Seventy Thirty - College Days Ch. 03

"Come on, you guys, let's go up Blackers, see if the tower is open."

Alex had told us about the Telecom Tower, how he and Dave had found an open door, and how they'd climbed up inside. It was still being built, with nothing fitted out yet, no equipment. Security seemed non existent.

It was a cold, clear Saturday, so Arabella and I dressed warm, in jackets and beanies. Alex didn't seem to feel the cold so much, or maybe he had so much energy, he could beat it. Anyway, I still had his big woolly jumper.

"How do we get up there?" I asked, being practical Leah.

"Walk up the road, that's easiest. Then we'll come down the quick way, straight down the hill and through the Bot Gardens. Takes a couple of hours, I guess, plus however long we're in the tower. If we can get in."

Being so practical, I filled up a bottle of water. "Here, you can carry it." Alex rolled his eyes, but took the bottle.

"I never thought of doing that," he said.

"As the actress said to the bishop," commented Arabella, who had a small bottle of her own. I'd seen her fill it, from the bigger bottle she kept under her bed. I looked at her, and thought she looked tired. She saw me looking, and I caught the tiniest shake of her head: don't say anything, Leah.

Half an hour later, our cheeks were flushed from the cold and the good fast walk towards the mountain. Arabella's eyes were bright, and her great flame of hair swirled as she spun in a circle in the middle of the road, then ran to us, laughing.

"God, I love you guys!" She wrapped her arms around us in a hug, before running again up the road.

I looked up at Alex with a query in my eyes. "Is she okay?"

"Not sure."

We followed up the road, and found Arabella sitting on a fallen tree trunk, panting. "I've knackered myself," she said, pulling in deep breaths. "How far to the top?"

"Bout ten minutes," Alex said.

"Jesus," Arabella said. "I'll walk the rest."

But when we got to the top, she saw another flat place, and she couldn't help herself, dancing.

Alex led us to a door at the base of the building's pedestal, around the back, away from the access road. "It's open," he said, and we crept in, trespassing, keeping silent. The space was huge, two storeys high, an enormous empty chamber. Two huge roller doors at one end were closed, we'd obviously come in an emergency exit.

"Come on," whispered Alex. He took us both by the hands to lead us to another door, behind which was a spiral set of concrete stairs, circling upwards around the walls. "This is the base of the tower," he said, as we started to climb. Just as well we were young and healthy and stupid, because it took us a good fifteen, twenty minutes, to get to a room beneath the huge cylinder of the concrete tower, going right up, far above our heads.

"I'm not climbing that," I said, looking at the steel ladders that went on up the tower.

"Yeah, fuck that," Arabella said, sitting on a ledge to catch her breath. "How far up are we, anyway?"

"About half way," Alex replied. "Hundred metres or so, something like that. I'm not sure how tall the tower is. I've a vague idea it's 250 metres."

"Fucking hell! That's one tall tower!" Arabella was impressed. "Where does that door go?"

She'd spotted a door, which looked more like a hatch, on the far wall of the space we were in. She got up, went to the door, and tried the handle. The door opened, revealing the world outside.

"Fuck, Bella, be careful!" Alex ran to her, grabbing her arm. They both looked out, leaning out. I came up behind them, took one look, and sat down, terrified.

"Don't go out there," I said, "it's too high, too dangerous." My heart was thudding in my chest, so hard I could almost hear it.

Mortified, I watched them both climb out; well, slide out on their bums, sitting one on each side of the door. At least they each had a hand inside the door opening, and I could see Alex's hand gripping Arabella's, holding her hand tight between them. I began thinking, what on earth would I do if they fell?

"Please, come back inside. It's too high. You're scaring me. Come back!" I dared not go near the door, for fear of startling them.

Thankfully, I heard Alex say, "Yeah, she's right, Bella. This is really fucking dangerous, let's get back inside."

But Alex waited for Arabella to get inside first, and when he closed the door he said, "They should fucking lock that door. I can't believe we could do that. That's not very safe."

I looked at Arabella, and she'd gone very pale, as if realising just how dangerous it was, what they'd just done. Her eyes were unnaturally wide, as if she'd just seen something... terrifying, awesome? I didn't know, but she scared me. I think she'd scared herself more. Which might have been a good thing.

"Yeah," she whispered. "They should lock that door, it's dangerous." She reached into her coat for her bottle. My heart thumped and my gut sank, but thank God, she only took one small sip. She looked at the bottle, looked at us watching, and put it away in her pocket. She gave the tiniest shrug. "This is why I need you guys," she said, in a small voice. "To rescue me."

"Give it me, Bella," I said, getting in as close to her mind as I dared, saying the name Alex had given her. Thankfully, she did, but I saw her hand shaking.

Arabella went on ahead of us towards the stairway going down. She held her hands back for us, one on each side, and she gripped my hand really hard and I squeezed hers back, and I guess Alex did the same. We went down like that for a few minutes, until we started going at different speeds. When we got to the bottom and back outside, my legs were aching, my muscles burning from all those stairs. I was never doing that again.

"Alex," I said, "I'm not going to do that again. Please don't ask me."

"Me neither," said Arabella, looking back up at the tower, her head tilted right back. "Jesus, look where we were," and she pointed. Half way up the concrete spire of the tower, we could see two narrow platforms, one above the other, and the outline of the tiny door was visible, leading onto the upper disk.

"Shit," said Alex. "I've had clever moments. That probably wasn't one of them."

"You're right," Arabella replied, "but did you feel the way the sky moved, when you looked backwards up the tower? That was worth it!"

"Don't ever go up there by yourself, Bella," Alex warned.

But several weeks later, she did.

* * * *

That week, we talked about the tower a lot, as if we all needed to get it out of our systems. Then the rhythm of the middle term took over the hall, and it seemed as if the whole place breathed with a new breath. Friendship groups shifted and changed, new relationships started up, one or two ended.

We three became like the musketeers, not keeping others out, but not inviting them in, either. I was sleeping with Alex regularly, but began to feel guilty, as I was neglecting Arabella, no longer sleeping like a sister with her. Alex was my beautiful boy, my lover, but she was beautiful too, my friend.

I missed her soft feminine warmth and her firm breasts against my back. And the way she'd hold my hand as she fell into her first deep sleep. And the way there'd be a soft snuffle in her throat when she turned onto her back, and I'd follow with my cheek on her shoulder. And the way her bum felt against my fur when she rolled again, and I'd follow. I really liked sleeping with Arabella, it was comforting, and I missed it. Alex was always much harder.

He and I talked a little about Bella's drinking. I'd returned her bottle, and she swore she'd not take it outside again, and I think I believed her, but I also remembered Alex saying, "Not sure." I didn't know what I should do.

"Make a bit of a fuss," said Alex. "Do things together, whatever you girls do. Like us guys playing snooker. I don't know."

"Do you still have your Bella time, down the courtyard?" I wanted to know if they still had their quiet time alone, just talking. Arabella needed that time alone with Alex, it did her good. I guess they talked about his gay sister, giving Arabella another woman's perspective. Although how well brothers translated sisters, I wasn't sure.

"I do, but all she talks about now is her singing."

That's when I realised Arabella was serious, signing up for auditions for a musical. A theatre group was putting on Cabaret, and I thought she'd go for the Liza Minelli part, Sally Bowles.

But she went for, and somehow got, the role of the Emcee. I was gob-smacked. That was always a guy's role, wasn't it? But rehearsals would go on for a couple of months, and the whole cast was secretive. I'd seen the movie, but I couldn't imagine how a woman could play the role. Arabella was full of surprises.

"I might need to get my hair cut for the part." Arabella stirred two mugs of Milo, and handed one to me. She curled up in the easy chair, her feet up on it, and I sat on her bed, my back against a pillow.

"Bella, no! You can't, not your hair! It's your trademark, you can't cut it."

She looked across at me, took that beautiful flaming mane in her hand, and made a cutting gesture with her fingers, up by her throat.

"God, Bella, don't!" I couldn't bear the idea of it gone.

"It'd grow back," she said. "But Props and Costume haven't decided on my costume, so no need to worry just yet. Anyway, if it's so important, why don't you brush it? Mum used to brush it on Sunday nights before school the next day. I'd wash and dry it, she'd brush.

"I'd get these weird tingles. So soothing. Here," she said, getting up to find her hair brush in the cupboard, "take this." She plonked herself down on the floor in front of me, cross-legged, her skirt fallen between her knees. I shuffled forward to the edge of the bed and leaned forward, her body between my legs. I looked down to see half a slender thigh, pale in the low light.

I took five minutes to get out the worst tangles, running my fingers through the knots, making her wince once or twice.

"Ouch. Careful there, maid, don't hurt me."

I didn't mind being called that. Queen Arabella kind of suited her. "I'll try not to hurt thee, oh my queen."

She laughed, turning her face up, looking back at me. Arabella's laugh, those times she gave it, was lovely. She turned again, to look straight ahead at the dark window, looking into the dark of the night. I could see us both reflected, looking back.

Once the knots were teased out, I got into a smooth rhythm brushing her hair, feeling it like soft silk between my fingers, holding it up and away from her head. It was hypnotic for me, and must have been even more so for Bella. In the dark glass, I saw her eyes closed, her hands cupped together in her lap - in the hollow of her skirt which she'd bunched up, to sit on the floor.

"Tell me about Alex," she said, "what he does to you. You know, in bed." She said it so matter of factly, as if she wanted to know, but making it sound unimportant. Which for a gay girl, I suppose it was. I guess she wanted to share my experience, seeing as how I'd lost my virginity and she hadn't. What's that expression, living vicariously? I blushed fiercely, but I told her, as I kept on brushing her hair.

As I spoke, my voice lowered into a whisper, for her ears only. I knew no-one could hear us - at best the walls passed murmurs or laughter, but not words spoken in normal voices. And I definitely wasn't going to shout.

Because I was speaking softly, Arabella tilted her head back to catch my words, and I could see her mouth, her soft lips, and the adorable freckles on her nose and cheeks. Being pale and keeping out of the sun, I only had a few freckles on my shoulders and upper chest, but Bella, being a real redhead, had blazes of them, over her cheeks, her arms, between her breasts. Her whole body, just about, was covered by a myriad of freckles, like leaves falling from trees before winter. The skin in between was golden brown still, the summer glow fading from her.

And as I spoke to her, describing in intimate detail how Alex would go down on me, and what he did to me there, she turned a bit and the blouse she wore, with the top three buttons undone, revealed quite a gap. Because of the way I was sitting, and the way she was turning, that gap became quite revealing. I couldn't take my eyes off the swell of her left breast, and I swear I could see the shadow of her nipple under the cloth of her bra. It looked to me to be erect, like it would be on cold mornings. "My headlights," she'd say, "on high beam."

I saw a flush on her neck, down onto her chest, but right then, I was so slow about it, and didn't register what that meant.

I was becoming distracted by my own words. I stopped brushing her hair, took a breath, and kept talking. I was turning myself on with the telling, the image of what Alex did to me, and the shadows and curves of Arabella's body.

"Fuck, Leah, don't stop."

I thought she meant, don't stop brushing her hair, but when I ran the brush through it, she said, "I didn't mean that. Keep talking."

Arabella turned some more, and I realised she had a hand up under her skirt, and it was moving, moving very slowly, under the cloth of her skirt.

"Fuck," she said again. "That's so sexy, Leah, so fucking horny. Tell me about his cock, so I know. You know, for veracity. I've only ever had guys' bulges pushed against me."

"God, Bella, do you really want to know? I thought you were gay, and all that."

"A girl can be inquisitive, theoretical. Anyway, you've started calling me by his pet name, so he's sort of here already, in the room." She leaned forward. "Undo my bra."

I reached in under her shirt, unclipped the clip at the back, and she slipped it off, through her sleeve. Her beautiful breasts swayed, and I saw both her nipples were thick and the areolae wrinkled.

"That's better," she said, and stretched back like a cat, pushing her breasts up. "Go on," she said, "describe his cock. You've said it's beautiful, so tell me."

I was blushing so much, remembering how I had gone on, those first days after I'd first been in Alex's room naked; my first close up, in my hand, of a real cock. But I'd never actually told Arabella much detail, more talking around in circles, my words full of vague euphemisms, my hands waving around like some daft lost bird in the sky. "Thing" got said a lot, I think, which now sounded silly.

"This is so weird, describing my boyfriend's cock in intimate detail to my best friend, who's gay."

"Well yes. But just in case I'm not, you know?"

"To be prepared, huh?"

"Exactly," she said. "So, fucking tell me!"

So I told Arabella all about Alex's cock. I couldn't believe myself, telling her, but once I got going, the words came so easily.

"He's always hard when he gets undressed. His cock, as soon as his jeans are down, it's erect, bounces up. He undresses in one movement, jeans down, jocks down, it's revealed straight away. It's so sexy, seeing him erect because of me."

Arabella smiled up at me, nodded, then closed her eyes. Her fingers must have been moving still, but hidden.

"That's coz you're little and sexy, Leah, going braless all time. Cute sexy. Your boobs have a nice little bounce. I've noticed that. And your tight little bum in those jeans."

"God, Arabella, you can't say that, it's embarrassing."

"What, a chick looking at you?"

"But -"

"I know, I know. Cock. Leah, you were saying?"

"He's not always hard, though. When he's come, it gets soft and shrinks smaller. Then watching him grow again, it's gorgeous. I get wetter, watching him grow back to life."

"Waiting for him to fuck you again?" She whispered it to me, and I blushed.

"Yes, knowing he will."

"Leah the fuck slut, huh?"

"Bella! I'm not!" Yes, I am.

"You are, and I'm jealous. I don't want cock, but listening to you, it's so sexy. I want..."

Before she could finish her sentence, words leapt into my head. I had no idea where they came from, and I couldn't believe my own ears when I said them.

"Arabella, can I take you to bed?"

She nodded, her eyes wide, so I did.

I remembered everything Alex did with me, and I did that with Arabella. And it was so lovely, because Arabella was shy like I was, but this time, I knew what to do. Sort of. We were clumsy and got our clothes tangled, trying to take each other's tops off and being in too much of a hurry.

But once we got that sorted out, and Arabella lay back on the bed and I climbed on top of her to drop a breast into her mouth, and to feel her soft breasts in my hands, we got better at it, and I kissed her, then I went down on Arabella. And I had the same wonder, gazing at her cunt, that Alex had, gazing at mine.

Only my hair is black, and Arabella's was like a golden red flame on her belly. And my pussy lips are smooth and tidy, but hers were like two little butterflies about to take off or land. And my clitoris is quite small and hidden, but Arabella's was bigger, a lovely deep cherry red, and when I licked over it and sucked it into my mouth, she moaned, whereas my noises are more little wails, sometimes silent screams, when my heart rips from me and I can no longer breathe. Arabella took great sighing breaths, almost sobbing with pleasure.

When I slid two fingers up into her pussy, I found a rough spot, and thank goodness I remembered that book, and beckoned her towards me with my fingers. And Arabella had a place exactly like I did, where everything balanced for a long perfect moment, and her mouth opened wide in a beautiful, silent howl as she toppled over into it, and her hips were bucking and bucking, and she moaned,"Fuck me, oh God, oh God, fuck me, fuck me with your fingers," and sometime later she did the same to me, and we both cried, and it was because we both were so happy, not sad.

And later, we made love again, only slower, and that time, Arabella went down on me and was so different to Alex, and then I sat on her face and played with her breasts which are quite a bit bigger than mine. And I discovered that Arabella has a really long tongue, and spent quite a long time with it up between my pussy lips, and she bit the base of my clitoris, and Alex had never done that. I'd teach him, because oh goodness, it made me shake.

And squirm. Arabella trapped me under her body, she's taller than me and curvy in all sorts of places, and she was very good at letting me discover them, not like the sisters from another mother we had been, but lovers, in bed, making love.

I thought I might be bisexual. The book went on about that a bit.

"Can I 'sleep'," and I made snigger fingers, "with you again, just to see?"

"What about Alex? Won't he mind?"

"It's a bit late to worry about that," I said.

"You can tell him, but please, don't say a thing to anyone else."

"You know I won't, Bella. This is just you and me."

And it was. Until it wasn't, when things flew out of control, and Arabella nearly died.