This could either be the start of a longish story or a rather melancholy one shot. I'm not being coy or looking for encouragement, honest. I just have no idea if this one has 'legs'. I know better writers and the more professional of my fellow contributors probably plan out clever story arcs, plot lines and characterisations in advance, but to be honest, I've never written like that. I start with a germ of an idea...a scenario, sometimes just a moment in time… then it either expands or expires of its own volition. This is one of those times. It begins in that miserable period when Emily is punishing Naomi for her momentary lapse of judgement. Sophia is dead, Cook is either in jail or on the run and Effy is off with the fairies. Times are hard at Mrs and Mrs Campbells. The glowering presence of Mandy is ever present...and Naomi, even in her self medicating, introverted state, is starting to smell a rat about Emily's new 'straight' friend. Not without good reason, as we know….and she quickly finds out.
But before that even...we take a trip to a time a few hours after the event which precipitates the crisis. Just because I can…
Naomi
The coach lurched suddenly and without warning to one side with a screech of brakes, accompanied by a barked shout of alarm from the driver. As we straightened up and accelerated again, I caught a brief glimpse out of my window at a wobbly girl cyclist, face half shocked, half bemused at almost being turned into road kill in the yellow lined box junction she'd tried to negotiate in front of oncoming traffic. I felt a fleeting moments empathy for that sickly pale fellow traveller with the now slightly askew cycle helmet. She'd been an inch away from being terminally flattened by the overeager turning of our National Express bus driver, determined to get us up Park Street and onto the bypass as soon as physically possible. As a metaphor for the car crash my life had become, it was very fitting. The driver grumbled a bit, but headed straight on without looking in his mirror. Obviously he was as motivated as I was to put this shitty town behind us in the shortest time frame possible. But probably not as heartsick….at least I hoped so...one of us needed to pay attention for the next 150 miles?
With the coach steadily in motion again, I shrank back into my seat, grateful at least for the gods who'd decreed that my aisle stayed empty apart from my own sorry arse and the bulging backpack next to me I'd hurriedly packed no more than an hour and a half ago. My ticket said London Victoria one way, but that was as far as my brain had got me. So much had happened today, it was as much as I could do to blurt out a destination, proffer my student card and £25 in cash. So far so good for mindless auto pilot, but now the driver had stopped aiming our coach at random cyclists, there was nothing to distract me from thinking…
XXX
Emily
Shock and self loathing. Those were the two primary emotions competing to overwhelm me. How could I have been so stupid...so careless? For over three weeks now I've been scrupulous about keeping my new so called 'friend' Mandy away from Naomi or anyone else close to me. Meeting her at out of the way pubs (the one fuck up being the time I bumped into JJ, but I think his natural reticence at ratting me out and/or residual hope I might shag him again one day stopped it being an issue), only being alone with her in very public places, just in case my libido got out of control after a few drinks. I was careful...right? I wanted to try new things, strike out on my own with new friends...two years of hanging onto Naomi like some strange Remora fish (ha fucking ha...fish/Fitch...geddit?) had stunted my independence and now she'd gone and revealed her feet of clay, falling off that impossibly high pedestal I'd pushed her up on, I was free to be myself. Emily Fitch, newly outed lesbian. Jesus, queen of the cliché or what?
OK, all that self justification is actually a crock of shit and I knew it then as much as I know it now. I've been flat out punishing her, pure and simple. Treating her like some fucked up reluctant teenage landlady. There to cook and clean and run round after me with hollow eyed desperation as I breeze in and out of the house and her life, unforgiving...spiteful. Now she was the chaser, I was the prey. But I had no intention of bring caught just yet.
But today blew all that out of the water. I thought she was at the library...study being the only thing Naomi seemed capable of still doing without crying. Well maybe she was at the library at first. But stupidly, I'd drunkenly invited Mandy back to 'ours' after a heavy session at the pub this lunchtime. Three pints of cider and two vodka's smashed my caution aside. When I get drunk, you see, I get horny. Naomi could tell you that...at least she could have done once. Back in the days when a session in the pub was just an hors d'ouvres to some serious shagging back at Chez Campbell.
So I found myself being let into my own front door by a giggling Mandy, who was still able to operate a key. The house was silent and mercifully free of non paying lodgers. Naomi was (so I thought) at the college library, cramming for her last two exams. Katie too had three classes this afternoon and with Cook still expelled and AWOL and Effy in the funny farm for the duration, the coast was clear. Even in my drunken state, I still had a clear enough head to check the house for bodies first. Not that I intended to get properly down and dirty with Mandy...at least not yet anyway. Even as I was letting her escort me to clubs and pubs these past few weeks, I still held out on sealing the deal. No matter how much I hated what Naomi had done with the dead girl, I wasn't ready to copy her that fucking closely. Dirty dancing, check… A sloppy snog in a doorway, ditto. But anything under the clothes was a no no. I just couldn't.
So...what I intended to enjoy today was another drink...as long as Naomi hadn't emptied all the spirit bottles yet (her intake these days seems to increase on a daily basis)...then maybe a snogging session and a bit of over the clothes groping before I sent my would be seducer home frustrated, yet again. I knew she was getting a bit pissed off with all the teasing, but anything more than a bit of crafty boob stroking and I always pulled back. I could always sort myself out later in the bathroom….or try to.
The words "you're no better than her" always seemed to glow like a lurid casino sign in front of my eyes when Mandy tried for the tenth time to get her hand up my skirt. Hypocrite...yep, thats me. Fully paid up member.
Until today.
Flashback
"Mandy...stop...no really...stop" I murmured as she kissed my neck in the place I found it hard to resist sighing over. Make that two girls now who know that spot just under my ear is my erogenous zone numero uno.
My hand was gripping hers tightly as it crept dangerously close to the place I was still unwilling to let her to touch. Not that I wasn't fucking humming there, craving nothing more than the touch of eager fingers on my damp heated flesh. The fact that Naomi and I haven't made love since that horrible morning on the car park roof...oh, and my total inability to get myself off without treacherous images of naked blondes and vivid blue eyes ruining the mood, meant that my normally high libido was on frustration turbo mode this afternoon.
"Mmm, why Ems…I know you want it?" she whispered softly, running her sly tongue around the lobe of my ear, which set off a series of involuntary shivers inside me. Jesus, I was finding it all but impossible to deal with that crafty hand and her oral teasing. I only have so many barriers and the vodka was fucking big time with my willpower. But I pulled back this time...just.
"Mandy...babe...we have to stop...someone could come in anytime?"
It was a pitiful excuse, specially as I'd told her the house would be empty for the afternoon as we walked up Alfred Road towards the familiar chipped blue door, but I was running out of coherent thought by then. Ten minutes she'd been working away at me. Settling for soft kisses at first, keeping her hands on my shoulders and neck up till now. I was lulled into a stupid sense of false security. Backing her off when we were both squirming in damp knickers had become standard routine over the past couple of weeks.
But I badly underestimated her resolve this time, thats fucking clear.
If I looked at the situation objectively, why the fuck would she wait any longer? Going out with her twice a week minimum, clubbing, drinking, acting like we were a proper couple...she was entitled to think I was well into her. I wasn't being at all fair. To her or my actual girlfriend. Katie had cornered me twice this week. She'd grown strangely fond of Naomi lately, which I suppose is understandable after she guilt tripped her into accepting yet another Fitch into the house.
"Emily...I know what you're fucking doing and frankly its pretty shit? Tania saw you in that club in St Pauls on Friday. That fucking skank Mandy was all over you? So what...Naomi cheats and suddenly you have to copy her? Grow the fuck up. Either dump her and move on, or better still, dump the cave troll and try to pick up the pieces?"
Now, taking lectures from Katieon relationships was a twist too far. But I was so shocked at being caught out cheating, the sarcasm I wanted to use was suddenly out of stock. Instead I just mumbled something to her about 'mind your own business bitch' and beat a quick retreat. She was way too close to the truth about what I was...am doing.
But I carried on living two lives...because I couldn't find it in me to lose either. Naomi is...was...the love of my life, and I couldn't make the break from her...not yet anyway. And Mandy is my escape valve. Always available to smile, buy me a drink and make me forget how utterly miserable I actually am.
She tried again to wheedle me into giving in.
"Em...what's stopping us? No one's around...we've been dancing round this for ages? I really like you...look, if it makes you feel better, you don't have to do anything to me at all...honest. But just let me..."
Again the cool hand stroked my inner thigh just below the hem of my denim skirt. I took a second to curse myself for not wearing jeans today. Under that short skirt was just a wisp of tiny material. I was never gonna emulate Katie's preference for dental floss as underwear, but the thong I was wearing was a pitiful barrier against wandering hands. I knew if I relaxed my guard, Mandy would push it aside with just one finger. Then I really would be lost. I remember saying to Naomi once, when we were groping each other under a tree in the park that if she touched me 'there' I wouldn't be able to stop her. I wasn't lying. My one and only excursion into hetero land (apart from the pity fuck with JJ of course) resulted in me losing the virginity I'd prized well after Katie had willingly given hers away. Not my finest moment, being shagged against the cold brick of a youth club wall...but this had been the first kid who'd bothered to get me going before trying to get inside me. So I knew if Mandy reached her goal, I'd give in easily.
But she was patient, I'll give her that. She backed off again, settling for some gentle boob squeezing over my tee. I sighed in relief and satisfaction as her fingers toyed with my erect nipples. This I could cope with. I started to reciprocate. Mandy has nice tits. Not as nice as...well, fuck that thought, just nice. We snogged some more and tongues joined the action. I was just thinking that maybe we could do this for a few more minutes, then I could politely but firmly find some excuse to bring it to an end when she played her master card.
Pushing me back, her smooth, bare leg inserted itself between my thighs. Suddenly there was pressure...right fucking there. I groaned into her mouth and realised my hand was now in quite the wrong position to salvage my dignity. That long leg was insistent, knowing. Again and again she pressed against me. I groaned again and felt her smile against my lips.
I tried to free my mouth...protest..anything to stop the exquisite movement of her leg, but she was quicker...much quicker.
She used my hesitation to push her hand downwards, between her knee and my...well, you know. Instead of an insistent thigh there, I now had a hand. A hand which instantly cupped me firmly.
This time when I groaned, she pulled back and started attacking my ear with small nips, blowing tiny puffs of hot air which made my toes curl. I shivered deeply and despite grabbing for that crafty hand, I knew I was lost. I was pissed, horny and a determined girl was cupping my cunt like she owned it. Her knee changed its angle and I felt my thighs opening, inch by inch to her pressure.
It was a nail that did for me. A single perfectly manicured nail. Instead of making a grab for me, maybe at the risk of shocking me into action, instead she used the space her leg had given her to scrape gently up and down the centre of my thong.
This time I didn't shiver...I shuddered. My legs relaxed and suddenly my resistance crumbled. Again I felt her mouth twist into a smile as she continued kissing my neck and murmuring soft words. But I was lost already. Lost to reason.
Instead of fighting against her seduction, I moaned and pulled her head round until our lips met in a crushing kiss that took both our breath away.
That sly hand wasn't about to give up all it had gained and while I was gasping into her mouth, it slid upwards, then down...inside.
Shockingly, I felt smooth skin against my own. Then her fingers began to dance over my warm and wet flesh. The knee and its attached leg moved aside. No need for pressure now. Now I wanted what she wanted. I wanted those fingers on me..in me. We fell back together against the couch and she began to explore.
XXX
It was the sound of eggs breaking that ended it. Half a dozen free range (of course) freshly purchased from the Asian grocers on the corner. The small orange price sticker I saw when I cleaned up afterwards confirmed it. The copy of Heat magazine, sticky and crumpled beside the shattered shells and broken yolks was similarly ruined.
But not as ruined as my life had just become.
Naomi stood in the doorway, hand to her mouth and the discarded 5p bag lying by her feet. Her eyes were the clearest blue...wide and uncomprehending. She only said one word.
"Em?"
But there was a whole thesaurus in that pained and hollow word.
Then she ran.
XXX
Naomi
I only woke up when the coach brakes hissed as it pulled into Victoria Coach Station. Mercifully, my body had shut down during the interminable journey from Bristol. Self defence, I think they call it?
London then…
XXX
Just a teaser to see if anyone wants me to go on. I have all new ideas, honest!
