Chapter 2

I threw my blankets over me, twisting violently as the door swung open. I knew I was too late, half-dressed and apologetic, I turned away from the light of the door, burying my face in the pillow.

Way too much noise, and I knew it. A million thoughts of humiliation and shame and dismay filled every corner of my brain.

Then Rylee started to laugh.

My face burned a brilliant crimson beneath the pillow, and as I tried to tuck myself deeper into space that wasn’t there, anything to hide from what had just happened.

I began to realize the laugh, it wasn’t judgemental, or harsh, or cruel, it was joyous, light, singing almost, and most certainly infectious. I don’t know how, but somehow, in this moment, she made the laughter fall from me in waterfalls and shooting stars, overbounding and unbridled.

When our laughter finally died, we quickly made up. She showed me her own vibrator, saying she was surprised it wasn’t her that was discovered first, and took me with her to the party that night.

We were close, closer than I’d ever been with anyone before. A few boys had come and gone in passing attempts to distract myself from growing girls, but this didn’t feel like that at first.

I thought of her often when I was alone, different stories in my head, but never once did I think anything would come of it. It was a fantasy so far removed from reality I knew it wouldn’t ever come to be. That made it fun, free of strings or worries.

We settled into life on campus, eating healthy. She was exceptional in the show and continued to make a fool of me on the stair steppers at the campus gym. Parties were fun, classes were easy enough, and time flew by.

Gradually we’d begun to grow apart. She was friends with tons of theater kids, many of whom were as exuberant as she, and almost all who enjoyed partying. I found friends in classes and other smaller circles, and it felt like that would be the end of it. Christmas came and went, and so did most of the winter quarter, and we hung out less and less.

Then St. Patrick’s Day came, the grandest event of the quarter. Affably known as St. Fratty’s day, drinking began early and people hopped from party to party all day, drunken idiocy and laughter following them wherever they went.

Rylee invited me out with her, which started with drinking at 4:30 am, the first party we were to attend starting at 5:30. She did my makeup as we downed irish coffees, a bit heavy on the Bailey’s.

The walk out from the dorms was the start of it. Dressed in cute outfits, the cold morning meant close holding of bodies and hands for warmth. This was nothing new, but something about the booze in my system got me thinking.

I’d started reading weight gain fiction at the start of my sexual awakening, finding hundreds of stories about girls in college. Man, Rylee checked so many of the first boxes: an athlete, from an athletic family, popular, likes to drink, sexy as all hell and she flaunted it.

Notably, she didn’t even scratch into the freshman 15. Her eating and gym habits were exceptional, and by relation I had somehow slipped into the best shape of my life, better than my soccer days in high school. There were moments she’d unbutton the top button of her shorts because of how much Truly lemonade she’d chugged that night, but that never stuck––her abs were back somehow by the morning.

Didn’t stop me from fantasizing about it pretty much any opportunity I had.

The day was long, and I was glad Rylee had dressed me in cute platforms, because we were on our feet the whole morning.

By noon we were wasted, standing around a table as a game of beer pong was being played by some older theater majors. The music was loud, the laughter was louder, it felt like any other party with Rylee and her friends.

She pulled away from me and started dancing in the way that she always did: bold, without worry about anyone else, for the fun and lightness and freedom of it all. I stood and watched until a whole mob of people had gathered around her and were all dancing the same way she was.

I leaned against the wall and gripped my cup. Some drunk athletic-type boy had come up and started flirting. He was hot for a guy and nice enough, I guess, but his breath smelled and the conversation was going nowhere and he kept trying to get closer to me. I looked through the crowd, hoping to catch Rylee’s attention and leave.

She wasn’t in the crowd, as my fire-haired savior was standing right beside me. A quick, “***, loser,” should’ve been enough to send him off, but his smile just turned a bit crooked as he eyed Ryee. “She’s my girlfriend,” she said, fingers tracing my collarbone. “My princess is far too pretty for the likes of you.”

She interceded herself between us, gripping me by the edge of my top, pulling me in close, pressing her form against mine, rock to rock, edge to edge, curve to curve, her lips filling me with her flame as she passionately kissed me, flipping the rando off behind me.

Instinct kicked in, I knew it wasn’t real, I knew she was doing this to save me, so I didn’t let myself enjoy it. I didn’t have to fake my surprise, eyes open wide as the guy left us alone.

There was a beat, a moment when she pulled away, a look of…hurt in her eyes?

“I’m sorry-” she started, pulling her hand away.

“No, no, thank you–” I replied hastily.

“I’m drunk, I’m sorry,” Rylee said, “that was so much…”

“No, Ry, that was fine, you saved me, and that was…” I trailed off.

Despite the music, despite the noise of everything in the world, none of it mattered as she looked me in the eyes truly, genuinely, without fear of recompense. Everything, every single thing melted away as she looked down at me, her lips still just inches from mine.

Everything clicked. Rylee wasn’t straight. I knew it like I knew the color of the sky.

Then she kissed me again, a deep, passionate thing, not for show, not in defense, in a blaze of fiery intensity, her hands exploring up and down my chest and legs. She turned us gently, pressing herself into the wall as she pulled me towards her, using my weight to push her further into the wall, further into each other.

I let instinct kick in as I kissed her over and over again. The party whooped and hollered as she flipped the whole room off, pulling me closer.

It was the hottest experience of my life.

She made it clear the rest of the day that it wasn’t just a drunk decision––the more sober we got, the more we made out, eventually coming back to our room far earlier than planned. It was my first time with a girl, and it felt like everything in the whole world snapped perfectly into place. Sounds of pleasure spilled through the walls, I knew it, but somehow that kept me going.

She did in fact have handcuffs, though I was shocked to find they weren’t for me, no, she basically begged me to tie her down. I was more than happy to oblige her, over and over again.

We didn’t leave our room the rest of the weekend, nor did we ever wear more than our sexiest pieces of lace and pajamas over them in the interim, only stopping to meet our basic needs.

From that blossomed a relationship, a genuine thing. We were two imperfect souls perfect for one another, so she claimed. We picked each other up when we were down, carried each other when necessary, loving each other openly and honestly and vulnerably. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this about another person.

She was my best friend and my accomplice and my temptation, my demon and my angel, my savior and my breaker. She tore open in me a fiend, a sexual, carnal desire that we fulfilled as often as we damn pleased.

For two years we’ve dated. Two years of an almost annoying kind of inseparable, two years of kindness and compassion and fun, two years of school and parties and performances, two years of growing as human beings, two years of telling each other everything.

Well, almost everything.