The Stronger Girl 04

"He famously has 'yellow fever'" she winced. "It's a thing," she assured Annie. But she also explained that she had been dating someone when she joined the film club, and by the time she'd become single again, it had been pretty painless for her to draw a line with him.

Annie wondered if Nancy had been dating a girl or a boy. Tried to picture either, but nothing she pictured felt convincing.

Nancy had then taken Annie by the hand and made a point of introducing her to all the girls there while steering her away from Shawn and the other boys, which Annie appreciated. It was a nerdy awkward bunch of girls, but friendly and welcoming. Annie told Nancy she'd probably join.

The walk back to the dorm was bitter cold. Nancy and Michele bracketed Annie holding her and rubbing her to keep her warm. Perhaps to distract her, Michele asked them what the worst movie they had ever seen was, saying hers was Last Tango In Paris. She told them how a boy she was dating had taken her to see it.

"I think he thought it was going to be so sexy that I'd fuck him in the theater or something." It had been so pretentious and awful that she'd walked out and broken up with the boy.

That she had dismissed the idea her-fucking-the-boy and not the-boy-fucking-her seemed very Michele to Annie. She tried to imagine what sort of boy Michele would date. She had never thought about Michele with a boy. Tried to imagine her having sex with a boy but couldn't picture it. At the same time, however, no part of her thought Michele was a virgin.

"What about you Annie?"

She blinked; looked at Michele, was at a loss. "What about me?"

"What's the worst movie you've ever seen?"

"Oh" she exclaimed, but then without a moment's more hesitation "The Five Thousand Fingers of Dr. T."

Both Michele and Nancy looked at her blankly.

"It's-" she started, suddenly embarrassed, "...a Doctor Seuss movie."

"A kids movie?" Nancy asked

"It's not a cartoon" she clarified but saw right away that she hadn't cleared anything up. "It's really weird."

The two other girls waited for her to explain.

"I was coming down with food poisoning or a flu or something when we saw it," she told them. "And I was really young," she added. She could feel herself blushing; "...and it was so strange and scary." She felt like she was pleading, knew she must sound defensive, that the other girls thought she was silly. "I had crazy fever dreams that night." explained, wanting them to understand. Giving up she admitted, "I had nightmares about it for years."

"Little Trouble Maker," Michele whispered, pulling her tight.

"What about you Nancy?" She asked.

"Old Boy."

"Really?" Michele sounded confused. "That's a great movie."

"What's Old Boy?" Annie asked.

"This Korean movie" Nancy told her, "...my dad took me to see it."

"Fuck off!"

Annie looked at Michele, registered her shock and disbelief, and at Nancy, her look of shame and disgust. Knowing she had missed something, she turned back and forth between the girls, trying to understand what.

"I like Korean films," she said, as much to herself, as to the others.

Michele had barked a laugh and then quickly apologized.

"Yeah. Don't see this one with your dad." Nancy told her.

Annie was pretty sure she had never seen a movie with her father. Tried for a moment to picture sitting next to him in the dark eating popcorn. The image was so incongruous it made her smile.

Michele laughed again and swore, then asked "What happened?"

"We stayed 'til the fucking end. Watched the whole thing. He hadn't known, and then, I think he didn't know what to do. I was fifteen." She gave Michele a wan look. "The ride home was awful. We didn't talk. We NEVER talked about it, still haven't talked about it. And never saw a movie together again."

Annie, still not understanding, thought that was really sad.

They walked for a moment in silence, Annie feeling sorry for Nancy. Then Michele burst out laughing; letting go of Annie, she doubled over. Nancy broke and started laughing too. When they had finally regained themselves Annie made them explain.

"Oh no!" She said with a grimace. Again imaging her father sitting next to her, eating popcorn. Waved her hand in front of her face, trying to dispel her image. "That's terrible. That's worse than-" she almost said The Handmaiden, stopped herself, remembered the look of contempt on her mother's face.

"He was so excited to see it!" Nancy chirped, still laughing hard with Michele.

As they approached the dorm the mood changed; sobered. The three of them climbed the stairs to their floor in silence. Annie again in the rear. But unlike the night before, Annie was wide awake, almost vibrating with excitement, and was sure the other girls were too. She could feel the pressure of the moment building, the expectation bearing down, so entirely different than the night before, but also from the week before.

They reached their doors and Nancy asked with a crooked smile, "Do you guys want to get high?"

"Do you want to watch?" Michele asked matter-of-factly.

Nancy looked a little taken aback, glanced at Annie - for her reaction? permission?

Annie waited.

She and Michele, watching Nancy. The crooked smile disappeared, her cheeks flushed, she looked back at Michele.

"Yes," she told her. "Very much," she said to Annie.

Annie opened the door and the other two girls followed her in. She kicked off her boots, turned on the kettle, and threw them her pillow, heading back out to wash the glasses while they settled in.

As she padded down the hall in her bare feet she wondered if Michele had done what she'd done because she knew Annie wanted this and wanted to give it to her. Or maybe simply because she wanted it. Or maybe she just wanted to be clear, that it was hers alone to offer.

When she got back to the room it was smoky. The girls were on Michele's bed leaning against the pillows. Annie filled their glasses, set the tea to steep, putting honey in each this time, her movements feeling delicate, even fragile. Remembering as she worked, the week before, the three of them naked and sweaty. Michele serving her and Nancy their long-gone-cold teas. The three of them drinking greedily on Annie's bed even though it was bitter after steeping too long. This time she made mint tea.

She unbuttoned her flannel shirt, turning around to face the others as she pulled it off her shoulders. With it open and off her shoulders, but still covering her arms, she unbuttoned her fly, spread the zipper wide, and pushed her jeans off her hips.

She moved with deliberation but didn't try to do a striptease. She had worn her prettiest underpants, however. A sheer bra and matching panties her grandmother had bought her that summer. "For college" she'd told Annie in English as they entered the tiny boutique near her building to pick them out. Annie asked if they had to tell her mother.

"Non, mon petit chou" she'd reassured Annie with a sly smile. "Our secret" her grandmother had promised again in English.

They were pink, but just barely. They had a fragile old-fashioned lace pattern that Annie adored. And they were tiny. She remembered how scandalous she thought they were when she'd first seen them; how forbidden. She'd tried to imagine wearing them for a college boy, and hadn't been able to. The idea had been too scary, too far beyond anything she was remotely capable of.

But here she was now, showing herself off to these beautiful girls. Her hands at her sides, hiding nothing, the sharp points of her hips thrown boldly forward. The little bikini panties riding low, hardly covering her shaved pussy, the crack of her ass almost entirely exposed. Her puffy nipples tenting the little triangles of the bra over her tiny tits. Nancy's wet lips parting. Michele's pupils turning her eyes black. Annie let the flannel shirt slip all the way off and pushed the jeans down, stepping out of them as they fell. Her skin was gooseflesh, her belly felt hot, and her breath shallow and fast as she crossed to them.

"Give me a hit."

Nancy lit the little pipe and drew a long hit. Annie kneeled over her legs, putting her hands on the other girl's shoulders, and pressed her lips against Nancy's, which parted and began to gently exhale. Nancy reached around and took a hold of Annie, a palm on her waist and the back of her other hand against her neck. Her hands were still cold, her touch gentle. Annie arched into the embrace. She felt Nancy's small pointed tongue move past her teeth, slow, almost deliberative in its movements, her own tongue greeting it, matching its smooth choreography. Annie savored the smokey slickness of Nancy's mouth as they kissed and shared breath.

As her lungs emptied she released her hold on Annie, and her tongue retreated. Annie climbed up and off Nancy, and standing on the bed she stepped over Michele, whose knees were raised. For a moment she stood, her pussy deliciously close to the stronger girl's mouth. She wanted badly to roll her hips, feel Michele's lips pressed against her panties. Spreading her knees, and resting her hands on Michele's shoulders, Annie folded herself down onto the crook of her lap.

Michele's eyes were hooded and black, her lips so full they looked swollen. Annie could feel her hard nipples stabbing the soft teardrop flesh of Michele's breasts. Annie wrapped her hands behind the back of her long powerful columnar neck. Michele's hands were somehow hot as she took Annie by the back of her head and neck, pressing her soft full lips over Annie's mouth, parting her lips with the great muscle of her tongue, drawing Annie's breath.

Annie felt herself go soft, submissive in the stronger girl's embrace. Heard herself begin to moan into the other girl's throat, the sound high, rhythmic, plaintive - an animal nursing. She felt betrayed and humiliated by the sounds but couldn't stop herself.

'At my suck' she told herself.

Michele's tongue moved through her mouth like the Leviathan, her small tongue following it, pushing against it, but no more shaping its movements than Annie might push aside a moving car.

She realized she was grinding her pussy against Michele's stomach. That her nails were clawing at the back of the stronger girl's neck. That her lungs were almost empty. She felt Michele relax her hold. Felt her great tongue withdrawing. Felt her lowering her knees.

Annie slid her hands back onto the stronger girl's shoulders. Clenched the big joints hard, less for stability and more just to feel the depth of muscle and tendon and bone. She pushed herself up. Again her pussy so close to Michele's lip; the magnetic pull. She stepped back, not sure who she was obeying, but feeling obedient.

Annie stepped off the bed while Michele embraced and kissed Nancy deeply, giving her the hit. She knelt watching jealously as Michele groped Nancy, squeezing her thigh, her ass, her breast, pinching and pulling at her nipple through her worn-out t-shirt. She wasn't sure if she was jealous that Michele was groping the other girl, or if it was that Annie wished she were the one groping Nancy so boldly.

As Michele's movements began to slow and soften, Annie knelt beside the bed. Nancy had curled her knees towards the stronger girl but now as they parted, they relaxed and her feet moved towards Annie. Michele leaned on one arm, still pressed against Nancy's side, and turned to look at Annie. As Nancy exhaled the remnants of the hit Annie imagined the weight of Michele's breast against the other girl's arm. Felt it as if it were against her own arm.

Both Michele and Nancy watched as first one, and then the other, Annie removed Nancy's socks. Again feeling delicate, she folded them and placed them beside her on the floor. Nancy had painted her toes. They were a lovely pink that matched her sweat pants exactly - part of Annie credited Nancy with having done this on purpose, having done it with this exact moment in mind.

She whispered "my Baby Miss" into her soles.

Annie kissed her toes. Thought of Sook-Hee's fingering her mistress' slack wet mouth. The submissiveness of the moment.

She took Nancy's toe into her mouth. Feeling instantly vindicated as she heard Nancy suck in sharply. Lips slack Annie tongued her toe, moving it around the stiff little digit as it had around Michele's tongue, pushing and twisting helplessly against the hard flesh. She looked up to see the other two girls watching her; saw that they were holding hands. The gesture, so chaste and sweet; both of them flush and fresh-faced. Annie on her knees in her Parisian underpants, drooling onto her thighs. She closed her lips around Nancy's toe and sucked it like a whore.

The girls watched as Annie moved back and forth between her feet, from toe to toe, worked her tongue between them. Nancy struggled to hold still but Annie could feel her stifled squirming and watched with pleasure as Nancy squeezed her thighs together and pushed at her lap. But she also watched Michele. Saw her hold on Nancy's hand grow tight. Saw the hunger; felt the wild thing howling behind her eyes.

Taking Nancy's toes from her mouth, Annie pushed herself back, pulling gently at the bottoms of Nancy's heels. Understanding, Nancy slid on her hip across the bed and put her feet on the floor to either side of Annie's knees, and stood. Running her hands up the sides of Nancy's legs, Annie rose off her haunches. Nancy was only a little taller than Annie, so whereas standing on her knees in front of Michele Annie would have had to bend her neck up to kiss her pussy, her mouth was about even with Nancy's navel, she blew softly at it through the moth-eaten looking cloth of her t-shirt, thought of Omar.

When she had first seen the Demon Dog shirt earlier that day she asked Nancy if she smoked hash. "I wish" Nancy had told her, "It's really hard to find - why?" Annie had pointed to her belly, told her that the little holes riddling the bottom of her shirt looked like hash burns. As it turned out it was an old shirt of Nancy's father. She said not in a million years could she imagine him smoking hash, that the holes were probably from a moth or his belt. Nancy had furrowed her brow then, asking "What do you know about hash?" Annie had admitted not much.

Omar's apartment had shared a balcony onto the courtyard with her Grandmother's. He had been in his mid-20s, studying to be an architect, and her grandmother had not approved of him. "Tsss" she'd sucked at her teeth when Annie asked her about him. She didn't trust him was all she would say. Annie was surprised. He helped carry the groceries, and Annie knew he went on errands for the old woman, that he'd even fixed a light once.

Still, she did not like him, but Annie had. He was worldly, painfully thin, and had delicate features - almost beautiful. He'd smoke tobacco spliffs on the balcony that rained bits of burning hash tar onto his stomach and lap. All of his shirts had looked like Nancy's. She thought he was impossibly exotic.

Annie had decided the hash smoking was why her Grandmother disapproved of Omar. Still, she had let Annie visit with him on the little balcony. He'd tell her long stories, usually speaking too fast for her to follow, smiling and shrugging when he realized that he's lost her. Sometimes he'd make clever little sketches or draw simple but lovely maps. He had been kind to her.

One day in the stairwell he'd shown Annie his erection. She had bent over to put down her bags for a moment, was looking at the ruins of his shirt when she realized with a jolt he'd pulled it out, was holding in front of her nose. It was enormous and had smelled sour. There, on the dark little landing, Annie's whole body had begun to tremble violently. She had been sure he was about to rape her. But he had cooed and shushed and moved her hand onto it. He had asked her to kiss it, said something about her mouth. She had turned her face away but had stroked him until he came. She had been careful to catch his ejaculation in her other hand - afraid he would get angry if she got it on his clothes.

He had patted her on the head, called her "mon petit minuscule", left her there on the landing, holding his semen in her cupped hand.

Annie breathed in, filling her lungs with the clean scent of Nancy's belly through the perforated cloth. She pulled her sweatpants and panties down over her ass, lowering them slowly to the ground. Glancing between Nancy's thighs, she smiled to see Michele, crowned in braids, eyeing Nancy's bare ass.

'All that she surveys' thought Annie.

As she helped Nancy free her feet, she thought of Nancy braiding Michele's hair. How much she had always longed for that kind of contact with other girls. She knew what boys wanted from her, had for some time understood, at least abstractly, what was expected of her. The desires of boys were so obvious and insistent - an obligation that grew as Annie had grown older, something she had never imagined she could avoid, only satisfy in part - like Omar - or, at best perhaps, delay.

And as she had grown older the feminine warmth she longed for had seemed to move further and further out of reach. The possibility of it had grown increasingly remote; had gone from childish to perverse. She thought of her mother turning off The Handmaiden in disgust. Her mother's contempt for what they had seen, Annie's shame at having wanted to see more. Until Michele, and then Nancy, the desires of girls had been so mysterious, so impossibly taboo. She'd never even thought to hope.

Her hands still on the ground, she looked back up at Michele through Nancy's parted legs. The stronger girl was watching Annie's face, studying her. Annie wondered how long she had been bowed down staring at the soaked crotch of Nancy's little tighty-whities. Michele's expression hardly changed, but Annie saw her make her approval with the smallest lift of her jaw. As subtle as the urging was, it may as well have been a bellowed call of "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!"

Annie's hands rose up the backs of Nancy's legs as she turned her face up to look at the other girl. She saw that Nancy had turned her head, that she had been looking at Michele as well, and was only now turning to look at Annie. Their eyes met briefly just as Annie disappeared under the tattered hem of the Demon Dog shirt.

Nancy's abdomen convulsed as Annie's open mouth made a wet seal over her pussy. The soft hairs of her tiny toothbrush-bush tickled Annie's nose as she raised her chin and pushed her tongue into Nancy; her tangy warmth. Again Nancy's abdomen convulsed and her knees briefly gave, but Annie held onto her ass, her forearms tight against her thighs. Annie pulled her tight, keeping her on her feet.

Before The Handmaiden Annie had never imagined enjoying any sort of sex. Her fantasies had all been circumscribed, not about being with other girls or even other people - she had fantasized about being seen, being caught maturbating - masturbated about masturbating. Her dreams had been full of longing for things forbidden more than things being done; things so forbidden all she could imagine was the shame.

After masturbating about Sook-Hee with her finger in her mistress's mouth, Annie forced herself to stay away; had waited until long after she was sure her mother must have been asleep and snuck back to the TV. She had kneeled right in front of the screen and watched with the volume muted, a guilty ear for any creak or click or other sounds, ready to shut it off at a moment's notice. She'd masturbated again there on the floor in the cold, replaying the scenes between the two girls over and over. And while she had fantasized about all the things the girls had done ever since, she had never been able to imagine how those fantasies could possibly come true for her. It was all of the realms of Counts and Ladies, of servants and mistresses. The fantasy was totally unconnected to any real-world Annie knew. So remote from her life, so unconnected to the lives of the girls she knew, girls she hadn't even known how to covet in her imagination.