Sheena and Cassie

Author's Notes: This is my first whack at a lesbian story, and if I got anything horribly terribly wrong please let me know. It never actually gets to any real sex, so if you're looking for some down and dirty fun this is not the story for you. It's more of a cute romance than anything else.

Estragon has been a tremendous help to me in the editing process, but I happen to be rather willful. So if you find yourself really getting into the story, that's because he smoothed out the rough edges. When it suddenly seems like a drunken horse clopped the keyboard with his hooves on the keyboard, that's because I defended my art less wisely than well.

All characters are over 18, and can present valid IDs upon request.

I love comments, so please give me feedback, especially helpful feedback. Next up (hopefully) is a BDSM story. Woo!

-PSLL

***

It was the end of the end of high school. All of us in Mrs. Craig's Advanced Placement English class had mentally checked out. The tests had been taken, the college acceptance letters received, and now we were just punching our tickets until Yearbook Day.

Mrs. Craig tried to put a brave face on it, telling us how proud she was, and how she wanted to end the year on a high note. No one was really listening. Our soon-to-be-valedictorian was playing hearts in the back corner while his main "rival" for the position craned her neck to get a good look at his hand. The girl seated across from me was slumped on her desk, cheek resting on her laced fingers as she watched Mrs. Craig with indifferent blue eyes. I was feathering my pencil in my notebook, trying to capture the supple arch of her back.

I had always noticed Cassiella, the girl sitting across from me, even if I had never really interacted with her. We were in most of the same classes, but I pretty much hung out with the Asian clique, while she ran with the metalheads and potsmokers.

She stood out ever since I transferred to this high school in tenth grade. My best friend Mary had talked me and my parents into coming over because of the school's strong academic reputation, and that first day had been a whirlwind of introductions and private giggles. Soon her friends became my friends, but I couldn't stop thinking about all the people on the outside, the ones I never really talked to.

I noticed Cassie that very first day. She was wearing a pale blue long sleeved shirt and jeans, loose brown curls tumbling over her shoulders, and I thought she was very pretty. Mary had told me she hung out with "sketchy" people and that those long sleeves hid scars from years of cutting. The message was loud and clear, but whenever I saw her around I always wondered what her real story was. She didn't display piercings like her disaffected friends, she always seemed to dress a little on the conservative side, and there was something sad about her. Sometimes I wished I could reach out to her, but I never knew how. Mary did all my reaching out for me.

By senior year I heard more rumors about her. That she was bi, that she had been raped, that she put out in the school bathroom. I knew two guys who dated her, but they both seemed eager to trash talk her harder than anyone else. I couldn't believe all those stories about the girl who always smiled and said hi when we met in the halls.

I knew how the rumor mill worked. Once I had ignored my parents' rules and gone to a movie with a guy from the lacrosse team. He'd slipped his arm around me and put his lips on mine. He spent five minutes with his tongue in my mouth, splooging around as I sat there open eyed and tried to enjoy it. I failed, told him it was nice but that I didn't think we should go out again. I found out later most of the lacrosse team thought I had gone down on him in the theater. So I wasn't going to judge Cassie by what other people said about her.

Mrs. Craig finally got to detailing our end of the year project. Nothing fancy, a report with a poster about one of the authors we had studied, and of course treats were "encouraged". The rest of class would be spent figuring out who our partners and subjects would be. As soon as she finished everyone was on their feet, not wanting to be the odd one out in this game of social musical chairs.

My picture of Cassie was interrupted, a hazy feminine outline with a cascade of curls spilling out onto her desk. She was taking her time, putting her books away, probably figuring that she'd do the project with whoever was left. I looked at her, wondering. Then I decided.

It took a moment for her to notice that I was standing by her desk, and she seemed a little startled when she did.

"Oh, hey Sheena..." she started, eyeing me a little curiously.

"Hey Cassie, I was wondering if you wanted to partner up for the project?" I tried to ask like it was the most normal thing in the world, but it was a little weird to be asking to work with someone I hardly knew.

"Um yeah, sure...."

"So do you want anyone in particular or should I just sign us up?"

***

"You're doing it with Cassie?" Mary said, scrunching her nose and shaking her head in an exaggerated gesture of disgust. Everything Mary did was exaggerated. She was the first Chinese girl I had met when my family moved to town and I was drawn to her like everyone was. Her personality was larger than life, all that happiness and energy wrapped into a tiny frame; thin as a stick with a grin as wide as the Mississippi. She'd seen me when I was alone and shy, and made it her business to be my friend and I loved her for it. She could, however, be a real bitch.

We were walking to her car and I hadn't really meant to talk about my choice of English project partner, but the gossip had already got to her. The gossip ALWAYS got to her.

"She's a really good writer. I got her essay for peer review and it was good. "

"But she's weeeeeird," Mary objected, stretching the last word into a cutesy pleading whine. I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling.

"Weeeeeeeeeird," Mary simpered again, clearly loving the feel of it in her mouth. We both broke down giggling and I gave her a little push.

"Shad up. She's nice! I mean, she seems nice."

"It's always the 'nice' ones," she intoned with mock solemnity.

"Seriously, what do you have against her?" I asked, feeling just a little defensive.

"I dunno...." she said as we got to the car, pursing her lips and looking at me over the roof. "I just hear things."

"Oh, like no one says anything about you behind your back, you heartbreaker you."

"Psh, no, like, REAL things."

"Like what?" I asked as I got into the car and buckled up. She got into the driver's seat, checking her mirrors.

"Just that she's into some really messed up stuff."

"Drugs? Kinky sex? Bacon flavored coffee?"

"That last one actually sounds good!"

"Oh, now who's the weird one?"

"Just ahead of the curve."

We didn't talk about Cassie the rest of the ride home. EVERYONE had heard the stories.

***

We worked the details out over the phone, and although Cassie immediately offered her place she seemed elated when I offered up mine. I couldn't help conjuring up mental images of her house as some kind of a redneck shack with a barking dog on a chain and beer-swilling dad in a wife beater yelling after her whenever she went out the door.

When my mom heard about Cassie coming over she went into overdrive. I wouldn't say my family is traditional or anything like that, but we do have a very strong sense of appearances. For a returning guest a platter of food would suffice, but a first time visitor? There would be cooking, no two ways about it! Outwardly I played the good Westernized daughter and protested that she was making too big a deal since we'd just be working. Inwardly I was guesstimating how many bao zi I could cram into my mouth before looking like a pig.

By the time the doorbell rang my mom was practically salivating to get her hostess on and I didn't even try to beat her to the door, which she flung wide open.

"Ah! You are Cassie? Come in come in. Sheena is here but you eat a little first? I make bao zi, Chinese, very very good, you try?"

Poor Cassie looked like she had just slammed face first into a solid wall of Chinglish enthusiasm. Which was fair, because she had. She held up her hands, trying to calm my mom. "Oh, no, that's fine, I mean, I'm not really hungry and I already had lunch...."

"Oh no, she's right, you have to try at least one. They're small," I said, putting a hand on my mom's shoulder as I stepped around the door. "Just a little snack."

"Well okay," said Cassie, collecting herself after my mom's verbal shock and awe. We went to the kitchen and grabbed the plate with arranged, still hot bao zi and each had one, making sure to thank my mom and tell her how good they were before we took the rest up to my room to work.

"So your mom's pretty intense," Cassie observed, looking over her shoulder as she shut the door, as though my mom might be lurking even now.

"Yeah, I think she gets lonely. Her English isn't that great and you know it's a long way from China," I said with an apologetic half-smile.

"Oh no! Not like it's a bad thing, it's cute, and those pot stickers are REALLY good."

"Yeah... It's why I'm always scheming to get people over here to make her cook!" I smiled and rubbed my hands together in an appropriately sinister way. Cassie snorted and shook her head, a little smile teasing across her lips. She really did have a pretty smile.

I had put us down for Ibsen and we both agreed we were going to do a really basic presentation. Getting enough background to fill our five minutes was no problem, so we wound up spending most of our time eating bao zi and giving a running commentary of our nascent poster.

"I'm Hans Christian Andersen and I'm here to remind you that feminism will make us cut off your feet and tongue," she said in a pinched voice as she pasted on a picture of the old conservative.

"Well I'm Henrik Ibsen and I say women should be free. Burn bras, side burns, party!" I replied as I added our mutton chopped friend to the poster.

"No one cares about you, Ibsen! I get made into Disney films."

"Disney films about slutty mermaids whose skankdom pays off... Bitch."

"Well... nyah!" She twisted her face like she was chewing on a lemon and we both laughed. Then she went back to the poster, leaning over it to check our gluing jobs. The way she arched over made her green long sleeved shirt hug to the curve of her back, her heavy breasts falling forward a bit towards the V neck. But what I really noticed was how the residue of our little laugh teased her mouth into a smile. I pressed my lips as I felt a weird lightness in my gut.

She gave me a look out of the corner of her eye. "What?" she asked, like there might be something wrong with her.

"Nothing!" I blurted as I snapped back to reality, whipping my head back to the poster. But she had caught that look and twisted to face me, still leaning forward, her weight on one hand. I furtively looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Her smile deepened a little.

"You're blushing, it's cute," she teased.

"I just zoned out for a bit!" I protested, fiddling with something on the poster.

"Suuure." She turned around to face me, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and I couldn't help glancing at the alabaster cleavage she displayed, before I met her eyes. I've always noticed other girls' breasts and wished I had more of my own and hers looked, well, good.

"I always thought you were cute," she said matter of factly as she crawled a bit closer to me. I felt my breath catching in my throat.

Her face hovered just in front of mine, eyes looking right into mine. I felt her fingers gently stroke my cheek.

"So pretty," she whispered. My lips felt dry as they parted just a bit. Her hand slid around behind my hair and drew my lips to hers. I closed my eyes, heart pounding as she guided me into the kiss. Our lips locked, and I felt a buzz running all through me as her tongue probed into my mouth.

She was in her element, calm, collected, taking her time. Her arms came around me, hugging me towards her, her hands exploring me. I was sloppy, hands groping around her back, tongue clumsily overreacting to each little move of hers.

By the end of the kiss my world was spinning. She was cupping my face, her forehead just barely touching mine as she looked into my eyes. For a long moment we just looked at each other. This was big. She was a girl, and we had just kissed, and I didn't' even know what to think. All those thoughts kept running through my head as I looked into those pale eyes.

She cracked up. I was flabbergasted for a second, then started laughing along with her, still all tossed up and turned around.

"What?" I asked, barely able to talk through the laughing.

"The look on your face, just, yeah...."

I bit my lip, having no idea what to do, but when she stopped laughing and looked back at me with a gleam in her eye I knew exactly what we'd be doing.

When she left a few hours later, the poster still wasn't done.

***

My mom's first reaction after Cassie left was to ask me why she had never heard of her before. Since I was grinning like an idiot she figured we must be close. That's when the reality hit, and I felt my stomach clench into a knot.

"She's just a fun person," I told her, paying careful attention to the countertop.

I didn't know what my mom thought of homosexuality. It had never come up. I did know that she didn't believe in divorce. My dad had gone back to China years ago to work as a consultant with her blessing, but the idea of a legal split was anathema to her. The only serious talk we'd ever had about sex boiled down to "Chinese girls save it for marriage".

I went back up to my room, looking at the half finished poster. Normally when I had Chinese family drama I called Mary for some commiseration, but that was a conversation I was not looking forward to having: "By the way, I might be gay! Yeah, with that girl you think is creepy! I just didn't want that to be awkward, you know?"

Cassie called me twice the next day, left messages about getting back together, talking about what happened and finally finishing up the poster. I texted her back, saying that I had finished the poster and that she wouldn't have to worry about it. My phone buzzed, just a text. I opened it.

"So thats the way its gonna be".

I snapped my phone shut, went to my bed and cried.

***

I always noticed her, but on Monday I really wished I didn't. I could feel her glare on me all through first period and as soon as the bell went off I was out like a shot. A few seconds later, Mary caught up to me in the hall.

"Cassie was really shooting you the death glare," she said in a low voice, a pissed look on her normally pleasant features. People always saw Mary as either a sweetheart or a conniving bitch straight out of Mean Girls. She was both, and when someone messed with her friends you saw it.

"Whatever," I said, speeding up a little, not wanting to look at her.

"Who does she think she is? After you went out of your way to be nice to her! What happened?" Mary loved her friends, but she also loved gossip. She knew something was up and I knew that she wouldn't let it go, but I still tried.

"Nothing, it was stupid," I muttered.

"Stupid isn't nothing," she hissed, righteous anger and high school curiosity wedded into one unstoppable force.

I couldn't take it. I just wanted to get her off my case, to make it all go away. "She made a pass at me and I said no."

"Seriously?"

"Look, I don't want to talk about it." I turned and stared her in the eye. Her face had softened a bit and I felt bad, not just for stabbing Cassie in the back, but for lying to my best friend. "Just don't tell anyone, please? Okay?"

"Okay," she said. Mary loved gossip, but she also loved her friends. And the reason we were so close is that I knew which she loved more, hands down.

***

It ate at me all week, especially when the first round of presentations started on Wednesday. We watched the pairs do their things, and I always tried to avoid noticing Cassie sitting there with a stony look on her face.

At home my mom asked if she was ever going to see Cassie again. I said we did what we had to do, and that I didn't think Cassie would come over again.

Lying to my mom was actually easier than lying to Mary, but also a lot scarier. Growing up, I'd gotten used to living in two worlds, one at home and one outside. They didn't interact much and I worked hard to keep it that way.

A lot of my outside friends, especially the non-Asian ones, couldn't understand the intensity of my relationship with my parents. They had left everything they knew behind to give me better opportunities in the US, and they expected me to take advantage of the possibilities. So they pushed me in ways that scared other people. They called me stupid when I acted stupid, pushed me to work long hours and punished me in ways that a lot of non-Asian parents would never consider. But I knew that I meant everything to them, and more than anything else I was terrified of disappointing them.

So I lied to my mom a lot, but only about the small things. I worked hard for my grades, studied for tests, but if I wanted to spend a day at the mall unwinding I'd say I was at the library cramming. I wasn't supposed to watch any TV, but a lot of "group projects" involved watching teen dramas at Mary's house. It wasn't that I wanted to deceive her, but she came from a different world than the one I lived in, and I had to keep a foot in both.

Dad was simpler. He lived an ocean away so I only had to tell him about the big stuff, not lie about all the little day-to-day things that he just wouldn't get. But this was a big thing, and a thing he wouldn't get. At least I didn't think he would.

Being gay was something that happened in the outside world. I had friends that came out, and that was fine. But I also had friends that had a B average. Neither of these were possibilities for me personally. Well, getting Bs was possible, but terrifying. Homosexuality just didn't exist in my family. Things would happen "when I got married" which was as natural a part of life as growing up, graduating and dying.

And if I was gay I would have to tell them that so many of their hopes and dreams for me just wouldn't happen. At least not in the way they thought. It was scary, but at the same time, if I really was gay maybe they would come around. I remembered when I had been studying for the SAT and wasn't consistently getting the scores I needed, I had been burning the midnight oil until I broke down crying. My mother, the ferocious, vicious tiger mom who had told me that 1400s were for state schools, came in and told me to stop. We had the kind of honest conversation parents and children usually dance around, telling me that she was proud of me no matter what and that all she wanted was the best for me. So maybe she would understand this now.

I didn't even know I was gay. Lots of people experiment, right? Maybe this was just a thing that would pass. But what if it wasn't? I always appreciated guys aesthetically, but I never had the same kinds of slavering crushes as Mary. I had only kissed one guy and one girl; could I really figure out anything life changing from that?

Those were all big questions. They would need big answers later, but right now I had to figure them out one step at a time. I had stabbed Cassie in the back, lied to my friends and family and made a confused mess out of things. It wasn't right to leave it there and I knew what I had to do. I really, really didn't want to do it. It was 10 when I called her, after I turned off the lights. I held my breath for the first few rings, but then I thought I might luck out and get the answering machine.