She's Just a Friend

© 2023 MildlyAroused. All rights reserved. This publication, in part or full, may not be reproduced or used in any way without expressed permission from the author, except in that which is transformative or critical in nature. If you see this publication elsewhere, it has been copied without permission.

As someone who writes fiction, I'm new to this variant. I've read several stories here in the past but this is my first attempt at writing one; all feedback is welcome! I'd recommend checking my bio for more about me, particularly if you like what you read; I'm planning on writing more stories soon. And, of course, all feedback is welcomed with open arms! Also anyone who is keen on a continuation of this story, let me know.

All characters are eighteen years or older. All characters and incidents are fictitious.

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She's Just a Friend.

In some ways I wish it would end all at once, like the blowing of a bulb: in disloyalty, or accusations, or a shouting match. But it hasn't yet, so we limp on, still together. Me and my Ella, my girlfriend, the love of my life. This time last year I first said I loved her; today, I tell her the same over the phone, while a friend urges me on with her hand around my cock.

Don't think so ill of me. I tried. I gave her all, that Ella—my Ella. But like a piano, we're drifting slowly, slowly out of tune. People speak of break-ups, but nobody speaks of this terrible limbo we're in, where heartbreak must happen but we're both just holding on for dear life. It's more painful this way, somehow, without closure, with the final melancholy note yet to come.

The friend who ends up with my cock in her hand is Amber. We've always been close, and indeed I once hoped something would happen between us, before Ella fell into my life. Amber and I take history together—something of a jealous point for Ella, with whom I share no classes. On more than one occasion, when pressed about all the time I spent with Amber, I assured Ella that she was a friend and nothing more, and certainly nothing to worry about.

Incidentally, that's what Ella and I argued about last night. We made up, and I slept with her in my arms, my hands roaming the body I knew better than my own. And yet she didn't come to school today, citing sickness; I think she's sulking. More and more these days Ella and I aren't on good terms. Less and less do we hang out, be it movies or cuddles or sex. And, though the thought leaves me guilty as it does aroused, more and more these days I've imagined Amber in her place... Amber's smile, and Amber's voice, and Amber's naked body for me to press myself against in the comfort of fresh bed sheets.

As I said, Amber and I take history together, four times a week. The sun is high, and seems not to care about this classroom's lack of air con: it scalds the back of every student, and leaves me sweating in my thick uniform. There's a documentary on the projector. Beside me, Amber is sketching something in the corner of her book, her hair brushing the desktop. Her neck is glistening with sweat, and I can't help but stare at her pale skin above the blue hem of her uniform, below her black hair which shrouds her face, and imagine its smoothness and dampness, perhaps at my fingertips, or under my lips. There is a little mole akin to a beauty spot, just below her left ear, that's always suited her so well. Suddenly, she moves.

I scarcely stop myself staring before she looks up at me and smiles. "This is thrilling."

"Oh." I meet her eyes, olive green and bright. "Tell me about it."

"I mean, I dunno about you." She shrugs. "But for me, there's nothing quite like the world's dullest fucking lesson to wake you up on a Monday morning."

There's a little smile, teasing her lips. I see a sliver of her tongue, and my heart bleats like a lamb; and indeed bleeds like one, for the feeling in my gut is one best reserved for Ella. I called her the love of my life, remember? This feeling is for her. And it was, until a few months prior, when the catching of Amber's gleaming eye when I least expected it, or a flash of her stomach as she took off a jumper began to provoke the same swooping feeling, close to nausea, inside me.

It's a Monday like any other, unremarkable, just one mundane day in a set of seven. How then, does it crescendo in that phone call? The little things add up, see: the recent distance with Ella, that heat which makes Amber's neck glisten as though with oil, and the fact the boy that ordinarily sits in our row is away today, and the pure coincidence it is (or was it me watching her?) that meant I had a hard-on in my trousers at the exact moment she looked up and smiled at me, with those teeth and those eyes which scrunch up in their bright sort of amusement—all these things, they make the perfect storm. I check my phone so as to flatten out my trousers, and Ella smiles out at me from my lockscreen. It'd be a lie to say her smile has the effect Amber's had.

Amber is looking now. She sets down her pen. "How... how are things between you two?"

"Mm. You know." I shove my phone back in my pocket and glance over at her. I can't hold her eye contact for long. "It's whatever. Same old."

"Still rough?"

I sigh. "Still rough. But she's quitting work soon, and I'll be done with school so... we'll hang out more. I hope."

"You know I'm here." Amber taps the back of my hand with her pen, then closes her fingertips on my thumb with a squeeze. We stare at each other. "I'm always here. Even in such riveting times as these, you know how it is."

"Yeah. I know."

I squeeze her hand back, the way I did even when Ella and I were at our best those months ago. There's nothing abnormal in our touching. There's a flush in my cheeks, not just provoked by raw attraction, or heat. Amber was the first I told about Ella when we started dating, and indeed always the keenest to hear me gush about our dates and relationship. Beyond the feeling in my gut and crotch, there's a deeper appreciation because I know it's true: she'll listen, and talk, and she'll never let jealousy or anxiety impede on her affection.

"God, it's hot. These fucking uniforms..." I pull away and flap my shirt back and forth at my chest. "What's it meant to get to?"

"Thirty-three, today." She looks me up and down. "Untuck your shirt. No wonder you're baking."

"No." I stare at the front of the class, where the teacher is so far leant back in her chair she might be a corpse. "You know how strict she is."

"Oh, come on. It's under the desk." She reaches for me. "She's not gonna see anything."

"Stop. Get off. She'll fuck me up, Amber." My heart is not in my protests.

"I'll fuck you up. Look." She tugs my shirt so as to untuck it, and reaches right around me to untuck the other side. Her hair falls momentarily into my lap. "There we go. No fuss."

The projector buzzes away in its mundane manner. Amber turns her gaze, but I think not her attention, to it. Having had her tug out my shirt I feel not cooler, but the opposite. She doodles on her page again, biting a lip, her dimples showing. My eyes stray to her hands, her arms. I've always had a thing for arms, and hers are very smooth. I turn my eyes to my desk, the nausea in my stomach building. There is something in the air between us today, in that perfect storm, like an electric shock waiting to happen.

"I..." My voice catches and I cough. "I dunno how much longer we're gonna last."

"No?"

"I love her. Still." I feel her eyes on me, but cannot look; I don't want to see the friendly affection in her eyes and turn it perverse with my mind. "But I don't think us, together, is right anymore. Sometimes I almost say it." I knot my hands together. "I almost tell her. But then I think what it'd mean: lonely nights, a cold bed. I can't, Amber. I can't. I just... fuck."

"Hey. It's okay. It's shit, and that's okay. It'll sort itself out." She takes my hand again, in that loyal way she does, and glides her thumb up and down my own, in a way she never has. "You'll get through this, you two. Or, you know, you'll move on." Her grip tightens on me, and I respond without thought. She sighs, "It'll be fucking terrible for a bit. And then it'll get a bit better. And then a bit more. And you'll get through it, yeah? I'll help."

"Thank you." I nod, almost say more, then nod again. I think she understands; I think she feels this affection and trust between us too. Then, I release the tension with a laugh. "It's so hot, Amber." She's burning up in my grip. There's sweat on her palm.

"Not really. It's just your hand making me hot."

"Uh-huh, sure. What's this?" I press my other hand to her forehead. "Huh? Pretty damn hot, no?"

"It's you!" She laughs, and my heart rate quickens. "My free hand's cold. See?" She reaches over with it and slides it up my arm. Her touch is very smooth, and very delicate.

"Okay, okay." I pry her off. Our other hands are still linked, and getting hotter by the second. "But seriously," I say. "Thank you. For, you know..."

"That's okay. I'll support you through it."

I look into those bright eyes, and they look right back. There is something in those eyes today, a brightness of a higher echelon than normal. Still our hands are linked. Her sweat is mine in the hot knot they form. I smile, almost unconsciously, and she returns it. I cannot bear the thought of others seeing our hands clasped on the desk, but cannot draw my eyes off her to check. I gently lift them and lower them under the desk between us.

She says, again, "I'll be here. For whatever you need."

I cannot respond.

She is moving our clasped hands closer to her under the table. The smile has slid from her face in favour of something, almost a frown—something very intense. Those eyes are so wide, as her hand releases mine and crawls up to my wrist, still pulling me closer. I feel my fingertips touch smooth, warm skin. She has guided my hand to her leg, somewhere above the knee. She slides it higher.

"Amber," I say sharply, but nothing more. The words catch.

Her lips tease a smile. "Ruben."

That's my name. It sounds sweet through her lips.

"Amber..."

My mind flicks through scenes like old film: Ella, her hand in mine as we pick hot chips from folded newspaper and stare over the ocean, and Amber's smile and the sweat on her neck, and the hint of sweat I can feel now on her thigh, and Ella lying in bed, my Ella, the love of life I called her, who is still hurt from our fight last night, who used to turn me on at the slightest hint—but in my mind it is Amber lying in my bed, not Ella, an Amber who isn't jealous or stressed but welcoming, her hand so soft, her thigh hot in my grip, her breaths shallow, her breasts, not Ella's, at my side while we sleep. Amber is eating Ella's hot chips, and the image makes me feel something potent.

For the first time, I guide her. I move my hand up from her leg and under her shirt, splaying my fingers on the hot flesh of her stomach. She inhales, and though it is only a breath, it is a sharp one, and it brings that nauseating swoop through my stomach like nothing before it. I slide my hand up farther, over smooth skin to the fabric of her bra. Her hand, so recently guiding mine on, is white-knuckled on the edge of her chair. Her legs are crossed and tense.

"Ruben."

"It's under the desk," I say. This is not strictly true; my fingers, creeping over the top of her bra, are not under the desk at all, but unless one cared to look closely, they wouldn't notice the movement under her shirt. "Nobody's gonna see anything."

"Turning my words against me?" Amber tuts, then makes the faintest of involuntary noises as I run my fingertips over one of her breasts, a noise which pumps my blood southward at a rate of knots. "What happened to 'I love her,' hmm?"

My arm, twisted at such an angle so as to reach her breasts without moving her shirt, is cramping up, but I go on. She is so soft in my hand, between my fingers. Her snide little comment does nothing to lessen my arousal, and I lets out the softest of laughs, rolling one of her nipples between two fingers. Around us, nobody has noticed—not that I'd see if they had, transfixed as I am.

"Do you know what I think?" Amber says. She taps my chin with a finger. Her smile, mischievous, spins my mind into a higher gear yet. There are goosebumps down my arms. Amber leans an inch closer. "I think you should say it again."

"Yeah?"

"Go on." She lowers her hand from my chin to my lap, and over my cock. Though it is beneath my trousers, my entire body jerks. She lets out a theatrical gasp. "I think you should tell me how much you love your little girlfriend. Tell me that, while you grope me in plain sight."

I can hardly breathe. I turn to see if anyone is watching us.

"Don't look at them. Look at me." Amber is running her hand over my crotch and under my untucked shirt. "Tell me you love her, Ruben. While you touch me."

I stare into her face, whose smile twists my gut into that tightest of knots, whose eyebrows are so perfectly defined, whose lips are only a foot away and slightly parted. Her hand is under my shirt, just above my belt, caressing me so gently. I can no sooner comprehend that it's Amber's perfect hands groping under my shirt than I can tell Ella what I'm up to.

"I love her."

"Mm, yeah?"

"I love her so much. My Ella." My hand is greedy at her breasts, cupping one in my palm, then the other. It is lucky we sit in the back row of the class, for I'm sure my enthusiasm is counterproductive should we wish to be inconspicuous. "She's my baby."

"Yeah, what are you doing then?" Amber laughs, the sound spurring me on. Then she grabs my hand at the wrist. "Down here."

She's sliding my hand down, over her skin. Our eyes are locked. It takes everything I have to not move my free hand to my crotch to reposition my aching cock. God—listen to me. Not five minutes ago I was telling Amber I still loved my girlfriend, and I wanted to push through, and she was responding she'd support me. Well, if supporting me entails wiping Ella from my mind, then the look she's giving me and she guides my fingertips to the waistline of her skirt is effective as anything.

"Are you gonna touch me, Ruben?" She breathes, as my fingers pierce under her waistline, under the hem of her panties. She runs her fingers across the outline of my cock through my trousers, and says, "Are you gonna touch me in the back of class?"

I've been holding my breath, and her words puncture the tension. Something hot courses through me as I say, "You really want me to, hmm?"

"You're the one in my underwear. Dirty little cheater."

"You won't mind if I don't, then."

My fingers, creeping lower, stop. Instead, I slide them to her inner thigh, up and down. She bites back a smile and glares at me. I move my hand across, skirting the very edge of her mound. There's a dampness there that makes my fingertips glide, my cock jerk in its enclosure, and my mind almost seize up, such is the speed at which it spins. Amber lets out a noise and clenches her teeth, squirming where she sits with her hand tightening on my cock through my trousers.

"I dunno, Amber. It seems to me I'm not the only one who wants this."

"You admit it, then." She gives that mischievous grin of hers, and splays her legs under the table. "Touch me. Touch me while your poor little girlfriend sits at home missing you."

My willpower can only stretch to so much teasing, and her soft voice is too much: I run my fingers across her pussy and feel her entire body tense up in its seat. Her hand at my crotch is like iron, her knuckles white. I forget to breathe. I stare into her eyes as though stone, the tips of my fingers working their way over the opening of her warm pussy, already so moist. She lets out a quiet moan and bites her lip hard. I stare around, not comprehending that we're in class and I'm exploring the folds of my friend's mound with my fingers. Often I have imagined the sight of Amber bare, her legs apart—but not now, not while I stare into her eyes, not while we exchange the smallest of smiles, as though at an inside joke. It is more exciting, somehow, to look her in the face while I explore her solely by touch.

"Fuck." She speaks through her teeth, so low even I can hardly hear. "You're driving me mad."

It's all the assurance I need. I push the tips of my middle and ring fingers inside her and feel her opening's contractions around them. Her thighs raise and clench around my wrists as I slide them out again, then back in, feeling her wetness and warmth, desperate to explore every fold of her pussy. A trickle of her juices runs down my fingers as I push them up to the first knuckle. My hand is cramping for the odd angle but desperate to go on.

"Amber?" A girl in the row ahead of us turns around without warning and my heart leaps to my throat. She says, "How much of the assignment have you done?"

I try to withdraw from her, but she grabs my hand and forces my fingers to remain, to slide deeper, deeper still until they're both fully engulfed by her hot pussy, trembling inside her. My mind freezes up as I feel a trickle of precum creeping out of my cock in my underwear. The arousal is sickening, like nothing I've felt before. The girl who turned around hasn't noticed, and is just looking at Amber's face as if all is utterly normal—while my fingers are locked deep inside her mound, while she clenches her every fibre to keep me there under the table.

"Uhh, a fair bit. I've just started task three." Amber's composure is like iron. "How about you?"

The girl sighs. "Like, only task one. It's so shit. I'd rather just do an essay."

Their mundane talk, Amber's completely innocent act—it turns me on so much I cannot hold back. I move my fingers inside her, sliding them out and back in again, and out. Amber clenches up harder still, and fights to keep her face even while the girl talks. The sight spurs me forward, faster, more intense. Now I'm fingering her, right there under the table, two feet from where the other girl sits. Her panties behind my hand are almost soaked through.

"Tell you what, I'll send you mine, yeah?" Amber smiles at the girl, but lets out a little gasp. She is fighting to keep her composure. "Once the Wi-Fi's behaving."

When the girl turns back around, Amber's eyes snap onto me with a fiery look. Her breathing is sharp as she says, "You little... oh, fuck."

She moans, right out loud, turning it into a cough as it forms. The sound is electric to me, but I cannot do more because she's grabbed my hand and pulled it out from her folds, out from her clothes and into the open under the desk. My fingers are glistening with her nectar, and when I part them it forms a web. For a moment, I am dejected that she's withdrawn my hand, but then she raises it above the desk line and plants a kiss on the very tip of one of my soaking, cramping fingers.

"God, Amber. I can't believe—"

"This one's for me." She stares into my eyes and, without breaking that contact, slides her mouth right over my middle finger to its base, her tongue working her own juices off, right there for anyone to see had they been looking. She sighs, as though after a drink of cold water on a hot day, then guides my hand towards my mouth and says, "And that one's for you. Sharing is caring."

With my ring finger an inch from my mouth, the smell of her sex is transfixing, sweet as syrup to me; it provokes in me the burning desire to drink her arousal, straight from her, while she talks about my lonely Ella. I slide my finger into my mouth and close my eyes for a moment, savouring her taste on my tongue as though I'd never taste it again. The thought that more likely than not I will taste it again, perhaps very soon, does nothing to ease my erection.

"Christ, that was..." I reach for the appropriate speech but can't find it. "My God, Amber. That was... amazing."