"I don't believe you."
I shrugged. "OK."
I could tell from the corner of my eye that she was looking at me intently, challengingly. "When?" She demanded.
"Which time?"
She hesitated a moment as if in shock, then she half-shouted, "YOU'VE DONE IT MORE THAN ONCE?"
"Yep."
"No way." She turned away, entirely unconvinced.
I didn't care if she believed me or not, but I did find it strange that she didn't. I mean, was it so hard to believe?
She waited almost a minute before turning back to me and demanding, "Who with?"
"None of your business."
She seemed to be thinking about this and it was a long time before she said, "So why didn't I know about it? We've been best friends for years."
Best friends ... and opposites. I have flaming red hair to my shoulders, green eyes and, if you'll pardon the self-evaluation, a pretty, sultry face with a good, strong, if unremarkable, body. Janie is the geek-type — for a few weeks in grade 11 she even had white tape on the bridge of her always-present black-rimmed glasses. She is shorter than me, thin to the point of skinny, with impressive breasts, alabaster skin, long chestnut hair and a pretty, if geeky, face that is often pinched in concentration. Where Janie is sharp as a tack, I'm more street-wise. "Well, it's not something you brag about ..."
"You don't brag about losing your virginity, either but I couldn't wait to tell you when it happened to me and with who and neither could you."
"With whom."
"What?"
"You said 'I couldn't wait to tell you when it happened and with who.' It should be 'whom.' With 'whom' it happened." I pretended to be concentrating of the traffic which, fortunately, was light.
"Well?" She insisted.
I shrugged again. "Well, I just didn't think you'd be interested."
"NOT INTERESTED! WHY NOT?" She half shouted this; she sounded exasperated.
"Well, maybe I thought you'd be a little ... I don't know, shocked, a little disgusted."
"Wroooong." Then she sounded kind of hurt. "Why would you think that? And why didn't we ever try it, I mean, we've had nothing but opportunity."
I surprised myself when I said, "I did tried, a few times. But nothing."
She quickly loosened off her seat belt and turned in her seat to face me. "What do you mean you tried? When?" She sounded belligerent, as if I was lying to her.
"A few time."
"Ya, so you claim. When?" Again, the belligerence. "When was the last time?"
I thought for a second, "I don't know. A few months ago."
"When? Where? I don't remember that."
"I came up behind you, put my arms around your waist and squeezed you. I think we were at your place, in your rec room."
She laughed dismissively. "That was not coming on to me."
"No," I agreed, "but when I did it to someone else a couple of years ago, she put her hands on mine, squeezed them and that's all it took."
I could tell she was thinking about this. "So if I had squeezed your hands ..."
"You would have sent me a message ... of reassurance or approval and my little squeeze would have escalated. That's the way it works."
Her hesitation was laughably long. "Seriously?"
"If a guy came up behind you and did that and you wanted him to, what would you have done?"
She thought about this for just a second, "Ya, no, I get it but God, what if I was wrong. I mean with a guy, no big deal, but with a girl? What if I squeezed your hand or lifted your hands to my breasts or something and I was wrong? What if you were just ... like, giving me a hug?"
"Then we'd laugh it off." I flicked out my hand and ran the back of my fingers slowly across her breast.
"What are you doing?"
"Do that to me." I looked over at her. "Seriously, do that to me."
She thought about it and when she did, I said, "Oh, God, Janie, it's been a long time since someone has done that." Then I laughed. "See? When I touched you, you flinched and wanted an explanation. When you touched mine I offered some encouragement." I shrugged. "Logic. If, when I gave you that hug, you offered me some encouragement I would have taken the next step: works the same for girls as it does for boys ..."
"Except the difference is that you're SUPPOSED to play those games with guys."
I laughed, "Don't be stuffy."
She fell into deep thought for so long I though she had dropped the topic. "So what's it like?"
"Do you mean that in the sense of what is it about playing around with a girl that is similar to other activities ..."
She laughed. "You know what I mean."
"It's fun."
"Fun?" I could tell this surprised her. "Fun? Volleyball is fun. What kind of a description is that?"