Bang bang bang!
Cady pounded on the glass door of Janis's converted garage-studio in her backyard. She watched Janis jump on the couch inside, put a hand over her heart. Janis stood quickly, transferring the sewing needle to the hoop she was embroidering on, then setting it down to walk and open the door.
"Jesus, Caddy, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
Cady felt her chin wobble, all the regret and angst welling up inside of her. "Sorry," she sobbed, the tears bursting forth.
"Oh my god, what happened? Come in, come in," Janis slid the door open wider and gestured Cady through. Cady trudged in and flopped down on the couch, shivering. The walk had been so cold, and why was her knee wet? She stood again and yanked her leggings down, wearing nothing but her bright blue thong underneath. Her knee had split open in the fall back at Karen's, and the blood had soaked her leggings, marking her knee brightly. It had mostly stopped now, turning a sludgy, darker red color.
"I fell!" she wailed, pointing at her knee.
Janis stood in the door, taking in her friend in nothing but a shirt and thong, pants around her ankles, pointing at the cut like a petulant child.
"Give me a sec," Janis held up a finger. She popped into her bathroom and emerged with a washcloth, some bandages and a tube of Neosporin. She squatted on the ground in front of Cady, dabbing at the knee with the washcloth to get the blood off.
"Ow!" Cady squealed, hiccupping.
"Okay, Caddy, I get that it hurts, but can you stop acting like a three-year-old for one second, please?"
"Sorry," Cady hiccuped. "It was just so awful," she moaned.
"What was?"
"The kickback."
"Of course it was, you were with the plastics," Janis retorted, finally dabbing at the actual cut. Cady flinched.
"No, because of Aaron," Cady hiccuped again.
"What happened?"
"I was dressed all wrong, and I wasn't wearing enough makeup, and he was talking to everybody else all night, and my hair got messed up, and he didn't bring me a drink, and I fell!"
"You fell at the party?" Janis asked. She smoothed a sheen of Neosporin over the split skin—the cut wasn't actually that big.
"In front of everybody," Cady moaned. "It was so embarrassing."
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Not that much," Cady said. Come to think of it, she couldn't really remember. There had been the shots, and then the pink drink—how much alcohol had that had? And were there more shots?
"Sure," Janis rolled her eyes. She smoothed a band-aid over the cut and patted it once. "There you go. All mended. Wound be gone. You'll be fine." She sat next to Cady and picked her embroidery back up, sticking the needle through the fabric.
"What are you making?" Cady asked, peering at the round hoop. Janis held it up: a swirly black font read "Fuck you", and lots of brightly colored little flowers surrounded it. Very Janis-like. Cady watched her sew for a minute while attempting (unsuccessfully) to kick her leggings off. A violent shiver helped her complete the task, getting the stretched out elastic material over her heels.
"Sorry, you must be freezing," Janis noticed Cady's shivering. She reached to her other side and grabbed a blanket, handing it to Cady, who began crying again as she took it, bundling herself up. Janis looked at her for a moment as though deciding whether to try and reason with her or not—something about Cady, swaddle din the blanket, pants-less, deterred her. She refocused on her embroidery. Cady, displeased with being ignored, upped the tears. Janis paid no notice, nonchalantly threading the needle back and forth.
Cady finally seemed to realize that Janis wasn't going to deal with her if she continued throwing a tantrum. Abruptly, she leaned over and laid her head down in Janis's lap, sighing contentedly, tears forgotten. She knew she was being childlike, but for some reason she couldn't help it. Janis held her hands up, unable to sew with Cady's head in her way. She considered for a moment, then sighed and set the embroidery down on the coffee table in front of her.
"Are you ok, Caddy?"
"I just missed you. And I'm sad about Aaron."
"It was probably no big deal. I'm sure he likes you still."
"You think so?" Cady asked hopefully.
"I'm sure," Janis replied firmly. She pulled the elastic from Cady's hair and began scratching her head gently.
"Oh my god Janis your nails feel heavenly! Where do you get them done?"
Janis rolled her eyes and gently shoved Cady's shoulder. "That is the most plastic thing you've ever said."
"No it wasn't! They're just so nice!" Cady giggled and closed her eyes in bliss—the pony had tugged on her scalp miserably. They sat like that for a moment, Janis scratching and Cady closing her eyes, enjoying the sensation.
"Did you learn anything about the plastics?" Janis asked, rasping her nails against Cady's scalp.
"I mean, Gretchen almost stabbed her eye out when Regina revved her engine earlier. Regina totally did it on purpose too. It was stupid—Gretchen should have just waited to do her make-up."
"Sounds like a Regina move," Janis replied, but Cady wasn't listening. She had remembered when she was standing at the kitchen table, watching Aaron, and Regina had called her out for it. Regina knew.
Her chin wobbled and she began crying again.
"What's wrong?" Janis asked with alarm.
"Regina knows!" Cady wailed, flashing back to the petrification she had felt when Regina called her out. Take a picture, it will last longer. That had been what she said. Regina would hate her now, and Cady would have to sit with Janis and Damian, and Aaron would never look at her.
"Hey. Hey. Hey!" Janis yanked Cady up sloppily and shook her shoulders. "You'll be fine. It's no big deal. And even if it is, you can't know until Monday. There's no use stressing like this, Caddy, you're just working yourself up. Calm the fuck down."
The two girls stared at each other in the room, lit again by just the tv screen, an abandoned episode of The Office paused in the background. Cady was immediately transported back to peach schnapps, Janis's dark lipstick and floral scent and intense, electrifying eyes. Eyes that were staring at her, right now, in the darkened room. Her childish tears and angst about Aaron drained from her mind.
The air thickened. Cady didn't even think in her drunken state. She leaned forward and kissed Janis.
Impossibly sweet. Lips so soft. . . firecrackers exploded behind Cady's eyes.
Her first kiss. With a girl.
For a single, suspended second, Janis's lips were frozen on her own, shock holding her still. Then she leaned forward, kissing Cady back, one hand wrapping around her neck and pulling her in deeply.
Cady thought she might drown in it.
Shivers coursed up and down her body, pleasure intensely rocketing her into the stratosphere—the room finally stopped spinning, and all Cady could feel was Janis.
They pulled away after a century, pausing, inches away from each other's faces.
"Whoa." Cady whispered, eyes locked with Janis's.
Her friend wasn't wearing her usual dark make-up—she must have taken it off for the day. She seemed tired, but still intensely, darkly beautiful. Her eyes angled downwards, giving her a perpetually sad look. But her lips were brightly colored, flushed from the kiss. Cady lifted a finger and touched them—they felt just as soft to her finger as they had to her mouth.
Janis let her graze her finger along her bottom lip. Then she reached up slowly, took Cady's hand with her own and lowered it.
She leaned in and kissed Cady again.
They toppled backward, Janis lying on top of Cady, sparking little vibrations along her whole body. Cady couldn't explain it, how wonderful and reassuring Janis felt on top of her. Her hands traversed the smooth curves of Janis's back, under her shirt, feeling Janis's soft skin quiver under her fingers.
Janis paused, pulling away for a breath, pulled the shirt off over her head. Cady stared at her friend, who stared back at her, a dark maroon bralette encasing her heaving chest.
Cady felt overly dressed. She quickly removed her own shirt, yanking it off ungracefully over her messy hair. Beneath was the push-up bra Karen had helped her buy, lacy and pink.
Janis smiled wryly, reaching out and grazing her elegant fingers over the lacy pink strap and ribbon bow at the shoulder.
"So plastic," she whispered coyly, before leaning in and kissing Cady again.
They spent the next few hours like that, kissing and then stopping, looking at each other, whispering a few words that seemed immensely important and yet inconsequential at the same time. They never took off more clothes, never moved to do more than occasionally scrape over the other's bra with the palm of their hand. It was so much, so intense, Cady didn't know if she could handle more.
Eventually they slowed down, curling next to each other, legs tangled, heads rested. They fell asleep that way, one of Janis's arms draped over Cady's stomach, Cady's hand resting on Janis's back. Like puzzle pieces.
Cady woke in the middle of the night, groggy, her head pounding. Something like rancid cotton filled her mouth, dry and revolting. An icepick chipped away at her brain right behind her forehead. Her entire body felt like it was about to crumble and fall apart.
Janis had rolled up and curled over, huddling into Cady's side. Janis wasn't wearing her shirt. Cady wasn't wearing hers. No.
That wasn't what was supposed to happen.
Cady was supposed to kiss Aaron.
Or even just talk to him. This was wrong. It wasn't the plan. Cady wanted to get with Aaron. She wanted to walk down the hall at school and have people see her with Aaron. She wanted him to kiss her up against his locker. Her first kiss. With Aaron.
Bile rose in Cady's throat and she rose quickly and quietly from the couch, sprinting to the toilet and barely shutting the door before throwing up. She was supposed to be with Aaron.
Her vomit smelled like coconuts—Malibu. She stayed on the floor in the bathroom, sweating and crying, until she had thrown up twice more. Only then did her stomach settle. She knelt there for a moment, sweat beaded at her temples, her hair hanging in huge hanks around her head.
She avoided looking at herself in the mirror on her way back out to the room. Janis had moved and taken the space up on that end of the couch. Cady dug until she found her shirt and yanked it over her head blearily, falling onto the other end of the couch and curling into a tiny ball so as not to disturb Janis. She grabbed the blanket from its discarded location on the floor and wrapped it around herself, shivering and miserable.
So this was a bit quick for me to introduce sexual content like this. . . sorry not sorry.
Plot-wise this is only the beginning for this story. I'm so excited! Thanks to everybody who has read so far, even though this is the first/only story in the category on this website. I love you all.
If you love/hate me for what I'm doing here, please let me know! Leaving a review lets me know I'm not sending this stuff into the void and I frequently listen and course-correct my stories if everybody tells me I'm fucking up. So if there's stuff I'm putting too much of or not enough of in here, go ahead and tell me! I like you so much, I'll fix it just for you.
Enjoy, stay grool!