Avery and Isaac

He also didn't know if he could just ignore the kiss. He was on cloud nine when it happened, and it didn't feel right to act like that wasn't what he wanted. He owed himself to try to be happy, but he knew he had to give her time, "Definitely not today. I'll just be her friend today."

He finished emptying his sink and started the dish washer before pouring his coffee. He stared at his phone and tried to transmit support and friendship to his suffering friend, "Good morning. What do you want to do today?"

He pressed send and decided that was a fine text. It was more talkative than what she sent and assumed that they would hang out today. He didn't want her to blow him off and he wanted to give her the option of what they had been doing all summer. Hanging out on her couch, slowly applying for jobs, sharing funny videos, and just spending time together. If the conversation came up, whether the kiss or just a discussion of her punishment, then that would be great, but he wasn't going to push it.

He stared at his phone but could tell from the read receipts that she hadn't seen it yet. He hoped that she went back to sleep and recovering from the previous day. It was ok if she ignored him for a while if she was recovering.

Resigned to a long morning waiting for her to respond, he turned up the sound on his phone and decided to take a shower. He wanted to be ready if he was called over to her apartment. He grabbed a towel from his bedroom floor and carried his coffee into the bathroom.

Isaac looked in the mirror and shook his head. Sometimes he thought he was ok looking, but other times he wished he had a sharper jaw line or the patience to grow a beard. After about a month, he always shaved it off. His blonde hair wasn't conducive anyway. From a distance, it looked patchy, so it wasn't worth the itchiness as it grew. He pulled off his clothes and scratched himself. His dick was surrounded by reddish-blonde curls and was deflating back to its unenlarged state as he got better control of his fantasies.

He flexed and felt stupid. He was never going to be a hulk, but he wasn't small either. His arms and shoulders looked strong, but he had a bit too much of a belly to be comfortable. "I'm getting old," he thought, knowing that was ridiculous. He was only twenty-eight and really had no excuse but laziness to not work out more, but it had never been his thing. Logically, he knew that Avery would never reject him for his looks. He was normal looking and probably above average if you take into account all the overweight men and those that didn't take showers. Avery, though, was absolutely perfect as far as he was concerned, "She deserves someone much better than me."

Isaac shook that idea out of his head and checked his phone one last time. Nothing. He would just have to wait for her. He jumped in the shower and began to enjoy the heat.

***

Avery had already washed herself and was relaxing on the shallow bench in the shower. She had put her hair products and body wash on the floor of the shower and leaning back against the wall of the small, square shower. The water was hitting her on her stomach, and she was debating if she had the energy to get out. It was warm and relaxing and exactly what she needed.

She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. It was difficult. Her view from the Judicial Center stage flashed through her mind. To her left other women were punished and in front of her the crowd stared at the stage. At her ten o'clock, Isaac only had eyes for her. In her mind, he was much closer than he had been in real life and she liked it. She was growing less embarrassed by the minute.

Avery wanted him to admire her, she realized. Otherwise, she wouldn't be imagining him closer than he was. The logic made sense to her and it doubled her resolve. When she got out of the water, she would tell him how she felt. She wanted him to rush over to her and care for her. She needed him.

The more confident woman started to stand and gasped. The water had hit her just right. One of those moments, like when she would rub against a pillow that touched her just right. Her right hand dropped to her bare lips. They were warm and she felt the urge to rub herself.

Avery wasn't sure what to do. She'd barely ever touched her own vulva and never like this. Yesterday, was one of the few days she could ever remember touching it twice. In this very seat, she had shaved and a while later she had had to open her lips for the warden to see what lay beneath.

She buried the latter memory and opened her legs a little wider. She completely covered her privates with her right hand: her palm on her mound and her fingers covering her lips. Instinctively, she wiggled her hips and liked the sensation beneath her hand. "Is this how it's done?" she wondered. She gasped. She hadn't realized that she was holding her breath until she needed more oxygen.

Her second hand seemed to move on it's own to her breast and brush over her nipple. That felt good, too. Closing her eyes, Isaac was behind her and it was his hands cupping her labia and toying with her breast. Her hips moved a little more forcefully, rubbing her lips her hand which pressed down harder. She didn't know what it was supposed to feel like, but this seemed like she was on the right track.

In her mind's eye, Isaac was holding her tighter and she felt small while she was wrapped in his strong arms. She opened her eyes and returned to the present. She was going to make this happen. The awakened woman inside her wanted out. She didn't want to be the shy girl too afraid to enjoy herself and she had a feeling deep in her gut that Isaac could help her.

With some regret, she stopped touching herself and stood to turn off the water. Avery opened the door and stepped into the steamy bathroom. The fuzzy image of herself in the hazy mirror looked much more confident she thought. She wasn't frowning at her hairless crotch and she swore she stood taller than when she had twenty minutes ago.

Avery started to dry off and looked at her phone, fighting the urge to touch her screen with wet hands. Trying to be patient, she wrapped her hair in a fluffy white towel and with a deep breath opened her phone.

Isaac had responded, "Good morning. What do you want to do today?"

She wanted to do so much. She fought the urge to answer with a simple one-word answer: you. That was the kind of joke he would make but maybe it was too much.

A couple options jumped through her head, ranging from sending him a nude (That's a thing other girls do, right?" she thought.) to playing coy. She grabbed a second towel and finished wiping the water from her body before wrapping it around her and heading to her bedroom.

She had done the same thing the day before in front of Isaac. He had been reading her Judicial summons and had, to his credit, tried not to stare at her in only a towel. In hindsight, she thought that was pretty brave and she wondered how long she had liked him and just not realized until the previous day.

Closing her bedroom door, she dropped her towel and sat on the edge of the bed. She had to think of something to say. She narrowed down to two choices. Telling him she wanted him to come over and telling him she wanted to talk about the day before. The former wouldn't scare him. It would be just like any other day and she would try to be brave enough to start the talk. The latter would get the talk started immediately.

She looked in the mirror closet door and talked to herself, "Just be normal. You got this."

Quickly, so she wouldn't second guess herself she typed, "Come over. Let's hang out."

It was gone and her journey was about to begin. She just had to have the courage to tell him how she felt. "Who's going to turn this down?" she asked herself as she saw her breasts jiggle in the mirror. He had called her hot the night before and a ten out of ten. Even if he was just being nice, it had been nice to hear and made her more confident.

She got up to find clothes for the day when her phone beeped, "Be there in twenty."

Her eyes widened. That was much sooner than she thought it would be and she had to answer quickly, "K, see ya soon. ;)"

Thoughts that had never went through her head started. "What do I wear. Do I need to be cute. Ugh, I need to pick cute underwear. I have to fix my hair! God, my room's a mess."

She ran to her dresser and started rummaging through her underwear drawer. It wasn't like she had actual sexy underwear. She'd never owned a thong in her life or anything sheer or otherwise fancy. She was not excited about wearing just her normal solid-colored briefs. Then she caught herself. She was already starting to breath quickly and felt herself getting nervous, "Relax. He's not going to care. Remember he's already seen everything."

With a little more control, she settled on a pair of navy blue briefs with light blue lacy trim around her waist and legs. She pulled them on and then decided to match. She had a bright blue sports bra that she pulled over her head, encasing her breasts. Avery knew sports bras weren't the sexiest, but her other bras were so boring.

She checked her phone again and he had responded, ";)"

"Oh god, I did the winky face," she thought. That was the flirty one. Had she done that on purpose and just not noticed, "Damn, am I just going to lean into it?"

She gritted her teeth. He was going to be here in fifteen minutes so she could just ignore it and make a joke about it later. "No, no, it's ok."

Excitement growing, she responded, ";)"

Avery opened her closet and was again disappointed by her options. She hadn't ever developed a real wardrobe. The nicest thing she had was a nice blazer and pencil skirt she had bought for job interviews and that would be ridiculous. She decided to err toward her assets. She grabbed a pair of yoga pants, knowing they would show off her hips ("He did say he liked thick thighs.") and pulled them on. They were gray with a red panel on the outside on her leg and ended halfway down her calf. For a moment she debated not putting on a shirt. "I can wear just a sports bra in the summer, right?"

She brushed that idea aside and grabbed one of her nicer t-shirts. It wasn't one of the unisex one that didn't hug her curves, but instead a more expensive pink t-shirt that was made to fit her breasts and be tight under her armpit.

Taking a deep breath, she looked in the mirror and decided the clothes were fine. It was short notice, after all, and at least she wasn't in her pajamas. Avery looked at her phone. Nothing. He must be driving. She let her hair down from the towel and realized there was no way she was going to make it look good. She grabbed a hair tie off her bedside table and quickly put her brown hair into a single braid that laid over her shoulder and took stock again. "Alright, alright. Ten minutes. Ugh, my rooms a mess. Did I put deodorant on? Crap."

Bending over she grabbed all of the clothes that dotted the floor of her room and threw them in the hamper which she hid behind the closet door. Then she ran to the bathroom and, reaching under her shirt, applied deodorant. Looking in the mirror, she lamented her hair and her complexion. The braid wasn't the nicest and there was no way to fix it with wet hair. She had a couple red spots marred her forehead and she didn't have time to cover them up. Stress the last couple weeks had made her break out and sleeping in makeup the previous night hadn't helped. "At least I showered and brushed my teeth," she told herself.

She grabbed her dirty clothes from the bathroom floor and through them in the hamper with the rest of the dirty clothes. She looked around the apartment and tried to clean the low hanging fruit. The odd sock was put away and she folded all the blankets and put them in the closet and threw the couch pillows where they belonged. Her breakfast table was full of junk, but what else was new? She didn't have time to handle that. Then she decided to clean her kitchen as best she could.

Checking her phone again, she was down to five minutes. She couldn't believe time was flying by so quickly. She tried to chide herself for caring this much. Isaac had seen her messy house plenty of times, but this time seemed different. She wanted to impress him more than she ever had even. She was rinsing glasses when her phone beeped again. The message read, "Parking."

She had two minutes. She dried off her hands and debated what she was going to do. The winky face made her think she had already committed to flirty. Was she just going to kiss him again? Was that going to make it weird? What if that wasn't what he wanted? Would that ruin their friendship forever or would they be able to laugh it off?

Avery unlocked the door so he could come in on his own and debated where she wanted to be. If it was just any other day then she would be on the couch, but this wasn't any other day. Before she could decide, she heard footsteps come up the stairs and the doorknob started to turn.

***

"Come over. Let's hang out."

That was all that Isaac needed to hear as he sat on his bed finishing of his coffee. Quickly he answered, "Be there in twenty."

Isaac pulled on his blue jeans and a white t-shirt and sat down to pull on his socks. He looked at his phone and something surprised him, "K, see ya soon. ;)"

Avery had never used that emoji before, and Isaac was sure about that. He had a crush on her for so long that he was always on the lookout for any bit of flirtation. But what did it mean? Was it a mistake?

This was a moment of truth. He could ignore it, or he could actually do something about his crush. This was what he wanted, and he might as well give it a chance. With three taps he responded, ";)"

He finished putting on his socks and laced up his sneakers. Finding his keys and wallet, he sprinted out of his apartment. He was ecstatic with the turn of events. He expected his phone to sit silent for hours, imagining, incorrectly, that Avery must have gone back to bed or didn't want t to talk to him.

Isaac jumped into his car and turned the keys and looked at his phone. At first, he thought that he was reading his own message and then his heart leaped further. Her response was just a winky face as well.

He couldn't help it. He felt his dick leap as well as well as he felt some hope of picking up where they left off when she kissed him. That was what this meant, right? It definitely wasn't an accident. She had sent the emoji twice now. "She knows what that means right? Maybe, she is pretty sheltered. No, she understands texts, she's not that innocent. God, is this really happening? Is she messing with me? No, she doesn't do that."

Isaac worked his way through the town on his way to Avery's apartment. In the back of his mind was that he was never going to speed ever again. That was what had gotten Avery into this situation in the first places. He remembered her penal summons, her crime handwritten into a blank form, "Operating a vehicle above the legal limit (10-19mph)."

It was terrible what the government was doing to people now. It made no sense. Fines from tickets like that were what paid for the roads and schools. What was going to happen when those organizations spent their rainy-day funds? He really had no clue. He hadn't paid attention at all to the introduction of the laws two years ago or really any bit of politics at all. It almost made him want to get caught up and figure out what was going on in this country. Maybe they raised taxes some other ways? He really had no clue.

He didn't want to go down the road of wondering what else the government was doing. He had scanned down the entire list of punishments being particularly appalled by chemical irritation and urethral dilation. "I mean, really? Nobody deserves to get their dick holes stretched," he thought.

There were other terrible ones among the fifty J codes, and he had seen a couple of them. The one bar prison that he'd seen used yesterday was brutal. Obviously, he didn't have a vagina but from the way that young woman had cried and the way her leg muscles tensed and shook, it must have been excruciating. Of course, there were the impact punishments as well like the spankings and canings and croppings targeted at different intimate parts.

How could people like watching that stuff? He thought of the jerk who sat behind him, Evan, who excitedly explained every punishment to his friend. "He was such an asshole," Isaac thought. He never wanted to witness a punishment ever again and he would do just about anything to avoid being up on stage. And he never wanted anybody to mortify Avery like that again.

Even the tamest punishments, like what Avery had gotten seemed traumatic. He was worried about Avery and she had assured him over and over that she was ok. The people who got the worse punishments, like the poor Indian girl whose pussy had been cropped yesterday, might not ever be the same. Isaac could barely believe that that wasn't even the worst punishments. Offenders could have their genitals electrocuted or, if they were sentenced to the worst punishment, a J50, they could be strangled. Not to death, of course, but if you were the one whose breathing was cut off it would feel like you were dying.

Isaac tried to shut this line of thinking down. He should be thinking of Avery and taking care of her. If he was lucky that winky face meant something a little more and he would give a lot for that to be true. He shook his head. He didn't want to think like that. The first and most important thing was that Avery be ok and he didn't want to push anything.

It was just so stupid. Her punishment had nothing to do with sex or her sex life. Or, at least, it shouldn't. It was unfair. A speeding ticket shouldn't give her hang ups about sex. She should just be able to pay her fine and move on. If she had kissed him after paying a fine, then he would have no qualms flirting with her. He wouldn't have to worry at all that the kiss was just the side effect of heavy, sexually charged emotions. It could just be what he hoped it was: a real sign that she returned his affections.

As he neared Avery's apartment, his heart was beating rapidly. As he sat at the red light, just outside her complex, he typed a quick message, "Parking."

He did it without thinking and images of police lights went through his mind for texting and driving. "That's so fucked up," he thought, angrily. The wrong cop sees him do that and his dick would be flopping on stage while strangers watched. That just wasn't right.

Isaac sighed, knowing that he shouldn't be getting worked up over this. Especially when he was about to go see Avery. He was supposed to be the calm, chill, and relaxed friend. Everything was supposed to just roll off his back like nothing so he could be the stoic supporter.

He parked near the apartment office in guest parking and headed toward Avery's apartment. It was a beautiful morning with bright blue sky and a slight breeze, but it was going to be hot as the sun rose higher. He walked a few hundred feet to Avery's apartment and walked up the stairs.

Isaac stopped outside her door and paused. He loosened his shoulders and tried to relax as he reached out to test the handle. Often it was unlocked, and this proved to be the case. He put on a smile and opened the door.

Avery stood just inside the door and looked surprised for a moment. Quickly, her face lit up and transformed into a beautiful smile. He loved her round cheeks and brown eyes.

"Hey, Av . . ." Isaac started, but before he could finish his greeting she reached out and pulled him toward her.