How Beautiful Are The Feet

On the tv screen, Gloria was reporting from Albania, her handsome, slightly weathered face bearing down intensely into the camera, as if she had to finish her report and get away before someone shot her. Madeline's heart did that old flutter. She had just finished putting little Hannah to bed. About once every 3 or 4 months Madeline saw Gloria reporting from somewhere. In the past 6 years they had managed two meetings. Two lunches. After one of them, they had held hands briefly on a park bench, Gloria's larger, unpainted fingers closing warmly over Madeline's smaller, manicured hand. Madeline had been wearing silver nail polish that day. Gloria had looked at it and laughed. In Gloria's universe, glimmering silver nail polish was a myth, belonging to a legendary world of unicorns and princes.

Madeline's nails: they were strung over the memory of that year like Christmas lights. They had met in September of 1994 at Melville, the women's college west of Boston. That dangerous year. Madeline was returning for her junior year, back to the familiar school, but to an unfamiliar room-mate. The new room-mate was Gloria, who had transferred from a small college in upstate New York. Gloria was a senior.

Madeline had arrived at Melville a week late that September, because of the death of her grandmother. The evidence of Gloria was everywhere in the room: a clutter of books, clothes, shoes and magazines, a camera bag with cords snaking out of it, a couple of field hockey sticks. They were lucky to have this room. All the young women - and here at Melville they were always referred to as "women", not as "girls" or "ladies"; serious young "women" were supposed to have outgrown those confining archetypes - all the young women coveted the corner rooms of this, the oldest residence at Melville. They were circular, and formed a turret that rose up into the sky, the highest point on campus. They were larger, and they had the best views, especially of the long sloping grass that led to the small lake.

Madeline unpacked her suitcases. She was studying music performance, a soprano. All she knew about Gloria was that she was a senior. Later she learned Gloria was studying economics; it wasn't until the next year, at graduate school, that Gloria decided on journalism. But even in her senior year, she was writing articles for the student newspaper, always carrying that video camera around.

Madeline needed a shower. She had to replace the sticky film of her flight from Pittsburgh. She threw her robe on and got out her small soft-sided cosmetic bag, unzipping the lid and laying out about 15 shades of nail polish on her dresser. She didn't deliberate long before choosing dark blue - not quite midnight blue but darker than navy. Revlon called it "Twilight Ink".

This was the image she presented when Gloria burst into the room: knees together, leaning forward in her faded red terry robe, her foot contorted at an angle as she applied the last dab of paint to her baby toe. The door swung open, and in strode Gloria, dragging her field hockey stick for a few steps before simply dropping it loudly on the time-stained hardwood floor. You would have expected someone new at Melville to be just a little tentative, but not Gloria; she rolled in like a weather system. Like a hurricane, if you wanted to know the truth.

"Oh hi," said Gloria and walked directly over to shake Madeline's hand. "You must be Madeline. I'm Gloria. So we're room-mates. Just let me get out of this stuff and shower off."

Madeline felt her hand squeezed in the larger young woman's sweaty, muddy hand, her new friend's face flushed red with the exertion of her field hockey, some streaks of mud down the sides of her legs. Gloria wiped the back of her forearm across her brow, then her nose, then took the elastic out of her pony tail and let her long wavy dark brown hair fall messily down her back and shoulders. She sat on the edge of the bed. First, she unlaced her boots and kicked them off, half-way across the room. Then the small shin-guards, similarly discarded. Next she peeled off her t-shirt, blue, with the discreet Melville crest over her heart outlined in white, which she just dropped on the floor between her shoes. She stood up and dropped her pleated skirt in a pool around her feet, not bothering to step out of it but unpeeling her mud-scarred knee socks and leaving them in the centre of the skirt opening, the socks standing up like cloth slinkys. Finally, she reached back and stretched out of her functional sports bra, and tore off the spandex short-tights that she wore under the pleated skirt. All the time, she was breathing pretty hard. Without another word, she strode naked to the bathroom, leaving behind her this scattered pile of athletic clothes like it had been blown there by the wind.

Madeline smiled. Gloria was tall, at least 5'10, with a hard, athletic body, muscles like a guy's. Madeline noticed girls' bodies; she was part artist, and partly attracted. Gloria appeared a few minutes later, rubbing her head with a towel, her dark hair sticking to her neck and her forehead and her cheek and her shoulders. Gloria's lack of timidity was inspiring. Madeline studied Gloria's legs - not so much graceful as impressive because of the sharply defined muscularity. She looked at what must have been the hardest stomach she had seen on a girl. Nowadays, they would have called it a six-pack. Her breasts were neither large nor small: a b-cup for sure, with dark brown aureoles, hard nipples right in the bullseye. Her pubic hair was trimmed, but not a great deal. Tidied would have been a better word.

Gloria stopped rubbing her hair suddenly and looked at Madeline studying her. "You don't mind, do you? Running around without clothes? I just can't be bothered, but if it makes you feel weird..."

Madeline smiled the slow, self-contained half-smile that would come to bemuse Gloria so much. "Oh no. I like it, actually. If you don't mind, I don't mind."

"Good," Gloria said, and went on rubbing her hair, while her tight breasts bounced. After a minute or so, Gloria looked down at Madeline, studying her new room-mate in return, still in the same pose, the small bottle of blue nail polish in her fingers.

She walked over to the foot of Madeline's bed, bent to stare at her toenails, reached out a hand to turn the big toe just slightly, the dark blue nail polish contrasting the white skin of Madeline's feet. "Nice," she said. "Fucking cool." Then she noticed the array of bottles on Madeline's dresser. "Holy shit." She laughed briefly. "Popsicle toes."

"Popsicle toes?" The cuteness was so incongruous in the mouth of this hockey player.

"That's what my Oma used to call them."

"Oma?" queried Madeline.

"Yeah. My grandmother. She always used to paint our toes when we were kids, and she would call them popsicle toes. Used to drive my mother fucking nuts."

She went back to her side of the room, pulled out a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, which she slipped on with no underwear. "Let's go down and eat."

Madeline smiled and stood, undoing her robe and throwing it on the bed, walking naked to her dresser. Her body was smaller and softer than Gloria's, no angles and bulges of calf and thigh muscles, just curves. She felt good, her nipples hardening as she pullied on a pair of jeans and a top. No underwear for her either. Inside there was just the slightest, darkest hum of possibilities.

Gloria was the captain of the Varsity field hockey, it turned out. She had been recruited. A week later, the afternoon of their first game, against Radcliffe, Madeline decided to go down and watch. She got there just after half time. She was stunned. She had never seen anything like it, the intensity the girls played with. The "women", rather. And in the middle of it, clearly the best player on the field, was Gloria. She knew field hockey was supposed to be non-contact, but Gloria played it like it was football, or ice hockey. She would drive toward a knot of players who were scrambling for the ball. It was like every encounter was a game of chicken. The other players would sense her, it seemed, without seeing her, and there would open up in front of Gloria a sudden wedge of space, like a sudden window in time when everyone else stopped but her, and she would slip through it, and emerge on the other side, with the ball, her glistening, mud-streaked legs crunching the ground, her ponytail trailing behind like the tail of a comet. With her mouthguard in, she always looked like she had a fat lip, like someone had punched her. It didn't look out of place.

Madeline watched and absorbed it all, disengaged, unable to summon the enthusiasm and fire she saw in the other girls who were watching and yelling and screaming. Go Melville Go. Kill 'em! Madeline felt more like she was observing paintings in a gallery, from an aesthetic distance. It was weird that people could get so wrapped up in a game. Spectators that is. Players she could understand. Madeline was intense herself. Just because she was quiet didn't mean she was docile.

After the game, Madeline went back to their room, slipped out of her jeans and sweat top, put on her thick terry robe, and took out her score of The Messiah. The game was no longer in her mind. The game was now catalogued with all other new experiences, a little flake of the collage that was her life.

As always, when she was studying a score, she took out some nail polish and absent-mindedly did her fingernails and toenails. It was a bit of a ritual. This time, she chose a bright pink, almost hot pink. It was called "Rock Candy" by the people at Max Factor. She looked at the score of The Messiah between her legs as she leaned forward. She knew the Messiah inside out. They had all sung it half a dozen times before. She just had to look at the notations Barter had insisted on for her solo. Professor Barter was a stickler, clear and emphatic; she knew exactly what she wanted. All of the girls had a solo at some point; about 15 of them had solos in the Messiah. Madeline applied her nail polish flawlessly, singing the notes inside her mind.

By the time Gloria slammed the door open, Madeline had entirely forgotten about the game. She didn't look up, applying the last dab of Rock Candy to her baby toe before returning to the next page of the score. "Nice game," she said absently, without looking up.

Gloria was going through her usual routine of dropping the collection of field hockey sticks noisily to the floor, unlacing and kicking off her boots.

"Fucking right. We kicked ass." Then silence. The silence was what caught Madeline's attention, not Gloria's noisy racket. Then there was the sound of breathing. Madeline heard Gloria inhale audibly somewhere near her as she screwed the top back on the little bottle of nail polish. It was like the sound of someone inhaling an asthma inhaler. Madeline still didn't look up.

She didn't look up, in fact, until Gloria stood at the foot of Madeline's bed, leaning over, her exercise-flushed thighs pressing against the top bar of the iron railing that formed part of the footboard of the bed. Madeline watched as Gloria leaned forward. The taller girl's face was still flushed from her game, and she hadn't taken off her sweaty t-shirt or her pleated game skirt. The outline of her sports bra was very visible; her nipples stood out like little thimbles.

Madeline's mouth went dry as she looked up. Gloria kept reaching forward. It must have happened quickly but it seemed to happen out of time, like a movie broken down into hundreds of frames so you could see each ripple in Gloria's forearms and upper arms as she leaned forward. Her hands closed around Madeline's ankles and she slowly pulled Madeline's legs flat, her eyes studying the smaller girl's toes, then methodically, clinically moving up Madeline's calves and thighs. Madeline didn't bother closing the robe that had parted open at her thighs, revealing her white cotton panties.

Madeline just looked up, her mouth completely dry. "Is the door locked?" she said, whispering hoarsely.

Gloria said nothing, but looked into Madeline's eyes. Just the same way she looked on the hockey pitch: like a Viking checking out a village she had come to plunder, brooding and ready for blood. "You are so fucking sexy. Sitting there putting on your nail polish on those pretty little feet of yours. Have you ever been fucked by a girl?"

Madeline's heart was pounding in her chest. "Yes," she said. She could feel her nipples tingling. "Is the door locked?" she repeated louder, more insistently. Now, right now, the ache to be fucked by her athletic room-mate rumbled inside her. Everything hung suspended for a few seconds, like those strange still moments before a rocket lifted off: an explosion, a flash of heat and light and smoke before the earth actually started quaking, and she cut through the stratosphere.

"Yes, it's locked." Gloria climbed over the end of the bed, her pleated skirt rising up along her strong thighs as she straddled the smaller girl's legs. She felt the after-game heat of Gloria's thighs and crotch under her skirt as they settled on her shins and knees. Gloria pushed Madeline back onto the bed firmly, and started to undo Madeline's robe. She wasted no time in opening it up, and pushing it aside. Then she just looked over Madeline's body, a pirate-queen gloating over a freshly opened treasure chest. Madeline's chest was heaving, her hands spread to her side gripping the sheets. Her white skin was starting to flush; her nipples were brown and hard. She bit her lip, feeling the lava of responses flow down her flesh.

"God your body is fucking awesome," Gloria said. She reached her hands forward and mashed Madeline's breasts with her hockey hands, strongly, roughly, making sure the heel of her palm scraped over Madeline's nipples. Madeline whimpered and jerked, but kept grasping the sheet with her fingers. She was groaning very quietly now with each intake of breath. Gloria stopped mashing Madeline's breasts then quickly ran her fingers back and forth over the smaller girl's nipples, then pinching them, pulled them and twisted them.

"Don't move," she said. "Don't fucking move. Understand?" Madeline just nodded and gripped the sheet tighter.

Gloria did have fingernails, they were just shorter than Madeline's and one or two of them were always chipped. She dragged her fingers down Madeline's front to her tummy, then down the outside of her panties into her pussy, pressing the gusset into Madeline's cleft. "You're wet, you're fucking wet. Good." She pressed her fingers into the panties at Madeline's slit, then slid the panties up and down along the seeping channel, lifting her clit with the wet, panty-clad fingers. "You're fucking wet and you want to be fucked, don't you, Maddy?" Gloria had not called her Maddy before; from now on she always would. Gloria slipped her fingers under the elastic of Madeline's panties; Madeline lifted her ass off the bed so Gloria could slip the panties off easily. Madeline just lay there, her hips shifting, her mound lifting with each breath.

Gloria wasted no time. With one hand she parted Madeline's pussy lips, and then drove two fingers into her pussy. Madeline jerked and writhed, moaning as loud as she dared, fearful the girls next door might hear. She did her best to stay still; she kept gripping the sheets as tightly as she could. The scent of her own pussy mixed with the sweaty athletic smell of the girl fucking her. Gloria's skin felt so hot. Gloria's fingers curled up inside her, almost lifting her off the bed, them slid out and back in, fucking her slowly. "There, you little fuckgirl, feel me fucking you. I am going to fuck you hard and fast. Fuck yes. I just have to. Fuck your wet cunt. Your pretty wet fuckable cunt. Don't you just ache to cum, you little fuckgirl? Don't you just ache to be fucked?" Then Madeline felt Gloria's thumb on her clit as two fingers plunged deep into her wet silky pussy, parting her roughly. Suddenly Gloria lowered her mouth and clamped it onto Madeline's mound. Madeline felt the other girl's strong tongue sliding up her slit, in unison with two fingers fucking her cunt, then felt the clit sucked into the athletic girl's mouth, her tongue pressing it hard, relentlessly, completely devoid of finesse, completely full of intensity and purpose. There was no manipulation, no teasing, no torment.

In less than a minute, her orgasm started, she writhed and bucked, feeling Gloria push the explosion out of her with her fingers, then suck it out of her with her mouth and tongue. She twisted on the bed, moaning as quietly as she could, her legs taut, then jerking, her head thrashing from side to side.

"Please stop. Gloria please please stop I can't stand any more please stop oh god oh god oh fuck I can't stand it I'm cumming again oh fuck oh shit you bitch you fucking bitch oh fuckkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!"

Gloria kept fucking her and licking her, swatting Madeline's hands away as the smaller girl tried to push her off. Then she unbent, kneeling above the smaller girl, her face flushed, her mouth and cheeks glistening with juices from Madeline's pussy. Her pony tail was still bobbing behind her head. Power smiled in her face. "I'm not finished with you yet. Don't move!"

Gloria leaned back on her ass and pulled the spandex tights from her thighs, and unzipped her pleated skirt. In less than a second, she was straddling Madeline's shoulders, her pussy inches from the smaller girl's mouth. She looked down and smiled briefly before she ripped her t-shirt off, then her sports bra, then began pinching her left nipple with the fingers of her left hand. With her right, she sunk her fingers into Madeline's dark red hair and firmly pulled the smaller girl's mouth to her own pussy.

"Come on now, baby. Lick my cunt. I NEED to cum. Come on, Maddy, use that pretty tongue of yours."

The athletic girl's scent filled Madeline's nostrils completely. The scent of her wet cunt, the scent of her perspiration on her thighs, the suddenly released heat of her crotch from under the spandex tights. It was like being in a greenhouse of exotic plants, kept at jungle temperature and humidity. Feverishly she pushed her tongue between Gloria's labia, feeling her room-mate's juices filling her mouth. Her clit was a hard, thick nub, Madeline's tongue pressing against it, lifting it, circling it vigorously. Gloria was holding the back of Madeline's head and rubbing her cunt up and down over Madeline's mouth, fucking the smaller girl's mouth with her pussy. Madeline's arms were still helpless, pinned under Gloria's bent legs. Every few seconds the cunt pressed harder, on the pubic bone, and Madeline felt a sharp shock of pain, and whimpered, her cry muffled by the hot wet labia around her mouth. Looking up with wide, wild eyes she saw the intensity of Gloria's eyes sealed shut, then looking back down as she fucked her cunt up and down Madeline's mouth. Then Madeline felt Gloria humping faster, her mouth pressed harder against the athletic girl's pussy, until in one final lunge she felt her face clamped between the strong girl's thighs, several hard thrusts jerking her whole head and neck back, and hoarse screams from Gloria's mouth as she tried to restrain the volume of her cries.

Madeline let her head fall back as Gloria leaned forward, her hands on either side of Madeline's head. The strong girl was trying to catch her breath, as was Madeline. Madeline's mouth and chin and nose were red with the pressure of being fucked, soaked with Gloria's juices. Finally Gloria looked down at Madeline and smiled, her breath coming more evenly now. She placed her fingers on Madeline's cheek and rubbed them gently, before lifting her leg off Madeline's shoulder and sitting beside her on the edge of the bed. She turned her fingers over and brushed Madeline's cheek with the back of her hand, then leaned down and kissed her on the lips, hard but not long, then leaned back up.