Double Grades

by Kristine Robinson

  The coldness is something new in Leona, something I've never seen before.

  I wonder if it's anything to do with the things she has seen during her time in the army. Both sisters have never been the closest around, since they have different attitudes to life. I'd like to say Leona is the more reasonable out of the two, but Leona is also the one who left me without a worthy excuse.

  It makes me super uncomfortable to have these two bristle up like territorial wolves. It also surprises me to see it from Leona, given the fact she ditched me.

  Gene, sensing the potential chaos, quickly intervened by pulling Leona away and gushing about how wonderful it is again to see her. Steve – Jaimie's step-father, Leona's father – merely glanced up from his newspaper, eyes narrowed as he regarded me.

  Uh oh, I think.

  Now everyone's sat around the table. I'm wearing a simple blue shirt that reveals some of my shoulders. Pink flowers curl from the side over to the center of it, and I have dark blue jeans. My blond hair glows from the excessive oil treatment and brushing I've given it. Jaimie is in war gear, wearing a black tank top, the sort you might see at the gym or on a fighter, with black leather pants, displaying her biker sensualities. Leona, in comparison, wears a plain white shirt, a dog tag around her neck, and green camouflage pants. She is the picture of calm, though it's the calm of a serpent waiting to strike, and Jaimie is the boiling fury of someone prepared to do whatever it takes to get what she wants.

  I know them both, I read it in their postures, and it makes it hard for me to eat through my food with enthusiasm. Jaimie's sprawled out on her chair in an aggressive posture, often finding moments to wrap her strong arm around my shoulder. The insecurity irritates me, but I don't want to shove her off in case I make it worse.

  “One of the bad things that happened when I was stationed in Iraq,” Leona is saying, regaling her family over her exploits in the middle-east, “was when we received intelligence of a family being held hostage in a small village south-east of Baghdad. The reason wasn't even for terrorism – it was over an issue of honor killing. Family's daughter ran away from her husband. He was violent, cruel, and beat two babies out of her in his rages. Mother wanted them to legally divorce, father as well, but their younger son got kidnapped. Unless the wife was returned, the younger son would be killed.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Gene says, her hand fluttering over her face. Her eyes are wide in horror.

  “Savages,” Steve says, stabbing his fork into a slice of beef. “Don't respect their women at all over there. Sad.”

  Leona gives him a wry smile. “They have a different idea of respect. For them, family honor goes above everything else. They venerate their elderly, unlike how we treat our loved ones here. We just shove them into care homes and don't give two shits about them. I'm not saying they're perfect,” Leona says, stemming her father's retort, “no one is. I find a lot of things wrong about their culture, and I do think women have a horrific time there. But there's some things I feel we can learn from.”

  Steve gives a dismissive grunt.“If you say so. So. What happened about the hostage situation?”

  Leona chews on some broccoli, her spoon gathering up some of the gravy congealing on her plate. “We went to the place where the little boy was being held. We had our interpretor with us. We ended up having to shoot the husband because we couldn't reason with him, and he tried to stab the little boy when we asked him to give the boy up. Created a massive shitstorm in the media, how westerners were involving themselves in disputes. But the boy and the women were safe, and her family were grateful. So, for me, it was worth it.” Leona takes a deep breath.

  Something dark flickers behind her expression, something that speaks of worse horrors than family disputes. My heart gives a small leap, partly in sympathy, partly because I always used to kiss her when she pulled something like that, just to soothe her fears.

  “That sounds so terrifying,” Gene says, dabbing a tissue at her eyelid. “My little baby, going through all that!”

  “I'm fine, mom. Don't worry.” Leona smiles at her mother. “Adjusting back here is going better than I thought, though. I thought I'd be staring at the walls for weeks, reliving my experiences and feeling out of place. But it really is just like coming home. I hope to find a good job soon. I'm looking into being a security guard or a bouncer. Should be able to get a good resume for that.”

  Steve beams at her, reaching to clap her on the shoulder. “You've done so well! I can't imagine the type of stress you go through, enduring all that. And being a woman in the army as well – let me tell you, when I served, soldiers were complete fucks if you were a woman. It made them tougher, more resilient, because they got flak from all sides. I admire them. I'm proud of you!”

  I wince as Jaimie laughs sardonically. “That's the first time I've ever heard those words come out of your mouth.”

  In response, Steve, dark eyes crackling, retorts, “Well, if you did anything to be proud of, maybe you would hear them too. But you haven't. And you know why? Because you're a waste of space.”

  Jaimie stands up, knife and fork clattering, the screech of her chair being pushed behind her.

  Oh, fuck, I think. I'm frozen in a mix of trepidation and confusion, unsure of how to react, of what to say to diffuse the sudden family drama. I know Steve's been angry at Jaimie and me, especially because we started dating not so long after Leona departed – but I also know that he's been eternally disappointed in Jaimie's life choices, and that it fucks Jaimie up inside to have that kind of judgement pressing on her. In stark contrast, I've had the normal upbringing with parents that don't necessarily adore each other, but don't hate each other either.

  Being an only child is nice, too.

  “I'm sorry I'm such a fucking failure to you!” Jaimie grits her teeth, chest jutting out. She's breathing so fast, I'm worried her lungs are going to cave in. “I've done what I can for myself, got my job, did the best to pick up the pieces, and all you've ever done is sneer at me and go on and on about how I'm useless and stupid and haven't achieved anything. You're a shit dad!”

  “You've done nothing to convince me otherwise!” Steve roars back, even as Gene is wide-eyed like a rabbit caught in headlights, the nightmare of her child and husband arguing unfolding in front of her. “The only thing you do is whine, complain, and act like some fucking gangster when allyou do is work in a bike shop, doing nothing!”

  “Don't worry about her, Steve,” Leona cuts in, the ice glint in her eyes back. Her tone grates the air, dropping the room temperature down several degrees. “She's always been jealous of me. After all, she did steal my girlfriend, and I'm not even surprised she did that. She's always wanted what I have.”

  “What the fuck?” Jaimie spits, now turning on her sister, even as Steve's face gradually turns the color of a grape, “You think I fucking stole her? Are you seriously that deluded?”

  “Duh. Isn't it obvious? You've always been like this!” Leona says, all trace of her former calm gone. Whereas Jaimie lashes out like a wounded animal, Leona's face pales in incandescent rage. She gets up, and, without another word, storms away from the table – leaving the family gathering in ruins.

  Jaimie is heaving fast, the air rushing through her nose as if she's run a marathon. The fight had somehow, out of the blue, turned into something about me. Adding to that is Leona – the same Leona who had ceased to contact me in all the years she had been swallowed up into the life of the military, who honestly believes that Jaimie stole me from her. I stare at the door for a moment, struggling to processed what I've witnessed, and what this all means.

  Leona, despite being the one to leave me all those years ago, acts jealous – almost as jealous as Jaimie gets.

  Steve's fists are clenched. Gene looks close to weeping. I grab Jaimie's shoulder. “Come on,” I mutter. “You need to cool off. Let's go home.”

  Silently, hatred in her eyes, she responds to my touch, and we leave the debacle of a family dinner.

&
nbsp; In the ride back home, she doesn't say much, but when I glance to check her expression, she's scowling or silently fuming.

  When we get back to our apartment, she glowers at me as I head off to the shower. I always like to shower just before I go to bed. It helps to wash off the grime of the day, and if I'm honest, I dislike having sex until I've showered.

  I think sex is something to be treated with respect, and the body accumulates a lot of dirt over the day. Your core is trapped in a tight, enclosed space for hours on end, and so is your armpits, and the sweat on your feet. It adds up. Whenever I take a shower, I always like to imagine I'm shedding off the problems of the day, so I can drift into a dreamless sleep, or for whatever Jaimie has in store in her sometimes unpredictable mind.

  I'm about one minute in the shower, with soap bubbling through my fingers, when the shower door slides open and Jaimie joins me. My eyes snap open, and I watch her reach past me for the shower gel. Her breasts have dusky nipples, and if anything, are larger than mine, and I'm not exactly small. Her dark hair becomes black under the relentless pouring of the water, and the liquid trails that dribble over her plump lips immediately turn me on. Wordlessly, Jaimie turns me around, directing me with her touch, and her soaped up hands begin to glide over my skin, massaging the scent into my flesh.

  This is tender, and unlike the Jaimie I'm used to, and I lean into her with a sigh as her hands make enticing circles, and her fingers splay out over my breasts, sometimes gripping tight and sometimes just sliding across.

  It relaxes me so much that a goofy smile enters my face, and I let out the human equivalent of a purr as her strong body holds me, and she washes me clean. Her hands spread my legs apart, and she briefly touches the nerve center there, even as she cleanses me out here as well. She presses her palm firmly into me to lessen some of the arousing sensation, but it doesn't matter, because it's Jaimie, and all she needs to do is breathe to get me turned on.

  Her lips pinch around my left ear under the water, and a hot tongue touches the soft flesh behind it, and I can't control the whimpering moan that punches out of me. I feel her smirk against my ear, but she continues lathering me, before letting the water rinse off the suds. She does the same for herself, fast, refusing my attempts to do the same back, and then we're out of the shower and tumbling into bed.

  Freshly washed, our skins are silky smooth to the touch, and every tactile sensation serves to electrify us, to deliver dreamy ripples through the little hairs on our arms, and the delicious aroma of strawberry gel permeates our nostrils.

  Jaimie rolls on top of me, and locks a leg between my bare thighs, pushing into the accumulating wetness there. Her dark blue eyes look at me as if she owns me, and she moves to nip at my ear, pressing her breasts against mine, and pushing her knee deeper. My arousal makes her knee slip as she grinds sinuously onto me, and our delicate, baby-smooth skins stir each other into a frenzy.

  “I want you,” she whispers, her voice husky and drawling, her long dark hair brushing into my blonde strands. “You're so wet...”

  “Ah...” I sigh, my palms clinging to her shoulders, enjoying the flex of muscle and bone, and the way her skin tickles mine.

  She leans back for a moment from my ear, and, eyes twinkling like stars, she grabs one of my hands and guides it to her core. “Look what you do to me.”

  My fingers slip and fumble into unbelievable wetness, and as she flutters her eyes shut and moans, I moan as well. It's not so often she lets me do this at the start – her defenses have to be fully down before I can have my wicked way. Sure enough, she doesn't let me tease her for long. She takes my hand away and slams it into the bed, and dives for my neck, kissing me, sucking hard at the skin, before soothing it over with her tongue.

  She's so amazing. My mind is imploding from just how much she's turning me on, from how her body feels slotted with mine. She has a way of spicing things up, of always pulling the desire out of me. Her knee continues grinding into my wetness, and her breasts roll over mine. She breathes hot air that flings shocks over my skin, and lets out moans of pleasure from how I react.

  “I want to taste you.” She pulls back to examine me with a salacious grin, and eyes that burn like coals in the darkness. That wicked smile upon her lips makes my heart increase to about three times its normal pace, because damn, she gets the blood going.

  “Jaimie,” I breathe, and this sends a kind of ecstatic shudder over her skin, before she begins kissing down my front, dabbing her tongue at each of my nipples, leaving a damp trail across my sensitive skin. She dips into my belly button, and I swear I feel the shock rip through like an arrow, just before she kisses across my trimmed hairs down there, nearing her prize.

  Anticipation glimmers in her face, along with excitement. I see the shine of wetness on her knee, where she has been pressing into me, and my stomach gives another manic flutter.

  That dangerous smile touching her lips again, she lowers herself onto my core, keeping eye contact with me as she does so. Her expression at this angle is almost coy and innocent as she flicks at my nub, and gathers additional wetness toward it.

  Her hands grip my thighs hard, steadying me, bracing in the perfect position for the tension to coil up and release itself. She moans into me, and the vibrations make me jerk, and gasp out. I arch my back and tilt my head onto the pillow, and I'm breathing hard and fast, my heart a frenzied pace.

  She devours me with expert precision, taking me in the way she knows how, with all the tricks in her arsenal. She doesn't just flick. She kisses, sucks, pinches and rolls it, always changing the angle, because if she focuses on the sweet spot for too long, I'll come before the fun's really started.

  She does this tortuous ritual on me as I moan and whimper and beg for her to make me come, but she keeps it up. I know she wants to make me forget about Leona, and it's working, because She has a way of demanding every fiber of my being when it comes to sex.

  Maybe she's doing this to stake a claim, to prove to herself that she loves me and I love her. I don't know for certain, but she keeps me hovering on the edge in sweet torment, until the tension in my thighs starts hurting – and that's when she goes for the kill.

  She finishes me off with a fast, lapping tongue, and the orgasm screams through my body, sinking me into bliss.

  I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that she's not going to let me rest for long. She wants me all to herself, and might spend the entire night demonstrating it.

  She takes charge, and I love it. I do sometimes wish she would let me take charge more often – but it does mean that when I can, on the rare occasions she lets me into her vulnerable places – I know it's special. I treat it as something special, because this woman doesn't let that many people into her secrets, if any at all.

  Then there's me, with the privilege of being her girlfriend. Strange, to think that I wanted to use her. Strange, to understand I wanted revenge on Leona, only to discover that basic intentions like those turn out to not be so basic.

  The heart wants what it wants, after all.

  Shouldn't that mean I can choose between them, then? Shouldn't I know who I really want?

  Shouldn't I?

  Chapter Three

  The next day, still without any answers to my dilemma, I'm over there again, but without Jaimie in tow this time. I had phoned Gene this morning, who sounded weepy and upset still, and I asked if it was possible to come over to speak to Leona. It seemed like we had some things to sort out – because the outburst had shocked me to the core. Even though Jaimie kept me satisfied all night, in the early hours of the morning, my thoughts ventured over to Leona's reaction.

  Something unexplained lingered there. Something that I needed to find out. An answer I craved.

  Everything I had assumed when it came to Leona breaking up with me had been turned on its head. And, as much as I love Jaimie, and had endured her power, love and passion last night, as she took me to bed and worshipped me, kissing me hard and deep, whispering that she loved me
into my neck – I can't shake off Leona's words.

  I have to know.

  Gene, being the wonderful person she is, instantly agrees. With Jaimie at work at her shop, I'm here, standing outside Jaimie's room, caterpillars wriggling in my stomach. Does Leona still feel attracted to me? Am I smart for doing this?

  Probably not. I must be the biggest idiot in the world, but I don't care. I've been wanting to speak to her properly after all this time. The voice of doubt and guilt worms its way into my brain, before I choke it into silence.

  When I enter, Leona, who is hunched over her laptop, stares at me, and her lips curl upward, turning her expression from blank to pleased. “Lola. Hey.”

  “Hey,” I reply, nervous. Leona's eyes trail to my top, where a hint of cleavage pokes out the v-neck, and a shiver of arousal slips through me. Doesn't matter that I got sexed out last night by Jaimie – Leona's revving me up all over again. Those icy blue eyes are like glinting chips, capable of scouring the depths of your soul. Jaimie's in comparison are like steel doors, hiding a wealth of treasure, which open for a brief moment when she completely gives herself to me. “I made you cherry tarts.”