Author Note: There are some recurring characters here from my other works: Rachel (Rachel's Lifehack), Vivian (Rambling Chantrix), Fumine (Hesitant Heat), and Deedoss (Intrusion). This story is set before those stories, when the girls are still in their senior year of college. Of
course
they're best friends. Their stories are not necessary reading for this. I hope you enjoy, and, as always, all feedback welcome: your comments help me do better in the future!
CW
danger, with a character not reacting healthily to said danger due to anxiety/low mood. No harm.
Taste & Hold
"I still can't get on the wifi, can you?"
"I haven't tried yet, hold on."
"Yeah, and I have no signal."
"
None of us
have signal."
"Shit, you're right. The password is wrong or something."
"Or something!"
We were all on our phones, trying to get internet. The Airbnb had instructions from the host, but the instructions were wrong. It was raining hard, so hiking was off the table, and we'd just completed lunch, the only other activity we'd planned. Our little cabin near Grizzly National Park was quaint and very Instagrammable, but the frustration in the room was palpable.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. We'd packed for warmer weather, for a long weekend of outdoor activities: the crunch of pine needles beneath our shoes, the magnificent vistas of the Grizzly valley, the sunset turning the waterfalls to flame, the crackling and smoke of campfires and toasted marshmallows, the silent contemplation of a serene rural starscape. It was Thanksgiving break at Georgeville Provincial, where we were all students, and we hadn't pooled our meager part-time paychecks in order to sit around indoors without even Netflix to occupy us.
Also, it was cold. Everyone had their own solution to that.
"We could drink," suggested Vivian. She was the only one of us who'd brought weather-appropriate gear, but only because her typical outfit of a heavy fleece jacket and hoodie happened to be weather-appropriate. Most of the time it was overkill, though everyone's heat tolerance is different. She had sleek, straight black hair and tanned pale skin; she dressed conservatively, but her deep amber eyes were captivating.
"We could fuck," said Rachel. She made jokes like this often, with a deadpan so practiced they didn't always read as jokes. Rachel was a light-skinned, curvy, beautiful brunette with curly hair and an ardent smile that made you forget you weren't the center of the universe. That smile had worked on most of us, at some point or other. I think of the six of us, I was the only one who had yet to fall into her bed--mainly, I think, because doing so did not appeal to me.
"I'mma say yes and no." That was Fumine, Vivian's roommate. They were childhood friends, Georgeville locals, both grandchildren of immigrants from Starsource. She shared some of Vivian's looks--the straight black hair, the skin tone--but she was thinner and preppier, and her eyes were darker.
"Ooor instead of debauchery at 2 p.m. we could just start a fire," said Louise.
Louise was a foreign student; she had come to us sophomore year from the Republic of Freedom. She looked like a Cauldronite stereotype: rail-thin, wearing only sensible but fashionably cut garments, everything fitted perfectly, never unadorned or dressed down like us Province folk (when she first arrived, she had been baffled by Vivian's
decision
to wear oversized hoodies everywhere). She had a small, sharp face framed in a messy brown bob, and always wore some kind of golden chain around her summer-pale neck that drew attention to her cleavage. She had a large variety of cleavage-accentuating golden chain necklaces. Maybe this was just due to assumptions based on her mature dress and dismissive humor, but she had been slotted into the role of the reasonable one in our group from day one, steering us toward better decisions--much like now.
"I'd drink," Deedoss said, shrugging. Deedoss was a charming east coaster out of Longriver. She wore things that had been out of fashion a decade or so in Georgeville, but she wore them well: frilly sweetheart neckline blouses, capri jeans, vintage floral-print ankle boots. She was a natural strawberry blonde with a light dousing of freckles. She was the least fit of us, but she carried her weight well.
"Well c'mon, then, Dee, let's get this party
started
."
Vivian took Deedoss to the kitchen, where we'd stashed our weekend's booze supplies, while Louise conscripted me to help her figure out the package of firestarter that had come with the Airbnb. Rachel and Fumine lounged on one of the three couches that formed a semicircle around the fireplace, clearly content to watch the rest of us labor.
As we got crouched down and got the fire going--a process that involved giving up on the firestarter and turning to old newspaper, pinecones, and matches--Louise leaned toward me, concern in her eyes, and whispered.
"Is Rachel bothering you?"
Bothering me? Not exactly. I'd felt for a while now that there was a target on my back (or my ass, or my tits) given I was the only one in the group Rachel hadn't banged, but she hadn't said anything untoward to me specifically.
"It's just how she is," I whispered back.
"Okay," said Louise. "Just asking, because, you know, if she were. I'd get it."
"You guys were a thing, right?"
Louise snorted at that.
"I don't think Rachel
does
'things.'"
"Rachel does lots of things," said Rachel, "and people, too. You're not half as sneaky as you think,
mademoiselle
."
Louise flushed, and stood. I followed suit. The fire was appreciable, now, and I was getting toasty--though it's possible some of the heat I felt was from picturing Rachel and Louise doing a lot of things.
"Just looking out for Shirby," Louise said, adopting that uncaring tone she used like armor. "We all know you're insatiable, but some people might not want what you--"
"Spare me the lecture," Rachel said dismissively. "I know better than to go after the repressed girl."
"I am
not
repressed," I objected. Even as I said the words I wasn't sure why I was arguing. It's not like I wanted Rachel to go after me. I guess I just didn't want to look like the prude in the group, an increasingly difficult proposition with every semester I spent failing to find sex or love on campus.
"This is exactly what Louise is talking about, you know," said Fumine. "Even now, you're gunning for pussy."
"Sure, I'm
always
'gunning for pussy,' or whatever," said Rachel. "Cock too, I'll have you know, but that doesn't mean I'm tryna get in Shirby's pants--very nice pants, of course, but no. Shirby doesn't want it."
"I'm so glad you all figured that out for me," I said, and I left to find Deedoss and V.
I found them at the kitchen counter, a couple drinks in by the looks of it. Deedoss fiddled with the label on a bottle of hard cider; Vivian, uncharacteristically stripped down to a tank top, had just slammed down an empty shot glass.
"Hey Shirb," said Vivian. "How's things in the living room?"
"Oh, the yuzh," I said. "Rachel's a big slut, she's slept with everyone here but me, yada yada."
Deedoss blushed at that, and Vivian clicked her tongue. "I oughta take her down a peg," she said, an edge in her voice I wasn't used to. "She's not the only accomplished slut among us."
