Maggie knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked harder and called, "Hello?" Claire had told her to come by when she was done with the recital, so she was surprised.
"Hey, Maggie!" The voice came from the side of the house. Maggie stepped off the porch and saw Claire's head above the fence. "Come on back," Claire said, opening the gate. "I didn't know when you'd be here, so I decided to catch some rays."
"I can see that," Maggie said with a smile. Claire was wearing a hot pink bikini that showed off the firm lines of her muscular legs and shoulders. "Sorry I couldn't get here earlier. The recital ran longer than I thought, and then I had to stick around and talk to parents for a while."
"No problem at all," Claire said, leading the way to the back yard. "Grab a lounge and grab a beer."
"Don't mind if I do," Maggie said, taking a can of Heineken from the small cooler. "You look more comfortable than I feel."
"Well, you look great," Claire said, looking at Maggie's close-fitting knee-length dress and dressy flats. "Like you just came from a formal event."
"I did," Maggie said, popping open the beer. "It has to be black for a recital, and this is the thinnest black dress I have. But even so, it was getting hot in that gym."
"Yeah, this is unusual for May," Claire said. "The teaser day of spring. We're lucky it fell on a Sunday. I'm glad you could come over and hang out."
"I appreciate the invitation. I need to recover from fifteen beginning and intermediate violinists." Maggie shook her head. Her day job was secretary at the county courthouse, but she did some piano teaching and accompanying on the side.
"Well, you can recover all you like before the sun gets too low." Claire leaned back in her lounge and adjusted her top. For being short and athletic, her breasts were a decent size, maybe a B cup, Maggie guessed. She had always admired Claire's body on an aesthetic level. She was satisfied with her own body, but right now she felt out of place.
"I didn't think this through very well," Maggie said aloud. "A black dress is not ideal for laying out in the sun."
"Well..." Claire took a deliberate sip of her beer. "We're all friends here. Do you want to take off the dress and lay out in your underwear?"
"Whoa." Maggie sat up a little straighter in the lounge. "I would not have thought of that."
"This yard has zero visibility from any other house," Claire said, gesturing at the fence and the trees. "I haven't actually laid out nude, but I've thought about it. And your underwear probably covers more than my bikini."
"Yes," Maggie said absently, trying to remember which bra and panties she had grabbed from the drawer in the morning. Plain white, probably. She looked around at the secluded yard and her comfortable friend and said, "Fine." She stood up, pulled the dress over her head, and tossed it on the patio table. The mild May air felt good, and strange, on her skin. Her body was well-proportioned, but not as toned as Claire's.
"Good for you," Claire said. "I was right. You are the soul of modesty compared to me."
"If you say so." Maggie lay down in the lounge again. "The sun feels good, but" -- she looked at her bra and bikini-cut panties -- "my underwear? This feels way more out there than a bathing suit."
"I hear you," Claire said. "Bathing suits are meant to be seen in public. Underwear isn't."
"Right," Maggie said. "But if I keep drinking and we keep talking, it'll be OK."
The two women enjoyed the late afternoon sun and chatted about the coming end of the school year. Claire was finishing her second year as the gym teacher at the local K-12 school, and they had met the previous fall when Maggie played for an event. In a town of 1,000 people in the middle of North Dakota, friendships were sometimes hard to make, and the two had found they were happy to hang out together.
"I don't know how long I'll stay here," Claire said thoughtfully. "This was the first job I was offered out of UND, and I took it, but man, is it isolated."
"I know what you mean," Maggie said. "If it wasn't for my parents, I never would have come back." Maggie was 35, and her parents, in poor health, lived 20 miles down the highway.
"And dating has been awful," Claire said. "There's no one."
"Nope. There are some good-looking local boys, but they're not relationship material. And the few professional men are taken."
"Yeah. I've had sex once in two years, and it didn't go well."
"Oh?"
"Local boy, as you said." Claire took a sip of beer. "I was lonely and horny, and he was good-looking. But... without going into details, he was not talented at sex."
"I find that very easy to believe," Maggie said. "I am on a four-year streak of no sex. If I get horny, I take care of it myself." They had never talked like this before, but lying outdoors in her bra and panties was loosening her inhibitions.
"I've had a few dates," she continued, "but they ended with saying goodnight in the parking lot. I just had a strong sense that if I invited them home, it would end the way yours did."
"I admire that," Claire said. "And I have done a lot of self-pleasuring. But I miss kissing and touching."
"Yes." Maggie looked at her young, fit friend and decided to say the thought that had been rising in her mind. "Have you thought about trying women?"
Claire was not shocked. She looked into the middle distance and said, "I've thought about it a little, recently. Considering the lack of other options."
"I have, too," Maggie said. "Kind of a backup plan." She was reassured, and a little excited, by Claire's calm reaction. "Even though I've never done anything before. Not even a drunk kiss at a party."
"Funny you should say that. I did have a drunk kiss at a party once with my best friend. We laughed about it when we sobered up, but nothing else happened."
"So you're a tiny bit ahead of me."
A silence fell. Both women took sips from their beer. Out of the side of her eye, Maggie looked at Claire's body. She shifted her weight in the lounge to face her friend. Claire said, "Thank you for trying something new. I'm glad you get the sun on your skin." She smiled gently and added, "In your underwear, you look vulnerable."
"That's kind of how I feel," Maggie said. "But you make it OK."