Soft and Smooth

For some unfathomable reason Emma's brain was trying to kill her. It didn't make any sense, but that's what the doctor said.

Central sleep apnea it was called, but what it amounted to was her brain repeatedly failing to send her diaphragm signals to breathe as she slept, then her body suddenly gasping for air when she suffered oxygen deprivation and woke up in a last-ditch survival effort. Or half-woke; she never remembered any episodes, and wouldn't even have known about the condition had her roommate, Katie, not told her about the funny noises she was making at night.

At least it explained why she was so tired all the time.

Surgery was one solution for some apnea-sufferers, if there was an obstruction; weight loss was an option if the closed-off breathing passages were a result of someone's heavy-set physique. Emma's condition, however, was not due to any part of her breathing passages closing off, and she was curvaceous but not overweight, dammit, and for God's sake any time she lost weight it all came out of her boobs and ass...

At any rate, with the issue being completely neurological in nature, the only solution was mechanical. The so-called CPAP machine (constant pressure somethingorother... she refused, on principle, to learn the acronym) provided consistent amounts of air to her lungs while she slept, so even if her autonomic nervous system decided that oxygen had been downgraded to "optional" for a minute or so, her body would still receive what it needed. It was annoying as fuck to have something stuffed up your nose all night, and loud, by her measure, despite the fact that it was advertised as "whisper-quiet", but what were you gonna do?

Katie was amused by the whole ordeal and started calling her "Darth Emma" and making Vader iron-lung breathing noises at her from time to time. Ha ha. You're so hilarious. Bitch. Emma had a hard time getting too mad at her, though; she was tolerating the nightly noise, however "whisper-quiet", without complaint. A little bit of mockery seemed a small price to pay for that treasure.

Katie was a good roomie: she'd mentioned to her that a couple of times she'd been awake when Emma had, involuntarily and unaware sometime past midnight, tried to remove the CPAP mask in her sleep, but Katie had told her to stop and she apparently was able to register that, if nothing else. Emma didn't recall those incidents, but having woken up with the mask cast across the room both mornings when Katie was in Michigan to visit her folks, she had no doubt they were happening as described. (Her fucked-up brain again, attempting suicide. Someone needed to get that thing under control!)

At any rate, as much as she hated the new nighttime routine, things seemed to be looking up in terms of her energy levels since she'd started using the device. Emma was an aspiring statistician by trade and was well aware of the placebo effect, so she remained skeptical that the extra awareness and reduced tiredness she had seemed to have each day since came simply from using the machine, but regardless of the source she welcomed it.

Certainly her boyfriend Colin welcomed it as well, though he was blissfully unaware of the source—he'd been to her apartment several times to visit, but he had not yet graduated to the "staying overnight" level. Any nights they'd been intimate since they'd been together had been at his place, not hers, and she did not see fit to inform him of her... Sith-like tendencies... when he didn't have a Need To Know. The frequency of those nights had certainly increased since she'd been less lethargic; she seemed to have a higher libido once she was sleeping better, and he was the beneficiary of this change without Needing To Know its source. He didn't ask and no doubt just thought it was an improvement in his technique or something. He also didn't bat an eye when Katie kohhhhhhh-kahhhhhed at her in jest one day when he visited, assuming (rightfully) that it was an inside joke he was not privy to.

All in all, things were looking up, and CPAP, whatever it acronymed out to be, seemed to be the helping hand she'd needed.

At least, until more helpful hands were forthcoming.

* * *

If she looked back, it was on the night that they went out to Kix that things started to go astray.

Kix was, of course, the local dance club wherein one could See and Be Seen, and it was Katie's determination one Thursday night that they needed to Be Seen. Colin was out with his buddies at a minor league baseball game she had zero interest in, so after a sufficient amount of primping and preening and only three changes of outfits each, they went.

The wolves were out in packs that night, as most nights, and drinks for the ladies were free, so the dance floor was a mishmash of bare limbs and only mildly lascivious grinding (until midnight, when the mildness faded and police were sometimes involved). Katie herself selected a small cadre of admirers and bounced back and forth between a stool at the bar with her roommate and shaking her various twentysomething-firm feminine accoutrements in their general direction, but while Emma sometimes joined her in the dancing she didn't feel like connecting with any of the gentlemen callers. "I have a boyfriend" was satisfying to her, anyway, even if not an effective pest repellent. The attention was ego-boosting, at any rate.

Uber or Lyft picked them up several phone numbers and at least one minor makeout session later—it was hard to tell from Katie's less-than-coherent narrative of the situation—and their club shoes clop-clop-clopped their way up to the second story apartment in a way designed to convince their neighbors the girls didn't give a shit what they thought.

On entering, they considered it the better part of valor to guzzle down copious amounts of water and a few ibuprofen tablets, and of course Katie spilled some on the front of her dress... what little there was of a front, anyway. When the texts started coming in from the guys she'd met, they laughed over each of them and pondered out to respond. After several exchanges, Katie had the tipsy idea of selfie-ing Emma holding a washcloth over her breasts as if cleaning them off, and that was a laugh, but when she threatened to text the photo to one of her aspiring beaus Emma thought better of the idea and seized her friend's phone as a preventative measure.

"Give it back!" Katie laughed near-uncontrollably as she went after the phone. Her rush was met by Emma, stumbling in her too-high heels, and they both came crashing down next to the sofa in a screeching, tangled mess of drunken girl limbs.

Emma found herself face to... thigh... with her roommate's hosiery, and felt a disturbing thrill as her cheek rubbed against the sheer, silken fabric coating Katie's legs. She sighed audibly as her gaze followed them up past the tops and the garter straps to—

"Um, Emma? Did you pass out or something?" Katie giggled.

Emma shook herself free of her voyeuristic little moment and began trying to get her feet under her. "Ow ow ow," she suggested. There would be bruises on her knees tomorrow, and her ankle might have been twisted a bit, but the alcohol in her system was providing a temporary buffer against the worst of the effects of the tackle. "Sorry."

Mischief forgotten for now, she handed the phone back to Katie with a grandiose gesture and collapsed onto the nearby loveseat in a more solitary sprawl. When the silence of her companion indicated she'd fallen asleep, Emma went back to her room, futzed with the nose-mask of the machine, and dropped off into slumber herself.

But not forgetfulness. Not entirely.

* * *

That night's oddball moment was only one example of the weirdness that was coming about as a result of her newfound lease on sleep.

Her boyfriend had already commented on (and praised) the increase in her sex-drive in prior weeks, but sex-drive increase was an understatement. It had been years and years since she'd touched herself that way, but with Colin working overtime recently as his factory was challenged to meet a recent order, she somehow couldn't seem to get enough. At first it was grinding herself dace-down against a rolled-up blanket on her bed, but one morning she got frustrated with the mechanics of it and, overcoming her inhibitions, just shoved her hands down her panties to hit the source of her pleasure directly. That worked a lot better, though it was decidedly messier for her hands, but that wasn't so bad, was it? In fact, if she was honest with herself, she found it kind of hot and naughty to walk around with her hands smelling of her nether regions, though she was careful always to wash before going out into a situation where she would have to shake hands. That was only polite, after all.

Politeness as a concept flew out the window, though, when she was alone with herself at work or at home and delicately ran her (mostly-clean) fingers under her nose to catch any stray remnant bouquet and give herself an erotic boost from time to time. Perv, she thought at herself with a nasty little thrill.

She also started dressing a bit more provocatively, even at home. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror in a short skirt gave her a twinkle of a rush... or even just those leggings she wore around the house for comfyness even though she knew their insufficiency as actual pants. The zings of arousal were not heavy (at least, not when she was keeping herself adequately orgasmed in her free time), but they kept her in a state of mild euphoria she usually associated with young love for a new boyfriend. Even Katie commenting on her new look did not deter her, even though she hadn't thought she'd been that obvious. It was kind of fun to be noticed, even without ever leaving the house.

Not to say that the people at work were oblivious. She was wearing some of her more risque lingerie under her clothes, and in retrospect it seemed somewhat inevitable that someone would notice, even if it was just her making adjustments in front of the mirror in the ladies' room—purely to maintain decorum, not to actually show off! Of course, she could tell from the dirty looks that Miss Susan Ardwright, prissy bitch extraordinaire, did not approve of her wardrobe choices, but it wasn't like she was wearing club-wear to the office. There was a dress code, and Emma adhered to it strictly. If from time to time she showed a glimpse of upper thigh or stocking that was entirely accidental... well, dirty-minded people could find shame and disgrace in anything.

She made it a point not to wash her hands on days she knew she'd have to touch something to give to Susan, though.

Her job as an associate in experimental design brought in a decent amount of cash—more than Colin made, certainly, though she'd not rub his face in that fact—but increasingly she was spending more and more of that paycheck on things which made her look and feel glamorous... silken underpinnings which seemed more at home in a pinup calendar than on a girl with a bachelor's in math and a historical tendency towards tomboyism. Yoga pants and shelf-bras were more and more yielding to lace and satin confections which were billed on websites as "shapewear" but on her body merely accented her form with their lines, not reshaping it in the slightest. On her naughtiest nights, such as when she went on dates with Colin, she sometimes skipped out on panties entirely, or wore something "ouvert" that covered nothing.

She certainly didn't hesitate to rub his face in that fact. Several times that night, in fact, and more the next day, licking her mess off his cheeks each time in what seemed like a bizarre compulsion but which was oh-so hot to do, and to contemplate later in her own private times. She'd finish them both off, then head home, leaving him piece of delicate but fragrant fabric—a bit of hosiery or something else—to remember her by.

She giggled to herself in later moments as she recalled her seductive wiles... how she'd finally distracted him from the Twins game by putting her high heel up on his coffee table and revealing the seams of her stocking and an unconscionable amount of curvaceous thigh all the way up to her skirt hem. That had been the first time she'd proven to herself she could be more interesting to him than a lot of sweaty men swinging their sticks and balls around, but she'd made it clear she guaranteed him a home run, and apparently that had counted for something.

One Tuesday night, as she was starting to get worked up a bit holding a few bits of her used-for-sexy-time frillies to her nose and drifting into memory, she was startled to find herself recalling the soft slipperiness of her nose at rest against Katie's stocking-clad thigh the other night, and even more startled to feel the hot rush of sensation in her nether regions as she contemplated it. It's not that she had never imagined women in that way, at least in fantasy, but it had always been an idle curiosity, not the bed-drenching warm bliss she now encountered down there at the thought of her roommate's legs and... how had Shakespeare put it? "The demesnes that there adjacent lie..." Dirty old turn-of-the-(17th)-century bards!

Now she was coming, thinking about the aromas and flavors of her friend's... demesnes, and how she wanted to feel the softness of those limbs on her hands and cheeks again, coming harder than she had just hours ago with Colin; and for the next few days it was imagery she couldn't get out of her head in her waking hours.

And possibly beyond, she thought, as she woke up one morning with her own thighs hot and damp, and assumed, after extricating herself from her nighttime mask, that she must have been dreaming erotic dreams about the smell of Katie's sex, too.

* * *

It felt weird and out of control, but strangely exhilarating, to have these thoughts invading her private space, but it definitely posed its own problems. For one thing, it was awkward when the latest object of your sex fantasy-life insisted on wandering about in her bra right outside your door, walking around in a towel and nothing else, or asking you your opinion on how her ass looked in those jeans (scrumptious, by the way!). For another, it became harder and harder not to lose herself in Katie's presence... contemplating her hair, her eyes, that cute mole on her shoulder, those tight calves and knees and that killer rack— She'd had to stop herself more than once; had to excuse herself, claim sleepiness, and go off to her room for a rest. When Katie had commented that her CPAP must not be doing the job anymore because she'd had to take so many mid-day naps and early bedtimes lately, Emma hadn't known how to respond. She'd just mumbled something incoherent about staying up late, closed her door, and let her fingers do the walking downstairs, indulging her newfound lesbian eroticism until she put on her "not doing the job" medical equipment and passed out asleep with her secret fascination unrevealed.

She felt like she needed to talk about it with somebody, though, and clearly Katie was not a great choice for obvious reasons. The other alternative was problematic, too, but she eventually caved and discussed her recent behaviors and recurring imaginings with Colin.

At first blush, he seemed quite supportive, and borderline thrilled, asking her lots of questions about what she'd been thinking about and having him jerk her off while she described her mental scenarios in detail. But after the third instance of, "Yeah, yeah... and what am I doing?" was answered with something non-committal, she finally had to admit that he wasn't actually involved... and that didn't sit well with him.

"So, what, you're just dyking out with your girlfriend's pussy and I'm not allowed to touch her or anything? Don't you think that's a little... I dunno... disrespectful?"

Of whom? "Maybe... it's not really about that. It's a... y'know... fantasy situation, not a reality. It's not like if I did anything with Katie I'd be wanting a guy involved anyway."

On learning that Emma did not, in fact, secretly desire to watch him fuck her roommate's mouth or give him a double-blow job, he even got mildly surly and she really regretted telling him anything, or maybe even coming over to see him today at all. She was horny enough from verbally re-living her fantasies that she consented to some bedroom play anyway, despite her reservations, but every time she got close from picturing Katie spreading those silken thighs for her, Colin whispered something in her ear about fucking her roommate and it got creepy and awkward and she finally had to fake an orgasm to get him to stop. Of course, it was soon after one of his outbursts, so he probably thought calling her a "lesbo bitch" was the catalyst for her "climax", and—worse—she got the distinct feeling this was going to be a recurring theme. Sigh. Ah, well. There went four months of wasted relationship-building. He had nice abs and was half-way decent in bed, too.

Not half-way as good as her fingers, though, after a shower that night, with some alone time and smudging her dampened panties all over her face until she smelled like a whorehouse.

Later, as she went out of her way to greet Katie when she arrived home from her date with whoever the fuck guy she was wasting her time with, she gave the other woman a good solid hug and maybe rubbed her own tainted cheek on her friend's shoulder. Not to secretly mark her territory or anything... nothing as messed-up and twisted as that. Certainly she didn't go back to fucking herself in her bedroom with the image of her roommate taking off her blouse and bringing its upper edge to her nose to inhale its scent in curiosity... that would have been weird and sexually deviant and oh who was she fooling, of course she did! And the orgasm was delicious, so there! Not as delicious as licking her own flavor off her fingers once she was done, perhaps, but a good time was had by all, Emma and Imaginary Katie. Even the fingers seemed sated, if a bit wrinkled.

It occurred to Emma as she strapped on the mask that night that perhaps, just perhaps, she was a bit obsessed.

* * *

Colin was long gone (at least a week ago broken up!) and she was sooooo over it. He had accused her of being in lust with her roommate and she had laughed it off, but then when he had done it that night in bed together, perhaps assuming it would turn her on further, she had interrupted him and shut him down for the night. He'd been angry and even verbally abusive, then, but she'd ignored his insults and grabbed the few belongings she had left in his apartment and bailed. Asshole.

Since then, it had become Katie's mission to try to help her "get back out there" by dragging her out to Kix and less savory clubs every possible night, and Emma indulged her in this by dressing as provocatively as she knew how. It was only if she relaxed the iron hold she kept on her own feelings that she could admit, even slightly, that she wasn't wearing this stuff for the guys they'd meet. She was wearing it in order to try to gain Katie's notice.

And going above and beyond in her attempts, at that, in every day apartment life. Leg slut was the phrase that kept popping into her head as she made a special effort to let her skirt hike up and then slide it back down again after a loud, attention-grabbing "Oops!" of mock-embarrassment, re-covering her stocking-tops and sometimes even her panties. She'd cross and uncross her legs while they watched TV together far more than comfort necessitated, and when feeling more daring she would curl up on the couch, full thighs on display and ankles crossed while pretending to be so enthralled with Netflix that she was unaware of her revelatory position. And if her roommate noticed and maybe found it odd... that would be silly. They were both girls, right? There was nothing particularly weird about walking around in your scanties with your girlfriends... it was nothing they hadn't seen before, after all, like when they dressed themselves. No mystery being revealed, there... even if she found herself more and more masturbating to the image of Katie revealing many, many mysteries to Emma. Over and over and with much moisture and flavor!