"You know, I've never kissed another girl before."

Alice Cullen broke the silence with a declaration and sat looking at nothing particular. She was short, thin in the extreme with a lithe body, and with wide eyes; both full of youth and careful wisdom. She looked contemplative as she tucked awry strands of black hair behind her ear.

Bella Swan, who was reading a book at the foot of the bed, looked up. Her fingers were still paused on the page; its corners were pinched and tatty from wear. The book, Emma, was a favorite of hers. Bella didn't know how to respond to Alice's sudden confession, unsure whether to understand it as a passing statement or…something else, but then Alice flashed her eyes to Bella, wild with mischief and curiosity. Something else.

Bella cast her gaze downward, mumbling a complaint on the sudden seriousness of her expression. She didn't finish her sentence before Alice was laughing in a way that sounded like tinkling to Bella's ears.

Bella puffed her cheeks and mashed her eyebrows together. It was so like Alice to say something to get a rise out of her and have fun at her expense. Irritated, Bella refused to make further eye contact and withdrew back into her book. Alice, however, as if in reflection, suddenly quieted down, and didn't speak another word for ten minutes. After a moment of silence, Bella, who had since simply gone back to reading, flipping the worn pages, felt her curiosity start to investigate the silence. And when it had gotten the best of her, she tentatively looked up to see if Alice was actually upset.

Bella was met with the same jovial look from moments ago. She wondered what Alice could have been looking at; she'd always thought herself an unremarkable girl with limp brown hair and shy brown eyes, and a tenacity for making any situation more awkward than necessary–and wait, was she doing it right now?

"I've been thinking about it a lot recently," Alice said. "No particular reason. But it's been on my mind anyway."

Against her will, Bella looked at Alice's lips, and noticed they were perfectly pink. In any other circumstance she might have thought those lips deserved to be nipped and kissed at. She carefully lifted her gaze and met Alice's head on.

Bella cleared her throat. "I don't think I've ever thought about it before," she said. "Especially because I have a boyfriend. And you do too."

Alice cocked her head slightly right in a way that let Bella know she was thinking about what she said, but the look of mischief didn't fade from her eyes, which were creasing at the sides, not even a bit. If anything, her expression lightened and a smile curved around the corners of her mouth.

Bella didn't bother asking what she was thinking, for it was written clear as day across her face. Alice was unpredictably predictable, and Bella knew her well enough to know something had already been set into motion. It was probably already too late to worm her way out of it.

"What do you suppose I should do about it?" Alice asked.

"I don't know," Bella replied. "You could just stop thinking about it?"

"Sure I could… But I don't think I want to yet. You know how an idea gets stuck in your head sometimes? And won't get unstuck until you, well, do something about it? That's what I'm feeling right now."

Bella closed her copy of Emma with a sigh. "Yeah, sure. I've been through that before. I mean, if I didn't, I wouldn't be with Edward right now."

Alice's eyes flashed that same impishly. "I heard you were quite the chaser."

A blush fell on Bella's cheeks at the remark. Just how many times her story strolled around the block she would never know. She had watched the gossip be passed back and forth among students and teachers, friends and enemies, and each time it reached her ears it removed itself further and further from the truth.

The intensity in Alice's gaze deepened. By the time Bella realized it, Alice was watching her the same way a cat watched a mouse. Her claws were out, and she looked about ready to pounce. Bella sat straight up.

Alice watched with an unbridled curiosity, leaning her head on her shoulder, which was already strained upward due to her position on the bed, but didn't make any other movements. It was a gesture of patience, Bella knew perfectly well. She picked at her fingernails as a brewing nervousness grew inside of her.

"I was just wondering…" she said. Alice leaned a little closer, and her perfume, sultry and fragrant and undoubtedly Chanel, embraced Bella. Alice asked Bella again if she ever wondered herself, but didn't care to wait for her answer.

Alice interrupted, "sometimes you just have to do it. Just to get the wondering to slink back into the quiet of your mind and rest until it's called upon again. And Bella, I think we should just try it just once and see what happens."

"But I'm not that curious about it."

"Are you sure?"

Bella, without thinking, looked at Alice's mouth again. She wasn't curious about it at all until twenty minutes ago. Her mind was calling out to her now. It was asking her loud and clear to get a little closer and get a taste.

She thought about Edward. Bella liked what they got up to behind closed doors, when no one was watching. Those thoughts always made her light up with excitement. Yet Alice's proposition did something else entirely; it exhilarated her. She closed her eyes and sighed before she spoke.

"What about Edward? Jasper?"

"Why should they know about it?" Alice asked as if it were obvious. "It's a sacred right between two girl friends to explore deeper thoughts with each other. It'll be our business."

"Our business?" Bella repeated.

With Alice a little closer now, Bella had a harder time thinking about what the right choice was. She had the sinking feeling in the back of her mind that she might come to regret the choice she ultimately made…but maybe it was the way Alice asked? Or was it the perfume that was capturing every trace of her lingering doubts in its wide net, and casting them aside? Her muddled thoughts went blank, and a curious contentment settled over her mind like a curtain as she let her lips fall shut, eyes following shortly.

And then Alice was kissing her. She kissed her once, twice, softly at first before increasing with a gentle passion. Alice kissed her much in the same way a lover, whose thoughts and mind and body, had all but become one with a lover with whom she shared a long history. Bella felt her mind grow quiet. Her thoughts, which had warned and protested from the start, had all but faded into a quiet hum somewhere in the deepest corner of her consciousness as she felt Alice reach up to cup the back of her neck.

Nobody had ever kissed Bella like this; not in the way that made her breath hitch and start, and sink down into her body before resting pleasantly in her chest. Alice pulled away.

"Tell me when you want me to stop."

Her eyes, now damp and dark with passion, searched Bella's face for a sign. She looked pleased with herself. Then she leaned in again. Alice parted Bella's lips with her own, and coaxed a tremble out of her, then a moan, then several more.

When Alice retreated for the last time, Bella felt her thoughts slam back into her skull, crashing and clanging against the bone. They pleaded with her to push Alice onto the soft mattress and go further. Much further. She opened her eyes and looked at the book which lay closed on the bed. She took a shuddering breath, snapped up the book and opened to where she dog-eared the page.

She needed to calm her mind. Bella knew from the way Alice giggled that she was looking at her with that expression again, but dared to check anyway. Alice pushed the hair that had fallen back behind her ears, and smiled lazily at Bella. But Bella was already avoiding her gaze. She avoided the eyes that were now making her wonder many things about herself. Lost in her thoughts, she studiously read the same three lines over and over again.

"It was exactly how I imagined it would be," Alice said.