by Livia Grant
Carol’s face colored. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll try.” She would try but it wouldn’t be easy. This hadn’t gone at all as she planned. Being calm and respectful was the last thing she felt like. She felt like telling her girlfriend exactly what she thought of her lack of support. She shut the dishwasher and pressed the buttons to start it with a little more enthusiasm than was probably needed.
* * * * *
“Brianna!” Crystal called. “Bedtime, honey!” She needed to settle this argument with Carol, and she needed to do it sooner than later. She had a feeling this was going to simmer out of control.
“Can I just have five more minutes?”
“No, it’s already past your bedtime,” Crystal said.
“Are you going to read to me, Mommy?” Brianna asked, hugging Carol.
“No, tonight I’m going to read to you,” Crystal said. “Mommy’s tired. She’s going to have an early night.”
Carol blinked. “But I was looking forward to the next bit. Harriet is just about to start the little witch’s club initiation and she has to eat worms!”
“We think, Mommy, we don’t know.”
“That’s what the story was hinting at.”
Crystal shook her head. “How about I read and we let Mommy listen this time.”
“Yay, we can all see what happens together.” Brianna started to run to her room.
“Teeth!” Carol yelled.
“Yes, Mommy.”
“So I’m not getting sent to my room for an early night then?” Carol asked.
“After your story.” Crystal gave Carol’s bottom a decent whack.
“Ow,” Carol yelped. “What was that for?”
“Because I felt like it and you need it.”
Carol poked her tongue out but managed to duck the next swipe as she ran towards Bri’s room.
“You’ll keep,” Crystal said. Carol poking her tongue out, took her back to their earliest days together. Carol had been only nineteen and a college student when she’d swept into her life in a whirlwind of drama. Her life had never been the same since. Thank God.
Crystal stomped out into the courtyard. After scanning the crowd, she zero’d in on a person laying on an ambulance stretcher. The EMT was struggling to get a mask on the young woman who was kicking up quite a fuss. She strode over. “I need to have a word with her anyway, would you like me to try?” she said to the young EMT.
“Yes please,” he said. “She has some smoke inhalation but no burns. Someone was watching out for her. We’re taking her in for observation but she’s highly intoxicated and not being cooperative at all.”
“I can see that,” Crystal said. “I don’t mind trying.” She took the mask from the young guy’s hand. “Okay missy, you have inhaled a fair bit of smoke. That tends to happen when you get drunk and set your dorm room on fire.”
“Didn’t,” the young woman said, a rolling cough choking her as soon as she tried to talk.
“Well we can talk about that later,” Crystal said. “Now I’m going to put this mask over your face and you’re going to let me.”
“Fuck off,” the brat said.
“Nice.” Crystal tapped the little drunk’s hands away and slipped the mask over her head easily. “Don’t take it off or we’re going to have words.”
Apparently not fazed by Crystal’s threat, the girl yanked the mask off. “Don’t need it,” she slurred before once again dissolving into a fit of coughing.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Crystal said, frowning.
“You wanna ride along with her don’t you?” Brock, her co-worker asked. “It’s not a good idea to get involved. You know that.”
She liked Brock. They usually worked the same shift and they got along like a house on fire. He seemed to be on the same wavelength as her. At first she’d been wary, thinking he was hitting on her. She really didn’t want to have to explain that she liked girls but the situation had ironed itself out when his girlfriend, Jen, came in to work. He was a good friend and she trusted his opinion, mostly. “I know, there’s just something about her.”
“Yeah she’s a teenage drunk with a not so sweet mouth.”
“She’s young and a little out of control,” Crystal said. “I just feel bad for her being all alone.”
“Up to you,” Brock said. “I’ll cover for you if you want to go with her.”
“She’s asleep,” the EMT said.
“Okay then,” Crystal said. “I guess there’s no need for me to go. I’ll come back to the firehouse with you and the other boys.”
* * * * *
Walking through the automatic hospital doors the next day, Crystal chided herself. This was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever done but she couldn’t help herself. The usually level-headed firefighter, today wasn’t very level headed at all. She was there though, so she may as well check on the patient. “Hi,” she said to the person behind the inquiry counter. “I’m looking for a young girl who was brought in here last night. I was one of the firefighters on the scene. I just wanted to have a word.”
“Ask at the nurse’s station. Third floor, north ward.”
“Thank you,” Crystal said.
“Hi,” she found herself saying several minutes later.
“Who are you?” the girl said, frowning at the intruder in her room.
“I was one of the firefighters that attended the fire in your dorm room last night.”
“Oh. So what are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d come and check on you,” Crystal said. “It was high time someone pointed out how completely insane what you did last night really was. You know that what you did was very dangerous. I know everyone gets a little wild in college, but you could have died in that fire or at the very least have been badly injured. So could anyone or everyone in the building.”
“Geez, dramatic much? As if I meant that to happen.”
“You selfish brat!” Crystal said. “How can you be so flip?”
“Look lady fireman or whatever it is that you call yourself. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, it was an accident!”
“I call myself a firefighter and my name, if you’re interested, is Crystal. What’s yours?”
“Crystal, I fell asleep okay?” the college student said with a roll of her eyes.
“What is your name?”Crystal asked.
“Carol,” the girl said with another roll of her eyes.
“Well, Carol, you fell asleep with a cigarette in your hand. You were so intoxicated you had no idea where you were or what you were doing.”
“I partied with a few friends, that’s what people do in college. Now will you leave me alone? I don’t feel that great.”
Crystal was pretty sure there were a lot of kids that used college to get themselves a decent education. “You’re deservedly hung over and you’re damn lucky that you didn’t wake up this morning in the burn unit or the morgue.”
“People don’t wake up in the morgue, just sayin’.”
Crystal shook her head. She had never struck anyone in her entire life, but it took all of her strength not to just rip back the covers and slap this brat’s smart ass. “You have no idea, do you, how serious this is?”
Carol started to giggle and flipped over in the bed so her back was to Crystal.
“This is not funny!” Crystal watched the small body trembling with what she thought was laughter but then Carol’s shoulders sagged.
“Please. Just leave me alone,” Carol choked out. “I’m in enough trouble. I don’t need this today.”
“For starting the fire?” Surely they hadn’t prosecuted her. This tiny thing with spiky hair and way too much attitude was a brat and she had acted very stupidly, but she was no pyromaniac.
Carol nodded.
“You’re in trouble with the police?”
“No, I had a personal visit this morning from the Dean, I’ve been expelled. I can’t go back to school.”
Carol’s shoulders were shaking again and Crysta
l had no idea what to do. Perhaps Brock could have been right. She should have left well enough alone. Her hand rested lightly on the back of Carol’s head. When that didn’t help to stem the tears, she sat on the edge of the bed and patted the narrow back. She was tentative at first, not sure if she was crossing some invisible line. Finally the sobbing stopped and Carol turned back over.
“They’re discharging me this afternoon,” she said.
“Oh. Have you called your parents?”
“I only have my dad, my mom died a long time ago.” She sighed. “She would have been here in a heartbeat.”
“Have you called your dad?”
“No.”
“Well I think you better get on that, don’t you? How long does he have to travel to get here?”
“I’m not calling him.”
“You have to, honey. What are you going to do, sleep out there on the street?”
“If I have to. I thought about calling one of my friends, but they all live in the dorm so I can’t stay with them anyway.”
“Then I think you have no option but to call your dad.”
“No. I’ll just lay here and sleep and maybe they just won’t notice that I’m here.”
Crystal shook her head again, only this time it was at herself. She was an idiot.
* * * * *
Crystal opened the door to her apartment and stepped aside while Carol walked in ahead of her.
“Nice place,” Carol said. “Very tidy.”
“And it will stay that way,” Crystal said sternly, taking off her jacket, hanging it on a hanger and slipping it into the hall closet. “While we’re discussing rules. There will be no smoking.”
Carol opened the sliding door that lead to a small balcony. “No, I get that. No smoking inside. I can go out here, I’ll even use an ashtray. I won’t drop any butts or anything.”
“There will be no butts, dropped, sitting in an ashtray or anywhere else, except one very red one if I find any traces of cigarettes anywhere around here. You got that?”
Carol’s hands shot up in mock defense. “Okay, okay.”
Crystal went to the linen closet, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the younger girl poke out her tongue. “I saw that,” she said.
Crystal smiled. Carol could never hold on to a grudge for long. She followed her girl into Bri’s room to join her perfect little family.
Chapter 2
“You okay?” Crystal asked when Carol finally emerged from the bathroom.
Carol nodded. “I’m fine I guess.”
Carol’s shoulder-length brown hair was still wringing wet. After a quick rub she was about to get into bed like that. Crystal took the towel from Carol and sat on the bed. “Sit down here,” she said, pointing to the floor in front of her. Carol did so, yanking her night shirt down to cover her naked bottom from the carpet but instead of laying her head against Crystal’s knee as she usually would, she sat rigid, tolerating the gentle towelling of her hair as Crystal attempted to dry it. Neither said anything until Crystal started to pull the brush through the much drier hair. “Now. Talk to me.”
“What about?”
Crystal did her best to hold in a sigh. Carol was acting out but she was obviously hurt and she needed to get to the bottom of this. To find out how serious her girlfriend was about a pregnancy. Her gut told her that self-restraint was the way to go this time. “About why you want to have a baby.”
“Why should I have to justify what I want?”
“It isn’t something that affects just you.”
“So you said.” She pushed the brush away from her hair. “My hair’s fine now. I just want to go to bed.”
Crystal really tried to hang on to her patience but it wasn’t easy. Carol was acting like a spoiled teenager. “Not good enough, I’m sorry. You’re angry and it will only get worse if we don’t at least discuss our reasons for feeling the way we do. I don’t want to go to bed with all this up in the air.”
“Then don’t,” Carol said, standing and instinctively pulling her night-shirt down to her thighs as she yanked back the covers. “You are just a not letter! I guess some people get a kick out of always saying no.”
“Don’t get into that bed,” Crystal said.
Carol looked Crystal directly in the eye, openly defying her as she slid beneath the covers.
* * * * *
Being the head of a domestic discipline relationship wasn’t always easy. She wanted Carol to be her own person and know that she could have her say, but sometimes you had to take a stand. If you couldn’t get to the bottom of something one way, it was time to get there another. “Get out.” Crystal folded her arms and narrowed her eyes.
“Make me.”
And sometimes you were issued a challenge that was just too tempting to ignore. She saw Carol’s eyes widen and she clutched the bedding to her throat in an effort to suck back that last statement. “Too late little girl,” she said, snatching the bedclothes and dragging them away.
“Stop, Cryssy. I’m sorry!” Carol wailed.
Crystal was much taller and had no problem wrestling even a struggling Carol over her knee. “I tried to talk to you.” Crystal emphasized every word with a sharp smack on Carol’s bare behind. “I have to tell you though, missy, if you can’t act like an adult, I don’t even want to discuss having another baby now.”
“Ow, you’re hurting me!” Carol kicked her legs and wriggled in her effort to escape her girlfriend’s stinging hand.
“Did you tell me to make you?” Crystal asked, slapping Carol’s rosy cheeks.
“Yes, yes!”
“Bad move.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Good.” Crystal said, her hand settling over Carol’s warm pink skin. She didn’t like punishing Carol, but she did love the feel of her soft hot skin when she’d just spanked her.
“Can I get up now?” Carol asked.
“Yes.” She put her arm around Carol’s waist as she crawled up to a kneeling position beside her. “Can you tell me now whether it was your idea to have a baby?”
Carol hesitated. “Sometimes, the start of an idea might get into your head from a conversation but that doesn’t mean that the idea that eventuates isn’t yours.”
“Cryptic.” Crystal smoothed the back of Carol’s tussled hair. “I want you to understand, I’m not saying never to a baby.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but I need to be sure that this is not some flash in the pan idea. We’ll give every aspect of this our consideration and when we are both entirely sure, then it might happen.”
Carol sighed. “I guess if that’s the best offer.”
“For now it is.” Crystal allowed her hand to slide down to the edge of the night-shirt that had hiked up so that it was barely covering the delectably pink bottom. “Are you still angry?”
Carol shrugged. “I don’t want to fight,” she said. “I love you and I want you to love me.”
“I do love you and believe it or not, I want what’s best for all of us.” Her fingers traced gentle circles on each soft, warm cheek.
“I know you do.” Carol finally let go of a smile. “But sometimes I wish you could bust out and do something without thinking and planning.”
“My stubborn girl,” Crystal said as Carol climbed on to her lap, straddling her and pressing her lips against the pulse of her neck.
* * * * *
Carol brushed her lips along the side of her lover’s neck, nibbling and sucking, finally reaching the soft plump lips that she loved so much. Sometimes, Crystal set them in a stern line. Other times, she tried hard to hide a smile and those lips would turn up, an almost unperceivable twist, just in the corners. Now, with nipples pebbled and pressed against her own pert breasts, Carol watched as Crystal’s delectable lips parted, her breath escaping in short sharp breaths. The lesson was over and Carol was eager to make amends. Crystal didn’t move at all as Carol slid her tongue along those lips until the tip touched hers and they began their dance.
“Sometimes I think you wind me up on purpose,” Crystal said, panting. She ripped her tank top off, grabbed the edge of Carol’s shirt and whipped it over the smaller girl’s head, tossing it next to the bed with her own.
Carol giggled. “What makes you say that?”
“I wonder.”
Tingles of pleasure buzzed through Carol as Crystal kissed her deeply, her hands sliding down her back until they cupped and spread her bottom cheeks. When her clit made contact with her girlfriends bare thigh, she gasped, only to find herself flipped on the bed. “Oh God, Crys.” A burst of pleasure rocketed from the nipple that Crystal was sucking hard, to her swelling clit. She bounced her bottom impatiently, ignoring her still smarting cheeks. She needed to be touched.
“Patience,” Crystal said, moving to the other nipple. The reaction was just as intense.
“Please,” Carol begged. Crystal was grinding her pussy against her leg and it was almost too much.
“Is this what you want?” Crystal asked. She began to slowly walk her finger tips down Carol’s belly, stopping as she reached her shaven mound. “You want me to touch you here?”
“Lower,” Carol squeaked. Crystal’s lips were following the fingers and were now on her belly. She tried to aim them down further.
“Here?”
“Lower, deeper.” She ground out as Crystal slid a single finger between her slit.
Crystal chuckled. “Oh here?” Carol gasped again.
“Touch it please.” When Crystal lowered her head and started kissing a trail from her lower belly to her slit, Carol could have cried with relief. “Yes, yes,” she said. Those beautiful lips settled on her, kissing her sweetly.
“Is this what you want?”
Crystal continued to tease her. Her lips and tongue moved all around her clit but not quite on it, while her fingers twisted and swirled around inside her. “Ask nicely.”
