Endings and Beginnings

"You know what I said," Stephanie said, her tone now changed, "and it's already becoming apparent that I shouldn't have said it."

"Why?"

"Because it's obvious that it's upset you."

"I wouldn't say upset," Rebecca replied. "More like taken me totally by surprise. I mean, it's not like I was expecting anything like that."

The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the waitress who stayed only long enough for Rebecca to order coffee for the two of them. The blonde haired woman, who was about ten years older than Rebecca and whose nametag identified her as Mary, quickly wrote down what they wanted.

"But now that I have said it," Stephanie said once she was gone, "how do you feel about it?"

"Honestly," Rebecca replied, drawing a deep breath to give her another moment to think, "I really have no idea. I mean I love you, Stephanie, but do I love you like that? I mean, I really don't know."

"But you're not dismissing the idea out of hand," Stephanie said, more a statement than question, her tone now hopeful.

"No," Rebecca simply said, anything more cut off by the reappearance of the waitress with their coffee.

Stephanie waited a few moments as they poured the various accouterments into the hot beverage, then went right to the point and asked Rebecca if she'd ever considered a relationship with another woman?

"No, I haven't," she answered, "but that's not to say I've never been curious about the idea. But whether that's curiosity about simply being with another woman, or something more, that I don't know."

"Well, that's something, at least," Stephanie said.

"All in all, though," Rebecca countered, "the timing of all this could've been better. Like before I packed up and moved two hundred miles away."

"Yeah, I probably should've said something before that," the dark haired girl admitted, "but I didn't. The question remains, what do we do, now that I have said it?"

"I'm not sure," Rebecca said, pondering it for a few seconds then adding, "I guess the idea of just making believe we both had a few too many drinks isn't really an option, is it?"

The expression on Stephanie's face said it wasn't.

"You realize that whatever happens, I'm back in D.C. come Monday morning," Rebecca said.

"I know that," Stephanie assured her.

"Part of me, the logical part, says I should just say, sorry, Steph, but I don't love you in that way, and leave it at that," Rebecca said, "but the emotional part of me says what if that's not the answer I should be giving."

Rebecca paused for a moment, raising her coffee cup to take a sip and collect her thoughts. Then she continued.

"Also, and most importantly, I don't want to be making a decision for the wrong reason. Back at the club door, you joked about my needing to get laid in the worst way, and I'd be dishonest if I didn't say there wasn't some truth in that. I haven't been with anyone since Simon and I broke up, and I'm sure that's affecting my judgment as well. It has in the past when I went to bed with someone for no other reason than that I was incredibly horny. I'm not saying that happened a lot, but it happened. The only up side to it was that those guys never meant anything to me, so it didn't bother me that it had only been sex. You on the other hand are my dearest friend and I wouldn't want to use you like that."

"What if I didn't mind being used?" Stephanie asked.

"Do you really feel that way?" Rebecca asked.

"Honestly," she said, echoing Rebecca's words from before, "I'd really rather have more. But, if all I could ever have you for is a single night, then I think that would be a night worth having."

"Even if this was something we decided to do," Rebecca said, not saying it was something that had decided, "it would leave us with the where of it all."

Stephanie had to agree, also ignoring the fact that no decision had been made. Neither of them lived in Manhattan and it was at least an hour's train ride to her house in Queens or Rebecca's parents' home in Brooklyn. Not that either location would afford them the privacy they would need.

"Do you know what we sound like?" Rebecca laughed, "Two high school kids looking for a place to fool around where they won't get caught."

A clearing of a throat made them away of the unnoticed presence of their waitress, who had come back to see if they wanted anything else. The same thought occurred to both girls, how long had she been standing there? Assuming it hadn't been long, they said they didn't need anything else. Mary jotted something on her pad, then ripped off the check and put it down on the table. She started to leave, then paused as if she was deciding to say something.

"Excuse me," she said, "I know this is really none of my business, but you two seem like really nice girls and I couldn't help but overhear most of your conversation. Now I know what kind of club that is down the block..."

"Oh Christ," Rebecca said under her breath, thinking the last thing they needed right now was a lecture from some know it all moralist about the sins of lesbianism.

"In fact, I even went there one night, just out of curiosity you understand," she continued, that admission instantly changing Rebecca's assumption. "I guess what I wanted to tell you was that if you were looking for a place to spend the night in the city, there's a really nice little hotel about three blocks over on Third called the Riverside Arms. It's nothing special really, but it's both clean and inexpensive and a lot more private than the back room over in the club. Lord, the things I saw going on in there, it certainly was an eye opener."

Having said what she wanted to say, Mary went back to the front counter.

"Back room?" Rebecca asked, looking at Stephanie for an explanation.

The only one she got was a "what can I say" look.

"So I guess if we want it, we now have a where," Rebecca said.

"Which brings us back to the if," Stephanie said, stating the obvious.

They looked at each other for what seemed the longest time, until finally Rebecca said, "One night, no matter what tomorrow brings."

"One night," Stephanie agreed, her face unable to hide how much she'd wanted to hear those words.

Paying the bill at the counter, they both flashed Mary a smile, knowing that they'd left her a tip back on the table that was five times what the two cups of coffee had cost.

As they walked down the street towards Third Ave, a thought suddenly occurred to Rebecca.

"I wonder," she said to Stephanie, "if Mary was in that back room, and it was as wild as she made it sound, how much further did her curiosity take her?

Having been there a time or two herself, Stephanie could only smile.

-=-=-

The Holiday Inn it wasn't, but like Mary had said, the room was clean and while inexpensive was a matter of opinion, it wasn't as bad as it might have been, especially split between the two of them. In most places, even in Manhattan, two women checking in together, with no luggage might have at least raised an eyebrow or two. At far as the middle-aged woman behind the front desk was concerned; all that mattered was that a guest had cash up front, or at least a valid credit card.

"Be it ever so humble," Stephanie laughed as, after closing the door behind them, the two women looked about the small room, "and I do mean humble."

"Oh it's not so bad," Rebecca replied after finishing her quick inspection, thinking as she did that she'd up wound in worse places at the end of a date, most of which had charged by the hour. "It's clean, private, and had all the necessary accouterments," she added, glancing at the double bed on the right, even as she mentioned the bathroom to their left.

"Speaking of which," Stephanie said as she excused herself, suggesting that Rebecca make herself comfortable while she was gone.

Rebecca watched Stephanie disappear into the bathroom, noting that she didn't close the door behind her, an invitation to continue their conversation.

Slipping off her shoes, Rebecca sat down on the center of the bed, her legs curled up beneath her. There was a question on her mind, and this seemed as good a time as any to ask it.

"Stephanie," she called out, pausing a moment in order for her friend to reply before going on, "when did you know...I mean when were you sure that you were attracted to girls?"

"August 10th, 1999," the younger woman replied without the slightest pause, her voice loud enough to be heard over the sound of running water in the sink.

The exactness of her answer took Rebecca by surprise. She had expected something a lot more generalized, maybe a particular age, but hardly a specific date.

"That was the night of Sarah Burton's birthday party," Stephanie clarified as Rebecca heard the water shut off. "It was a pretty big affair at her house, after which a few of her closest friends had been invited to stay for a sleepover."

Stephanie paused a moment as she dried her hands on one of the towels, then continued.

"There were four of us, Sarah of course, myself, Ginger Lee, and Mary Lou Spencer, and like most sleepovers, sleep was the last thing on any of our minds. I remember us all staying awake until the early morning, talking about the boys that had been at the party, well, at least most of us were, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself."

Even though she knew Stephanie couldn't see her, she silently nodded her head. Just about every girl, she knew, had similar experiences with their girlfriends while growing up.

"The other girls were all pretty excited, and with Sarah's parents having long gone to bed up on the second floor and us down in the basement playroom, the talk didn't take long to get pretty intimate. We had started off just trading opinions about what guys we thought were hot and who were really dorks; then it got a little wilder and we were soon asking each other who you would actually do it with. Ginger, I want to point out, claimed that she and her boyfriend had actually done it already, but none of the rest of us believed her."

Rebecca smiled; she'd had those discussions too.

"It wasn't long before we wound up discussing who we thought had big cocks. It's funny, but I remember the girls in our class talking about that almost as much as the guys talked about what girls had big boobs. Of course the guys were more open about it, I guess because they could tell by looking at us with our clothes on. Unless of course the girl in question was stuffing her bra."

There was another momentary pause and Rebecca wasn't sure what Stephanie was doing, but the narrative picked up again before she could ask.

"That of course led to the question of what you would do with one of those big cocks if you had the chance," she said, still from inside the bathroom. "It wasn't so much the question of if we would let a guy put it in us, that pretty much seemed a given eventually, but whether or not any of us was willing to take one in our mouth. For some reason, most of the guys seemed to be more interested in getting a girl to do that than getting between her legs. I guess that maybe they thought that it was a lot safer, pregnancy wise and such. Also, there were a lot more places you could have oral sex than intercourse, at least comfortably."

Having had her share of backseat romps in her early years, Rebecca understood exactly where Stephanie was coming from.

"Well, anyway," Stephanie said, realizing that she was getting off the point, "there we were, engrossed in the discussion of heterosexual splendor, and all I kept finding myself thinking was that Mary Lou had the most perfect breasts I had ever seen."

"Oh my," Rebecca silently said, trying to imagine what a revelation that must've been.

"Mary Lou, I should mention, was one of those girls who developed early, the kind that drew guys like moths to a flame," she said, drawing her lengthy answer to a conclusion. "Even now, I can still remember the nightgown she was wearing that night, pale blue with material so translucent that you couldn't help but see her big nipples right through it. There was nothing in the world that I wanted so much at that moment than to just reach out and touch them. Hell, I wanted to suck on them and I didn't care who else was there or what they might think."

If Rebecca had considered a reply, it vanished from her thoughts as Stephanie picked that moment to reemerge from the bathroom. Gone were the tan slacks she'd had on, along with just about everything else she'd worn to work that day, the sole exception being the dark blouse she had admired. Yet even that had so many buttons opened on both top and bottom as to now prove practically useless as an article of concealment.

"The bathroom's all yours," Stephanie smiled.

Rebecca sat stunned for a moment, then slid off the bed and walked past the younger girl into the bathroom.

"Don't take too long," Stephanie grinned, letting an outstretched hand glide across Rebecca's ass for the briefest of moments as she passed.

The touch didn't go unnoticed by Rebecca but she let it go without comment. Not that it hadn't sent a tingle of excitement though her.

Looking at herself on the cheap mirror, Rebecca asked herself once more if she was sure she wanted to do this. The answer came as quickly as the question had been posed and she began to unfasten the clasp on her skirt.

Sliding it off, she carefully folded it and laid it on the vanity next to the small pile of Stephanie's clothes. It took her a few seconds to realize what was missing from that pile; her friend hadn't been wearing any underwear at all. She couldn't have imagined that they would've wound up where they had, so that meant that she did so normally. Rebecca could never imagine having that much nerve to go into work like that. Maybe that was the problem she mused.

The rest of her clothes followed; until all she wore was the simple, practical white bra and panty set she had put on this morning. Part of her wished she had picked something more provocative, but how could she have known?

"Everything okay in there?" she heard Stephanie asked through the half open door.

"I'm fine," Rebecca replied.

"Just checking," Stephanie added.

With that, Rebecca took a short breath and stepped out of the bathroom, drawing an appreciative whistle from Stephanie as she did.

"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?" Stephanie asked.

"Not many women," Rebecca said, blushing.

"Their loss," came her reply as she reached out her hand.

Together they walked over to the bed, hands coming together and fingers interlocking.

"Stephanie, I was wondering," Rebecca said, talking to keep up her courage. "Did you and Mary Lou ever..."

"No," Stephanie quickly answered, a touch of regret evident in her voice. "Although I did spent the rest of that night watching her and imagining what it might have been like. Mary Lou turned out to be one of those girls who not only was willing to take a guy in her mouth, among other places, but actually really got off on it. By the time senior year ended I don't think there were a half dozen guys in our class who hadn't had the pleasure of her affections. No, she was definitely too into guys to have any interest in me."

Rebecca silently nodded her head, having known a number of girls like that in high school herself. In fact, while not in the volume that Stephanie implied Mary Lou enjoyed, the twenty-nine year old had been a kindred spirit. Yet, here she was with Stephanie.

"Can I ask you a question?" Stephanie said as the two of them parted hands and climbed onto opposite ends of the bed.

"Certainly," Rebecca smiled.

"Are you nervous about being here?"

"Maybe a little," Rebecca answered honestly.

"Well, I just want you to know, we don't have to do anything if you're not sure," Stephanie offered. "We could just crash here for the night and go home in the morning, pretend none of it ever happened."

"No," Rebecca immediately said, "we can't do that. If we did, I think I'd spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Stephanie said as she pulled herself a little closer to the center of the bed, "I'm a little nervous too."

"You are?" Rebecca said, surprise abundant in her tone, "but I thought that you..."

"...had done this before," Stephanie said, finishing her sentence for her.

Rebecca's expression said that was it.

"I have, many times," Stephanie confirmed as she brought her hand up to just under Rebecca's chin, "but never with anyone that I cared about as much as you."

Their lips met in a soft kiss, one as brief as it was exciting. A second followed immediately, this one longer and even more enticing as Stephanie brought her other hand up and cradled both sides of Rebecca's face. A third kiss followed the second as naturally as three follows two, after which Stephanie paused long enough to ask her friend if she was okay.

"I'm fine," Rebecca said, the broadest of smiles adding to her words. "I guess I'm just not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do next."

"Why don't you let me worry about that," Stephanie smiled in return as a fourth kiss followed. "After all, I've been dreaming about this practically since the first day I saw you in the office."

"Stephanie," Rebecca said, pulling back in surprise, "that was over two years ago."

"Well, you know what they say." the younger woman replied, stroking Rebecca's hair, "Some things are worth waiting for."

Their lips met again, tongues interlocking as their bodies came together. If any hesitation remained, it was quickly banished. Stephanie eased Rebecca back onto the bed, telling her to just relax and she would take care of everything.

She kissed Rebecca, even as the palm of her hand came to rest on her left breast. Softly she squeezed the rounded orb, eliciting a soft moan of delight in response. Sliding her hand back and forth, she continued to massage both mounds, with similar results. Rebecca's simple bra unclasped in the front and Stephanie's nimble fingers were quick to see it undone.

A deep kiss followed, after which the black-haired girl brushed away the now loose material, closing her mouth over the exposed nipple. The tip of her tongue swirled around the dark circle, tickling the thickness rising up from the center.

"Oh yes," Rebecca moaned loudly as she felt the warm wetness engulf her breast. She closed her eyes as Stephanie's lips moved down into the deep valley between her breasts, leaving a trail of gentle delight.

The other hemisphere of Rebecca's bra followed the first and the already excited nipple just as quickly disappeared between Stephanie's lips. Her body was soon awash in a river of satisfaction, in which she could only imagine what further pleasures awaited her.

Stephanie continued to lavish her attention on Rebecca's chest, even as her hand slid down the prone woman's body, moving along the length of her leg. Gently her fingers glided up and down, caressing the soft skin as they moved.

Shifting position, Stephanie began to retrace the path of her fingers with her mouth, leaving a wet trail of kisses. An action that only increased the depth of Rebecca's satisfaction. Her fingers now free, they moved to the softness between her thighs and gently stroked that sensitive area too.

"Oh God, yes!" Rebecca gasped, unable to remember the last time anyone had taken their time in making her feel so good.

Following her hands, Stephanie brought her head down between Rebecca's legs and with outstretched fingers, pushing aside the plain white panties. The light brown bush beneath was tightly trimmed, the short hairs of which glistened in the overhead light with the dampness of her arousal.

Still taking her time, Stephanie ran an extended finger across the length of Rebecca's mound, tenderly parting the fold in the middle to expose the rich pinkness within. The tip of her fingers pressed forward just hard enough to expose the hard nub at the top, causing it to grow with anticipation.