Forcing the Issue Ch. 01

Fair warning: heavy doses of angst bookended by scenes of stridently angsty lesbian sex. Hope you enjoy! :)

***

"Faster," she says.

Michelle picks up the remote. She always leaves the TV on during, and she always puts the volume up too loud. It's not like there's ever anything good on Thursday nights; just the usual syndicated sitcom crap, or the news. Talk shows will be on in a half an hour. Sometimes they watch them together, in bed, but there's an Accounting midterm tomorrow. They have to wake up early. Speaking of which...

"Faster," she says.

And Abigail, with her head between Michelle's thighs, complies.

Michelle doesn't use words like 'clit' or 'pussy', doesn't say things like 'use your tongue more' or 'put a finger in me.' She just says 'faster,' and Abigail is meant to discern if that actually means faster, or if it means harder, or if it means two fingers when she's currently only using one.

Michelle's body is hot. Her scent is potent, and it buzzes around the inside of Abigail's nose and straight up to her brain. Michelle didn't shower beforehand. She never showers beforehand, that would probably be too much of an acknowledgment.

Abigail dips down into Michelle's fur. It's coarse, but Abigail likes the way it lightly scratches at her nose. Michelle's pubic hair is a shade darker than the hair on her head, but—even down between her legs—she's a blonde through and through. Abigail likes that too. She likes many things about Michelle. She likes her peppy cheerleader style, her shoulder-length hair, and her pert, athletic breasts, though Michelle doesn't let her touch them. Not that Abigail has ever explicitly asked, but she's tried to, once or twice...

"Faster," Michelle says.

Abigail parts her lips and embraces Michelle's cunt in something like a kiss. She closes her eyes. Her tongue is slow, despite Michelle's orders. Michelle is always careful not to inhale too quickly; she is always careful to appear unaffected. But each time Abigail shapes her tongue into a blunt point and darts it forward against Michelle's clit her friend's knees squeeze, just for a nanosecond, and close in around Abigail's head like they never want it to leave, like...

...like this could be real.

And each time, after Michelle's body has relaxed, and her show of poise resumed, Abigail spreads her tongue wide and tickles it slowly across Michelle's clit. When she's reached the top her tongue flattens again. She finds the place where all the little nerve clusters live. She pays special attention to that spot because—she feels, she thinks, possibly, maybe—when she does, Michelle takes a breath that is barely, hardly, not-even-really-perceptibly deeper. It feels, each time Abigail laves her wet tongue to the top of Michelle's clit, that...

...well, it feels like something.

Abigail fidgets, rustling her shoulders against Michelle's knees. Without a word of acknowledgement, over these past few months, they've worked out something like a communication system. Michelle takes the silent cue and spreads her legs, but only a touch.

She has one finger in already. It takes some maneuvering to edge it backwards, to dip it slowly out, but not all the way out. Michelle requires constant stimulation. As she slides her index finger out of Michelle's pussy, Abigail drags it across the rough ridge inside of her, her G-Spot, and she is doubly careful to keep a hard pressure on it—like holding a poster in place while you try to pin it to the wall—then, when she's sure she's got it trapped, her middle finger joins in on the fun.

Michelle emits a soft sound that Abigail interprets as a moan. Why else would she click the TV volume up another few decibels, except to cover it? Abigail extends her tongue again, applying a gentle balm of spit to Michelle's clit as she works the second finger into her. No more G-Spot, not right now. She's found a place inside Michelle that's much more effective. If she glides her fingers in, as deep as they'll go, there's a little corner, on the right side, where it feels like the hipbone meets the thigh. There's a spot there where the wet, pulsing skin gives a tiny bit, compressing against the hard bone underneath. And when she presses down on that hard little spot, Michelle rewards her with a brief tremor that is the closest ever she gets to shuddering. Abigail likes that; she likes that very much.

Michelle's legs close back around her ears, even as Michelle acts like she's not interested. But if she's not interested then why does her left hand slowly squeeze around her stomach, bunching up in the material of her t-shirt with each gradual, carefully paced inhale? Why do her fingers ball into a fist and her knuckles turn white as she's edged up to her climax? Why do her legs start to jitter just before she cums? She tries to keep them stiff, but Abigail can tell.

Abigail has had plenty of time to notice these things, on plenty of nights where she's knelt at the side of Michelle's bed and put her head between her thighs at Michelle's tacit request. They would be studying, or watching TV, and then... it just happens.

Or, for Michelle it probably seemed to "just happen." For Abigail, the questions would start bounding around inside her brain as the two of them were saying their goodbyes to the group after dinner. It has to be a tonight, she'd thought, this time, as they split off and headed back to their dorm. It's been a week. She never waits more than a week. She went out with Pete last night. She got drunk, she came home unhappy. She'll ask tonight. She always asks after she's had a bad date.

They were just repeating the same little dance, but... Abigail didn't mind. It was something. She liked eating Michelle out. She liked the way she could scoop two fingers into that secret place of hers—a place nobody like Pete would ever find, that's for sure—and drag them slowly outward, pulling down against the bone until the yielding flesh of Michelle's cunt let her fingers slip wetly away. She liked pressing her fingers upward, and curling them back, so the briefest touch of her nails graced across the ridges of Michelle's G-Spot. She liked, when she was feeling feisty, the way she could draw an almost imperceptible tremble out of Michelle by spreading her fingers wide and stretching Michelle's wonderfully tight, wonderfully tense tunnel to its absolute limits.

"Faster," Michelle says.

Abigail plunges her fingers back in, as deep as they'll go. She is fucking her, and Abigail wonders how her friend can tolerate someone's cock (Pete's cock), when just two fingers seem like too many. Her tongue is no longer laving across Michelle's clit, it's assaulting it. This is an attack. Jabs and swipes and feints and tickles, quick motions, and sometimes harsh ones, things she's perfected in the weeks and months, the ways she's learned to get Michelle off.

The seal of her mouth is imperfect. A heady, scented mixture of her spit and Michelle's excitement spreads over her plunging wrist and rocking knuckles. She forgets to breathe, when she is working her friend across the finish line. It comes in deep gulps, when her body reminds her that there are things more important than her friend's orgasm.

...but not many things...

There is a slap of Michelle's palm against her stomach, the sound of skin-on-skin muted by the thin shirt, one of Pete's hand-me-downs she liked to wear to bed. A single slap, or maybe a digging of her fingers into her thigh, is as close to a foghorn as Michelle ever sounds. She is coming.

Abigail's learned not to stop immediately, but not to go on too long either. Michelle likes to be worked down for, oh, ten seconds or so. After her orgasm, Michelle's legs unspool and her feet edge forward across the floor. She slumps back on her hands, leaning against the bed, and she looks up at the ceiling and she forgets about the TV for that one moment. Abigail might describe it as a blissful one, but she would never say it out loud.

In that time, Abigail attends to her like... like... well is it wrong to think of it like a cat? She leaves her eyes closed, and she recovers her breath in bits and pieces, and she smooths her tongue across her friend's clit in gentle waves. She dips her cheek down and rests it against the inside of Michelle's leg. She opens her eyes and looks at the creamy whiteness, the pale skin, made all flush by orgasm. She parts her lips, and imagines how it might feel, to kiss those legs, or to touch them, even. She imagines... well, she imagines many things.

They sit like this, in silence, until the orgasm has truly passed, until the unspoken expectation asserts itself, and Abigail sits back, disengages, and remembers her place.

The first words are always the worst. "You said you'd loan me your notes from the Physics midterm, right?" Michelle asks, even as she is adjusting her panties back in to place. She never removes them—of course she doesn't—Abigail is expected to keep them wedged-off to the side while she does her dirty work.

Abigail sits back from her knees, with her butt resting atop the bottoms of her feet. "Yeah, I..." Her face is hot. She can feel the flush on her cheeks. She's almost sweating. "Yeah, no problem. They're in my bag. Do you want them now?" A chance to look away. She's already turning to get them.

"No, it's not until Friday. I'll copy them tomorrow night, probably. I was just checking."

Abigail sits herself back down. "Okay." It is quiet, for a time, before she says, "Hey, Michelle?"

Michelle has already returned to her laptop. She hasn't even bothered to turn the TV down. She looks up, over the screen. "Yeah?"

"I was just thinking that..."

"Not right now, okay?" Michelle asks, a wash of concern flashes over her face, but not for Abigail's sake. This concern is Michelle-centered. It's the concern that she'll be dragged into a conversation she doesn't want, not concern that her friend might have some need of her own, unfulfilled.

"It's not a big deal," Abigail says, "I just—"

"Abbi, we're straight." Michelle leans forward and pinches the collar of her friend's flannel shirt. "Even if you don't dress like you are."

"Yeah, but..."

"Abbi, you have a boyfriend."

And this was true—in a nominal sense. She had a boyfriend. His name was Shaun. They'd fucked, once. It was after a party, and she'd convinced herself she could do it, if only she drank enough beers and had enough Jell-O shots to get her motor running. And she had done it, but... she did not enjoy it in any specific sense. After that point, she had no idea what she would do with Shaun. For now, she kept him placated with blowjobs. It worked, to an extent, but it was only marginally less distasteful.

"Abbi, you're sitting on the floor."

So she was.

She stands, and gets her slippers out from under the bed, so she can head for the door.

"Where are you going?" Michelle asks.

"Just to the bathroom."

"It's late." Michelle scowls, closing her laptop with a snap and setting it to the side. "Midterms start tomorrow. Go to bed."

"But I..."

Michelle clicks off her desk lamp and turns over. The room is dark, now, and Abigail stands in the middle floor as if her slippers were made of lead.

She sits down on her bed once she's recovered enough to force out a tiny bit of locomotion. She barely has the energy to unbutton her shirt or squirm out of her jeans.

She does not go to the bathroom, despite the fact that her pussy is clenching so hard she can feel it all the way up in the pit of her stomach. Michelle's command has some sway on her, taps into some unclaimed, unwanted guilt at the center of her heart. She does not go because... because why? It would be too real, wouldn't it? If she left now, Michelle might notice her go, and if Michelle has to think about her masturbating in a bathroom stall, then it all becomes real...

And then maybe it all goes away...

***

Sarah joins them as they walk down to class in the morning. Michelle jerks her thumb towards Abigail. "She dyed her hair again, you know."

"What?" Sarah asks. "You didn't. What color?"

"Purple!" Michelle says, before Abigail can respond.

"No way. Why? Is that what's trendy in Korea?" Sarah asks.

Abigail grits her teeth. "How the hell should I know? I'm from West Chester."

"Sure," says Michelle, "The Korean part."

"We grew up in the same neighborhood," Abigail says.

"Take off your hat," Sarah says. "Let me see."

"Yeah, take off your hat; let her see."

Abigail slows her pace, so she is a foot or two behind. "You've already heard about it, so why bother?"

But they stop, and turn, and the both of them look at her.

"What, are you embarrassed about it?" Sarah says.

"I'm not embarrassed about it, it's fucking cold! I don't want to take off my hat."

"You are embarrassed," Michelle says. "Well, it's your own damn fault for doing it in the first place."

The wool of Michelle's gloves is coarse against Abigail's skin as she gets a hand around her neck. Abigail tries to pull away, but Michelle's fingers pinch down on some errant fringe of hair sticking out of the bottom of her knit cap. "Look!"

Sarah heaves out a sigh. "You know, you're not in high school anymore."

She is opening her mouth. She is mustering a response.

Then Michelle snatches her hat away.

"What the fuck!" Abigail says.

"See?" Michelle spins the stolen knit cap around on one finger. "Purple!"

Sarah's head is titled. She observes Abigail as if she were a painting. "Well it's not terrible, I guess. It'd look worse if it was grown out, I think."

An instinct inside of her wants, very badly, to cover her head with both hands. She forces it down. She is not an orangutan; she is a human being.

"And what's with the boy cuts? Last month it was at your chin, now it barely touches your ears. If you shear any more off Shaun's going to ask you to prove you're still a girl."

Something snaps. Taking a step closer to Michelle, Abigail says, "Shaun's got all the proof he needs."

Michelle cracks a grin. "Sensitive, much? Listen, anyway, unless you get yourself a decent haircut and, ugh—" Her fingers, tugging at the canvas of Abigail's jacket "—dress like a human being, you're pretty much going to be a virgin forever."

"I'm not a virgin."

Michelle blinks. "You... what?"

"I said I'm not a virgin."

And Michelle laughs, a blurting, blustery one that kicks her composure back into place. "Yeah, right! Abbi, The last time you so much as had make-out session was in fourth grade, when I caught you smooching on that giant stuffed bear my dad won me at the carnival."

Sarah is conspicuously—or perhaps sensibly—silent.

Abigail's hands, balling into fists at her side. She did it, didn't she? It. The only "it" that matters. She did it, with him. Now she doesn't even get credit for it? "I'm not a fucking virgin, okay?"

"Whatever, I believe you. Figures your boyfriend has a bit of the queer in him, right Sarah?"—But Sarah has officially recused herself from this conversation—"I bet when he's fucking you from behind he's imagining some linebacker; maybe Jeffery Halwell. Hey wouldn't that be cute? Just you and him, a couple of—"

Abigail tears her hat away from Michelle with one hand and shoves her backwards with the other.

Michelle stumbles a step or two before she rights herself. She throws her hands up. "Abbi, what the hell!"

"Fuck off!" She is already turning back down the path, and yanking her hat back over her offending hair as she goes.

"Where are you going? Come on, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings!"

"I said, fuck off!"

"You'll be late for the midterm!"

But there is too much blood rushing through her ears, and too many tears welling in her eyes, for her to turn back now.

***

Michelle didn't come back to the dorm that night.

Abigail would know, she hadn't left the room since she stormed back there after their fight. She knew—objectively, rationally—that she should get herself dinner from the cafeteria, but she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed. It was an hour, lying there, staring at the wall, before she could even be bothered to drag off her boots and undo her coat. It was another hour before she could bear to check her phone, to see if Michelle had texted her, maybe.

She hadn't.

She didn't know what to do, so she tried to distract herself with her computer, and then her homework, but, every so often, she would notice she had started crying without even realizing it. She would touch her face, and feel the wetness there, but it hardly felt like her face at all.

It hardly felt like her body, either. Some time during the night she'd felt an ache between her legs, the needy strum that she'd gone all day without satisfying. So she closed her eyes and dug a hand under the waistband of her jeans, just so she'd have something to do for twenty minutes. There was no emotion in it, just the clinical movement of her fingers. She stopped when she found the effort only made her sadder. She tried to sleep instead, but it was too early and she only ended up staring at the wall in the dark.

Some hours later, the door opened. Abigail cringed as her eyes adjusted to the light from the highway bulbs. She tried her best to lie still.

Michelle closes the door and clomps across the room. Abigail hears her huff as she flops onto on her bed.

Abigail breathes out a sigh and closes her eyes. She is so focused on being quiet, on not calling attention to herself, that she doesn't notice Michelle cross the room until the bed shifts under her friend's weight.

Abigail freezes like a cornered mouse. She holds her breath, but it comes out in a jerky exhale when she feels the press of Michelle's breasts against her back.

Michelle's hand curls around her waist. "Abbi, are you awake?"

Terrified of breaking the spell, she says, "...yes..."

Michelle speaks in a whisper, lips dangerously close to Abigail's ear. Her breath stinks; she's been drinking. "I didn't mean to start a fight today."

"I know."

"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."

"I know."

"I care about you, Abigail."

"...I know..."

This was not the first of Michelle's nocturnal admissions. Recently, Abigail had held Michelle's head in her lap during one of her bi-monthly breakups with Pete. Michelle had cried, and cried, and asked, in a way that seemed wholly sincere, if everything wouldn't be more simple if she and Abigail were a couple.

Yes, Abigail had thought, simpler. Almost with tears in her eyes she agreed with a nod, because she couldn't find any words.

Then they went to bed, and they never spoke of it again.

But that didn't stop Michelle from running her mouth when she'd come home like this, three drinks in. It didn't stop her from grabbing and pinching at Abigail's breasts and ass, from even crawling into bed with her, and from whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Come morning she would forget these things. Or maybe she actually did remember, she'd just never admit to actually saying them, even if Abigail were to bring them up, which she never did.

But Michelle had never touched her like this. The way her hand scoops under Abigail's arm, the way her fingers very nearly, but not quite, trace at the undersides of her breasts through her shirt. Drunk Michelle would make plays to pinch or harass Abigail, but she'd never touched her with any sort of passion, to say nothing of compassion, so when the first gentle caress finds the rise of her breast, it's all Abigail can do to hold her breath, lest the world collapse around her.

"I'm sorry," Michelle says. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

"It's okay."

Fingers find her nipple. Untalented fingers, but she doesn't mind the roughness, nor the pinch, not this time. A wave of tension sheds down along her back.