Scent of Vanilla

Lucy: What time do you think you'll get here tomorrow? x

Tom: Probably about 12, dinner's at 1 x

Lucy: Thanks :) can't wait to see you! xx

I put my phone down, face down, on the bare skin of my thigh. The device was too large to balance on my leg, really. I was too slim, but by a combination of keeping two fingers on the back of the phone's case and tucking the corner under the hem of my tight denim shorts, it was secure enough.

"Anyway, when Mr Gargrove told me my mark, I couldn't believe it, you know, only fifty-five on the project which had taken me weeks, so I instantly asked for a remark and he was just completely dismissive. Can you believe that? Anyway, I got Mrs Kilmore to look at it and she said it was at least eighty, so I got the remark and guess what? Ninety. Upgraded from fifty-five to ninety."

Robin looked over at me with a smug look, jiggling her leg and holding a plastic cup in one hand. "Ninety!"

"Can't believe it," I told her, sipping my own drink, which was an unidentified rum punch. I could taste pineapple but there was too much alcohol in it and I made a face.

"Anyway, next time I saw Mr Gargrove I said to him, look at how much it got upgraded, and this time he acted like he'd advised me to do that all along."

Robin was the smartest girl on our university Business course. She was nice enough, but she was obsessed with her grades, and now we'd reached the end of the first year of the course, that was all she wanted to talk about. I was unlucky enough to have sat down next to her when I arrived at the end of term party and she'd stuck to me like a limpet all night. I could have recited her full grade transcript.

"That's weird," I said to her, in between more mouthfuls of rum. "He probably gave you the fifty five in the first place."

"Exactly, Lucy!" Robin enthused, pleased she had an engaged audience. I looked away as she opened her mouth and launched into an unabridged explanation of why Mr Gargrove had always disliked her.

The party was one of those that was supposed to start with heavy drinking and then move on to a nightclub later, but somehow it had never really got going and I'd spent the past two hours sitting in a Hall of Residence kitchen on an all-expense-spared plastic seat which stuck to my thighs. It was humid and sweaty and all the windows were open, and even in my shorts and red crop top, I felt too warm. Idly, I looked at my phone again.

Tom: Can't wait to see you too x

Tom was my boyfriend. We'd been dating one year and one week, which I knew because we got together the day after my eighteenth birthday party and I had turned nineteen a week ago. Tom was great: he was studying law, his family were all really nice, and he was totally committed to making our long-distance relationship work. He was going to uni just over an hour away, and we saw each other once every couple of weeks, so it wasn't crazy. But he had a ton of coursework, so often I visited him to help him study or something.

Lucy: I think I might get an early night, this party is pretty boring x

I didn't let Robin see me typing that.

Tom: Good idea x won't take you long to get back to your room, right?

He was right. My Halls room was just about a five minute walk: through two sets of doors, across a courtyard, up a flight of stairs and then two more doors. I could be in bed in less than ten minutes.

"I think I might call it a night," I told Robin, putting my phone down again.

"Aw, no! We're supposed to be celebrating!" Robin pouted, grabbing my arm. Her hand was damp from what I hoped was condensation on the side of her cup. "One more drink? Will you get me one?"

I sighed. It was supposed to be a celebration, after all, now that exams were over. One more probably wouldn't hurt.

"Alright, one more," I told her, knowing that she was just enjoying the sound of her own voice. But it was only nine o'clock and going back to my room for an early night did sound a bit depressing.

I got up and pushed my strawberry blonde hair behind my ears. I had been blessed with a fantastic hair colour, but absolutely zero volume, so it always hung limply in my face. I took Robin's cup and stepped over to the drinks table, which was further away from the windows and insufferably stuffy. The rum punch was almost untouched but I ladled us both a cupful, bending down over the table to try not to spill any, and when I straightened up and turned I noticed a girl sitting on one side of the room, staring at me.

She was everything I was not. Thick, voluminous, wavy blonde hair fell over her shoulders in perfectly scattered tresses. She was gorgeously made up, with long mascara-ed eyelashes, pale pink glossy lips and tapered eyebrows, in contrast to my dab of nude lipstick and touch of concealer. My earrings were diamond studs; hers gold hoops which caught the low light in the kitchen as her head turned ever so slightly. And my slim figure was nothing like her curves. My neat A-cups, tucked beneath my top, were up against an ocean of her cleavage, her boobs only half-covered in a jet black sequinned dress which was halfway between casual and classy. And out of the bottom of her dress were two thighs that could comfortably accommodate my phone, no doubt about it.

Our eyes met for a moment and I looked away, feeling unusually embarrassed. I stared furiously at the two cups of punch I'd poured. She was just some other girl at the party - I didn't even recognise her from the course. I had no idea why I felt weird about her looking at me. I glanced back over in her direction, trying to come across as casual, and she had turned to talk to her friend sitting next to her, holding a can of premixed vodka at a slight angle. I was trying to work out whether her nails were painted when she looked back at me, our eyes meeting again. I could feel my face getting hot and I grabbed the punch, going back to Robin and not looking back.

"Thanks," Robin said, still bobbing her foot up and down as she took the cup from me. "Do you think next year's marks will be harder to get?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I knew I couldn't hang out with her any more. I felt unnerved by that girl looking at me and I just wanted to be back in my room.

"I don't think I feel too well," I told Robin, ignoring her comment. "I'm gonna go back to my room."

"Do you need me to walk you there?" Robin asked, looking concerned, and I shook my head firmly.

"No, I think the fresh air outside will help. It's too stuffy in here," I explained.

I had to walk past the girl in the black dress to get out of the kitchen, but I forced myself not to look at her. I still didn't know why I felt weird about her. It was probably a kind of insecurity, since she had the sort of big-boobed, voluptuous body I didn't have, and at the back of my mind I was worried she was laughing at me or judging me. Something like, 'oh, look over there at that skinny, bony girl'.

The corridor outside the kitchen was a bit cooler, but after going through both sets of doors and into the courtyard, the sharp coolness of the night air hit me and I felt a lot better. My pace slackened and I looked up at the clear night's sky, a handful of stars visible beyond the light pollution, taking a deep breath. Maybe I was more drunk than I realised, even though I'd only had a couple of drinks. There was a lot of rum in them, though.

"Hey," a voice said behind me, and I turned to see the girl walking towards me. Now she was standing up, I was acutely aware of the fact that she was several inches taller than me, although admittedly she was wearing heels and I wasn't.

"Um, hi," I replied, fighting my instinctive shyness. "Sorry about back there."

She smiled slightly and gave me a confused look. "What are you sorry for?" she asked, halting a short distance away from me and perching herself on the corner of a brick planter.

"I don't know," I admitted, smiling too. "I saw you looking at me, that's all."

"Then it's probably me that should be sorry," she said, bluntly. "Do you want another drink? I nicked these vodkas, that punch was disgusting." She held up two cans she was carrying.

Now I was out of the close atmosphere of the kitchen I felt a bit better and I sat down on the bricks next to her.

"Cranberry or mango? No, I don't want mango, you'd better have it," she said, reading the flavours off in the semi-darkness before handing one to me. Before I could examine it, she popped open hers and held it up. "Cheers."

"Cheers," I repeated, opening mine and having a drink. It was lukewarm and sweet, but relatively palatable.

"Are you on the business course?" she asked. "I'm Henrietta, by the way."

"I'm Lucy," I replied, then paused, inexplicably. "Um, yeah, I am on the business course. I don't know why I needed to pause there."

Henrietta laughed, a loud noise which seemed intrinsically genuine and warm.

"I wondered. I'm friends with Kayla but I do media & art."

"Oh, I did a group project with Kayla before Christmas," I said, but even as I said it, I realised it wasn't very interesting. "I did think I hadn't seen you before."

Impulsively, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and saw a text waiting from Tom.

Tom: Let me know when you get back safe anyway x

"That party wasn't up to much," Henrietta said, and I locked my phone without replying to Tom. "I thought someone had ordered us an Uber to go into the city but that never seemed to happen. I got all dressed up for nothing."

"You look great," I gushed, and she looked at me, smiling before sipping her drink again.

"Thanks, you look amazing too," she said, sincerely. "I love your hair, although you probably hear that all the time."

I could feel my face getting warm again. "Thanks," I told her, automatically pushing it behind my ear again.

"Love the earrings, too. Understated, very classic," Henrietta went on, looking at my ear as I pulled my hand away.

I squeezed the can in my hand until the aluminium crinkled. "How do you like doing art?" I asked, to change the subject. I glanced over at her and watched her drain a few mouthfuls from the can in a very unfeminine manner that somehow still looked good on her.

"Yeah, it's great, really. No prospects of employment afterwards, of course, but I love being able to express myself creatively," she told me. "What about you? Loving business?"

I smiled. "My parents wanted me to do it. Over ninety-nine percent of graduates have a job in the field within two years."

"Complete opposite of me. My parents begged me to do anything but art," Henrietta laughed again. "Kayla is always trying to tell me her bright ideas on how I could make money."

"It's not all about money, there's a lot of other things in the course," I began, but once again I got the impression that this wasn't sparkling conversation. I somehow just couldn't shake the feeling of being a little in awe of Henrietta, who seemed totally confident and free of insecurity.

"I suppose," Henrietta said, tipping up her can again. I watched, hardly aware of how I was staring, as she finished it and looked at me.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," she giggled, putting the can down on the ground and flattening it under her heel.

"Sorry, I-" I started, but Henrietta stopped me.

"How's yours going?" she asked, reaching over and picking up my can. I'd managed about two mouthfuls out of it and she wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, come on, I thought you'd be a faster drinker than this," she said, lifting it to her mouth to help out. "Oh, God, no, I was right about the mango. You take it back."

I laughed, then did my best to imitate her and drink half of the can in one go, but I couldn't manage more than a quarter or something before I had to stop.

"Lightweight," Henrietta teased, taking the can again and drinking. There was something strangely intimate about sharing the can, and when she gave it back I could see a tiny spot of pink lipgloss on the rim. I ignored it, wanting to look cool, and took another drink. The can was rapidly emptying and after we'd passed it back and forth a few more times, Henrietta poured the final dregs into the plants behind us. For some reason I wasn't sure what to say to her and I just took surreptitious glances at her when I thought she wasn't looking.

"Well, this was fun, Lucy," Henrietta announced. "I'm gonna head back to my room. Want to see it? I'm sure it's probably identical to yours, but you never know."

She looked at me and I felt another hot flush go through me. I wasn't an idiot, I'd vaguely become aware over the past few minutes that Henrietta might be hitting on me, and an invitation back to her room probably wasn't just to watch episodes of Friends and gossip. But being hit on by a girl felt so surreal that I somehow couldn't actually bring myself to believe it was true. And anyway, I actually kind of wanted to go with her, even knowing what the implication of that was. I wasn't a lesbian, I had Tom after all, but there was something about Henrietta that made me feel differently. A kind of rush of excitement, like taking the first steps on a tightrope. Like I wanted to push this boundary and see if it was really true.

"Um, okay, I suppose looking won't hurt," I told her, and she looked at me again. I wasn't sure if she was taken aback or not, but I got the impression that wasn't the answer she'd expected.

Her room was in the Halls on the opposite side of the courtyard to mine, and she had a top floor room so we had to climb the stairs first. I could definitely feel the effect of the alcohol in my system by the time we'd arrived at her door and I paused for a second to catch my breath.

"Sorry about the inevitable mess," Henrietta said, unlocking the door. She had been right in that the room was identical to mine: the exact same layout, with mirrored wardrobe, single bed and desk under the window. But she had artworks in various stages of completion scattered about, and her desk was covered in boxes of charcoals and pastels, unlike mine, which was covered in my laptop and textbooks. Henrietta switched on her bedside lamp and I noticed the room smelt strongly of vanilla.

"Reeks of vanilla, right? The day I moved in, my mum broke a bottle of vanilla essence on the carpet by accident. I cannot get away from that smell," Henrietta complained, reading my mind, and I laughed, feeling more at ease. She piled some papers that had been drying on the bed on the desk and I sat down, a little unsure what to expect. The room was bathed in a pale orange glow from the lamp and Henrietta's plain white bedspread wrinkled under me as I looked over at her. She was standing up, tidying the desk slightly, then she turned to look down at me. I looked up at her, hesitant, trying to think of the right thing to say. In return, she stepped over to me, put her hand on my neck and kissed me.

I froze. She tasted of mango vodka and the faint chemical taste of her lip gloss, and I felt her fingers gently sliding through my hair as she pushed me back onto the bed, climbing on top of me, the sequins on her dress brushing over my thighs and my stomach, her hair falling around my face and dimming the room. There was part of me that wanted to stop, thinking about Tom and the fact that a complete stranger was kissing me. Another part, the bigger part, wanted to keep going, to see where this led. There was something so attractive about the opportunity to kiss and explore Henrietta. The thought that drove any idea of stopping her clean out of my head was this: Henrietta was actually attracted to me. I hadn't had a lot of male attention, and certainly no female attention, over the years and suddenly this gorgeous girl was really into me. I loved it.

So I unfroze and kissed her back. She was forceful but gentle, holding me down on the bed, her body on top of mine, but her hands were soft and her fingernails grazed my scalp as she ran her hands through my hair. Tentatively I put my arms around her neck, my hands on her shoulders, and she made a breathless noise in response, her mouth moving off mine and onto my cheek, my jaw and my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe evenly as she did, shivers running through me until she worked her way back to my mouth, her tongue touching mine with a spark of electricity. Kissing her was so much softer than kissing Tom, and even touching her body was all soft angles and not the hard, bony frame I was used to. And I could feel her bust pressing down into me, which was a novel and somehow welcome sensation.

I felt her hands move from my hair to my neck again, then down to my shoulders, under my arms and down my sides. She pushed her fingers under the bottom of my top and helped it upwards, lifting herself off me to create enough gap for it to stretch over my bra. Breaking the kiss, Henrietta sat up, straddling me, and pulled the top over my head. It caught my hair and made a mess of it, but before I had time to worry too much about it Henrietta was kissing me again, her hands back in my hair, smoothing it. I pressed myself back into her, gratefully, and now I could feel her sequins on more of my skin, catching against the lace details on my bra.

With a gentle noise of satisfaction, Henrietta stopped kissing me again, looking down at me for a moment before getting off me and standing up beside the bed. I stayed where I was lying, confused for a moment, and watched as she reached behind her back and unzipped her dress. It took her a second to get her arms out of the sleeves but when she did, the dress slid down over her hips and onto the floor. She bent down to take off her heels too, and I watched her pair of seamless boyshorts stretch over her beautiful bum. Somehow I had expected sexy knickers, a thong or something, but the shorts suited her so much more. She straightened up and turned to face me, her boobs now contained in her low-cut black bra, and she smiled as I stared.

"Come here," she said gently, her voice low and sexy, and, as if I was under her spell or something, I did as I was told. She was irresistible. I stood up in front of her, our bras an inch from touching, but she knelt down in front of me next, gently easing my feet out of my shoes. Then she traced her fingers up my legs to my shorts, looking up at me, and she reached out to undo them. They fell straight off me and we were both in our underwear, my bikini knickers and her boyshorts, my bra lacy and hers satin.

She stepped towards me, backing me up into the front of the wardrobe and we kissed again, more passionately, the feeling of her bare skin on mine sending a thrill through me. I put my hands in her hair, loving how thick it felt, how it resisted the movement of my fingers and how I could get lost in it. Her hands were on my waist, keeping me in place, before one hand crept over my hip bone and downwards, over the top of my knickers and onto my damp pussy. She applied pressure through the material, making me gasp softly, and there was a loud, obvious buzz from my discarded shorts. A text notification.

"Ignore it," I said as Henrietta stopped kissing me, a smile playing on her lips.

"Who's texting you this late?" she asked, kissing me in between words, keeping her hand in place. I gently moved my hips to press into her hand.

"M-my, uh, boyfriend," I stammered, unable to lie as my mind focused completely on where her hand was.

"Are you straight?" she asked, kissing my neck and my collarbone now, her hand still pressing firmly into me. She looked up at me for a moment and we made eye contact.

"I thought I was," I admitted, and Henrietta's face lit up with a big grin.

"That's so fucking sexy, Lucy," she said, lingering over my name before going back to kissing my lips even more hungrily. Her fingers started rubbing me through my knickers and I moaned for the first time, feeling a flush of embarrassment as I did. But it seemed to encourage Henrietta and she pushed me harder into the wardrobe, so I relaxed into it. Her touch felt amazingly good, so much more precise and confident than Tom's. It only took her a minute to have me moaning over and over, my knees weak, arms wrapped around her to keep my balance. She paused just long enough to push my knickers down and then her hand was on my pussy, pushing through my wet lips and finding my clit. I couldn't believe how good this felt: I thought I'd had amazing sex with Tom but already Henrietta was taking me to places I never knew existed.