Wherever the Dandelion Falls

by Lily R. Mason

  I grinned and picked up my phone, not letting go of her hand as I found first a nearby pizza parlor and then a cupcake shop that was still open.

  An hour later we were full of pizza and sitting on a bench outside a local bakery with a plate of cupcakes on a table in front us. I realized that the cupcake I was holding had pink frosting, and given the right tongue technique, could easily be moulded into a vagina. I was surprised my brain had turned a dessert into something sexual. Maybe it was a result of all our pent-up sexual energy. As I briefly contemplated using the cupcake to tease her, I felt my face grow warm.

  Faye picked up a cupcake and studied my face. "You're blushing," she said.

  “No, I'm not," I grumbled, busying myself licking the frosting off the edge of my cupcake. I felt myself getting warmer, and I knew Faye was right.

  Faye hooked her finger under my chin, tearing my attention away from my dessert before twisting her torso enough to kiss me, soft with only a little tongue against my lips. Then she broke away and murmured, "I'm happy to have you as my girlfriend. Even if you blush easily."

  I felt a relieved giggle bubble up through me. She'd said it.

  But I loved playing with her. "Girlfriend, huh?" I said.

  "Girlfriend," she said, winking. "Unless you have other offers."

  I dropped the game and smiled. "No, I want to be your girlfriend."

  "Good." She kissed me again, brief and soft before she lifted her cupcake to her lips and licked some of the frosting off.

  I sat looking at her, not feeling the need to speak. We had reached that level of intimacy; we could enjoy each other's company without getting anxious about what silence meant. We adored each other and would rather be together than alone.

  I thought about my decision to wait to have sex with her. It had been about making myself feel safe under the guise of creating intimacy, right? Now I felt safe and intimate.

  I was pretty sure I was ready to have sex with her. She had been patient and kind and had taken me on heartfelt adventures. She's bared herself in precisely the manner I'd intended for us to get to know each other. And while the pressure to have sex would always be there, it didn't feel so awful anymore. The idea of being naked and talking about our bodies and kinks and histories didn't feel threatening or scary.

  But I didn't know how to tell her that. Usually I just started kissing someone until clothes started peeling off, but that wasn't how I wanted it to be with us. I wanted it to be intentional. I also didn't want to experience crippling anxiety afterwards, which meant I wanted her to get tested first, which meant we had to talk about it.

  But instead of saying something, I started kissing her. There weren't many people on the street, and kissing in public was okay with me as long as it didn't get too steamy.

  But I must have underestimated my kissing because soon Faye pulled away. She kept her eyes closed and took a deep breath to calm herself. Every time she pulled away like that, I felt a twinge of guilt and flattery. By just kissing her, I aroused her.

  I was just about to whisper that I was ready when she tapped my nose and said. "Tell me something about freckles."

  I smiled, loving that we had made this our game now. "I have lots of them," I said. "Do you have any?" I joked. From her pristine skin, anyone could tell she didn't have freckles.

  "Actually," she said, growing coy. "I do. Well, not freckles, but beauty marks. One here," she said, pointing to the familiar mole on her shoulder. "And two more somewhere else," she said, glancing away coquettishly.

  "Somewhere else..." I echoed, intrigued.

  She gave a smug nod, then looked down in her lap. "Twinsies. One on each side," she said, tapping a few inches in from each hip bone. "But only special ladies get to meet them."

  I loved the fine line of sexy and safe she was walking. She wasn't pushing me to have sex, but she was keeping up the intrigue and making me feel desired.

  "Could I be one of those special ladies?" I said, playing up the adorable personification of her beauty marks.

  She grinned and nodded. "My freckles would love to meet you."

  I leaned forward, nuzzling her nose and giving her a peck on the lips.

  "But only when you're ready," she added. "They'll be patient."

  I decided the best thing would be to be honest with her. So I bit the bullet and brought it up with her.

  "We should get tested soon."

  Faye's face fell from its playfulness into surprised eagerness. "Yeah," she said. "We should do that."

  Relieved and excited that we were talking about something sexual besides how we weren't doing it, I smiled. "Okay."

  There was a quiet silence as Faye looked at me to gauge whether or not I was in with both feet. Wanting to assure her, I picked up another cupcake.

  "Actually I got tested about two months ago. Everything came back negative. I haven't been with anyone since," I said.

  "Great. I'll do it this week," Faye said.

  There was a tense moment of silence as we licked the frosting off our cupcakes in what suddenly seemed like a lewd fashion.

  Wanting to assure her I was feeling good about my decision, I gave her a playful smile.

  She set down her cupcake and looked at me with a serious expression. "Are you sure?" she asked. "I don't want to pressure you."

  "You're not." I gave her another coy smile as I stuck out my tongue to run it down the center of the cupcake, intentionally teasing her.

  Faye watched me with her teeth pressing into her lower lip.

  Suddenly saddled with a sense of urgency to get back to the car, we devoured the rest of our cupcakes and threw away the wrappers. We walked back to the car holding hands and slid inside. She didn't even bother putting her keys in the ignition, letting them lie in her lap as she turned to me with a sexy smile and cupped my face. I smiled back, leaning toward her, giving her the kiss I knew she wanted: a kiss that was too juicy for a cupcake shop.

  Soon our faces were sticky with frosting residue, and our bodies were twisted around the confines of the center console.

  I came into work the next day to find a cupcake in my locker that Callie had decorated with frosting to look like a breast, complete with a pink M&M for a nipple. I laughed and ate it, glad for the sugar boost before my shift.

  After what had happened with Dr. Turner, I was relieved to find nothing had changed in the Box. The only thing that was different was I found myself doing more choreography, walking through routines between customers in preparation for the classes I was now teaching.

  So far the students at Swivel liked me, and students promised to bring friends to my classes to fill up the few vacant poles. I wasn't making the kind of money I'd made with Turner, but it was enough to justify permanently modifying my schedule at Jez so I could teach three days a week. I'd been at Jez long enough to have a good relationship with the show manager, so my request was put into effect immediately. I had to work more morning shifts, but I still got my Friday night Private Pleasures Booth shift. I still hadn't decided what to do with my car, but I figured that was a decision for another day.

  When Thursday came, I woke up with a strange combination of excitement and dread. Faye and I were having lunch before I took her to get a gift certificate for Isaiah. Any normal friend would have relished the opportunity to be helpful, but I liked Faye as so much more than a friend. She arrived a few minutes late, hair perfect as always as it draped over the shoulders of her red wool coat. I loved that coat on her. It made her skin and lips and hair glow.

  She seemed to be in a good mood as we walked to a café down the street. She was talkative, which was a relief. My work in the Private Pleasures Booth had taught me how to find things to talk about with any idiot, but talking to a beautiful girl I cared about while keeping appropriate boundaries was more exhausting than catering to the sexual fantasies of my customers.

  Faye chattered away about her plans for her upcoming February Break, saying she had thought about going home to Texas, but was going
to save her money to go to a writing workshop in Oregon later in the year.

  "What kind of workshop?" I asked, blowing on my tomato soup.

  "It's a journalism retreat," she shrugged.

  "What about your book?" I asked.

  Faye gave me a sad smile. "I don't think now is a good time to focus on that..." she said.

  I had to wonder if I'd pushed something she wasn't interested in or if she was selling herself short.

  "Are you ever going to do it?" I asked, making sure I didn't sound too invested or judgmental.

  "Yeah," Faye said. "Just not right now."

  I nodded and looked down into my soup, wondering what to talk about next. Luckily Faye asked about how things were going at Swivel, and I was all too eager to fill her in.

  "It's fabulous," I said.

  Faye grinned. “Is Anya happy?"

  I shrugged. "She's happy she doesn't have to teach on weekend mornings after working late."

  "What about you? Aren't you be tired?"

  "Yeah," I said with a dismissive shrug. "But her job is harder."

  Faye's brow crinkled. "How?"

  "She has direct contact with her customers on the floor. I just stay in my little terrarium and dance."

  Faye nodded. "Your job still sounds impossible to me," she mumbled. "How do you get through the week? I'd always be exhausted or grossed out all the time." Then her eyes widened, realizing she could have offended me. "I mean, not that it's gross. I just, I imagine your customers aren't all attractive and they're probably rude sometimes."

  I smiled, appreciative of the delicate way she asked questions. "When I started, Callie told me the most important thing I needed to learn if I wanted to last was that I needed to commit to spending a lot of time taking care of myself."

  "How do you do that?"

  "It's different for everyone. I'd say ninety percent of the girls consider weekly pedicures the bare minimum for self care. Our feet are always sore from our shoes, but it's a psychological thing too."

  Faye nodded and took a bite of her food, waiting for me to continue.

  "I get massages every few weeks, but exercise, dancing, and sleep are how I take care of myself best."

  Faye kept nodding pensively as she chewed.

  I pointed to my bowl with my spoon. "Food too," I added. "I make sure I have good fuel. I'm lucky Justine is a good cook."

  Faye smiled and asked how Justine was doing, and the conversation drifted off towards food, drink, and the weather.

  After we said goodbye to the clerk at the counter, we trudged back towards my apartment on the way to the massage parlor.

  Once we got inside the waiting area, I was fidgety and resentful that I'd agreed to do this. She didn't need me to hold her hand while she bought a gift. It had just been a dumb reason to hang out with her and now I had put myself in an awkward position.

  Faye approached the counter and looked at the framed spa menu. "I wanted to get a gift certificate for a massage," she said to the attendant.

  "Great," the man said. "We offer a variety of options. We have a standard fifty-minute Swedish, which is always good. You could go a bit longer or deeper with a ninety minute or a shiatsu. Some people prefer the lighter touch of the hot stone option, which is popular. Personally, I like the Thai massage. Some people say it's better than sex."

  Cringing at his casual mention of sex around the most vanilla person in the world, I tried to pretend I was looking at the overpriced lotions and oils on a wooden shelf beside the counter. Faye studied the prices and then said, "Oh, they have a couple's massage." She looked up at me and lowered her voice as she asked, "What do you think?"

  I clenched my stomach at the thought of her undressing for a massage next to her boyfriend as I forced myself to smile and nod.

  She turned back to the man and said, "We'll do that."

  The man gave another inauthentic spa-smile. "Great choice. Did you two want to schedule that now?" He glanced at me as he turned to the computer and my whole body hurt.

  He thought Faye was buying a couple's massage for her and me to have together. His assumption that we were a couple was an unexpected punch in the gut.

  "Oh, it's not for us," Faye said, mumbling a bit.

  I tried to take comfort in the fact that she didn't laugh, but it was hardly a consolation.

  "My mistake," the man said.

  "I'll just take a gift certificate," Faye said, avoiding looking at me.

  She seemed to take forever to purchase her gift certificate while I feigned interest in some organic hypoallergenic massage oil. She asked if I'd help her pick out a few more things and I begrudgingly agreed. I put myself on autopilot like I did in the Private Pleasures Booth sometimes, avoiding any conscious thought or feeling.

  By the time we were done picking out a card and a nice tie for Isaiah, it was time for me to go to work. Somehow leaving Faye to go take off my clothes was both relieving and awful. It accentuated the contrast in our lives: she went to classes and on tasteful dates with her boyfriend when we weren't hanging out; I went to an electric pink petri dish and took off my clothes for anyone with a dollar.

  Heavy with the understanding that she was perfectly committed to her vanilla boyfriend, I let Faye drop me off a block away.

  When I got inside, I set about putting on my fake schoolgirl outfit; the white button-down shirt was no bigger than a bra and rested beneath my breasts, and the skirt was literally three inches long and looked more like a belt. Paired with my Ellies and two neat braids, I looked like a perverted Britney fantasy. Jez's dress code was the opposite of any school dress code. Our skirt couldn't cover our whole ass or pussy and our nipples had to be visible at all times.

  As I stepped out of my everyday panties, I saw there was a small dark smudge on the fabric. At first I was surprised. With birth control, I always knew when my period was coming and I could plan for it. But since I'd stopped sleeping with Turner, I'd gone off it, so my cycle was all out of whack. Cursing, I looked in my locker for my toiletry kit. But when I looked in my usual spot, it was nowhere to be seen. I realized I had brought it home to refill a few weeks ago and hadn't put it back in my bag. I could even picture it on the top of my dresser next to my deodorant and bowl of bobby pins.

  "Shit," I breathed. I turned to the girl changing next to me. "Do you have any tampons?"

  She shook her head, not making eye contact. "I use a cup."

  "Dammit," I breathed. I tried the lock on Callie's locker, but I didn't know the combo.

  I rushed into the bathroom, remembering there was a machine that dispensed tampons for a quarter. But after feeding the machine three quarters and getting nothing in return, I hit it with my hand, letting a satisfying bang reverberate through the tiled room.

  I was so fucked.

  Frantic, I pulled out my phone.

  There was a message from Faye: I had fun with you today :)

  Trying not to get sucked into her sweetness and forget that she was off limits, I ignored her note and called Justine. She didn't pick up three times in a row.

  I had to be onstage in five minutes. I couldn't leave to go pick up tampons or I'd be knocked down the pay scale again or maybe even fired. I couldn't lose my job over my period.

  But I also couldn't work with blood dripping out of me. My anxiety about my dilemma settled into my stomach, and I started feeling overwhelmed.

  Desperate, I called Faye.

  "Hey!" she chirped.

  "Hey," I said, trying to keep my panic low. "Are you busy?"

  "No, why? Aren't you at work?"

  "I just got my period and I don't have any of my stuff. No one else is in the dressing room and I'm screwed."

  "Oh," Faye said. "I always wondered what strippers do about that."

  I gave a pained chuckle. "We cut the strings off our tampons."

  "Makes sense," Faye said. There was a brief pause before she said, "Do you need me to bring you something?"

  I let out a relieved sigh. I couldn't
believe I'd actually called her to ask her to bring me tampons.

  "If it's not too much trouble," I said.

  "What kind do you want?"

  "Just regular tampons and some Motrin. I'll pay you back."

  "I'll drop it off in the next twenty minutes. Will that be okay?"

  "Yeah," I said, hopeful I could fake something until she showed up.

  "Do I just go to the front desk?" she asked.

  "Yeah, I'll tell the attendant I'm expecting something."

  "Perfect."

  "Thank you so much," I said, sighing in relief.

  "No problem at all," Faye said. I could hear her smile.

  She was such a sweet girl.

  I finished getting dressed, jerry-rigging a temporary solution to my flow problem that I hoped would last for the next twenty minutes. Then I steeled myself and clopped up the stairs into the Box.

  The next fifteen minutes were the longest I'd ever spent in the Box. I was so nervous about bleeding on something. After what felt like five hours, there was a tap on the door and I raced over to it, slinking down the stairs to receive the bag the attendant was holding out to me. I was disappointed I wouldn't get to see Faye, but I didn't want her to see me with my tits out because I knew it would make her uncomfortable.

  The bag the attendant handed me was heavy for what I'd asked for. I frowned and opened it, peering inside.

  Tucked next to the tampons and Motrin was a bottle of water, a bar of chocolate, and a big, gooey brownie from Starbucks.

  At that, I burst into tears. I liked Faye so, so much, and her sweetness felt like torture. I sat in the dressing room crying for ten minutes before I wound my way back into the Box, not caring if I got in trouble.

  Chapter 13: Shatter

  I followed Faye to her car in shock, feeling like a dog with its tail between its legs. Why had she slapped me away like that? I knew she was temperamental, but I didn't think she would be cruel to me like that.

  I let myself stew in my confusion the whole way back to her apartment. It was an awful, sickening quiet that made the drive feel hours long. Faye busied herself flicking through songs at stoplights, humming to ease the tension.