Three of a Ind

I checked my make-up in the mirror and gave myself a quick appraisal. The faint red lipstick, more gloss than anything else, gave my pale complexion something to compare against. Because of that complexion, the same I shared with my mom and sisters, I used some blusher on my cheeks, and brushed some auburn eyeshadow above the thin eyeliner I usually wore. I smacked my lips together, feeling the sticky sensation of the lipstick, and pouted twice. I'd clipped my long dark fringe close to my scalp for this evening, to better show off the diamante shoulder straps on my dress. I was particularly proud of those straps. Cassie had taken the dress from her seconds shop one afternoon and, within a couple of days, had made it into something good enough for the catwalk. But that was Cassie; ever resourceful.

Satisfied (that at least I could look worse), I backed away from the mirror and smoothed my hands down the sides of my dress. The dress, as I have said, was originally a seconds piece; bought probably decades ago by some young woman; worn, discarded and forgotten as the fashion changed and styles moved on. It was made of a silken type of material I couldn't identify (Cassie probably could, but that's her gift). Originally a dull pea-green color with unfashionably wide shoulder straps and a wide knee-length hem. It may have looked good during one era, but not anymore. Its saving grace (apparently) was the bodice where clever stitching underneath the bust gave even the smallest breasts an appreciative lift. But Cassie had seen something in it, exclaimed it was perfect for her little sister, and snapped it up before the dress even got onto the shop floor.

Cassie had strip-dyed it with other green colors, then went to work on the hem and straps. She tore the hem, slashing the length on one side and re-stitching it to give it a lop-sided look. I covered my right leg down to its original knee length, but cut high across on my left leg, so that on that side it was no higher than a mini-skirt. I looked hard in the mirror, trying to find the "fabulous legs" Cassie assured me it showed off.

But the crowning glory of this re-modelled dress were the straps. Cassie had taken them and scrunched the living hell out of them; crinkling and pinching the material, then sewing in several lines and clusters of tiny diamante stones. Each one had been fixed by hand, and it must have taken her hours to finish it so expertly.

I looked at the net result in the mirror and wondered if it had been worth all that effort. Being the youngest of three, and enjoying neither the quiet confidence of Cassie, nor the outright exuberance of Jennifer, my eldest sister, I had always struggled to convince myself that I was clever enough, pretty enough or wise enough to emulate either of them.

But now, on the eve of my twentieth birthday, twenty minutes away from a dinner out with my sisters and their boyfriends, one month away from graduating early at university with a degree in psychology and a promised career in law enforcement, I wondered if I had made the grade. Compared to them, I was still the kooky little sister; untested and untried in the big, bad world. Jennifer had tamed it long ago; was now a successful and highly-paid executive in an international PR firm. She was the mistress of her own destiny now and compounded it by hooking one of her rivals from a different company as her boyfriend. Cassie had graduated from uni with a degree in art and immediately earned a huge amount of publicity (and cash) when one of her fresh-from college paintings found its way into a gallery sponsored by the Whistler foundation. Ever the rebel, Cassie then only took on commissions that she wanted. She moved out to live with Jennifer and spent most of her time at a seconds shop; sorting out and selling the unwanted clothes and items of other people for poorer people. Along with her gorgeous boyfriend, Mark, she was the happiest, most fulfilled person I knew.

I slipped on a pair of heeled sandals I'd borrowed from my mom and struck a final pose in the mirror; holding in my tummy, pushing out my chest and stretching out my left leg to the side for maximum exposure. I must have held the pose for all of two seconds before I felt the discomfort steal over me. I relaxed; pulling down the hem on the left side and smoothing the dress down my tummy again. If I'd put on five pounds in the last five years it wouldn't be wildly off the mark, but I never felt comfortable with my own body. Not with myself or with Richard; my only real boyfriend who I started going out with when I was sixteen, then was dumped by when I was seventeen. I felt a flush rise to my cheeks at the very thought, and sighed.

"Kimberly, honey! Are you ready? Cassie just rang and asked if you were still coming!"

Mom's voice cut through to the here and now. I turned away from the mirror and opened my bedroom door, calling out;

"Okay mom. I'm nearly ready. I'll be gone in five minutes."

I turned back briefly into my room, grabbed my clutch-bag and left. Downstairs, dad was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper. I smiled, went over and gave him a hug, breaking his concentration. He looked up at me, smiled, then looked me up and down.

"Wow!" he said, "Who brought out this beautiful butterfly?"

"Da-aaad..."

"No, I mean it" he said, eyeing the dress Cassie had re-made for me. "You look wonderful. Who's the lucky guy?"

"Dad, I told you yesterday; I'm going out for dinner with Cassie and Jennifer. For my birthday."

"Oh right. Yeah." he said, nodding as if realization had just dawned on him. "That's right; the triple date; right?"

I flushed with embarrassment, knowing that the redness would show up immediately on my pale skin. Dad chuckled and pulled me into a hug.

"Have a good time, baby." he said, letting go after I'd ruffled his greying hair.

Mom stood by the door with my long coat.

"Geez mom, " I said. "Can't wait to get me out huh?"

"That's right, honey" said mom, tapping a finger against the watch on her wrist. "Your father and I want to have sex. It's the living room's turn tonight and I want you out of the way."

I felt the embarrassment surge again. "Mom, I hate that!" I said, groaning. Mom looked over and my dad and winked. They always did this to me. It seemed to be some kind of retribution for not having inherited their confidence, or openness. Mom pulled me into a hug. She was wearing her work clothes; trousers and a blouse - almost masculine, but still looked fabulous for her age; her dark hair similar to mine and only slightly tinted by a few strands of grey.

"Bye sweetie. Have a good time."

I took my coat, gave both mom and dad a wave as I left, and stepped down from the front of the house to the pavement, and the taxi waiting below. As I stepped into the cab I felt my cell phone buzz inside my pocket. My heart skipped a beat. Somehow I knew it was Amanda. Again. Amanda had been my first great love, the first one - that is - since I realised that it was pointless trying to get a boyfriend when all I was interested in were girls.

I'd had the usual angst of trying to 'discover' who I was and why I felt that way. I struggled and experimented with trying to fit myself into some kind of lifestyle box. Was I a lesbian? If I was, what did that mean? Should I act in a particular way? Should I dress in a particular way? What should the new 'discovered' me be like? And, after some embarrassing soul-searching, I realised that I should be nothing more or less than just me. I didn't easily fit any kind of compartment. Was too thin and pretty to be butch, not Barbie-pink enough to be a femme. Was pale skinned but didn't dress like a goth. Was too quiet to be a new age lipstick lesbian, and too fond of the finer things of being a teenage girl to be a 'bra burner' (as mom called it, whatever that meant.)

And, sometime during this voyage of self discovery, Amanda had discovered me. She, unlike the confused girl I happened to be, was a girl sure of her identity and her place in the world. Amanda was sassy, dominant and confident. She would shout from the rooftops that she was a lesbian. She had t-shirts that said "Rug-Muncher At Work" and "All plumbing needs catered for", with a female washroom sign above it. Amanda had dragged me into the world of erotic sex-play and - God bless her - gave me my first orgasm the week after my eighteenth birthday. We dated in secret for about six months; stealing evenings and afternoons when we could. For me the sex was not so much incredible, but a revelation.

I'd had sex twice with Richard; the first time to pop my cherry and get that whole virgin thing out of the way. Or so I thought at the time (how cheap my thoughts were back then). The second time was on his birthday when I'd made the effort to dress up for him. Both times had been brief, clumsy and largely uncomfortable. I had begun my sexual dawning not with the dreams of scented flowers or stars in my eyes, but with Richard grunting and heaving and being all too brief. I formed a mental illusion that sex was probably going to be one of those things like taking out the weekly garbage or cleaning out an old shoe cupboard: tedious, regular but infrequent, with a faint satisfaction of a job well done. Like a lot of other young women, I suspected that the idea of a female orgasm was something of a myth created to make guys feel better.

But with Amanda, I found someone who was as interested in pleasuring me as she was herself, and my body reacted to it hungrily. When I had my first real orgasm, I felt as though I were exploding, leaking and having a stroke all at the same time. I remember the experience in detail. Amanda and I had skipped class at college, and gone back to her mom's house. We were fooling around in her room, playing music, talking, kissing and holding hands. Things had progressed naturally and I was soon in the happy situation of sliding under the thin sheets of Amanda's bed feeling the heat of her bare legs against mine, and the touch of her fingers around my waist. We both still wore our panties but had taken everything else off. She had crushed my smaller breasts with her own, and I felt my nipples harden at the delicious contact. Her lips were warm and wet, and the soft skin below and behind her left ear invited me to nibble gently at her neck. When Amanda kissed her way down the length of my body, planting oversized kisses on each of my bullet-hard nipples, and had hooked her thumbs under the elastic of my panties, I was already lost in a world of pleasure I hadn't known before.

That first, shocking sensation of Amanda's fingers between my legs, teasing and prying me open, produced an involuntary whimper. In her own way, Amanda was almost as clumsy as Richard was, but at least she was doing to me what she wanted to have done to herself, so was already in a good position.

And when, at last, I felt her lips, and tongue, between my legs, the room began to swim around my head. I remember grabbing the back of Amanda's head; twisting my fingers into the curls of her auburn hair and pulling her toward me as she made frantic stabbing motions with her tongue. Amanda's face was buried between my legs, her hands at the top of each of my thighs and her left knee pressing up against my right ankle when it happened. I had my legs wide open, my back arched, and my eyes closed. I had reached back behind me with my left hand to grab the headboard, and had shoved the big knuckle of my right index finger between my teeth when it happened. Amanda had the CD of her friend's band: 'Laura's Farmyard' playing on loop in the background when in happened. There was the distant noise of a big mack truck careening past when it happened, and the mixed smell of my own sweat and Amanda's 'Impulse' body spray in the air when it happened.

My body became super-sensitive, and I went from trembling to rigid and back again almost instantly. I remember making a high-pitched squealing noise as I came, feeling a rush of blood to my face as the sensation of Amanda's tongue on my clit drove me to climax. I remember Amanda stopping to look up at me, then coughing and gagging as I orgasmed with her face so close to my pussy.

Her first words to me, after giving me this incredible revelation, were: "Eeeeugh! You peed on me!"

I remember at the time feeling the shame of having done such a thing, of having let myself go in such a fashion. It had the potential, added to my earlier experiences with Richard, to put me off sex with both genders. It had the potential to be a mortal hammer-blow to my sex-life. But something inside me rebelled against that shame. Something in me delighted and cried out at this abandonment; this shocking climax. I'd had my revelation; my sexual awakening. And I was determined not to suppress it.

Unfortunately, Amanda didn't quite achieve the same heights as I did when we made love. I was very patient with her, doing to her all the things she had done to me, and a little more besides, but she was never able to let go. She claimed to have "wonderful orgasms" with me, but I didn't feel that she did. Her body was still locked in a fight to contain the explosiveness of the kind of orgasm I was learning to enjoy.

Two months after that first orgasm, Amanda and I had a fight (about not being seen as girlfriends in public), and she called me "sex-crazed". I was stunned. Stunned that she thought of me that way, and (secretly) stunned that she was probably right. I'd grown to love the idea of my orgasms. Yearned for them every time Amanda and I made love. And it was too much for her.

Amanda and I split up. But not before she sent a letter to my parent telling them I was gay.

That had caused a bit of a fuss and a few awkward evenings, I can tell you.

But I had told mom that yes; I was batting for the girls' team, not the boys', no; I wasn't the evil witch Amanda may have wanted to portray me as, and c; yes I was still her and daddy's little girl. They were, I have to say, surprisingly accepting of it. So was Cassie and, in her own indifferent way, Jennifer too. I cut my then long hair into the style I have kept since that day; short at the back, tapering into a long fringe at the front, imbalanced on my right side, so that I could hide that side of my face if I let it hang forward. Some of the time I wore it that way, other times (like tonight) I clipped it up to give me a boyish look. Most of the time I just curled it behind both ears with my finger; a lazy way to deal with it.

I had seen Amanda several times since we broke up, but not intimately. She had professed her love for me on more than one occasion, but it was her guilt talking, not her feelings. I smiled, told her that I would always have feelings for her and that we should always be friends, but nothing more. She cried a few times. Only once did she tell me my hair looked silly, and that was to try and endear herself to me; give her a chance to rearrange it and touch my face. I thought about that, and curled a stray lock behind my right ear.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said," said the taxi driver in a weary voice, "where is it you want to go?"

I smiled, a little embarrassed that I'd been caught daydreaming so easily, and directed him to my sisters' house. I was only five minutes late, according to Jennifer.

The evening, at Cassie and Jennifer's, was a quiet success. Jennifer, my tall, successful eldest sister, had dressed in an elegant deep red gown; tight but not clinging, with loose sleeves that were slashed around the top of the shoulder but covered her upper arms. A wide sash covered her slim waist, and stockings (Jennifer always wore stockings) covered the distance between the knee-length hem of her dress and her black, low-inch heels. She'd left her long, straight hair down. Her fringe, just curling down to the level of her eyes, reminded me of a dark crest of wave, giving her a look of dignified allure. She looked beautiful.

As if to deliberately contrast this look, Cassie had worn a loose, white crocheted top that covered her body and arms completely, as though it were trying to hide the much larger breasts that she was blessed with than I. She wore a short brown skirt to emphasise her bare legs (shorter than mine, but shapelier, I thought), and a pair of ankle boots with a thin, two-inch heel. She looked ready for a good night out (rather than in), and quite lovely. I suspect that every item she wore (including the socks and panties) came from her seconds shop. Her hair, as dark and rich as both mine and Jennifer's but much, much longer, was pulled back and plaited, leaving the tail to swish free as she moved.

Mark and his friend (who Cassie assured me was "lovely") had failed to appear. Cassie waved away their absence, blaming some work crisis or other. I never did get to find out whether Mark's friend was male or female. Elliot, the boyfriend Jennifer had recently snagged, was a lot older than I imagined. Thinning hair, already marching briskly from grey to white, he could have easily been in his mid forties. He was charming and engaging, but a different generation to me. He didn't seem particularly affectionate with Jennifer, but that wasn't surprising giving Jenny's general aloofness.

There was far too much food, and Jennifer's taste in wine ensured none of us remained dry throughout the evening. I modelled and twirled in the dress Cassie gave me, accepting her wolf-whistles with an embarrassed smile. We spoke a lot about Cassie's art projects and her charity work, about my dissertation in psychology, about Elliot's recent trip to Sardinia. Cassie even asked me (at one point, when we were alone while Jennifer and Elliot cleared up the dinner plates) if I'd got a girlfriend recently. I'd shaken my head, embarrassed again, and changed the subject. We played cards - three, five and seven card poker, and a game Cassie said was the best called Cribbage - and drank a little more wine. I wanted to play the piano - my other great love - my Jennifer only had a sad, tired old keyboard and it almost seemed an undignified betrayal to play on that when I had mom's Steinway back at home.

I remembered ordering a taxi, and waving goodbye at the end of the evening, kissing each of my sisters with considerable warmth, but remembered nothing of the ride home. I must have been a little tipsy from the rich wine Jennifer proffered. I woke up on the third Hey.

"...Hey! Miss! Cant go through this way. Road's blocked." "Hmm?" I said, rousing myself from the slumber I'd drifted into.

"I said the road's blocked" said the driver, his voice sounding as tired as I felt. "You want me to go round the other way or drop you off here?"

I rubbed my eyes and looked out of the window, trying to focus on any houses I could recognise. About fifty yards up the road to my right there was a yellow police cordon. Behind that there were a number of cars with flashing lights and at least one fire engine. I remember thinking that something bad must have happened. I had been ready to tell the driver to try and found another way round, just about to open my mouth and say those words, when I recognised Mr Abberline's BMW 4x4 at the end of the road. The end of my road.

I looked again up the street as my heart began to drop like a stone.

"Oh no." I said, quietly. "Oh no. Oh please no."

I got out of the taxi and stumbled out onto the pavement, feeling the cold night air envelope me as I staggered toward the cordon. If the taxi driver shouted at me, or followed me, I couldn't tell you. All I knew was that my heart emptied as I walked toward that cordon, my watering eyes fixed on the shell of the house I used to live in.

"Excuse me, miss. You can't come this way. There's been an accident."

I remember the police officer's voice; deep and professional, but not his face.