The Fine Art of Self-Pleasure
a story about
among other, more important things,
Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley
We know that more than seventy to eighty percent of women masturbate, and ninety percent of men masturbate, and the rest lie.
The bathroom door slammed as footsteps echoed across the flagstone floor, accompanied with the slight giggles of adolescent girls. Ginny's shoulders tensed at the unexpected intrusion, arms wrapping more tightly around her knees as she perched atop a toilet seat cover. She had ditched her Thursday afternoon Charms class and come up to one of the least used girls toilets (the one on the fourth floor, second corridor, hidden around the corner from some unused classrooms), to escape the concerns of her friends over her ever-darkening mood. So she was not entirely thrilled that people were so callously infringing upon the delicate calm that had descended upon her in the 20 minutes or so she had spent sulking up here.
She was having a bad enough day as it was, without this. First, something had gone wrong with her hair-fixing charm that morning and so, instead of her hair falling in graceful waves from her head, it seemed intent on exploding outwards in a bright orange curling afro disaster as though she had escaped from one of her father's photos from the 1970s. Hermione had barely been able to fix it back, and even though it wasn't as bad as it had been, her hair was still a bit bigger than usual, and she couldn't get "American Pie" out of her head. She barely caught the end of breakfast, so by the time she got there, all of the good food was gone and she was forced to subsist for the next five hours on half a scrap of toast and a gulp of orange juice.
If that wasn't bad enough, in Transfiguration class, as she had been attempting to turn a mini statuette into a songbird, Colin Creevey had knocked into her at the last second, and so her pretty nightingale had been born with marble wings and tail, a fact which caused her to receive a failure (her first!) from McGonagall, and a stern talking to about "not laying the blame for our own failures on others," when she tried, unsuccessfully, to explain what had happened. Not only had McGonagall refused to listen, but Creevey had even denied that he'd done it! Spineless sod.
And that wasn't even all. Oh, no. That wasn't enough horridness for one morning, apparently. Something else just had to make it worse. So, of course, Malfoy had to come into the picture. Bastard! His very presence should be wiped from the Earth, and cleaned up with a anti-bacterial disinfectant pad! She had been muttering loudly to herself about the Creevey Incident as she descended the stairs from the Transfiguration room, ignoring the concerned questions of her friends, when a drawling voice from behind had cut through her annoyance.
"Careful there, Weaslette. Much more talk like that and you'll land yourself a padded room at Bedlam." She had turned her head slightly around to see Draco Malfoy casually walking down the steps next to her, his usual two goonies following close behind.
"Shove it, Malfoy," she had snapped, stomping down the stairs with increased fury.
"Oh, wait," he had called after her, not even attempting to keep up. His voice had echoed widely across the stone staircases, making people going to lunch look over at him, "I forgot. Bedlam's only for families who can afford it. Guess your parents will just have to chain you up in the basement or something, to keep you from attacking the rest of your clan. How many siblings have you got, little Weasley, ten? Fourteen?"
Ginny had barely been able to get through lunch, she wanted to storm over to the Slytherin table and punch that sneer off Malfoy's face so badly she almost couldn't eat. The only thing that kept her at the table was the cool stare of Snape and McGonagall up at the Head Table, and the fact that she'd hardly had any breakfast, so her stomach felt like it was practically eating itself all through Transfiguration. After wolfing down her lunch, Ginny had disappeared to the toilets, hoping for some alone time so she could calm down her nerves, before apologizing to her friends for being so ghastly. But those girls just had to go and intrude.
As if they knew she was thinking about them, the girls laughed again from where Ginny thought that the sinks might be, whispering amongst each other, too quiet for her to pick up any words, and she could feel irritation begin to work its way up her neck, making her shift on the toilet seat. She glared pointedly at the wooden door to her stall with a ferocity that could have lit it on fire. Couldn't these people just leave already? Shouldn't they, like her, be in class? What were they doing here anywhere? They certainly weren't going to the bathroom-- thank god, the last thing she needed was to overhear someone else's bodily functions with her mood as it was-- and all it seemed that they were doing was talking.
Bloody annoying bints, she scowled. Ginny was just about to get up and leave, to find a different place to hide and try to lift her mood (perhaps some place that didn't smell, just slightly, of sewer) when the girls spoke loud enough for her to hear.
"-- I don't understand why guys make such a fuss about it."
"Well, perhaps that's just because you haven't tried it."
There was louder laughter, a bit more free than before, and Ginny raised her feet back up onto the ledge of the toilet, suddenly aware that she couldn't leave. She couldn't just get up and go waltzing through the group of girls at the door to leave, not without them thinking that she was somehow listening in on their conversation intentionally. That would certainly get around, and though she was no eavesdropper (at least not at Hogwarts, and usually not on purpose), she didn't want to make more trouble for herself. Girls could be vicious.
Plus, she was sort of curious as to what they were talking about when they should have been in class. What was so secret they couldn't do this some other time? But it was as though they knew that she was thinking of them again, or their conversation suddenly turned more private, because they started speaking in lower voices that Ginny couldn't hear properly. Bloody useless, Ginny thought, she couldn't even eavesdrop properly.
But then an idea lit up her mind and she scrambled silently for her bag. Digging through the books and papers (my God, when had she written so many notes to Lillian, Victoria and Luna, her best friends?), she wondered if it was still there. She hadn't cleaned out her bag this summer, had she? But when her fingers closed in on the slimy thing, she silently thanked her parents for not being rich enough to buy her a new bag, and her brothers for being such geniuses. Because in her hand was an old, slightly stretched out, Extendable Ear. The perfect eavesdropping tool.
If she was going to be stuck in this bathroom for ages, she might as well find out why.
Slipping the end of the Ear inside of her own, she watched as the flesh-colored string stretched out to the floor and slid along the flagstones silently, winding its way out of sight, the slight murmuring noises becoming more pronounced the closer it got to the group of girls.
"-- I can't believe you've actually done it, Sienna," one girl whispered, and Ginny struggled to recognize her voice. It sounded extremely familiar, but she couldn't place it.
But she didn't have to think to recognize the girl who spoke next. Sienna Vecsey was a 6th year like Ginny, but in the Ravenclaw house, and known all across school for her beauty as well as her mean Confringo hex. Ginny was suddenly glad she hadn't decided to reveal her presence. She was good in a fight, but not stupid enough to ignite the Vecsey wrath.
"Well, why the hell shouldn't I?" Sienna asked, mock-seriously. "If boys can do it, then certainly so can I."
The girls laughed again, and Ginny thought there were maybe four of them in the group. Who was friends with Sienna Vecsey? There was that tall, dark girl, Ginny thought, the one that liked Harry for a while, and poisoned Ron with a love potion. What was her name again? Vanity something?
"And really, Rommie, like you should act all shocked. From what's been going around, you're the one who's been doing things."
The girls gasped, and Ginny suddenly remembered who it was. Romilda Vane, the seventh year Gryffindor!
Romilda seemed to take offense at that. "Sienna! You know that's not true!"
"Yeah, you know that she's saving herself for The One--," a voice that Ginny recognized as being Gemma Fleetfoot's-- a 7th year Ravenclaw--, remarked cheekily.
"More like, The Chosen One!" Margeaux Stavros, a sixth year Hufflepuff, remarked, and the girls dissolved into fits of laughter. Really, couldn't these girls stop laughing? And what exactly were they talking about? Doing what? And were they talking about Harry?
Suddenly, Ginny was much more interested. Not because of Harry, of course, as she had completely given up on him the year before, and, unlike what Hermione had said, he had not noticed and come running back to her. Really. She was quite over him, thank you. Although it was obvious from the girls' talk that Romilda was a little less fortunate with her overwhelming crush on Boy Wonder. But what did that have to do with anything?
"But, Sienna, tell them what you told me! That's much more interesting, really," Romilda said, and the girls whispered amongst themselves, nothing that even the Extendable Ear could pick up.
"What did you tell her that was so shocking, Sienna?" Margeaux questioned, seeming like she only half-expected a real answer. "Was it about that Thomas boy?"
Ginny raised an eyebrow. Dean Thomas had snogged Sienna Vecsey, and he hadn't told anyone?
"No, no, no. It wasn't Thomas," Romilda cut in. "Sienna wouldn't even let him near her, let alone allow him to touch her. Tell them, Sienna!"
Sienna heaved a dramatic breath. "Alright, I'll tell you. But what I say must be kept within the strictest confidence, and never should a breath of it be repeated outside of these walls, do you understand me?"
"Yes," Romilda answered, immediately.
"Of course," Margeaux said.
"Er, yeah, I suppose," Gemma spoke, ostensibly rather unconvinced.
"Alright, well, you see... recently, I-- well, a couple of weeks ago, actually--I, er, did this thing."
"What kind of thing?" Margeaux questioned, voice just the tiniest bit worried.
There was a long pause, and Ginny could feel her heart beat faster. Was it bad? Was Sienna dabbling in Dark Magic? Secretly become a Death Eater? Ginny scowled to herself. But why would Voldemort choose her? Didn't the man have any taste? (Well, then again, she thought, he had chosen that looney bint Bellatrix, as well as the disgusting Wormtail creature, and the spineless Lucius Malfoy, and no doubt that slimy git Snape, as his followers, so its not as though he could be said to have the best pick of the lot, at least as far as cleanliness was concerned. But, really? Sienna Vecsey?)
But then Sienna spoke and Ginny forgot what she was worried about.
"I masturbated."
The girls all shrieked, making Ginny jerk suddenly, and the Extendable Ear nearly came flying back towards her. She very nearly fell off the toilet seat for that one. Scrambling back up onto her perch, she was glad that the girls were making too much noise for them to hear her. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breath came hard. Really! She thought it was something bad, and instead it turned out to be-- turned out to be... well, something like that!
"But you actually masturbated, Sienna?" Margeaux demanded, laugh evident under her voice. "Why didn't you ever tell me? This is... this is..."
"Unexpected," Gemma finished.
"Well," Sienna said, sounding slightly put out that the girls had reacted the way that they had. "Its not something you just announce suddenly one day over the breakfast table! What, how would you have reacted if I just came up and sat next to you while you were drinking your Pumpkin Juice and gossiping about Justin Finch-Fletchley, turned to you and randomly said, 'Cheerio, there, Margeaux, you know what I did last night? I thought of Jude Law naked and masturbated while thinking about him!' You would have choked on your bloody tongue!"
"But, I can't believe you waited until now to tell us!" Romilda said.
Sienna sniffed slightly. "It's not as though you asked. Are you telling me that you've never tried it, Rommie?"
The other girls laughed, and Romilda took a moment to answer. "Well, yes." At their suddenly increased amusement, she burst out over them. "But never successfully!"
Gemma spoke through barely contained giggles. "By successfully, I assume you mean, by achieving orgasm?"
Ginny could feel herself growing increasingly uncomfortable by this particular discussion. It wasn't as though she hadn't ever heard of masturbation-- she had grown up in a house with six brothers, so wanking had come up more often than she probably had ever really been comfortable with, and, plus, she was a teenager, going through puberty, much as those brothers wanted to deny it, so her friends had often joked about it-- but she had never heard a girl ever confess that she had done it. Much less two. She hardly knew that women did that sort of thing.
Did they?
"... why, yes," Romilda replied, somewhat stiffly. "Thank you, Gemma, for that... clarification."
"But why ever not?" Gemma questioned.
Margeaux broke in, saying, "I know! You have that perfectly scrumptious Potter boy to think of. I've seen him in his Quidditch kit, and I can't for a second think of why it wouldn't work if you were thinking of him."
"Oh, yes. I remember him last year at the Quidditch final," Sienna added. "Drop dead gorgeous in red and gold. Half the girls I was with couldn't stop staring at him. And they're in Ravenclaw! How couldn't it have worked?"
Alright, Ginny thought to herself, feeling cold pass over her skin as though she just accidentally walked through a ghost. This was okay, she was fine. She was over Harry, she actually was, but it still supremely unnerved her that other girls thought of him that way, even now. Of course, she had always known that other girls found him attractive, even sexy, and it had really bothered her once upon a time, but now it just... made her cringe a bit. Did Harry know that girls thought of him like this? Is this how guys thought about girls?
"I don't know," Romilda admitted. "It's not that I don't like him like that, or that I'm not attracted to him... but... I just don't know."
"Did you try thinking about him naked?" Sienna asked, and Ginny's grip tightened so hard on the Ear that it nearly squished to nothingness beneath her fingers. She sorely, sorely wished on all the stars in the sky, and all the Galleons that were no doubt secured in the Malfoys' Gringotts vault, that she were in Charms right then and not perched uncomfortably on top of a toilet seat eavesdropping on girls that were discussing her ex-crush's naked sexiness.
So, she was eternally grateful when Romilda shrieked, causing her to jump slightly in response. "Sienna, no! How could you ask that?! It makes me uncomfortable to think of him... like that... without being his girlfriend!"
Sienna just laughed. "Aw, come on. You never tried? I'm dying to know."
Margeaux broke in just in time to save Romilda from answering. "Really, Sienna. I'm more interested in your experience. Tell us, what did it feel like to orgasm?"
Sienna didn't answer right away and at first Ginny thought that she had perhaps damaged the Ear by squeezing it too tightly again, when Gemma broke the silence that had descended.
"Oh, look, Romilda! Our shy little Sienna is turning pink! But, really. It's not as though you weren't going to tell us that you had and not share all the details, you know."
"And?" Sienna responded somewhat defensively. "You didn't have to just ask like that!"
"Come on, Sienna, spill!" Margeaux encouraged.
Obviously eager to keep the attention away from herself, Romilda joined in. "Please, Sienna, tell us!"
"I'm interested," Gemma added.
Emboldened by her friend's encouragement, Sienna took an audible breath and said, "Well, when I first tried it, I couldn't get myself anywhere. I just kept... rubbing, hoping something would happen. But nothing did. You know what I mean? I couldn't feel anything for a while, and then it just started to hurt down there. I thought that I was doing everything right, but nothing was working. There was none of that white-hot pleasure or anything. So, I thought something was wrong with me, and I didn't do it for a while after that. I was sort of humiliated by it, actually.
"But, then, one day, about two or three weeks ago, I got really excited for some reason. I didn't know why at the time." Sienna paused for a moment, then continued. "Well, perhaps, now that I think about it, it may have something to do with seeing Blaise Zabini's sweaty, sexy half-naked form after Slytherin Quidditch practice"-- the other girls giggled at that-- "but I didn't think of that at the time. Anyway, after I went to bed, I couldn't sleep at all. I think I was really turned on or something, and I kept thinking about trying again, but after the first few tries I didn't want to fail again and just end up frustrated.
"But I couldn't keep ignoring it, so I tried. And it was different, somehow, this time, and I was very, er..." Sienna trailed off uncertainly.
"Wet?" Gemma supplied helpfully.
"Right," Sienna affirmed. "That. And it felt a lot better than before. I don't know precisely why. I got very warm down there, and my heart was beating a lot harder than it ever had before. I'm not sure, it's like my body was telling me what to do," Sienna's voice lowered conspiratorially, and Ginny had to concentrate hard to catch all of the words. She knew she shouldn't listen, but she just couldn't make herself stop. She had never heard anything like this before.
"And I just did what felt right, and there was this feeling that was building up, and I suddenly got very tight, and I could, you know, feel it. My... you know, was moving and I couldn't control it, and it felt really, really good. And it was like my whole body tensed up at it, this really excellent feeling that just filled me up and down."
The other girls tittered quietly with appreciative laughter, and even Ginny could feel an uncomfortable laugh tickle the back of her throat, but after that it was as though they were all silenced momentarily by the enormity of Sienna's confession. A girl... someone her age, Ginny thought, had done something like... masturbating, and had actually made herself orgasm. It was almost as though Ginny could hardly believe it, but even as she thought that, she knew it was true. She had really thought that only boys wanked, but now that she really considered it, perhaps that was a biased view. Why would only guys be able to give themselves such pleasure, and for it to be deemed acceptable?
Of course, she couldn't think of herself ever... doing that. Her cheeks flamed red at the mere thought. How embarrassing!
"So," Margeaux broke in mischievously after a while, "what exactly did you think of?"
Ginny pressed her ear up against the wooden door to the stall, trying to make sure that they were really gone. Once she was fairly sure, she squeezed the door open, pressing her face in the space to peer down the flagstones to the sink area. Soft light fell in through the high-set, narrow windows from above, reflecting lightly from the mirrors set into the wall, into the bright white porcelain sinks and across the floor, but there was no one left there. Reaching over to her bag, she swung the stall door open and stepped awkwardly out, her muscles stiff from sitting so long in an unnatural position.
Her Charms class was long over by then, as was Defense Against the Dark Arts, and dinner was due to start in just a couple of minutes, but she felt that she had learned more in those four hours than she had in her entire career at Hogwarts. Her bad mood had long since departed, to be replaced by one made equal parts of intermittent wonder and embarrassment. As she plodded heavily down the stairs, knees almost unable to take her weight, she pondered whether or not she could reveal to her friends what she had heard.
The desire burned at her to find out more about what they had been talking about, even as embarrassment made it hard for her to concentrate on the actual topic. Ginny tried to put the thoughts from her mind as she entered the Great Hall, the loud chatter of the other Hogwarts students and the clatter of silverware against plates creating a buzz that was easy to lose herself in.
Locating her friends near the middle of the Gryffindor table, Ginny dropped in next to Lillian, who was discussing quite heatedly with Victoria over the table about the various merits of a Ravenclaw prefect, hardly noticing her best friend's arrival. Luna, however, who was sitting next to Victoria, looked up from a thick tome she was inspecting, and smiled.
"Hello, Ginny. Are you feeling quite alright?" Luna tilted her head to the side and peered at Ginny with her unusual silver-grey eyes. "I noticed you were missing from Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I wondered if it had to do with Draco Malfoy. He was particularly interested in you today."
For some reason, the way that Luna phrased the statement made Ginny blush slightly, a fact that she couldn't hide with her fair skin, even though she knew that wasn't the way Luna meant it.
Fortunately, she was saved the trouble of replying by Lillian's sudden realization of her arrival.
"Ginny!" Lillian threw her arms around Ginny quite suddenly, making the spoon Ginny was lifting towards her mouth slip from her fingers and back into the bowl from which she was trying to eat, splattering pumpkin soup across the table. Burying her face into Ginny's neck, Lillian cried, "tell her, Ginny. Tell Victoria that Marcus Helixus is not an insufferable prat with a superiority complex larger than Jupiter!"
Ginny looked from Lillian's fair head buried in her neck and over at Victoria's cool blue stare, and raised an eyebrow.
"I honestly don't know," was all she could say, which made Lillian's grip tighten around her neck a bit more, and an amused quirk of the lips to appear on Victoria's face. "I've never met him-- I don't even know if I've seen him before."
At this, Lillian sat up and looked Ginny in the face quizzically. "But, Ginny, he's in our Herbology class. Has been since the beginning of the year. And, he helped me transfer those Tarantacula sprouts last week." At this last statement, she fixed a glare at Victoria, as though trying to prove that he wasn't as bad as she was trying to make everyone believe. After a moment, she turned back to look at Ginny. "Are you sure you don't know who I'm talking about?"
Ginny shook her head 'no'.
"How could you not know who he is?" Lillian raised her eyebrows, a suffering expression crossing her face. "Do you pay attention to boys at all?"
Ginny just shrugged, but the question bothered her. She had decided, after the disaster that was her obsession with Harry Potter and her subsequent rebound with Dean Thomas, to remove herself from the world of crushes and boys, at least for a while, to try and find out more about herself before putting herself out there again. All that she had discovered so far, however, was that she seemed inadequate in every way compared to her friends and the other girls at her school.
As Lillian turned to ask Luna if she knew who she was talking about, Ginny silently tried to phrase the question that she was dying to ask. Did her friends know about masturbation? Did they ever... try? If they were debating boys' attractiveness or their bodies, did that mean they had thought about having sex with them? The thought made warmth flare across Ginny's cheeks, and she looked at her friends with new eyes.
Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't do it. She couldn't ask. Something was stopping her, and she knew instantly what it was. What if they had tried it, and hadn't told her? What if they were so much more aware of themselves than she was, that much more in touch with their own sexuality? Ginny snapped her mouth shut. She felt inadequate enough as it was, without even more proof to the positive.
She would do some research, and then she would ask, so when they told her the inevitable truth, she wouldn't feel quite so daft. There was a Hogsmeade trip in two weeks, and she could probably slip away for long enough to find a book on the subject at one of the bookstores.
That decided, she focused her attention back on the conversation at hand, and was surprised when it abruptly turned to her.
Victoria smiled at her, "Are you okay, Ginny? You've been sitting there with a strange expression on your face for a while now. And you were gone from afternoon classes."
"Is it Malfoy's fault?" Lillian questioned. "That bloody bastard was horrible earlier. I can't believe what he said to you!"
Ginny just smiled at her friends' defense.
When Ginny went to bed that night, she lay awake for a long time, just thinking. As the chatter of her friends outside of the closed curtains of her four-poster bed faded slowly away into the night, she stared in an unfocussed manner at the canopy, the darkness making shapes appear across the red fabric that she didn't even try to name. An irritation thrummed at her skin, her every sense alive and unsatisfied with her current situation. Her hair, only half-dried and a mess of waves, pricked at her sensitive neck and the edges of her face. But she wouldn't move to touch it, nor the itch that was growing along the inside of her ankle, nor to move the blankets further up her chest to cover her skin that was growing cold in the November night air without the protection of her pajamas.
Her hands lay folded across her stomach, but on top of the blankets, fingers wrapped around the opposite arms' width, but not clenched, though irritation grew within her steadily. Bloody hell, she thought to herself, she couldn't get the thought out of her head to try it, tonight, without waiting! Her back muscles, already stiff with annoyance, tightened, and she suddenly let out a loud, rather gruff breath of air from her nose and mouth.
She wasn't going to do it. No, she wasn't.
But Ginny was, to her chagrin, very curious. And not blessed with an infinite amount of patience-- especially with herself. As her hands tightened around her wrists, she let out another puff of air and turned to her side suddenly, attempting to bury her thoughts and her face into her pillow. Letting out a tiny scream of frustration, she repeated to herself again, she wouldn't do it.
But, even as she thought that, her hands slipped from each other and then under the covers, one drawing the heavy blanket up to more fully cover her shoulders, and the other slipping down the front of her flannel pajamas. Her fingers were cold against her skin as she pulled up the hem of her pajama top, and she jumped involuntarily when they hit the sensitive skin of her lower stomach. Clenching her eyes shut, she pressed her hand more fully against the warmth of her skin, until the heat seeped into the frozen fingers, and her stomach didn't react so violently to their touch.
And then, without further ado, she plunged her hand past the elastic waistband of her pajamas and into her panties. The curly hair down there was much different from the kind on top of her head-- it was more wiry, and much less thick, and to touch it only reminded Ginny of the situation she was dealing with, and where she was touching. For some reason, it embarrassed her to even touch her own body, and her fingers fled from the area as quickly as they could, even as her body turned more in on itself in its bashfulness. Her fingers found purchase in the sudden division of flesh, and she shivered slightly as her still-slightly-cold fingers pressed against soft folds of skin infused with heat.
But she didn't know, really, what to do then. Her heart beat strongly in her ears, and she was suddenly aware of a whole new area of her body. Ginny paused, fingers staying in place, lightly pressing down on the damp skin, mind spinning rapidly. She remembered the girls talking about fantasies-- about imagining something that would 'turn them on'. What did she think did that? Hurriedly, she flicked through her memories for something pleasurable and fun (she almost likened it to the formation of a Patronus, only more sexual).
She had liked it when she snogged Dean Thomas last year, in the throes of her post-Harry Potter obsession, and she recalled the steamier bits of the rather heated sessions they had engaged in. The soft feel of Dean's lips, the warmth of his breath in her mouth, his fingers clasping the back of her neck, the softness of his sweater under her palms, and the heat of his skin underneath. Ginny imagined kissing someone, softly at first, their face obscured in the darkness of her fantasy, their skin against her own, cheeks growing hot and bodies pressing against each other. Fragments of her actual experience infused the imaginings with an almost-reality, and her lips moved unconsciously in response, frustrated at the purchase they were unable to gain in free air.
Ginny imagined someone slipping their hands under her shirt, feeling around the waistband of her pants, hands pressing strongly against her midriff, and her own arms going around their neck, loosening their tie and fumbling blindly with buttons to reach the hot skin of their shoulders, lips still pressed against each other, but tongues come into play. Slowly, she slid her fingers up and down, dragging the folds of skin against each other, and was surprised as an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation responded, knocking her almost out of her fantasy. Thus encouraged, she continued the action for a while, eyes pressed tightly closed, chin to her chest and breath hot against the skin under the suffocating covers, the fantasy still running in her mind.
She tried to imagine a boy reaching down, past the elastic of her waistband and into her panties, something that had never actually happened before, and was excited when it elicited a slight jump in pleasure. But nothing else seemed to happen for a while, even when she thought about the boy doing exactly what she was doing, except for the area to begin to hurt slightly from chafing.
Frustrated, Ginny pushed her fingers further back, past the soft yet surprisingly resistant folds of skin and towards the closed, rather small hole of her vagina. There, she felt blindly around the unknown area, before she pressed one finger slowly inside, her leg automatically lifting so her hand could fit more comfortably against her pelvis. Strange, folded and soft ridges of skin almost like slick pillows pressed against her finger as she pushed it deeper inside, the fantasy almost completely lost because she could hardly imagine a guy doing it to her, but the action produced no reaction beyond slight discomfort. She tried moving her finger around, but that only increased the discomfort, and she stopped.
Perhaps, she thought, she should think about a penis. Ginny almost laughed, embarrassed even to be thinking it, and the only images she could conjure up were the anatomical drawings she had seen once in a book from the library, which were very formal, black-and-white, and not attached to a human in any way, shape, or form. (She had seen her fair share of penises in her lifetime, due to her six brothers, but not since they were fairly young, and she abhorred the thought of her brothers in her current position.) But she did it anyway, trying to imagine the bloke who had been kissing her, entering her, and she moved her finger in response.
Nothing but that slight pain.
Annoyed, Ginny pulled her hand out and back to the folds of skin outside, and tried rubbing them again, but nothing beyond the amorphous pleasure she had felt before occurred, even when she thought of snogging, even a bloke's grabby hands over her breasts.
Finally, she just gave up, pulling her hand completely away and burying it beneath the pillow under her head. Her body thrummed rather uncomfortably with equal parts unsatisfied desire and exasperation with her own failure, and as she rolled onto her stomach, she pressed the thoughts of what she had just attempted out of her head, and fell asleep.
The thoughts of her nighttime failure put her in a sullen mood for the rest of the week, though she wouldn't explain to anyone what had caused it, and nothing her friends did could seem to alleviate the sudden shift in demeanor. Her brother, normally forever badgering her about one thing or another and almost completely incapable of reading other people's emotions, picked up on her latent annoyance, and steered clear. Even Malfoy, who had, in years before, completely ignored her existence, but had become that year an infrequent but capable tormenter, was oddly absent that week.
Although that could have been because she had accidentally-on-purpose hexed his goblet of pumpkin juice to spill all over his nice, new white uniform shirt the morning after her failed attempt at self-pleasure. And then at every meal time for the rest of the week. (In her defense, the fact that Malfoy seemed to be more clumsy than usual was none of her concern, even if she did happen to be gripping her wand in her pocket at the time.)
She wasn't even really sure why she was acting so angry-- she knew she shouldn't have expected a perfect orgasm, or even something resembling that increased pleasure the first time she tried it, but it still bothered her that she was incapable as such a simple thing as self-pleasure. Really, it should be simple, Ginny thought, to make herself happy, to turn herself on. Certainly, she'd have no problem with it if she still liked Harry, wasn't that right? She could just imagine him doing everything she'd had that faceless partner do, and the orgasm would trot along, just like that.
Momentarily, she even considered the possibility of liking Harry again, just so she could know what an orgasm felt like. She even tried imagining him naked, offering her himself, but the image wouldn't come to her, and the fact that she thought it just made her blush and scowl ferociously. Merlin! She couldn't believe she was doing this to herself! She didn't like him anymore. No, she didn't.
As if to prove it to herself, she turned and looked down the table where the Boy Who Lived himself was sitting with her brother and Hermione, laughing quietly and not even noticing the people around him. Yes, she thought. It would be so simple if she still liked him-- he was so distanced from the rest of the world, from everyone else, that it was easy to admire him, to see him as the perfect man from afar. And even though she knew he wasn't, that just made him all the more appealing, increased the drive to become the one woman who knew what lay beneath that faultless exterior, to know what encouraged that fierce Gryffindor loyalty and to be the reason for his enduring strength.
But even as she looked at him longingly, she knew she didn't want that anymore. She didn't want to be in love with someone who was so completely oblivious to the world, someone who was so consumed with his so-called "destiny" he would abandon all else just to accomplish it, even if it destroyed him.
Ginny turned back to her ham and eggs and picked at them moodily, glaring at the remnants that were left.
Lillian and Victoria, sitting across from Ginny, looked over to where Ginny had been staring sullenly before, and then at each other, stricken expressions matching. Lillian mouthed a question silently to Victoria, who shrugged and looked confused, before indicating to Ginny.
'Should we ask her?' Lillian asked again, silently.
Victoria glared at her. 'Don't make her mad,' she mouthed. Drawing a slashing motion across her neck, she said 'She'll kill you if you bring up Potter.'
'But she's obviously sad!' Lillian responded quietly, throwing out a hand at Ginny pityingly.
'She doesn't still love him, does she?' Victoria questioned silently.
Lillian shrugged explosively, eyes wide.
"Do you suppose they're speaking in Marbletongue, Ginny?" Luna questioned dreamily from beside Ginny, and all three girls jumped at the sudden appearance of the fourth girl, but she just continued on in her light voice as though she hadn't noticed. "I suppose it's a very useful talent to possess, as you can talk to ancient sculptures and such, and what wonderful stories they must have, but it's terribly difficult to master. I've studied it for years, and all I can say is 'rabbit,' which is not useful at all. How did you two become so proficient at it?"
Ginny, Lillian, and Victoria just stared at her for one long moment. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many Crumple-horned Snorkacks or wrackspurts, sometimes they just couldn't get used to Luna's non-normality.
Victoria seemed to regain her speech first. "Loads of practice," she managed to fudge, and Lillian creaked out a, 'Yeah.'
Ginny, however, was confused. "What are you lot talking about? Marbletongue? Who has a marble tongue?"
Lillian and Victoria made furious slashing gestures at her, but Luna just turned to Ginny and spoke in her lilting, high voice. "They were talking silently to each other in the ancient language of Marbletongue. I think they were talking about you, but surely you knew that, if you speak it too?" At Ginny's shocked expression, she just smiled beatifically and said, "Oh, well, I'll see you in a bit. The Golden Knight requested my presence at his portrait today, for he says he has something very interesting to tell me." And with that, she got up and floated off.
Ginny raised her eyebrows and turned back to Lillian and Victoria, the former who looked quite guilty and shamed, while the latter's face was just blank. Her eyes went between the two of them as she questioned dangerously, "You were talking about me?"
The guilty jump of Lillian's shoulders betrayed her answer. "No, of course not, Ginny!"
"What did you say?" When neither answered, her tone darkened a bit more. "What were you saying?"
Victoria looked straight at her, blue eyes clear and sharp.
"We were wondering whether or not you still were pining over Potter," she said, voice softer than her expression. "This is a new year, and he still doesn't seem to have a love interest, so we thought that you might... you know..."
"Why would you think that?" Ginny asked, eyes wide. Did more people think this, too?
"Well, you were staring at him, Ginny," Lillian said. "And you haven't been in a very good mood for a while, so we thought perhaps you had reconsidered him, and were getting depressed again."
"No! Of course not!" Ginny scowled, slightly annoyed that her friends would think her that weak as to fall for Harry again.
Victoria reached across the table and took one of Ginny's hands into her own. "I'm sorry, we were just worried for you."
Ginny's scowl softened. "I'm sorry, too. I've been in such a bad mood for a while. You guys really don't deserve it." Her eyes went from Victoria to Lillian, who was smiling at her. "Want to go to the library?"
The three entered the library chattering rather loudly together, only immediately to be swooped upon and shushed into silence by Madam Pince. Still giggling slightly, the three headed in the direction of the back shelves, past the main study area, and Ginny was surprised to see that many of the tables were filled with students dutifully doing their homework, even though it was early Saturday afternoon. However, she supposed, that could have had something to do with the fact that it was freezing outside and snow was everywhere, finals were in a month and a half, and there was no Hogsmeade trip that weekend.
Speaking of Hogsmeade, Ginny thought to herself, as she walked with Lillian and Victoria towards the fiction section, she needed to find a book about... her cheeks flamed red at the thought, and she had to take a deep breath to tell herself to say it, even if it was only in her mind. Masturbation. There. Slowly, she let the breath out and scanned the shelves for any mention of anything related to it, but all she could see were rows and rows of spellbooks, anthologies, biographies-- all ancient texts and useful for school and outside studying, but absolutely bloody useless to a girl who was, perhaps, coming upon her sexual awakening.
Lillian and Victoria stopped at one well-known row, and headed down it together, arms linked, before pausing in the middle and looking up and down the heavily-laden shelves. Ginny trailed after them, eyes skimming the titles, but many of them she had read before, or had absolutely no interest in reading. The school had a Muggle collection of books-- mostly at the request of the upperclassmen girls who wanted something else to read, and mostly romance novels-- but there were scarce few books of Muggle poetry, which is what Ginny thought of next.
What was that bloke's name that was supposed to be very romantic, who wrote all those poems and was supposedly sexy back in his time? Ginny wandered down the row towards the back of the library, watching the titles flash by as she looked for something familiar. Her father had had a copy of his works, and he quoted them on occasion, usually to her mother, but she couldn't recall his name. Ronly? Bylaw? Ginny looked down on the bottommost shelf in the corner, where the Muggle poetry collections began, but couldn't find his name amongst the As, or even the beginning of the Bs.
There was a gap of about a meter between the end of the high bookshelves and the window-covered walls, and Ginny turned the corner to the next row, and looked up at the highest shelf, where the poetry collections continued. Turning her head slightly, she read the names off, until she came across something that seemed familiar. The word Byron stamped in gold leaf on a dark red binding caught her attention. Lord Byron! That was what she was looking for.
Stretching her arm up, she struggled to reach the book, her fingers barely brushing the bottom of the spine. As she settled back on her heels, Ginny thought that this was an unusual predicament she was in. She was a tall girl-- she had inherited her father's height and a portion of her mother's plumpness-- and had always had problems with being taller than most boys (she skimmed Harry's height, even now), but never a problem with reaching things. Huffing in an annoyed way, Ginny stretched her whole body up towards the book, fingers scrabbling for it blindly, turning her head slightly so that she could angle her height to its best advantage and closing her eyes in frustration.
A shadow passed over her and she felt vaguely the presence of someone behind her, before the book, which her fingertips had been prying at the bottom of, passed softly and easily out of the bookshelf and away.
"Need this?"
Ginny opened her eyes to see the very volume she had been reaching for floating in front of her, not by a Levitating Charm (damn! why hadn't she thought of that?) but by a pale set of fingers. A slight sense of dread filled her, and she turned to see Draco Malfoy behind her, a smirk on his thin lips.
She didn't even try to pretend to want to play today.
"Give it here, Malfoy." Ginny stuck out her hand for the book, but he kept it out of her reach, pulling it towards him, a strange expression on his face as she repeated, "Give it here, Malfoy."
The expression only deepened, a mixture of annoyance and something else she couldn't read, at her insistence, her eyes fixed on the pale tormentor.
His grey eyes just flashed down to the binding of the book he held, and then he scoffed slightly. "Why do you need Byronic poetry?" He looked back up at her, features twisting into a more disgusted look. "Going to serenade Potty under his window at the full moon, trying to convince him that you're worth his time, eh, Weasley? Bloody useless, I'll tell you."
Ginny attempted to snatch the book again, jaw tightening in slight embarrassment and irritation becoming clear on her features. She stepped up to Malfoy and tried to grab it from him, but he was a bit taller than her, and his arms were longer, so unless she wanted to use him as a launching pad and jump, there was no way she could reach the book. He smirked again as she considered whether or not she had enough pride not to just try and jump and grab it mid-air.
Leveling her gaze on him, she decided no. Adopting an imperious tone to match Malfoy's, she leaned back and said, "Not everyone is obsessed with Harry as you are, so don't just assume that it's any of your business who I do or do not serenade. But I was actually just trying to expand my literary world view. Why do you care, anyways? Jealous that someone won't do the same for you?" She smirked back at him. "Oh, that's right, they can't. I forgot. Slytherin's cower underground."
Malfoy started at her for that, but at that moment Ginny stepped up and kicked him squarely in the shin, hard. He crumpled and let out an involuntary gasp of pain, hands going to his left shin, and he dropped the book right into Ginny's hand. Glad to have the book in her possession at last, Ginny made to leave, but when she looked at Malfoy, all bent over and looking like he was seriously in pain, her Gryffindor sense of compassion made her turn around.
She stepped back a few feet and reached out with the hand that wasn't holding the book, to touch his shoulder, "Malfoy, are you--."
But he inhaled shaprly and whipped back from her, straightening and glaring at her fiercely, eyes bright and almost silver.
Ginny didn't even quaver. "I'm sorry," she said, hardly even aware of what she was saying. Ron-- actually, all of her brothers-- would probably kill her for this, if they even believed it. "I didn't mean to kick you that hard. Are you alright?"
She even stepped up to him again, but he avoided her touch, sidestepping her and hissing, "Had quite enough courtesy from you, Weasel. You're bloody welcome for getting that book down for you." Ginny started at the words, and the implication that Malfoy had, perhaps, helped her? Her mouth opened in surprise, as though to speak. But he simply stormed off then, down the row of the books.
It would have been all well and dramatic if not for the fact that his otherwise perfect swagger was broken just slightly by a limp on the left side. For some reason, this made her laugh in genuine amusement, that he would need to be so perfect, even when angry.
"Make sure you don't choke on that pride, prat!" She called after him, for some strange reason, good-naturedly.
Well, I only have to say, if you didn't know that this fic was going to be about masturbation, then, well... Did you even read the title? Or the quote? But there will be more... much more. Haha. Hope to have you back.
And I will have to remark that people write graphic (and oftentimes inaccurate) descriptions of sexual acts for fanfiction. They are not always necessary (except in PWPs and lemons, which are not exactly expected to have plots like regular fanfiction), but they do it anyway. Don't know if I will be doing any of that in the near future, but for the moment this fic is about female masturbation and the fact that most teenagers seem to think that girls/women don't do it... And what comes out of discovering it. xD