The Strangeness Within Pt. 05

"All the more reason to figure it out," said Kat. "Believe me, I'm taking every precaution."

He nodded. "God, I hope we can get somewhere. I've been floundering around, useless. I'm so glad to have your help."

She smiled. "This is the most fun I've had in ages. The way my heart races when I'm in the zone — it's not sex, but I'll take it. I think I get why some of my friends spend all their time doing this, riding on the edge of being caught. And no, I'm nowhere near as foolhardy as some of them are."

"So," Javier said after a while. "No one new, then?"

Kat sighed. "No. But I'm happier here, Javier. I don't walk down the street thinking people are staring at me, because there are plenty of other butch women for them to stare at if that's their thing. And there's a sex toy shop a half mile away. I think the clerk there is starting to flirt with me."

Javier shook his head and laughed. "So your collection --"

"Is expanding a bit again," she said, laughing. "Want me to show you?"

"Uh, maybe another time," he stuttered, and she laughed.

"So, how about you?" she asked. "Do you have anyone, or are you going to skip the prom?"

He shook his head. "School feels like this fantasy. Like there's nothing real going on there, and we're all just going through the motions, except no one else has realized it."

Kat nodded. "That's how I felt through most of high school, honestly. I guarantee you're not the only one feeling that way, but those others are going through the motions just like you. Anyway, prom's overrated. I was already dating María then, but we didn't feel like being The Lesbian Couple. So we just went out on a date and skipped right to the sex."

Javier smiled, trying to cover the uncomfortable thrill he felt. The kind of thrill he got every time they bantered a little over e-mail. It had seemed pretty harmless, but he was having second thoughts.

Kat did a little more snooping on the InfoCorp systems while Javier watched over her shoulder. Then she hung up the modem and they flopped on the couch. With all the books scattered on one end they were pressed close together. Javier's arm touched hers and he moved it quickly, but she let hers fall against his. It was a pretty butterfly tattoo.

"When did you get the tattoo?" he asked. "I liked it the first time I saw it."

"Oh," she said. "Right after my eighteenth birthday. I got another, but it's pretty well hidden. If you want to see it —"

Javier quickly shook his head. "No, that's OK. Just curious."

She nodded and smiled slightly.

He should have said yes. It wasn't a big deal, really. He might have said yes another time, when he hadn't been thinking about what she did most nights with her toys.

For a while they sat there without saying much. Kat leaned a little more into him, and eventually he put his arm on the back of the couch. She sighed and put her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks, Javier," she said. "Thanks for coming to visit. I missed you."

Eventually she got up to use the bathroom and get ready for bed. Javier quickly changed into his sleeping clothes and cleared off the couch.

When Kat emerged, she was wearing pajamas. Cute pajamas, with little rocket ships and moons all over them.

She was thoughtful and smart and sexy. A little bit rounder than Clara, and with her glasses and the pajamas — he sighed.

"So, good night?"

Javier swallowed and headed for the bathroom. "Yeah. See you in the morning"

He stared at himself in the mirror, letting his erection subside. This was Kat. They had something nice, and he had better not mess it up with his dick the way he'd done with Clara and Samantha. He could only imagine Kat's discomfort if she found out what he'd been thinking about her.

* * *

Javier cooked eggs on the little stove while Kat took her morning shower. When she came out, she was wrapped in a towel.

"God, you cook too? Can I keep you?"

He smiled and glanced back at her, but she was still modestly covered in her towel, carrying her clothes into the bathroom to change. He didn't know what he'd expected when he peeked.

They didn't have any set plans for the day, and over breakfast they idly chatted about San Jose and the upcoming school year. Kat gave him a bunch of good places to look for computer jobs, not that he was feeling very motivated. But he'd need the money.

Eventually Kat sighed.

"Being single sucks," she said. "I'm going to have to get on the market. It's embarrassing how much I miss sex."

Javier already knew as much from their e-mail exchanges. He nodded with what he hoped looked like commiseration.

Esther couldn't have sex. She seemed to be really hung up on that, but then again Esther was such a novice. Not like Kat. She'd never had an orgasm. Maybe she didn't even know what the best ways were for girls.

Kat was right here, and she clearly didn't mind oversharing about sex. She was gay, so she'd know that much more about women, and she couldn't misinterpret his intentions.

"What's on your mind?" Kat asked after he'd been silent for a while.

"Esther," he said. Kat nodded, looking resigned.

"Kat, do you mind if I ask you some weird questions? It has to do with Esther."

"Go for it," she said with a wave.

"Esther has an unusual body," he said. "You never really asked me why people were after her. It's not just because she's unusually brilliant. We were pretty sure it's because she's subtly different from most people in a lot of ways."

"Unusual," Kat said slowly. "How do you mean?"

"She has strange colorations," Javier said. "I told you about her eyes, but she also has blueish-purple freckles on her chest, which get brighter when she's aroused. Same is true for her, uh, nipples and areolae."

"Blue? Really?" Kat said, raising her eyebrows.

"Yeah. And the freckled area is really sensitive. Plus she has another area on her lower back like that. They're erotic zones for her. And she has something closer to, well, fur, than the usual body hair."

"Huh," said Kat. "That's cool. So what's the question?"

"She's clearly unhappy with her private parts. Whatever's between her legs is uncomfortable for her to even think about. She said she physically couldn't have sex, or have children. I told her it was no big deal, but I don't think she believed me. And I want to know — surely there are all sorts of things we can do that aren't penetration. But maybe she hasn't thought of all of them."

Kat nodded and started to smile. "Well, you're asking the right person, then. So, you think maybe she's intersex? Has some of both sexual organs?"

Javier blinked, then shook his head slowly.

"Uh, she doesn't have a dick. Not that I've seen everything, but we've been — intimate enough that I would have felt anything like that."

"OK," said Kat. "Does she like being touched at all between her legs?"

"I think she would, if she weren't too nervous," said Javier. "In the end she was kind of pressing herself against my thigh."

"Ah, the good old hump-a-leg," Kat said wistfully. "I had my first orgasm with another girl that way."

Javier smiled. Kat definitely was the right person to talk about this stuff with.

"So, of course I thought of giving her oral sex, but we never got to that," he said. "And I could use my fingers. But what else is there?"

"A whole world," said Kat. "A whole world, my eager student. Let me expound upon the butthole."

Javier cracked up, and Kat lost her straight face as well.

"She has one, right?"

"I assume so," said Javier. "I mean, not to be crass, but I did accidentally run across a pile of her crap, and that must have come from somewhere."

"Maybe she teleports it out with her mind," said Kat. "That would be convenient. Anyway, that part is sensitive on everyone. Maybe the right kind of sensitive for her, maybe the wrong kind. It's definitely the right kind for me. You ever discuss anal sex?"

Javier coughed.

"Uh, no, Kat, we didn't discuss anal sex. What are first dates with you like anyway?"

"C'mon, Javier, you two weren't in a first-date situation. Are you saying you never thought of suggesting it?"

He slowly shook his head. He'd never had anal sex, of course, though he'd idly wondered once or twice with Clara. It just hadn't crossed his mind with Esther. There was an order in his head. You didn't talk about kinky things like that until you were doing more ordinary things. Except that ordinary sex with Esther was out of the picture.

"I don't know if she could do that either," he said. "I mean, she wasn't specific about the no-sex part, but I guess I sort of assumed —"

"Now, there's a problem," said Kat. "Suppose the first gay man in history had looked at his love interest and said, huh, I can't do sex the ordinary way. I guess there's nothing to be done. Look, don't assume anything. Seriously, though, unless you've got a monstrously enormous cock, I'm sure you could make that work if she's interested."

Javier blushed, and Kat took his shoulder.

"Sorry, I shouldn't joke about that. There's no winning as a guy, is there? The point I was *actually* going to make was that any size can work in one way or another. Hang on a second."

She got up and rummaged around in a dresser drawer, pulling out some things. When she turned around, he realized she had a dildo in each hand.

"Kat!" he spluttered, but she came and sat down.

"Look, Javier, I use both of these in my pussy. And I've used both in my ass. And the orgasms are good either way, now that I know how to use them."

One of the dildos was truly enormous. The other was quite a bit smaller than Javier's dick. He stared at the huge dildo and thought about it going inside Kat, and to his horror he started getting an erection.

Kat didn't seem to notice his discomfort.

"Even if she can't take intercourse of any sort, there's so much else to do! Fingers, hands, lips, elbows, whatever. It sounds like she's got a bonanza of sensitive places, so maybe penetration isn't the point! And if it's hard for her to get off, that's what toys are meant for. God, go to the sex shop together, or let me take her. Or she can borrow any of mine. Don't look at me that way, Javier. A lot of these can go in the dishwasher."

"OK," he said. "Maybe you can put the dildos aside. I'm getting a little distracted."

"Sorry," Kat said. "I got overexcited, I guess. I'm so used to geeking out about Unix with you, the way I couldn't with María, and I guess it just spilled over into sex toys."

"Did she not like them? Sorry, I know this is sensitive for you."

"It's all right," said Kat. "I think they made her uncomfortable. Or maybe it was that I liked them so much, particularly the larger ones. She definitely needed a vibrator to get off sometimes, but she wasn't big on penetration."

"I guess that makes sense," said Javier. "It's a little weird to hear you talk about them as though they're really substitute penises. I thought kind of the point of being a lesbian was to get away from that."

Kat blushed, and turned away from Javier. She didn't say anything for a while.

"OK, I obviously said something incredibly dumb," he said. "Can you educate me so I don't offend the next lesbian I meet?"

Kat took her dildos and stowed them back in the drawer. She flopped back down next to Javier, looking strangely guilty.

"You shouldn't assume lesbians don't like penetration," Kat said slowly. "But I also really shouldn't speak for most lesbians. Not least because I'm not a lesbian."

"What?" Javier blurted.

"I'm bi, Javier. I like men too. Or, rather, I'm sometimes attracted to men. I wasn't interested in most of the guys in school, and I never had a good relationship with a man, but that doesn't mean I've never handled a dick."

"Oh," Javier said. "Oh, God. I'm such an idiot. All this time —"

"That's entirely my doing," Kat interrupted. "I've been pretty careful to let you assume, haven't I? And I thought María and I were in it for the long haul, so it wouldn't have made a difference. Guys are much easier to be around when they're sure you're off limits, so it's been terribly convenient for me. But it's past time I was honest with you."

"So all this time, when you've been flirting with me --"

"No, Javier. Don't go down that road. I'm who I am, and you've seen the way I flirt with everyone. From the start I was thinking about you as a smart, cute guy friend who was easy to be around. María might have been a tad jealous sometimes but I had a clear conscience. It's not like being bi means I'm required to be dating one of each, after all. People are so stupid sometimes."

"Sorry," Javier said, swallowing. He was being an idiot. She was trying to be honest about something that was obviously tricky for her, and here he was jumping to conclusions. "I thought it was safe, you know. I flirted back, more than I would have with anyone who — oh, God, all that e-mail. I feel like a pervert."

"What did we agree, Javier? Sex should be fun. Don't feel like a pervert just because the two of us were getting our rocks off. But you're right, maybe it was over the line. Maybe it's too easy to pretend there's nothing really happening because of those screens between us."

Javier nodded, and then he grinned. "Get your rocks off? Does that even make sense for women?"

"I declare it does," Kat said. She grabbed her crotch and made a lewd gesture, then stroked her imaginary cock. The whole thing was so ridiculous that Javier had to start laughing.

"There," said Kat. "That's what I mean. Sex is ridiculous and funny and hot."

"I hope you get to meet Esther," Javier said. "I think she could use being around you."

"I consider myself a role model for all women," Kat said gravely.

* * *

"No," Abuela said. "Try again."

"I am," grunted Esther. The old woman's cool hand gripped hers. She leaned against Nicola, trying to find comfort in the soft rounding of breasts against her back.

Finally she shook her head.

Abuela sighed and let go.

"We are at a bottleneck," Abuela said. "Your mind must find its own paths so that we can work together. Esther, we're running out of time. Please make this attempt on your own today. Do not shrink from whatever helps because you are embarrassed. There is nothing to be ashamed of. In my first years it took rather odd circumstances to engage my talents, and perhaps that will be true for you as well. I believe you have enough understanding now to find these paths without endangering us, and I will be on watch in case anything unexpected happens."

When they left the cabin, Esther sighed.

"I suppose it's obvious what I have to do. I'm totally not in the mood."

"You want some of Mark's porn stash?" Nicola asked.

Esther's mouth fell open.

"Joking," said Nicola. "I'm not sure if Mark knows what porn is. Glad I can still shock you. Anything I can do to help?"

The casual question lingered between them. Esther swallowed.

"Not now," Esther said uncomfortably. "Not without talking to Mark."

Nicola nodded, her face falling slightly. "Of course," she said. "You're right, of course. But, you know, if it would help to peek, I'll be in the cabin. I could use a wank anyway. I promise I won't spy on you."

* * *

Esther walked around the bath cabin, not quite ready to commit. The air was moist and surprisingly warm, and a few early bulbs poked through the ground. Springtime, all of a sudden. Nicola said the mosquitoes would be terrible in a week or two.

She leaned against a tree and closed her eyes. The air was full of scents: moist ground, mud, wet pine needles, sap, tar, warm wood, cotton, sweat, Nicola.

She blinked in surprise, then closed her eyes and inhaled again. Smell had always been the easiest for her, and even her base level of sensitivity had gone up significantly over the last few months.

Nicola was sweaty, tired, and frustrated. She wasn't quite as horny as she'd led Esther to think, but her fingers were working under her underwear, slowly warming her up. All for Esther's benefit. And Esther had to admit she liked the smell. The other sensations were filtering in slowly. When Esther swallowed, she tasted another woman's musk. She moaned softly.

Something pulled at her from a distance: a sound, quieter than the air, but familiar. Mark was coming back.

"Mark," she said softly, knowing he would hear her. Sure enough, he emerged silently from the trees.

"You heard me from a good distance," he said approvingly. "Well done. Though I was not being particularly quiet."

Not quiet? Maybe not by his standards.

"Mark," she said. "I have something to ask you. Maybe it would be better if Nicola was here, but maybe not."

He looked immediately uncomfortable. No doubt he knew what Nicola was doing at the moment.

"Abuela says I need to access as much of my sight as I can," she said. "Perhaps you know that only truly happened once, when I was extremely sexually aroused. But that is not such an easy thing for me."

Mark shifted nervously.

"Would it be all right if I asked Nicola to help? You can say no."

Several expressions flitted across Mark's face in succession. He took a deep breath.

"I am so sorry for what I said that evening. Yes, of course it would be all right, if Nicola agrees. I understand why it is necessary."

"That's not the same as being comfortable with it," Esther said.

Mark looked uncomfortable. "It is necessary," he finally said. "I will not be angry, Esther. I wish you success."

He walked briskly towards the cabin, leaving Esther more confused than before. But she had a job to do.

Nicola didn't join her until Esther was settled pretty well in the tub.

"Hey," the other woman said, closing the door quickly. "This still OK?"

"Yeah," said Esther. "I was right, I'm not in the mood."

"Me neither," Nicola laughed in commiseration, and Esther tried to relax. Truthfully she was having serious second thoughts about this.

Nicola quickly stripped naked and piled her clothes on the shelf next to Esther's.

"Scoot forward," she said. "I'm coming in!"

Esther wasn't quite sure how this was going to work, but Nicola simply sat behind Esther. It was just like in their sessions with Abuela, except this time they were naked and Nicola was getting her legs around Esther.

"Lean back on me," Nicola said, pulling her gently. "No, really. All your weight. Pretend I'm your pillow."

Esther's leaned back nervously until her head nestled between Nicola's breasts. She had to admit it was pretty comfortable. Nicola started to run her fingers through Esther's damp hair.

"Hand me the sprayer," Nicola said. "And close your eyes."

For a while it was strange and ticklish. The water touched her chest, her neck, her small breasts. Nicola even played it between her legs, but Esther couldn't seem to relax enough.

"I think I need some direction here," Nicola said softly. She kissed Esther's earlobe, and the strangest little shiver went through Esther's body.

"Oh," Esther said. "That was good."

Nicola did it again, and the set the sprayer down to stroke her head and neck. Esther felt as though she were melting against Nicola. She whimpered softly, and Nicola moved her lips lower on the side of her neck.

"Find the rough areas on my back," Esther said. "My lower back."

Nicola tried to get her hand in there, but it wasn't working right.

"Maybe you should turn to face me," Nicola said. "Sit on my lap."

Luckily the tub was pretty large. Esther still felt terribly clumsy as she felt her way around, bumping against thigh and arm and breast. Nicola giggled softly.

"This is never as easy as in our fantasies, is it?"

Esther laughed as well, and then she finally got the other leg around Nicola. In this position, she was almost face to face with the other woman, and on impulse she leaned closer.

Nicola seemed surprised, but she eagerly returned the kiss. It was awkward and uncomfortable and erotic. Nicola wrapped her arms low around Esther's back and pulled her closer, until their chests touched and then their more intimate parts. Esther shuddered when she felt Nicola's wiry bush tickling her groin. Nicola's full breasts flattened against her, the nipples pressing against Esther's body.