The girlfriend and you.

chirp-chirp!

Your eyes open. Another bleary morning, along with another gravelly throat hacking. The bed creaks as you sit up and lazily begin your day.

You wash your face. Looking at the mirror, you see an average joe looking back.

A shake of the head later, you've stuck a toothbrush in your mouth and begun sliding back and forth across your teeth.

A pull of the brow creases your forehead. You watch the effect it has on your face from your reflection, while thinking back to what you had woken up to. That was a weird dream; something about reversed rationales, a perverted world, a psychosomatic exploit only you could use. A new right, imposed upon you, over others. And one that was very, very backwards.

Something weird like that. But reality is now, and you shake your head and get focused.

hissss, runs the water. You clank the toothbrush against the sink and peel out of your clothes.

"John, I can't believe you."

You pop open the truck, toss, and close. Once the metal hatch is out of the way, two blue eyes are looking back from behind it. You fold your arms and lean against the back of the car as the lesson begins.

"Early spring?" Shanna, your blonde, tight-bodied girlfriend shifts her hip sideways in disdain. "Remember?"

You just stare at her blankly. She sighs, and rounds the side of the car. A few seconds later, your feet carry you to the driver's seat. After a click you clamber in together and sit in a brief fog of silence.

Only brief.

"I can't believe you forgot it was my bithday today." Sliding in the seat of the car, you start the engine at the same time of her murmur. Looking to Shanna, her light blonde hair in soft wisps over her scalp and cheekbones, you set your eyes upon the window with her. A family of five is lumbering out of a minivan, by the old tree. You turn back to face forward and turn the wheel, when suddenly a mirage passes through your mind and shambles out the opposite ear.

Stressed out?

Show them you care!

Just a little horny initiative is all you -- and they -- ever need..!

A blink crosses your eyes, your foot lightly pressing on the brake pedal as you steer towards the exit of the general goods store's parking lot.

That couldn't have been real, could it? You think of Shanna. It's felt like nearly a year now, but in reality it's only been 6 months. You don't want to call the relationship thus far an exercise in tedium. Just a consequence of recent strain, perhaps. At the beginning, it had been kicked to as good a start as any; friendly, funny, a semblance of compatibility.

"Things have changed, John," Shanna's voice cuts your thoughts short. She looks at you and you glance at her before turning your eyes back to the cement, pulling into the street. "I don't know if we could keep going on like this."

You're right, you think.

"I mean, you even agreed. You said that you were fine with doing away with an all-out thing so we could spend some time together, just the two of us. Remember?"

I do, you also think. You want to tell her that some trouble back home with your parents across the country was causing you a headache of its own caliber. You also want to tell her about the crappy week with management. But in the same time, you know none of those make proper excuses -- after all, if you really were able to get yourself out of this, you wouldn't need to try to defend yourself with things you have yet to tell her in the first place.

You continue nodding to Shanna's words. Meanwhile, in your head is a dizzying notion.

With another quick look at Shanna, you eye her soft skin, complemented by her red short-sleeved polo shirt and jeans. She is on a roll, but you are not listening. Instead, you are even eyeing her up. Your own girlfriend. She does, after all, possess a very fine body.

And, for the moment, a fairly rattled mind.

That's stress, isn't it? You tap your chin. In the most general definition of the word, it should include any state of pressure, discomfort, a product of consequence. Your eyes return to the blonde.

There is something new in you. A conceit, one that proposed power over people of exactly that nature; the stressed, unnerved, the unsettled and preoccupied. Something that upon waking up you had dismissed as mere fantasy. But now, felt... strangely feasible. Something you had to try.

So you do.

"Shanna," you finally say, interrupting her steadily destabilizing tirade. She pauses, trailing off to look at you curiously, and you prepare yourself for repercussion. In a normal scenario, one might expect from this some kind of hamfisted apology, or a resigned admission, or a silent look, then a silent ride back home, and the like.

Instead, what you say nearly catches you by surprise, too.

"Are you stressed out?"

She laughs incredulously, her head shaking. "Yes! I'm... I'm stressed, hurt, confused, I, I..." A pause, as she pulls her eyes back to you. "And I don't know what to do."

"I'm sorry, Shanna." Then, with all the courage you can muster, you add, "What if I play with your breasts to make up for it?" There it is.

Out of your lips like the point of no return.

For a second, she stares at you. You try to keep your eyes on the road, but after failing to do so, stop at the nearby curb. When you turn in your seat, you nearly present your cheek for the obvious slap.

Instead (again), Shanna is looking at you with a slight, thoughtful pout.

"You... want to play with my breasts?"

You nod, saying nothing.

She smiles, the first genuine smile you think you've seen on her in a couple days, and the young blonde beauty turns herself towards you to jut her chest out by an inch or two. Her breasts' shape are outlined nicely against her shirt.

"Well, then go get them tiger." Her smile melts your spirit. Before you know it, you've reached towards her side and begin ploughing your hands against her firm tits. She closes her eyes patiently, a peaceful look in her face, actually, in real time, obliging you. After giving her nipples a twist and pulling and squeezing her breasts some more, she finally says, quietly but audibly, "I guess... I guess you forgetting about this one day is fine. I was probably a little harsh on you. It's just been a rough month, you know? So..." she said, turning her neck to the side, eyes still closed and in peace as you manhandle her chest. "It's nice to know you're still capable of taking the time to think of me. Or my breasts, at least. But that's still no excuse, got it?"

You shake your head up and down. Then you shake her tits in your hands, which she still hasn't swatted away. Her boobs bounce pertly in your palms, and you feel her hardening nipples poking against them very alluringly. This turn of events has you in more surprise than anything in your life probably thus far. You feel up the curve of her breasts, then feel your hands going to her neckline, then slipping underneath it to feel the soft flesh beneath the brassiere. You are collided with eroticism.

"Oh, John," Shanna looks at you with a look and trademark pout that meant 'you shouldn't have' in facial expression terms, "that wasn't even necessary." Beating you to a reply, she bends forward. She pecks you in the lips before returning to a position which allows comfortable access for your hand to plunge down her top. You look at her pupils, a different image from the same angry pair from earlier.

Her eyes don't condemn your actions, instead seeming to be pleased. Affectionate. Assuaged, or at least for now. You continue to push your hand against her mound of a breast beneath her shirt, and realize that, somehow, you have stumbled across some surreal power -- you are fondling your own girlfriend's breasts in the car, as a way of making up for forgetting her birthday, simply because she was 'stressed out'. Just like you had dreamed.

As she lets out a casual, quiet moan of pleasure from your ministrations, you at first wonder how this could be possible. And then you lightly rub her nipple, and hear her release a tempered squeak, and wonder what else you could possibly do.