Falling for Summer

by Bridget Essex

  So I do. I press my fingers up through her slickness, and into her, and Summer groans, moving her hips in a rhythm that almost instantly matches my strokes. I hover my mouth above her clit, blowing air against it gently, pursing my lips, and she groans again, reaching down, pressing her fingers against the top of my head. “Please,” she growls, ending that one exquisite word with another groan, breathing out, her voice catching.

  So I bend again, flicking my tongue gently, tantalizingly, across her clit. Her hips buck so hard against me then, so desperate, that I finally give in. I cover her clit with my mouth, a total kiss of longing as I tongue that nub gently at first, then firmly, harder and harder, as she rides my hand.

  I know now that—like me—she's been wanting this for hours, too. She's so wet, and it takes such a short amount of time for her to contract around my hand, for her to cry out, her fingers digging into my scalp, and for her to come against my hand and mouth. She quivers beneath me as I draw out the orgasm as long as I can, until she's shuddering beneath me, and then I slowly pull my hand out of her, trailing my wet fingertips up her thighs to curl around her hip again, and planting a kiss against her right thigh.

  She lies panting there for a long moment before she's up on her elbows again, her eyes dark with need and trained on me. “God, you're beautiful,” Summer says then, rising, our limbs tangled, to pull me up beside her, under her as she straddles me, climbing easily on top of me and then kneeling between my legs. She kisses my wet face, kisses my chin, my jaw, my neck, my earlobe as I squirm beneath her, twisting around so that I can wrap my arms around her shoulders, drawing her down to me so that I can kiss her fiercely.

  She tastes me gently, carefully, breathing steadily as she's still coming down from that orgasm, but her moves become stronger, quicker, as she traces her fingers down my front, cupping my breasts with her hands, flicking my nipples and pinching them gently with her fingers. She traces her fingers down, down, until they're wrapped around both of my thighs, and she's pressing my legs apart, wide, so that her bare hips can settle against my center.

  God, that feels so good... I whimper beneath her as she pushes her wet sex against mine, and I throw my head back, wrapping my fingers in the sheets beneath me as I moan. She's using her right hipbone against my clit, rubbing against me there, sliding against me, her rhythm building, and she's so good at this—or maybe it's because I've been wanting her for hours, too. But as the thunderstorm rages outside, a pressure begins to build inside of me, a dazzling of pleasure that is mounting closer and closer to the surface as she rocks her hips against mine and stares down at me, the end of her braid dropping over her shoulder to brush against the skin of my neck. The sensual slide of that satin hair over my skin makes me shiver beneath her as she bends down again, capturing my mouth with her own.

  She moves her hips aside, but just a little, and then, with a practiced, confident stroke, her hand is moving up my thigh and into me. Two fingers at first, and I'm so wet that I can take her easily as I breathe out in a shudder against her shoulder. I wrap my arms around her so tightly, and then she begins to move her hand in and out of me, brushing her thumb with practiced grace against my clit.

  I think I'm going to come there and then, but I don't. She's completely over me, pressing against me, and I'm covered by her tan length, her muscles against my skin, and it's so sensual, that feeling, of her hardness against my softness. I never thought it could be this sexy, the disparity between someone who physically works for a living and someone who can't be bothered to go to a gym—but, my God, it is.

  Summer tastes of exactly that: summer. She tastes of green grasses and lake water and the sweet salt of sweat and everything that makes you glad to be alive. As she kisses me, as she presses her tongue between my lips and I taste her, taste her deeply, I find that I'm hungry for all of these things. I'm hungry for the freedom of an afternoon swim at the lake, and I'm hungry for the carefree life that Summer seems to have had. My life hasn't been carefree, but as we move together, she and I, a small part of her freedom seems to be gifted to me.

  It usually takes me a very long time to orgasm, and I often don't do it at all. And I don't know whether it's the energy of the storm, the energy of my wanting her... I don't know. But I come against her hand so quickly that the strength of that blissful explosion moving through me is such a surprise that it seems to make the orgasm even better, the waves of pleasure radiating through me like light.

  I pant against her shoulder as I ride through those moments of surreal bliss, and finally, completely spent, I'm panting against the sheets as Summer falls beside me, propped up onto her elbow as she grins down on me in the dark of the room, the only light the wood stove crackling merrily away in the corner, but it's enough light to see her outline, those perfect muscles, that tan skin that I can't help but reach for, tracing my fingertips over the warmth of her curves.

  She brushes her mouth against my collarbone, and then she, too, is lying down on the bed, staring at the ceiling companionably beside me, our shoulders against each other.

  Summer reaches between us and threads her fingers through mine, holding my hand tightly. As I try to get my breathing to steady, as I push my hand back through my hair, Summer is turning and pressing a soft, warm kiss against my neck again.

  “I knew,” she said then, her low voice a growl. “I saw you with her. That night.”

  That night.

  The euphoria of the orgasm begins to fade through me as I think about that night. That night. The night that my life changed forever. The night that my sister's life was taken away from her. The night that I should have been there but wasn't...

  I stare up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath.

  I wasn't there when I should have been...

  Because of a girl.

  ---

  That night, twenty years ago, Mom and Dad made me promise that I'd be there for Tiffany's slumber party and that I'd babysit the whole affair. They were going to a work dinner, and to have that many ten-year-olds in the house without intense supervision was going to “bring chaos,” my mother had warned me, with a wry smile, twisting her hair up into a bun on the top of her head as she got ready for the dinner.

  “I know you wanted to go out with your friends tonight, Mandy, but there will be plenty of other nights for that. I mean, my God, you have the whole summer stretching in front of you.” She sighed happily, thrusting another bobby pin into her updo. She pinned me to the spot with her reflection in the vanity mirror. “We don't ask much of you,” she reminded me, one brow up. “Just promise me that you'll stay around and watch the kids and make sure they don't get up to any mischief.”

  “Yeah, Mom, God,” I'd said, blowing another bubble with my bubble gum, not because I was trying to be one of those teenagers in the eighties who thinks they're too cool for life (but I did kind of think that about myself), but because I was trying to hide my nervousness.

  Tiffany had been planning that slumber party all week, fully aware that the parents weren't going to be home to watch her or her friends and that, technically, she might get away with it without supervision. My little sister had some crazy ideas about what passed for fun, including going to the corner store, buying her weight in candy and then eating it while watching VHSes of cartoons. It wasn't too crazy, and the cartoon-watching is something my parents would have agreed with, but my mother would have objected to the candy. I was also pretty certain that Tiffany had some other plans up her sleeve, but what they were I wasn't sure of.

  The problem is that I didn't mind watching my little sister. I loved her, even though she annoyed me to death, and her friends were all equally annoying, but they were good kids... It's just that I'd had something planned for that Friday night, too. And it certainly wasn't “going out with my friends,” though that's what I'd told my parents.

  I'd...just started seeing a girl.

  Well, “seeing a girl” is kind of strong wording for two teenaged girls (who really had no idea what they wer
e doing) trying their best to date each other when being gay was something that really wasn't done, or remotely acceptable, especially out in a middle-of-nowhere town like Lake George. And especially if you were still considered kids, being seventeen.

  So far, so good, though. No one knew that Monica and I had a thing for each other, because we were very, very, very careful about never getting caught. Monica was my best friend, and everyone expected us to spend a lot of time together, anyway, because of that. So when we went places in Monica's beat-up old car, handed down to her from her older brother, we could find spots to park and make out and do other things, and no one ever suspected, not even a little bit. It was the perfect setup, and though it was nerve-wracking and often scary, we tried our best to be together whenever we could be.

  That Friday, Monica and I were supposed to go out, park alongside the lake and have fun again. We'd promised each other we would, because this past week, we hadn't had that much time with each other because Monica's extended family was in town for their family reunion.

  So when my mother told me that I had to stay with the kids for the slumber party...that really didn't fit into my plans.

  “Mom, they're all ten,” I told her for the umpteenth time, following her into the bathroom, where she grabbed her gold brooch off of the vanity and affixed it to her lace collar. I knew I was sounding petulant, the unfairness of the situation making my tone all squeaky, but I really needed to get out of this. I was desperate. “They can totally take care of themselves! You left me alone when I was ten. And I had really good plans tonight. This is pretty unfair,” I told her, all in a rush.

  My desperation was starting to become apparent.

  “We left you alone because you were responsible,” my mother told me firmly. “And that's something your sister is not. And you can just do whatever it is you were going to do tomorrow. I'm sure your friends will wait to see whatever ridiculous movie you were going to see,” said my mother then, setting her mouth in that thin, hard line, the line that told me, in no uncertain terms, that the door to the argument we were participating in had closed.

  I groaned in frustration and turned and flounced out of the room. I was wearing my little rocker tutu that I'd just gotten from this cute new store at the mall, and I'd been so excited to show it to Monica—and have Monica take it off of me.

  That makes it sound like we were fast movers, which really wasn't the case. But we'd been together for three months now, which meant that things were starting to get heavier between us.

  Honestly, I'd often wondered if Monica was the one. I was seventeen, and somehow I'd gotten lucky enough to find another girl like me in my little town, and we were actually attracted to each other—something that, years later, I would think probably wasn't true. But when you're seventeen and living on the edge like I was, I thought it was a certainty that I was attracted in every way to Monica Robinson.

  So with the slim odds of having found each other in such a small town, of course I wondered if Monica was my soulmate. This was the age of rock ballads about undying love, all of which I taped carefully onto cassette tapes to play in my boom box as I rested on my bed and daydreamed about Monica. The problem was that I was beginning to think that Monica didn't exactly feel the same way as me.

  We both knew that, at the end of the summer that was just beginning, we were both going to go away to school—schools that were situated on opposite sides of the country. There's no way that a relationship, a high school relationship, could survive those odds. I know that now, but I had no clue about it then. I thought our love could totally stand that test of distance, and Monica had said she wanted to try a long-distance romance for a little while, to see if we could make it work.

  So I believed her, and I kept feeling these waves of adoration for her that I was beginning to think were transforming into love. Like, actual love.

  I really couldn't cancel on Monica that night. I couldn't tell her that I was unable to meet up with her because I had to babysit my stupid little sister and her stupid slumber party friends. Monica was so stressed out because of the family reunion, and I wanted to help relax her. The truth is, I'd missed her desperately that week.

  I wanted to see her so much that it was a need, building inside of me. A need that would prompt me to do anything to fix this.

  “Okay, I'll watch them,” I told my mother begrudgingly, with a roll of my eyes.

  But, behind my back, I crossed my fingers.

  Mom and Dad left a little bit after seven, after all of the kids who were supposed to be at the slumber party had already shown up. There were eleven of them, all girls, and all as loud and as obnoxious as I'm sure I was at that age. They were already hopped up on sugar, and Tiffany was bouncing up and down on her bed along to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” two of her posse bouncing right alongside her. She had her hair drawn up in two pigtails, and she was dressed entirely in pink. Pink was her favorite color.

  “Mandy, Mandy!” she'd called to me, sticking another piece of taffy in her mouth. She wore a wide, infectious grin that I instantly caught. Tiffany's smile was like that—you couldn't help but smile back at her when she turned that bright grin on you. “Can you make us some popcorn?” she asked me in a shout.

  “Yeah,” I told her, then grabbed her hand and dragged her into the kitchen. If I remember correctly, Summer was right behind her, the quiet girl with the long black hair.

  “Listen, Tiff,” I told her, as I got the pot going for the popcorn, my voice low, “I promised Monica that I'd meet up with her tonight.”

  “Mom said you were supposed to watch me,” said Tiffany, her smile huge on her pretty little face. Her smile grew as she considered what this meant. “But...don't worry. We're big girls.” Her eyes sparkled. “I think it's stupid that you were supposed to watch us, anyway,” she said, sticking her nose up into the air, in what I assume she thought was a mature expression.

  I groaned. “Just promise me that you'll stay inside and stay away from sharp objects, okay, Tiff?” I muttered to her, shifting the pot over the gas burner as the kernels began to pop inside of it. I gripped the pot handles tightly and trained my narrowed eyes on her. “You have to promise you won't get up to any trouble, okay?”

  Tiffany stood straighter and nodded emphatically. “I promise! This is going to be so cool!” she said, and then she hugged me tightly around my middle.

  Those were the last words my little sister ever said to me. I kissed the top of her head, poured the popped corn into a big plastic bowl, then grabbed a sweater as I dashed out of the kitchen and out of the house, into the arms of my girlfriend.

  Monica had parked out front, and she was waiting for me in the driveway, her hands buried deep in her jeans pockets as she studied her scuffed sneakers and the chipping pavement of the driveway. I rushed into her arms and hugged her tightly, but I didn't kiss her, because we promised that we wouldn't kiss one another anywhere we had the slightest suspicion that someone could catch us... But as I embraced Monica tightly, too tightly for a just-a-friend embrace, I thought I saw a shadow in the doorway of my house... We climbed into Monica's car and peeled out of the driveway.

  That shadow must have been Summer.

  So Monica and I drove off of the road that wound around the lake and parked in the woods, away from prying eyes. And as we kissed one another that night, I had no idea that my little sister had had every intention to get into trouble.

  And when Monica dropped me off back at the house, hours later, the cops were already there. Tiffany's body had already been dragged out of the lake.

  And she was dead.

  And if I'd been there, it never would have happened.

  As I stood beside her body, staring down at it, sobbing, I remember thinking, It's all my fault.

  That refrain that has never left me.

  ---

  “Hey,” Summer kisses me gently, bringing me back to reality, with her warm mouth over mine. I blink, then close my eyes, shutting out the memory as I kiss
her, drinking her in as the storm flickers overhead, now farther away, the lightning coming only occasionally, the thunder sounding like a distant cat's purr.

  “Where did you go?” Summer whispers, tracing her fingertips lightly down my neck and drawing me close, wrapping her warm arms around me. “You weren't here,” she whispers into my ear.

  I sigh for a long moment, then run my hand over my hair, biting my lip as I turn toward her, drawn to her warmth, her softness, her kindness. I don't usually ever speak about what's bothering me, what I'm thinking about... But I find that, in this moment, I feel like I can. “I was just thinking about...that night,” I tell her then, truthfully. I inhale, shaking my head. “You were there... You saw Monica and me?” I ask her, holding her in my gaze. “You knew what we were?”

  Summer's warm brown eyes flash, but then she's nodding. “I saw you that night—the way Monica held you,” she says, voice thick with emotion. “And I knew immediately. Didn't you...didn't you ever notice me watching you?” asks Summer now. Her eyes are wet, and she shakes her head again, biting her lip when my silence confirms the truth: I didn't. Summer inhales deeply, her nostrils flaring as she searches my face. Finally, she whispers, “I only became friends with Tiffany because of you.”

  I stare at her. “Why?” I whisper, even though I know what she's about to say.

  “I had a crush on you from the minute I saw you. Even when I was ten,” says Summer, her mouth curling up at the corners as she leans down and brushes her lips over my skin. “But after that night...” she whispers against me, “I mean, after you left, I...really didn't think I'd ever see you again.”

  I sigh, stare up at the ceiling as Summer pillows her head on my shoulder and I draw her close.

  “You know, I honestly had no intention of ever coming back to Lake George,” I murmur, tracing a circle on Summer's sculpted bicep. The warmth of her skin radiates into my fingertips. “I just couldn't bear to think of it. I loved Lake George so much, but it had just become the place where my sister died. After she drowned, everything felt transformed,” I whisper. “But...it's been twenty years. I thought it was...fitting to come here now, this week.” I manage to choke the words out, and then I'm shaking my head again. Fitting. Fitting to visit on the the twentieth anniversary of my sister's death.