Double Grades

by Kristine Robinson

  She tastes sweet and clear, making it a pleasant experience for me. Her smell turns me on, and I feel the painful throb of my own nub as I see her arch her back and groan. The sound thrills me, spurs me on further to continue my work on giving her the time of her life.

  “You taste so good,” I say, my words slow so the vibration emanates from my throat, and makes her inhale with a high-pitched gasp. She's bracing her thighs more firmly now, and quivers of tension go through them, and I know that my careful flicks at her bundle of nerves is paying off, edging her closer and closer to orgasm. I think by now she's completely lost all sense of coherent thought, and all that matters to her is the sensation, the encroaching orgasm that must surely be building up and tightening in her belly.

  It's electrifying, to see the effect I'm having on her first hand. It's sexy as hell to watch, to know that I'm causing these reactions. I now slide one, then two fingers inside her, and I notice that although she groans, her body doesn't react any different to the thrusting.

  Right until the point where I start curling my fingers back and forth inside her inside, apparently hitting that g spot like there's no tomorrow. Her body instantly begins to spasm, both from the pressure inside and the tongue dance on her nub outside. Her body clamps around my fingers, tightens, and I feel the tremors, and actually feel her come, with the juices gushing out, and the fast round of twitches as the tension inside her gives out, resulting in a gargantuan orgasm.

  Her body stiffens, and her mouth gapes open in a silent scream of pleasure, before her body goes limp.

  Breathing hard, my own heart still thumping as if I've just run a race, I crawl away from her core at last and kiss my way up her body. When I make it beside her, I realize, in vast amazement and mirth, that she's actually blacked out. There's nothing there.

  Well.

  That's nice to know I have that effect. I've never actually made anyone black out before. So that's something.

  I absently start stroking her hair, as I wait for her to wake up and recover from the assault of pleasure that's crippled her. When she does stir a moment later, her eyes are still glazed as she says, “Holy shit. That was...” she pauses, clearly at a loss for what to say. “I don't know what that was, but I think if I got another one like that, I'd quite happily die and not come back. Because that would be the best way to go. Ever.”

  I chuckle, though my heart twangs at the wayward thought of her dying. I mean, sure, dying in that circumstance would be probably the best thing you could aim for, as long as you didn't emotionally screw up your partner in the process, I suppose – but I don't want to have my mind come even close to thinking of her dying. “I advise you to not go just yet. Not until I've had the chance to do that to you a lot more.”

  She bites her lip as she regards me, before leaning over to kiss me. “You do realize I still haven't had my taste of you yet...?”

  Although her words trigger another wave of arousal through me, I say, “Uh, are you sure you're up for anything more there? Because you were out for a few minutes.”

  She stares at me in brief confusion. “I was out?”

  “Yup.”

  I see her mind rewind, trying to locate the exact moment where she zonked out. “Even more holy shit, then. I've never had that happen to me before, either.”

  I give her a smug smile. “Guess that makes it a first for the both of us, then.”

  She arches one eyebrow, and her lips warm me with that familiar curve that has the talent of going straight to my heart and staying there. “Let's see if I can do the same to you then, shall we?”

  I stare at her. Uh oh. I have a feeling she plans to spend as long as necessary to make this happen.

  I'm okay with that. Right now, there's no one else on the planet I'd rather be with than her. And I hope that over the next few months, years, perhaps even for the rest of our lives, that we'll continue creating astounding memories together. That we'll solve crimes like bosses and make the criminal world quake when they hear our name whispered.

  But first, orgasms.

  And lots of them.

  Her Sister

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  An Erotic Thriller

  My best friend was dead, and it was all my fault.

  My parents could never understand why I turned down the college scholarship, nor why I refused to live my life. How could I, without Tina?

  I knew that it was our fight that drove her to suicide, and nobody could convince me otherwise.

  My parents are making me go to therapy. They say I need to stop blaming myself for what happened. Ha! That’s funny. My therapist is an idiot, and anyway, a month has gone by and nothing’s changed.

  I want to ignore my therapist’s suggestion. No way do I want to talk to Gabi! But she has a point. Tina’s older sister is probably the only other person in the world who understands my pain, and who knows? Maybe we can help each other heal…but it hurts to look at her. She looks so much like my dead best friend.

  But maybe the pain will be worth it. She’s so damn sexy…

  * * *

  Chapter One

  I stared dully at my reflection in the mirror, and flat, lifeless eyes gazed back at me. Who was that girl, I wondered? Did I know her anymore? Was she me, or only a stranger?

  I glanced at the yearbook lying open on my dresser, right next to the mirror. My senior picture. In it, I was a completely different Connie. Long, glossy dark hair, bright brown eyes positively shining with hope and life, and flawless makeup applied with a careful hand. Back when I still gave a damn. No, that’s not quite right. Back when I still felt alive…yes. Yes, that’s right.

  The creature in the mirror resembled the happy girl in the yearbook only vaguely, the way distant cousins might favor each other slightly. My hair was no longer thick and shiny, but dull and lank. Dark circles under my eyes reflected my severe lack of sleep—nightmares of my dead best friend haunted me every night, and what little sleep I had managed to get over the past couple of months had been far from restful. But mostly it was my eyes that were different. Once, on a trip to Red River when I was a little girl, I’d seen a dead fish on the riverbank. Its eyes had been flat and glassy, devoid of anything at all. Awful eyes. That’s what mine looked like now—those of a dead fish. Except for the deep, inescapable sadness lingering in their depths.

  I could hear my mother approaching. Any moment now she’d swing open the door, and the daily worried, nagging questions would start again. I didn’t have the energy to deal with her today, but there was no escape. So I only stood there.

  While I waited, I stared at the yearbook. I didn’t want to look at the picture next to mine—more than anything I didn’t—but I was powerless to look away. As I gazed upon my dead best friend’s face, an icy splinter of pure grief pierced my heart, and I lost my ability to breathe for a minute, until the throbbing pain eventually lessened its grip on me.

  A deep part of myself didn’t really mind the pain. It was only during the moments when the crushing grief pounded down the walls I’d built around my heart that I felt even remotely alive.

  In the tiny photo, Tina’s wide smile haunted me. Her short blond hair, which she’d ordinarily kept spiked up with gel, had instead been straight for the photo. I’d teased her about it a little at the time, but it had framed her pretty, heart-shaped face, and she’d truly looked gorgeous.

  It was one of life’s greatest ironies, because less than a few months after the picture had been taken, the beautiful, happy girl in the photo had taken her own life.

  Tears began to sting my eyes for the first time in weeks. I didn’t cry anymore. I felt like a corpse, and corpses didn’t cry. But the pain had been stirred up again by that picture, as sharp and hurtful as my first terrible day without Tina.

  With trembling fingers, I picked up the yearbook and flung it across the room. It hit the wall with a bang and slid to the floor, its pages facing down. Good. I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

  There was a gentl
e knock, and my mother opened the door. “Connie?” she asked softly. Her eyes shone with concern, and she spoke with the hushed tones of someone speaking at a funeral. Ha. It was sort of appropriate. “What was that sound? It sounded as if you threw something.”

  “I don’t know,” I said listlessly as I turned back to the mirror and resumed staring at my reflection. I was somewhat relieved to see that the tears hadn’t fallen, although my eyes looked a little shinier than normal.

  I could see my mother frowning in the reflection. “Well, okay,” she said reluctantly as she dropped the subject. Instead she took a deep breath and asked, as she had every day for the past two and a half months, “Connie, are you okay?”

  What a dumb question. But I would never disrespect my mother by telling her so, nor by lying to her. So I replied as I always did. “No.”

  She fidgeted a little, not sure what to say. “Your father and I hoped that, by now, the therapy sessions would have helped, and you would change your mind about going to college.”

  Therapy. College. Now there’s a laugh. The therapy sessions—which I’d been forced into by my parents—were the biggest wastes of time I’d ever had the misfortune to experience. The therapist droned on and on about self-forgiveness and moving on, and chalked up my feelings of guilt and helplessness to nothing more than survivor’s guilt. Whatever. She couldn’t understand. She hadn’t killed her best friend.

  And college…before Tina’s death shattered my world, I’d had a full scholarship to the state university. A free ride. My parents had been thrilled, and I’d been beside myself with excitement, eager to start the next chapter in my life. Now, the thought of going to college made me physically ill. There was no way I could go to school and be happy and carefree while Tina rotted in the ground. So I’d turned down the scholarship and gotten a job at a clothing store downtown, if only to please my parents at least a little bit.

  “No,” I said, forcing my voice to be firm.

  My mother sighed. “It’s almost the end of July. You still have a little time left to call the dean and tell him you changed your mind—“

  “I said no. No college,” I said sharply.

  She rubbed her forehead wearily. “Tina would have wanted you to move on with your life and go to school,” she began, but at that my temper flared up.

  “You don’t know what Tina would have wanted,” I snapped, whirling around to glare at her. I knew it wasn’t my mother’s fault and I shouldn’t take my grief out on her, but at the moment I couldn’t restrain myself. Whatever. I’d apologize later. “She’s dead, she’s gone, and nothing—absolutely nothing—I do will ever make her happy again. So why should I care what she would have wanted?”

  My voice quivered and broke, and I quickly turned away from my mother and the mirror, flopping down on the bed with my face in the pillow.

  “All right. I’m sorry I said anything.” My mother’s voice was strained, as if she were forcing herself to be civil but was failing. “Stay in here and wallow in your self-pity all you want.” She paused, waiting for my retaliation, but when none came she added, “And don’t forget you have therapy this afternoon.”

  I wanted to protest, but I knew that she wouldn’t budge on that matter, so I didn’t say a word. After a moment the door closed, and finally I was alone again. Well, alone except for the haunting, whispering voices in my head accusing me of being guilty for pushing Tina into slitting her own wrists. Those never went away.

  I should have known, damn it! I’d known Tina for years, had thought I’d known everything about her. I should have sensed that she’d been planning to commit suicide, that her life had become so unbearable that she’d been forced to take it away. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t even had a clue. Her death had come as a complete and total shock to me.

  And the final bitter icing on the cake—it was almost definitely my fault.

  The day after graduation, the two of us had visited Nightlife, the only LGBT club in the area. It was a hotspot, a meeting place for gay people for miles around. One reason that Tina and I had been such good friends was the fact that we were both what we called ‘lipstick lesbians’. In a mostly conservative town where people like us weren’t always welcome, we stuck together. In high school, people had often assumed that Tina and I were a couple. That wasn’t true. I loved her, yes, with every fiber of my being—but only as a sister. She’d been my sister in every way but blood.

  The night after graduation still haunted me to this day. That girl…that stupid argument we’d had over who got to take her home…

  Tina and I didn’t speak for a week after that fight, and I never spoke to her again. On Friday, June 2nd, Tina had locked herself in her bathroom, taken her father’s Gillette razor blades, and slit both of her wrists in the bathtub. She’d left no note, and the argument we’d gotten into had gone unresolved. The last words I’d spoken to her—shouted, actually—had been, “You always have to get your way! Why don’t you want me to be happy for once? Why is everything always about you?”

  The words burned into my brain like corrosive acid, and as the tears finally slipped from their prison and soaked the pillow, I bitterly wished that it had been me that died that night instead of Tina.

  Chapter Two

  “This clearly isn’t working, Miss Wright.”

  “Huh?” I glanced up at my therapist, who looked back at me impatiently. I guess I should feel guilty for not paying attention to her—after all, my parents were paying her a lot of money. But I couldn’t bring myself to care too much.

  “I said,” she repeated, folding her hands neatly on the desk and peering at me underneath her glasses “this current arrangement isn’t working. You have an unhealthy relationship with your own false sense of guilt, Miss Wright. Your guilt is your subconscious’ way of avoiding the truth of what happened, and thus hiding the real root of your pain.”

  See? She’s useless, and I can’t convince my parents otherwise. What the hell does that mean, anyway? I know exactly why I feel guilty.

  “In other words, there’s nothing I can say to you that will convince you to let go of your guilt and move on with the healing process,” she said simply.

  “Good. Are we done here?” I meant to snap at her, but my voice only sounded flat and tired.

  She smiled. Uh-oh. I didn’t like the looks of that. “Not quite, no. See, I have another idea, one that might prove more effective than a traditional therapy session.”

  Great.

  “If my suspicions are right, it could go a long way to helping you face your pain, regardless of your issues with avoidance and denial.” She pressed a button on her desk and spoke into an intercom. “We’re ready, go ahead and send her in.” There was a reply, but it was crackly and I couldn’t understand it.

  “Now, Connie,” she said gently. It was the first time I remembered her using my first name. “This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but you have to promise me that you’ll stay here and listen to us. Okay?”

  “I’m not making any promises,” I said automatically. She frowned, and I sighed. “Okay, fine.”

  There was a knock at the door, and the therapist called, “It’s unlocked. Come on in, Miss Hudson.”

  Alarm bells began ringing in my mind as a cold suspicion filled my heart. I gripped the arms of my chair tightly, willing myself to stay put.

  The door swung open, and my heart stopped in my chest as Tina strolled through the door.

  The tears sprung to my eyes and the apologies and the begging words froze on my lips as I realized almost immediately that it wasn’t Tina. It couldn’t be, Tina was dead. I killed her.

  It wasn’t Tina, but my mistake was natural enough. It was Tina’s older sister, Gabi.

  The resemblance between the two of them was shocking. I’d teased Tina about it when we were younger, told her that she was lucky to have a twin five years older than her. Gabi was slightly taller than Tina, and her eyes were hazel rather than blue. She was a little bustier, and her blond hair was l
ong and pulled up into a high ponytail, but other than that, she was Tina’s mirror image, and it hurt to look at her.

  But I couldn’t look away.

  Gabi gave me a small smile. I was sure she recognized me. I hadn’t seen much of her; being five years older than Tina, she’d often been off with her own friends whenever I visited Tina, and she’d been away at college when Tina committed suicide. But we’d spoken a little bit here and there.

  “Thank you for coming today, Miss Hudson. Sit down, please.”

  Gabi obediently sat down in the chair next to me. I forced myself to look straight ahead. I didn’t want to look at her any more than I had to.

  “It’s no big deal,” Gabi said with a small shrug.

  “How are you feeling?” the therapist asked her.

  “I’m doing okay. I just take it day by day,” she replied.

  Anger flared up in me, hot and unexpected. “What right do you have to be okay?” I burst out. “Your sister is dead! Don’t you hurt?”