by Unknown
“Thanks, Kimmie.”
“For what?”
“Just being here, taking me with you. Just for being you.” She squeezed my hand and I caught my breath. “You’re my best friend, you know?”
Friend was good. Best friend was better. But neither was enough for me. I had to fight the urge to bring her hand up to my lips. Instead I squeezed back, a show of solidarity. “I know.”
“Is this our road?”
“Shit!”
Lost in my thoughts I almost missed the turn-off. Serena giggled at me as I fought across the three lanes to make the exit. It was so wonderful to hear her laughing again I didn’t even mind the near-death experience.
We pulled into the main street of the small town.
“Ah, crap.” It was so old-fashioned they still had on-street angle parking. I pulled the car up on the street and gave Serena my puppy-dog eyes.
She ruffled my fringe and shook her head. “Why the hell do you drive this tank if you can’t park it?”
“It’s big. Which means it’s safe.”
“Not with you at the wheel.”
“Poo-head.”
“We wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t helped you push start this whale.”
“Did I already say poo-head?”
She shucked her ass across the bench seat and shooed me out the driver’s door. It’s always been this way. The whole trip had been my idea, and I’d driven all the way. Then, when it got complicated, I couldn’t bring it home. Always been my trouble. Like our little greeting card business. My idea. But all I ever seem to have is ideas. Serena’s the one who makes stuff happen.
In seconds, she had the car slotted home and had thrown the keys to me.
“Ow!”
“Slipped through your fingers again?”
I couldn’t read her smile, but it gave me ideas. Dirty ideas.
We cruised the main street for a couple of hours, undermining the quiet charm of the town with a constant stream of chatter about, basically, nothing.
As if choreographed, we both spotted the thrift shop at the same time. I looked at her, and she at me.
“No prisoners?”
“No prisoners.”
We hit that place like a sledgehammer. I don’t think the locals had ever seen such a display. These small towns have such great retro fashions and kitsch. Serena simply glowed as I dressed her in a skin-tight jumpsuit straight out of the 70s.
“Oh, god, Serena. I’d kill for just one of your boobs.”
“Well, I’d love to go jogging without putting myself in a coma, so shut up.”
I handed her a pair of tan aviator sunglasses. “Try these on.”
“What do you think?”
“I think Sophia Loren just got jealous.”
“I believe I told you to stop being silly.”
“Momentary lapse, your majesty.”
The septuagenarian lady behind the counter smiled at us as if we had concealed weapons. It felt like it had at school when the principal busted us for smoking and it was all we could do not to laugh out loud.
“Now, Kimmie…you need me to drive?”
“Bitch. I can drive just fine. Forwards. Besides, I need you to read the map.”
We drove in easy silence, broken only by Serena’s assured directions, each of which was accompanied by a little pat on the arm. Every touch gave me a shiver at the base of my belly.
The cabin we’d rented couldn’t be seen from the road, which was perfect. Not that it really mattered, since we hadn’t seen a car since we left town.
It finally felt like we’d escaped. The driving, the shopping, they were things we did every day. This – the cabin, the beach, the isolation – this was a world apart. For all we knew, civilisation had ended.
The back of the cabin was practically on the beach. I tore open the sliding glass door and the fresh tang of salt air buffeted the musty smell out of the place.
Serena moved right up beside me and draped her arm over my shoulder. The smell of her hair mingled with the ocean scent. She pulled in a deep breath and let it back out, humming the very word I was thinking.
“Heaven…”
“Uh-huh.”
She stood for a moment, leaning her head down on mine as if I could hold her up. I curled my arm around her waist. Then she kissed me.
It was nothing, really. She just pecked the top of my head. But I held my breath, anyway.
I leaned in against her and soaked up her warmth. The waves caressed the sand and we watched as if hypnotized.
“Swim, Kim?”
I couldn’t help laughing. I turned to go inside, but she pulled on my arm.
“Come on.”
“I’m getting my swimsuit.”
She smiled my brains out. “It’s just you and me. Nothing we haven’t seen before.”
“Jezebel.”
“Prude.” She pulled her loose sundress over her head and tossed it, walking down to meet the water.
I felt exposed enough in my tank top and cutoffs, so I simply tagged along, as usual.
We dipped our feet into the tongues of water. It was cold, despite the heat of the afternoon.
Serena shucked off her bra and dumped it on the sand. She squealed as she quick-stepped out into the water and then dived into a breaking wave.
I inched out after her, cursing my cold blood. Serena rose like a Roman goddess, the sun winking from her golden skin.
“Come on, Kimmie! Just dive in.”
I shook my head. “You know me. All Anglo, all the time.”
“Pussy!”
I bit my lip instead of responding. As she stood, I realised that pussy was all I could focus on. White panties, black hair, sea water...a very heady mix.
I walked out until the water reached my knees. Waves swept past me and slipped up my thighs like nightclubbers’ hands until I bit the bullet and sat. I shivered and squealed as the cold water bit into my skin. Change has always been hard for me. Even when it’s just the change from dry to wet.
Serena came up and sat beside me. “If you can’t be yourself now, when can you be?”
“Uh, wh…what?”
“I’m just saying...loosen up. Do what you feel, not what you think.” She hooked her finger into the neck of my tank top. “Your body doesn’t scare me, you know. I won’t be offended.”
“I thought this weekend was therapy for you, not me.”
She shrugged, her breast carving a dizzying oval against the surface of the water. She seemed to lose herself for a while, just drifting against the push and pull of the water, her eyes scanning the horizon for memories.
“Serena? Where did you just go?”
She lowered her gaze to the water roiling around her body. “I know about you and Wade.”
“Me and Wade?”
“The kiss.”
“It was all him, I swear. I only slapped him because I didn’t think my knee would reach his balls.”
“No, I know. It just hurt that you never told me.”
I drew patterns in the water. “I didn’t think it meant anything. He was drunk. And male. It was before Hannah.”
“‘Actually...it wasn’t.”
And I’d thought he couldn’t sink any lower in my eyes. “What a pig.”
She kept her face down. It was wet, but I was pretty sure it was all ocean. No tears. She brought handfuls of seawater up to eye level and let it trickle through her fingers back into the ocean.
“You know, I went to see her.”
“Her?”
“Hannah.”
“What?”
“I wanted to know. What it was she did that I didn’t.”
I gave her forehead a little slap. “Let me guess...red wine?”
She batted my hand away. “Just the one bottle.”
“And?”
“Let’s just say I left unsatisfied.”
“You should’ve called me, babe. I would’ve been there for you.”
“I couldn’t, Kimmie. We bar
ely saw each other outside of the business.”
“Because of him.”
She nodded sadly. “I know you didn’t like him. He had a real thing for you, though.”
“I don’t wanna know about his thing.”
“He told me once that you asked him if you could join us.”
“Join you?”
She looked up from the doodle she was making in the water, the rich brown of her eyes almost blending with her black lashes. “In bed.”
I snorted out a very unladylike laugh. “What a fuckwit.” I held her gaze but I couldn’t read it. “I never did. You know that, right?”
“Hm.”
I let a couple of waves pass us by. “God, what must you have thought of me?”
She stood up and took a couple of steps back toward the cabin before pausing. “I thought it was weird.”
It felt like she’d kicked me. “But...I...”
“I mean, we’re best friends.”
“I know...”
“Why wouldn’t you have asked me?”
She started walking back to the cabin again, and I sat still for a moment, running the last minute through my head, looking for every possible meaning.
Didn’t matter it was a lie. She would have thought it was true. Was she pissed because I’d supposedly asked him and not her? Was it because she hadn’t wanted to share Wade? Or because she had no desire for me?
I slapped my hand into the water a few times. I’d done nothing wrong, other than hold back a secret that might have hurt my best friend. Wade, with his selfishness and his stupid fucking cock-dwelling brain, had messed up everything in Serena’s life. Now that looked like spilling over into my life, too.
I went back to the cabin, coming in just as Serena finished in the shower. She didn’t look at me as she walked into her bedroom, but I didn’t know if that was on purpose. I jumped into the shower to wash the salt from my body.
With the water running I didn’t hear Serena come into the bathroom until she spoke.
“Ugh!”
“Fuck, you scared me!” I pulled open the shower door and caught my breath. She was naked. With her bottom turned toward me, appraising her hips and thighs in the mirror.
“Wade was right. I’m getting huge. I look like gnocchi.”
I squeezed my lips together, but the words forced themselves out.
“I love gnocchi.”
She smiled and looked at me.
“I’d love a body like yours, Kimmie.”
“What, this old thing? Got it cheap from a ten-year-old boy. He’d grown out of it.”
Her breasts vibrated as she laughed. “I mean it! You can wear anything.”
“Yeah...dolls’ clothes, those little puppy sweaters...”
She frowned and faced me. “You’re being silly again. Stop it.”
“Whatever you ask, your majesty.”
She turned back to the mirror and studied her face for wrinkles. Fucking Wade had done such a job on her self-esteem. “Hey, Kimmie...I’m sorry about out there.”
“Forget it.”
“No, it wasn’t fair of me. It was Wade’s mess. We both just stepped in it.”
I grabbed my towel and teased my hair with it. “It’s okay, girlie. I don’t blame you for freaking out.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears and looked at my reflection. “So…you haven’t asked me what I said.”
“Hmm?”
“When he asked me…that.”
I took my tension out on my poor towel. “And?”
She laughed again. “I said no, of course.”
Relief and sorrow warred within me. “Yeah…yeah…of course.”
She turned to leave, but stopped at the door. “No way I’d share you with a cunt like Wade.”
“What? Wait…Serena…”
I scurried after her, back to her room. She sat at the end of her bed, her nakedness apparently not bothering her. It was having quite an effect on me, though.
I sat behind her, my hand on her shoulder. I thought of what she’d said out in the surf. Do what you feel, not what you think. Your body doesn’t scare me. And it felt like it was time.
A small shiver ran through her body as I pressed my lips to the side of her neck.
“You knew. Didn’t you?”
“I was pretty sure.”
“That’s not why…why you and Wade…”
“There really hasn’t been a ‘me and Wade’ for months. Turns out we both…fell in love with the same person.”
I let my towel fall and I stood in front of her. With my hands on her shoulders, and my pussy only inches from her face, it was the bravest thing I’d ever done.
She looked up at me. There was apprehension in her eyes but no fear.
I bent down and tickled my lips across hers, gentler than a sea breeze. Her eyes were closed when I stood up again. My fingers dipped into her hair and held on for fear of floating away. I pulled her against me, resting her head between my breasts.
“Oh, Kim. What are you doing?”
“Whatever you ask, your majesty.”
Her perpetually-warm hands curled around my wrists and I was prepared for nothing. Her breath pulsed over my bare belly. She slowly moved her head and I closed my eyes, hoping to save this moment for eternity.
I pressed her shoulders back until she was laying on the bed. I followed her with my body. My lips met hers again and we kissed like virgins, all pucker and no push.
Serena felt stiff against me, but her mouth opened just a little. I rested my hand against the heat of her throat and she gasped, coaxing my breath into her body. I slipped the tip of my tongue in behind it and she didn’t seem to mind.
All I could smell was her freshly-soaped skin and the ocean breeze. I pulled away for a moment and held myself up, just to be sure it really was Serena, that I wasn’t dreaming, or high.
Above her like that, it was like I was floating. Maybe it was just an adrenaline rush. Fear tingled between my shoulder blades and across my chest. But there was a pulse that rocked me lower, and deeper.
I let myself fall again. For all my fear, I felt safe with Serena. Maybe it’s because she’s bigger than I am. And every time I fell, her lips were open to catch me.
She cupped my ass in her hands and squeezed. I slipped her beautiful brown nipple into my mouth and tugged.
“God, Kimmie. That feels so nice.”
Her hip pressed up against my pussy and I ground myself on it. The ocean breeze pulsed across us and with it came the scent of my arousal, and something else. It was more than just a mix of sea and me. It was Serena. And suddenly, the tingling fear grew stronger.
It was like this morning. When the car wouldn’t start, and we had to push it downhill. It got so big and fast and I didn’t know if I could catch it or control it. And I wondered what would happen if I just rolled with it.
This moment had suddenly gotten very big and very fast. I could barely remember getting here.
Serena pulled on my shoulders, anxious to get me back down in reach of her mouth. I held firm, though, scared of what this might all mean when it was over.
“Kimmie?”
“Huh?”
Her low voice curled its way up to my ears. “Loosen up.”
I sucked on my lip and tried to stop worrying. Serena’s hand on my hip made me jump. Her thigh against my clit was like a spark.
She wrapped her fingers around my arm and pulled me onto my back beside her. I thought I might shake apart as she pressed her hot palm to the side of my face. It felt so natural when she slipped her mouth over mine and pulled on it, as gently as if it were a baby bird.
It was like it always was. I get all the brilliant ideas. Then when it gets complicated, I just can’t bring it home. It’s Serena who makes stuff happen.
Her mouth on my skin was ecstasy. Her hands so soft and warm, so big against mine. I’d fucked guys who were smaller than her, but it was never like this.
She kissed my belly like it was a des
tination, not a shortcut. She lured my nipples into her mouth. She took nothing, just freed me to give everything.
When her fingers reached my pussy I moaned my desire across her tongue. I clawed my little hands into her shoulders as she coaxed my thighs apart without touching them. She held my breath as I sighed into her mouth.
Even with her fingers inside me I didn’t feel conquered. I felt shared. Even when she got rough, it wasn’t abrasive. Even at her strongest it was finite. Gliding, not stabbing. Squeezing, not squashing.
Finding. Not taking.
Serena slipped her mouth off mine and laid a patchwork quilt of kisses over my breasts and belly. I pulled on her arm in apprehension.
“Wh...where are you going?”
She kissed my hip bone and bit her lip. “I’m not sure. But I think we’ll both know when I get there.”
Serena pillowed her lips and blew cool air over my skin. She brushed the edge of my bush with her nose and looked straight at me.
“So pretty.”
She weaved her fingers through mine and squeezed. Her pursed lips pressed into the hardness of my clit and my body buzzed. The curling wetness of her tongue fanned out across me and spread the tingling sensation straight up my spine. The hair on my head and neck shrugged across my skin as she kneaded my clit with her mouth, rolling her fingers around inside me.
I arched my back as she teased sensations from deep inside me, my voice catching against my ribs as I moaned out my climax. Serena matched the pulsing of my orgasm with the sucking motion of her mouth, shooting tiny shocks up through my body until I collapsed.
“Perfection…” I could barely voice the word.
She kissed my pussy a couple more times. “Hmm?”
“Told you…I’d know it when you made me come.”
She crawled up and lay beside me, running her moist fingers over my belly. Her smile was as content as if she’d been the one coming. I took a moment to catch my breath and then pushed her down with a strength that I rarely admitted having.
I traced her sensuous lips with my fingers, her tongue snaking out to moisten them. She swept them into her mouth and drew on them, attacking them like she was ravenous. I kissed her through the cage of my fingers, feeling deliciously dirty sucking my own juices from her.
I couldn’t wait. I had to please her. I swept my hand down her body and pressed my slick fingers to her pussy. She squealed as I touched her, and sobbed as I entered.
