Dearest readers
Here's something short, sweet and
sex-free
to, hopefully, entertain you while I try to finish something more substantial. (If you want something short, hot and full of sex, try the stories on
this list
.)
Many thanks to Mykymyk2 for editing.
Much love
T x
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"Forget Ian, Michelle, he didn't deserve you," Fran said from her spot on the floor.
"Huh, tell me something I don't know." She took a sip of her cider, elbows propped on her knees.
I'll say this for Michelle, that girl never lacked self-confidence. Probably why she had the most exciting, but complicated, love-life of the six of us.
"Yeah, but it's going to be hard to forget him when they share two classes," I said.
"And, that's helping how, Ramona?" Jenny gave me the evil eye from where she sat rubbing Michelle's back on the sofa
"Sorry, just..." I blushed under my weave.
"No, give her a break, Jen, she's not wrong. I'm just going to have to suck it up. Only two more months anyway and the exams will start. So, it won't be for much longer."
"My God, don't be reminding me," Dora huffed from her place next to me. We were slumped together on a big bean bag against the wall. Michelle and Jenny shared the sofa opposite, while quiet, calm Tara sat in the armchair, Fran on a cushion at her feet.
There was a collective groan.
"Quick, change the subject!" Jenny called.
"Yep, back to the disaster that is my love life!"
"Prost!" called Dora.
Dutifully, we all raised our cans and drank. Technically, we shouldn't have the booze here, of course. Our boarding school, weirdly, had a student bar for the sixth formers. If you were in the lower sixth, or still hadn't turned 18 (not a problem for most of us, apart from Jenny), then you were limited to two cans, which went on your parents' bill at the end of term. That way, it wasn't you buying it and the school got around the law. Obviously, for those of us who were 18, we could buy our own booze from the bar, but we were only meant to drink on the premises. But the death stares Ian and his mates had been sending Michelle's way had driven us to seek refuge elsewhere. Sneaking the cans back to the prefects' common room in the Junior Girls' boarding house, where Tara and Fran were the live-in prefects, could technically get us all suspended. Fran had lit some incense to cover the smell of cider, but it was Ms Rowan on duty that evening. She was cool. She'd pretend not to see, even if she came in and noticed.
Over the strains of Dido coming from the stereo, Michelle started listing her complaints again, about how Ian was pressuring her into things she didn't feel ready for, while we nodded and sympathised. We knew how that went. It didn't help that some of the girls in our class had lost their virginity quite shockingly young (I felt), which then made the boys think that girls like Michelle, who wanted to take things slower, were somehow frigid in comparison.
We nodded and made sympathetic noises, assured her she was in the right and she'd made the correct decision. We'd been over this with her several times over the past weeks. But, you know, listening to friends rant about boys was what was required now.
It was only because I was so close to them that I heard Fran and Tara's whispered exchange.
"Is your neck hurting, Fran?"
"Yeah, a little."
"Here, lean back."
Nodding emphatically to Jenny's affirmative reply to Michelle, I watched out of the corner of my eye as Fran scooched back between Tara's legs, resting her head on a cushion Tara had placed there. Tara's fingers went to the base of Fran's head, gently massaging her there.
"I mean," Michelle was saying, "I was happy with the stuff we were doing... you know, hands."
"Actually, we don't, Michelle, but go on," I quipped, taking another sip.
Jenny shot me another scathing look from over Michelle's shoulder. Michelle, however, hadn't really heard.
"But he had to keep wanting more and more and I'm just not ready. But, like, I get it, all the boys are like that."
This was met by a murmur of agreement and a loud "ja!" from Dora. I admired how she didn't mind throwing in words from home. Sometimes I wished I was brave enough to do the same.
"Even in Germany," she added.
"Right, but I can't really blame them, you know? I mean, all that music we listen to down the bar, all the TV shows, all the films, it's all sex, sex, sex, right? It's constant. No wonder that's what they think they need to have."
"Mmmmm. It's like they are all scared the others will think less of them if they aren't having sex."
"Exactly, Fran, exactly."
"So, now we're feeling sorry for the guys?" I asked.
"Yeah... kinda?" Michelle replied.
"Even Ian?"
"Oh no, he's still a pin-headed twat."
We laughed.
"Maybe it's time to swear off boys completely, Michelle," I said.
"What? And go gay you mean?"
"Well, I meant focus on your A Levels, but sure, why not?"
"At least you wouldn't have to worry about getting pregnant," Fran quipped.
Dora and I sniggered. Michelle nodded, almost thoughtfully.
"Plus, you know, if you are happy just keeping it at hands only, that's basically all girls do," I added.
"Urgh, don't be gross!" Jenny pulled a face from the sofa.
"Doesn't have to be just hands," said Dora. "Lesbians can do oral too."
"Urgh, no," Jenny put her hands over her ears, "lalala! Not listening."
I was a bit shocked. "What the hell, Jenny? It's 2001, not the fifties. Besides, Jenny," I let the sneer come into my voice, "how is it any different from giving a blowjob, huh?"
"Fuck off, Ramona, of course it's different!"
"How is it?"
"Well, you're not meant to do that with another girl. It's not natural!"
"Neither are blowjobs. Penises aren't designed to go in mouths," Fran pointed out.
"Blowjobs are icky. Icky, icky, icky," Dora added. She'd recently learned that word and delighted in using it. "Dick ist dick: hurts your jaw."
"Oh, like you'd know," Jenny shot back, her face red.
"Ja. I would." She shrugged, and took a sip of her beer, made a face, whether at the memory or the beer I couldn't tell. Probably both. Being from Bavaria, she was always scathing about the quality of beer available over here.
"But you would seriously try going gay?" Jenny was incredulous, pulling back from Michelle and looking around the room.
"Yeah, why not," I drawled.
The look she gave me told me that, rather than riling her as I'd hoped, I'd just given her one more reason to look down on me.
"Maybe," Fran piped up from the floor between Tara's legs. Tara's hands were now massaging her scalp. Fran's voice sounded blissful. "I mean, love is love, right? Sex is just a physical extension and expression of that. Or it should be. I mean, that's what I hope it is. So, you know, if I felt that way about somebody, I'd like to think that it wouldn't matter to me whether they were a man or a woman."
My eyes went to Tara's face, hoping to catch her eye, or at least be able to read something in her expression, but her face was impassive, unreadable, her eyes fixed on her hands in Fran's hair.