The Empath Cycle: 2013 Two To Tango

2013 Two to tango

Part 1

Chapter 1

"Damn weather!" Jeanine grumbled as she made her way through the lunch hour crowd in the sweltering heat. What had possessed her to accept her friend's invitation for lunch when she could have sent her assistant to pick up a salad at the snack bar on the ground floor of her building and eaten at her desk in the comfort of her air conditioned office?

Sighing, she admitted to herself that she couldn't have said no to the little pixie. They had been fast friends since their first day of high school.

Orphaned at a young age, Jeanine Laliberté learned early to defend herself and had little tolerance for those who picked on weaker children. She had issues with authority and could very well have turned juvenile delinquent on her way to a life of crime if it hadn't been for her grandfather who had channeled her aggression to more positive outlets. He encouraged her to take up sports and took her on the construction jobs which he contracted to teach her the value and reward of hard work.

Not naturally gregarious within her age group, Jeanine watched the crowd from where she leaned casually against the building as the grade eight students milled around in the school yard, waiting to be called in for orientation.

Jeanine's attention was caught when a group of kids started to pick on a smaller girl. When things got physical, she didn't think twice. Walking over, she targeted the biggest boy who had slapped the girl's school bag from her clutching hands and was already lifting his foot to kick her as she bent to pick it up. She grabbed his collar and easily pulled him to the ground while he was off balance.

He came up roaring and made the amateur mistake of swinging at her head with a roundhouse. She took him by surprise by walking under his fist and planting a sharp jab to his solar plexus. The boy landed on his ass, trying to catch his breath. She glared at the other bullies, daring them to come at her, while she helped their victim up and walked away with her.

A teacher who had witnessed the whole thing and had been on his way to intervene stopped and watched the scene in case he was needed. He grinned when he saw the hefty girl handle things decisively and keep the situation from escalating.

He had spotted the little girl earlier. She looked much younger and was smaller than the average. She was standing by herself as if she had no friends. He knew she would need help to integrate or be a prime target for bullies. He hated that new social phenomena. There had always been bullies around, but it had almost become institutionalized in recent years, a social norm of sorts. So, he was glad to see what he could only think of as an alpha take her under her wing.

A few minutes later, the children were called by the teachers in charge of their classes and they filed in to be shown around the school.

Her class was visiting the gymnasium installations when the director came over to ask Jeanine if she minded changing class. Nonplussed she agreed. One or the other didn't make any difference to her after all. When she saw the small girl she had rescued earlier in her new class, she got a glimmer of what was expected of her.

Carole Berger had known high school would be a different experience, but she had expected to be with her friends, not to move to a new town where she knew nobody.

She was overjoyed when she saw her savior arrive in her class. Shyly, she went over and re-introduced herself while the teacher explained the rules of the school library.

Though they were as different as imaginable, they soon found they completed each other perfectly.

A strong, muscular girl used to hard work and harder play, Jeanine found the little sprite intriguing. An introvert who preferred solitary sports like boxing, hiking and skiing, she enjoyed the company of her outgoing, expansive, gregarious new friend who taught her to socialize, first with her friends at the gymnastics club, then with the other kids in their class.

They also found that they shared a wicked sense of humor. Soon, the school was the scene of imaginative pranks. Nobody was spared. Neither the football team who had to leave the field during a game against their arch-rivals when the itching powder in their jockstraps took effect. Nor the senior science class who ended with black circles around their eyes when they used the microscopes in the lab. Or the teachers who couldn't use the blackboards one morning because all the chalks had been replaced by realistic looking plastic sticks. Or the school Board members whose pictures were replaced by nefarious historical personages (the originals were found in the teacher's personnel files).

Since there was no real vandalism involved and nobody got hurt, the perpetrators soon became the unsung heroes of the school. They even made the first page of Le Soleil, the local newspaper, when the Canada flag in front of the school was replaced by a homemade one featuring Bart Simpson with the caption 'Don't have a cow, man!'

Meanwhile the two girls had a friendly competition for the top places in class, tutoring each other. Jeanine had a definite talent in maths and sciences while Carole excelled in history, French and English.

The girls being at each other's place so often, it was only natural that Jeanine's grand-parents and Carole's parents became friends. Both men shared a passion for sports while their spouses loved cooking, so the guys bought hockey season tickets at the Bell Center and their wives took all the classes they could find to sharpen their culinary skills to the delight of both families.

Being only a few months apart in age, it was inevitable that the girls discover their burgeoning sexuality around the same time, if in different ways.

Having mainly been around men of all ages most of her life, Jeanine was the first to answer the call of her hormones. She had 'The Talk' at a young age and many follow-ups as her comprehension developed, so she knew to rebuff, firmly when required, older boys' advances, but she didn't balk at letting those of her age know of her interest. In fact, she was usually the aggressor, which put off many prospective partners. Jeanine didn't mind. She never confused desire for affection. Boys were there to fulfill her needs. Nothing more.

Carole, on the other hand, showed no interest in boys. In fact, she showed an uncharacteristic shyness around them when they got even slightly forward. Since she was a devotee of fashion magazines and always dressed prettily, though not gaudily like many other girls, boys interpreted her habit to experiment with make-up as an effort to tease them. When some of them took her rejection the wrong way and started to spread rumors that she was a cock-tease. Jeanine took the matter in hand. She went to the worst offenders and let them know in no uncertain terms that she took insults to her friend very personally. Since, by then, her skill as a brawler was well known throughout the school, she only had to insist with a single one. As the guy had six inches and fifty pounds on her, when she left him bloody and crying on the ground for his friends to pick up, the word was passed around quickly and the rumors ceased.

When Carole became aware of where her preferences lay, she was afraid that she would lose her best friend.

She need not have worried. Jeanine had been raised by open-minded children of the sixties. She also had a great role model in her Uncle Éric who was her boxing instructor. His father, Jeanine's granddad and de facto father, had hired him when he retired from the Royal 22^nd, the elite French Canadian regiment, with the rank of Captain. He had become a foreman on his construction sites and his partner, 'Uncle' Bernard, was being groomed in the business aspects so they could take over when Éric's father was ready to retire.

At one of their Saturday night sleep-overs, when the adults were away, Jeanine spoke to her friend about her new desires.

They were lying on the couch in the basement watching an action comedy tape since it was Jeanine's turn to pick. She was wearing one of her Uncle Éric's old army T-shirts and her favorite Bugs Bunny boxers. Carole wore a frilly pink négligé with matching lace thong panties. As usual, she didn't wear a bra and the pinkish nipples on her small perky breasts showed through the mostly transparent material. Jeanine envied her freedom. She had to begin wearing bras the year before when her breasts had started to develop rapidly, as did her now oversized dark brown nipples.

Jeanine was surprised when her diminutive friend confessed that she had never kissed a boy. She herself loved to kiss and let them fondle her breasts. She had these intense feelings when a boy played with them, particularly when he was bold enough to slip his hands under her bra and played with her sensitive nipples. Once she even had what she was sure was a mild orgasm when she let one boy push up her sweater and bra and he sucked and nibbled on her nipples.

In awe, Carole watched her friend unconsciously fondle her own breasts as she recounted the experience. Jeanine jumped when she felt the girl's hands over her own. Without thinking, she slapped them away before even opening her eyes. When she saw her friend's quivering lips and teary eyes, she pulled her on her lap, enfolding her in her arms.

"It's all right, Baby Girl. I didn't mean to hit you. You just surprised me."

"You looked so blissful that I wanted to share it with you if only a little."

"You can't share it with me, sweetie. You have to find a boy you like and do it with him."

"I don't like boys. They're gross, rude and they smell awful."

"I'll concede your points, but they have some uses and they're not all that bad. You just have to find the good ones."

"I guess..."

They were silent for a while, cuddling as they watched the screen. Carole had her head on Jeanine's shoulder... well, on the top of her chest, really. She was still troubled by the feelings that rose in her as she watched the other girl relive the experience of her first orgasm with a boy. She had struggled with similar feelings for a while. She knew that she should be interested by boys, but she just wasn't. In fact, she thought she might be attracted to girls.

She had her first inkling in the locker room at the gymnastics club a few weeks earlier. Thinking she was the last one there, Carole sat on the bench in front of her locker, naked, fresh out of the shower, brushing her long hair to a sheen.

She heard a noise coming from the back of the locker room. It sounded like a low moan. Thinking that someone might be hurt, she walked over. Before she turned the last corner, she heard a second moan, then giggles. She stopped in her tracks, wondering what could be going on there.

Cautiously peeking around the corner, she was flabbergasted by the sight that greeted her. Two older girls were kissing, rubbing their naked bodies together. One groped the other's breasts. The second one pulled her closer by an ass cheek with one hand while the other moved furiously between their lower bodies.

The young girl pulled back, floored by the sight of the two naked girls doing things to each other. Was this sex? How could it be? Shouldn't they be with boys?

Peeking again, she saw one of the girls kneeling in front of the other, kissing and licking the small breasts alternately while moving her hand between her friend's legs. Carole couldn't see what she was doing, but she could imagine it as she put her own hand on her tingling pussy. Finding it unaccountably wet, she first thought she had peed herself in surprise at the spectacle. When there was no trickle, she surmised that it was something else. Curious, she picked some of the wetness on her finger, shivering as it traveled from one end of her slit to the other. Sniffing her finger, she found the smell to be quite to her liking. So much so that she put her finger in her mouth, sucking it, reveling in the musky taste.

She would have gone on experimenting, but the moaning in the next aisle reached a crescendo and she was suddenly afraid to be caught snooping. She quietly raced to her locker where she got dressed. She made her way out on tip toes, taking care to close the door silently.

In the following days, Carole took every opportunity to be by herself so she could explore her burgeoning body, trying to replicate and expand these new sensations. From the little she had seen, she discovered her most sensitive spots, but she felt she was fumbling as she tried to push her own buttons in search of the mythical orgasm she had heard older girls talk about.

She needed more information, but didn't know where to find it. She couldn't ask her parents. Over the years, she had overheard enough conversations to know that they had many prejudices and hang-ups. Sex being a major one. Sex ed classes had been cut years before, so that was another avenue closed. She couldn't use the internet either at home or at school because of parental locks on the computers. The school library was woefully incomplete when it came to this kind of information. She suspected that the same people who protested vehemently every time the subject of sex education in school came up had censored all useful books.

The only people she knew for sure who could tell her what she wanted to know were the two girls she had spied on, but there was no way she would tell them she had watched them have sex.

That left only her best friend, Jeanine.

Carole spent days trying to come up with a way to approach her friend, but when she saw her caress her breasts, she moved without thinking, her desires taking over. The young girl realized she had made a serious mistake when her friend slapped her hands away. For a moment, she thought she was angry with her, something which had never happened before.

"I guess..." Carole began.

"What is it, Baby Girl?"

"I... I wanted to ask you... You're so beautiful and you have lots of sex with boys. I..."

"Let me guess." Jeanine took on. "You have questions about sex and you can't ask your mother."

"That's just it. We don't talk about sex at home. My mother even got angry at me once because I was watching a program on the Nature Chanel on the evolution of reproduction from unicellular organisms by scissiparity to the division of sexes as a scheme to mix genes so the species could evolve instead of simply copying the individuals."

"I'm sorry to hear that. So you never got 'The Talk'. You know. About the birds and the bees."

"Oh, I know about the birds and the bees, and about reproduction and sexual organs and such. What I don't know is what sex is supposed to be about in humans."

"Is that all?" Jeanine laughed. "From everything I've read and heard, that's the second most complicated existential question after 'what is the meaning of life'."

"Why is that? Sex is sex, no?"

"Well, yes, but emotions complicate everything. I've read some of my granny's romance books and most end like fairy tales where the characters live happily ever after, but the whole story is about complications leading to emotional pain and suffering."

"What about all the boys you go out with? Do you have sex with them?"

"Mostly, I go out with them to have a good time, but all they can think about is sex. I like kissing well enough, but I'm definitely not ready to go all the way. So, for now, I stall by letting them fondle my tits. They are very sensitive so I enjoy it very much."

"I could see that." Carole giggled.

"I'm sorry about that. I guess I got carried away."

"Oh, I don't mind. Do you think...?" The little girl blushed.

"What? Go ahead and ask. It can't be so bad."

"You see... I... Hum... A while back, I saw two girls have sex together, I think."

"Yeah? I heard about that kind of thing. My granny has some books on lesbian romance. It sounds pretty hot."

"Does it? Do you think I could borrow them?"

"Sure. I don't see why not. You could read any book you want in her library."

"I... I don't..." Carole suddenly threw her arms around her friend's neck, crying.

Bewildered, Jeanine didn't know what to do. Carole was very emotional, so it wasn't the first time she had seen her cry, but she suspected that this was something else entirely. She held her tenderly, murmuring softly, kissing the top of her head.

"It's okay, sweetie. Don't cry. If you want to talk about sex, it's fine with me. I'll tell you all you want to know about boys."

Carole cried twice as hard.

'Uh, ho!' Jeanine thought. She pulled her friend gently away so she could look into her eyes. "Does this mean you like girls? No, don't cry. It's all right."

"My parents say it's a sin and an abomination."

"So? You know for a fact they are wrong about many other things. Why can't they be wrong about this too? No 'but'. They're stuck in another century and you are not. I won't say it's my cup of tea, but there is nothing wrong with being attracted to someone of your own gender. Hell, my favorite uncle is gay and he's as much a man as any other I've ever seen. He's my boxing teacher and he fought in the Golden Gloves some years ago."

"Do you mean Uncle Éric?"

"Exactly!"

"My dad says that homosexuals are all effeminate hairdressers or chefs or something."

"That proves my point." Jeanine laughed. "That big brute is definitely not effeminate. He's the toughest bruiser you'll ever meet. My grand-dad hired him right after he came out of the army and says he's the best foreman on his construction sites."

"I can believe that." Carole giggled. "Who's going to argue with him?"

"So, you see? If that manly man could fall in love with another man, what can be wrong with a lovely girl like you loving other girls? Mind you, it won't be an easy life for you. There are many bigots around, but 'the times, they are a changing' like the song says. And if you're careful and discreet, you shouldn't have any more problems than boy-girl couples."

"Is this what it means to be 'in the closet'?"

"Exactly. It won't be forever, you know. Just until you're sure of yourself. When you're ready, it won't matter what other people think and you can let the world know you are a lesbian."

"So it's all right if I have sex with girls that I like?"

"It's not that easy, Baby Girl. All the lesbians our age are probably deep in the closet and really don't want to be exposed. I know a few older girls who are out and you know at least two at your gym club. I'm sure there are more. But that's not the worst problem."

"It's not?"

"You should really talk with granny. She can explain it better. Sex is one thing, with all the health issues involved. Emotions are something else. You are a very sensitive girl and I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"I won't!" Carole said confidently.

"Still. When we get up tomorrow, I'll ask her to send grandad out so we can have some girl talk."

"I can't wait! You're such a good friend, Jean. What would I do without you?"

Jeanine was glad she had pulled her friend out of her funk. She really did like her a lot. She also enjoyed having her on her lap and hugging her. She felt like an oversized doll. A soft cuddly doll that smelled really good.

At first, she didn't react when she felt soft fleshy lips on her neck. She instinctively offered it to more caresses. She moaned as the small tongue licked her sensitive points. She finally realized what she was doing when she felt teeth delicately nibble on her earlobe. She pulled away and turned her head. Before she could tell the girl in her arms that she didn't want to go further, their lips met.

Jeanine had kissed boys aplenty, but it had never felt like this soft and gentle. It felt natural to accept the tongue in her mouth when it licked her lips. She pulled Carole closer, mashing the girl's small perky tits against her own larger, softer ones as she instinctively deepened their kiss. She was turned on like she had never been. She wished she didn't wear a bra so she could feel her sensitive nipples more fully. She was glad there was a blanket on the couch because she could feel her cream leaking down to the crack of her ass. She knew her boxers would be soaked. She could even smell her own strong scent.