Friday night at the club, drinking and dancing like we were still in college. It felt childish, but two of our old gang were visiting town, so we all decided to relive old times. Well, not that old—we had all graduated only four years before, but that seemed like decades ago. It was wild having the six of us together again, if only for one night.
My roommate Jenny and I had a blast, goofing around with the guys, dancing with them or with each other. I dance like someone being attacked by zombie cockroaches, but Jenny moved her tall slender body with carefree, effortless grace—slinky then aggressive, always playful, her eyes alive in the sweeping lights.
When we sat, Owen, our social butterfly and the heart of our gang, surprised us by offering us THC gummies.
"C'mon, Brooke," he said as I stared at the multi-colored shapes. "You two said you always wanted to try it. These are pretty mild."
Jenny dared me, so I ate one. For the longest time nothing happened. We danced, drank and chatted with our friends until Jenny and I got the giggles and couldn't keep the grins off our faces. The effect was different from alcohol, but freeing.
From the sidelines I watched Jenny dance with Owen—her arms in the air, swaying and writhing with easy grace. She envied me for my curves, but I wished I could be as slim as her.
I danced with the guys again, feeling loose and happy. A young guy watching from the crowd caught my eye, his biceps and pecs deliciously filling out a tailor fit shirt. Too bad he looked so boyish. Scanning the rest of the crowd through the buzzing sensation of the gummies, I realized just how young everyone was. We were 26 and already too old for the club scene.
Jenny and I got the munchies, just like Owen said we would. The club didn't serve food past seven and by then we were both a little worn out, so we said our goodbyes and final nice-to-see-you's. As we fetched our coats, Owen gave us another gummie "for the road".
~~~~
We headed down the frozen street to the pizza takeout for a slice, sitting on the stools by the window watching clumps of partiers hurrying along the icy sidewalks.
"No one in our gang has changed a bit," I said to Jenny. "Everyone seems to be doing well in the real world, though."
"It was great to see Craig still isn't drinking. Looks like your intervention took hold."
"I'm so glad," I said. "He was drinking himself to death. I had to do something. I never would've had the guts to confront him if you and Owen hadn't backed me up."
Jenny laughed. "Yeah. Craig was furious! I really think he would've hit you that night if Owen wasn't there to hold him back."
"He apologized," I said. "And thanked us."
"Yeah... one year later."
Pizza finished, we decided to walk home. It was only a 30-minute walk—not worth taking a taxi we couldn't afford anyway. The bustling bar district gave way to our sleepy residential area as we walked, laughing and critiquing some of the guys who had been at the club.
"Owen is still such a sweetie," I said.
"He is," Jenny said. "If he was straight, I'd marry him."
"You would not!"
"Okay... then we'd have a long sordid affair filled with tormented lust and betrayals that would end in disaster for us both."
"You're such a romantic," I said and laughed.
After a moment, Jenny said, "I saw you talking to Wyatt."
"Oh, I was just catching up and being polite."
"That was a long conversation for just catching up. You're not going to start seeing him again, are you?"
I shook my head. "I made that mistake twice. Not happening again. Why? Do you want him?"
Jenny swatted my arm. "As if! He's
your
weird little perversion."
"He's good in bed," I said in a tantalizing tone.
"I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, with that nuclear-powered vibrator of yours. The whole apartment shakes when you use that thing."
Jenny gasped and gave me a playful shove then grabbed me to keep me from falling. We continued walking arm-in-arm along the sidewalk, talking and laughing.
A pickup truck roared by and swerved into a pothole at the edge of the road. We shrieked as a massive wave of dirty slush soaked us.
"Lezzy dykes!" yelled the grease bag leaning out the passenger window. He threw an empty beer can at us as the truck zoomed away.
"You fucking bastards!" Jenny yelled after them, dripping. She turned to me. "Oh my god, Brooke! It's in your hair and everything." She wiped my face with the cuff of her jacket. I tried cleaning her too, but our coats and pants were soaked with filthy freezing water.
By the time we reached our apartment building, Jenny's teeth were chattering.
"S-so a-are y-yours," she said as we hurried up the stairs.
Inside, we stripped to our underwear, leaving our sodden jackets and clothes on the tile floor of the entranceway to deal with later.
"You s-shower first," I said, pushing poor Jenny toward the bathroom.
"T-t-together," she said. "You're freezing too."
I hesitated. Being roommates, we had seen each other naked plenty of times, but showering together seemed kind of... gay. She was right though—the apartment's hot water ran out quickly.
We traded places under the warm spray every few moments until Jenny said, "This is stupid" and pulled me against her so we could warm up at the same time. We hugged all the time—Jenny was
such
a hugger—but that was the first time we had ever embraced skin-to-skin. Her smooth body felt warmer than the water flowing over us.
"There," she said. "Now we're getting warm." She combed the grit and filth from my long hair with her fingers then used some shampoo. I clung as her touch sent electric shivers through me.
A familiar warmth began blooming low in my belly. What the hell? I was getting turned on? It must have been as Owen had warned us—for a lot of people, weed made them horny. Seeing that muscle guy at the club sure did. I wanted to drag him to some dark corner and let him fuck me against the wall. Imagining things like that was fun, though of course I'd never done anything so wild.
"I think you want to go back to the club," Jenny said with a laugh, bringing me back to the present.
"Huh? Oh, shit. Sorry." In my stoned moment of reverie, I had been holding Jenny by the waist and slowly rubbing against her.
Jenny offered up one of her cute half smiles as I felt myself turning red. She took a step back and bent forward toward me.
"Help get the crap out of my hair? Yours is clean now."
Her short hair made it easy to work the grit out. Bent over, she held me by my waist and rested her head at the top of one of my boobs while I worked in some shampoo. Her holding me and the sight down her back to the modest swell of her hips and ass further fanned my arousal. I wanted to smooth my hands down her back. I wanted to caress the globes of her ass.
I loved her holding me as I worked. I loved taking care of her.
When I was done, Jenny straightened and we rinsed off a final time. Getting out, I realized how slick I had become between my legs. I dried off quickly pulled on my bathrobe, afraid Jenny might notice somehow.
"Are you okay, Brooke?" she said, running her towel over her slim frame.
I realized I was gawking. "Uh, yeah. I'm not shivering anymore. What about you?"
"I'm feeling great," she said and gave me an adorably dopey smile.
My heart fluttered and warmth spread further inside me. What was going on? Jenny was my best friend and roommate. Like anyone, I could appreciate a good-looking woman, but never had I been attracted to one the way I was attracted to Jenny at that moment. I wanted to pull her back into the shower and rub against her again.
She toweled her hair. "I'm so fucking angry at those douchebags," she said. "Wish we'd got their license." After hanging up her towel she donned her own bathrobe. She smacked her lips. "My mouth is so dry. Are you still high?"
"Even more than at the club," I said. "I think that last gummie was stronger than the others."
"Yeah, I think it was." Jenny shook her arms and worked her shoulders. "I feel all slinky and buzzy," she said. "And the munchies are back. You?"
"Oh yeah." We shared a look. "Make popcorn and watch a shitty romance?" I asked.
Jenny grinned and hugged me quickly. We changed into our sleepwear—fleece pajama bottoms and old t-shirts. We dumped our sodden jackets and clothes into the bathtub to deal with later. While Jenny made popcorn, I wrestled open the sofa bed in the living room and spread out the blanket we kept draped over the back. I searched for a terrible period romance movie to stream.
~~~~
We had spent countless nights propped up on that sofa bed making snide remarks at awful period romance movies, laughing ourselves sily. We had both grown up devoted to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, with dashes of Hardy, Eliot and du Maurier. Every big-budget movie with Keira Knightley in a gown or Colin Firth in a waistcoat we had seen hundreds of times and discussed to death. Finding low-budget historical romance movies to snark at was our weekend guilty pleasure.
Jenny stretched out beside me on the bed with the popcorn and handed me a customary vodka cooler. She cracked hers open. We clinked and took a swig, pulled the blanket up and I started a Regency-era romance playing.