who just liked touching, just wanted to be free to touch another woman like this and Anne unable to say no stop that, it's wrong, what would your parents say to me if they knew I'd let you....

The other hand joined in and now it was a long sensual caressing of her thighs. Both of them enjoying this, the feeling, the smoothness, the delight of being touched, the electric sense of crossing a risky boundary, toying with it, not quite sexual yet but unquestionably not just a matter of helping another girl with her tanning lotion. Smooth cupped hands gliding along her thighs, oiling up to the undercurve of her bottom, just where the spandex started—if she'd worn a different suit, oh, there'd have been a need to go higher wouldn't there, too bad, but oh... Fingertips sliding deep along the valley between her thighs, up to where the heat of her core must be detectable, right up to it, the electric anticipation and strangeness of a girl touching like this making it hotter, impossible to disguise, she must smell Anne's arousal, she must know.

Then the hand sliding out to the outside of her hip. A gentle tug. The girl indicating what she wanted: that Anne should roll over, turn onto her back. So the game could continue. So it could go further.

Surely she couldn't. Surely she mustn't.

"It's okay," Giselle said. "Just relax. Let me take care of you."