Liz left the dorm and headed over to Laurie’s sorority house. The blonde girl was sitting in her room, practicing on the guitar that Jane and the girls had gotten for her. It was the guitar that Heather had been teaching her to play, and she had been hoping it might relax her a bit. She looked up when Liz knocked, a momentary gleam of hope playing across her forlorn features, but it disappeared when Liz opened the door. Maybe it had been too much to hope for . . .
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey,” returned Liz.
“She hates me, doesn’t she?” Laurie said softly. “She . . .”
“She’ll meet with you tomorrow. Noon, at the pond next to the library.”
Laurie looked up. “Is she . . . Will she . . .?”
“I don’t know,” Liz said carefully. “I couldn’t tell you for the life of me what she’s going to say. She’s mad Laurie. I won’t kid you about that. She trashed her room and busted up her hands pretty good, and . . .”
Laurie’s face had gone as white as a sheet. “Is she gonna be okay? Should I . . . Or could you . . .”
“She’s going to be okay. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that part. But she’s calmed down a bit. Listen, I hope like hell everything works out for you tomorrow. Alice and I will be at my place though if you need to talk. If . . .”
“Things have to work out. I’ll make them work out somehow. I can’t let her go.” Laurie sounded almost desperate.
Liz gave the young girl a quick hug and patted her on the back. Being the comforter like this, particularly of someone so . . . girlish . . . wasn’t her strong suit. “It may not be up to you this time. Just be honest with her. It’s your best shot.” Liz looked the girl over. “Did you want to come over for a while? Watch movies or something. That is, if you didn’t want to be alone right now . . .”
“No,” Laurie said, mustering a slight smile. “I’ll be fine. But thanks anyway. I think I’ll need some time for myself.” As Liz left the room, Laurie tried to mentally prepare herself for the most difficult conversation of her life.
————— ————-
The next day . . .
————— ————-
Heather loved the spring. She loved the way that new blades of green crept up from dead brown grass. The temperature was just right, there was always a pleasant breeze and migratory birds were making their way back north. There were a number of ducks that lived in the pond when the whether was warm and Heather had been enjoyed staring at them. She and Laurie had picnicked there a couple of times when the weather was warm. It was one of the nicest places to sit and think on campus, but it was a little off the main paths so it was often abandoned. There was a bench overlooking the water, and that’s where Heather was waiting. She closed her eyes and let that spring breeze toss her hair across her face. That’s how she was when Laurie arrived. She felt the cheap wood planks that made up the bench settle and shift.
“You’re early,” Heather said simply. Even with her eyes close, she knew it was Laurie. She recognized the girl’s sweet scent.
Laurie was staring at Heather’s bandaged hands. She wanted to take them and gently hold them until everything was all right. That wasn’t going to happen this time. “We could wait,” she said quietly.
“Not necessary.” Heather opened her eyes. She stared straight forward because she knew that if she turned and saw Laurie, she might not be able to say what she was going to say. “I’m not even sure where to begin this.”
“Then let me,” Laurie said, her eyes locked on the side of Heather’s face. “I’m SO sorry. I know that’s not much, but I am. I fucked up. No one else. My dad never asked me to do that stuff. I called him to tell him that I never wanted him to ask me to do it again, and . . .”
“I know,” Heather said calmly. “He was here. I talked to him yesterday morning.” She finally turned to look at Laurie. The girl wasn’t dressed up particularly nicely or wearing makeup and she didn’t have her hair done like she usually did. She hadn’t come planning to seduce Heather back. But her efforts hadn’t worked. Heather still thought she was beautiful.
“How could he . . .? He had no right to interfere! I’m going to . . . He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Actually, I’m glad he did. He told me about your phone call. He told me that everything had just been a misunderstanding. But let me ask you this,” Heather said, her voice choking up, “what if he HAD asked you to give me up? You were willing to do it based on your own intuition . . .”
“No! It was never about giving you up! I just wanted to be on my best behavior. Then I held things from you, and I started feeling bad. But for some reason, that just made me do dumber and dumber things. By the end, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. I’m not making excuses for what I did, but it was NEVER about hurting you. I just got in so far over my head that I couldn’t see anymore. Heather, I love you. I loved you before spring break, during spring break and right now. And I was never ashamed to be with you. The only times I’ve felt ashamed is when I haven’t been with you. If you want, I’ll put how much I love you on . . . on a friggin’ billboard! Or maybe on the sides of public busses. I could even make out fliers! As long as they aren’t in color, ’cause color is really expensive and . . .”
“You’re rambling again,” said the dark-haired girl, suppressing the instinctive smile she got when Laurie went into stream-of-consciousness mode.
“Right,” the blonde girl said as she tried to get her train of thought back on track. “And my comments about your parents and your history were completely uncalled for. I hated that I’d been caught being the bad guy and I was lashing out with anything I could think of.” Laurie stopped to take a breath. “Before we left, Jenny came and told me how happy she was to just be part of this weird cluster-fuck group we seem to have attracted. From the first time I heard you speak, I wanted to be part of your life. I’m proud I’ve had that chance. I’ve realized for a long time that you’re something special, and that you’re going places most of us couldn’t even dream about. And last night, I was all prepared to tell you that even if you dump me that I was going to tell you that it was enough for me to have gotten to be part of your life for a little while. But it isn’t enough! No matter what you say, I’m going to keep after you until you forgive me and . . .”
“I’m not dumping you.”
” . . . and until you see how much I love you and will do anything for you and . . . and . . . what do you mean you’re not dumping me?” Laurie appeared to be in shock.
Heather turned her gaze back towards the pond. “I was going to. For the last four days, every time I’ve thought about what happened I swore to myself it was over. And then I would think what my life would be like without you and . . . and there was just nothing. I couldn’t see what I would be doing or where I would be going. That made me even madder. It was supposed to be easy. I had so many ‘she-done-me-wrong’ thoughts running through my brain that I thought my head had turned into a country and western concert. Liz was right; that’s what I do . . . I get mad and hate people, sometimes for years. It didn’t work. No matter how I justified it or how much I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate you. Finally, I realized I didn’t even WANT to hate you. I just wanted to stop missing you. I guess the only way I can do that is to still be with you.” Heather closed her eyes for a moment, pausing to organize her thoughts. “I still love you. I can’t imagine not loving you anymore. I can’t imagine your face not being the last thing I see when I go to bed or not being the first thing I see when I wake up. I can’t imagine holding hands with someone other than you or, God forbid, shopping with anyone else but you.” The two shared a chuckle at that. Heather’s distaste for shopping was almost as legendary as her temper.
“So what do I need to do? So that you trust me again, I mean?”
Heather looked at her. “There’s nothing that you can say that’s going to do it.” She rolled her eyes and looked a bit embarrassed as she said, “You just have to love me. That and never pulling this shit again. That would be a REAL turn-off.”
Laurie swung her leg over and straddled Heather’s lap. Heather had to stick her injured hands straight out to avoid them getting smashed. Laurie grabbed the dark-haired girl’s head in her hands and kissed her squarely on the lips. She pressed her tongue forward and felt Heather’s lips begin to part. It still felt right. She let the kiss linger and let her tongue roam, reminding herself of the contours of her girlfriend’s mouth. She loved that word . . . girlfriend.
“‘Love you’? I don’t see that as being a problem,” she whispered, the words drifting across the infinitesimal divide between their lips when the first kiss ended. Then the next kiss began.
—————— ————
At Liz’s apartment . . .
—————— ————
Liz was sitting at the table, nibbling at her lunch. Her mind wasn’t totally in the meal. Part of it was that she was nervous about how things would turn out between Heather and Laurie. The other part of it was that Alice, collar and all, was under the table lapping away at Liz’s crotch with reckless abandon.
‘Damn she’s good at that,’ Liz thought. The girl had brought Liz to orgasm before she could even finish her sandwich, and was working on taking the tall girl to the Promised Land for a second time. Alice had been worried too, and Liz thought that this might take her mind off of things. Not that she would claim pure altruism as her motive. She LOVED getting her girlfriend on all fours. They hadn’t had sex since the night before leaving Fort Lauderdale. Apparently hot wax, while getting a good reaction at first, had really irritated Alice’s skin, removing it from the list of possible games to play in the future. ‘Oh well,’ Liz thought. ‘I’ll figure out something else.’ She had already drilled the younger girl to orgasm while wearing a strap-on, so Alice was now earning her ‘treat.’
Alice’s tongue was buried so far in Liz’s body that the older girl was certain that both girls were tasting Liz’s food at about the same time. When Alice’s tongue withdrew for a little clit play, Liz began to wonder if her girlfriend was taking longer than necessary just because she liked being on leash. She felt that powerful muscle cutting swaths of pleasure through her private area. She was finishing up her mashed potatoes when her second orgasm hit. She had to put her silverware down as her body trembled. She bit her lip, which was something she normally tried to avoid doing when Alice could actually see her face. She felt the young woman lapping up cum throughout the climax. She was such a good girl.
“Heel!” Liz ordered. Alice crawled out from under the table until she was beside Liz’s chair. “Do you think that I don’t know what you were doing? Taking your time? When I order you to make me cum, you are to do it quickly unless I tell you otherwise. For wasting time, you are to be punished. First, thank me for allowing you to eat my pussy.”