Beginnings

by L. T. Smith

  As I placed the receiver back down, her eyes popped over the top of the page and I could see a question forming. But then … nothing.

  It was just that brief look that put me on my guard. I felt exposed all of a sudden, well … all of the time, and believed everyone could see what I was up to … how different I was to everyone else. Sadness washed over me so quickly, only to disperse like a sprinkling of water on a summer’s day. The urge to tell her rose to the surface, and I had to physically reign it in.

  I loved my sister … still do … but I didn’t know how to tell her I wasn’t who she thought I was. Deep down I thought she would be fine, and help me make the right decision. But there was still an area of doubt, which played with my sensibilities. What if she thought I was a freak? What if she disowned me … told me I was an abomination? I couldn’t bear to think of her thinking of me that way … You could say I always tried to be what she wanted me to be … whatever that is.

  For two days, I had been a bag of nerves. Don’t ask me why … I couldn’t tell you … well apart from the fact I was infatuated with one tall, dark haired beauty who still thought of me as her six year old friend. And apart from the fact I was suppose to be involved with another woman … a woman … Jesus … a woman.

  I digress.

  I met Ash at Granada Bowling in Belle Vue. Quite out of the way, but definitely worth the trek on the 317 bus with all the people who were going into Manchester for the evening. I did feel a little out of place, sitting on the top deck with all the smokers, watching the world go by. But I didn’t care … I was going to see Ash. And that made me smile like an idiot out of the window.

  I had always … and I mean ALWAYS … been shite at bowling. I was definitely ‘Miss Gutter Ball 1984’. Every well meant lob with the excruciatingly heavy ball (with the sticky holes), ended up rolling complacently down the side and into the gutter. I did manage to scrape a 36 in the first game, which I was quite proud of. I ignored all the well-laid advice Ash told me … I think it was more out of embarrassment than thinking I knew better.

  Eventually I caved. Ash, my saviour, took it upon herself to teach me how to play. Her first move was to change the weight of the ball I had been brandishing about from a 14 to a 10.

  Secondly … and this is the point I liked the most … she stood behind me, manoeuvring me into position of the arrows. The feeling of her standing so close behind me: her body pressing into my back and side; the smell of her filling my nostrils like an enchantment.

  Whatever she said, I can’t tell you. Whatever she did is a blur. All I could concentrate on was the feeling of her hands moving over my arms and back … even the view of the top of her head bewitched me as she knelt down in front of me moving my feet into position. I could see her lips moving but I couldn’t hear a word. I was deaf … and mute by all accounts. I just nodded like the proverbial village idiot and grinned vacantly.

  Ash was a good player … well in comparison to me anyone was. But to put it into some kind of real perspective, she scored 186 in her first game. And I think I put her off … trying to hold in all that laughter … yeah … sounds about right.

  Obviously, with all my free tuition, my game escalated to a grand score of 92. To Ash’s 179 … I was getting better and she was going down, which I held great delight in ribbing her with. Mutterings of ‘I’ve gone up fifty six and you’ve lost seven points.’

  She just smiled, that crooked smile, but the rest of her face said ‘You wait lady.’

  But I was flying by this stage. Not because of the score … not by any stretch of the imagination. It was just being with her … her and me … Lou and Ash … Ash and Lou. My heart was singing, I was floating, and my blood was bubbling like a wild stream rushing down the side of a mountain.

  Yep. That corny. But that’s how I felt … corny. My blood was doing Julie Andrews impressions and I was loving it.

  Until the third set.

  I should have quit whilst I was ahead.

  I should have plucked off those freaky stripy shoes, jumped on the 317, and gone home whilst I still had any credibility left.

  But no.

  I stayed and took it like a man … woman … teenager … whatever.

  Ash was relentless in her heckling. I thought she was trying to help me, not make me fuck up more than usual. Just as I was about to throw the ball down the alley, she would cough, sneeze, mutter something obscene (which I quite liked) … generally, she was out to teach me a lesson.

  After the fourth consecutive gutter ball, Ash jumped out of her seat, raced over to me, and as I was nearly fully around, threw her arms around me to deliver a bone-crushing hug. My feet lifted off the floor as she swept me in a circle, the room spinning around me but not because of the movement.

  It was the kiss on the cheek that was my undoing. A full smacker right on the left cheek, the onomatopoeic slap on the skin informed me it was slightly wet, as I had no sensation left in any part of my body … apart from the places where her body encountered mine. Skin pulsed and grew hot under hers and once again, I was totally lost in her …

  I didn’t even realise I had done it. I felt such a fool … but I couldn’t help pushing my face into the nape of her neck and inhaling her scent. She smelled perfect … perfect … perfect … and I was lost into her for those brief seconds before she lowered me back onto the ground. I missed the closeness of her, but she didn’t let me go straight away. I looked up into her face and a small splodge of air slipped out from my mouth.

  Her eyes were slightly hooded, and the cock sure smile she had sported had vanished, only to be replaced by a look of confusion … of indecision. Lips slightly parted in wonder: the fullness mesmerising. I wanted to stretch up onto my toes and just … brush my lips across them.

  Just the once … and I would be contented.

  Just the once.

  But no. Reason gripped me before I made an even bigger fool of myself than I already had, and I pulled out of the encirclement of her arms. I watched them fall limply to her sides and she looked a little dishevelled … but beautiful.

  Obviously.

  ‘Your turn.’ Was that my voice? Small and distant? I felt like a ventriloquist’s dummy, the mouth moving but the noise coming from another person.

  She nodded, but stood there for a few more seconds, before she walked past me, picked up her ball and threw it down the lane without even focusing.

  And she still knocked down nine pins.

  And I lost … miserably … 49 to her 198.

  I think it was all the touching … or the thoughts of touching that made me lose the plot big time.

  It was worth it though.

  After the games, we sat in the café area sipping coke in polystyrene cups with straws. What is about drinking coke through a straw that makes you feel like a kid? Or maybe it was sitting with Ash that made me feel like a kid … who knows?

  We chatted as if nothing had happened, although my mind kept on drifting to the feel of her arms, hands, body … the smell of her … the longing to taste her however briefly.

  What was wrong with me? Couldn’t I just have her friendship?

  The internal struggle was trying to choke me … I wasn’t concentrating on what she was saying, and before I knew it I was agreeing to bowling lessons every Tuesday. Not that I minded seeing her every Tuesday, but … bowling? My arm was throbbing as it was … Jesus … I’d look like a one armed weight lifter before I even hit the hundred mark.

  But I would see Ash … definitely see Ash … once a week. I could feel the smile sneak up from a dark place inside me and trickle onto my face.

  Now … that was definitely worth the pain.

  Stephen picked us up from outside the Bowling Alley. It saved me clambering on the bus by myself, as I didn’t really fancy travelling back on my own … buses at night were not the safest of places for a young girl to be. Plus the fact Ash would have been getting on a different one.

  And … this way, I got to spend just that extra bit o
f time with her.

  Thankfully, Tracy was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t deal with her glaring looks … and no one mentioned her absence, which gave the indication she was still in the bad books.

  I felt like gloating.

  Ash insisted sitting in the back with me, even though the passenger seat was empty.

  Now that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  The smile I sported could definitely be defined as a gloating one.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE NEXT FEW weeks were filled with a seesaw of emotions. On one end of the seesaw was my growing relationship with Sarah, whilst at the other my definite attraction for Ash.

  Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t just see Ash when we went bowling. No. We saw each other quite often at college, had lunch or a coffee, and we did see each other at least one evening over the weekend.

  Well … most weekends anyway.

  Every time I saw her, this innate need to be more than what we were would fill me up, and I found it more and more difficult not blurting out how I felt. This lead to a rising sexual frustration that could rival any teenage boy’s … that I can guarantee.

  Evidently, these hormones, these wild wonderings of my sexually befuddled brain were tantamount to agony, and the only cure I had was Sarah.

  Poor Sarah. Poor sweet Sarah. I really liked her … honestly I did. But she wasn’t … well she wasn’t … Ash.

  But being filled with these raging hormones, hormones that needed avenging, what else could I do but to try and get some satisfaction from the only person I could. And that wasn’t me … as I had nearly grown hard patches on my right hand … my left hand … my fingers … you get the drift?

  So Sarah it was.

  And …

  I did feel bad …

  … but I also felt incredibly horny too.

  Evenings with Sarah had developed into something more carnal that I had anticipated from the first night at the cinema. I was still wary about who knew … and nobody did … but I was finding the deceit difficult to conceal, especially when I would flush beetroot every time somebody mentioned either of their names, even though I wasn’t involved with Ash.

  We hadn’t had sex as yet, but it wasn’t for the want of me trying. Our explorations had increased in pace, but not below the waistband. The upper halves of our bodies were explored thoroughly, with hands fingers, mouth, lips and teeth. But the achingly wet part went without.

  Sarah was cautious … a little too cautious. I think she was still wary about frightening me off, although me trying to shove my hands down her pants should have convinced her otherwise, not to mention my begging her to let me touch her … for her to touch me.

  It was just before Christmas that I got my wish.

  After a very sexually frustrating afternoon drooling over my unobtainable friend, I met Sarah nearly panting. She had to physically drag my hands from her groin at one point.

  As I sat there breathless, willing my throbbing need to behave, she asked me a very simple, but extremely promising question.

  ‘What are your plans for Saturday night?’

  Not much of a question, I hear you say. But I haven’t finished yet …

  ‘Would you like to stay over at my house … my parents are away for the weekend?’

  Now … I imagine you are thinking I whooped for joy, or jumped her bones, or screamed out ‘Yes!’ into the darkness.

  But no. I sat there and stared at her … mute … stupid … silent … stunned.

  It was here. At last. My chance to relieve this tension, and I couldn’t respond. Inside my head I was screaming ‘Tell her you idiot … say yes!’. But on the outside I looked like a statue, completely rigid: emotionless.

  Only with Sarah’s movement … her nervous movement … the slight shaking of her hand … did I break free from the spell that had befallen me. My eyes moved at first, as I watched her gingerly take the steering wheel in both her hands and slowly increase the pressure. She was facing forward by this point, her eyes digesting the night sky, trying to appear nonchalant, but coming out pensive instead.

  I lifted my hand slowly to her cheek and brushed my fingers down her face, past her jaw, down her throat, until they rested on her collarbone.

  Blue eyes dipped to take in her hands before turning their gaze into my own waiting green eyes. It was not until I knew I had her full attention, did I utter those three little words … softly and tinged with promise.

  ‘I’d love to.’

  The smile that rained over her face could have melted the ice caps in the Antarctic.

  We had a date.

  And my aching need couldn’t wait, although my heart wasn’t too sure.

  Saturday night came around.

  Eventually.

  My shattered nerves said ‘About bloody time,’ as seven thirty arrived, and so did Sarah. And I had only left her two hours before.

  My parents didn’t say a word about me staying out all night at ‘a friend’s house’. I hadn’t told Jo, as I had only seen her briefly. I had walked in from work, and she had been on her way out to meet her boyfriend at the ice skating rink in Altrincham.

  Not that I could have told her anyway … I couldn’t lie to her about what I was up to … and why I had to stay over at Sarah’s house when there was a perfectly good bus service running from her house to mine. And she may have got her boyfriend to pick me up, as they would have to pass Sarah’s to get home.

  I’m procrastinating aren’t I?

  Okay … I’ll skip the journey … the offer of a drink … the desperate need to use the bathroom every two minutes … the polite conversation … every thing up until the part I know you want to hear.

  The consummation.

  The deed.

  The act.

  The bountiful display of the beast with two backs.

  The event that changed my view on life, love and sex. The event I believed kicked out the last clinging vestiges of heterosexuality.

  The event that spliced open the bare longings of a sixteen year old girl in lust.

  I knew it was on the cards … I knew tonight was going to be the night … I knew I was shitting my pants …

  But I still didn’t expect it, if you know what I mean.

  We were sat on the sofa listening to an album Sarah’s Dad had brought back from his trip to the States. Bruce Springsteen’s gravelly voice had just emitted ‘Hey little girl is your Daddy home’ when she made her move. Her hand came out and caressed my thigh, and I nearly dropped the glass of wine I was nursing.

  ‘I got a bad desire’

  Tell me about it Bruce.

  Sarah leaned over and gently released the glass from my deathlike grip, placing it on the table at the side of the couch.

  ‘I can take you higher’

  Her face came closer to mine and her lips brushed against my mouth in a butterfly kiss.

  I tasted her lipstick, and leaned forward to capture those lips once again. A little harder this time. I could feel her pushing back into me, and slipped backwards onto the sofa, taking Sarah with me.

  The kissing was getting more heated now, and my heart was fit to saw through my chest and scream into the night.

  ‘At night I wake with the sheets soaking wet’

  Like my underwear. Definitely soaked.

  My hands were on a mission, and were definitely going under cover.

  And as her tongue slipped into my mouth, the last thing I heard was …

  ‘Only you can cool my desire

  I’m on fire.’

  Oh yeah … bring it on.

  The kissing was passionate to say the least. All my inhibitions had packed their bags and headed for the airport. I was on a one was trip to Satisfactionville, and Sarah was the driver. And God … could she drive …

  Drive me to the brink of want … of need … of desire. Drive me to the insanity of a yearning to be touched that belied rhyme or reason.

  God … she was hot … and I was dying … she w
as so fucking hot … and I was squirming underneath her trying to purchase my hands onto her bare flesh. Her fingers fumbled on the buttons to my shirt, nervous fingers struggling with the smallness of the shiny adornments, trying to force them out of their slits, her lips digging deeper into my own.

  Cool fingers slipped underneath my cotton shirt, and tentatively stroked below my nipple, which was already ready and waiting for contact. Her thumb pushed the material down and rubbed the nipple flesh on flesh. But like the impatient child, I pushed my breast into her hand, wanting her to take it all … move things along.

  My hips were pushing upwards, craving to introduce one wet need into something firmer. And then back down. And back up … down and … up … constant … rhy … thm … up …staying … and … pull … ling back.

  The contact of her thigh felt wonderful. The feel of her hand on my breast, divine. The pressure of her mouth on mine … bliss.

  But this wasn’t enough. I needed more … God … how I needed more. I gripped her backside, such a firm, rounded backside, and pulled her into me.

  Still not enough.

  One of my hands snaked underneath the base of her bra and cupped her soft breast, and squeezed. Tracing my thumb across the erect bud, almost expert in this field by now.

  Her moan filled my mouth, so I squeezed harder. Another groan … well more like a moan. I broke my lips from hers and rained tiny kisses over her chin and throat. She raised her head to allow me access, which I took gladly, sucking and teasing the skin between my lips, silently begging for her to strip me naked and ravish me.

  ‘Jesus … Lou … god …’ I kept on kissing her throat, ‘I need … we need …’ I know … tell me about it. ‘We need to go upstairs …’

  My lips pulled away, realisation dawned on me.

  I was just about to go upstairs and have sex. With a woman. First time … with a woman … or anyone for that matter.