A lot more little things happened that summer.

After telling my parents I had no intention of going to university, they began nagging me to, well, do something with my life, mentioning vocational schools and apprenticeships and eye-tea courses (whatever that was). In the end, Oscara spoke to them by herself one evening and then they stopped.

Speaking of Oscara, she split her time between working and taking me places and buying me things, though I still had not the slightest idea what job she had.

As for her future plans, she intended to go to university for computer science. I shivered hearing that the first time, quite possibly the two things I hated most, but, if it made her happy, then I had no complaints.

I accompanied her to visit some five or so universities. Some looked old-fashioned, others modern, and I couldn’t help but notice that the computer science department seemed to be full of boys. Well, fiddling with my ring helped settle my annoyance.

The last one we visited was the one she hoped to attend. I say hoped, of course she was exceptional and would certainly be accepted. However, taking the train home, I couldn’t help but feel how far away it was.

As if she heard my worry, she held my hand and gently squeezed it, then said, “Do you want to live with me? When I start uni, I mean. I’ll have to rent somewhere anyway, and it won’t really be any more expensive if we share a room.”

I squeezed her hand back. “Mm, I do,” I whispered.

The rest of the train ride didn’t feel so long.

Again, Oscara talked to my parents about it, this time with me. She said stuff about keeping her promise and taking responsibility and that this was something we both wanted and how she was already saving money from her part-time work. My parents barely looked at me the whole time and, at the end, called her “daughter”, hugging her right in front of me.

Oh well, at least they now had one daughter to be proud of.

Our last year of schooling felt rather short to me. That may have had something to do with me taking the easiest classes and only as many as the school made me, while also doing the least possible work to not annoy the teachers.

It probably felt a lot longer for Oscara. At first, we still spent our free time together, reading in the library. However, it wasn’t long before she, well, looked tired all the time. There was precious little I could do, but I did it.

“I shall read for you, so close your eyes and relax,” I said, taking the book from her.

She chuckled, but did as I said. Only, not looking relaxed enough, I shuffled over and then made her rest her head on my lap. Although not something we had often done before, she had asked from time to time in the past when particularly tired.

I tried to read it aloud in our language, but my brain wasn’t used to doing that and so I soon gave up, reading it as written. And as I read, I gently combed through her hair or rubbed her shoulder.

Some days, she fell asleep on my lap, other days, I thought she did, only for her to whisper, “I’m still listening,” when I stopped, and there were days where my voice grew hoarse, so I just hummed old lullabies from our world. And sometimes other students would chatter nearby and I would clear my throat and glare at them until they left.

Now I think about it, maybe that was why those days passed so quickly for me.

Well, come the end of the school year, we patiently waited for her results to be announced. She still worked those days, but could spend her evenings resting on my lap. I was glad to see her recovering.

Of course, when the results came out, she was truly, truly exceptional.

My family made such a fuss of me moving out, one would have thought they expected to never see me again. Not only that, but my mother told me, “Make sure you help out with the chores and treat her well, okay? I know cooking’s too much for you, but try to learn one simple meal and cook it for her once a week, and always thank her when she cooks. And always go greet her at the door when she comes home.”

I rolled my eyes at her and said, “Oh mummy, you make it sound like I’m gonna be her wife.”

For some reason, my mother laughed at that and hugged me. “My baby’s all grown up,” she murmured, letting out a sniffle.

I liked my father more because he had told me off a lot less over the years and he understood that sitting in the same room without talking still counted as “family time”. Further solidifying his position, he only gave me a few hugs and sappy smiles and checked I remembered the important things.

Since Oscara was the one actually going to university, her parents drove us. I liked her parents well enough and her parents liked me well enough too, just that I barely visited as Oscara always came to visit me. While my mother thought me some form of justice for her ills in a previous life, Oscara’s parents saw a polite girl who befriended their otherwise isolated daughter. So, whenever I had visited, her mother had doted on me.

After stopping on the way for lunch—delicious fast food—we eventually arrived outside a house. It looked like it was once a single house, but had been changed into two flats now and ours was the one upstairs. That rather annoyed me, making us drag everything up through a narrow staircase, but that quickly melted away when I just stood on the landing.

It was not a nice place, the wallpaper a dreary colour, carpets thin, each room cramped—there wasn’t even a bath, only a shower.

However, it was to be my and Oscara’s home and that thought made me so very happy. How many of those books had I read and thought how nice it would be to live with my close friend, to fall asleep talking nonsense and wake up beside her, to eat every meal together, to share our clothes.

Despite her parents trying to linger, bringing up suggestions like taking us shopping or for an early dinner and endlessly asking if we had forgotten this or that and did we remember—

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine,” Oscara said to them.

Her mother teared up, and they both pulled her into a hug. Only, after a second, her mother looked over to me and said, “Come on, Clara. You’re pretty much already part of the family.”

I tried to stop it, but a silly smile came to me upon hearing that, so I joined their hug to hide it, burying my face into Oscara’s shoulder.

Then they finally left and the flat sounded so quiet.

For a while, Oscara and I just stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at the closed door, squeezing each other’s hand so tight it was almost painful. “Let’s order pizza for dinner,” she whispered.

“Okay.”

It really was too early to eat, though, so we walked to the nearby corner shop and bought some necessities—milk, sugar, snacks. Back at the flat—back home—she set up her computer and we listened to music while lying on our bed, snuggling.

To celebrate, and take advantage of the two-for-one offer, we ordered much too much pizza, eating until we were stuffed and putting the rest away for lunch tomorrow. Then we made tea and sat in the lounge, resting against each other, slowly sipping.

It felt strange knowing the front door wouldn’t click at some point to let my father in, that my mother wouldn’t call us for dinner. But it was a good strange. Or rather, strange in a good way.

This world was wonderful to let their daughters leave their parents without needing to marry a man.

The sky outside darkened, the boiler began to groan, pipes rattling. We hadn’t spoken in so long that I wondered if she had fallen asleep and so tried to listen to her breathing. Because of that close listening, I almost jumped when she did speak, heart squeezing in fright.

“Do you want to practise making a baby?”

I took a second to recover from the surprise, then chuckled at her silly question. “Two women can’t make a baby,” I said, then frowned in thought as some of the stories we’d read came back to me. “Not when neither of us was born with a penis.”

Now it was her turn to chuckle and she let go of my hand to instead loop it around my back, hugging me like that. “That doesn’t mean we can’t practise.”

“Well, if that’s what you want to do,” I said.

Out the corner of my eye, I noticed her turn towards me, so I turned towards her. She looked at me with a smouldering fire in her eyes, her lips slightly parted, and she said, “I do.”

Her kiss fell so heavily upon my lips, the weight of her feelings behind it. Although I had grown somewhat used to these kinds of kisses, this one managed to quickly bring me to that drunken state, spurred on by her hands, one rubbing my back, the other running her fingertips across my cheek.

Deeper and deeper, her tongue running across my lip, sliding past it, and my tongue greeted hers like an old friend. Her fingertips lightly pressing into my lower back, nails grazing the back of my neck, the sensations flowing into my womb, a pooling warmth behind my navel that melted me from the inside.

She helped me to my feet, guided me to our bedroom. While she took off my shirt and skirt, the heat cooled enough for me to think and I took off my underwear, letting her undress herself—somehow, she still beat me.

Then the kiss resumed and we shuffled to the edge of the bed. So gentle, she lay me down, breaking our kiss again to say, “Don’t worry, Duchess, I’ll make you feel good.”

Except that, a second later, she was the one lying down and I hovered over her, eyes narrowed. “Have you forgotten which of us is in charge?” I said, my voice coloured by the heat of anger and of passion.

She stilled for a moment, eyes wide, then a smile bloomed on her lips. “Of course not, Duchess.”

In a moment of inspiration that only came from a need to tease the one I loved, I called her, “My Princess.”

As if I’d cast a spell, her expression became so tender, so soft, like she actually had become a pampered princess. “Duchess,” she whispered.

I carefully sat up and looked at her. A body I had seen countless times over the years, gradually changing, but still, in essence, the same. Yet a different body to her old one, the look in her eyes the only striking resemblance.

A beautiful body.

As many scenes of women being intimate as I had read, those were all words on a page, incomparable to my Princess in front of me. So I ignored those books and did what I felt like doing.

I reached down and rested my palms either side of her navel, feeling for that same warmth I felt, then grew impatient and slid my hands up her body until I cupped her breasts. Weren’t they just the perfect size, as if made for me to hold them.

“Duchess,” she whispered, the word coming out as moan.

Slowly but surely, my hands felt all of her, even the parts I already knew well. And while I worked down her legs, I left kisses on her chest before suckling on her like a babe. Yet, no matter how much I did, she spared me no milk.

My mouth had grown addicted to her and my tongue tasted her sweat. Eager for a different taste of her, I licked farther and farther down, hearing her thin breaths flutter out her lips.

Although she kept herself trimmed, there was some short stubble left in a neat pattern. No doubt left for my enjoyment, I kissed it, ticklish on my lips.

“Duchess, please,” she said, whimpering.

“Anything for my Princess,” I said, and she shivered, perhaps feeling my breath upon her damp skin.

Since she had asked, I lowered myself a little more. In books, I had read of this place described as a quivering quim, or glistening flower, or throbbing pussy, to name but a few.

However, what I felt fit best was a word from our language: selata. It literally meant a secret between lovers, but was used to describe an aroused vulva—specifically aroused because that place was otherwise not a secret from the maids who helped to wash or dress a lady.

“Your selata is beautiful.”

Before she could reply, I turned my head and kissed her lips there as if they were her mouth. It turned out the nectar there was sweet, just not the same way sugar was, my tongue eagerly flitting between her lips.

I gradually changed how I kissed her, feeling the way her body reacted, hearing her moans and whimpers. She liked my sloppy kisses most, her lips coated with my spit, a slow rhythm where my lips rubbed against hers a lot, one hand kneading her breast as the other lightly ran my fingernails along the inside of her thigh.

“Duchess, please, I’m so close.”

Since she asked, I moved up just a little and my tongue quickly found her nub. And I knew she liked that, a gasp escaping her, thighs tensing, pulling her hips back only to then push them forward again, eager for more.

My hand on her thigh crawled higher, fingers itching to know her secret. But, coming to her opening, I managed to stop myself. Turning my head a little more, I looked up at her and she looked down at me, and she nodded.

Watching her the whole time, I slid one finger inside, the silent gasp she made intoxicating. I teased her with a second finger and she nodded again, a kind of desperation to how eagerly she did.

Two felt comfortable and still let me curl them. Oh she tightened when I did that, her breath caught in her throat, so I teased her nub to force that moan out of her.

I loved having that power over her.

Closer and closer, I felt her tense beneath me, heard her breaths hitch. “Duchess.” While I lay on her one leg, her other one wrapped around me and pulled me tight. “Duchess.” Her eyes scrunched up, brow furrowed. “Duchess.” Her entrance clenched around my fingers, holding them inside her.

One second, two, then she let out a shaking breath and, as her body finally relaxed, tears spilled from her eyes. I didn’t ask, simply knew to come up and kiss her. Desperate kisses as she couldn’t get enough of me, her arms pulling me close, tears staining her face and eyes puffy.

“Duchess,” she whispered.

“My Princess is so beautiful,” I said, stroking her head.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

We stayed up late that first night, that night of firsts, as close as friends could be.

mialbowy

One more chapter for this arc to tie things up. I hope you enjoyed the “twist” and it didn’t feel strange—I think I put enough “clues”, but it’s hard to tell when I know what’s going to happen >_<