Three Steps to Heaven

I raised my hand. "Why not just 'Rest Room' and 'Games Room'?"

Three or four people looked at me as if I'd grown an extra head.

"Kiss!" I added brightly. I got more looks. This time they suggested I'd added a third, silly head to those I already had.

"Kiss!" I repeated, "It's an acronym. K-I-S-S. Keep It Simple...See?" The usual last word of the acronym is 'Stupid' but I didn't think that would be appreciated coming from the newbie.

Bill Laker smiled as he looked around at the others.. "Jessie's right, simple is best. Thanks, Jessie. Okay, 'Rest Room' and 'Games Room' have it."

Some others just glared at me.

* * * * *

Perhaps I'd been naïve in thinking that in a small company office politics would be almost non-existent. Wrong! I'd had more than a few dirty looks from longer-serving staff when Bill had agreed my simple suggestion. I didn't contribute further, I'd had my quota of dirty looks for the day.

Anyway, the meeting had dragged on and on. Like most of these gatherings, little was achieved and it had almost deteriorated into which ego would prevail. As a result, by the time it ended my bladder was telling me that three cups of tea before the meeting had not been a good idea and to make a very fast trip to the ladies' room. The alternative would have meant publicly humiliating myself not to mention ruining an expensive pair of trousers,.

I rushed into one of the stalls, lowered trousers and panties, sat and released a gusher. Phew! I lingered for a several moments just in case Miss Bladder could produce a few more drops and passed the time by reading some of the graffiti. Many of the pearls of wisdom would make a porn merchant blush. Some of these young girls—and perhaps some of the older ones too—had very vivid and very filthy imaginations. And people say that men have one-track minds!

One set did make me laugh. Someone had written: "My man is 10½" long and 2½" wide!" Underneath, in a different hand was the reply: "Wow! that's amazing! And how big is his penis?"

Another one caught my eye: "My mother made me a lesbian." Now I'm not the sort of person who writes on lavatory walls but I couldn't resist this one. Chuckling to myself, I reached into my bag for a pencil and added: "If I supply the material, will she make me one too?" Having made my contribution to the world's great literature, I wiped Lady Jane, washed my hands and exited the ladies' room, as I did so crashing into a woman coming the other way.

We both muttered apologies and I realised she was someone I'd not seen before during the time I'd been here. She was... off-beat, I suppose is as good an expression as any. Off-beat and eye-catching. Very eye-catching. Mega eye-catching. And very, very attractive. About my height and slim, the first thing I noticed about her was her hair-style. On the left her hair was fairly short while on the right it was long and luxuriant, flowing to a little past shoulder-length. Its natural colour seemed to be black but it was shot with highlighted streaks of gold and silver. Each ear had three gold studs high up while ear-rings at her lobes were hoops so huge that you'd almost expect to see small parrots balanced on them. Make-up was exotic, the shadowing around huge violet eyes emphasising them to the point they were fascinating, almost hypnotic, while her light and floral scent went straight to my head. She was dressed in a lavender trouser suit complemented by a similarly-coloured silk shirt with a deep collar and a flowing kipper tie of a sort popular in the Seventies.

Oh, and on top of all this did I mention that she was very, very attractive?

I know, it seems a lot for me to have taken in during a brief encounter in a washroom doorway but she was striking. And do you want to know something weird? My heart did a little flip when I saw her. Me, Jessica Moonbeam Hummingbird Thorne, Miss Straight-if-somewhat-sexually-frustrated battle-hardened survivor of a thousand encounters with arseholes of the masculine persuasion. My heart just flipped! Now why the hell did that happen? I bumped into a strange woman in a toilet doorway and my heart flipped!

Step Two: She falls in love with you

Yet more meetings. Of course, they have to have meetings. God knows why, nothing ever seems to get accomplished. Meetings are little more than social get-togethers for an organisation's hierarchy to massage their own pathetic little egos. Oh, and a scramble among them to show the boss who's the greatest. Believe it or not, in previous jobs I've even attended meetings about meetings.

Sorry if I sound resigned but I am. I've whiled away many a happy hour staring at ceilings in meetings, trying to work out how much productivity is being lost while the would-be alpha males smarm and bullshit each other.

This one was a section head meeting. I had to attend because I'm my section head. My staff comprises me, myself and moi. Bill Laker sat beside me and introduced me to the dozen or so people around the conference table. I smiled pleasantly and got one or two smiles back. I guessed that those who didn't smile were trying to work out whether or not I posed a threat to their position in the company. I didn't but if they wanted to think that way, let them sweat.

The door opened and the managing director came in. "Right, folks, shall we get started?" he greeted us.

"Milly's not here yet, Charles," somebody said.

"Oh hell, what's she up to now?"

"Probably polishing her latest moan until it's all nice and shiny," the same voice replied.

Bill leaned towards me and whispered: "Milly Granger, she's the services liaison administrator. If misanthropy, complaining and downright misery were Olympic sports, Milly would take gold, silver and bronze all by herself. And carry the great big silver cup home afterwards. Ah, here she is."

My first impression of Milly Granger was one of rotundity: she was short and round, something like a beach-ball. She had a round head with a tiny round button nose affixed to the front, not much in the way of neck, and a round body balanced on sturdy little legs. Only her eyes and lips were not round. She had the cold dead eyes of a professional hit-man and thin mean-looking lips pressed together so hard that her mouth was little more than a slash. She wore a plain calf-length grey skirt and a tightly-buttoned blazer which seemed several sizes too small. Waddling straight up to the MD, she slapped the table in front of him. "Things have gone too far now, Charles! It's disgusting!"

He sighed. "What is it this time, Milly?"

"The ladies' room!" she snapped, "I repeat, it's disgusting!"

"It shouldn't be. The last health and safety inspection reported the wash-rooms as being spotless."

Milly slapped the table again. "I'm not talking about hygiene and cleanliness. I'm talking about all the graffiti. It's disgusting! The young women in this company have minds like sewers [well, can't argue with her there] and Something needs be done about it!" That's right, she seemed to say 'something' with a capital letter. I wondered if she'd appreciated my contribution. Probably not.

Two or three people started to chuckle, only to be quelled by the glare Milly turned on them. The MD sighed. "All right Milly, I'll get maintenance to look into the problem. Maybe there's a graffiti resistant paint on the market. Now can we please get on with the meeting?"

I estimated Milly's age as being about mid-forties which would make her a child of the Seventies. Well, I was to find out she was a child of the Seventies all right, the Eighteen-Seventies. She was humourless, narrow-minded, strait-laced, bigoted... oh hell, you pick your own adjectives—the harsher they are the more appropriate they're likely to be.

One blessing about my new job was that I had very little to do with Milly Granger. On the odd occasions we did talk, usually at the tea-station, I found her to be a very unpleasant piece of work. She had two conversational default settings: moan and gripe. The French dramatist Molière wrote a play called The Misanthrope. I reckon I know where his inspiration came from. I think the old fellow had a crystal ball—he gazed into the future one day and there was Milly ranting and raving about something or someone.

* * * * *

I couldn't work out what was wrong with me, I just could not get that exotic-looking creature I'd bumped into out of my mind. Much of the following week I looked forward to seeing her around but not a sight nor hair of her anywhere. I got talking to Milly Granger at the tea-station one morning and mentioned the strange girl. I described her and asked: "Do you know who I mean?"

Milly's thin lips compressed together in distaste. "Oh yes, I know her!" she snapped, picking up her tea and stalking away. Did I say 'stalking away'? Stomping away would have been better, I could almost feel the floor shaking under flat-footed disapproval. And I was left none the wiser.

So I stepped in to see Jayne North, the HR deputy manager on some pretext and just casually mentioned the unknown. "I asked Milly who she is and Milly threw a strop and buggered off without telling me."

Jayne laughed. "Yes, Milly would. I think you're talking about Gay Fay and she offends Milly's sensibilities mightily."

"That's her name, Fay?"

"No, actually it's Amelia... Amelia Brogan. People just call her Gay Fay because Gay doesn't rhyme with Amelia."

"And is she?" I asked, "Gay, I mean."

"I'm not sure," Jayne replied, "It's widely believed round here that she is. Despite her Goth looks she is an attractive girl, but she's never been seen with a man. Plenty here have tried to get dates and she's turned them all down—but you know what some men are like, any woman who turns them down is automatically labelled lesbian. As for Milly, she disapproves of anybody and anything out of the norm. If Milly had her way, Amelia would be locked up and the key thrown away, and that's just for looking the way she does."

"I've only seen her around that once," I said, "Which office does she work in?"

"Oh, Amelia's not an employee here," Jayne explained, "She's a freelance IT consultant and she's one of the elite. We used to have our own IT team but they were pretty useless. The best IT people can command very high salaries and our small outfit can't compete for the best. Once we were hit by a very nasty virus or dose of malware and our IT lot couldn't solve the problem. In desperation the CEO authorised hiring Amelia for a one-off job. She found the nasties within an hour or two, cleaned them out and had everything up and running within another couple of hours. Sheer genius.

"So our IT people were assigned to other work and we retain Amelia's services to solve our problems. Her fees are high but still work out less than the combined salaries of a team. Given that she's brilliant and keeps us operational with little or no fuss, she's worth it. She works from home on software problems and only comes in here if we have hardware troubles."

So it looked as if I'd not see the exotic Amelia Brogan again unless by accident. And for some strange reason, that pissed me off mightily.

* * * * *

You know, having whinged about my lack of orgasms with men, I'm almost reluctant to admit to the one time I did have an orgasm with another person. However, in the interests of total honesty, here goes.

I was nineteen and a fresher at university. Nineteen, free from parental restrictions (not that mine had ever restricted me excessively) and still inclined to go over the top when having a drink. But what student doesn't? A number of us went on a Students' Union organised pub-crawl, a kind of initiation ceremony or rite-of-passage, and at some stage in the evening the world suddenly grew a bit hazy. In the last pub visited I at least had the sense to switch to mineral water before sitting down for a while. Nature called, I went off for a pee (a long one) and when I returned to the bar my party had disappeared. Gone. Evaporated. I don't think the union rep conducting the piss-up had bothered to count his flock—probably hadn't even bothered to count his own number of pints—and had just ushered them all off to the next boozer. Which was all very well but I hadn't got a clue as to where we were let alone where we were supposed to be next. But brace up, Jessie girl, I told myself, after all, you're nineteen years old and like most teenagers you know it all. The world, my dear, is yours. So I tottered off to find my own way back to the halls of residence.

How to describe my attempts to find my way home? 'Blundered' is likely the best word. At least the small university town was considered to be a fairly safe place at night because my body language probably yelled out: "Vulnerable!" Then I saw it, the neon sign proclaiming The Blue Mood Wine Bar—that's right, Blue Mood, not Blue Moon as might be expected—and its doorway seemed to sing out to me. I went in.

It was blue. All of the lighting cast a soft blue glow over everything—some of the drinks I could see looked really weird. I pushed my way through a crush to the bar and ordered a mineral water. The attractive barmaid looked doubtful and I'm sure that if I'd ordered alcohol she'd have refused on the grounds I'd had enough. But mineral water? She shrugged and served it with plenty of ice and a slice of blue-tinged lemon (or lime, when they're blue who can tell?). A long swig did me some good and I asked for a refill before taking a look around. Then it struck me...

There wasn't a man in sight, The Blue Mood Wine Bar was filled with women, women drinking, women laughing, women dancing, even... Good God! even women kissing and cuddling and generally carrying on in a way I'd never seen before. I hoped the blue lighting concealed my blushes. "Is this... women only bar..?" I asked the barmaid, waving a hand at the crowd.

She nodded, amused. "You could say that, yes."

Innocent me—I had this vague idea that single-sex bars were illegal. Or was I thinking about something else? Christ, six or seven pints of Greene King Abbot ale had really rattled my brain. Oh well... While I was getting my head round this, someone approached me. "Hello, I've not seen you before. First time here?" The woman who'd spoken to me was... well, now I'm more aware of life, I suppose she might be called a butch although she wasn't what most people would think of as butch. Perhaps 'tomboy' would be more appropriate. She was a little taller than me, slim, dressed in jeans and a light leather jacket, with a short pixie cut framing a pleasant freckled face.

"Yesh... firsh..." I got a grip of myself, trying to control my tongue which was still a little floppy after the pints I'd consumed. "Yes, first time," I managed.

"And you're at the uni," she added.

"Tha...s, that's clever... how'd you know?"

"Doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to recognise the uni ID card draped around your neck.," she pointed out, offering her hand. "I'm Marnie."

I shook. "Jessie."

"I'll bet you were on a uni pub-crawl and got lost."

" 'Sright... went for pee, when I got back... all gone. Jus' melted away."

Marnie laughed. "Some of those Students' Union blokes are irresponsible buggers," she said, "They're always losing freshers. So, what're your plans for the rest of the evening, Jessie?"

"Was... tryin' to find my way home... halls of residence..." I held up my glass. "Saw this place, thought 'nother one of these wouldn't hurt."

Marnie prised the glass from my hand and sniffed the contents. "Well, you may a teensy bit pissed but at least you've got the sense to drink water now. Should help with the hangover tomorrow. Tell you what, Jessie, give me time for a quick beer—you have another mineral water—then I'll get you home. Okay?"

"Thanks, Marnie... 'sreally nice of you..."

We settled at a table and then I decided I wanted to dance. Well, why not? All the women on the dance floor seemed to be having a lot of fun, why shouldn't I join in? Good for Marnie, she humoured me until I'd had enough then steered me out through the door, me waving and shouting happy farewells to the other patrons.

Shit happens. That's what they say, shit happens. When we reached the halls of residence, the doors were firmly locked. "What's time?" I asked.

Marnie checked an outsized watch on her left wrist. "Eleven-forty-five," she answered.

And they locked the doors at eleven-thirty. Each night. On the dot. Christ, it's the twenty-first century and they're still following rules laid down probably in the nineteenth century. I raised my fists to hammer at the door but Marnie stopped me. "I know what these sods can be like," she said, "They'd probably suspend you for causing a disturbance. Might even call the cops saying you're drunk and disorderly. Tell you what, Jessie, my flat's nearby, couple of streets away. You can stay there tonight. It'll mean sharing a bed but my bed's big enough for both of us."

"You're a good 'un, Marnie," I told her solemnly, "Let's go!"

Marnie's place was only a studio flat, one medium-largish room with a three-quarters bed in one corner, chest-of-drawers, sofa and armchair, small table, ditto bookcase and a closet. Off to one side were a kitchenette and shower-room with toilet. She kept the place neat and tidy, contrasting strongly with my student's cubby-hole which was a tip.

When we'd both used the toilet, Marnie pulled out a couple of t-shirts and tossed one to me. She stripped off quite unselfconsciously and I had a glimpse of a neat, athletic body before she put her t-shirt on. I hesitated, suddenly shy.

"What's the problem, Jessie?"

It was a warm evening for September and I'd worn a long dress so I'd gone commando. "Not wearing a bra," I mumbled, staring at her bedside rug, "or pants."

Marnie cocked an eyebrow at me. "Jessie, do you honestly think that I've never seen boobs and ladies' bits before?"

She was right, guess I was just being silly. "Oh, the hell with it!" I whipped my dress off and pulled on the t-shirt as quickly as possible.

Marnie regarded me with an amused grin. "You've nothing to be ashamed of, Jessie. Nice boobs and a backside to be proud of." She climbed into the bed and turned her back to me. "Light switch is by the door, kid," she said, "Turn off then come and get comfortable."

Don't know why, I woke up in the early hours unsure for a moment where I was before remembering I was sharing a bed with a kind woman called Marnie who'd more-or-less saved my bacon. Then I realised something else and could feel my face flushing.

We were spooned together, both of our t-shirts had ridden up in the night and Marnie's bare bottom was pressed firmly against my pussy. Not only that but I had an arm around her and was holding one of her boobs in my hand, its large hard nipple pushing into my palm. I was holding a boob! With a large hard nipple! And to my surprise, it felt good, better than good. Embarrassed—with myself more than anything—I tried to slip my hand away. Marnie's hand came up to cover mine, holding it firmly in place. "Mmmm, that feels nice," she murmured, voice sleepy.

She wriggled around so that she was facing me and pressed velvety lips to mine with just a hint of tongue. Instinct told me to jump out of bed and run but my body betrayed me—I could feel myself getting wet and I yielded, returning the kiss, opening my mouth a little to admit Marnie's tongue. Our kiss grew deeper and our embrace tightened. My mind was clamouring This isn't right! but wicked little puss only seemed to get wetter as our mounds crushed together. This isn't right? Then why was it feeling so much better than the episode with the Captain of the school teams, my only other sexual experience to date?