Two Thousand and Ten Ch. 02

As the band assembled on stage for their sound-check, Peter felt as though he was a happy man. He was here doing something he loved with his mates and the woman who was his closest friend - the nearest thing to family he had in his life.



Thursday, March 18th 2010 - 6:45am

Lindi loved being a woman. Sure, it had its downsides, just as she was sure there were also downsides to being a man. Not being a man herself, Lindi had little idea of what those downsides may be, but she was not so naive as to believe that there were no downsides to being a man whatsoever.

That view had been in stark contrast to the view of one of her old housemates during her first year at university - that basically men had all the privileges and there were no downsides to being a man in any way. Her name was Liz and she was a radical feminist. It was her opinion that women were all basically slaves under the oppressive jackboots of the patriarchy, and that all men were complicit in the subjugation of women, be it consciously or unconsciously.

"All men," she had said one evening during one of her more vitriolic tirades, "are potential rapists and child abusers. And no woman or girl will ever be safe on this earth until the male population is under the control of women."

"Oh yeah," Dawn, another of Lindi's housemates interjected, "and what makes you think that a matriarchy would be any better than the patriarchy huh?"

"There already is a matriarchy," Lindi added, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction, remember. It's just that feminists like Liz are completely blind to it."

"Just ignore her Lin, you know how she gets when she hasn't had any cock for a while." Dawn said with a wry grin, "How long has it been since you last had a nice, hard portion of man-meat up inside you' Liz?"

"With an attitude like hers is it any wonder that guys don't wish to go anywhere near her?" Lindi giggled.

"To be a woman is to be a slave of the patriarchy," Liz continued unabated and seemingly undeterred by Dawn and Lindi's observations, "until such time as the patriarchy is destroyed and replaced by a matriarchal society, women will never be free!"

"And what of the men? What would become of them? They would be slaves themselves if you had your way, I suppose." Lindi said, and then immediately wished she hadn't.

"If that is what would be necessary to create a society where women can finally be free and safe from male oppression, then so be it. Ideally, the male population should be reduced in number and only a small number should be kept, under controlled conditions of course, as breeding stock to ensure the continuation of the human race." Liz said.

"So basically, you are proposing to replace one kind of oppression with another. Which, from what you seem to be describing, would be even worse than the so-called oppression already meted out on women." Dawn had said, "You're basically implying that men should be made to suffer from female oppression. And even more worrying, it seems as though you are even condoning genocide as a means of controlling them. You know what Liz, you are sick!"

"Sisters," Liz said defiantly, "we women have been slaves for millennia - it is time for true and correct retribution to free all of humankind from the oppression of men..."

And so it continued until late into the night.

She had spent an entire year having to listen to Liz's hyperbole and vitriol - she couldn't wait for her second year to begin so that she could move out of the halls of residence away from that nutter and find someone a little less irritating to share a flat with. That someone ended up being Peter.

There were plenty of plus points about being a woman, Lindi reasoned; in some cases women were freer than men. She remembered discovering something that had shocked her a few years earlier - that in this day and age, all boys over the age of 18 in America still had to register for military draft. All girls of course being exempt.

So Liz, Lindi had thought at the time, if males are so privileged and females so oppressed, why does society still expect males to submit themselves to be killed or maimed in times of war in order to defend us? In what way can that possibly be seen as 'male privilege'? If anything, Lindi observed, it was female privilege to not be expected to die in times of war.

But there was one aspect of being a woman that she had very mixed feelings about. And this morning she was experiencing those conflicting emotions.

She was having her period.

A woman's menstrual cycle has historically been seen as either something that is shameful and dirty and must be hidden from view, or something that should be celebrated as a symbol of a woman's fertility.

In some African cultures it is still commonplace for women to be segregated from the rest of their communities while they are menstruating. Forced to live in darkened huts away from friends and family until such time as their monthly bleeding has ceased and they have been 'cleansed'. Even the Book of Leviticus in the Bible implied that a menstruating woman was 'unclean'. But then again, Leviticus also wrote that a man having 'nocturnal emissions' was 'unclean' as well, Lindi recalled.

Some other cultures positively celebrated a woman's menstrual cycle, some seeing parallels between menstruation and the lunar cycle. In some ancient tribes a woman whose menstrual cycle roughly coincided with a full moon would be revered rather than ostracised.

In contemporary western culture however, Lindi thought to herself, a woman's menstruation is neither one thing nor the other. It is neither something to be ashamed about nor something to celebrate. It is merely something that is a part of the nature of being a woman.

Unless you are someone like Liz, Lindi thought, she would probably see it as somehow being men's fault - an example of patriarchal oppression. She probably felt the same about childbirth too, Lindi reckoned. She smiled as a sudden thought occurred to her - if periods and childbirth had been foisted on women by MOTHER nature, how could they possibly be the fault of males? Lindi wished dearly that she had mentioned that notion to Liz when she had the opportunity. But then again, it would only spur her into launching into yet another vitriolic diatribe against male oppression. Lindi wondered whatever became of her - she hoped that she had mellowed over the years but somehow she doubted it.

To Lindi, her period was just another part of being a woman. She didn't enjoy it, but she didn't feel that it was something to be ashamed about either.

She thought about this now as she tore open the little paper sleeve that encased the 'FreshFem Ultra' tampon, her first one of the day. The commercials for these feminine hygiene products positively celebrated a woman's monthly period. They were full of confident, outgoing women not letting a little thing like shedding the lining of their uterus stop them from rollerblading and giving high profile presentations at business meetings.

But the products ultimately conveyed a message of discretion, that they can hide the fact that a woman is bleeding from her vagina. So ultimately, their selling point being that a woman's period is something that should be celebrated but still hidden.

Lindi reached down and parted her labia with her left hand. It was a procedure she had performed countless times ever since she had her first period at the age of 14. On that occasion she had been terrified of the notion of blood coming out from her vagina. Her mother had been of little help at the time. She was suffering from a severe bout of depression at the time, seeking solace in a bottle, and too out of it to give her daughter any real motherly support.

Surprisingly, it was Peter of all people who had given her the support she had needed. It wasn't that he showed her how to use tampons or anything like that - he was a boy after all, he had no idea how to use them himself. It was rather that he had paid attention during sex education lessons at school and understood what she was going through. He had simply just been there for her and helped her overcome her feelings of nervousness and fear. It was at that time in her life that she realised what a comforting presence he had become in her life.

He had been at her side when she bought her first box of tampons from a local supermarket. She remembered how he had laughed when, back in his bedroom at his aunt's house where he lived, they had taken a look at the little sheet of paper with the instructions of how to use them. His laughter was in no way disrespectful however, it merely acted as some light comic relief at the time and she couldn't help but join in the sudden bout of hilarity. It was years ago now, but she wondered how she would ever have got through that first experience of menstruation without his comforting presence there to help her.

Back in the present day, Lindi's right hand brought the tip of the applicator to the entrance of her vagina and, with a well-practiced motion, pushed the tampon up inside her and then withdrew and threw the applicator tube into the bin along with its paper wrapper. The only visible sign of the tampon being inside her was the short length of string used to pull it out when it was time for it to be changed.

She put on her underwear and got ready for work. She popped a couple more tampons into her bag and then headed downstairs to meet the man who had been such a comfort to her during that first menstrual cycle.



Monday, March 22nd 2010 - 6:27pm

Lindi parked up in the car park of Westborough-on-sea Leisure Centre. Over dinner the night before, Peter had bemoaned the fact that he wasn't getting enough exercise. A couple of years earlier Peter - at the time a keen runner - had torn a ligament while taking part in an amateur cross-country race. A hidden tree root had caused him to stumble off balance and the resulting fall caused him to tear his cruciate ligament - an injury that had ended the career of many an athlete. It required an operation and needed six months of physiotherapy afterwards. His doctor advised him that from then on he should refrain from running and other high impact forms of exercise. Not being able to do one of the things he enjoyed most, Peter fell into something of a malaise and as the months wore on he found himself getting less and less exercise.

On a whim, Lindi suggested swimming as an alternative form of exercise. It was low impact and the support of the water wouldn't place too much strain on his injured knee and the water would also provide a decent amount of resistance.

Peter agreed to give it a try, but only on the proviso that Lindi came along too. She reasoned that it wouldn't do any harm and so had agreed. They paid for a one-hour session at the reception desk and then headed for the changing rooms.

The changing room of the Westborough-on-sea Leisure Centre was all sub-divided into individual cubicles. There was a male-only section of cubicles, a female-only section and a unisex family section, which held larger cubicles suitable for family groups and wheelchair users.

Ten minutes later and now dressed only in one single item of clothing each - Peter in a pair of simple black swimming trunks and Lindi in a shocking pink one-piece swimsuit - the two friends bundled their clothes into a couple of the coin-operated lockers and headed for the pool.



Monday, March 22nd 2010 - 7:30pm

Peter climbed out of the pool feeling that dichotomy of physical tiredness and mental refreshment that one often experiences after a satisfying workout. Lindi had been right, the water had eased the stress on his joints and he had managed to cover 60 lengths of the 25m pool. Lindi wasn't far behind, having managed 57 herself. The two friends climbed out of the pool and made for the changing room to retrieve their clothes.

Having gone their separate ways, both Lindi and Peter found to their dismay, that the individual cubicles in the female-only and male-only sections were all occupied. It was right in the middle of the busy period between the hour-long early evening session and the private training session that was the territory of the Westborough Dolphins Swimming Club.

At almost exactly the same time, Peter and Lindi were reunited, shivering in the relative cold of the changing room, at the open space of the junction of the three sections that it was sub-divided into.

"C-can't f-find a c-cubicle either huh?" Peter said through chattering teeth.

"D-damned sw-swimming c-club taking up all the r-room!" Lindi cursed.

The two friends merely stood shivering out in the open, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, one of the family cubicles opened up and was disgorged of a group of young women who all wore the distinctive red and white swimming costumes of the Westborough Dolphins Swimming Club.

"W-we could always..." Lindi said, nodding towards the recently vacated family sized cubicle.

"A-are you k-kidding??" Peter said as he followed her gaze.

"You have any b-better ideas?" Lindi said through her own chattering teeth, "The swim club p-people will be ages yet and it b-beats standing around here sh-shivering!"

"Yeah but, we'll b-be n-naked in there t-together!"

"So? I've alr-ready s-seen you naked." Lindi pointed out.

"Yeah, but I've n-never seen y-you naked before!"

"Would seeing me naked b-be s-so bad?" Lindi chattered.

"W-well n-no, but..." Peter stammered in part due to the cold and in part due to the notion of getting to see his best friend in the nude.

"Well then, come on!" Lindi said as she entered the cubicle, "Unl-less you want t-to d-die of hypo-th-thermia!"

Peter sighed and followed her in, bolting the door behind him. It was, mercifully, a little warmer inside.

"Anyway, like I said," Lindi said as she stood before Peter, "I've already seen you naked so I guess it's only fair if you get to see me in the nude."

"Lindi, you don't have to..." Peter began, stopping himself in mid-sentence as he realised he was about to say pretty much exactly the same thing that Lindi had said to him when he stripped off in front of her in her flat.

Lindi smiled as she too saw the parallel in the situation.

"Well, I don't see you stopping me!" She said, echoing the words Peter had said to him those few weeks ago.

She hooked her fingers into the shoulder straps of her swimming costume and in one movement tugged the garment down to reveal her naked breasts to Peter for the very first time. She paused for a moment with the shocking pink lycra garment bunched up around her waist and took in the sight of the near-naked Peter gazing at her.

She hooked her thumbs into the swimsuit once more and this time pulled the whole thing down her legs until it fell in a wet crumpled heap on the floor at her feet. She stood before Peter as naked as a newborn. He just stood there speechless. To Peter, seeing Alison naked had been an incredible sight. But Lindi was an even more arresting sight! Her breasts were larger than the redheaded lesbian's, her nipples darker and more pronounced, surrounded by aureolas that framed them beautifully. And... between her legs...

"Oh my God, you shave your pubes?!?" Peter gasped.

In stark contrast to Alison, whose vulva remained hidden within a thick bush of copper coloured pubic hair, Lindi's meticulously shaved pudenda was heart-stoppingly beautiful. The soft plumpness of her hairless outer labia, divided by a beautifully soft looking cleft which was slightly rounded at the top, was by far the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The neat, beautiful symmetry of her most intimate parts brought tears to Peter's eyes.

"I can't stand pubic hair," Lindi said, bringing Peter out of his momentary reverie, "I just prefer it this way."

She turned around to let him have a glimpse of her naked bottom.

"Well, what do you think?" Lindi asked as she faced her friend once more.

"Y-you're... b-beautiful!" Peter stammered, though this time not from the cold.

"Thank you." Lindi said simply, "You going to take those off or what?" She said, pointing to Peter's swimming trunks.

As Peter looked down at his black lycra trunks he noticed that they were struggling to contain his growing tumescence. The naked Lindi followed his gaze, noting his state of arousal.

"Is... is that because of me?" Lindi asked.

"Umm..." Peter was unsure how to answer. If he said, 'yes, of course it's because of you!' he was afraid that it would look as if he was lusting after her. If he answered that it wasn't because of her, she might take it the wrong way and the last thing Peter wanted was to make her feel unattractive. It was clear that a cautious approach was called for.

"Yes... and no." Peter offered.

"It's quite okay you know," Lindi said as she placed a comforting hand on Peter's shoulder, "I'm not so naive to believe that men only get erections when they are turned on. As flattering as it is when that does happen of course!"

"Well... it's just that... this is just a bit... y'know... sudden." Peter said.

"All we're doing is getting changed together." Lindi said, "I mean, we're both adults right? And we're friends aren't we? Best friends get changed together all the time. Those women in here before us were obviously friends."

"Yeah but... most best friends aren't like us."

"You mean most best friends aren't a man and a woman?" Lindi said, "look Peter, you know that it doesn't matter to me. Can't you see? By my taking my clothes off in front of you like this, it shows how much I trust you as a friend. I mean, the other night at my place when you stripped off in front of me, you wouldn't have done that if you didn't have trust in me would you?"

"I... I guess not." Peter replied.

"And you certainly wouldn't have admitted to me that you were a virgin if you didn't trust me."

"Yes, I suppose."

"Or ask me to be with you while you lost your virginity. And it's not like I haven't seen you... hard before, remember?" Lindi said as she referred to Peter's arrangement with Alison and Becky.

Peter sighed. Lindi was right - she always was. So with a single decisive action, Peter pulled down his trunks and stood before Lindi as naked as she was - his erection sprang free from its lycra confinement and stood out proudly.

Lindi gasped slightly as she saw the size of Peter's erection. It wasn't the biggest she had seen - it wasn't the smallest either - but it seemed bigger than she remembered from that afternoon at Alison and Becky's flat. Then again, she hadn't felt it to be too appropriate to be appraising the size of Peter's erection at the time. But now for some reason it did feel appropriate.

Her immediate thought, upon looking at her friend's erection was that it would make a woman very happy indeed to have such a nicely proportioned penis all to herself. Despite her sexual orientation, Alison seemed to have enjoyed having it inside her. Lindi wondered how it would feel to have it sliding up into her own vagina.

Her right hand suddenly found itself creeping towards the engorged organ set before her. Peter stood there nervously, seeming not to prevent Lindi from making contact with his manhood, but at the same time not exactly inviting her to touch him either.

Closer and closer, her hand edged towards Peter's firmly erect and slightly pulsing penis. Peter's eyes followed his friend's hand as it crept nearer and nearer to his tumescent organ.

Three inches...

Two inches...

One inch...

Suddenly, the door to the neighbouring cubicle slammed shut causing the thin walls to shudder momentarily, bringing Lindi and Peter firmly back into the real world and reminding them that they were in a public place.

"We um... we should get dressed." Peter said.