by Mia Archer
Mari bit her lip. Good goddamn it was so fucking hot when she did that. Again, everything about her was fucking hot. I had to reposition myself because I was developing a delightfully uncomfortable feeling between my legs.
She was thinking about it, though. That’s what was really important. She just needed a little push and she’d be mine.
Well, she’d be going for a walk with me. I still had a hard time believing she’d actually be mine under any circumstances. I still had a hard time believing she could be into me in the same way I was into her.
“Come on Mari,” I said. “Aren’t they always talking to you over there about giving people a chance? I promise I’m not nearly as bad as you might’ve heard I was.”
The blush got even deeper, but she finally nodded. She looked over her shoulder one final time and nodded to Richard too. He grinned and gave her a thumbs up.
“I suppose it’s not going to hurt anything if we just do one walk,” she said.
I was tempted to reach out and try to take her hand, but something stopped me. I didn’t want to scare her off or anything. It was pretty obvious she was still a little reluctant about this whole thing. Best not to spook her right at the beginning. So instead I enjoyed having her beside me as we walked through the gorgeous summer day.
This was nice. This was something I could get used to. It was also something I’d probably never get another chance to enjoy, so I was going to fucking savor it while I could.
“So things aren’t going well with you and Alan?” I asked.
Probably not the best subject, but it was the only thing I could think of. The way I always saw those two together made me think they were one step away from walking down the aisle. Learning that there was more to that story was very interesting.
“Alan is an asshole,” she said. “He’s always getting up close to me and acting like we’re dating or something and I’ve never acted like I was interested in him.”
I shrugged. “Some guys don’t have a clue. Some guys can’t take a hint.”
Mari looked up to me, squinting as the sun hit her eyes. Damn. She even looked hot squinting. I was quickly becoming convinced there wasn’t anything this girl could do that wouldn’t drive me wild.
This was way different from watching her in the halls at school and thinking about how nice it would be to get a little up close and personal with her. I had to suppress the shivers that threatened to break out and ruin the moment.
“I guess I can understand how he feels. A guy sees a pretty girl and goes for it, but it’s a damn shame he can’t stay away when he knows he’s not wanted.”
Damn. Did I really just say that? I could understand how he felt? That was awfully close to admitting I had the hots for her. Not that I minded admitting I had the hots for her, but I was afraid she might go down the same logical path I was traveling right now and it would freak her out.
I looked down at her. Locked eyes with her and noticed the way she blushed. Yeah, she was giving me this holier-than-thou church girl routine, but I’d be willing to bet that there was just a touch of interest there too. That blush told me she’d totally realized what I meant and she wasn’t running.
Interesting.
“I guess you sort of have a point,” Mari said. She smiled. “Sorry. I’m not too good at the whole dating thing. It’s not like my parents…”
She stopped and looked away. I did my best to hide the smile threatening to break free. The good girl whose parents didn’t want her out in the world having a good time. In my limited experience that usually meant they were just that more likely to go wild the moment they had the opportunity.
I wouldn’t mind her going wild with me just a little, but baby steps.
We finally reached my destination and I stepped away from the sidewalk. I took a couple of steps before I realized I didn’t have my shadow following me. I turned and saw Mari standing there as though there was an invisible barrier at the edge of the sidewalk keeping her from moving in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Where are we going? I’ve never been out here before,” she said.
I pointed down a hill towards a set of abandoned train tracks that ran into an abandoned factory on the other side of an open field at the bottom of the hill. There was a bridge where a road ran under the train tracks and I liked to come out here and think sometimes.
The building loomed large with its broken windows and rusted out chain link fence that didn’t do a good job of keeping people out. I’d been to a few parties in the abandoned factory that got out of hand. It was weird seeing the symbol of this small town’s decline turned into a party destination for the kids stuck in this place, but the bridge was where it was really at. It was my quiet place when I needed to get away from shit going down at home.
“Just down to that bridge,” I said.
“But what about the trains?” she asked.
I shook my head and laughed. “That’s a spur that went down to the factory back when they were still in business. There hasn’t been a train on those tracks since they moved the jobs to Mexico twenty years ago.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“I promise,” I said. On a whim I reached a hand out. I wasn’t sure if she’d take it. She eyed me like a feral cat trying to decide if I was safe. After a moment she smiled and took my hand. I felt sparks. Explosions.
It was way more fucking intense than anything I’d gotten from other girls who did a hell of a lot more than hold my hand! Damn there was something about this girl. Maybe it was that she was the good girl.
I gave her hand a squeeze and pulled her along down the hill. It was a short walk to the old railroad bridge from there, and I was very interested in what might happen once we got down there!
Because I was getting all the “I’m interested” signals from this girl hitting me at full blast. It was impossible, but it was happening and I wanted to see how far this might go.
5
Mari
I wasn’t sure what to think as we made our way out towards the railroad. I had no idea the thing was abandoned, but I suppose I should’ve figured that out. The factory hadn’t been a thing since I was a little girl. Why on earth would they send trains out there?
My mind was wandering. It did that when I was stuck in a situation I didn’t know how to deal with, and let me tell you wandering out to the middle of an open field next to an abandoned factory that was notorious for holding parties and other things was something I didn’t know how to deal with. Add in Robin standing next to me looking so cute and the situation nearly became impossible.
“So do you come out here a lot?” I asked.
Robin gave me a funny look and then laughed. “You mean do I come out here for the parties they throw on the regular?”
I blushed and looked down. Was I that obvious?
“I’m just trying to make conversation,” I muttered. “Not everything I do is judging you, y’know.”
Robin seemed to think about that for a moment. A moment that stretched out because she had to scramble up the abandoned railroad bridge. It was really more of a grassy embankment than a hill so the track could go over a road, or the road could go under the track. The thing looked like it hadn’t been maintained in a long time, and the tracks were grown over.
Yeah, no worries of a train coming down here and ruining our day. Nothing had been through here in decades. Story of our town right there.
“Sorry,” she said when we were finally sitting with our legs swinging off the edge of the bridge. “You get used to people acting a certain way and you expect it from all of them.”
“All of them? What are you talking about?”
“You know. The churchy types. Always looking down their nose at you,” she said.
I thought of some of the old ladies who looked at me disapprovingly just because I was young. It always frustrated me. They’d been young too, once, though I suppose they probably had old ladies looking down their nose back then to
o. That didn’t make it any less frustrating.
“Yeah, I guess I can see what you mean,” I said.
I jumped as I felt something brush against my hand. I thought it might be a snake or a bug or something, but when I looked down it was just Robin’s hand reaching for my own. I felt a flutter in my stomach. Robin’s hand. Robin’s touch.
I’d never held another girl’s hand. At least not like that. Not the way she seemed to want to hold my hand. I shivered. Sure we were out here next to an abandoned factory where no one would know, but taking her hand would be crossing one hell of a line. A line I’d drawn for myself without realizing it and never crossed.
But it felt right. It felt good.
So I let her take my hand. Squeezed my eyes shut and sighed. That felt nice. Much nicer than when Alan tried to get too close to me. It felt right in a way that holding a guys’ hand, even on the awkward chaperoned “dates” my parents allowed, never did. I’d always thought it was because those dates were chaperoned, but that one electric touch from Robin was enough to make me realize that wasn’t it at all.
I’d just been with the wrong gender on those dates. Oops. My parents would have kittens if they knew what I felt in that moment.
“So do you come out here often?” I asked, trying to distract myself from that momentous revelation that threatened to overwhelm me.
I ignored the way one of her fingers traced a line up and down the length of my hand. That felt much better than it should. It was distracting me and making me think things that would definitely get a few disapproving stares from the old bats at the church.
“Sometimes. I don’t come out here for the parties if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “I mean I do come out here for some of the parties, but when I’m here at the bridge it’s just for me.”
I looked at her and she grinned. It was such an easy grin. So different from the serious look she wore whenever I passed her in the halls at school. I never would’ve thought a girl with her badass reputation could smile so easily like that.
“What’s it like in there?” I asked.
I looked at the factory. It was a world I’d never considered. Sure I heard people talking about parties that happened out there, but it was never something I’d thought of doing. Until now, sitting here with Robin.
“Usually it’s just a bunch of kids from school,” Robin said. “But there haven’t been as many of those sorts of parties lately.”
“Why not?”
“Other people have moved in,” she said, some heat coming to her voice. “People you don’t want anything to do with.”
“Surely there’s not anything that bad going on around here,” I said. “I mean this place is…”
I left it at that. This was home. It was a small town. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where anything really bad could ever happen. Really bad things happened to people in other places. It happened in the cities.
“I don’t want to go into it,” Robin said. “Let’s just leave it at I know what goes on in that factory and I’m not interested in any of it. There’s a rough crowd out there after dark. People you don’t want to mess with.”
“Seems crazy that we have people like that around here,” I said.
“Yeah, well that’s what you get when you take people’s lives away,” she said, her voice suddenly growing hard. “I guess it’s appropriate that stuff goes down in those buildings over there. Those factories were the lifeblood of this town and now it’s the place where people meet to piss their lives away.”
“I never knew you felt so strongly about that,” I said.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Robin asked.
“Most of the people I know who are stuck here can’t wait to get out,” I said. “They go off to college and don’t come back.”
“Yeah well this is home to me,” Robin said. “Warts and all. Besides, not everyone can afford to go off to college and escape this place like your friends. Some people have to stay behind and make a life here whether or not they want to.”
Huh. I’d never thought of it like that before. It was a strange way of looking at the world and it had me wondering about how I thought about things.
I’d always assumed that anyone who wanted to could get out of here if they worked hard enough. Talking to Robin, though, I was starting to think that was as naive as when I was younger and I assumed everyone grew up to have a good job where they wore a suit and tie to the office every day like my dad because that was all I’d ever known.
“Guess I never thought of it like that,” I said. “Sorry.”
That distracting motion with her finger was getting even more insistent. She was still holding my hand and goose bumps ran up my arm. My hair stood on end. I felt the tingle from that little tickle run through my entire body and I liked the way it felt. I was scared of the way it felt.
No guy had ever been able to do that with me before. I’m sure Alan would’ve loved trying, but it wasn’t happening. That it was Robin who was finally able to make me feel that way was mildly terrifying no matter how good it felt.
“No need for you to apologize,” she said. “We’re from two different worlds. I totally understand that. You are who you are and I am who I am.”
I turned and looked at her. She almost looked pained as she said that. As though there was something about the two of us coming from those different worlds that hurt her.
I didn’t like that she felt hurt. I wanted to make it all better. I felt a possessiveness towards her that was new, but just like that tingle from her thumb gently stroking the back of my hand I welcomed it.
Robin surprised me by reaching out and touching my face. Whoa. That was way more than what I’d signed on for when I came out here, but she had no way of knowing that. As far as she knew I was out here hanging out with her and holding her hand and giving her all sorts of go signals. Why wouldn’t she try to take it further?
Deep down isn’t that what I wanted her to do?
That tingle turned to a low flame running through my body. This was getting way more dangerous than just sitting out here with Robin talking. This was something my mom and the ladies at church and Alan definitely wouldn’t approve of. Robin’s hand on my cheek was something that would get me a stern talking to and grounded for a month.
I couldn’t wait until I was at college and away from overbearing parents. I loved them, but I was an adult now and they really were too much sometimes.
My breathing picked up and I wasn’t sure if that was because I was so close to Robin and how great her hand felt on my cheek or if it was because of the panic starting to set in because this was very wrong even if it didn’t feel so very wrong. They were probably wondering where I was back at the church, never mind that Richard was around to make excuses for me. I needed to get back.
I needed to get away from this temptation.
“I should probably head back to the church,” I said, pulling away from her even though it killed me to do it. Only her hand moved right along with me keeping the slightest pressure on my cheek. As though she was claiming me for her own.
And for a wonder I stopped.
“Are you sure you want to go back?” she asked. “Or are you maybe just afraid, Mari?”
“What would I be afraid of?” I whispered.
Her face was moving closer. Her arm pressed against mine. Her hand pulled me in.
I could still stop this. I could still pull away from her and go back to the church where I would play it safe for the rest of the summer before I went off to college and I could finally be myself and live my life the way I wanted to.
Only what was stopping me from living life the way I wanted to right now? From being who I knew I was even if it was a scary thought for a good church girl living in a small town?
It looks like life had come to my small town and found me rather than waiting for me to get out to college to find the “temptations of the world,” as the Sunday school teachers called it.
“Maybe you’r
e afraid of your feelings? Of me? Of what it might mean that you’re drawn to me?” she said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. A seductive whisper that drew me in. That set my body on fire.
Amazing how quickly all this had escalated. One thing was for sure. I wanted to live my life the way I wanted now.
The realization hit me like a bolt of lightning from the heavens. Which probably wasn’t the best comparison since I was doing something that the man up there probably wouldn’t approve of if what the pastor said was true, but whatever.
I’d been leading the life everyone thought I should. I’d been the good girl, obedient to my parents, because that’s what I was supposed to do. I’d resisted these urges because everyone told me they were wrong, but how could something that felt this good be wrong?
Was that good girl life what I wanted? No. What did I want? I wasn’t sure, but I’d been counting down the days until I broke free from this place and went off to college which seemed like a shining beacon of freedom. Only there was a hot bonfire of freedom sitting here right next to me.
“Fuck it,” I said.
Robin’s eyes went wide when I cursed. Maybe she didn’t think that sort of language would ever come from me. It would certainly get a few tuts from the bluehairs back at the church. I didn’t care, though. I allowed Robin to pull me in and her eyes closed as our lips pressed together and that fire running through my body turned into an impossible heat that I worried would burn me to a crisp.
I lost myself in the moment. In the familiar yet different sensations of kissing a girl.
I lost myself in the feel of her lips against mine. The feel of her smooth skin which was so different from the guys I’d kissed. The taste of her mouth which was unfamiliar and yet intoxicating. The feel of her body pressing against mine as her hands moved down to my side and then up until they were cupping one of my breasts.
Holy shit. I thought kissing her was enough to drive me crazy, but the feel of her hands on that forbidden area, the first girl to ever touch me like that, hell the first person to ever touch me like that, not for lack of trying from some guys, set off an explosion.