The following story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between actual persons, living or dead (or just confused) is entirely coincidental. Please do not copy/redistribute the story, in part or in total, without the author's permission.
It is also a long story. If you don't like longer stories or are looking for immediate gratification, you might want to skip this one.
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"Alice! Alice come out of the bathroom sweetie!" Heather was at a loss for how to get the young woman to come out. Laurie started knocking on the door as well.
"It's only going to be for a couple of days. You're a big girl. You can handle this!" The blonde girl shrugged. Alice was being stubborn.
Finally they heard a dim voice penetrating the hole that Heather's fist had made in the bathroom door. "No, I can't handle this. It's too much," she whimpered.
Heather spoke directly through the hole in the door. "Alice honey, you've lived through outing yourself and you've survived being tied up and paraded around like a cocker spaniel by Liz. This should be a piece of cake."
"Maybe, but those things happened one at a time," Alice said, opening the door. The poor, brown-haired ex-wallflower looked terrified. She had just received a phone call that had taken what she had anticipated to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill apocalypse and made it much, much more confusing.
Shortly after final-exams were over, the band was going to be auditioning for one of a limited number of spots in the KLEZ Battle of the Bands contest. The winner of that contest got a five-song set opening for the Eagles that August. This was a big deal for the girls to begin with, but Alice was the one writing all their material. She was terrified. Liz had promised to be there to support her girlfriend at the contest itself. This was a good thing. Then they had gotten a call from Jane, informing the girls that she, Freddie and Michelle were going to be making the trek to support their young friends. From the moment Alice and Liz had started their relationship, Liz and Michelle seemed to have developed some animosity towards each other. Even though they had never met or even spoken to each other directly. Michelle didn't trust Liz's motives for "drawin' Alice" into a dom/sub relationship and Liz didn't like Alice being so influenced by "an old flame." And for the first time, the two very dangerous women were going to be within arms-length of each other. That had been the bad part.
The worse part was Alice's father calling and saying that he would be there for his daughter's "big debut." Her fairly religious father had been wrestling with the concept that one of his children was gay and much to his credit, he had handled things well. He still loved his daughter. But he was unknowingly stumbling into a hornet's nest. And Alice was faced with her father showing up and getting caught between the cowgirl that took his daughter's virginity and the biker/graduate student who tied her up to the bed and spanked her to orgasm. Those sorts of things might be a little harder for him to deal with. Somehow, she had to keep everything under control. "I am so . . . in trouble," she whimpered as Laurie and Heather sat her down on the bed. "I mean my dad . . . Michelle and Liz want to kill each other . . . ooh! Why is everyone being so difficult?"
Heather was hiding her smile behind her hand. Alice was the shyest, quietest member of the group, so being the absolute center of controversy was a bit overwhelming. But Heather and Laurie had already had their turn in the spotlight. It was someone else's turn.
"Poor baby," Laurie cooed, sitting behind her friend and rubbing her shoulders. Alice started to relax. Laurie's massages had that effect on living organisms. "I'm sure it'll all work out." Laurie scrunched up her eyes and pursed her lips. "Maybe you should take them on a picnic!" she said, with an expression that made it seem like she had just had the most brilliant idea ever. "Take your dad, Liz and Michelle out somewhere public where Liz and Michelle have to behave since you know neither of them will embarrass you in public and . . ." Laurie had to stop when Heather started chortling. "What? Not a good idea?" Heather laughed and kissed the blonde girl on the lips.
Watching those two actually made Alice feel better. Since their whirlwind breakup and reunion following their spring break quarrel, the two had slowly reverted to, and perhaps surpassed, their previous level of cute couple-ness. If they could survive their trials and tribulations, maybe Alice could as well.
"Well, we have YOUR birthday to celebrate in the meantime," said Laurie. "And you still need to decide what you want to do."
Alice sighed. She was the last of the crew to hit the twenty-year mark, and Laurie wanted to make a big deal of it. Liz wanted to make a big deal of it. Alice just wanted to crawl into a dark place and wake up in August.
"And no," Laurie continued, "we won't just 'skip it.' So what do you want to do?"
Heather sat down next to her girlfriend and kissed her again, trying not to disturb the movement of the girl's hands on Alice's shoulders. "You might as well give in. You know how she is about birthdays."
Alice sighed again. She was racking her brain for something fun but not too ostentatious. Alice would have been happy with a group dinner-and-a-movie outing, but Laurie wasn't going to be happy unless it was something she could over-plan or was novel somehow.
