Kisses Between Lovers

The question came out of me, bypassing my brain and my good manners to sit out in the air of Harry's dorm room. "Have you ever been with another girl?" I asked. My skin crawled. The boys all sat up, obviously interested. Even Paul, who I expected to be totally comatose after what he'd just put me and Molly through. Some things cut even the strongest bonds. The impulse to tell them off was close at hand, but I knew it would be hollow. When you got down to it, I was as bad as them. I couldn't lie to myself.

Lea made the same judgments as me, looking briefly at Jack beside her. I was getting too good at reading people, and too fast. Her silence told me as much as Harry had. "Okay, yeah, I have," she said. "Does any girl get hair like this if they haven't eaten a little pussy?"

Hearing the word pussy from her lips made me jump. "Say it again," I wanted to say, but didn't. That was only the first in a long line of things I wanted to beg her to do. What's wrong with you? screamed the voice of the girl who had told Jack to fuck off earlier that afternoon. Unlike Harry, I hadn't had any of the ****, and the wine wasn't half as strong as it would need to be to make me spin out like this. A touch from Molly's lips had been more than enough to do this to me. I patted her on the thigh, not looking at her in case she would look back at me with disgust. I didn't even know how I wanted her to react.

Lea looked hesitantly around at the boys staring at her, and then back at me. It's not just you! That was what I read in her eyes, but I was horribly afraid that I was making it all up. Seeing what I wanted to see. She coughed, and then said something. "Yeah. Uh, the first time was with my best friend in high school. You know. Slumber party. Just... girls being girls." She looked like she was hiding from the elated look in Jack's eyes.

The first time. The words drilled themselves into the back of my skull. So, it had happened more than once? How many times? Always with her? Don't ask, I thought, don't even think about asking. Every 'truth' was one question, that's it, that's all. My hand froze on Molly's leg. She might be mad at me for thinking about Lea like this, after the tense moment they'd had earlier. But my head was spinning too fast to try to reason it out. "Who do you want to ask?" I said in a reedy voice, still looking at Lea. She was still just looking back at me. And Molly, I thought, or hoped.